The Master said,
“The [superior man] acts in harmony with others
but does not seek to be like them.
The small man seeks to be like others
and does not act in harmony.”
—Analects of Confucius - Chapter 13, Verse 23
Early in the improv class I’d signed up for, the teacher told us that whatever your partner tells you to do, you should do the opposite. For example, if I told you to take a seat in that chair, and you immediately sat down, then that’s a boring resolution to the scene. But if you say, “No!” or maybe you question, “That chair?” then there’s something to build off of. Maybe your character has an issue with authority, or they’re a germaphobe, or who knows what, but the point is that there’s a spark of intrigue to build off of why you wouldn’t want to sit in that chair.
Our last scene on stage included “side coaching,” where the teacher would pause us mid-scene and give tips and critique the performance. He stopped me multiple times in a row because every time my partner created conflict, I would immediately blurt out something that was conflict resolution, instead of resisting what was being said.
Multiple times in a row he had to stop me because apparently, this is how my brain is innately wired, and I couldn’t seem to make the adjustment on the fly.
On the car ride home, I was trying to figure out why that was, and I realized this mentality was ingrained in me in childhood. I had a somewhat chaotic upbringing that involved walking on eggshells and dealing with random outbursts of conflict. Conflict resolution was the go-to safety mechanism to remedy whatever emotional outbursts I was dealing with, and that became my default response to conflict. But even today, it appears to be my go-to in the face of fake conflict, which is something that got exposed last night.
I’m not sure where the real-world application of this might appear later (perhaps in the workplace, friendships, or relationships), but it’s good to know that the conscious beacon of light has begun illuminating this corner of darkness in the cave of the subconscious mind.