Don't be so focused on the steps that you forget the dance

Don't be so focused on steps that you forget the dance

Dancer is the Dance

Life is a dance although of a very special kind. 

In this dance steps don't matter much as unlike a conventional dance the magic which evolves is never the summation of steps. And the reason behind this is there are no right or wrong steps in this dance, as each step is a call of eternity and each dancer gets a different set of them. 

And because each of us gets a different set of steps, we meander through the maze of life, through its alleys of joys and sorrows, achievements & disappointments taking different routes. And despite that we seek and beseech unison with other dancers in the journey and more often than not we get it. Isn't that beautiful! 

But many a times in our journey we get too focused on the steps, according them much importance then it's due and in that doing we miss the whole point. We do it as an individual, as a child, as a parent( to our children), as a boss or leader, as a spouse or in any of the different roles we play in our journey. Don't we?

Let's analyze few of these roles. 

Let's start from the start. From the moment of our arrival till the time we are a toddler our world is different( from later years) as perhaps this is the only time in our journey when we are at the purest level of our being; when we really-really enjoy our dance. We are born whole but as we grow the this purity starts getting layered by the ways of the world. The " essence" starts getting wrapped by layers of "personality" and one of the first things which the world teaches us is that " we are to find our place in it to give meaning to our dance". Once that happens we- the dancer, get conscious of the steps, the moves we make, as our consciousness gets seeded with the notion that the steps we take will determine the quality of our dance, the quality of our journey. Then we start observing the steps of our peers- other dancers and basis our judgment of their steps we modify our dance- so that we can find our place in the world! Often without actually knowing, what and where exactly is " such a place". From this point on the getting the steps right to arrive at the desired(??) place becomes our raison d'être. Getting the right marks to get the right college to get the right placement to get the right role & package, followed by getting the right promotion, right life partner etc. The dance in its intrinsic and eternal form takes a backseat and the steps to get it all right to reach planet "somewhere" becomes the holy-grail of our existence. We forget the dance!

Let's talk about a spousal relationship where two dancers born in two different worlds come together voluntarily(in most cases) with the noble intent of dancing in unison throughout the journey of life. Now when any two energy sources like two dancers come together to coexist then the resulting interference is either constructive or destructive depending upon whether they are able to synchronize it (the dance) or not. But that's not the point.  The point is something different. As spouses we go through all shades of the spectrum because a spousal relationship is the most transaction-rich relationship in this world. Neither with our parents, nor with our siblings, nor with our children we transact as much as we do with our spouses. We share our body, mind, home, vacations, bathroom, automobiles, towels( sometimes), bed sheets; we share most of the things including( or excluding) our souls. Now with so much of transaction- load obviously audit goes hand in hand; not only of our steps but also of the steps of our fellow dancer- our spouse. Ratio of "self-audit" to  "spouse-audit" varies from case to case but all of us know that marriages seldom work by focusing on the right steps, by trying to "design" a dance of unison, by trying to "build" a crescendo by expecting the other to take those "right" steps which we think are right! We also know that those marriages where each spouse dances his or her natural dance, letting the partner enjoy his or her dance result in magic being created. Isn't it?

Let's talk about us as a parent. Parenting, especially 21st century -post Facebook and WhatsApp parenting, can sometimes get as challenging as making sense out of Schrödinger wave equation. We know this fact at some level of our being as we experience it in our day to day life but the parent in us most of the times tries to get it right. We take all those steps we deem necessary to secure planet "Future" for the one who in the worlds of Kahlil Gibran "comes through you but not from you, and though is with you yet belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts."  But of course Gibran was born more than a century ago, so most of us get serenaded with his words but when it comes to or our own children we get a bout of amnesia and we come from our worldly-wise avatar. We try to arbitrate the right steps for a dancer who knows better than us about the dance; it being his or her dance. Driven by the Securitization needs for our children we assume the role of a concertmaster and we throw all we have at our disposal to see the dancer come shining through in the opera of life. We work crazy hours to get the material aspect of  the dance in place, we expect nothing but sheer diligence from the child on the road to excellence and we swell with pride when our child gets achievers glory. Nothing wrong with these welfare notions we have for our progeny, the only issue being that the process sometimes takes away the joy out of the dance- that is if the dance survives. When we look back we wonder where the years slipped by and how the child who was born just a few years ago suddenly grew up so fast.

To sum it up the dance is seldom about getting the steps right, it's not even about reaching someplace. It's about the dancer. It's about the dancer because "Dancer is the dance" as on the canvas of life the doer is the deed and the deed is the doer.

Once again it's time to conclude and if you have come this far and it evokes any interest in you then let me share that my next post would be on " My life has a superb cast but I can't figure out the plot"

Have a wonderful day!

- Vivek