Do you always achieve at your interests?
It depends on what you mean by "succeed." I've had professional success in theater and film. My interest in history hasn't gotten me money or recognition, but I enjoy it. For me, that's success.
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"Donkeys live a long time. None of you has ever seen a dead donkey."
It's similar here. I'm fairly pleased with the most recent music I've recorded, and personally I can't hear anything about it that's obviously worse than professional records, but I don't suppose I'd get very far if I tried to make a lot of money out of it, and nobody I've played it to recently has shown an awful lot of clearly-genuine enthusiasm about it. I get better feedback about my live performances, which is odd because I don't think it sounds as good as the recorded stuff. I hear comments like "you really brought the place to life" and people have come up to me just to say how much they liked what I did. I've seen feet tapping to it and people dancing to it, and sometimes they've clapped and cheered quite loudly. I've even been paid a few times.
So I see myself as a (moderately) big fish in a small pond, and although I had hoped for more when I started out a few decades ago, I'm reasonably content with that. I've still got most of the recordings I've made since I started out in 1967, and I've improved massively over the years. So yes, I achieved something that was always very important to me. It's still a good boost for my self-confidence to remember that. And mostly, I've had a lot of fun with it, which I think is the best achievement anybody can go for.
tl;dr
Sometimes (according to my own standards of success).
In chronological order:
Dinosaurs
Knew a lot about them, and my dinosaur-inspired design was selected for our preschool t-shirts.
Schoolwork
Went to a somewhat different school (Montessori) so you had a lot of time to spend just on what you wanted to do. I graduated with good enough grades to get me into my high school of choice. Wasn't the top student, though.
Cartoons
More than "achieving" I just enjoyed it.
Drawing
Began to draw early and had a peak around age 11. Much later, in my 20s, I entered (at the behest of a friend) some competitions and won one. I hate drawing now because people began to associate me with it to the extent that I was "the one who drew stuff" rather than a human being.
Writing
I've written in so many different genres over the year that taken altogether it's kind of a failure. I was recommended for a prize for my academic writing, and got a high pass with distinction for a mini-thesis by the head honcho/professor. Back in high school I came in 2nd in a novella competition. That's about it.
Ice-cream garnishes
Nope. But granted, hard to achieve in such a topic.
Web design
My web site got 5/10 in a IT magazine when I was 12. So ... not really.
Classical/Jazz piano, electronic music, DJ-ing, etc.
Nope. Wasn't good enough. As a pianist I was too sloppy to win anything, my albums never found an audience, and I couldn't read the crowd well enough to work as a DJ.
RTS scenario design
I received some community awards, and got some 50,000 downloads in the early 00s.
Architecture
I trained for it, graduated, and I guess my greatest achievent so far is being partially responsible for a building in Japan which won a Good Design Award 2020. Right now I'm languishing because covid is shutting down all my projects.
Photography
No particular success.
"Pretending to be normal"/social success
Found a good person to marry and had a child with her. Considering how hard all that was and how overwhelmed and defective I am as a father, I'm not sure I've "achieved" anything here. The jury is still out.
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neurotypical and tech special interests |
12 Dec 2024, 2:15 pm |
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