Blog: Comparison is the Thief of Joy

“Comparison is the Thief of Joy” … but it doesn’t have to be!

A while back, a person we had recently met was talking with Blue and made this comment about my work:  “Lazarus is so precise.  His rope looks perfect.  Mine never looks like that.”

This person had started their rope journey only a few months prior to that moment.  They are an intelligent, talented person with incredible levels of focus, drive and determination. They are used to succeeding, and succeeding quickly. Since that conversation they have become a friend and it has been my pleasure to watch them grow and become a very skilled rigger.

But that early comment highlights something that has become central to many of our lives:  The constant comparison that we do.  Social media algorithms are designed to find things that grab our attention and show us more of those things.  This often results in an echo chamber insulating people from outside ideas and feeding us nothing but content that reinforces our existing biases.

There is an idea often attributed to Theodore Rossevelt: “Comparison is the Thief of Joy”.

The stance that it is not good to envy others or covet what they have is found in most religions and philosophies.  You can find direct guidance on it in Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Stoicism, Confucianism and more.

Many things in our modern lives are specifically designed to encourage us to compare ourselves to others. Almost all modern advertising aims to make us feel worse about ourselves or discontent with what we have with the goal that we go buy whatever they’re selling. Many of the influencers on social media are no different:  “Look at how attractive, fit, rich, well dressed, skillful, etc. I am.  Don’t you want to be like me?”  Much has been written about the negative impacts of social media and comparison.

So … comparison is almost unavoidable, and it is not good for us … what can we do about it?  We can actively work to reprogram our minds to shift away from comparison for the purposes of self-criticism to comparison for inspiration (while slowing down and considering the context of what we see online). 

This is how author Mel Robbins worded it in her #1 best-selling book The Let Them Theory. (Video summary, well worth the watch.)

Scott Wilhite also argues that using comparison as a directed skill can actually give you a huge boost in Roosevelt Was Wrong, Comparison is Not the Thief of Joy

When you see a social media post it is important to understand that what you are seeing is a finished product.  It is not the full story.  You do not know the context or the journey of the people in that picture or video; what led them to that place.  Even if it seems to be a candid video, someone had to edit, review, and post it..  Even if the only editing was to trim the video to only show the interesting part, someone decided where to make those cuts, and we have all seen how editing can completely change how something is perceived!

You also don’t know if that moment is candid or scripted; how much time the participants spent practicing, setting up the camera to get exactly the right angle or how many takes they did before they got the one they wanted.  Maybe everything really is totally candid, unscripted and just cut for time, but you have no way of knowing that unless the creators tell you … AND even then what they tell you might not be the truth!

If you make a habit of comparing yourself to what you see and are feeling discouraged because of it, you may very well be comparing yourself to a lie!  We suffer more in imagination than in reality.

Let’s bring it back to rope

Rope tied for pictures – whether for erotica or for education – is totalmente different from rope tied for a scene.  What you see online is not necessarily what it appears to be.  When shooting for a specific image, riggers and models have the luxury of time, planning, angles, editing, sometimes extra people off camera for additional support, and more.  It is quite common for the back of a tie to be a messy nightmare that a rigger would never tolerate for a scene, but if it is not visible to the camera, it is left as it is.

I have run across images that are amazing … but that I would never want to try to replicate in a scene due to the risks involved.

A while back we visited Oblige Rope Studio in Detroit, MI, USA (An AMAZING rope studio run by an amazing team, they live-stream some of their training and keep recordings of past trainings, too.  Check them out!.)

While there we made use of their wonderfully creepy freight elevator to create some amazing CAS content.  Kajira Blue was at the height of her DID best that day and we got many great shots!  Here are a few samples:

But let’s talk about that last scene, where she is in an inverted suspension.  That was rope done specifically to get a particular image, I would no have used that approach in an actual scene.  

