I am of the opinion that the most important things you will do in your life will make you uncomfortable. It will push you out of your comfort zone, out of the box you spend most of your days in.
The important things make you think beyond your usual thoughts, stretch your imagination or even your physical muscles and strength past what you thought you could do. The moments in our lives that we remember are usually when we try something out of the realm of a typical day.
The simple days, the usual days, are reassuring and comforting. They matter, they ground us, they calm us. The mundane times give us a chance to relax, to feel secure in our routines and habits.
The days that push us a little further, that give us a chance to do something extraordinary, that make us try a little harder, break up the routine, make us uncomfortable, are the days we really grow. They are the days that make us push and think and imagine in ways we never have before.
I rarely get too confrontational on this blog. I really don’t want to have a discussion through comments and social media. I was raised to debate and discuss what I believe and to listen to the other person’s view with an open mind. I prefer to do that in person. I will talk to you and although I am not a confrontational person, I will tell you what I think and why.
It seems that in the last few years there is always something on the news that can get me riled up, but only occasionally have I been moved to write about it here. This week I saw something that I cannot let pass. And since I have personally been hit with a similar situation recently and have had a good discussion about this very thing lately, I felt the need to write.
I am not a published author, and although I am usually shocked by the number of people who read my blog, in the big scheme of things I am not that widely read. Even though I am not a world-famous writer, I take what I write very seriously. I write down my thoughts and then reread, change, edit and proofread each post multiple times before I hit the publish button. I think long and hard about each word I write, thinking about what will best convey what I mean to say. At times I have agonized over the correct word to express my feelings, to not be too strong or to be strong enough. I have had a word on the tip of my tongue, but just couldn’t get my brain to find it. I will wait for the right word to come to me to make sure I say exactly what I mean.
To me, words matter. A lot!
When directing a play, I think that you put what is written on the page on the stage as much as possible. I have almost always had to change something in the script because of logistics. For example, it mentions a prop I just can’t find so I have to change the prop and therefore the wording. Or the play space just couldn’t accommodate as many doors as asked for, so I make do while having to change a few words to make it all fit.
I once directed a brand-new play and was in contact with the playwright. He read my blog and told me he trusted me to change the play just enough to make the setting here in Homewood instead of in Canada, where he was from. I only changed street names and a few Canadian words that I and most of the cast were unfamiliar with and didn’t fit with our Southern ways. I felt very honored that he trusted me, and I was very careful to make sure the changes did not alter the intent of his story or the words he had carefully chosen.
Because we writers choose words carefully. We have a reason we chose that particular word in that particular place. We say what we mean and hope that the words tell the story the way we want it to be read. It matters to us. If it really doesn’t matter, then I am not sure we should even be writing.
I was recently asked to change words that I saw no reason for changing. It caused a cast member to tell me that he thought words should not be changed, that a playwright works hard and chooses the words he wants used. I had to agree.
I told the cast member that I had a good theatre friend who thinks a script is just a suggestion, and while I have tried to be more open to improv and ad libs, I just don’t like it. It doesn’t feel right to me. It makes it harder on the actors when a cast mate goes rogue, and it changes the intent of the playwright.
If you don’t like what the writer put on the page, do another play. I always say- if you don’t want to get naked, don’t do HAIR. Just pick something else.
In the midst of my feelings about the changes and my belief that words have intentions behind them, I then see a story on the news where schools across the country are pulling books off of the shelves and taking them out of school libraries. Many of them are books that we have read for decades.
The reason that these books were being pulled was because parents and some administrators thought the subject matter in these books might make students “uncomfortable”. I almost choked as I heard this remark. Then I cried. Then I got furious. And finally, I was terrified.
I thought back to when I have seen movies of an apocalyptic future, where people were burning books and society was going down the tubes. Of all the things that can put fear in you during a movie- monsters, ghosts, Freddie Krueger, etc.- watching books burn scares me the most.
Art, really good art, makes you uncomfortable. Books with ideas beyond what you usually think, that share a world or culture you are unfamiliar and a little uncomfortable with, paintings that make you feel something you never felt before, a play that lets you relate to a person totally different from anyone you have ever met, a song that carries you somewhere you have never been, that is what art should be.
When my son was a little boy, he wanted to read R.L. Stine books. He said they were scary, so I was unsure about letting him read them. I got a couple and read them, realizing they were fine. When the first Harry Potter came out, we read them together. I realized I shouldn’t censor what he read, but I could read things with him so we could discuss anything that came up that he didn’t understand or that made him uncomfortable.
My child saw plays that had uncomfortable subjects when he reached an age that he asked to see them. We would listen to the music ahead of time and discuss the subject matter, so he knew what was going on. If he still had an interest, we went to most of what he asked to see.
My job as a parent was to walk with him through uncomfortable things. To discuss ideas, to talk about other people’s beliefs and explain why I believe the things I do. It was my job to guide him while exposing him to the world, so that one day he could make his own decisions.
My job was not to ban books, but to encourage him to experience as much as possible, all of the while sharing my ideas and thoughts, my beliefs and reasoning. When he was uncomfortable, my job was not to shelter him, but expand on what he had read and why it was uncomfortable. To share the experience and push him even further to experience and imagine beyond what the bubble around him had to offer.
No matter the script, how silly or serious the subject matter, I see my job as a director to take the story and put some meaning to it, some depth, some reason for the audience to relate, to grow, to think. A good laugh is an important thing, especially in the world we live in right now, but if I can also make you feel something, anything, then that is even better. And I have no problem with that feeling being “uncomfortable”.
I NEVER want to have a life that is too comfortable. I want to read things that make me squirm, that make me upset, that make me realize that my way might not be the right way. It certainly isn’t the only way. I want to be pushed, to think, to dream of something totally foreign to me, to expand beyond what I have always thought. To see things from someone else’s perspective. Living in comfort and never venturing out to see what else is going on in the world is a very shallow, self-centered, and quite frankly, boring way to live.
The beginning of the end of society is when we start banning books, shutting down ideas different from our own, making everything bland and conflict free. When we take away the books that “might” make someone uncomfortable, when we change a writer’s words to get rid of any controversy, we have done what I think is the worst thing we can do. We have started the walk to the end.
I shudder when I see the news stories of books being carried out of a school, books I grew up reading and that shaped me and then my child. Words are important, they have the power to push us and make us think. They can hurt us or lift us up, but we cannot hide from them. We have to know that when they make us uncomfortable, we need to think and discuss, realize what upset us and learn from them.
Being uncomfortable is not a bad thing. I think being uncomfortable makes us better in lots of ways. I have been uncomfortable in the past about where we are headed, then lately I’ve been worried about the future, but watching people ban books and change words terrifies me.
