Dear Marty, Just to give you a bit of perspective I am 16 years old and have played guitar for roughly two years. I would consider myself a pretty ok player taking into consideration the duration I've been playing. When I write music I generally like to write a lot of heavy metal stuff hence I would that would be one of my more favored genres (although I'm a big fan of jazz fusion, hard rock, and a TREMENDOUS fan of your J-Pop music). From other kids I've seen who have started playing guitar and play metal I've concluded to something: When a player first starts playing metal there's this immediate desire and aspiration for speed and technicality. At that stage of someone's guitar playing, factors like feeling and precision is almost nudged aside due to the aforementioned desire. With that being said, I find myself constantly and insanely jealous of kids around my age that play a great deal better than myself. I know it's not the right way to react but I feel like every time I finally take one step forward in my guitar playing skill, somebody somewhere else just took 6 steps more than I just did. I understand there's nothing I can do about the latter but I can't help but feel sour about it. Marty. you're one of my idols and surely one of the best musicians I've ever heard in my life (despite my age I hope that carries some weight). I'll always take your advice and words seriously. Do you perhaps have any words of wisdom?

Instead of wasting your energy being jealous of others, why not learn from them? Surround yourself with people you believe have something you would like to learn and learn it! Since no one knows EVERYTHING, and all musicians know DIFFERENT things, you may even be surprised to find out that some of them are jealous of you...Good luck.