Most of the time when I am shooting a scene for a CAS or other purpose, I try to make sure that what I am shooting is something I would be comfortable doing in an actual BDSM scene.  I don’t want to put out dubious examples that others might try to follow, possibly resulting in injury.  I have not yet created a CAS post on this particular image, but I plan to do so in the future just to make this point:  Just because you see it online doesn’t mean you should try to recreate it!

Blue really wanted to do a suspended inversion in this setting inspired by the inverted rope suspension scene in the “Bitch Better Have My Money” music video by Rhianna.  It was a fun idea, but we were trying to get it done at the end of our studio time, after having already shot 4 other scenes that day.  Also, we had very limited time before we had to run out and drive across town to teach as part of our ongoing book tour.  I had originally planned to do the inversion using two Gravity Boots y un Doble columna around the ankles, but we forgot the heels we had planned to use.  For Blue, Gravity Boots are quite painful as they squeeze her foot on the sides while compressing the ball of her foot.  Everyone is different, this would pose no issue for some, but Blue’s feet are sensitive when squeezed that way.  We usually compensate for this by having her wear high heels that help provide structure and support; protecting her feet and looking amazing in the process.  But we forgot them, so we needed to use a different technique.  I had a few ideas, but chose to use a few Load-bearing Double Columns connected so as to distribute the force across several places on her lower legs. It worked, but it was also something that she could not sustain for more than the few minutes it took to get her in the air, swing her around a bit and get a few incredible shots. Blue was actively involved in the problem solving process, insisting that she didn’t care if she could only sustain the position for a very short period of time. We also enlisted Flynn from Obliqe to act as a safety monitor and to help get her up and down quickly.  Without his help, we would have had to delay that shoot to a different time and place… and Blue really wanted to shoot this inversion in this setting.

My point is this:  I would not have used this specific approach shown in this picture in a one-to-one scene.  This form was too intense for my partner to sustain and required an additional person to execute it within my risk profile.  It was fine for the shot, but I would do several things differently if I wanted to do anything more than take a few pictures. … But you see none of that in the picture itself!

To modify the tie, I backed out the outer teardrop weave and instead wove it through the shoulder straps above the chest band.  It still looks cool and is still functional, but it is a very different look.  It allowed me the extra rope I needed to finish shooting what I had planned for the back.

I felt comfortable making that adjustment while shooting the tutorial because the images I then had showed a smooth completion of the primary story I was telling: How to tie this particular tie. … But that other story – a planned tie does not always work out exactly as planned and what you might do if that happens – is also worth telling.  Other riggers may get value out of seeing that specific on-the-fly adjustment.  But as a separate conversation, not at que moment, at que point in que tutorial.  So I took the pictures to allow me to show the modification and talk about it now.

Main point: Pictures 27+ in the Teardrop Bolero Detalle paso a paso Tutorial actually have a different front. ~ Only now do you know the full story. ~

Compare for inspiration, not for criticism!

So… what you see may not be what you think you are seeing.  When comparing yourself to others, don’t criticize yourself based only on what you are seeing. You probably have almost no accurate context for what you are looking at, while you have a significant amount of context about yourself. That is not a fair comparison. So choose a different path.  Instead of saying something like, “My work doesn’t look that good”, try, “That looks amazing!  I am going to go practice until I can make it look like that.”  (or better!)  Or realize that what you are looking at requires skills you do not wish to learn!  “One reason that picture looks amazing is that whoever took it has really good photography skills.  I don’t want to learn about photography so my pictures won’t look like theirs. They probably practiced a lot before they were able to do something like that. I should cut myself some slack because I’ve only just started. Every expert was once a beginner.”

Practice this. Practice finding the parts of what you see that are inspirational to you and keeping those, while discarding the rest.  The parts that aren’t inspirational or valuable to you don’t matter, and may not even be real!

Work to notice when you are making comparisons.  In those moments, make the conscious choice to re-write your patterns.  Take the good, leave the bad.  Practice this.  We get good at what we practice.