Taking a Hint?

I noticed something tonight.

I'm the lone moderator of the Accountability Forum in the Better Than Your Boyfriend Forums.

Now, I'm not trying to rub this in. I didn't ask for this responsibility/privilege. Tynan promoted me without my asking, I think in preparation for his departures.

And I'm not sure if he intended for me to view this promotion as I have. It may have been an offhand gesture to him. But, I think he's more aware and really, caring than that.

I, probably more so than most people who view this forum, have been completely unaccountable for my actions of late.

I moved home in mid-September to accomplish a few things.

I wanted to get my life back on track. Get a job to pay off my debts, find a steady source of income, find some, any, direction in my life.

But, to be honest. I've accomplished very little.

Not to say I've accomplished nothing. I've figured out some major things, like that I need to write to be happy, for instance.

But aside from that, I haven't really done much. I'm in more debt than when I left Austin, because I haven't paid off any that I had. If anything, I'm more depressed, I had what was probably the worst day of my life a few weeks ago. And I've really moved my life very little towards a direction I want.

I don't know if Tynan meant this as a "Dude, I've seen what you've been doing. You're more than that," promotion. I can't speak for him. But I think he did.

The touch of responsibility, however little it may be, in the great scheme of things (whatever that's supposed to mean), hit me. And, though I've had a bottle of wine tonight, I thought it better to post this tonight. Thanks to his most recent post about not waiting for the perfect moment and just plunging in, something that also struck me personally, as I've always been someone who waits for the right moment. Like his friend who wanted to move to LA, I've always waited and let life pass me by.

I don't know if this is yet another of my epiphanies that amounts to nothing. They never start that way. But, I'm hoping you guys will help to keep me honest. And I'll do the same.

I'm going to post at least twice every day in the Accountability Forum. Once in the morning for the things I want to get accomplished that day. Then later, as I complete those things.

Hopefully my action will spurn everyone else to act on their own daily goals. It's been over a month since anyone posted in the forum. And I hope to change that, beyond just me posting in it.

We're all capable of amazing things. I've seen that on these forums in the almost two years I've been a part of them. I only hope that I can spurn just a small bit of action in everyone else.

Let's keep each other honest in our goals.

Thank you Tynan. Add this to the long list of things you've done for me.

Lean Into It

First off, I want to apologize for the no post on Thursday. I was with with my family since Wednesday and forgot to write ahead.

Chalk it up to taking a Thanksgiving holiday.

I also want to apologize for the length of the previous post. I went off on a tangent without realizing it.

So, without further ado:

What does the dip mean for me?

Right now, I'm more or less (mostly less) working on several projects.

In order of appearance:

Poker

Website

Writing

Guitar

That's four things that I've started in the last two or three months. Four things that I would really like to succeed at.

Poker and Writing Republic are almost exclusively for money making purposes. With enough effort, they would both definitely be successful ventures.

My current big dip for poker is that I still don't have any money to back it. I'm still in the skill dip, but I'm much improved. I won some money in a tournament a couple weeks ago and quadrupled it fairly quickly before steadily losing it all again over the next few days.

I let my emotions get in the way of my play, having a rough couple days, and made stupid moves. Lesson learned.

The easiest solution to the money dip is through winning more and more free tournaments. But I don't think that's really a viable way to get out of the dip. It'll be very difficult to build up a bankroll in small chunks like that.

Possible, but probably not worth the effort.

The dip for Writing Republic is learning to code. I'll need to learn several languages to accomplish what I would like for the site. Being a perfectionist, there aren't really any shortcuts here, I wouldn't want to shortchange the site for production's sake.

I'd want it to be as close to perfect as I could get it.

The problem with this is that I've lost a lot of interest in creating it. I'm not entirely sure why, possibly because I've taken to writing more so it's fulfilling the desire I had to interact with words and writing and language.

I went straight to the source, so to speak.

Writing and guitar fall more into the personal satisfaction department than the money making department.

At this point anyway.

My biggest dip for writing is being able to write something I'm proud of when I'm not particularly inspired.

