The Illusion of Effort : Virtue Signaling vs Practice

Virtue Signaling

In the current cultural climate, everything seems to be broadcast. The meal we eat, the books we read, the goals we set—all transformed into content. And even something as sacred and intimate as creative practice is no exception. There's a strange satisfaction in showing the world that you’re working hard, staying disciplined, putting in the hours. But at what point does that visibility become the goal itself? Virtue signaling—subtly performing our values, our effort, our devotion—has become embedded in the language of modern creativity.

At first glance, sharing our process seems benign, even generous. It’s how we connect, after all—by offering glimpses into our daily lives and practices. But slowly, almost imperceptibly, this sharing can become an obligation, a pressure. We feel the need to be seen growing, to be seen caring, to be seen evolving. We tell ourselves it’s for accountability or community. But there’s a difference between connection and validation. One is mutual, sustaining, human. The other is extractive. And when our sense of purpose becomes entangled with that external gaze, our work risks becoming hollow.

This shift happens subtly. What begins as inspiration turns into performance. A morning ritual turns into a photo op. A book highlight becomes a clever caption. A spontaneous burst of creativity gets interrupted by the impulse to document it. We become archivists of our own effort. Curators of our own dedication. And in the process, we might miss the very essence of the thing we were trying to hold on to.

The culture rewards visibility. Metrics are the new measures of worth. Likes, retweets, saves—they offer a feedback loop, but one that often echoes surface over substance. We live in a time when our inner life must now be rendered legible, even marketable. This doesn’t just affect what we share—it changes what we choose to do, and how we value what we do.

And for artists, this is particularly insidious. Because art—at its most honest—requires a descent into the unknown. It requires a willingness to be wrong, to get lost, to not know what you’re doing. It demands privacy, experimentation, failure. But how can we allow ourselves that if we’re constantly formatting our process for public consumption? How can we afford to be unpolished, off-brand, or nonlinear when we’ve built a persona on consistency and polish?

We aren’t just practicing—we’re showcasing that we’re practicing. And in doing so, the boundary between authentic effort and curated identity blurs. We post our routines, our gear setups, our handwritten notes as if to say: “Look, I’m in it. I care. I’m serious.” But beneath that performance, something essential begins to erode: the quiet, private labor of real growth. The kind that happens when no one is watching. The kind that can’t be condensed into a caption or story.

This isn’t to cast judgment, but to recognize a tension. When practice becomes visible, it changes. We shape it, consciously or not, to be legible to others. And in doing so, we risk abandoning the parts of the process that are messy, nonlinear, and deeply personal. We fall into the illusion of practice—being around it, talking about it, writing about it—without ever being submerged in it. The story of the grind begins to replace the grind itself.

We must be vigilant here. Because the most meaningful work often begins where language ends. Where recognition fades. Where it’s just you and the thing you’re trying to make, understand, or become. There’s nothing wrong with sharing. But when sharing becomes a stand-in for doing, we lose something sacred. True practice—true evolution—often requires silence. It demands a space where we aren’t performing our dedication, but embodying it, whether or not anyone else ever knows.

If we’re serious about growth, we must reclaim those spaces. We must allow for the unseen, the undocumented, the misunderstood. We must resist the urge to narrate our lives while we’re living them. To pause mid-process and turn the camera on. Let the process breathe. Let it be ugly, disjointed, uncertain. Let it belong only to you. That’s where the real alchemy happens—not in the declaration, but in the doing.

The Practice

This is what I’m learning now. Practice isn’t a performance. It’s not something to romanticize. It’s not always beautiful or elegant. In fact, it’s often dull, frustrating, and deeply humbling. And yet, when approached with full attention, it becomes transformative.

My practice used to be noisy—with thoughts, expectations, the need to prove something. Over time, it has become more silent, more stripped back. I no longer need to convince myself or others that I’m doing the work. I just do the work. I listen. I try to translate what I hear in my head into sound. I try to collapse the space between thought and expression.

Sometimes I sit with the instrument for hours and feel like nothing happens. No breakthroughs, no epiphanies—just repetition. But even in that repetition, something shifts. My hands become more familiar with the fretboard, my ear hones in a little sharper, my attention deepens. It’s as if the practice works on me while I’m working through it. The changes are subtle, almost imperceptible in the moment. But over time, they accumulate.

And that’s the truth no one wants to advertise: real progress is quiet. It doesn’t announce itself with fanfare. It sneaks in through the back door. Often, it arrives clothed in boredom, in resistance. And yet, those are the days I value most now—the days when I didn’t feel like it but showed up anyway. Because those are the days that reinforce the core of why I do this. Not for the outcome. Not for applause. But because something inside me needs to understand sound. Needs to understand myself through sound.

What I’ve found is that my ear is the truest guide. It leads me to phrasing that isn’t bound by scale shapes or technique, but by feel. I no longer chase patterns; I chase what I hear. Sometimes that means making mistakes, playing outside the lines, stepping into dissonance. But that’s where discovery lives. The more I trust my ear, the more honest my playing becomes.

And honest playing isn’t always pretty. It’s raw, unpredictable. It resists neat packaging. But it’s alive. And that aliveness is what I care about now. I don’t want to sound like someone else. I want to sound like me. I want to hear a phrase and know it came from a real place—from a thought, a feeling, an intuition that is mine alone.

Each session shows me what I can’t do. And that’s the point. Practice, at its best, is a mirror. It shows you who you are, not who you want to be. It reveals your tendencies, your hesitations, your blind spots. It humbles you. But in that humility is a quiet liberation—the freedom to begin again, every day, without pretense.

So I keep playing. Not to prove. Just to understand. Just to listen. To let the sound teach me. To let my mistakes guide me. To move closer, inch by inch, to something real. Something I can’t name yet, but know when I hear it.

And maybe that’s the entire point of practice—not mastery, not perfection, but presence. To be here, fully, with the work. To lose the need to explain it.

To simply play. That is enough. That is everything.

With peace and insight,
Ameya Deshpande