What Does It Mean?

The Yellow Emperor went wandering
To the north of the Red Water
To the Kwan Lun mountain. He looked around
Over the edge of the world. On the way home
He lost his night-colored pearl.
He sent out Science to seek his pearl, and got nothing.
He sent out Analysis to look for his pearl, and got nothing.
He sent out Logic to search out his pearl, and got nothing.
Then he asked Nothingness, and Nothingness had it!

The Yellow Emperor said:
"Strange, indeed: Nothingness
Who was not sent
Who did no work to find it
Had the night-colored pearl!"
("The Lost Pearl", The Way of Chuang Tzu, translated by Thomas Merton, Book xxi, Chapter 4)

What does this mean?

It means
After two and a half months
Put on hold
To focus and prepare and practice and study
And envision
Myself into this audition,
After listening
To drum polyrhythmics for weeks
And banging on everything
In my car
Pulling my sticks out at every red light,
After sharing my dream
Incessantly
With everyone I knew
And keeping my career blissfully ignorant all the while,
After changing my schedule to get the
Proper days off
When my timeline shifted at the last second,
After showing up four hours early
First in line
And spilling the beans to my linemates about callbacks to come,
I actually did twice as well last year.

I encourage you to go see Blue Man Group this summer. It is an awesome show and a quality production, and I have earned a lot of respect for their work and vision. They will step over real talent to get exactly what they want. And that takes true grit.