O Holy Name

Unlike last year when I watched the 2005 Cadets DVD on a daily/weekly basis, I really haven't found myself pulling it out that often so far this fall. I think about the corps, the memories, and the music every single day, but until tonight it had been about 4-5 months or so since I last sat down and watched it on my own. On a whim (and probably because I didn't want to start my last homework assignment of the evening), I popped the DVD in and awaited the most prepared-for 12 minutes and 30 seconds of my life.

Not surprisingly, I found that I still remembered every drill move, every direction change, every note fingering, and every inappropriate chant from visual rehearsal. Now that it's been so long, I doubt I'll ever really be able to forget all those things, especially since 2005 was my first, last, and only year in DCI. There will never be another drill to replace this one, another summer of memories and new faces to associate with the corps, or another new fish formation to march. Deep down I am very content with that ... to be able to say I marched in one of the greatest executing drum corps in DCI history, with one of the most powerful shows in DCI history. What more could anyone ask for?

Also not surprisingly, by the end of Liquid (the opener) I had tears in my eyes. Recalling the struggles, the days when I almost broke down, and most of all the people of that summer ... I didn't realize how long I had gone without thinking about some of it. The flashback that I always get is the first time I put on the uniform- the Maroon and Gold, complete with gaunlets, crossbelt, muckle, everything except the Dinkles and shako. I had dreamed of putting on that uniform for years, and to finally be standing in it at a Cadets rehearsal, ready to go back into the horn arc and continue playing the corps song ... it was a wish come true. You couldn't have found a happier guy in this hemisphere, that day.

And so the season came and went, and I struggled, and fought, and was injured, and was inspired, and was encouraged, and was rewarded so, so greatly. At the end of the summer, all I wanted to do was go home, to take my gold medal and sleep in my bed with it wrapped around my neck. For months afterwards I was nothing but content to know that my life in drum corps was over. I had very fresh memories of the lack of sleep, the pain of the long rehearsal days, and the discomfort that someone can only experience when they're sitting on blacktop in the Texas sun at noon eating fish sticks and macaroni and cheese made on a truck (and loving it).

Now, with a year and a half gone by ... it's easy to see the choice I then made. Forced to decide between a cushy life at home for 2006, working a dumb internship for fistfuls of cash or another summer of corps, I rationalized. The better choice for my career was the internship so that I could fluff up the resume another notch, make enough money to upgrade my life, and sleep in a bed every night. The notion coincided with the wishes of my family, few of my friends cared one way or the other, and it was obviously the easier option. To make things even simpler, there wasn't even a "right" choice; I could do whatever my heart desired and justify it as I saw fit. I thus turned my back to drum corps.

I bring this up not to lament my decision for Cadets 2006 or 2007 (marching is an impossibility for several reasons), but because the whole idea behind it got me thinking of choices. The problem really is choice, as they say in The Matrix, and it's surprising how often we don't even realize we're making a decision about something. This can be applied to any aspect of life, too. Every single line of reasoning or rationale that a person uses to convince themselves to do something ... it's really just that person making a choice and condoning it in their own mind. "I'm not going to do the homework for tomorrow, but it's Friday and most people won't do it and it's only one so who cares." Such was the choice you made, to do something else besides the homework. Who's to say if you're right or wrong, either. It is what it is.

The difficulty I'm finding, however, is how even significantly larger choices can be passed off with this kind of indifference and simplification. To say to yourself, "I could pursue something, this dream of mine. I could chase it down and fight for it and never let it die." But if that's the harder road, odds are that you'll revert to the familiar and make the safer choice for yourself. Such is especially true if the returns on your dream are in no way guaranteed ... what would happen if you fought for something, only to watch what you wanted pass through your fingers? What would you have sacrificed at that point, all for nothing? Your grades? Your time? Your friends? Then again, what if you reached what you wanted- would it still have been worth it? Would you have bettered your life to make up for the sacrifice in your own eyes?

There's no way of knowing any of this, of course. The only way to figure out the true consequences of a choice is to make it and live it every single day to the best of your ability. In the end, I'm guessing the only people that lose are the ones who choose the safest road each time and forsake that of which they dream. The worst part is that they may not even know they made that safe choice ... they may have told themselves it was just better to stick to the status quo and not put themselves out there. They may have made excuses about how the dream was already out of their reach, or how someone else had already achieved it, or how the sacrifice would have simply been too great. They may have given up even before they began, and let their dream remain just as it was- a passing dream.

And with that, back to work.

Or, as I like to call it, the safe choice.