Thoughts on a new performer
AlCarruth@aol.com
Sun, 2 Jun 1996 22:45:44 -0400
The wonderful thing about playing (or building!) is that it is so much a
competition with yourself. The greater part of the reward is the reaction of
your audience, and it is wonderful to be able to bring so much pleasure to
people even when you know that your efforts have fallen short of
'perfection'. If you are any kind of artist at all, you probably never will
be perfect. As Ciardi said in translating Dante " the more nearly one
approaches perfection, the more one feels of imperfection". You are always
working to overcome your current limitations, and in the process learning to
see more deeply, and thus perceiving new ways to improve. So you continue to
struggle for the best of all possible goals; to become better than you were,
and to make the world better for others. What a neat business!