i cannot dance.

(this is relevant and important.)

i want to dance very badly. i have a sense of rhythm but next to no coordination. i have nowhere to go to dance. so i do not dance.

kurt vonnegut said we are dancing animals. you’ve probably read his story about buying an envelope, and if not it’s below. ever prescient, he said the computers would “do us out of that.” that the “computer people” couldn’t or wouldn’t understand this basic fact.

he never saw the rise of “performativity” as an accusation. he never saw clubs with the volume at maximum and everyone standing awkwardly. maybe he recognized productivity being touted as the peak of virtue, even at the expense of connection. maybe he recognized the first bricks of the panopticon being laid as social media rose to prominence.

i think of his words daily as people encourage others to outsource their thinking to save time. as people use the powerful devices they take for granted to film and mock those around them. as the dominant culture does its best to flatten us into anodyne figures that might have once resembled people.

and so - despite moving like bully maguire in a geriatric ward - i am compelled to dance, to assert my humanity.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/god-bless-you-mr-vonnegut/