I actually listened to the homily this time. It was eerie. Not eerie in the "Jesus Camp
" kind of way, but eerie in the sense that a similar theme was prevalent in my improv class last week. The whole "living-in-the-moment" idea.What the priest was saying boiled down to not worrying about the past or the future. If you intend to follow God, dwelling on either will only deter you from being an ideal disciple. There was a guy who kept saying that when his father died, he wanted to leave in order to bury him. There was this other guy who kept wondering about all of the stupid mistakes he had committed in the past. Jesus was all like "NO! If you're not 100% committed to the task at hand, you're not going to give it your all!" Jesus would've made an awesome coach. The idea was you have to live in the present in order to fully embrace Jesus and his teachings. At least I think that's what the main idea was. I got there pretty late.
In my improv class, that same lesson was being taught. If you try to plan out how a scene's going to go, you're only setting yourself up for failure (that one's pretty obvious). Alternatively, if you keep worrying about mistakes that you've done, then you're now in your head and you're not going to be able to react sincerely. Improv is a mental game, kids. It's really hard to get out of your head once you're in there and when performing 'prov, if your mind is somewhere else, you're screwing yourself. Seriously, it's like any sport. You've got to focus on the present. Live in the now.
Which is also a good life lesson, isn't it? No regrets. Learn from your mistakes. Worrying helps nothing. I'm sure there are other clichés worth mentioning, but for the sake of length, I won't.
Learn from your mistakes. I like that one. Actually, it should be take your mistakes and turn them into gifts. If the condom breaks and you end up getting pregnant, teach that baby to read and make him a doctor. Boom. Now you're set for life, right?
Or not. It might not be as applicable in real life, but in improv, it's an incredible mindset to get into. I wish I had that mantra before in my improv career. Nothing is a mistake. Everything is gold! It might be covered in vomit, so you have to wipe it off and polish it a little, but it's still gold. I've always had the mindset that whether a scene is good or bad depends a lot on your partner. And, yeah, while it's a LOT easier to do improv with someone who knows what's up and who you're familiar with, you can still have a helluva scene with someone who won't agree to a single thing you say. Whether that'll happen depends entirely on you.
Help! That's a perfect word to use in the situation. That's what you need to provide in improv. Help. Assists. Be like Chris Paul and hand out assists while at the same time getting your own points. Aim for a triple double. (I don't know I'm trying so hard to force the sports analogy.) In a scene, according to the iO philosophy, your job is to support your partner. Some partners need more help than others. There are scenes where you don't really have to do anything and it's a great scene because your partner is just that awesome. Then there are other scenes where you have to do quite a bit, not because your partner sucks, but he needs some help before he gets his sea legs.
I hope I'm making sense.
It's a lot like sex.
(Kidding, kidding. I'm not going to force that analogy.)
I want to do improv all the time.
Kinda like sex! (Ok, I'll stop.)
I've been doing a lot of improv lately. And seeing a lot of improv. I don't know why I didn't go to shows before. I should be seeing shows every night. I learn so much just from watching other people do improv. There are people I want to emulate. There are habits that I recognize as detrimental to my improv health. There are people who are just amazing to watch on stage.
So that's kinda what I've been doing these past two months.
I've been writing (kinda). I get really easily distracted. I'll be writing and then I'll decide to research something for whatever it is I'm writing and then twenty minutes later, I'll be looking through someone's facebook profile before I remember that I was supposed to be writing. I don't know how it happens. And I know that when I just sit down and write, I'm super productive. Last week, I set my timer for an hour and just wrote with no breaks. I think I wrote more in that one hour than I did that entire week. I'm like a laser beam. When focused, I can burn through your cornea. When unfocused, I kinda just play with my dog.
ALSO, I've been having these weird anxiety attacks. I've been having these since I moved to Chicago and they're actually a lot better now than when I first got here, but it's still a problem. I have a hard time holding in my pee. Well, that's not entirely accurate. If I realize that there won't be a restroom nearby, I freak out and have to go pee that very moment. I start panicking. It's made public transportation a huge headache. I've had to get off of buses and trains several times because I think I'm going to wet my pants, but of course I never do. I think a lot of it had to do with the stress of moving to a new city and all that jazz, which would explain why it's not happening as often (cus I'm beginning to be more comfortable in my surroundings), but it's still a hassle.
It also happens when I get really nervous (like at auditions). Of course, once the audition starts, it goes away. But then I make a mistake and I keep dwelling on the past and it messes up the rest of my audition because I can't get out of my head and we end up back at square one.
Circle of life.
(Like the sex act!)
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