Week 3: Role Player

July, 23, 2021

There was this popular poster floating around when I was six that said, "All I really need to know I learned in Kindergarten." I didn't learn how to read that poster until the following year.

My kindergarten life lesson was learning how to make friends out of strangers. Up until then, all my friends were the people I grew up with. My first kindergarten friend was amazing. He had Ghostbusters on Nintendo! It was the first game I'd ever seen say its own name.

I may have actually believed it was self aware, and that haunted my dreams.

When I asked my new friend if we could play again, he told me coldly, "No." He'd made a new friend, and his mom had told him he was only allowed to have one friend. I cursed myself for not seeing this coming and decided from then on to never be anyone's first friend again.

The real takeaway was that I had not been the one with the cool shiny thing. I was a consumer of cool, not a provider of cool. I brought nothing to the table but my admiration, and the Ghostbuster Kid had more minds to bend.

I sulked for a few days until my brother brought home a Sega Genesis and boy was I ready to it. I took it a few steps too far though when I told other kids it would cost a quarter to come play.

Once again, I found myself friendless and confused by the complicated social dynamics of young childhood life.

Luckily, my reputation of being a cheapskate friendship merchant died quickly, and I was able to grow from the whole ordeal.

I learned that being generous opened a lot more neighbor kid's doors than being exploitative. I learned that the role of best entertainer was a coveted one in my neighborhood.

He who had the most fun had the most friends, and I had some fierce competition.

I lost many battles over buying the wrong candy or failing to see the fun in playing Legos. I was short sighted, never paying attention to the long game, and I missed out on some killer slumber parties because I failed to cultivate more meaningful friendships. I'm sorry for sleeping on Legos

It feels so good to finally get that one off my chest.

Fast forward to my first year of high school. I had to relearn a similar life lesson. By this time I knew I loved acting and I had built up a resume of three or four school plays, and had my sites on the upcoming school comedy. It had a smaller cast, and I was a sophomore, so I knew if I could land a part in that play I would have a chance to hang out with seniors, funny seniors, seniors with cars!

The pressure must have been too much, because I blew it and had to settle for debate club instead... which turned out to be where some really cool seniors hung out, funny seniors, seniors with cars!

More importantly these were amazing, smart, charismatic people without the drama. They loved literature, and going deeper on topics I'd never discussed before. They were best in state at debating policy and culture. I was shocked at how

real people could be this interesting. They broke me of my delusions that acting in some larger than life role was somehow

more meaningful and fulfilling than living an authentic teenage life. They helped me evolve from an actor to a role player, and I owe them a real debt of gratitude for that.