Yes, That Levi

I recently read or heard the line “leave nothing to chance on race day.”

I think the message is prepare as much as possible for whatever you have ahead of you. It’s also probably about making sure to buy the right shoes or something, I think it was from a commercial.

The idea of preparation is a great one. The people who are successful in ways that I respect and aspire towards worked very hard for a very long time to be ready for any opportunities that eventually ended up in front of them. They also probably worked very hard to make the opportunities happen. But that isn’t leaving nothing to chance.

Working hard at whatever it is that you’re passionate about, especially when you have an eye on a specific goal, does mean making sure to take care of every detail possible. But it also means recognizing there are elements that will forever be out of your control. You can minimize variability but eliminating variability is impossible.

Also, without those uncontrollable elements the spark and excitement the exists in most of the greatest things goes away.

Or maybe I’m just making excuses for my potential future failures.

We are often our worst in front of only the people we love the most. I think that’s because we know their best and trust their best self will show up when our worst self shows up.

What if we are able to build a relationship with the people who we work with and with the people who consume the stuff we make that’s strong enough that we can fail in that same way, risk being our worst selves?

Imagine how much good could come out of that failure.

I first learned the term poseur through skateboard culture in the 1980s. My older brother was really into skating so I hung around with skaters when allowed. It was clear immediately that I wasn’t and wouldn’t become a skater myself. I’m averse to risk and I was a very heavy kid. Fat kids who are afraid of scraping their elbows never become skateboarders.

I’ve felt like a poseur since before I learned what the word meant. In the last decade the term nerd has turned a corner from being what someone hears right before getting punched to being how someone describes himself to seem cool. I worked so hard to fit in with cool people in my youth despite my interest in nerdy things like comics, comedy, and books so since nerd has become a positive I feel like a poseur if I own my nerdiness.

But it recently occurred to me that people can be citizens of any culture they chose. The only difference is whether you are a natural born citizen or you went through a citizenship process to gain acceptance in that culture. In some ways, the work required to get into a cultural community is more impressive than naturally fitting into it. Ultimately, the only one who can determine if you’re a poseur is you. So if you want to pass as something you aren’t and you’re good enough to fool yourself than you cease to be faking.

I took in several non-traditional performances this past week that helped remind me what I love about live theater and what I love about Minnesota’s arts community.

It’s come up before but I can’t say enough good things about the Chicago Avenue Project coming out of Pillsbury House theatre. The program is professional theater artists working with elementary school aged kids to create and stage live short plays. Sometimes the kids write the plays, sometimes the kids perform in the plays, but all the time the kids learn about every part of how theater is made and all the time amazing work shows up on stage. And I don’t mean amazing work in that condescending way where adults tell kids they did a great job because they managed to actually do something. The shows come out of this program have true heart, comedy, dramatic tension, metaphors, and leave audiences asking questions and having discussions. It’s all the things theater is supposed to do.

Another program I was lucky enough to be an the audience for this past week was the Spring shows at Circus Juventas. For the uninitiated, Circus Juventas is performing arts youth circus school in St Paul. It also happens to be the largest youth circus arts school in the country. Not unlike the Chicago Avenue Project, on it’s face Circus Juventas just looks like an after-school and weekend educational program for kids. But in reality it’s an organization that offers kids an opportunity to work with professional circus artists in learning skills, strength, and self-confidence.

And all of the students enrolled in programs at Circus Juvents participate in their shows. They learn the skills and then demonstrate them to a real audience. The shows start with three and four year olds walking on balance beams and doing sommersaults but quickly progresses to 10 year olds on a trapeze, kids riding unicycles, tiny three-tiered human pyramids, and an actual high-flying throw and catch trapeze act. It’s a show that would be terrific if done by adults and yet non one performing is older than 18 and haven’t yet reached their teens.