The Virtues of Being The Worst
I've recently joined a few new activities where I was clearly and markedly the worst by a large margin. The first is I've joined the "back-up" choir at my UU church. The second is I went out for some pick-up Ultimate Frisbee this past weekend. In both cases, there was a sense of anxiety that I might be (OK, was) dragging down the group. It can be tough to know that you are the bottom end of that bell curve, scraping against the right edge of the graph. But I think that I also experienced a broader sense of liberation. Being the worst, once it has been clearly and definitively established, frees you from any pretence of image or competition. You can immerse in an activity for whatever it is, on its face value. The subjective experience of being in the moment becomes so much more important, because you are clearly not impressing anyone. It's a great thing to sing, and greater still to sing surrounded by voices of beauty. The music stays with you as you walk -