Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Spring? Really...Soon? Looking back before looking forward.

Somehow another month has gone by and throughout that time I really haven't seen fit to get agitated enough about anything to take the time to write.  Not that I haven't been agitated...but, really, things are generally good...so why worry?

On the other hand, there is this commitment I made to myself to get some of this stuff written down, so I guess this is a bit of a March update...random thoughts...events...happenings...muddled and confused as they may be.

As people hear what I am doing and that I have secured the MFA Directing spot at Mankato, almost everyone offers some variation on this sentiment:

Aren't you excited?

And how do you explain that, no, I'm not really excited right now.  Right now what I'm doing is going through the grief process that is inherent in completely letting go of a life that I have built up through an extraordinary effort over a really long time.  A decade, if you just focus on the way I have defined myself through theater at Roseville and Eat Street Players and through work in public education, another decade if you include the role of parent that is shifting inexorably, and even just looking at the five years since I became single again there is a tremendous investment in creating a life and a space in which to be defined.

And I am not saying that I am having second thoughts, because I am absolutely and completely certain that the change that is on the horizon is the change I want and need.  And I am excited about the future.  Really excited.  And all the stuff that I learned along the way is coming with me.

But grief is an essential piece of the process of change, and one ignores it at one's own peril. 

So I am doing some work on letting go and examining the things that are being left behind.  Part of that is doing a bit of an inventory of the lessons learned.  Which inevitably leads to regret.  You can't really learn unless you fail, and in failure lies regrets.

Regret is an interesting place to be...I imagine we all have lots of them; things we wouda, shouda, couda done differently.  Choices that could have been made or effort that could have been expended...not to mention the stupid shit that you just hope no one ever finds out about.  Theoretically we get to start over every morning when we wake up, but the reality is so much harder than that.  The entanglements that we create and the commitments that we enter into define their own highly bound yellow brick road and rarely is Oz on the other end of the road.  To really bundle up a period of learning and carry it forward into something genuinely new seems daunting.

I am about ten days away from opening what will likely be the last show I direct in Minneapolis for a while.  Shameless plug here...come see Into the Woods at Eat Street Players.  Although it could certainly have had more rehearsal time, what we have had has been fabulous...for me anyway.  A fair amount of table work and character chatting and such...brisk blocking and lots of good music work...fun.  A feisty and talented cast has made the process really engaging and I usually walk away from rehearsals feeling a deep sense of satisfaction...and look forward to the opening.

At the same time I have been trying to stage How To Succeed at RAHS; which has been a struggle as the show has had to compete with Spring Break and a host of music tours for the attention and time of its cast.  The show will be fun and the kids are great; but the contrast is striking.  It's one of the challenges of working in a high school where there are so many great opportunities for kids...your activity is a piece of a complex and challenging puzzle.  And I can't honestly say that things there have gone they way I had envisioned.

I saw Tommy at Southwest last Saturday and it provided a bit of a contrast that was humbling.  So much I could have done better to grow the program at RAHS...things to do differently next time, I guess.  Part of the challenge of pulling lessons from experience is parsing out that which you could have changed and that which was outside of your control.  Just because something isn't what you would like it to be doesn't mean that didn't do as you should have done. 

"When going to hide, know how to get there.  And how to get back.  And eat first."

Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance

We don't really think about grieving a loss when the loss is something chosen in a process of starting an exciting new adventure.  We assume that we will just look forward and everything behind will take care of itself.  But I don't think it works that way.

Hmmmm....more later on all of this.  I'm going to go hide in a cave now.


Saturday, March 02, 2013

On Being Mean...

An old classmate of mine posted a clever description of how they had woken last night to discover the world had ended due to Sequestration, and were relieved to discover this morning that it had not, in fact, ended.  It was smart, but mean.  You might argue that it was clever satire, and I can see that perspective, but there was something about it that still felt mean.

And I had no idea how to respond.

The problem for me with politics is that there are so many parallel value systems happening simultaneously that it can be very difficult to overcome one system even if you happen to be largely in agreement in another.

For instance, the writer above, I'll call him Al, clearly has a strong sense of anger toward our current President and the Democratic party.  I understand this as I felt the same way about the Bush administration and the current Republican party.  They make me angry.  Obama makes Al angry.

What is puzzling to me, and what I struggle with, is that Al is a nice guy.  A good Christian.  He and his wife bring needy children into their homes and I imagine they provide a nurturing and kind environment for them.  I don't think Al would turn away someone in need.

