Noëlle the 8-Bit🏳️🌈🎄 is a user on elekk.xyz. You can follow them or interact with them if you have an account anywhere in the fediverse.
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It is REALLY HARD to not think of myself in terms of what I can do. And when I run across someone who can do everything I care about better than I can, it's REALLY HARD for me to not think that it would just be better if I stepped aside and didn't bother anymore.
@noelle i relate to this so much. every time i come across someone who's doing the same thing as me it makes me want to do that thing less. the more specific that thing is the worse it is. like, someone making music that's good? not that demotivating. someone making music very similar to my music? makes me feel like the whole thing was a waste
Noëlle the 8-Bit🏳️🌈🎄
@noelle
@jk oh, Mastodon has completely turned off my desire to make music and art, and is slowly eroding my desire to write code.
@noelle :( it sucks. i find not talking about my own projects until they're done kinda helps a bit. like right now im kinda building (heavily modifying) a guitar, and i've taken loads of pictures of the process. but i haven't posted a single thing about it on here because for some reason that just completely destroys my motivation
@jk Especially since there's so much FOSS attitude in the DNA of Mastodon, so when I post something I'm even remotely happy with I /inevitably/ get a "look how I can do it better!" response.
@craigmaloney @noelle i really wish my brain didn't think like this, but i feel like fundamentally people only have a finite amount of time to look at stuff on the internet, so it kinda IS a zero sum game. like, at various points in my life, the more new music i've been exposed to, the less i've cared about or remembered it. i can't get that out of my head when i'm making anything, that the number of people like me making stuff is at least 100x what it was 20 years ago
@jk @craigmaloney Yeah, and the other half of it is: what does it /matter/ if it's me doing the thing? If I do X and someone else does X+1, why should anyone settle for X just because it's me doing it?
@noelle @craigmaloney my strategy for this kinda stuff has been to try to imbue an extremely personal aspect into my work, whether it be hidden or vague or something. to just make something that's entirely mine, that makes me feel something specific to me. so at least the work will have some value in as much as i am unique whether i like it or not. e.g. when i release my album i'm thinking of including a long set of liner notes describing how it came to be. almost like a personal time capsule?
@noelle @craigmaloney then i can almost avoid thinking of it as something i'm creating for the benefit of others, more of a scrapbook, or an archive, that happens to be distributed to a few (maybe even few dozen) others. i find that kind of reassuring. kind of
@noelle @jk Well, there's two ways of thinking about this.
The first is to think that they do the thing better than you so your voice won't be heard over their awesomeness.
The second is to realize that your voice is special and no matter what the other folks out there do you have your own unique perspective to bring to this.
It's not so much being the best person at the table, it's just showing up and finding a seat.
@craigmaloney @jk Craig, this is nice from an outside perspective, but I need you to understand that my perspective is shouting "WHY THE FUCK DO I DESERVE A SEAT AT THE TABLE?".
You don't. What nobody thought to tell you is that nobody else does, either. We all just snuck in through the back door.
@starbreaker @noelle @jk @craigmaloney speak for yourself, I think I was just standing here and someone put the table in front of me.
@noelle @jk We all do. And then we realize that the table is large and the seats are plenty now that we have the Internet.
I know it's hard. Trust me, I've been there. I worry all the time that I'm going to be performing to an audience of one (and that guy is a real pain). But that doesn't mean we don't keep trying.
Here, come sit next to me. I promise I'll save you a seat.
@craigmaloney @jk @noelle I just want to add that I don't think it's X + 1 and X, but X + Y and X + Z. Everyone has something different to offer. I'm the only consultant at Atomic without a college degree and I offer something very unique there; it took me awhile to appreciate that.
@noelle
It's a delusion to compare your lvl1 to others' final-boss builds.
I didn't start writing as good as I am right now. I started writing very crappily. I learned. I practiced. I never gave up. It's been 20 years since I wrote my first anime romance fan fiction. Maybe your first essay would be three times better than the crappy POS I wrote 20 years ago. But those years haven't gone to waste. Don't waste yours; keep doing what you love.
@jk @noelle Personal anecdote time:
I do a podcast called Open Metalcast. I listened to other metal podcasters and they seemed to do this so much better than I did. Professional shows, even. How could I compete?
But one day I said "fuck it" and just did my own thing.
One day someone else started another podcast (Rage and Frustration). I got worried. What if they were better than me?
Turns out they liked different music than I did. There was room for two CC metal podcasts.
@noelle @jk fuckin
real as hell