Monday, January 07, 2013

Mistakes

It's been a while since I've trumpeted the genius of Seth Godin, so here goes:  He's a genius.

I wish I could just quote an excerpt here and send you off to his blog to read the whole thing, but there is a ratio of brevity to wisdom in his posts.  This is a short one, and it is critically relevant to live entertainment.  And so here is the entirety of Godin's latest post for you to read and ponder:

Two kinds of mistakes
There is the mistake of overdoing the defense of the status quo, the error of investing too much time and energy in keeping things as they are.
And then there is the mistake made while inventing the future, the error of small experiments gone bad. 
We are almost never hurt by the second kind of mistake and yet we persist in making the first kind, again and again.

(Go to Seth Godin's blog, follow it, buy and read his books, etc.)

There are enough people doing theater exactly like everyone else.  Find your own way, or don't bother.

Invent the future.  Build the piano.  Sure, learn from others, but at some point you have to strike out on your own and contribute your own verse (to borrow a sentiment from Walt Whitman).  You need to make those mistakes, because they are the mistakes worth making.

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