I suppose I'm bound by my shortcomings.

Bah. I don't believe it. Shortcomings? What shortcomings?!

Bah.

My view is if there is something someone wishes to do differently or to learn, there is always hope...at least until he is dead. And you're not dead! :)

Also, no one ever knows the future for sure (other than the death part). So you never know how you might develop musically! Maybe your perception of shortcomings is exactly where you need to focus your attention to overcome them.

Well, I was talking about something like jealously or a small amount of self loathing keeping me from caring about other musicians once I'm sure they're more similar to me than I thought.

Speaking from a musical standpoint, I would think some of the reasons are because of jealously, their not really a true friend, or the friend they should be supporting is awful as a musician. I myself, still encourage untalented musicians because, of their love for music, and as their friend it is my obligation to encourage and support whatever valid endeaver they choose to pursue in life period.
Give them the patience and persistence to pursue their ambitions. Without financial support, many talented young musicians will not have the chance to follow their dreams and bring music to our ears. Its takes ongoing efforts to support and promote exceptional talent.

A lot of my friends are musicians, and I do support them in my way, but no matter how talented they are, I don't really get as excited about their music as I do by the music of others. It's nothing against them, and it's nothing to do completely with the fact that I know them exactly.

For me, it's because they always play songs they're working on, and ask for advice, opinion, etc. Musicians I don't know aren't doing this to me, and I can just appreciate their music for what it is without them asking if the chord changes were smooth enough, if I thought they should change the key of the song, etc.

I'm willing to help them out, and it doesn't bother me, but when a song gets broken down so that it's in separate pieces and I have to deal with things such as the production or technical aspects of the song, it loses its charm a little bit. I do admire technical skill, and will observe interesting changes / time signatures on songs, but that's on my own time and not as a request.

Honestly, if Trey Anastasio from Phish came up to me and asked me about his choice of strum pattern in a song, it would lose its novelty to me, and I'd never be able to listen to the song the same way again.

The musicians I know, with the exception of one friend, aren't especially talented. That one friend is doing extremely well right now. I support his music, because I enjoy his music. There are limits to my support when I don't actually like a person's work.

This is very true and is the reason I got out of producing. It's also the reason I've kind of stopped really producing my own music, because spending hours trying to perfect a chord progression's timing is just awful and makes me hate writing songs.

I mean there's still the enjoyment of creation, but I'd rather leave the tweaking and fine tuning to someone else.

Oh.

Exactly, I quite hate having to perfect something, it makes the whole thing so technical, so boring. Much like when you analyse a poem formally.

:/

The bolded part is right on I think... I know even with myself, my room mates and friends would hear unfinished verses, lame rhymes and stuff all the time as I was trying to piece together a song. I might record 5 songs but use pieces of each song to make one finished product that I really love instead of 5 mediocre ones. And I think if your friends see and hear all of the inner workings that goes into making music, it takes the awe out of the finished product.

Liking artists is always a conversational type thing too.. Like you're getting to know someone, and you're like "You ever listen to (insert popular artist)?" and just the fact that the other person knows who they are starts a conversation.. If you are like "you should listen to my buddy who raps," they don't know the person really is and a lot of people kinda assume it's gonna be ****ty.