Validate My Parking (And Me)

No small amount of thought has already gone into trying to understand why people go into performance or writing as a profession. Each is a long, hard slog whose end is success only for a select few. Since I myself have embarked upon both, I have formed my own opinions on the matter, and have in this blog a forum to air them without any risk of being shouted down as boring or uninsightful as I might be elsewhere.

The title of this post gives the whole thing away. For those who make it in creative endeavors, there is no more effective form of validation to be had. It comes in vast numbers, and from so many objective, external sources that it simply must be the unvarnished truth. When you're succeeding, the positive feedback is instant and vociferous, washing over you like a tidal wave of happiness. It's sort of like a runner's high. Where the comedy I have a predilection for is concerned, I find it to be most potent in live performance, and I'm sure that you'll agree with that.

Actually, I'm still at a stage where I'm surprised and bemused by a positive response of that kind. It gives me that delirious joy, but I also sort of stand next to myself, just smiling and saying "Oh yeah? Really?". Hearing laughter and praise for my quick wit is just that recent a development in my life, and seems to have come hand in hand with finding my place and crowd at long last. I don't know quite what to do with the sensation, and I almost want to pull away a bit. Obviously I'm somewhat of two minds on the matter, and so I'm sending a mixed message to you. I don't know what to do about that, but I do know that I like the validating properties of the experience.

The problem is in depending on it too much. I've spoken of the emotional arc that I go through with each evening out, and I'm sure that it has to do with the undue weight I give the positive vibes I receive from friends exclusively during that time. It's like how Letterman had said at one time that he's at his happiest each day during the sixty minutes it takes to tape his show. In this thing I'm writing about, I think he and I are the same, if in no other thing. If I'm going to become any more balanced as a person, I'll have to learn how to live emotionally on a more even keel, and rely less on external sources to know my worth.