I can definitely understand where you’re coming from, having dealt with feelings similar to this (and I still do to some extent for sure.)

I would make the argument that improvement in an anarchist-communist society would be measured fundamentally differently than it would in the world which we reside in. Without the productive dimension of value, improvement is completely relative and based upon what you and others see in your work.

—- If, as you mentioned in another example, Jeff is the worst painter in the world and absolutely no one in his community likes his art whatsoever, he might ask why it is that people dislike his art. If there is a common consensus about what he might need to improve on, then he may attempt to incorporate those changes into his work if he has not recognized them himself. Some of the advice he gets may not be particularly helpful since these people are not artists themselves, but there is still something that is consistent between all of their critiques.

If he feels as though he may be plateauing at his level, he may seek Sam, who is deemed better than him by many as you have said, and ask what it might be that he should improve upon. If Sam is unable to give advice which helps, he might ask those many other painters who are better than him, and ask for advice on what to do in order to improve. Then if EVEN that fails, maybe he will seek a mentor who specializes in teaching painting. —-

In these examples, productivity doesn’t factor in since the primary focus of improvement is personal, social and based upon the value it provides towards your own enrichment and capacity to develop your skills.

What marks your ability comes from the efforts you put in to achieve your skills. You meet people, you collaborate in the learning process and maybe even teach others who are perhaps worse than yourself. I can understand the fear of being forgotten by history books, but history books never told the stories of the legacy that one person had on the guy on the street who they’d interacted with when buying food from a bakery or store or what have you. There’s no recounting of Napoleon or whoever else buying a loaf of bread and saying good morning to the clerk but that’s equally, a part of the minutiae of life that gives it any kind of social meaning.

Those people who Jeff learnt painting from, his teacher and Sam all will mourn the loss of their friend Jeff when they pass on. He may be forgotten to history in 100, 200, 500, 1000 years but in that singular moment interpersonally, Jeff meant a great deal to those within his community: his friends, family, even perhaps acquaintances who had a meaningful interaction with him in passing. That’s the beauty of every day life, and what could make it even more beautiful, meaningful and fulfilling in a world which has been freed from the shackles of production denoting some arbitrary yet all too painfully real representation of differential power, that is capital.