Learning to Strum

Up until now, I have never stopped to breathe. I have been always moving – to a different city, onto a new hobby, into a new relationship. I have been desperate – doing anything that I can in order to escape the generational curse that seems to have a hold on my family: stagnation.

Growing up, I watched my family constantly settling for what was rather than striving for what could be. I decided long ago that this would not be my future. I thought I was doing well, honest I did. I flipped my life upside down, moved across the country, and switched career paths all within a matter of two months. How the hell could I be stagnating now?

Then, I realized something. Every time I write a new song on guitar, I strum the same rhythm, over and over again. The melodies are different, the lyrics are different, but that same rhythm keeps on repeating like a funeral rite in every single one of my songs. I wish it was an artistic choice, but the reality is that I never took the time to properly learn how to strum.

I am self-taught when it comes to many things, but especially when it comes to guitar. I have never had a formal lesson and just decided one day that I wanted to learn so that I would have something portable to play while singing, which is my first love. I fumbled my way through some covers and eventually learned to play enough chords to get by with only a little difficulty (and a capo). But I never took the time to sit down and learn anything that would take longer than five minutes for me to comprehend, or more specifically, anything that would take practice. Because practice takes patience, and that is not a skill that I yet possess.

Patience

For me, this is the missing link. I have the passion, I have the talent, I have the drive, and, above all, I have a voracious appetite for collecting hobbies like some collect coins. But the key thing that I am missing is the patience to practice the things that I am trying to learn in order to truly become good at them. I have wanted to master many crafts but feel as if I hit a wall after the initial learning stage. I lose focus and eventually I take on a new hobby to quell the admonishment that my conscience gives me for yet another half-ripened creative venture. I have now discovered that what I have to learn before I can learn anything is patience, because only once I have that will I be able to face the grueling tick of the clock as day in, day out, I have to practice the little things concerning the craft I want to learn. It seems counter-intuitive. I mean, if you are being patient and letting the weeks, months, even years tick on without any presentable accomplishments, isn’t that stagnation?

The Perception of Growth

We have all heard the phrase “peaked in high school” at some point. It’s always used in a negative context, describing someone whose formative years ended up being their glory days. It’s pretty obvious when this is the case because said someone can be found constantly referencing their past and lamenting how things just aren’t the same anymore. But the people who are much harder to spot are those who have plateaued after high school.

I plateaued after high school. The version of myself that was going to community college classes, working at a coffee shop, and going home to “practice” (but never learn) music was the version that I stayed for four years after. Through two different relationships, four different cities, and six different jobs I stayed the same exact person with a slightly different worldview that could only be accredited to lived experience. How in the world did this happen? I changed so many aspects of my life and experienced so many new things, yet my character remained the exact same. My life in each city was a distinct replica of the one in the last, and the two long-term relationships I was in looked so much different but turned out to be the exact same. How could this be? Well, I never took the time to learn why I was choosing the things that I was (and consequently living the way that I was) because I thought that slowing down even for a single second meant wasted time – and would result in stagnation.

In reality, I was stagnating as a consequence of constant motion. I never allowed myself to remain planted in one city, one hobby, or in solitude long enough to grow. I was like a plant that was being constantly uprooted and laid in new soil, never having an opportunity to adapt to my environment or establish myself in my new home.

Growth happens slowly, over time. That is why patience, persistence, and practice are so pivotal when it comes to actually improving any area of life. To an outsider, growth can definitely look like stagnation. That is why sometimes I have felt that I have to remain in constant motion – because I have been viewing myself through the eyes of the people who observe me.

Living For Observation

See, I always thought it was odd that my family tends to stagnate. They are performance driven people who are extraordinarily concerned with what they look like to the outside world. Yet, they are all hell bent on suffering through totally changeable circumstances with gritted teeth, or, like me, they leap uninhibited from one new horizon to the next – the consequence of both reactions being stagnation. I think that both ways of life are rooted in the fear of not being good enough in the eyes of others; if you never try to do something you can never be told that you are bad at it, and if you are constantly moving you can never be told that you aren’t doing enough. Both avenues promise to protect against the unsavory opinions of people around you and ensure that you are safe from embarrassing yourself.

You can provide an additional bastion for your reputation by getting passably good at a myriad of things. If you do this, you can distract from the fact that you haven’t put in a lot of effort into anything – you can skate by, still impressing the majority of people around you.

“Jack of all trades, master of none, but better than a master of one.“

There is validity to this truism, but like all things it should be approached with a balance mindset. It would not do to be an absolutely brilliant mathematician with absolutely no understanding of written language. In fact, the lack of understanding in that completely separate area would inhibit your advancement in mathematics. You would be like a plant that spreads itself too thin across the soil and never roots deep enough to get the minerals that it needs to thrive.

I would argue that a good balanced approach to the application of this common sentiment would be to master a couple of crafts that you are truly passionate about while learning many other skills that are necessary in life (or that capture your attention). This will cause you to look deeply into your motivations and help you learn more about yourself as a person because you will be learning what you truly value. You will also not have much time to be thinking of what others think of you – and thus will prevent you from either trapping yourself in the box of your comfort zone or from continually throwing yourself into perpetual motion. It will also teach patience, prioritization, and persistence – all of which will force you to stay planted in one area long enough to truly grow.

Learning to Strum

On my current mission for personal growth, I am attempting to learn all of these things, but I am also learning other things along the way that I didn’t expect. I am discovering the beauty of the mundane – not only out in the world and in others’ lives but in my own. I’m learning to be patient with myself as I branch out and root deep, finding what is truly valuable to me. I’m trying not to live for the eyes of others anymore, and thus I am beginning to be able to see myself through my own eyes – and learning to trust that my observation of myself alone is proof enough that I exist. I am learning to grow alongside of people rather than just allowing my accomplishments to be witnessed – which involves true vulnerability and deep love. And finally, after years of the same rhythm haunting the strings of my battered guitar, I am learning how to strum.