The second take-away is that I am really not used to sucking this much at something. I certainly didn’t expect to pick the thing up and play a Steely Dan joint, but I didn’t expect to be quite as clumsy as I am. Like most people, I spend most of my time doing familiar things – things I’m good at, even excellent at. When I pick up new skills, they’re often related to skills I already have, and I pick them up without ever really sucking at them. Going into something relatively cold isn’t something I do often enough, and it shows in my psychological reaction to fumbling with the new instrument, which I did not find pleasant. This is the phase where I have to give myself permission to suck for an extended period of time. That’s not comfortable, but I need to do that to stick with it long enough to stop sucking.

Get out of my head.