Busting Old Ghosts That Haunt Me

This weekend I received a reminder that failure is only temporary if you let it be. Instead, it can be only a pause, maybe a setback, or a building block for a success. I focus on results and often get lost in the shame and disappointment I equate with failure.

I'm currently in rehearsals for a show/experience that will run in October. We're starting our second week of rehearsals, so we're in the exploratory and workshop stages for the moment. In rehearsal Saturday, I made a specific choice of character with the aim of challenging myself in one of the exercises/experiments. I made other choices regarding that character that went opposite of what I felt would have been the obvious or easy choice. I started to feel like I made a bad choice and performed horribly even though I stuck to my choice in an attempt to hash it out. I felt the exact opposite of success and felt myself begin to slide down into the trap of comparing myself to others.

Everyone else around me seemed to be doing better. They made better choices. Why the hell did I avoid the obvious choice? They were in the world and I was floundering — committed to my choice and trying to make it work, but I was floundering. In my character interactions, I was making it easy for everyone else. What even makes me think that I'm actually an actor? 

The change happened on Sunday while sweating in the Merchandise Mart at the Minnesota State Fair. I realized that adding one element could make my choice 100% valid without negating my other choices, if given another opportunity to run with it. That one element would have tied in with another choice I made in an earlier experiment with a different character. It makes more sense now and feels less like a complete failure, but a gut/subconscious step toward a bigger success, hinging on character and subtlety more than the obvious and subsequently easy.

Or rather, what I thought would be easy for me.

Despite being a clown and improviser, I often have difficulty trusting my gut. My brain — goofy as it may be — craves logic and reason in choices and situations, even in making a choice not based in reason at all. My heart cries out for certainties and is frequently left to cry it out in a corner instead.

From this vantage point, I can't tell for sure if it was my gut or my brain that led me, but at some point, they started working together without my knowing it. Now I'm starting to see how the choice that first felt right, then horribly wrong and reputation-ruining in the midst of my peers and cast mates, actually weaves together with what can make a more interesting choice. That choice might not seem to fit at first, but can start out as an itch in the back of the brain, then as a feeling, then finally as a reveal that can tie in with the context of everything else in one, important detail saved for the perfect time. Ultimately, it's the director's job to determine that and to decide if it's worthwhile to pursue, but at least I have something to bring to the table other than self-flagellation and social/performance anxiety.

Not all of the webs a spider weaves have to be tangible.

Incredible, But NOT Impossible

Despite my aversion to internet hyperbole, I watched this particular posting of the runner-up dance troupe at the Vibe XIX 2014 competition. I'd seen friend after friend post it and caved. After all, it was dance, which is something I enjoy watching, thanks to my parents' influence. Different sites had different hyperbolic statements, usually alluding to superhuman or impossible. The routine is tight. The dancers are strong and the synchronization is top-notch. The secret?

They are neither superhuman nor impossible. The only secret is that they are human and many things are indeed possible.

This is what happens when you have a group of people passionate about one thing. It would not work if each of the people did not have this thing in common that they prized greatly. This is the result of artists working in concert with each other. This is rehearsal. This is practice. This is trial-and-error. This is putting down the video game or hurrying home from school or the McJob because you don't want to be late for practice. This is picking yourself up over and over again. This is result of countless meals of nothing but love-work-and-sacrifice sandwiches. This is doing it "just one more time" when someone in charge tells you, "No. That's not it. Do it again."

This is what happens when a group of somebodies chooses a passion over a soul-crushing rat race. The reaction of the people who watch is part of the payment: the feeling that onlookers are left carrying with them that may hopefully inspire them to pursue a passion instead of caving to fear or an idea of propriety. This is only one reward of The Arts.

There may be no money. There may be no fame. But recognition for the results of the work and the impact on the public is the biggest payoff. I should not blame people for their inability to convey the impact this had on their blown minds, but rather laud/applaud the work and hope that it shakes some people up to pursue a passion and thereby make the world all the richer for it.

Choose the Right Fight

Some feel justice was served. Others feel it failed. Some believe it stood true. Others believe it was manipulated by ghosts of the past, haunting the system once more.

A jury found a man not guilty. At best, a possibly innocent man was not jailed. I have my beliefs, but did not see the events. None of us did. I do know that none of us — individually or as a nation that strives to be one out of many — won. The big winner was fear. It has been winning as of late and it's on a big global winning streak with its pal ignorance.

Fear is being used to divide us on multiple fronts on multiple issues. Fear of being wrong. Fear of being thought weak. Fear of loss. Fear of hurt. Fear of not enough. Fear of having what's yours taken from you. Fear of the Other. Fear of compromise. Fear that a differing opinion might have value. Fear of change from without and within. Fear of challenge. Fear of growth. Fear of compassion. Fear of the unknown.

Fear caused these events. Fear is what allows those abusing power to manipulate the rest of us into fighting for scraps and protecting their power. We are ALL acting like sheeple in the face of our fears and it is not making things any better. It is not making us more secure.

I invite all fellow humans to think, examine themselves, identify their fears, and find a way to work against them. Live from courage, not fear. It's not always easy, but the benefits for ourselves, our communities, and our loved ones are great and far-reaching. Strength gained through fear is a lie. Strength cultivated through courage in the face of the fears within is the greater, more lasting strength.

