My issues and Values

Since my original blog post a few weeks ago about this, I've done some thinking..

I need to revise my core values: Health, improvement, and respect. I've already talked about the first two. Respect is the new one. Today in class Molly said to think about people we hate and then think about what they don't have that we do. People who I don't like are all disrespectful. It doesn't matter who they are disrespectful to. It could be towards myself, a friend, a teacher, or even to themselves. There is a code of ethics and a respectful manner that all dancers are aware of. I learned this around the age of 11 or 12 and since then being respectful has become more and more important to me. I am friends with people who can be described as respectful. I'm polite because I want to show other people respect.

Today in class when we talked about liberalism and the ability to have your own ideas I realized that that's most definitely one of my artistic issues. Over the past four years, I've grown to be able to think for myself and allow myself to express what I think. Yes, I was one of those kids in middle school who had that herd mentality. I thought what everybody else thought. Or at least I did, on a shallow level. Deep down I had my own thoughts, I just didn't express them and didn't even think to try and find them for myself. And it's been showing itself in my work. One of the monologues I'm doing for college auditions is Rachel from Inherit the Wind. That character's whole journy is about thinking for yourself and being allowed to express your thoughts. "You see I haven't really thought very much. I was always affraid of what I might think so it seemed safer not to think at all...A thought is like a child inside our body. It has to be born. If it dies inside you, part of you dies too." I also worked on the film about gossip, which ties into this in a way. When gossip is spreading your conforming to the ideas of others and spreading those around. You're not stopping to think for yourself, you're getting caught up in the trend.