i always suck at most competitive things. be it chess, or smash bros, or anything, i always feel like im so bad at it, and when i eventually lose i end up being really fed up with myself, cry, and not improve.
it's particularly bad when there is a rating somewhere telling me im going way down, and it feels so insulting. once i lost like half a dozen matches in smash and it put me at a score of 40'000, which means im at the bottom 40'000 people in the world playing. i've seen people with scores of 4M, so the game just told me im in the bottom 1% of players, which wow thanks.
i also played a bit of chess recently, cos i wanted to get into it. i did it with my brother who is a bit better at it, and got me to a slightly higher ELO score, and now im playing with people which are much better than me, but even then the computer at the end tells me stuff like "your accuracy on good moves is 4%" so i feel pretty bad.
if it was just with games, i'd be fine with it (even tho i percieve them as fun so it's kinda bad i cant play those). it's that i feel like everything around me is so competitive, jobs, art, school, everything, and i feel like im totally unfit to do any of those things necessary. all the weird capitalist struggle to survive, the pulling yourself up your bootstraps, haing to compete in the market, all that stuff makes me so anxious about my future that i wanna cry rather than having to deal with it. not that crying fixes anything.
kind of the reason why i want to be a teacher, since they dont get to do much competition after they've been hired, although i guess there is some competition in the hiring process. something for me to be anxious about next i guess.
EDIT: oh heck i forgot pokemon!! i was never good at it and tbh to be good at online pokemon you gotta use the same two things with maybe a bit of variation; using a non standard team is so punished. i never got more than 1200 ELO on showdown. the community is fun but i cant bear just having to sit and get beaten everytime
Back in the day I was one of the world’s top competitive Minecraft players
Competition that just sorts people is, bleh.
Competition that encourages improvement, yay!
Competition that leaves the "loser" feeling bad, bleh.
Competition that leave the "loser" feeling energized, yay!
i see what you're saying but i also feel like whenever i try to do something artistic (at which im not at all trained) i end up feeling like i'll never be as good as anyone and will forever be pathetic with it. (sorry for being a doomer rn)
If it makes you feel any better (it probably doesn’t), I have some formal art education and yet I struggle with the same feelings of inadequacy. I don’t feel like my training was good enough, I feel like the habits I learned were all wrong, and I’m afraid I’m using my tools incorrectly. Sometimes I avoid producing anything because I’m afraid I’ll be disappointed in the outcome. I’m aware that this is all silly and that producing pretty much any kind of art badly is better than not doing it at all. But it’s still hard to overcome, and it’s not helped by how easy it is to see the work of immensely talented and hardworking people online and get discouraged.
I wish I had an answer for how to move forward effectively, but the best I’ve been able to do for myself is to force a little bit of work at a time. Even if it’s just making a bunch of new sketches I never finish, at least I did something more than before.
hey, your portrait of Luke is really good, especially for a mouse drawing
The art you posted is really good! It's such a waste that a lot of people drop artistic pursuits because they think they'll never be as good as other people, or not good enough in general. Please don't stop creating because of this!
Sometimes you just gotta be very self-centered when it comes to your art. In my opinion, you should do it for your own sense of progression. You will see yourself improve if you keep up with it - that's a fact - and that experience of looking back, even over short term progress, and seeing improvement is so satisfying. You should almost never compare yourself and your work to others, unless you're trying to learn from an example you find compelling. And even then, it's about taking what lessons you need and accepting that you will need time and work to refine your creations.
Hell, pursuing nearly any art form is impressive - art is so disincentivized in capitalist society today that it's honestly heartening seeing anyone, especially beginners, creating anything. Whether music, poetry, visual art, or really any creative expression.
I feel the opposite of this. I was very shy growing up. I gravitated towards thing that were right or wrong regardless of what anybody tells me. Lifting for example, there's nothing else to consider besides whether my deadlift comes off the ground or not. Nobody else needs to approve - it either moves or it doesn't. And eventually I found BJJ which is my favorite thing in the world. Somebody can be higher ranked than you. They can be more athletic, bigger, and stronger with a more impressive pedigree. They can be giving you a bunch of advice even. But if you try something that works, then they either have to defend or they lose. This one time, a more put-together person once brought their spouse and children to a competition and had them cheering as we sparred. I was losing badly and the time was running out. I reached for a wristlock and to their shock, yielded and I ended up winning. It's self-expression for me. The idea that you could win a physical confrontation by being sly and employing misdirection made me fall in love. That was important for me. I have a hard time with organization, teamwork, aesthetics, and rhythm, but when it comes to 1v1 on an even field, I found it much easier to be engaged. I like to think about/ask why they behaved this way. What advantages are they reaching for? What system are they operating in? What tells do they see me make?
I think it's great and should be celebrated when you have a muse you can turn to. When stress and awful things come your way, expression is the best thing you can turn towards.
Edit: the ultimate point being that if you're not competition minded, it may just be the way you are. It came very naturally for me. Death to any system that would see you diminished for not being like this or that.
Contrary to what the rest of y'all are saying, I fuckin love competition. Especially if it's team vs team. It's just a game at the end of the day.
and if it's a team activity you get to get both cooperation and competition. best of both worlds.
