Why I picked up the guitar (again)
Returning to an instrument I abandoned twice before. What's different this time.
I’ve picked up the guitar three times now. The first two times I quit when it stopped feeling like progress. This time I’m a few months in and it feels different, though I’m not entirely sure why yet.
A few things that might be contributing:
No goal. I’m not trying to play in a band or learn a specific song catalog. I’m just noodling. The absence of a destination makes the daily fifteen minutes feel like enough.
I know how to learn now. The first two attempts were when I was younger and impatient. I’ve since spent years debugging hard problems and acquired some tolerance for being bad at something before being okay at it.
The gear is better. Not dramatically — but a decent acoustic with low action makes a real difference to whether it’s physically enjoyable to pick up.
What I haven’t figured out: whether this persists through the plateau. I know there’s a long flat stretch coming where technical ability stagnates before it climbs again. That’s the part I’ve never pushed through.
I’ll report back.