Rumination.

I guess it's that time again.  This whole blog and improv project has been so truly life-changing in many ways beyond it's initial purpose.  But some days, I would rather like to watch a show or something instead of write meaningful prose here, which sometimes takes hours.

But I realize that my purpose is to give you a greater sense of understanding, and so, as it is my duty and honor, I shall abide by my self-afflicted role.  So that tomorrow, my followers, now from Peru, the Ukraine, Russia, and Brazil, not to leave out Canada, Australia, the US, the UK, the UAE, France, Turkey, and Germany, oh yes, and Spain and Portugal, will have something to think about throughout their day.  (And who are all of you, anyway?)  I still believe that there are really only three people following this blog.  At least on a regular basis.  Thanks, mom, dad, and McIntyre.  Nat, I'll count you in on this, too, since you do like the writing.  It does make me feel good that you care.  I will continue to write things that you like to read.  Smiley face.

Yesterday I had an eight-year-old student come for his lesson, and very enthusiastically proclaim, "I wrote a song!"  It was a simple little thing, but a nice melody... more or less a five-note scale up and down, going to a flat 7 before arriving again at the tonic.  My favorite part was the flat 7, of course.  His favorite part was that there were no intervals larger than a second.  He liked the smoothness of it.  He played it a lot of times, sometimes slow, sometimes fast.  And he said, "Isn't it more beautiful, though, when I play it slowly?"  That might not seem like anything, but when a child, usually hyperactive, says something like that, it's pretty special.  At least to me.  I love the care and concern that he had with his creation... and that he even thought about the tempo, and beyond that, that he assessed it in terms of beauty.  And when he played it with pedal, he said, "It doesn't sound good with pedal.  It has to be without pedal.  When it has pedal it sounds confusing."  For all of the grief that we endure as teachers, moments like these make me very happy that I do it.

The topic has been brought up here before, but also in the "real world" about why it matters, the feedback, the validation, whatnot.  Why do we care what other people think?  The other day, I wrote that perhaps it was because of the feeling of giving people something they love.  Yeah, that is true.  I know that feeling.  It's a good one.  But I think this is one of those multi-layered things.  I went back to my very first blog post to reacquaint myself with what I had written there, and sure enough, I still believe it.  I wrote about fear and vulnerability.

And I think that we feel valued by what we create.  And if people don't like it, we think that they will like us less.  I hate to say this, but in some ways I think it's true.  People are drawn to talent.  In other ways, it's a load of BS.  Because surely, I have friends whom I love dearly that find themselves talently-challenged.  (Of course they have talents, some of them are more hidden than others.) 

Now the question is, why do we care if people like us?  I don't think being from Minnesota helps.  But this must be tied into the fear and vulnerability in big ways.  I guess it can hurt us when we put something of ourselves up for public scrutiny, for if it gets rejected, we feel like we are personally being rejected.  As artists, these things that we create are worldly expressions of our souls.  And the more real we are, the deeper the rejection can reach, and we feel the potential for abandonment.  I mean, I guess this is all really obvious stuff, but I'm just working through thoughts here... talking in circles trying to figure out an answer. 

Anyway, it's getting too late to write more.  My brain is all confuzzled, and there's something in my eye.

Here we go, Day 93: https://ia700807.us.archive.org/22/items/Improv111511/11_15_119_04Pm.mp3