How Fascinating

"Mistakes can be like ice (in skiing), if we resist them, we may keep on slipping into a posture of defeat. If we include mistakes in our definition of performance, we are likely to glide through them and appreciate the beauty of the longer run." – Rosamund Stone Zander

I have such a full heart this week reading the Art of Possibility.  It's an amazing book regardless, but I think especially so for anyone who has ever done any type of performance. In particular it focuses on music which was my life for so long. It's simultaneously making me very nostalgic and excited about the future. 

The excerpt from this book above was from the seventh practice: The Way Things Are. It's all about being present without resistance. Not labeling things as how they should be merely as how they are. This practice is the one I've taken the most notes on thus far. As a young performer I had a constant soundtrack of doubt in my head while I was playing. I can hardly understand now how I even managed to read music at the same time. 

Ben Zander outlines a story related to this of congratulating a horn player after a masterful and poignant performance of one of Mahler's symphonies. The horn player instead of receiving this congratulations apologizes for two mistakes he made in the recorded performance. Zander is surprised by this and informs the horn player that he believes the level of abandon with which he committed to the music was essential to get that level of emotional authenticity and that the mistakes were a mark of the vulnerability and risk taking he was demonstrating which are essential parts of how Mahler viewed life. 

Zander has made mistakes a part of his definition of performance. Of course there would be mistakes. In fact, he thinks whenever you make them you should either literally or figuratively throw up your hands and say to yourself "How fascinating". The book, and particularly this chapter, is helping me to redefine performance for myself. I'm hopeful that someday very soon I'll be marveling at my mistake in curiosity instead of shoulding myself for the wrong.