I have to remind myself that just because something IS doesn't mean it NEEDS to be or that it is RIGHT. I need to learn how to take apart the box once I've thought outside of it.
I need to be like the people I admire who choose something ridiculous and then make it a reality. I just end up hating myself when I resign myself to accepting that I am powerless.
I think back to working with Steve Wangh and the time he wanted to tweak some quirk of the staging during troilus (a very complex show utilizing at least four separate elements involving aerial rigs) and I, in my stage managerial role, said to him that we couldn't do it the way he wanted to and offered some alternatives. He asked "why?" And I explained that we would have to pretty much take down the entire set, re-rig it, and then rebuild everything around it in a new way-in my mind, as much as it should change, because it hadn't been in the original plan it was impossible. He thought for a moment and then said "ok. So lets do that."
And we did. And it was great. And I need to let myself be impractical and follow my instincts or I'm never going to be happy. I trained myself to live within other people's definitions, to find little ways to satisfy my creative urges and small rebellions made out of compromise.
I need to learn that sometimes, it is ok and even necessary to refuse a compromise that will squish the life out of you, or your work, or something deeply cherished.
This is something I think all my teachers in college were trying to tell me, something that my psychologist has been trying to help me see, something that I've been trying to find permission to do for years...and it's all finally solidifying for me because of the threat of my children being tossed into a broken "necessary" system unless I do something about it. Somehow, I have to find a way to tangibly do something about it, instead if just whining and submitting to my(their) fate because the alternative is "too hard."
Now how the hell do I start?
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