No matter who you are, no matter what you believe, no matter how you tend to vote, face fear. Acknowledge fear. Challenge fear. And when we do, we will be better able to address a larger and more dangerous fear: the fear of our collective ruin.

Fight fear.

Please.


— Gregory Parks, 14 July 2013

Friday Morning Post Workout Haiku

Morning light streams in
through portals, doorways, and flaps –
man-made lights still sleep

WAMA: Awards Shows and Art

I have not seen the most recent Oscar Awards. I only saw friends' posts and live tweets and the video of Shirley Bassey singing "Goldfinger" (a must-see event in my book). Although I was inspired to make a tongue-in-cheek comment about the "saving white people movie" (Argo) beating out the "saving black people movie" (Lincoln, but I also was unaware that Django Unchained was nominated), I wasn't really inspired to chime in on anything until a comment thread on a Twin Cities arts community associate's page evolved into one commenter going into full Angry Black Person mode. Not only was this individual 1) not really listening to anyone else [understandable, given the strength of emotions] and 2) calling the academy racist [hyperbole] and out of touch and not very diverse [as if we didn't already know that], but in the slashing and burning and flailing of rage-arms 3) essentially suggested that because the Oscars are the domain of the powerful, monied, famous crowd who cares only about accolades, what they do is insignificant as art [an insultingly reductionist and childishly simplistic statement that qualifies more as a tantrum than as an actual argument].

The stream of comments by that person eventually led me to type this comment that I feel proud of and falls perfectly in the realm of "who asked me, anyway?". I treasure my point of view because it is one that I grew into believing and I feel it helps me maintain perspective as I pursue my own goals while hoping to encourage and inspire others to do the same. It is something I often ponder these days.

"Later parts of this thread also bring up the long-standing question of why do we equate poverty in artists with artistic integrity? Why do we feel like we must ignorantly and arrogantly enforce that limitation of creative slavery? Why, if someone has been working for years and decades to be recognized and to maybe reach a broader audience, are they suddenly a sellout when their efforts bear the fruit they were seeking? Not only is art subjective, but to subject artistic media to the limitations of "obscurity = excellence" or "breadth of audience = lack of so-called artistic integrity" is gatekeeping, exclusionary trash. Yes, awards shows are just another big prom, but sometimes art is thought-provoking and maybe a bit fuzzy and other times it's eye-candy drawn in broad strokes and primary colors."

Meeting Miho

Since my return to Kinoshita Circus here in Japan, I have been learning about Japanese circus fandom. One fan in particular is an artist who I would swear is a professional illustrator, but she's not — not as far as I know, anyway. She's just an artist who loves drawing pictures of the circus performers in addition to her other work. Thanks to Facebook, many of my clown associates have become aware of her work and she has drawn clown portraits of them as well. It's been very flattering to be the subject of someone's art and it's been a warm feeling passing knowledge of her labor of love on to others.

In today's second show, I was meeting and greeting audience members as I do, and a slight, smiling woman in a salmon colored sweater said, "Yoroshiku! Watashi wa Miho desu." ("Nice to meet you! I am Miho.")

"Gureggu desu." ("I'm Greg.")

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

"Miho? Mouri Miho!? OHHHHHHHHHHHHH! MIHO!"

After months of posting pictures on Facebook and sending picture postcards to people on the show via an envoy on the show, I finally had the opportunity to meet her in person. It was an excellent moment and it made the show extra special.

Of course, she brought a gift of drawings for people, made into little cellphone charms.

I Complete Me

Valentine's Day is coming, or as fans of Homestarrunner.com's Teen Girl Squad might say, "Vamlumtime's Day". Alongside people buying gifts for their beloveds or desired beloveds, there are people who use this day to be miserable and some might even mope, feeling that another person will make them complete.

I say bullshit. Yes, being single in a sea of married and dating peers can be an emotional trial full of frustration, despair, loneliness, and self-doubt — one that I live — but still, bullshit.

However, a peer of mine put it a lot more eloquently. She is improvisor/instructor/whirlwind Jill Bernard, one of the three founding members of HUGE Theater, which all people in the TwinCities should visit if they don't already. Jill had this to say and a lot of people are quoting it with good reason. Read it, take it to heart, and take it to the bank:

"If you do not have a significant other and you are feeling hurt by Valentine's Day, please give yourself the best Valentines Day on the planet. Please treat yourself to whatever makes you happiest. Be your own significant other, because you are very very significant. You do have someone to share it with, it's you. You are a person and you are more than enough, and it's not that you're not good enough for anyone else, you are, but you're also good enough for you. I thought this before I had a boyfriend and I will continue to think it after he dies from eating too much cheesy rice and sausage.

BESIDES. BESIDES. If it is really your goal to have a significant other, other people like whole people. They don't like half people who only exist as defined by others. So go ahead, be whole, be complete, have a rich interesting life and make yourself a little nest that is perfect for you but could also expand. It took me a long time to figure that out and then I got a boyfriend so now my opinion seems like 'that's easy for you to say' but it wasn't."