Quoted from OLDPINGUY:Ill evoke your empathy.....I am playing 41 years and still suck!
me too... although 45 years for me... i played my first pin when i was 5 and was instantly hooked... 
pinball is like golf and sex... you don't have to be good at it to have a good time...
op, the VAST majority of people who play pinball never even consider entering a tournament (count me in that majority), and we still enjoy it a great deal...
learn two things:
- have fun while playing... play for the sake of playing... if the only thing that matters to you is achieving high scores, you might as well not even bother any longer*...
and
- don't care about the end result...
that second one is one of the real keys to being "good" at anything... the old "stay in the present" routine... i mentioned golf earlier... i am a "better than adequate" golfer... my best rounds come when i have no idea what the scorecard says... 
* and if you are going to "collect for the sake of collecting, and not play them", do the pin community a favor and release your machines back into the wild again...
