Life is a Dance

This arti­cle may be par­tic­u­larly inter­est­ing for those who love to go out to lis­ten to music and dance every so often, because I came up with this idea while danc­ing at the Woo­gie Stage at the Light­ning in a Bot­tle fes­ti­val on Sat­ur­day after­noon in 2011.  While I was danc­ing, I was relat­ing the social dynam­ics of a dance floor with life in gen­eral.  Just imag­ine that the life you are liv­ing, is a sort of dance, and all of life is like a dance floor where every­one else is “danc­ing” together.

Every­body dances unique; nobody dances perfectly.

Ever notice that no-two peo­ple ever dance the same way?  I mean like seri­ously, nobody dances like any­body else.  Even more impor­tantly, nobody dances per­fectly because there is no such thing as per­fect danc­ing. Life is way too com­plex and the music you are lis­ten­ing to may not be what you want to dance to at the time any­way.  So in other words, there is no per­fect way to live your life.  Every­body is on their own path­way and jour­ney toward being awe­some.  Even the great­est geniuses (dancers) didn’t know know how to read or write (dance) when they were first born.

Your exis­tence moves people.

Imag­ine you’re on a dance floor and there’s peo­ple sur­round­ing you.  When some­one gets in front of you, you see them.  When you go behind oth­ers, they don’t see you.

If some­one in front of you is danc­ing very pas­sion­ately, whether you real­ize it or not, they will make you move with some more energy too.  They kinda lift you up.  You too have a direct impact on who­ever is behind you or around you.  You have the power to raise the vibra­tion of any place very easily.

Con­versely, what if the per­son in front of you hap­pens to be just stand­ing still like a rock?  It’s hard to dance next to a rock.  Their stag­nant energy will slow you down, maybe even to the point of ques­tion­ing your own danc­ing and want­ing to move away from that per­son.  If sev­eral peo­ple are stand­ing around and not danc­ing at all, the “crazy per­son” who jumps into a dying dance floor will raise the spir­its of those around them.

We all need to get water though, so it’s not only a good idea to take a break (take a vaca­tion!) but quite nec­es­sary.  Some­body else will fill the spot you used to fill and when you jump back in, the group will rearrange to accom­mo­date you yet again.  Life is beau­ti­ful like that some­times.  The point is, when oth­ers “see” you on this dance-floor called life, your exis­tence makes a dif­fer­ence, whether you real­ize it or not.

Don’t ever be scared of oth­ers look­ing at you, ever.

Peo­ple are always look­ing at you and what you’re doing in your life.  Even when you don’t think peo­ple are pay­ing atten­tion to what you’re doing in your life, they are.  They have to, to not bump into you or acci­den­tally step on your toes.  When a pas­sion­ate friend of yours does some­thing extremely inno­v­a­tive in their life with great enthu­si­asm and energy, that energy spills over onto you and inspires you to move as well.  Since they are your friend, they are in your line of sight on the dance floor of life and they affect you.  So don’t be scared of other peo­ples eyes see­ing you and judg­ing you because every­one has unique strengths and weak­nesses and dif­fer­ent ways of express­ing them­selves. Remem­ber, every­body dances uniquely, no exceptions.

Side note: There’s some­thing cap­ti­vat­ing about see­ing some­one danc­ing with their eyes closed and really get­ting lost in the music.  It’s like they really don’t care about any­thing else except groov­ing to the beat the best way they know how, with­out influ­ence from their sur­round­ings, or care either of who is look­ing at them or any­thing.  Try that some­times.  Get lost in your own self.

Explore the dance floor.

I was always with my friend Koosh and after a few hours of let­ting loose and hav­ing a blast, he pointed down to the ground and said, “This hap­pens every­where I go!”  His danc­ing feet had been mov­ing in this one spot for so long that he had cre­ated an impres­sion in the dirt!  So maybe it’s a good idea to move around when you’re danc­ing.  Be fluid.  Go explore other parts of the dance floor.  See if there’s any­body else around that you haven’t said hi to.  Force the other dancers to rearrange a lit­tle bit!  Turn around and dance with the peo­ple behind you.  Break up the monot­ony.   Shake up other peo­ples real­i­ties while you’re at it.  If every­one is being a loser or a creep around you, find and stick to the awe­some peo­ple!

You might have a dance partner.

You might have a dance part­ner or you might not.  Some peo­ple go through dance part­ners like they go through clothes.  Some peo­ple will find one part­ner and be swooned so hard, they will make babies with them.  And of course there’s oth­ers who love to dance alone.  There’s some­thing beau­ti­ful about all of these sce­nar­ios.  If you are sig­nif­i­cantly stronger than your part­ner over­all, you’ll be dragged down (held back) more than you think because love is blind.  If you’re going to stay in some­thing for the long-haul, make sure both of you can lift each other up because it’s oth­er­wise unfair to drag another down for self­ish reasons.

What does the sound­track to your life sound like?

The same way a dance floor has a DJ or band that’s run­ning the show… Life has a DJ. Who is the DJ you groove to?  Who is your favorite DJ/producer/artist/band/what-have-you?  Who would you choose to be play­ing in the back­ground as you work your way up to a harder-better-faster-stronger-you?

Remain child­like.

When peo­ple go out to dance, they gen­er­ally asso­ciate that with hav­ing fun.  Life should gen­er­ally be fun!  Does any­body enjoy work­ing with peo­ple who are super-serious all the time?  NO.  Have you ever won­dered how pleas­ant of a per­son you are to live with or work with?  Have you really?  You got one life.  You best be enjoy­ing it and not mak­ing oth­ers lives miserable.

Don’t be afraid to play games with peo­ple or engage them.  Play keeps us func­tion­ing in the absolute present moment.  It’s a prac­ti­cal way of remain­ing in the here and now.  If you inflate a mas­sive beach ball and throw it up into a crowded dance floor, peo­ple will repeat­edly hit it back up in the air for hours.  Don’t worry if nobody picks it up because the kids will.   Speak­ing of kids, there’s a lot we could learn from them.  Chil­dren are con­tin­u­ally in a state of won­der and joy.  Every­thing is fas­ci­nat­ing to them.  Find what fas­ci­nates YOU.