Dancing is a birthright. An expression of humanity as essential as love, food, or song. I believe social dance is one of the best things you can do for yourself and your community. It is more than movement; it’s a gift to the world.
From an analytical standpoint, it has so many positive stacks.
- Social
- Physical
- Community Support
- Events are Geopolitical UN Summits, great for world peace
- Gateways people to serious conversations about social issues
- Gives people a reason to travel
- Relatively non destructive to the environment
- Art/Culture/History
- Pathway to other interests: music, photography, videography, events, community organizing, PhD Thesis
I do this kind of analysis from time to time on how I spend my time in life. I really like supersmash brothers and cars too. I had a while when I was trying to decide well… am I gonna be a car guy? Does it align with my values? And as much as I like cars, I decided no, that wasn’t going to be a path I wanted to take because I like bicycles, walking, public transit, good city design and having a garage and supporting cars just wasn’t properly aligned with that. Though it does fit with my belief in the right to self repair.
Super smash? Love it. N64 version. Was starting to practice with a group of people in Tempe and was seriously considering putting in the 10,000 hours to get competitively good. I put 100 hours in and saw a serious decline in my physical activity level and general quality of life. Not the best pairing with a dancer life style. While it does tick some great boxes, it wasn’t quite right for me. I replaced it with casual board games like Dune or Catan.