Inquiry #4 Connection
Recently, I have been very interested in social dancing. I grew up in a small town, where there wasn’t a lot of community dance events other than when someone got married or a graduation party. Even my school didn’t put on dances for the students, they tried but the interest just was not there. So, when I moved to Victoria and heard that there was a big social dance community here, I was so excited. I imagined social dancing to be kind of like time travelling; going back to my grandparents era where people would ask others to dance and it would strike up a conversation naturally. So, the past few weeks I have been going to swing dance and fiddle dance events and it has been wonderful! Every time I go I notice different things. Firstly, I notice how wholesome it is to go ask someone to dance and get treated with respect! I noticed that it did not matter how proficient a dancer you are, those who are really experienced will still like dancing with you and still ask even if they know you are a beginner. Lastly, the biggest thing that I notice is nobody is always on their phone even if they might take a picture here and there. Every time I go, I notice that if people are choosing to not dance or to have a break they either sit on the side and watch or they strike up a conversation with those around you. This got me thinking although this space is wonderful and needed it is very unique. As humans we are very social creatures and the feeling of being connected is deeply ingrained into human culture. However, I think I’ve noticed that in North America at least we more individualistic. That’s not necessarily because we want to be, it is just the way we have been moving forward. We tend to stick to ourselves, to mind our own business and get set about in our ways, tuning out things that we feel we don’t want to intake, such as when we listen to music on a bus. Our technology that we use can be a tool but also a distraction, like previously mentioned in my other posts.
There is a song I like by Josiah Queen called Things That Matter. In this song there is a lyric that strikes me:
“I saw an accident this morning on the interstate
And the first thing on my mind was “running late”
I didn’t stop and pray that they were safe, I never thought about it after
When did I start missing the things that matter?
Often I think we do not see ourselves as connected to others so we get so interconnected and preoccupied with ourselves. These lyric points out the fact of where our priorities might rest. What if we all noticed each other a little more? What if we brought that community aspect back to our daily lives? What if we loved our neighbor a little more, even better yet, what if we cared about someone we never met? I know this is a large concept to come from a little thing like social dancing but I think it has been something i’ve been reminded about the more I invest into community, whether thats a church communisty, school communities, or dance communities. After going to these dances and meeting people I would not have previously met on my own, I’m reminded that we are all just looking for some form of connection, and that in itself is what connects us. What does connection look like to you?
Photo by Ardian Lumi on Unsplash