suck less... future fridays

This made me think: learning means that we have to be open to the possibility of not getting it right away, and what kind of emotional baggage that brings, and what kind of emotional generosity about uncertainty that requires.

A willingness to be bad

“It isn’t so much that geniuses make it look easy; it’s that they make it look it fast.”
—Sarah Manguso, 300 Arguments

[...]

I was chatting with my friend Adam and he mentioned he was taking drum lessons again after 20 years. He said he’d forgotten the joy of the practice –> suck a little less –> practice –> suck a little less loop.

Years ago I read an interview with actor Jason Segel and he talked about his willingness to be bad for as long as it takes:

I’m willing to be bad for as long as it takes, until I’m good….I don’t have a sense of shame. I just don’t. If I’ve hurt someone’s feelings, if I’m mean to somebody, I’ll lament over that for days. I’m that dude. I’ll lose sleep over mundane stuff. But I don’t really have the thing of, “Oh, I’ve embarrassed myself.” I just don’t understand why I would stop trying to play piano even though I’m not good at it. I want to be good at it. So why wouldn’t I keep playing?

How do you cultivate that willingness to be bad?




via {austin kleon}