The Journey Begins

I woke up at 5:45 yesterday morning and with a focus unsuited to the early hour I packed and tidied my house and stepped outside to be ferried off to my destination. Honestly, the day was a million times better than I expected it to be considering all of the anxiety I'd had leading up to it. Who would've thought that spending an entire day cooped up with 10 very funny people would be a really good time?

I felt a couple of things that I think are important to highlight. The first of them being the first time I've ever honestly thought "I can do this. I can handle this, no problem," with regard to iO Intensive. I've puffed up my chest a lot and shouted a bunch of bluster into the wind, but this is an example of "fake it til you make it." At long last, I experienced a few flashes of genuine confidence that have been sorely missing in the lead-up to my trip to the improv monastery. Baby steps.

I also noticed a feeling that was a little gross and that I need to be pretty aware of and steer myself away from. I had a moment when I compared myself to the performers in the shows we saw and I thought, "They're not better than me cause they're in Chicago. We're probably in similar places as performers," which is a kind of shitty but not necessarily inaccurate thought. However, it led to a panic that people will assume I know nothing because I'm going to be a student. A fear that all the work I've put in over the years is going to be discounted and I'll be looked at like I'm less than the things I've aspired to be, and it made me angry.

That line of thinking is super dumb and I know it. There is no point to comparing myself to some strangers and bristling at the idea that they might somehow be thought of as "better" than me. Improv and Theatre are art and the qualities of what makes a performer "better" are incredibly subjective. Also, who cares if someone is legitimately better than me? I'm here to learn and improve, not demonstrate that I'm already a perfect and unstoppable force. If someone does things that I like, I will learn from them (read as: steal all their awesome qualities) and I'll be better for it. If someone assumes that I don't know anything and continues to believe that after seeing me work, maybe I should consider the idea that I don't know anything. 

Be kind, be thoughtful, and be humble. Those are the directives beneath everything I'm going to do here, I just have to continue repeating them.