I read this book on a whim after reading a short essay by the author Kimerer L LaMothe. I’m not sure what I expected when I started the book, but it certainly wasn’t the journey I ended upon. This is a book quite unlike any I have ever read. The title is an understatement. It should read “what is dance and why do we do it?”.

There are actually three parts to this book. The first is a well-reasoned philosophical argument on what dance is, how it has evolved over the last 250,000 years, how it has been largely suppressed over the last 300-500 years by the growth of Western culture’s materialism, how it still affects our lives, and where the author thinks it should go. Kimerer uses the broadest possible definition of dance in writing this book. The author talks about its importance in the evolution from homo erectus to homo sapiens and how we would probably not exist as a separate species without its influence. She delineates its importance in current human development starting with conception through adulthood. This portion of the book is not an easy read because as with almost all philosophical arguments, the language is tightly laced and at least for me, treaded on the ragged edge of my vocabulary. Many passages needed to be read more than once to make sure they fit in the dialogue. Also, the tremendous amount of new thought caused many pauses.

The second part of the book, interlaced with the philosophical argument, was an occasional journey through the author’s experiential mind. Her thoughts about common events in her life and how they related to dance. The mind trips were very intimate, and her command of visual imagery was masterful. You are able to clearly experience the same thing she was experiencing, and it gives you a real sense of connection.

The third part of the book was the notes to the text. One of the disadvantages of reading a book in electronic form is the difficulty of flipping from the text to the notes and back. Consequently, I read them after reading the book. They contained a wealth of information in essentially “sound bite” fashion. Much of it was supplemental to the book and expanded many points. I viewed it as a giant Venn diagram with her philosophy at the center. Reading the notes was an important part of the experience.

I picked a sample of the text from chapter 5, partly at random just so you could get a feel for her writing:

“Here the assumption of humans as individual comes into view. The theory of dance as social cement not only presumes notions of materiality, evolution, and mindedness. It also presumes that individuals are individuals first before entering into social relations. Once they dance, individuals become bound to one another by their own personal experiences of pleasure. They feel loyalty to the group, even love for the group, for granting them this experience of themselves. In pursuit of their own pleasure and power, they thus align their actions with those of the rest so as to help the group endure.”

In a way, I feel this review doesn’t do the book justice. There is so much more. If just one person reads the book because of this review, I will be happy. I guarantee you will not be the same.

A couple of days ago, I wrote another blog post. It was an easy one to write because I was angry, and the words just flowed. When it was finished, I was distracted by another task and didn’t post it right then. Later, I started thinking (I’ve often been accused of thinking too much), what would posting this accomplish? I was commenting on an event precipitated by the polarization and ideological divide currently existent not just in the USA, but around the world. The anger we feel is the fuel keeping these fires burning. The way to extinguish a fire is to deny it fuel. I would posit our current response to the pandemic and the economic carnage associated with it is in large part due to the hate and anger prevalent. To be sure, me not posting a little blog that might eventually be read by twenty people, isn’t going to change much. There is a certain segment of the population destined to be angry no matter what the current reality is.

I have read that psychologists believe feeling anger in certain situations is a good thing and allows for the release of these negative emotions. The key is the release. This is what we need to work on. Continual negative opinions, paraded in front of you, makes it hard to release.  Don’t be benignly complicit in spreading these feelings. If even once in a while, we say “enough” and pass on a good thought or even a neutral one, we will start trending in the right direction. The problem will take generations to fix, but we have to start somewhere. The alternative is chaos.

Sometimes we do things and we aren’t sure why. Sometimes that is a good thing and sometimes not. One of the things I have done in my life that falls into the good category is deciding to learn to dance. My dancing career goes back 50 years. Then it was only beer-fueled tavern dancing. Then an untimely auto accident and the attending three years of pain and encroaching family obligations pushed it to the back shelf to gather dust. Fast forward 50 years, two or three clicks and I was back in it. Not where I left off, but a totally new experience. The experience lasted less than three months. Things were going great and then along came covid19 and slammed me into that metaphorical telephone pole. I only stated this to give a little context. Actually, this post is going in a slightly different direction than you might think.

