mastery and skill

Wherever you’re going, especially anywhere good, life is going to squeeze you.

A good life is usually one that requires more from you over time. The good news is your capacity grows alongside the inflation of demand.

I’ve done Jiu Jitsu for a long time now, but I’ve recently hit my first year in judo. It’s funny to be a big brother in one class, then go off the mats, change from my old brown belt to my green belt and now I’m little brother again.

There is no one more wasteful than a beginner. Every class is a doubling of their working knowledge, and without a good guide, it’s easy to draw wrong conclusions, take things personal, get discouraged, develop bad habits, vendettas, and fall prey to all manner of scams.

It’s a vulnerable thing to learn.

It’s an acknowledgement of sorts. I’m missing something that I want and I need your help.

I am eternally an impatient man. I remember working in a church in Denmark struggling to learn Danish. I would see a blue haired old Dane, and I remember looking at the back of their head and realizing the thing I am learning painfully slow was an effortless expression for them. I wish I could have their ability like buying an old tv. Of course that not how it works, but that pipe dream is part of it. There’s no sweeter dream than an effortless acquisition.

Today I’m thinking about how as life presses you, as you change, you start to recognize gaps. Skills you need that you are missing. God knows I have mine. Some have dogged me my whole life.

Routines, having difficult conversations/advocating for myself, saving money, organization etc Some skill gaps are things I’m just now seeing. Taking writing more serious, stop being modest when it’s out of fear of rejection, the value of organizing small things, etc.

But the good news is that the definition of a skill, at least to me, is a behavior that I can duplicate. I can do fuck all about the reality that you are 10 years younger than me or more explosive, but I can do hundreds of hours of repetitions and research and study on how to stop or limit the danger of your best throw. It’s a waste of time for me to worry that another comic is more likable or has some kind of star quality about them when I have plenty of dead spots in my jokes that need editing.

Skill is hard earned and never an accident. Not so much in combat sports, but in subjective art forms, anybody can do good once. I’ve seen people get up for the first time in their life and murder on stage. But skill is being able to do it every time, more or less, under various circumstances that are not favorable both internally and externally.

How funny are you when you are under money pressure? How funny are you when you feel like it’s never going to work out? How funny are you after a room full of people made it clear that they don’t think you’re funny at all and it’s the day after and you’re still upset about it?

Skill is the difference between getting laid and getting married to someone you truly love. Anybody can get laid one time, that’s just how the world is. But to get married takes a lot of steps. And then once you do get married, there’s a whole separate conversation of what it means to live with this other person. Their demands, their interruptions, etc..

Every person I know that is master at something has incredibly high standards that at times can suck the joy out of being good. It’s wild to see. I guess the bad news is that the gap you feel between what you have and what you want is never going to go away. As you get better and more talented it will shrink, but it will most likely never close. Part of mastery is learning to live with imperfection.