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I'm glad you liked my anti-performance : ) I think the way you phrase it - that I need "something concrete in order to smash it" so that I can"become the best version" of myself - is really interesting. What would I do without the 'something concrete'? I suppose I would be immobile.

I do take issue with the "becoming the best version of myself". I think this implies that my various potential selves are just lying around waiting to be found. But I don't think in terms of finding myself ... perhaps more in terms of inventing myself. Or better yet, finding interesting images and ideas and words, and adding those on to what is already there, and forgetting others that no longer interest me or have a place or fit well. And periodically it becomes clear that I have emerged as someone different.

Regarding the moralizing tale you share above:

What I would have done is just gone ahead and used one object, if I had an idea that only needed one or was best served with just one. And I might have been daring enough to use three, if I thought it necessary. I would not have asked. Sometimes, you* have to make the rules ambiguous.

And sometimes, you have to bear in mind that authority figures are just people, and that the rules may not make sense all the time, or ever at all. That can help you get what you need.

*I'm using the general second-person here.