We start moving almost right from the beginning.
Try to remember when you were little or watch young children in the neighborhood. They chase after things, they climb things, they fall off of things, they run away from things. Back when we were kids, it quickly became apparent that we were all moving differently — there were fast kids, slow kids, graceful kids, clumsy kids.
As kids almost everyone had the opportunity to try rock hopping with friends or family, that exercise of jumping from rock to rock along a little creek. The whole point was to make steady progress without falling off a rock and getting wet. Little did we know back then but rock hopping could have easily set a true precedent for our approach to movement or how far we really wanted to go.
Try to remember those summer afternoons along the water. Did you jump ahead of others? Were you cautious, or were you bold? Did you move slowly or fast? Did you take every step jumping from rock to nearby rock or did you skip over a few rocks to get ahead faster? Did you get wet a few times? Instead of jumping rocks along water think vertical. Think about audacious rock climbers finding new paths to the top of a mountain. They casually establish anchors, use bicycle moves, find rest stops, try pendulum moves, stemming here, flagging there, maybe an undercling or two before they arrive on top.
In a sense successful artist, business leaders, politicians, movie directors, painters, musicians, scientists, writers, and others are often making those same nimble moves of rock hoppers or rock climbers. They certainly don’t want to get wet. They just want to go somewhere new and many of them are in a hurry, and it’s debatable, at times, if they really want us to join them when they get there. Our attraction to them often matches our own willingness to keep up with them.
Are they moving too fast? Have they gotten too far ahead of us? What are saying now? Do they show us where to jump? Are we skipping too many steps? Are we moving too fast now or not fast enough anymore?
Movement naturally needs to go somewhere.
There’s a beginning, a perilous journey, and perhaps an arrival. Since we often start more movements than we finish, we don’t always get there. We may start reading a book, but we lose interest at some point and never finish it – the author lost us. We got wet. We may start a new streaming TV series but never finish it – the director lost us. We got wet again. We switch channels. Our taste changes. The band we loved more than anything ten years ago now has new songs that do not work for us anymore – the musicians lost us. We keep getting wet.
Look around at your own home. Review your own current wardrobes of movement:
Your library — Generally, the books in your library are your winners. No matter where the author(s) went, you followed to the end, and finished reading them. However, where did all your books take you? Back in time? In the future? Did you hang with heroes, or were they villains? As a whole, is your library filled with business ideas, travel adventures, redemption, gardening, history, celebrities, self-actualization, discovery, design, language, art? How far away did your books take you from where you started?
Your Music — Where did that box of used concert tickets, show tickets take you? Where does your current music library take you? Is it filled with Country, Folk, Hip Hop, or Reggae that often like to take short repeatable steps, or are you enjoying music that skips ahead and leaves you hanging a bit like unpredictable Jazz, soaring Opera, sublime Symphonies, intense Rhythm & Blues, or seductive electric guitar driven Rock n Roll, or is it something completely new to us all?
Your Clothing — They say the cells in our bodies replace themselves every seven years. Has your taste in clothing keep up with your cells? Has your look changed much in the past seven years? Is it always black? Is it always colorful? Does it accentuate your body, or does it keep hiding it? Is that really what you still want to wear?
Your Social Media — What are you sharing? Who are you sharing? Is it funny? Is it sad? Are you out in front of others, or are you with everyone else? Are you engaged? Are you prolific? Are you silent? Are you bold? This is our modern-day passport where we are free to comment on current events. Where do you travel? Can others see your adventures? Are you sharing any movements or are you stuck?
Your Vacations— It is a simple equation, work almost the entire year, take some time off from your assignments. How much movement do you have on your vacations? Do you travel far? Do you travel at all? Do you glide/stumble through new adventures around the world or have you invested in a timeshare?
Imagine if you had special glasses that could view all the electronic frequencies all around us every day, the AM/FM/CB radio signals, TV broadcast signals, the different cellular signals, police band, emergency broadcast, satellite signals and more All around us is grand movements of information. Now imagine your special glasses could be adjusted to see the actual movement of thoughts all around us. Imagine seeing ideas/ideals compete against each other such as good vs. evil, big vs small, rich vs poor, strong vs weak, bouncing into each and every one of us and moving us as a group one way or another.
Of course, we have no special glasses that can identify all those signals or all those thoughts moving around us each and every day or exactly how much we have moved ourselves in the past year or what just happened to our personal wardrobes again.
We only have birthdays for that.
Paraphrasing the thoughts of Musician, Producer, and Painter Joni Mitchell, birthdays wash and balance us, so you might have guessed by now, my birthday is tomorrow. This little written EdTalk on our approach to true movement and our wondering wardrobes has truly washed and balanced me again for another year! Try this little pop quiz yourself on your next birthday!
Au revoir to another year in the books!
P.S. My wife and I are more than a little giddy with our latest upcoming movement. For our birthdays, we have golden tickets to see the completely sold-out largest retrospective exhibition of Johannes Vermeer paintings ever assembled at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam where we will see 28 of his known 35 paintings. This will be our sixth visit to Europe. While on vacation, we will wander through other places and other people’s lives to experience another place that is completely new to us, again, and catch a fleeting glimpse of Johannes Vermeer’s view of our world from 350 years ago.
For us, artists make the best tour guides.
They often move faster than the rest of us. Sometimes, they create an item during a free afternoon, while other times it may have taken them years. We don’t really mind the cumbersome commute occasionally to go see their best work. We love the wind in our hair just to get there, then when we get there the art can literally take our breath away. We have been known to cry a little when we’re in the same room of a masterpiece or two. Consequently, we recommend taking tissues with you whenever you try these tricky big movements yourself because suddenly, afterwards, you may find yourself at a completely new starting point to go somewhere else.
Not unlike celebrating another birthday.
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