Dancing occupies so much of my free time, it's hard to really calculate. Between organizing, emailing, driving, dancing, workshops, teaching, choreographing, not to mention the money... it's just inconceivable how much energy I put into dance.
I started dancing when I was six. I loved Mary Poppins, and my favorite part was the dance number Step-In-Time. I watched Bert and the other 'sweeps soft-shoeing up on the roof, and I knew I wanted to do that. I've read whenever Shirley Temple came out with a new movie, enrollment in tap classes skyrocketed. It was kinda like that for me. I saw that and decided "yeah, I want to do that." What can I say, I was a weird kid.
I used to do shows in the living room on a piece of particle board. At Thanksgiving I would charge a penny, hand out tickets, set the stage, get everyone seated, and put on a show. It didn't sound like much, but I thought I was kickin' ass! My grandmother used to tap a bit. At one of my "shows" she taught me how to do a shuffle, and maybe a couple other moves. Then for my birthday she bought me lessons at Swan Ballet Dance Schools. It was weird, being the only boy. I was so shy, and I didn't get over my shyness until about halfway through high school. It's hard being a boy and taking dance lessons. It's just not something you can tell your 3rd grade friends. Barely any of my friends knew about it until high school. It was a weird double life. But I couldn't stop. I loved it too much.
I immediately excelled at tap. I was moved into the advanced class when I was 11 or so, and I was in class with a bunch of high school girls who thought I was adorable. Everything about tap just made sense to me. There was nothing the teacher could throw down that I couldn't pick up. I danced all the time, in department stores, grocery stores, in the kitchen at home, under my desk at school, even now at work in the kitchen or by my computer.
If I had wanted to, I could have gone professional. I'm sure of that. If I had had the initiative, I could have taken more classes, switched to a better school, taken theater lessons, auditioned for shows, I really could have done it. I never practiced, but I'd be willing to bet I'm one of the better tap dancers in the state. If I had wanted to, I could have made a career out of it. But I didn't want to. And I don't. I never wanted to make it about money. I love it too much to sell it. I wouldn't have been happy struggling as a performer. I'd rather do it in the comfort of my own free time. Just for me.
High school was a big coming-out for me. I was finally secure enough to admit to people that I took dance classes. Hell, I even told people I took ballet. I feel like I experienced a shadow of the courage it must take some people to come out about being gay. (In fact, I'm pretty sure there were some people who thought I must be gay.) I took up swing dancing, I tapped in the school musical, I really started to make my dancing public. It only took me the better part of a decade!
When I got to college, suddenly I had the opportunity to teach and choreograph with UDC, an then Wilson. I enjoy teaching, and choreography is OK, but nothing compares with the dancing itself. The best part of my job at Wilson is the 15 minutes after class, when all the kids leave, when I can just jam. Being able to do that makes me happy on even the worst days. There were times, around when I broke up with Mary, that that was the only happy part of my week.
Tap dancing makes me happy like almost nothing else can. Some days I'm just so in the groove, everything I do sounds good. Even swing can't match it. I still feel self-conscious doing swing sometimes, even though I know I'm pretty good at that. (Probably the best in town, actually.) But tap dancing, I have no reservations, I can just unhook my brain and dance! If you don't have a creative outlet like that, you can't understand how it feels. It makes me feel so good about myself. Sometimes I feel a glimmer of that when I swing dance. Once or twice I played a few notes on my clarinet that made me feel like that. But nothing will ever match the high I get from tap dancing.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
A Little Room for God
I do not believe in God. I sincerely doubt I ever will. There are two main reasons:
1) I have no evidence of God
Some people assume Atheists actively deny the existence of God. That something must have convinced us that there is no God. In my case this is not true. In fact it's the opposite. Nothing has shown me that there is a God. If no one had ever told me that there is a God, I wouldn't know to even consider it.
