10 Strangers & Yes
A few weeks I walked into a room in a random apartment block in a slightly rundown part of Raval (the dodgier part of the city). With florescent light, fake wood floors, and long windows that were covered by the darkness that had descended outside. And for two whole hours, I played, in a way I haven’t for a long time.
Together with 9 other Improv theatre newbies, I spent the evening learning the basics of improv theatre. Playing games, answering questions, saying the first thing that popped into my head and most importantly saying yes to everything.
I was for the first time in a long time in a room where wrong and right didn’t exist. Only simple positive acceptance of everything that was presented and everything that was.
There is something around being stupid for now reason with 9 strangers that got me thinking about where I am afraid to play and the role that getting it wrong plays in that.
I questioned, if I could play there so repeatedly with lots of people around me, then why could I not play more in arguably more comfortable familiar areas of my life. Why was the fear of getting it wrong stopping me from trying new approaches to writing, wearing the thing that felt good rather than was just what I always wore? Stopping to capture an idea or play around with a thought rather than walking past thinking that would have been fun.
And I have hit on two core elements:
Being a beginner – when you are a beginner you are supposed to get things wrong, it is part and parcel of it. That’s how you learn. Which sort of mitigates wrong as it makes it right.
Acceptance and celebration are the only options – You switch off your judgement of whether something is wrong or right and instead you greet the thing you have been given and do something with that. And even better at the end you don’t judge it as wrong or right, just observe how easy it was, whether it flowed and ultimately how fun it felt.
With both of these wrong doesn’t exist. Observation yet, even judgement perhaps – feedback is important. But the classification of that as wrong doesn’t. And it got me thinking if that space can exist in a room with random other people consistently week after week, then it was something that could and can be cultivated in other areas. If only in the agreement with yourself that wrong doesn’t really help you.
I think it is not a question of switching wrong on and off, but instead the practice of shifting into a world with different rules. So instead of everything always having to binary sometimes things can be exploratory. Because wrong serves a purpose every now and then but life isn’t about getting it wrong or right after all, but instead maybe about building more experiences.
Not sure of the answer but for now I am going to say Yes and.