The Art of Losing and The Moom Abides

As a teacher on and off for 13 years, I've been able to share a lot of great poetry with my students. I told them to look back at these poems when they like life isn't as overwhelming as they thought they'd be. Last night, after not winning the Ventura Comedy Festival I thought of the poem "One Art" that has a great opening line hook.

I then began to think about how I didn't lose, but I just felt like I did. One of my favorite quotes in literature was from A Seperate Peace when Finny explains competition is a social construct.

You always win at sports.' This 'you' was collective. Everyone always won at sports. When you played a game you won, in the same way as when you sat down to a meal you ate it. It inevitably and naturally followed. Finny never permitted himself to realize that when you won they lost. That would have destroyed the perfect beauty which was sport. Nothing bad ever happened in sports; they were the absolute good.' (Gene, Chapter 3)

I was very lucky to have an amazing 10th grade English teacher teach this book and extract this text. Because every contest is not about winning or losing. It's about the art of doing one's best.

The reason we "compete" is because to the audience, the idea of just performing sounds too simple. But the idea of competing. Now there's the stakes. There's the electricity. There's the purpose.

I'm not against competition. I'm against being defined as a winner or loser. Some say that's "loser talk" but I would say that person doesn't see the world the way I do. That's fine. The Moom abides. The Moom abides.

The past two weeks were fantastic. I made new friends. I made contacts. I got to talk on stage about my faith, my internal struggles, my singleness, and I got to make people laugh.

I also had other people tell me how inspired they were about my sense of humor concerning how others treat me. I'm not a victim. I just play on stage. And to an audience wanting to feel better about their own experiences, my strange little life provides the fodder for that.

Now that that year one is officially over...the Moom will abide into year two stronger, more secure, less tight, and ready to see what God has next in my life.

My writing buddy and friend Nick took this pic to capture the moment

I got to become pals with a comedy hero of mine. Bryan was so nice and supportive.