Lessons from Practical Existential Philosophy (#1)
When was the last time you danced?
An essay on a mid(?)-life crisis, the practice of the virtue of courage and dancing like no-one’s watching
I turned 31 last week, and I was thinking about my year, and it’s a year late, but it feels like this year’s been a bit of a milestone.
I adopted a cat. Because I read a paper that talked about how pets can be good for your mental health. That’s how I make all my decisions. Psychology papers.
I went and got my paragliding license. I am allowed by a real government authority to take a kite out and fling myself off a cliff, in a way you aren’t allowed to by the government. It’s one of the few legal highs available.
And I went to my first ever tantra workshop/retreat. I was curious. To see what the spiritual orphan grandchildren of the hippy-generation, white people, had done with my culture now. (I just say that for the joke. I don’t really believe in cultural appropriation.)
Clearly … I’m having a mid-life crisis.
And I’m only 31!
At this rate, I’m not going to see my pension.
I had kind of a midlife crisis at twenty which probably doesn’t augur well for my longevity ― David Foster Wallace
I also graduated from Therapy. But none of those are the things I want to leave you with.
There’s another milestone I accomplished that I am so incredibly proud of — and remember I will jump off a mountain, a plane, you name it — that doesn’t terrify me, so just imagine the terror I must have overcome to reach this milestone.
I went dancing to a club for the first time at 31.
While doing my Therapy, I also got into Practical Existential Philosophy. And it asked me a question, that no one had ever asked me before. “When was the last time you danced?”
And on reading that question, I was like, I don’t dance. I don’t like it. I physically can’t. My body refuses to obey the verbal commands I utter in my head. It terrifies me. I literally don’t understand how people do it. Forget dancing with other people, I don’t even dance alone.
And that was a thread in the vast itchy blanket that freezes my Soul instead of warming it, I could pull at. And I did.
The other thing Practical Existential Philosophy got me into was meditating. And once you can hold your focus on a practice-object like your breath for about 10 minutes, you can start doing the fun stuff, and hold that focus on other objects like a feeling, experiences, memories that come up, without becoming distracted away from the core ‘breath’.
So about 8 months ago, in May, I stood in my living room and tried to dance alone as my body turns a deaf ear to my longing. And then I step away from the experience, and I inner-eye-look at this feeling-object.
It had the taste of that time I made a woman who was in my kitchen, on a date, cooking for us, cry. Two women, actually. Because she held the knife wrong, used the wrong spatula. No metal on non-stick, okay? Controlling, sure, but worse … judgey. So judgey that when I tried to dance like no one was watching, I couldn’t, even when there was no one there, because I was still there, and I am, apparently, a very judgey person.
I inner-eye-looked at this feeling-object more; and it had the texture of all those Sundays, that my dad cooked for us, and he sang, badly but enjoying it, as he cooked; and my mother got angry at him.
I inner-eye-looked at this feeling-object more; it had the the shape of that time, when at 17, during hazing at University, the hottest girls in the year ahead, gave us attractive-ness ratings; and I internalized I was ugly; and we all know dancing is for Hot people.
And all of these thoughts came at me with a very my-value-comes-from-achievements-that-would-meet-my-dads-approval and you-only-do-things-if-you’re-good-at-them tone to them.
The longer I held it in my mind’s eye, the more I realised these thoughts weren’t being spoken in my Voice. This inner Voice didn’t speak with the kindness with which I strive to approach other Broken people with.
I made a decision then, that I would overcome this fear. I don’t think it’s healthy to live your life without dancing. That was May last year, 8 months. If only I was better adjusted, I could have used that time to get abs instead.
I started deprogamming myself. I stood in my living room and I turned off the lights and drew the curtains shut (as I muttered an apology to the Dutch for the blasphemy), closed my eyes, got drunk on weed and high on alcohol, and I let go of all that judginess-shame-feeling-of-inadequacy. And for a few moments I danced, for the first time in my life, like no one was watching.
I kept at it, until I was dancing alone sober. Then dancing alone, sober with my eyes open. Then with the lights on. Then I went to a Zumba class. It was mortifying.
I kept doing these little baby steps, until I found myself with a few friends at a, what my friend called a “beginner-friendly” club on New Years. And I had to keep my eyes shut, and I had to get drunk but I was able to let go, and I just danced, like no one was watching, at a club … for the first time in my life.
Later, two friends told me, I was a good dancer. And I told them I didn’t believe them. And they clarified — I wasn’t like the best dancer, and yeah, maybe I wasn’t even a good dancer, but I wasn’t a bad dancer. Within one standard deviation of the average skill level (for men), within the bounds of a commonly accepted definition of ‘normalcy’? I asked. Sure, they both said.
And that’s kind of all I wanted. It would have been easy to make excuses for why you don’t need dance in your life, or at any other point when the whole idea of being on this “mission” felt ridiculous, or even now to dismiss this as a absurd victory. But I didn’t, and I am very proud of myself.
It still terrifies the fuck out of me. But Courage has never been the absence of fear, and always the realisation (both inwards and outwards) that some other things are more important.
And if nothing else, I think I would like to be Courageous in the remaining half-life I have left.
So, I think I am going to go next, to check out The School (the hottest club in Amsterdam).
At some point.
Probably.
