The question of talent is something that I’ve been grappling with for months now, ever since I became serious about guitar. However, this applies to much more than playing music. It’s just the best example of a skill in which most people tend to believe “either you have it or you don’t.” I was haunted by thoughts like ‘What if I’m not musically talented, and I’m wasting my time?’ After all, I have a friend who took guitar lessons for 5 years and today he never plays anymore. If he does, it’s mediocre at best. Then there’s the 16 year old guitarist from Black Oxygen, who has been playing for 2 years and can grind out the most shiver-inducing licks as if by divine (or perhaps, satanic) inspiration. I, myself, had one of the roughest starts imaginable, so you can see why I was concerned. So for months, I’ve thought, and researched, and experimented, and discussed, and thought some more (hence the blog title), and here’s what I came up with. Read more…
If you’e one of my millions of loyal readers (:D), you might be starting to think that this blog doesn’t have a topic. You’re partly right, after all, I did name it Tony thinks to keep my freedom of subject. But right now I’m going to tie in my first three posts, like a masterful drama with characters and events that seem unrelated, but come together in the end (Snatch and Slum Dog Millionaire come to mind). Don’t believe me? Read on!
I think successful people more often than not come up with metaphors for life to keep them going. My favorite example are my entrepreneur friends Yu-kai and Jun from FD Career. They say that corporate gets you donkeys; Entrepreneurship gets you the princess, haha. Yu-kai talks about what he calls his “Diablo epiphany” in high school. It happened at a time when he was had worked hard to achieve high skill and status in Diablo, but the game’s popularity was waning. He felt empty inside because all his hard work was for not, and now he would have to find a new game to start from square one. What’s a really great game, he thought, that you can get really high status, and people can’t just get tired of and quit? The answer is obvious — life! Overnight, he was transformed from a hardcore gamer with little to show in real life for his efforts, into an ambitious entrepreneur who lived life like a hardcore gamer. Since then he has started multiple companies, some of which are still around and successful, has an impressive roll-a-dex with thousands of friends and important connections, his blog gets nearly 2 thousand unique viewers a month with steady growth, and he is a powerful leader who people want to follow. I would say he’s made significant progress towards success on a grand scale. Not bad for an afternoon of thinking, huh?! Read more…
His skin was weathered and clothes were torn, but the feeling with which he played told me that he really was a street musician, and not just a bum. The music really mattered to him. I put the sandwitch next to him on the bench, and sat down tentatively, beginning to eat mine. When he finished his song, he thanked me kindly. We got to talking, and I found out he had led a very interesting life. His parents were in the millitary, so they moved around a lot. He said he never really had a home, instead he roamed around the country on buses and trains playing his music on the street to survive. Currently he had settled to Lawrence for the time being staying at the homeless shelter, which is relatively nice. It’s unconventional, but it’s an honest living and a lifestyle choice, and I see that as perfectly legitimate, and I told him so. He truly was content with life which is more than many of us home-ful (haha) people can say.
However, his life was by no means glamorous. Read more…