What Happens When No One’s the Best?

Everything in life is on a spectrum. How can it not be? We’re made up of light and waves and particles, things the exact nature of which cannot be determined. (Remember that law from high school, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle? It’s still true.)

So why should things be easy to understand?

I had a dream where my father asked me, “How do you know who you are?”

I didn’t get the chance to answer that in the dream, but maybe I can answer it now, which is that I’m a bat echolocating.

Input from the outside world either confirms or denies the way that I think about myself, and I can either block out the new information if it doesn’t conform to my beliefs, or update them.

This is really about clowning class, obviously. I have no idea who’s the best in it, which is amazing. I really don’t know. I’ve never had that kind of class before. In all my improv classes or acting classes or any kind of class, it’s always been clear.

But the way the instructor gives feedback is exactly the same for each person. And each performer brings something completely different to the table.

So how do I know if I’m doing well?

Maybe that’s the point of clown. The best doesn’t matter. And being the teacher’s favorite doesn’t matter either.

So if I’m not working for my prof’s approval, whose am I working for? My own? The audience’s? Like it was supposed to be all along?

What a novel thought.