Its late(r then when I normally post), I've had some wine and I'm already running out of topics for my blog. So this entry will probably be on the shorter and/or more rambly side.
This Saturday night I went to the MAC Championship for marching band. For three years I was in the East Hartford High School marching band. I learned drill and my music and went to championships like MAC. Perhaps I am remembering incorrectly...but I am pretty sure we were terrible.
These bands were amazing. Here is a clip I found online of the band that won:
It made me think of how important it is to care about what you are doing. Those high school students would not have been as precise and amazing and together as they were if they didn't all care. I don't think my fellow classmates cared when I was in a marching band. And I think a large part of it was we had no expectation of success or history to live up to. I know for at least one of the championships we went to, there were no other bands in our division so we had nothing to go up against.
Back when I did dance, I cared. I remember whenever I got a compliment it usual went something like this: "You are a great dancer...you look like you are having such a good time!" I think those things are absolutely linked. If I had been a technically perfect dancer but didn't have the usual GIANT SMILE that I had during recitals I don't think I would have gotten any compliments.
It matters in theater and improv as well. A lot of improv means being ok with looking silly at times, because looking silly and giving 100% looks amazing whereas looking silly and not caring looks awful. I remember a defining moment of realizing how amazing and trusting and OK with being silly my troupe is when we were doing an exercise where someone would give us an item we would have to create as a group with our bodies. The suggestion was dragon and I lept forward to be a wing and half a second behind me was another member being another wing, then immediately followed some jaws and spikes...no hesitant, no one was doing it halfway. We were all invested and caring, no matter how silly it might seem.
So yeah...caring matters. And creating things with other people that care matters too. I hope this entry feels like it has a point.
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