Upheaval, yet another cause for self-assessment

It's been said that the Japanese revere the rebel of lost causes, but that in America there is no such thing as a successful failure. I bring this up in the context of engaging a cost-benefit analysis of the future direction of my life.

The anthropologist and the modern dancer share one key desire, and that is to excavate human ancestry and therefore find something "authentically" human. This is fundamentally to do with human communication -- therefore, for a dancing anthropologist (or an anthropologizing dancer), dance is primarily a communicative art form -- not just exercise, not just athletics or acrobatics.

Modern Dance in its staged presentation hankers for the Pre-Modern, not so much fighting as demonstrating against the mechanization of the human body in post-industrial society. There is an assumption of the existence of an elusive but ideal way of being a cohesive self. (if the modern condition requires such healing, such putting back together -- what broke? why did it break? can we prevent it? can we just "get over it" and move on?)

Anthropology seeks answers to the existential question through measurements and codifications of human physique and cultural, that is group behaviour, over time and across geographies. Yet Anthropology is not just a science, but a theology -- and I'm not trying to be grandiose here, this is the Merriam Webster dictionary's exact definition -- "dealing with the origin, nature, and destiny of human beings." It is evolutionary in outlook. It must be, I think to myself, a search for an absolute, because there is no joy, let alone purpose to living (well, aside from the process of living itself), in the opposite (that our destiny is purely survivalist, or anarchic).

But does this only hold true if destiny, rather than knowledge, is the object of the anthropological/artistic search? Is the concept of destiny itself passive? It connotes pre-destination, rather than immediate action; it assumes incontrovertible forces or agents exerting themselves upon, beneath, around, through, and with our real, immediate lives. What are the possible forms -- by this, I mean ways of daily living -- of a reflective AND active "political philosophy," as Arendt (my tragic inheritance: senior thesis 2004 on ... what?) would posit? What are the practices of political philosophy, as they are engaged now and as a normative ideal?

My questioning here now becomes pragmatic, and quick, also because I am going to a dance class in ten minutes.

Should I leave New York?

My roommate Ricardo Orellana, with whom I've been living these last two months, had news for me before bedtime last night. His octogenarian father living in Bolivia has just been diagnosed with prostate cancer, and will be coming up to America for treatment ... in two weeks, coinciding with the juncture of my February and March tenancy. I am very sorry for his family if this is true, for this is not a comfortable financial or personal situation for anyone to be in. But on my end, it means that my finally getting a little bit of a schedule in New York -- working cashier and coffee at a health-food cafe downtown on alternate days between my dance training -- is again disrupted by dislocation, and I either need to find another place by March 10th, or pack up and go ... back to Philly? Home to Singy? After a quick perusal of availabilities on Craig's List, I simply cannont afford the down payment on any housing options here in New York -- I'll have $900 in my bank account by the time Ricky pays me back my security deposit and March rent (I was, after all, only paying $250 a month for my half of the room). What to do?

Of course then I reassess my politics, and my philosophy, two considerations that I must live my life by in order to stay grounded, real, and sane (the others being family and friends). The homogenous (post-)modern dance world I now frequent is enlivening only as a continuity -- and as opportunity. I need work. I need work in order to practice. I need professional exposure. I suppose this means I must stay.

(Feb 23rd, 2005, edited and posted March 23)