People used to fantasize about crystal balls that would grant them the kind of magical access to the world that we now get via the internet on phones that don't impress us. We don't need a crystal ball anymore, but once on a really weird website I did see a guy whose balls were crystal.

My point is that we have access to the whole world, right now, and it's making us hard to please. Things are so much different now. Royal entertainers in ancient times fretted before performances, saying things like, "How do I impress a sultan who has seen every jester and magician, eaten every food and listened to every song?"

We are like those sultans, and the internet has made our standards similarly high. What more proof do you need than this: America's Funniest Home Videos used to seem watchable.

Entertainers, artists, storytellers, and musicians come to our computer screens from all over the world in an attempt to please us. The only difference between us and the sultans of yore is that if we don't like the performer, we go to a different website instead of having tigers turn the performer into meat-confetti.

People have a hard time being impressed by anything their friends do when they can go online whenever they want and watch some kid in asia run parkour while beatboxing. One of the effects of the internet is the feeling of being so far below the bar for expertise that it seems hopeless. It becomes difficult to even begin to try doing something or acquiring a skill. Just keep in mind that 1) every time you do something you get a little better at it, and 2) f*** the haters.

I can appreciate my friends' talents and skills because I hold them to a different standard from the one I have for those freaks on the internet. There are some inhumanly talented people in the world, but those weirdos only exist in the abstract to me because I don't know anyone personally who can do triple backflips with seemingly less effort than it takes me to pick my nose. The way I see it, I know some very talented people compared to other people I know. That philosophy makes it easy for me to appreciate it when my friend shows me that he can juggle or some bullshit.