They Play the Hell Out of Those Buckets

In the course of watching NBA League Pass tonight, I caught a half-time show during the Celtics v. Bucks game. Four young men, I’d guess late teens or early 20s, hitting buckets with drumsticks. They look like those buckets Chinese restaurants all have that say “Kikkoman” on them, except these were unlabeled. They were playing music on them.

I can’t help but thinking how much time it took those four to get that level of precision and competence. I also can’t help but think that this is exactly the sort of thing most parents would put a stop to almost immediately, as a waste of time, an annoying racket, or just generally a nuisance. After what must be years of work though, they were playing the hell out of those buckets, in front of thousands of people.

The first kid hitting a bucket can’t possibly have imagined he’d be in that spot now, which is the amazing thing. It says to me that we shouldn’t be dismissing things we do for fun, even if we don’t see an obvious profit in it. And parents really oughtn’t discourage their children from things that seem frivolous. You never know what talents you might uncover, or what skills you might develop.

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