Is one’s musical progress on a parabolic or hyperbolic path. Draw an xy
graph with accumulated effort on the x axis and progress on the y axis.
What does the curve look like? I used to think it was parabolic, i.e., one
branch of a parabola, so “the sky’s the limit”, and even though my parabola
rises at a slower rate than some genius’s, still any level is achievable if
I have the time and put in the effort. But today, looking back at my life,
I feel like I’ve been on a hyperbolic path, pushing toward a hard limit set
for me by nature, my asymptote, which wouldn’t allow me to reach my highest
goals even if I lived forever—goals that other people have achieved.

And then I wonder about the evolution of humanity. Lately it’s seemed to me
that we’re pushing toward our asymptote. Horseshoe crabs have been on an
almost completely flat curve for the last millennia. (Is it possible that
the curve is absolutely flat? Can it curve back downward?) They say they’re
“living fossils.” Are humans also living fossils? Am I a living fossil?

Maybe another cup of coffee will cheer me up and help me see things
differently.

--
Matt