Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Dancing

This post is a private message to my family, but if anyone else out there can benefit, so be it.
Here's the deal. I am just SICK of hearing you say "I don't dance." Come on, people, dancing is as integral to human life as smiling. Get on with it. You don't have to be GOOD at it, but really, what a silly concept. No one is 'good' or 'bad' at smiling. You just DO IT. People might say "You have a nice smile" or "You look pretty when you smile" but no one ever says "Jeeze, man, you just can't smile, can you?" Truly, outside of third grade, no one in real life ever gets teased for not being a good dancer. So get up, family members, and dance. Spouse, boys, I mean you. And you too, girlfriend with the pretty hair. All this not going to events labeled 'dance' is just silly. A dance is just another name for party. Who wants to miss a party? There will be nice people there. There will be food there. There will be music there and each and every one of us loves music, don't we? DON'T WE?!?! And yes, there will be something there called dancing. That is where you let your body move with the music. It isn't scary. If you want to appear exotic and zennish, you can just close your eyes and let your knees flex a little bit and sway just a little bit. Nothing flashy. I am not asking any of you to acquire a white shiny suit and point at the disco ball. Just go to the party even if it is called a dance. Just stand up every now and then and let your body move with the music a little. Watch what other people do and do just a tiny hint of it and work up to more. I mean it. I am seriously alarmed at what I see as a second generation of non-dancers out there. Get up off your feet. Turn up some music now and dance around whatever room you are in. No one will laugh. It will feel good. Just like there is that feedback mechanism in our brains that makes us feel happier just by the physical act of smiling, we also feel better just by dancing. Try it. Next time you are in a crappy mood, just make your face into the shape of a smile. It sends signals to your brain that you are happy and pretty soon you start to feel happy and think of happier things and pretty soon after that you ARE happier. So get up and dance. For me. Please.

3 comments:

Paddle said...

Dang, you're nuts! I've been told I dance like a Norweigan bachelor farmer. Nobody want's to see that. Trust me.

Anonymous said...

to quote the band the Killers:
"are we human or are we dancers?".
lol
no doubt, the true question in my young (thus dance-free) existence.

tp said...

hmm, that whole smiling thing. sounds scary to me. if just the act of smiling makes you happy, then you will start smiling for real, and once you smile for real, you will be reall y happy, and smile bigger. can't this chain reaction thing spiral out of control? won't your face just, like, blow up or something? i'd be careful about this whole thing! it sounds dangerous!