The Autistic Mandolinist

I'm James White. I'm an autistic, enby, data scientist and advocate for autistic adults. More importantly for this channel, I am an enthusiastic learner of the mandolin (and mandolinist for the hot new bluegrass string band 43 & Change). I'm not that great at it, and that's ok - I intentionally make videos of things that I'm not great at. I do this both to give voice to the process of growth (so much of the media we consume is so curated and carefully constructed that it can be devastating as a learner of a new skill to compare yourself with what seems like LITERALLY everyone else), and I make videos to show that

1) it's fine to suck at something you enjoy doing, and

2) if you persist, the thing will become gradually easier (even if you objectively still suck at it), and

3) because I like sharing the things I'm doing that bring me joy.