I’ve got a hypothesis.
Three kinds of performers.
The first kind loves the before. Rehearsal. Exploration. Discovery. Tightening the screws. Finding the flaw. Fixing the flaw. Running it again. And again. Getting the thing damn near perfect before anybody sees it.
The second kind lives for the show.
That’s where the juice is. The lights. The audience. The hit. Adrenaline through the bloodstream. You walk out there and take the room by the throat. The performance is the event. Everything before it is merely getting to the event.
Then there’s the third kind.
The finish line.
That’s me.
I hate rehearsals.
I practice and rehearse a shitload. There’s a difference.
I hate the process but I respect the process. You do the work because the work is what gets you to the other side. I’ve done it thousands of times: drumming, speeches, keynotes, presentations, whatever the hell needed doing.
By the time I walk out there, I know I’m going to pull it off.
Stage fright? Sure. I suppose I get some.
It’s microscopic.
I’ve done the work. I know the material. I know what I’m supposed to do. The audience isn’t an existential threat. Nobody’s going to discover some terrible secret about me because I missed a line or hit the wrong note.
The performance itself isn’t where I get the juice.
It’s afterward.
Done.
Finished.
Crossed the fucking line.
Not winning. I’ve never been particularly interested in winning for the sake of winning. Somebody else can have the trophy.
I want the completion.
I want that moment when the thing that existed in your head, and then on paper, and then in rehearsal, finally exists in the world.
And you did it.
You did what you were supposed to do.
You did it as well as you could.
Now it’s over.
That’s the rush.
Not the starting gun.
Not the race.
The finish line.