It's possibly a good outlook to strive for but I'm inclined to think that most people fundamentally and inherently need to feel like respected members of society or else their mental health suffers.

> Plenty of people played guitar, poorly, even though they could hear CDs of good guitarists.

I think it is different because that guitarist on the band that released a CD is a famous musician, at least famous enough to get a contract and release a CD. So I, as a hobbyist, don't expect to be as good.

But now there are thousands of regular people non-professional musicians on youtube (or wherever) who are a hundred times better than me, so it can become discouraging.

Guitar and art in general is weird because technical skill and commercial success are orthogonal. I grew up on pop punk; anyone with a desire and like 4 hours of free time can basically play Blink-182’s entire discography of power chords.

I wouldn’t even say I can play guitar and I can do an okay rendition of Stairway to Heaven.

It’s easier to get into hobbies, but you’ll also be far more keenly aware of just how shit you are at it. I do hydroponics and YouTube won’t even really show that; apparently if you haven’t upgraded to aquaponics (hydro with fish to poop out nutrients) it’s not even worth having a channel. The algo hasn’t even suggested someone with a normal sized setup. The smallest I ever see verges on a commercial setup. Genuinely I think the smallest setup I’ve seen had a 500 gallon tilapia tank for a reservoir. The larger ones were installing hydroponic power on rivers to run all their pumps and fans for a detached hydroponic grow system.

A common struggle seems to be that for whatever reason, people have tunnel vision on achieving the end result instead of enjoying the path to it.

From a random HN comment not so long ago, I highly recommend this gentle intro to applied Adlerian psychology:

The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi

Not challenging as far as reading goes, but it might hit some people deep enough to only chew on a few pages at a time.