The Pesky Nature of Right and Wrong in Art

As a child I took pride in being a good student. I was quiet when the teacher spoke, I raised my hand at every question, and I aced every test. Not so surprisingly, I've discovered there is little advantage to being a teacher's pet in the real world, in fact it can be diametrically opposed to the goal of being an actor.

My first-grade teacher Mr. Rice had a fantastic classroom management tool - a series of pockets and green/yellow/red cards. Each student had their own pocket on the wall, and each pocket had three cards. If you misbehaved in some fashion, the top card was pulled and placed behind the others. If you got a yellow card it was a big deal, and only the worst of the worst, those kids destined to become rapists and murderers, would ever end up with a red card.

Well one day, self-satisfied about something or other, I yammered on too long and I got a yellow card. I was shocked, resentful even. How dare Mr. Rice accuse me of wrong doing?! Surly and confrontational, later in the class I spoke out of turn... repeatedly. Mr. Rice approached the board; my breath stopped. His hand traced over the pockets; my pulse quickened. He eventually landed on mine; something caught in my throat. He grasped the yellow card, lifted it out of its slot, and placed it behind the green card (already in the back). Staring back at me, for all the class to see, was a red card. In that instant my entire world went topsy turvy. I was no longer a good kid, I was a bad kid. I choked back tears.

I spent the rest of class staring forlornly at my coloring book. I hoped that if I seemed sullen enough in my use of finger crayons, Mr. Rice would see the error of his ways and restore me to my position of honor by replacing my green card to the front of its pocket.

Despite my aggressive guilt-tripping tactics, Mr. Rice did not cave. I left that classroom feeling worse than I probably ever had. So bad in fact that as a grown man I still have clear enough visions of that day to write the above description. As childhood traumas go, this is not the stuff of a Dickens novel. That said, what it lacks in narrative punch it makes up for in revelation of character - you see, I'm not so different now from how I was in the first grade.

For whatever reason, I have a profound need to be good/right no matter the context. I constantly look to others for approval and validation. No semi-important decision is made without first consulting 10 friends, 4 strangers, and every how-to article to be found on the internet. But more important than being good/right is not being wrong/bad.

I know that if I just stopped caring about what others might think, and whether what I'm doing is correct, my acting would be much more alive. It would be more spontaneous, it would go places I didn't expect, and it might actually create a genuine unexpected emotional response. The thing is, I don't want to be bad, I don't want to be wrong. It terrifies me. So I play it safe, I make smart soulless acting choices. The work isn't great, but it isn't as bad as it could be, it's a warm puddle of mediocrity.

Very little great art occurs at the intersection of WantingToBeRight Road and TerrifiedOfBeingWrong Massive Fucking Highway. The solution seems simple enough, turn off the part of myself that needs to be good/not-wrong while performing and turn it back on after. The problem is, unless I strip it from myself part-and-parcel it will extend into my acting career as a whole. Bad actors who believe in themselves will be cast long before good actors plagued with self-doubt. The question I'm now asking myself is this:

Do I want this badly enough to work through the fear of being wrong? Or, do I want to stay safe and guarantee I'm never at risk of succeeding? In other words: Do I want to be an actor (and all that entails), or don't I?