“The Horses of this Society" - Practice practicing

inspired by Practicing: A Musician's Return to Music - Glenn Kurtz

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Just like the relationship between black and white, left and right, female and male or pineapple-on-pizza-supporters and pineapple-on-pizza-haters, deciding on whether practicing is for the process or for the result depends essentially on personal definition of practicing and their purpose. However, since human’s limitation is still a myth that would not soon be completely discovered, it can be assured that one could never (yet) reach their full potential. Species, in general, or humans, in particular, striving forwards is what drives our planet rotating. Thus, if practicing can be defined similarly to striving, it’s an endless, at least for now, journey with goals but without exact destinations. Therefore, practicing for results may be argued to be just a method towards an temporary objective to pursue a longer-term goal: Keep Swimming (Dory, Finding Nemo (2003)).

It takes time and effort to do something, but it takes much more than that to practice doing something. First, it takes acceptance. As Oscar Wilde said, “only mediocre develops,, but to claim that mediocrity is not an easy step. Mediocrity is the vulnerable balance among the chaos. Imagine something like slacklining, bungee jumping or skydiving, the effort you put to experience the feeling of flying, despite the inability to actually do it, is the mentality needed for holding your mediocrity in the right way. One must accept the fact that they could never be the best at flying the way birds do, but they may work towards “flying” better and better, in their own ways. One must not be envious or insecure because of that mediocrity compared to those who are better, because one, it helps no one getting better and two, mediocrity does not halt them from doing something unless they give up on them. Since humans’ insecurity is also a limitless, complicated thing that no other species could neither understand nor imitate, merging mediocrity with insecurity, inferiority and disability is also a common mistake among practitioners. The core problem here is the misunderstanding that mediocre always comes along with comparison.

People mention mediocre when they want to praise something better, and that mediocre is a swamp of disappointment and inborn losers. Therefore, it takes courage to isolate oneself from the peer pressure illusion the modern world lays on their shoulders. Oscar-winner director Asghar Farhadi was once asked if all the oppression from Iranian cinema industry could be regarded as incentives for creativity. He denied immediately, saying that it creates an environment for resilience but never for the sake of creating. If given more freedom, the world would have received much more good movies. This urban society is obsessed with productivity-competition and controlling constraints that they think would urge people to run faster. Our generation, living up to the children-of-the-future’s “mission,” are persuaded that deadlines are what they need to develop, sometimes even more important than staying hydrated. But does a wild horse run faster than a tamed one hit by humans in a horse race? - it seems like humans need more reflection on themselves to answer this question. After all, it returns to the initial question - is your practicing for you or for the race - to decide what people, “the horses of this society,” seek for in their life journey.

It also requires bravery and resilience to win over all the discouraging talkies running around your head, to convince yourself your mediocrity does not belong to anyone else’ ladder of success, since their success may also be regarded equally to someone else’s mediocrity. It’s necessary to know your mediocrity is one step behind your own success, and to take that one step is through practicing. Practicing is taking that bungee jump again and again with birds flying next to you, walking step by step on that thin rope even without stork’s thin legs, running 15 minutes everyday and falling down breathlessly right afterwards, playing that guitar constantly until getting callus, then putting vaseline on and redoing everything the next day. Practicing is the process of believing in yourself and your ability, and believing that you are one step ahead of yesterday's mediocrity but still behind tomorrow’s success. It’s also mental preparation for the fact that you may never reach what’s ahead of you, but you are still moving further from what’s behind you. In the end,the question should be put forward is whether the result of your process is to be better from yourself or better from everyone else. If it’s the former, you will have a long way to go, but it is an endless road and so is your potential. If it’s the latter, you will achieve it, then lose it, sooner than you expect.