I am going to talk about the three months from a socio-political perspective. The three-month period was very intense. I probably spent more time at it than ninety percent of the people who take the commercial route to learn to dance. I observed something I believe is truly unique and one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much. I have interacted with two studios, ten different instructors and danced with an estimated 150 different people. This is what I have observed. A dance studio is a unique place, unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. When you walk through the door, you are entering a different world, a neutral zone. There is no politics, no religion, no racism, no gender identification issues, no economic stratification, everybody is kind to everyone, everyone respects everyone else’s level of expertise. Any competition is just friendly. Everybody helps and supports others. Most of the people are there because this is a happy place for them. Sounds like utopia, right? My open question to the universe and I include myself in that, is: If we have proven it can happen, why don’t we see more of this feeling in other places? Are we just not dancing enough?

Living life within your comfort zone is well, comfortable. My grandfather had a saying, that I’m sure he didn’t originate, “We’re too soon old and too late smart”. I had to get old to see the wisdom in it. In the last year, I’ve been doing a few things outside my comfort zone. I’ve created a little saying, that to me, describes the experience. It’s a combination of a famous quote by Nietzsche and a line from a popular song: “That which doesn’t kill you, makes you feel alive”. Is that plagiarism? I don’t know, but it is true. The last thing I want to do is sound preachy, but if you could just let it roll around in your brain a little, you might be happy with the results. My real question is: “why did it take seventy years to learn this?”.

A little example is in order here. I am definitely not a poet. I had difficulty in high school when we studied poetry. I’m more of a math and physics type. To the best of my knowledge, I have only written one poem that wasn’t academically coerced. I had read a book by Sage Cohen titled Fierce on the Page which gave excellent advice to aspiring writers. I decided to subscribe to her blog. I don’t remember the exact context, but she described a challenge to write a poem including 5 specific words: bruise, horse, milk, reason, and bride. I wrote the words down in my journal but couldn’t come up with a poem. Many months later, a poem just fell out. I don’t know if it’s good, but here it is:

truth is the bride of reason

what strange bedfellows they make

they ride the horse that is out of season

leaving a bruise on that which is fake

the milk of kindness is spun

Then to finish this story, on a whim, I submitted the poem to Sage. Within ten minutes she emailed me telling me how much she liked the poem. I still don’t actually know if the poem has merit, and I’m sure it breaks many rules of writing, but her response was very gratifying and made it well worth stepping outside my comfort zone. You should try it.

“A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself” Jim Morrison

I would like to elaborate a little on this statement. I think it is profoundly true. People, like our home planet, are complicated organisms. Everything that they are, everything they(we) do interacts and influences everything else. We must beware of unintended consequences. Asking someone to change a behavior or belief to suit us, no matter how trivial, will have some impact on everything else. It is possible you may not like the consequences. Let people be who they are. Then like them or not. That is your choice alone, but do not try to change them to what you want. It is doomed to failure at some point. The “Butterfly Effect” is real.

It’s been over 6 months since my last post. I am not sure what happened, maybe the wind knows. I have recently made some changes in my life that have put a lot of free time in my hands, so, I’m back. To make it perfectly clear, I have no creds in this area, so keep that grain of salt handy.

First, I would like to start with a couple of quotes to set the mood:

“Each day, we make a new decision about how to spend our life’s energy over the remainder of our life. Like it. Live it.”

“The rules/beliefs that define us are mostly a product of our mind and it is our duty to change these when appropriate.”

I recently finished reading three books: The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz, The Mastery of Love by Ruiz and Janet Mills and The Voice of Knowledge also by Ruiz and Mills. Most of the thoughts in these three books were not new to me, nor would they be new to most people, but they brought them all together and often referred to them by different names. For example, the third “agreement” is to not make assumptions about what other people are thinking. I always referred to that as “don’t put your thoughts in other people’s head”.

This post is a distillation of the three books and my thoughts on the subject. I didn’t always agree with them. I highly recommend reading these books in the order given. My thoughts on the subject will win because this is my post, so I win.

Now it begins.

One thing that has always puzzled me is: what is love? I’ve always been looking for that neat, compact definition. Philosophers think they have it. Poets think they have it. Well, maybe not. As Ruiz says, love is not an abstract, definable concept, but just exists everywhere, it is the natural state of being. Overthinking life is one of the things that puts a damper on this. It makes sense to me and explains a lot. To take a little license with some of his definition, I am going to posit there are essentially three kinds of love. Self-love, love of the contents of the universe…all the creatures and plants, the air, it’s basic existence, and romantic or partner love. The difficult part, the real rub, is to experience the last, one should first master the first two. Not an easy task.