I like competition with friends where we're at a roughly comparable level of skill, the best might depend or vary, and it's animated by a spirit of fun rather than conflict.
Take your most basic shit that can be competitive, like Poker or Trivial Pursuit or whatever. Depending on the environment I'm in that might be a super narrow and focused experience, typically the kind of experience where people are really obnoxious about the rules. That kind of competition sucks. But the exact same games with people who know how to have a laugh, aren't sore when they lose and chat amiably the entire time, the competition can be great.
Online, don't get too hung up. Unless you want to dedicate hours (and against millions of people, you're looking at dozens of hours of practice to be viably competitive. In general, don't worry about being the best, develop a mental resiliency and try to remember the fact that 99% of people aren't going to be the best at 99% of the things they try, you're in good company.
Oddly enough, Chess got me over this very thing. I hate competition because I dont want my opponent to lose,I want us both to cooperate and win together. I made a commitment with chess to practice, and not give up, and as I got better it got easier for me to be competitive, because I saw it as testing my opponent. If I crushed them, I would lay off and try and see where they needed to improve and then steer the game in that direction. If I lost, I would try and see where I made mistakes and could improve.
As for this "move accuracy" bs I have never seen or heard of it, but I would be highly suspicious. Engines can be great for very high level play, but the inaccuracies in even Master level play mean that often its matter of personal expression and finding positions you are comfortable with. The best way to learn is through an iterative process, and to think that there is always an objectively correct move is the wrong way to approach it. Learning chess isnt about being an engine, its about learning how to develop plans, and which plans work in which situations. So having a plan, even if its the "wrong" plan will teach you more than just always playing the "strongest" move in the position without some sort of plan behind it.
Also, I highly recommend you learn the basic types of tactics, pin, fork, skewer, etc. Also watch games. Agadmator has a MASSIVE catalog of annotated games. You can even check playlists by openings.
Last random suggestion. When you have gotten good at the middle game, i recommend endgames over openings. Learning how to simplify into winning endgames will win you many more games than learning rote openings.
Dvoretskys endgame manual is by far the most comprehensive book, and pretty much all you need. It is however rather complicated and certainly not necessary initially, or even up until around 1800.
I've noticed a lot of beginner to intermediate players get really stressed about the perfect play, move value competitive angle. Like a lot of people I got back into chess after some years because of quarantines, and a more chess experienced friend of mine gave me the best advice: for most beginners focusing on openings is a trap, engine evaluation is pointless at low levels. Getting into the game, get used to assessing the board and worry less about "best value moves".
Like you said, learn your pins, discovered attacks, positioning and fundamentals. People get too caught up in making their moves based on engine evaluation, and that leads to a lot of stress. I used to get really stressed about playing vs humans, but just accepting that I'm learning makes an (admittedly abstracted) competitive environment like Chess.com ladder much less stressful. Second learning endgames btw, I've seen so many players basically fall asleep and make a lot of careless choices in endgame.
I like some competition in my leisure activities, but I can't stand competing at something I don't even enjoy (like work). I just want to go in, do my best, get paid and go home, but my coworkers all act like the world would fall apart if we weren't all pulling overtime. I'm not really comfortable sharing any details, but I can guarantee that the world would get by just fine without the marketing flyers I'm supposed to send out this afternoon.
I was a semi-pro in competitive FPS, done my fair share of LAN tournaments and ESEA leagues but at this point in life I would rather roll dice and role play a few times a week then experience the mental health devastator that is online gaming. Although I will probably be a sucker and buy mortal online 2
i feel like most people who were top level esport players think it's really, really damaging to your mental health. at least the ones who didn't have a lot of time as a pro.
The capitalist notion (which also existed in some form, but not the same form) of competition, of neoliberal self improvement and such are pervasive, but not what makes us play.
Though in todays so called games the goal is often not the enjoyment for you or having nice experiences, but to bind you into playing. While I think Smash and such can be fun the part the reasons that make it fun are very diverse and varied. In my opinion you don't have to win, but have fun with reasonably equally skilled people and most current games aren't delivering cooperative enjoyment (even though it is a big market).
I'm a monster at Smash Bros if any of you want to get your asses beat let me know.
Although I'm not sure if NNIDs are a dox risk.
Yeah, this sounds fun but I know that, unfortunately, everybody else on this site is my FBI agent on multiple accounts. Really, it's endearing, but you have to let me make friends.
Ya, I'm the same. Competition gives me a headache.
And I'm a fucking teacher.
should this be in the ND comm? idk if this is linked to any neurodivergence i might have, or if i have any neurodivergence of this kind...
It's at least definitely a feature of ADHD, sort of an offshoot of rejection sensitivity i think. I'm the same way, competing in the things that I do for fun is a great way to ruin it for me. Which is something a lot of people don't expect about me because I can actually be super competitive about things.
Yeah, there's a not-often-talked about adhd symptom called RSD (I think short for rejection sensitive dysphoria) where you can experience extreme and disproportionate emotional pain and sensitivity in response to perceived rejection, criticism, or sense of falling short
It's my least favorite feature of my adhd lol
