Being Bad is Spiritually Good for You?

There's about 7 of us on different instruments violin, clarinet, trumpet, piano, accordion, and melodica. We're in a Klezmer band and trying to learn a song by ear. Something that interestingly enough musicians don't always do. Our teacher Ira tells us being bad is spiritually good for you.

Being bad is spiritually good for you

One week we don't have class due to a holiday, because of this I end up only practicing once in a two week period. You can certainly classify my performance as bad at the next class. If I had spent more time practicing I'd really know the songs. This is not spiritually good for me.

When Ira said this was spiritually good for us he surely meant the process of struggling through something hard, and progressing through that is spiritually good. As opposed to simply being bad and not doing anything to change that is good for you.

Between my wide and varying interests, and all the events in the city my excuse is that it's hard to find time for practice. It doesn't help that I'm not super regimented. If every day had a dedicated window, or some days were dedicated to practicing certain things then that'd surely help, but that doesn't exist right now.

Although there's tons of value to learning on your own, there's always the challenge of getting started or forming the habit. If I had intensives for any of my hobbies I am sure I would make a ton of progress. Not only are you physically present so you are going to practice, but having people nearby helps with learning and accountability. By intensives I mean something like we are all going to take 5 days off and play Klezmer music all day. In tech another version of this is a hackathon. Surely, programmers can go and create things on their own (and some do), but there's a benefit to being with a room with other people and having a long amount of time dedicated to the task.

If you want to go fast go alone if you want to go far go together

A key component to improving is feedback. In classes feedback is natural. There's a teacher who is an expert in a domain, you're entering the class as a student, and you are there to learn. In other areas of life feedback is hard. We spend tons of time not wanting our parents to tell us what to do. We want to stick it to the man, and yet we also still want to get better.

I've experimented with an anonymous feedback form on my twitter, and linked at work. This feedback form was even on my dating apps at one point. Besides being told that my pictures were terrible, and that I should post more on twitter all of the feedback has been meta feedback or no feedback. For example, the work feedback was that the form couldn't be found on my slack. Another meta feedback was that my anonymous survey was not anonymous enough or specific enough. I was told that the feedback wasn't anonymous enough because the second (and last question) asks the person to put their name optionally. A weird quirk of the feedback form is that not enough people use it, so that if you do then I'll likely have a good inclination of who wrote on the form.

I've passively been chasing after improv feedback for at least a month now. The class wrapped up in June it's almost November and I still don't have my feedback. Initially this was on me. Our feedback was only going to be shared via a phone call. I had no interest in doing a phone call. I was opposed to the idea that our feedback should only be shared via a phone call. Personally, it seemed that feedback was part of the class so we should receive it if we completed the class.

The phone call makes sense it's a quicker way to have a back, and forth and answer any questions a student might have. Giving feedback is tough. In the worst case you discourage the person from doing the activity all together. Feedback can also cause you to overthink things, and make it harder for you to intuitively do an activity. In tap one of my teachers often tells us to focus on one element, probably because if you try to focus on everything you may end up focusing on nothing. The same teacher also tells us to make a mess, which I think is very crucial. Paradoxically, letting go can help you improve more. Let's take writing as an example if I strived for amazing writing (whatever that means) I probably wouldn't write at all.

Existentially I have to ask why do I want to get better? Musically I'd like to get better, because it seems very rewarding to hear a song and be able to play it back. To take a song and make it into my own. To create a song. To have people dancing and grooving to music that I have created. There's an interesting balance to improvement where the act of improving is an enjoyable process, and simultaneously part of that process can be draining.

Very pertinent to this blog, why do I write? One reason why I write, is because I enjoy going back and reading my writing! In conversation I enjoy unwinding the conversational thread and seeing how we meandered across various topics. I like trying to capture this meandering spirit through my writing. I've also heard about the power of writing to connect you to people that are similar to you. Writing is a way to capture an element of my personality and broadcast it expansively, in theory. In practice this blog has limited readership. On the one hand having limited readership limits my ability to connect with others. However, limited readership is nice, because I feel little to no pressure to serve an audience. I'm going for explorations via writing publicly, and allowing other people to come along for the ride.

Feedback is also varied. For some things feedback can be kind of obvious. If you take typing tests you can see your typing speed improve over time. With biking or running you can measure your speed. Even with dance you can assess your ability to remember choreography. It's harder to assess something like writing, but there are friendly people on the internet that may offer help / advice. An area where it's really hard to get feedback is socially. Sometimes you may get cues, but other times people might feel that it's not worth the trouble to bring it up to you. Classic forms of this are would you tell your friends if they have food in their teeth or a rip in their pants?

Therapy is a beautiful form of feedback. You meet with a neutral 3rd party present them your problems, and think through what's going on. A big question here is are you a reliable narrator? Are you presenting how the story unfolded accurately? What's hard is that perception is reality, however you perceived the event is your reality. To complicate things your version of reality may be aligned with those around you, and your therapist may have doubts about the retelling of the event. Ultimately the social dynamic that you experienced won't be captured perfectly in therapy. It'd be great if your therapist's could be actual flies on the wall. A company has actually developed technology that is a bit like a fly on the wall on your neck.

Ultimately, I've failed to find a good therapist. In any case I'll continue enjoying the journey of learning and being exposed to a variety of things and being bad at them. I may not get the most out of everything I am doing, but hopefully it'll be spiritually good for me.