It is December of 1993. I am twenty years old and contemplating the future arc of my life. The question in front of me is simple: Do I pursue music as a career, or do I listen to the persistent voices of my elders pleading for me to choose a safer path through the world?
In the words of Jeanette Winterson: “Why be happy when you can be normal?” At this point in my life, I had been playing music for over ten years.
Averaging twenty-five hours a week of practice, (at minimum) that made for over 10,000 hours total, surpassing the fabled requirement for “mastery of a skill.” Indeed, I had become proficient enough on guitar that it was akin to speaking a language fluently, especially taking into account the young age at which those ‘words’ entered my elastic, fantastic brain.
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