by Mitra Martin

During bad times, we get unhappy. Let’s say we wanted to be less unhappy during bad times. We could train ourselves to do it, if we were to use our bad times as opportunities to practice getting better at getting over bad times. The ideal arrangement would be if we had lots of bad times to practice on, so that we could get better even faster. 

So, to help us accelerate the process of learning how to handle bad times, we decide to invent a new game. We call it: Bad Times. The purpose of Bad Times is to cause bad times for everyone.  The more the better, and the worse the better.

We’d want our game to unleash waves of agony and anger, again and again, on every player. We wo  uld call our game a success if it cause depression, opperssion, beguilement, defilement. Bad Times would follow us around and cause us grief, by  souring our relationships, our disposition, and our grapes. We would design and refine our game to be seductive, and addictive, in multiple ways, so that its snares snag many and often.

- Tommy Angelo, A Rubber Band Story

Does the above make you  think of your first Tango class ? Or your first milonga ? Or maybe your first festival, or your second or tenth one ? If not, maybe your first trip to Buenos Aires ! Or the time you endeavored to establish a supremely idealistic Tango School Center to serve humanity, but messed up so many times because of your not-yet-reliable technique ? Any Bad Times at all in there ?