Snack #5 - The Nomad and Track D007
A human lesson:
I've been moving every 2-4 weeks to a completely new house, in a new state. Both my "home" and social/cultural environment are in a shift. I used to like traveling more, but I've realized how much stimuli this creates in my life, stimuli that overwhelm my systems sometimes, and prevents me from being more present with the things I want to be present with. A couple of months ago I had a crazy month - I lived in 5 places in one month: 2 places in Cali, 1 in NYC, 1 in Utah, and a night in Las Vegas. It was so much for me that at the end of that month, it seemed like it has been 2 or 3 months long, and that meant that every experience I went through kind of got "pushed back". Whatever happened last week was now 3 weeks ago, and who can remember that.
When we go through a lot, we don't have the mental capacity to appreciate the smaller things. We start taking certain things for granted to be able to deal with other, more energy-consuming things (usually the new things in our lives). I think this also applies to dance somehow, something about the more moves we make, the less we appreciate the simple things, like touch and connection.
A Lesson from a Thing:
I watched a way-too-long YouTube video about a video game called "Trackmania". Basically, it's a game where you have different tracks, and you drive a car around them, it's a simple game and it has a community, sharing cool tricks about tracks and breaking each other's records. This 20-minute video was about how a record of a certain track, D007, was broken - it was a beautiful historical survey by a very dedicated guy, that demonstrated how in over more than 10 years, people kept improving and challenging what was possible in that game, exploiting every opening and perfecting their performance over countless hours, to break the previous world record. This is just a video game! Yet the amount of effort and time that the people put into it was inspiring, including game physics analyses, hundreds of practice runs, discussions, and more. It demonstrated the value of community, hard work, and of a collaborative effort to expand the limits of what can be done.
I learned that even if something seems silly to us, or unproductive, or a waste of time - it can be important to others, and can still hone values that are important and meaningful. We make the meaning of our lives, and we apply our values in the things we choose to do, no matter what they are. I wish I had these guys' dedication to everything in life.
Dance:
"It's all part of the process" - a slow start into some connection to my own body (Level 1), and then emotions (Level 2), with beautiful Annie observing her feelings (and mine)