I can produce something, but rarely when I'm forcing myself to get something on paper for habit's sake do I read it later and say “Damn, I wrote that.”

But that's a problem that is it's own solution I think. The more I write, the more I'm going to understand how to create something I can appreciate. Whether I'm struck by lightning or not.

The dip for guitar lies in practice. I found a site that, thus far, I'm really happy with. I'm working from the ground up. Learning where the notes are on every string and such, so as to have a more complete understanding of the instrument.

If I'm going to learn it, I want to learn it right now. Not in two years when I realize I need to understand theory better so I can write more complex music.

But I'm still inconsistent with my practice, I don't have a schedule or program set up. I need to set one up. I was thinking about starting a three lesson system. It'll be a rolling system, so on day 1, I'll practice lesson A. On day 2, I'll practice lesson A and B. Day 3, A, B, and C. Day 4, B, C, and D. And so on and so forth.

Depending on the time it takes me to complete and fully comprehend each lesson, I could work more lessons into the mix or work on the same ones for more days in a row.

So where does this leave me?

I really liked my friend Tynan's method for narrowing out your choices based on the dip, so I'm going to use it. It's simple, first, can I be the best in the world? Second, do I want to?

Poker(Yes with tons of effort, No)

Writing Republic (Yes, No)

Writing (Yesish, Yes)

Guitar (Yes, Yes)

I say yesish because talent in writing is largely objective. But, like all things, it's dependent on what I define my world as.
It'd be really cool to be a poker pro. Basically only for the money though.

I was reading an editorial that briefly talked about the World Series of Poker and an email asked the writer, “My roommates and I were trying to guess how many women the guys at the final table had collectively slept with. You got over/under 30?”

Or something to that extent. There are 9 people at the final table, so that puts their guess at 3.333 women each. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but in guy speak they were saying: “These guys are fucking losers.”

I don't want to ever be in a situation where someone judges me negatively for being good at what I do. I pretty much decided when I read it that poker wasn't for me in any seriousness.

I'm still going to continue to play, I play almost daily with a couple friends and I really enjoy it. So I'm going to keep doing that, but less often and less seriously.

I could definitely have the best social writing site. The few I'd seen were pretty bad as far as general design goes. Looked cool, functioned poorly. And the features I would include would be unlike any others out there.

But I just don't have any desire to work on it right now. The coding dip is a big one for me. I really dislike learning coding languages and the idea of learning three or four doesn't appeal to me in the slightest.

If I still needed the site as an outlet for writing, I might still have more motivation, but as it is, it'd just be a way to make money and I know I can work on things that would be more fulfilling that could lead to making money.

Writing is something that's still really important to me. No matter what I choose to do in my life, I'll continue to write.

I'm mostly writing songs and poems right now. A few short stories, something I want to do more of because I really enjoy it.

There's no question that this is something I'm going to keep working on.

I'm keeping with guitar as well. I'm enjoying learning it and I want to make music. Music is one of the few things I care about and am passionate about.

It's also one of the only dreams I've ever had, to be a singer/songwriter/in a band.

And I realized recently that I've still got a dream that I can feasibly accomplish. Why in the name of everything I've ever held dear wouldn't I go for it?

So this is what the dip means for me.

I'm going to continue to write and learn guitar (probably piano too, working on acquiring my grandmother's) with making music being the compass that guides these ventures.

It's going to take a lot of work, I know. I won't immediately stand out. I won't immediately be able to write and produce music that I'd be satisfied with putting my name on.

But it will be work I'll enjoy. Every aspect I can think of is something I'll enjoy. Writing, singing, performing, designing the album cover, going on tour, on and on and on.

Sure I'm looking a little ahead right now, but that's what I'm defining my world as. I'm not going to stop until I'm the best at this. Maybe not the best singer or best guitarist in the world, as in Earth. But the best at what I decide to do. Genre-wise, style-wise, etc etc.

Music is objective. It's going to be fun to get people to see from my perspective and get them to enjoy my style, whatever I decide it will be.

The biggest dip that I can see coming up (outside of the one's I'm in) is deciding what kind of music I want to make.

I like too much music.

I can't wait to hit that dip.