So, that would be me. Big time.
In case you were wondering.
Put me in a line at Starbucks and you'll see a human being using the power of his brain to imagine (and instantly resolve) every possible way in which he might be, well... in the way.
I imagine I may be a breath of fresh air in some public spaces -- a person intently focused on not interrupting anyone else's flow, even if inadvertently. But take that same skill set and bring it to a career as an artist and...
Well, let's just say there might have been more helpful adaptive behaviors I could have picked up in childhood.
A deep and ever-present fear of being a bother, a disruption or simply in the way has held me back in more ways and in more arenas than I care to name. The most recent manifestation of this pathology of mine (and, oh, is it ever a pathology! Trust me.) reared its ugly head in February when I decided I was ready to share the earliest version of a solo show I'm writing and will be performing (god willing).
I invited about 50 people I know and trust to attend the reading of A Nagging Feeling Best Not Ignored. And, to be honest, I can't complain because when I invite people to new work of my own, I get a pretty great rate of return. The majority of folks I invited did actually show up.
But, inevitably there were a handful of close friends and relatives and ex-lovers who surprised and disappointed me with their absence. Two of them, in fact, were at one time or another, therapists of mine!
As happens these days with theatre in the Zoom Black Box, in the days immediately following my reading, I received about a half dozen emails asking if there might be a video recording of it. And you may or may not be surprised to hear that of the dozen or so people to whom I sent the private password-protected video link, about half still haven't watched it... weeks later.
This was starting to bother me a little bit. So I decided to investigate. And what I found shocked even me.
Without exception, somehow somewhere in the body of our email correspondence on the subject, I had inserted language designed for one purpose and for one purpose only:
To let them off the hook. To give them an out. To make sure they would not find themselves with the uncomfortable burden of having to make time (60 minutes to be exact) for something as unimportant as my new work.
In every case I bent over backwards to make it perfectly clear to the recipient that if they were never able to watch the video, well, that would be just fine with me too.
The problem of course, is that it really isn't fine with me. Nor should it be.
This is my art. My heart. My soul. And if I can't get it up to support and endorse it in an email to an old friend or relative, what the hell am I going to do when it comes time to sell it to the world?
Houston, we have a problem.
