Best And...

In improvisation, we work with the concept of "Yes, and...".  Essentially, this is a phrase that improvisers say often to incorporate the ideas of acceptance and then adding a piece of yourself to the established circumstances.  The word "yes" is a quick way to accept the given, which is essential when working with others, and the word "and" is a quick way to make room for what you have to add.  It could look something like this.

1:  I am your father.
2:  Yes, and you have a hat on.
1:  Yes, and you gave me this hat for by bar mitzvah.
2:  Yes, and I want to talk with you about being Jewish.

This scene was built pretty effortlessly because both players accepted what had come before-- the given circumstances-- and then added their own ideas to what had already been established.  This is a scene, we know who the players are (father and offspring), we know at least the father is Jewish and has a hat that was gifted to him by his child on the Jewish holiday celebrating a boy's religious rite of passage into manhood... which, to me, has comic potential, if it isn't already funny.  How many 13-year-olds are gifted hats by their children? 

One of the key concepts I used when teaching improvisation was that every answer you gave was correct.  Every one.  There wasn't a wrong way to add to the scene, so no matter how you added something to the mix, you were right.  The only thing you could do that would be considered wrong, in my classes, was to not play with your partner at all, not add anything.  That would be the antithesis of what I was teaching.

I really, really enjoyed improvisation, and I enjoyed the concepts it presented.  And at one time, I decided that, while every response to a given circumstance was correct, it was possible to happen across the Best response, the response that was the best according to the given circumstances.  Since this came from Yes And, I deemed this concept the Best And.  Some people latched on to the idea, thinking it was an amazing concept.  I liked the concept, but wasn't blown away by it, because it's a passive concept in that it's not something you can actually apply to a situation but something you realize after the fact.  In the moment, the most you can do with the concept of Best And is search for the best possible response, to know that it's there and look for it.  But that moment is quick and fleeting, and it's rare that you will be able to find the Best And in that moment you're given to play, so really all you're left with is a concept of something that is out there and waiting for you, and you don't know what it is or where it is until you achieve it.  Like trying to make a homerun in pitch blackness using only the light from your glow-in-the-dark ball.  You know that a homerun is possible, but because you can't see the fence, you don't know how far to hit the ball, and the only time you know you've actually hit a homerun is when the light from your ball briefly illuminates the fence and you watch the ball sail over it and then you know you've achieved your goal.  But it is something to keep swinging for.  The Best And.

Recently, the Best And was brought back into my conciousness. 
Along with everything else my family is dealing with.
And it made me wonder if there was an opposite of Best And.
The Best And is the best possible response when working towards a common goal with a partner.
The opposite of that would be the worst response when working against dissimilar goals with a partner.
Maybe it could be called the Worst Shut The Hell Up?  Not very catchy.  I'll keep working on it.
And yeah, I already have a player in mind... my wife's ex.  He already works this way.
He has no common goals with anyone, unless somebody else's goal is to help him.  Only then is there a common goal.  Everything else is him against everyone.

My wife tells a story about how he's always been very controlling.  The story is about how my wife and her then-husband were sitting in the backseat of a car, with her mother and father in the front.  Her father asked her husband a simple, non-probing, non-threatening question, something like "what do you like most about your job?"  And then-husband didn't respond.  At all.  And my wife says that it was pretty obvious that then-husband was upset by the question, as his face became very stern and red, but he refused to respond to the question in any way.  And father tried to see if he had heard the question, and he didn't respond.  And father tried to see if there was something wrong, and he didn't respond.  He sat in the backseat, motionless, voiceless, and refused to comment or say anything.

This just made me think of something.  That was the behavior our youngest displayed when he was caught lying about his password on his phone and was then told, by his father, to say nothing to his mother.  "Don't say anything, don't do anything, tell her nothing..." were the words I heard him say.  And then our youngest sat silently in the backseat while we asked him questions.  He, eventually, said things.  But that behavior is very similar.

And it's always confused me immensly that ex would be so controlling over such petty issues, like "what do you like most about your job". 

But then I was recently faced with this Buffalo Ranch issue.
A vacation was gifted from Wednesday to Sunday, and my wife asked for time to be added or shifted so our youngest could go on this vacation with us, and ex said no.
Then after attempts to communicate with him failed, somehow he got word that the vacation was going to be altered (because he had said "no") to Wednesday to Friday.
At which point, he said that there were mandatory activities during that time, and youngest wouldn't be able to go.
And that's the mentality I don't understand, but he lives with and, seemingly, always has.
Every little bit of information people have about you presents an opportunity for somebody else to control you.
He stopped the vacation by saying no the first time.
Then, when he realized the vacation was altered, he made adjustments to stop it a second time.

I have latched on to this memory.
It's confusing to me, but it makes me feel good.
My wife and I and both our kids arrived at our youngest's soccer game.
Ex came over and started berating my wife, in front of the boys, about how she had arrived late and because she had arrived late they had missed pictures and now youngest wouldn't have pictures of his soccer team.  I saw wife in tears, and I approached her and asked what was wrong.  Ex was still there as she repeated to me what he had said.
Immediately, I walked quickly towards the coach of the soccer team.
Ex immediately stopped berating my wife and started chasing after me, trying to say something, but they were just incoherent mumbles and attempts at words.
I got to the coach with ex beside me, and I asked if we were late, and he said no, we hadn't even taken the field yet.  I asked if we had missed pictures, and he said no, they weren't scheduled for that day.  I asked when they were scheduled, and he told me.  I thanked him.
Then, with ex next to me, I yelled at my wife that we weren't late, we hadn't missed pictures, and everything was okay.
Ex walked off.
I have latched on to that memory mostly because it was a time when I quickly got ex away from abusing my wife and kids.  I did something and he just stopped and was unable to do anything at all except mumble half-words.
It's confusing to me because I don't understand the mentality behind somebody who is terrified of What Is, or somebody who must control everything in such a negative and abusive way.
We hadn't missed anything, so he was lying in order to abuse.
If I'm going to lie about something, it's going to be for, like... financial reasons.  I was in court once, where a judge was going through people who had been ticketed for driving without insurance.  One after another, the people got up, the judge asked if they knew they were driving without insurance.  The ones who said they knew they were driving without insurance had to pay a ticket for, like, $300.  Those who said they didn't know they were driving without insurance had to pay a ticket for $200ish.  Since I was driving without insurance because I didn't have the money to pay for insurance in the first place, it didn't take me long to make the decision that I was going to tell the judge that I didn't know I was driving without insurance and only pay $200.  A lie got me a $100 discount.
But lying in order to abuse somebody??  That's really so far out of my realm of reality that I almost shut down.  I don't know how to handle that.  I'm not bent for abusing others in the first place, but making up reasons to engage in abuse is... beyond words...

So, yeah... Best And.
And it's antithesis... ... ... [no response]...

There's no catchy title for the No Response.
Probably because it's diseased.

I can't believe this actually is happening on this planet.
I feel so stupid that I can't believe it.
And I feel so confused.