Monday, November 13, 2006

Solving

It seems like most problem solving can be boiled down into two camps:
 
1.  Determining, to the best of your availability, all pertinent facts, variables, and tolerences.  Taking into consideration all of these things, calculate a result.
 
2.  Ignore the problem altogether.  If you see something shiny and distraction-like and seemingly answerful then grab onto it.  At the point where it isn't the answer, allow yourself to be distracted by the next shiny, distraction-like and answerful thing.
 
     2a. Repeat until all wrong answers are eliminated.
 
 
Only one of these answers is likely to keep you out of trouble on your taxes.  The other will take much longer but it is much more likely to give you an interesting journey.
 
 

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Science of Breath

In general, I am a big fan of breathing. No, really.

When I was young, I was expressive. If I felt like it, I would hug (I admit it, I was a hugger). I was, for the most part, pretty sedate but I was loyal to my friends and they to me.

I danced. I probably looked like a fool but I had FUN. I joked around with folks. I wasn't gregarious. I had issues but in general my life was not awful.

In college, mainly because it seemed like the thing to do, I got married. I married someone with a sense of propriety. Someone with such a strong opinion on how people should act that I changed.

My friends, I was told, were not really my friends. Hugging ANYONE was inappropriate. My dancing and humor? An embarrassment.

My world shrank down from a fun place teaming with fun people down to one...single...person. That person expressed their love of me (and only they loved me) but I was still an embarrassment. I gave up my planned career in music because 'I looked silly'.

My life centered on paying our insurmountable bills and medical payments (for the most terrible diseases known to man that were totally untraceable and undetectable).

I was sinking and I knew it but stubbornness made me push on.

My job led me away for extended periods of time. Funny, but I would make friends, I would DO things. Wind of these friendships made it home so our spouses would try to be friends too. Inevitably feuds would break out back home and I was told that I really should be offended at my friends that were with me.

Across the world, I was still being isolated.

Leave it to say that my divorce was not caused solely by my transition. It was dead early on but was kept together out of stubbornness and futility.

And it left me in a state unable to hug, afraid to dance, and totally self-conscious.

I should have mourned my marriage. Even bad marriages deserve that. I didn't. I felt finally free! (Remember that 'I like breathing' thing? This is the point where I figured it out.)

I haven't been trying to recapture my youth or anything but I have been trying to recapture its flavor. In drama class, they talk of a little director that criticizes whatever you do (if you listen). I've been trying to get mine to shut up (it's not even in my voice).

I class this week, I had a bit of a breakthrough. For the first time in a long time I played. I had fun and I didn't care if it made me look the fool. I moved, I danced, I had FUN. People laughed but SO WHAT?

I feel like I am starting to finally catch my breath. I am REALLY liking this breathing thing.

When I do? Look out.

Monday, November 06, 2006

Decide

The decision to live your life as a happy person is an easy one.
 
It's the execution that can truly suck.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Practice makes...

Practice does not make perfect.
 
Practice makes permanent.
 
I was pretty much always a band geek.  In High School even more so.  Every year, the state or the region would put together an all-star band.  For this, we had to submit a tape of our performance.  Much of the structure was rigid, scales and such.  We also had to record an individual audition piece.
 
I went to my private instructor with this task in mind.  He was a judge of this contest for years and even though he would have to recuse himself when my tape was up, we could still work on it.
 
"It's easy." he said "Just play it perfectly."
 
Yeah.  Right.
 
Of course this cued our delving into one of our philosophy sessions.  This one was about practice.
 
"If you play something over and over and always screw up in the same place.  Then you will ALWAYS screw up in that place.  Practice does not make perfect.  Practice makes permanent."
 
With that, we talked about playing something so slow it was almost painful but play it perfectly note for note.   Then speed things up.  He pulled out a difficult piece that I hadn't seen before and had me attempt to play it at tempo.  I muddled through passably but there were noticeable mistakes.  He broke out the third movement and had me try again but this time S-L-O-W-L-Y.  Slowly it was simple.  Then he had me play it again, steadily ratcheting up the speed with each playing.  It wasn't perfect but it was pretty darn good.
 
His point was made.  About a week later I made my tape and submitted it.  A month later I received notification that I got into the orchestra!
 
His lesson about practice has always stuck with me (of course the side lesson on how to edit the tape didn't hurt much either)

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Yes. But...

There are some basic rules in improvisation.  One of them can be summed up by two simple words:
 
"Yes. But...."
 
When a circumstance is given within the context of the scene.  It is accepted.   It becomes 'canon'.  Otherwise the scene can devolve into the Monty Python "I've come to have an argument" sketch.
 
"I've come to have an argument."
 
"No, you haven't"
 
"Yes, I have."
 
"No, you haven't!"
 
and on and on.
 
You see, there are ground rules for these worlds we create.  The main difference is that we are writing much of the world on the fly.  You don't have to dwell on the new facts - they are just there.
 
I'll never be a great actress.  That really isn't where my passion lay.  But I do try to collect experiences and try to get something out of them.
 
Accept and move forward.
 
Yes. But....