Questions, part 1

One of the strategies used by life coaches who are helping you find yourself is to have you answer some deep questions.  I generally roll my eyes, mostly because I'm a coward and don't want to know the answers.  I might have to confront myself, and nobody wants that.

But here are two questions every Lichtenbergian should have in the back of his/her head.

The first is, What is truly worth doing, whether you succeed or fail?

That's important, because as Lichtenbergians know, failure is always an option.  We celebrate failure because if you've failed, it means you've done something.

Poor quality blamable on primitive technology...

Back when I was running the Newnan Theatre Company, we would often tackle shows that most people would say a community theatre shouldn't tackle. For example, I directed a production of The Winter's Tale in which I dragged 20+ amateurs and one professional into a show that required we make 60+ Elizabethan costumes on top of engaging with one of Shakespeare's more difficult texts.  (Normally we costumed Shakespeare in easier periods.)

At the cast party, the Equity member who sneaked down to Newnan just to play a coveted role looked at all the happy actors partying and said to me, "They don't know they're not supposed to be able to do this, do they?"  And no, they didn't know. They just did it.

The point is, The Winter's Tale—and all those costumes—were worth doing, whether we succeeded or failed.

So before you stop yourself from even attempting something daring, ask yourself the question.  Is it worth doing even if I fail?  (Trick question: the answer is yes.)

We'll look at the second question on Friday.

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