Parallel Values:

Government is the Problem vs. Government Provides Solutions
People Deserve Help vs. People Need to Be Self-Sufficient
Individual vs. Collective

This is so much more complicated than I can communicate effectively, but somehow this morning I feel a need to try.

So, when I look at Al, I see a guy who believes that People Deserve Help, but who probably believes that Government is The Problem.

An underlying this belief about government is ambivalence about the Individual and the Collective.  This isn't rocket science, you can find thousands of books about the topic; however, it is interesting how it can play out in our current politics.

Al wants folks to get help, but he wants to be able to control how that help is distributed and to what extent he provides it.  Government, despite being representative in nature, is perceived as outside of his control and, therefore, not good.  Consequently, the political party whose goal is to limit government is more desirable.

What I'm trying to wrap my head around is that while Al wants to eliminate inefficient big government, what he doesn't seem to be able to see is that in doing so the people most likely to experience more pain and more loss are the very people whom he is most likely to want to help when he looks at the problem from his individual perspective.  Government may not be an efficient way to address the problems of poverty and oppression, but it is in fact the collective voice of the individuals in society for whom that is the goal.

Sequestration is a great example of this.  Yes, in the context of the overall budget it's a small amount, but when people talk about it being a disaster they mean it is going to be  disaster for INDIVIDUALS who are very vulnerable.  So often the victims of political war are those least able to influence the process.  The poor.  The oppressed....la, la, la, la, la....

To a great degree its a problem of size.  No doubt Al would be completely supportive of his church providing aid to the community, which is an example of government supported solutions to social challenges (ie the church is, in fact, a kind of government structure).  It becomes a question of size.

I was trying to make this point in a conversation last night.  My thought was that the problem with American democracy isn't its structure, but it's size.  I don't think you can really make government work effectively after a certain size is reached and it becomes impersonal.  There was a commentary on NPR about how Mayors generally don't pursue higher office because they are essentially non-partisan in their approach to politics...they are in office to solve problems, not to express partisan politics.  In order to move higher up in office, they need to assume partisan positions, and to at least some degree that means they are no longer in the business of solving problems.  Certainly there are mayors who do move up and on, but lots of mayors are just in it to do good, local work.

Size matters.

Friday, March 01, 2013

The Accidental Life

A friend posted an older oped piece by David Brooks from the New York Times about the differences between the Well-Planned Life and the Summoned Life.  I thought this article was interesting in light of Brooks' recent book,The Social Animal, which was published about six months after the op-ed, so it must have been mostly done at that point. 

The reason I think it's interesting is that the op-ed piece seems to imply we can or do make a choice between a planned life and a life that is more experiential.  His own book would argue that we don't really choose either, but follow a path that is created by our context (physical, emotional and otherwise) and our learned pattern.  What I liked about his book was that it lays out an argument that if you want to change your behavior then you need to change your context.  And, of course, choices are rarely around polarities.  We plan, we experience, we change (or we don't) in various measure.

I wonder about these ideas...the idea of choice...when I think about the attribute of being disciplined.  I have people around me who are disciplined; who choose this action or that because it is wise or desirable and then maintain a long-term practice of behavior along that path.  It appears to me that they do this because they are disciplined...because they make a choice.  About myself I know that this is not something that I can do.  Unless a specific intrinsic motivation exists to engage in a particular behavior, that behavior will not occur with any regularity at all.  I might do it once...or twice even...but with discipline?  Not a chance.  In other words, if I don't like something, I don't usually do it. 

So, in order to do things that are good for me I need to put in place external forces that overcome that reluctance to act.  They can be hard to find.

One amusing version of this that I stumbled on this past winter is an app for my phone named GymPact.  You make a pledge to exercise a particular number of times per week, and then you pledge a dollar amount for each time you do it (for instance, $5 per session).  Then, your phone keeps track of whether you are exercising.  If you don't make your pact, it costs you.

It's interesting how much avoiding exercise is worth.  ;-)  The bottom line is that I have managed to exercise three times per week most of the past month or so.  My pact is for three times per week.  However, to demonstrate how avoidant I am of fulfilling this pledge, my exercise is always on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  This isn't because the weekend is an easier time to do it; it's because the pact week runs Monday through Sunday, so the last three days of the pact are Friday, Saturday, Sunday.  On Monday through Thursday I intend to exercise, but don't because I can fulfill the pact even if I wait until Friday. 

I'm tempted to set my weekly pact to five times and see if I start on Wednesday.

It's Friday...off to the gym.