u/Mad_Season_1994

I don’t really know how to explain it. Yes, I’m still a beginner. But you always hear about people who just noodle or just work through a scale and suddenly they’re like “That sounds kind of like a song”, and then can just work on it from there and develop it into something musical. You figure how many of the greatest guitarists were just playing a scale or mode and suddenly just had an idea for their next song, ya know?

That just doesn’t happen for me, I’ve found. I could follow a map and play something like G Dorian or G Mixolydian or whatever at my own speed and I never have a moment where an idea for a song comes into my head. Even if I just noodle randomly, I still don’t have that “Ah ha” moment where I find I can make something out of what I just did. Even writing lyrics doesn’t come naturally to me. I mean, I obviously know how to write but I don’t have the inclination to just put that to an instrument, if that makes sense.

And it makes me feel bad since this means I can’t really join a band or anything like that as I wouldn’t have anything to contribute, creatively/musically. Someone else would have to do that. But should I maybe just try to find a way to be content with playing other people’s stuff and learn as much as I can before old age comes?

I mean, I’m not a bad person at all. I think myself a decent bloke who tries to live by the golden rule. But everyone already has someone, or has their people. I just never have, and so I wonder if it’s even worth trying to make any or if I’m better off by myself at this point.

I’ve never had any shred of self confidence or self love at any point in my life. And since I’ll be 31 this year, I still feel like all of the above things are true about me, even if my parents and family don’t think so. I’ve never had any friends, never been in a relationship, did bad in school and barely squeaked through college. The only things objectively going for me are that I have a work from home job and zero debt since I paid off my student loans this year. I’ve also traveled overseas by myself twice.

But I’m also extremely, deeply insecure and that’s part of the reason why I don’t bother talking to people unless they talk to me first: I don’t have anything interesting to offer or talk about and thus am not worth getting to know. That I’d be too boring for anyone to want around them.

I just don’t know how to get out of this way of thinking and honestly don’t even know if I can at this point, since I’ve been this way most of my life. I don’t even remember what dreams I would’ve had when I was a kid anymore…

Any advice?

Basically the title. The French people had just executed Marie Antoinette a few years prior. And they were just okay with a guy making himself First Consul and having so much power all at once, basically like a king? I just don’t understand their thinking.

Did they think it wouldn’t be passed if they took it out? I’ve just never understood why they didn’t make the amendment so much more solid and leave zero room for interpretation or negotiation, and make it so that African-Americans were 100% equal to white people under the law for all time.

Basically the title. What caused men across the US to become such bad alcoholics that their wives and widows felt the need to get a temperance movement going in the first place? Was it because they were mostly dirt poor? Or something deeper?

When I first started playing in January, I was wanting to keep going until I couldn't anymore. Similarly when I got my first Martin in April. I just wanted to keep going doing whatever I had to, whether that was learning a song or learning a scale. I lived and breathed guitar basically, and got a teacher in April as well whom I get on with.

But now, that gas feels like it's almost fully out of the tank now. Sure I've been depressed most of my adult life, but even then it would take a backseat when I'd be doing a JustinGuitar lesson or when I was with my teacher. I could just get laser focused and not even a cannon blast could distract me once I was in the zone. But now, it's like I have to constantly convince myself day by day to pick it up instead of convincing myself to put it down. It's either I'm too drained after work to have the energy to play, or there's just a general lack of interest.

I don't know what happened, and I know none of you are therapists. I just don't have anything else, yet I don't know why I don't fill every ounce of my time with guitar if that's the case. I don't have any friends and no other hobbies really interest me (besides reading and just being outdoors, if you count that). I also don't plan on gigging or doing any open mics in the near or distant future because that would just put me too on edge to be worth it. So it's not like I don't have free time, because I do.

I don't know. I just can't seem to find a reason or motivation to maintain my progress and play my heart out like I did in the beginning. Maybe it's because I realized this is never going to And yet I know I wouldn't forgive myself if I just dropped it altogether.

I don't know whether it's depression, frustration, or some combination of the two but I feel like I just don't have the drive and energy I did when I first started anymore. Sure, after a long day of work I want to play. But my ADD oftentimes prevents me from getting into that proper flow state I had when I first started, where I get laser focused and just play until my hands hurt.

Now I feel like most of the time, I have to convince myself to play every day, instead of convincing myself to stop if that makes sense. I just haven't been seeing any tangible progress and just feeling like I'm not "getting it" anymore. I even stopped by about lesson 12 of the Absolutely Understand Guitar series because scales and modes and the different ones you can play were simultaneously not making sense and making some sense to me. I was hyper focused on just playing things like G Ionian, G Lydian, G Mixolydian, etc to a map for like a month but just never could memorize any of it for some reason. I also have a teacher that's a chill dude who's been helping me tremendously. But without him to translate tab for me, I'd legitimately be lost and probably wouldn't figure any of the techniques out on my own.

I don't really know where I'm going with this. I don't want to take a break because I feel like if I did, within a week or so I probably wouldn't touch my guitars again. And yet I don't have any other hobbies (unless you count reading and video games). Rock climbing, disc golf, pickleball, none of that interests me. Guitar suits me more, even if it means I won't ever play with people. But I just hate the cloud of frustration that always hangs over me when I try to grind out tab or get good at a chord progression following a metronome. Yet I literally don't have anything better to do in my free time and don't know what I'd do without guitar...