Learning to love yourself can be the most difficult of all. It can take some time and effort, but a lovable person is there. You are perfect the way you are. Don’t allow the expectations of others to cloud your self-image.  You are smart enough, handsome enough, beautiful enough, witty enough. It’s their problem if they can’t see it. Don’t let the voice in your head rule you, you are better than that. The only person who abuses you is you because you allow it to happen. Most of the time there is no awareness of the process. I have a whole truckload of stupid I’ve collected over the years. Dragging it around is exhausting. The solution is to cover it with a tarp and forget about it. It seems to be slowly working. When you start to love yourself, you can start to live an authentic life, be the real you without concern for what others think, for that is their problem. To be authentic is to peel away the layers of other peoples’ expectations and be the real you. I call it being unfiltered. If you are always unfiltered, there is no need to remember what you said, because you will always be right in the moment. Be free. Allow yourself to roam.

To love humanity, you need to start with self-love, then don’t make any assumptions about other people. Don’t put your thoughts in other people’s head. If you are not sure of the answer, ask the question. Eliminate misunderstandings and confusion. The almost too obvious flip side to this is never assume anyone knows what is on your mind. Tell them when appropriate. Never try to change anyone, lasting change only comes from within. Sure, people can “fake it” for a while, but the truth always comes out. The truth always wins. Accept everyone for who they are. If it doesn’t work for you, just move on. Don’t confront it. Life is too short. You can still love them as a part of humanity.

Once you have mastered the first two, the last part can be deceptively easy. There are a lot of “old wives’ tales”, that simply aren’t true. First and foremost, find someone that doesn’t need to be changed. They can be accepted exactly the way they are. They accept you the way you are. Sure, people change, but the change is evolutionary and not likely in the direction hoped for. If the change happens during the relationship, neither party is likely to notice. A partner must be acceptable “as is”. Second, both people should experience self-love. A person who loves themselves and is happy is easy to love. We all must feel good about our self. A relationship shouldn’t be all that difficult. This will reduce the likelihood of at least one side being a needs-based relationship as opposed to one based on mutual respect. If you respect each other’s life dream, love can be lasting. You have entered the “happy place”. Life is good. Of course, there will always be some issues to be worked on, but the difficulty level will not be too high.

I’m entering my fifth month blogging. It’s been a strange and interesting journey. I have never been much of a writer, but that has changed. I don’t know how long writing for the world to see will be important to me. For some it’s a lifetime passion. I didn’t start until a point in my life when many think it’s almost over.

Blogging is an interesting concept, made popular by the ease of accessing the internet. Is there anybody who’s life isn’t impacted by the internet? A person can set up a blog in about an hour and say almost anything they want. It doesn’t have to play to a large market. You can do it for free if you have a connection. If you can’t afford a connection, I assume you can blog from the public library. It is the most democratic, non-discriminatory media available for social comment, philosophy, or just babbling. I’ve done all of these. Does it serve a useful place in our society? Yes. Could it be done better than it is? Yes, but that would partly undermine its character and its role as a vehicle for change. It is an effective way to get a multitude of ideas out there for people to think about. I’ve seen more ideas with slight variations since I have been blogging. As I blogger, I read many blogs for inspiration, ideas to comment on, and just a different perspective. It’s good to see views different from your own.

I’ve read a little about how to grow an audience for your blog. The conventional wisdom is to focus on one topic or genre. My sometimes contrary nature forces me to do the opposite and let the chips fall where they may. My topic selection is eclectic, but I do tend to focus on political and social issues. I am currently working on a seventeen part series on how I feel the country should be run. Everyone has their own theories on how this should be done. The difference is I’m going to put mine out there for everyone to see. In my reading about how to write, one of the problems some writers face is turning loose of their writing. Is it done yet? Is it good enough? I am experiencing some of these feelings with my Manifesto for Change. It for sure needs more work, but I am setting a tentative target to publish the first installment on February 18, 2019, with additional installments every three days after. It needs to be in final form before I start to make sure it fits together, at least in my mind. When it does start running, I would appreciate any feedback.

When I originally started my blogging life, I promised one of the things I would talk about is nutrition. I am passionate about my personal nutrition, but sometimes I wonder if others want to hear my non-mainstream ideas. I made the decision not to preach about nutrition because it seems most people already know what I know or more likely they don’t care and just eat what tastes good. We all know some foods are better for us than others, just like smokers know smoking causes cancer.

