Minds are a game and you are both player and the actual game. Both at once.
The improviser once believed discipline meant domination, outthinking the instrument, forcing coherence where none wanted to appear. Age cures him of this. He notices how anxiety tightens the rules, how generosity loosens them. Some nights the game is cruel, feeding only fragments; other nights it opens suddenly, like rewarding patience. He understands then a mind is not an opponent to defeat but a terrain that responds to how it was crossed. Every step leaves a trace. Every trace changes what comes next.