2) I have no need of God
I can be happy with myself and my life, and I can explain the world around me, without the need of a god. Science and math can explain the entire universe, everything that happens or will happen or has happened. And I do not feel any emptiness or void in myself that needs to be filled with a supernatural being.
But am I right?
I think so. But I am scientist enough to acknowledge that I may be wrong. I may be crazy. Do crazy people know they are crazy? If I were crazy, how could I trust my perception of the world? It might be completely off.
Or maybe I am defective. Maybe most people that claim to feel the "presence" or God are right, and I just lack the ability or the sensitivity.
Maybe we as humans, as objects in the physical universe, can only interact with other physical objects. There could be infinite other entities occupying the same space in the universe that we are simply unequipped to perceive. We can only rely on our 5 senses.. what if there are things outside those senses? Can you prove there are not particles in the universe that don't reflect light, occupy volume, or exert electromagnetic, gravitational, or strong or weak atomic forces? No, you can't. There would be no way for us to detect them.
Lastly, there is the question of Why. Why is there matter and energy and time and space? I don't mean that there is necessarily some purpose to them, but there has to be some explanation. We are made of atoms. Atoms are made of particles. Particles are made of quarks. Quarks are made of energy. Energy is... what? How does it exist? What explains it? Where did it come from? It is said that energy is a basic property of the Universe, that it just is. This however, is just as ridiculous an argument as stating that "God just is." There atheists and theists meet a common obstacle.
It is there, at this most basic question, that we define the difference between theists and atheists. Theists would believe that at this level there was a conscious, powerful intelligence that created energy. An atheist would say that it was an unconscious physical happening. There is no way to prove either, because any explanation of either would need to be further explained ad infinitum. Where did this god or physical force come from and what is it?
And so, I will admit that even in my worldview, there is a room for the possibility of God. I just choose to believe in the less fantastic of two equally impossible realities.
1) I have no evidence of God
Some people assume Atheists actively deny the existence of God. That something must have convinced us that there is no God. In my case this is not true. In fact it's the opposite. Nothing has shown me that there is a God. If no one had ever told me that there is a God, I wouldn't know to even consider it.
2) I have no need of God
I can be happy with myself and my life, and I can explain the world around me, without the need of a god. Science and math can explain the entire universe, everything that happens or will happen or has happened. And I do not feel any emptiness or void in myself that needs to be filled with a supernatural being.
But am I right?
I think so. But I am scientist enough to acknowledge that I may be wrong. I may be crazy. Do crazy people know they are crazy? If I were crazy, how could I trust my perception of the world? It might be completely off.
Or maybe I am defective. Maybe most people that claim to feel the "presence" or God are right, and I just lack the ability or the sensitivity.
Maybe we as humans, as objects in the physical universe, can only interact with other physical objects. There could be infinite other entities occupying the same space in the universe that we are simply unequipped to perceive. We can only rely on our 5 senses.. what if there are things outside those senses? Can you prove there are not particles in the universe that don't reflect light, occupy volume, or exert electromagnetic, gravitational, or strong or weak atomic forces? No, you can't. There would be no way for us to detect them.
Lastly, there is the question of Why. Why is there matter and energy and time and space? I don't mean that there is necessarily some purpose to them, but there has to be some explanation. We are made of atoms. Atoms are made of particles. Particles are made of quarks. Quarks are made of energy. Energy is... what? How does it exist? What explains it? Where did it come from? It is said that energy is a basic property of the Universe, that it just is. This however, is just as ridiculous an argument as stating that "God just is." There atheists and theists meet a common obstacle.
It is there, at this most basic question, that we define the difference between theists and atheists. Theists would believe that at this level there was a conscious, powerful intelligence that created energy. An atheist would say that it was an unconscious physical happening. There is no way to prove either, because any explanation of either would need to be further explained ad infinitum. Where did this god or physical force come from and what is it?
And so, I will admit that even in my worldview, there is a room for the possibility of God. I just choose to believe in the less fantastic of two equally impossible realities.
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