Big Swings in the Sock Drawer

I was watching Paul Rudd's "Criterion Closet" video, calling out films that were important to him, such as Richard Linklater's "Boyhood". No director, said Rudd, took bigger swings. "Big swings". The phrase suddenly organized a number of stray thoughts rattling around my brain. It's a loaded term, so I need to explain exactly how I'd use it. There's a prerequisite to taking big swings — or, really, any swings at all. You must, for one thing, do more than scramble to some perch and pose for a selfie. That's fine for a goofy vacation moment, but it's kooky to become this-or-that just so you can say you're a This or a That. The prerequisite is to commit to the doing. Do the thing, don't pose as thingdoer. Posers don't swing at all, because they're not actually doing much — and this, to my perennial surprise, is how most people proceed. At this point let me defy your expectations by declaring that swing size — big or small — is unimportant. It's like choosing sock colors. Merely a…