Assignment 22 - Cat Lucier - the big picture

In music, "sightreading" is the name for when a musician looks at a piece of sheet music and plays it without ever having seen or heard it before. Most people find it quite difficult to be able to sightread a piece such that it is recognizable. They get caught up in focusing on the details and getting all of them right. I've always been incredibly skilled at sightreading. I've played piano for 10 years, and, according to multiple piano professors and experts, I sightread better than the majority of other pianists and at least as well as people who have higher education/degrees in piano performance. But this is not an essay on my musical prowess. This is an essay on my ability to see the bigger picture. I don't get caught up in perfecting the details right away. Of course, if I have the time and resources, I go back and revise and correct whatever I'm working on, but, especially when creating on a time-constrained interval, the minutiae take a backseat to the bigger picture. I suppose AP classes and exams have helped to develop this skill, as well as benefitted from it. If I have 40 minutes to write an APUSH DBQ, I'm not going to waste precious time on picture-perfect handwriting or an award-winning hook. I'm going to establish my claims and evidence, ensure I've written a cohesive and understandable piece, and get my point across. I am a fantastic cook, but I rarely use measuring cups or a recipe. I know how a dish is supposed to taste or look, and I cook to that. I don't need exactly one teaspoon of paprika to give something a bit of smoky flavor; shaking some in will do the trick. It's been quite hot and humid outside lately; I still go out to the greenspace for multiple hours, planting and tending to new trees and plants and cleaning up trash. I recently helped plant over 70 trees; right now they are barren twigs sticking out of the ground. Some people would rip them out, saying these sticks are ugly. But look at the big picture: in 20 years, there will be a sizeable grove of trees, lush and green, replacing carbon dioxide with oxygen at an amazing rate, home to hundreds of thousands of flora and fauna. My personal comfort took a backseat to contribute to the landscape and the animals that rely on it, the local community, and the global community. Hours of hot sweaty work digging holes and hauling water with the sun beating down are not terribly pleasant but are absolutely worth it once the context of the bigger picture is considered.