The other day, as I was thinking about the troubles of the world and how my solutions were obviously the best, a thought experiment popped into my head. Lucky you, now I am going to share with you. Here it is: If a group of scientists and nutritionists ranked all the foods available to us in our country, from best to worst nutritionally, and the bottom 60% were magically made unavailable to us, what would happen? Almost immediately a black-market would form with Snickers and Twinkies as their top sellers. If it was made illegal to buy the bad 60, I think a lot of people would comply, but I could be wrong.

If we did indeed have high compliance, what kind of changes would we experience? Would we suddenly have too many doctors, because of lower disease rates? Would our food bills go down? Would the reduced advertising expenditures and production costs of the higher cost foods in the bad 60 be transferred to increased productivity in other areas that would benefit civilization. Would the cost of health insurance and healthcare in general go down? Could research dollars go towards other ailments effecting humankind? This isn’t going to happen in my lifetime. But maybe someday it will.

I started posting on Twitter on November 23, 2018, so by most standards, I am a newbie. My home page states(@reincke_peter), as of the time of writing this, I have made 349 Tweets. I have kept a personal log of the Tweets I originated. That number is 99 now. They are an eclectic mix. Some are slightly inane, a few, I believe are profound. Some have been retweeted, most have not. I follow 42 and am followed by 15. At 280 characters, this is how people talk. I am having a conversation with the world, it’s just that not many are listening.

I’ve read much about how social media is destroying our ability to communicate. I agree in that it is cutting down on our ability to communicate verbally. It is also cutting down on our need to communicate verbally. I don’t know if that is a good thing or not. Chances are it’s not really a good thing. There is a flip side to this that I haven’t seen discussed much. What about the introvert who communicates very little with other people? If that person communicates with others through social media, isn’t that an increase in total communication? An increase in the dissemination of ideas?

Tweeting and blogging have opened my mind to a flow of ideas which I have never experienced before. I have read views I wouldn’t have imagined existed. I am happy for the opportunity to see many views opposed to mine. I helps me understand my own views better and see where I need to modify some of my opinions that were based on faulty reasoning. As I have changed some of my opinions, I would hope I have helped others examine their views. Maybe I have changed some people’s lives, maybe not. But it’s not for the lack of trying.

I think Twitter has an important role in our society. I like what I am doing now. Like anything in life, it is subject to change, but for now it’s a part of the purpose of my life.

Recently I Tweeted the following: “Happiness is not an emotion but a state of being. Remember not choosing is a choice. If the path you have chosen isn’t fulfilling, change is calling your name.” Given the character limitation of Twitter, I couldn’t fully develop the concept, but there is no such limitation here. I will expose another part of the iceberg. Happiness has been commented on by almost every philosopher since Socrates. It is a very elusive concept. There is no “one size fits all”. Happiness is only definable within the context of the individual. It is not subject to rational thought. You define it and you decide whether you are there. To be fair, you should acknowledge it’s not about a continuous euphoric feeling. Just like cold is defined as the absence of heat, happiness should be defined as the absence of overwhelming, continuous sadness. Happiness is the minimization of stress in our lives. It’s the absence of a continual battle with life. You do have choices. You must face reality with a clear sense of purpose. You can’t wander through life without some sort of plan. If you harbor hate or prejudice, you can’t be happy. Because this is my blog, I feel free to use myself as a tool to show what I mean. (As an aside, I wish to thank Microsoft Word for correcting a small portion of my grammatical ineptitude).

First a short listing of the facts. I am retired, and my finances are modest but secure. No job or financial related stress.  My health is better than most my age. This doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to have more, just it’s not necessary for basic comfort. I don’t know anyone who hates me, and I don’t hate anyone. I care about what happens to the world. I am not a member of any group that society might be prejudiced against. I am doing what I want. I recently started writing and it’s given me a sense of purpose. I feel good. The feeling is not attributed to any one factor in my life. I have tried to be aware of the choices available to me.

Within the above framework, I am happy, and you can be too. I haven’t listed anything that is very difficult to attain.

Happiness is about peace, with yourself and the world.

I believe I am happy, and that is what matters.

If you have comments or subjects for me to comment on, please message me.