Success and Failure at 35,000 Feet
On a flight from New York to San Francisco, I meet a young white man with a receding hairline and thin lips who tells me he feels inadequate when it comes to classical piano. He’s been studying it for about two years and his instructor (who is two years his junior) is far more knowledgeable, flexing his smarts on theory and composition every time they listen to music together, studying.
“That’s good that he’s your teacher, though,” I remark. “That’s what he’s supposed to do.”
“Yeah, but…” he trails off and takes a very pregnant pause. “He just knows so much more than me. People start learning this stuff when they’re really young.”
“Assholes,” I say.
He gives a resigned chuckle and continues:
“I just don’t think I’m good enough for it. And I don’t want to steal. You know. I don’t want to steal others’ sounds and styles.”
“Isn’t creating all about stealing, though?” I counter. “It won’t be exactly like someone else’s stuff because it goes through your filter and acts as inspiration.”
“I guess.”
“So do you want to do scores for films?” I continue with the interrogation, as I do. “You want to do some John Williams shit? Some ‘Star Wars’ shit?”
“Actually, what I’d like to do is come up with the pieces of a concept and have someone who’s better than me put it together,” he says, his mouth barely moving as he speaks. “And then have someone else put it on social media and stuff. I don’t like social media. I don’t like begging for ‘likes.’”
I once heard Bob Mankoff, cartoon editor of the New Yorker, say that the hard workers he’s met will turn in a sketch and say, I thought this was good, I gave it a shot, and it turned out OK. But the geniuses, ever the perfectionists, will never think one of their works is good enough. Because nothing is ever good enough. By that measure, practically every journalist and writer I know is a genius. Who isn’t striving for greatness? It seems everyone is determined to become a star of some kind: a rap star, or a tech star, or the creator of something that will change peoples’ lives. But those attempts to achieve something big, to make it, are, for most, clouded by self-doubt. In the age of access, we view our triumphs through the lenses of the lives of others. If validation is the measure of greatness, will we ever feel fulfilled?
The man I met on that 747 is no different than me, and other artists I know who grapple with their levels of ability and success. We compare how “good” we are to the goodness of our friends, as they portray themselves online. How skilled we are or how smart we are is proven by our achievements. Those achievements must be post-able, because confirmation from other people makes us feel good. It’s what makes us feel real. And if you don’t have anything to share with people that makes you worthwhile, then you’re a schmuck on a plane, talking about a song, hoping that someday you’ll be just as good as your teacher.
