Hi comrades, welcome to the Improvement Megathread! unity

I plan to post a new weekly megathread here every Sunday. I think Sunday is a good day to review the previous week and make some plans for the following week. If somebody else wants to post a new megathread anytime, just let me know.

Here are some ideas for discussion:

  • Do you want to share something you've done in the previous week?

Even if you did only 1 push-up, read 1 page, meditated for 1 minute, or touched 1 blade of grass, let us know about it. When it comes to making progress, everything counts. The most important thing is to make progress, no matter how small.

  • What would you like to do next week?
  • What aspect of life would you like to improve?
  • Do you have any streaks? For example, "sober for one day." Feel free to post your streak every day in this thread.
  • If you don't have a continuous streak, did you manage to abstain from something for a day or more?
  • Did you come across some useful information or resource that might help others?

Of course, this is not a definitive list. And feel free to make a separate post in the comm for any of these topics. This is just a megathread for all the stuff that you want to share but don't feel like making a new post.

Let me know if you have any suggestions.

And remember the Golden Rule of Hexbear:

Always
Be
Commenting

hexbear-chapochat

  • super_mario_69 [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    10 months ago

    idk if this anecdote helps at all but I have an acquaintance who is a really good DJ of some renown. Rather introverted engineer-type of guy. Only started doing music stuff in his late 30s. He has that impeccable ability to select the perfect track for the perfect moment and keep the groove going, without messing up the mixes. BUT the dude is completely tone deaf and has has barely any sense of rhythm. "How the fuck is that even possible?" I asked of him. "How do you keep track of the bars? How do you match the tempo??" He said he "just spins the disc and ride the tempo until it sounds good" and that he "never even bothered trying to count it out" because he knows he isn't made like that. So he just went and made up some own little fucked up system to keep track of the beats, because he knew he didn't vibe with the established set of rules and methods. Then he just practiced a lot until he got a feel for it. I still don't understand how he does it, but god damn does he do it well.

    But I digress. I would argue that music is more like a language than a talent or skill or whatever. If you don't speak it at all and listen to someone else speaking in it, it'll be completely incomprehensible (but nice to listen to!). There is not a single person in the entire universe who was born able to understand music on a deeper level without studying it and actively using it. Those who seem to have been born innately musical have only learned it because they've been exposed to it from an early age. I can't remember consciously learning my own native language, like, I couldn't tell you now why some verbs have some particular conjugations in some contexts, but I can simply hear and subconsciously understand when something is correct. Music is the same. In time you learn to subconsciously understand what the fuck a C# minor sounds like or how long a 16th note is without having to really think too much about it. I only started learning this shit at 32 years old. damn I wish my parents would have given me an instrument to learn at age 5 so I wouldn't have to go through so much boring learning bullshit as an adult...

    But no, I'd say talent isn't really a thing at all. It's just practice and consistency. More importantly: finding a way to practice that works for you. If you don't vibe with it then you're never gonna enjoy it, and if you don't enjoy it, you're never gonna be consistent. Honestly I always hated the platitude but I can't deny there is truth in it: consistency is key. Playing one shitty six-second song once makes you one shitty six-second song better at playing music. Going to the gym to lift one weight once is infinitely more progress than going to none gym and lifting none weights zero times, and so on. You can absolutely do it, I believe in you.