i’ve been trying to figure out why i am so bad at work or work-related presentations–and why they feel so different than performing.

is it because i feel like i am being scrutinized and judged based upon criteria that have nothing to do with me, by people who would not necessarily be my friends?

still, i don’t quite get it. i am at least as nervous, if not more so, when i am staging a performance (even when i am not in the performance). but something else happens in one setting that doesn’t happen in the other.

i guess there are certain qualities that work in a performance that don’t necessarily translate well in “professional settings”

such as

tremoring or trembling or stammering or stuttering or a voice that goes completely hoarse, or a memory that goes completely blank. performance audiences seem to like those signs of authenticity, of human-ness.

so when any of those things happen, i don’t feel that sense of impending catastrophe, of things beginning to fall completely apart. i might get rattled, but somehow i am much better at thinking on my feet.

i wish i could just pretend that a presentation is a form of performance art. i mean, i try to pretend. at least i think i try to pretend. maybe i just need to pretend harder. imagine harder. maybe imagine to pretend harder.