(or "So You Know You Can Dance but Can You Get Enough External Validation?)

 

            Competition is in our genes. Even if you don't "Believe" in evolution you have to admit it goes on in nature.  If a creature has genes that give it an advantage in survival long enough to procreate and the offspring are also successful in doing so etc. you have a "winner."  Then we got a hold of it.

            It has been shown in studies and in races that test humans to the "limits."  There are "limits" and there are "Limits."  People can bicycle across the United States though they hallucinate and feel like they are being chased by daemons to do it.  We can climb cliff faces with no safety harness and we can survive in the arctic.   Give a person an incentive and they can eat all sorts of things.   But most stable creatures have things in them that prevent them from doing just anything that impulse dictates.  Then along comes a spider and sits down beside her and the Fight or Flight instinct kicks in and the Race is On even if the spider had no intentions of attacking let alone running after a human.  People hit the "wall" when running marathons or bicycling across the country but they produce in their mind the impetus to ignore the first warning of impending shortage and keep "soldiering" on.   Even when it comes to mundane things like practice we have to be forced to repeat an action ad nauseum until it becomes part of our muscle memory.  Then if not prodded we slack off. You do see lion cubs practice hunting and its cute but you don't see adults of many species wasting effort working out or practicing new moves or trying to improve on statistical history.  Just us humans.

 

            These instincts don't always serve us.  If we are protected and don't feel the need to use our reserves soon we believe we can't use them, that others are better because they can, or that with some Talent that is supernatural or inherited destines them for greatness.  Children growing up with arguably too much assistance from over protective adults will not learn their limits or the validity of the ones imposed from outside.  On the other hand outright neglect would not allow the child to learn what is acceptable to society or life threatening verses what they want or feel they can do.  I heard a child screaming about hurt and pain and suffering. I did not call the cops. She was just learning to swim and couldn't find it in herself to exert herself, to push herself to do what is difficult and try to keep her head up, Kick and hold on to something in a completely supervised backyard swimming pool lesson with parents standing right there with her.  In their favor they continued to talk to her in a calm fashion, give her advice and did not immediately give in and stop the lesson.  I remember similar instances in my youth if I stretch far enough back in memory.

 

            So then there is the next level.  There are adults and institutions that push children to do what is right, difficult, and/or boring to excel at an activity that almost seems supernatural later when they show up at the Olympics or on game shows, recitals, or some other competitive exercise. Good for them.  Then there is the next level after that.

 

            I believe the pyramids were made by people who had it in their mind they wanted to do something right and would work hard to get it.  I don't believe in their religion that Pharos were god and that they had to give their lives to him to make his immortality more pleasant.  Then there are parents that will drive children mercilessly to make them All that they can Be in an extreme way.

 

           That's the hothouse method.  Give a kid no quarter and educate them to college level before they are old enough to get out of grade school.  Enter little girls as beauty queens before they even reach puberty.  Make every living moment a scheduled event that must include some social activity with externally validated reason for taking place and quantifiable results.  Play on a couple teams every space in the calendar available and add as many credits as possible.   People who live vicariously through the kids have to be careful not to forget about sportsmanship in favor of winning or self esteem vs. competitive ferocity.

 

            Not everyone can or would want to break dance by spinning on their head springing directly to a standing position and jump over 15 people all to the beat of a popular bit of driving music.  But once you try you could be forced or feel the need to continue until you were the "Best in the Universe."  How much pressure is on Mr. and Mrs. Universe anyway?  Especially when we cannot even prove what other sentient life may exist in the universe despite Science Fiction (that is Sci-Fi for short not SyFy) movies like "The Fourth Kind." and Whitley Strieber's book Communion.

 

            I Know I can dance but I darned well better not show up on TV trying to compete with someone who can memorize 50 choreography routines and a sense of rhythm and timing that would put a Rolex to the test.  There are shows now where that kind of  thing happens.  A choir director that shows up to a school with no music program out of the blue and starts auditioning people to be in a competition a few months away.  No follow up job is invented to continue the choir tradition that I know of.   There are the usual TV shows that test you on trivia (that word has always had a sore spot for me.)  Then the singing and general talent shows dedicated to a particular country but essentially its the same old idea that has been around probably since cavemen had the first wall drawling talent competition.  But how much is too much?  So where do we draw the line?   If I say I'm not interested in learning an instrument but latest research shows you can't be good at it unless you learn some things early on, in other words unless you start at an early age, should I have been forced into more rigorous music reading classes anyway?  I found out I do like choir but not really so much trying to learn piano in college.   There are examples of children and adults that attain savant level learning of an instrument or drawing or painting.  This without a specific limit in mind but people have had to suffer sometimes to attain it either because of injury that causes the ability or in the case of Eidetic memory, a lack of discrimination of memory and there meanings.

            Competition in general is something I tend to avoid.  Some rational questions about reality TV type competition go like this:  Do you Really have to be the "Best" or is doing it your best the point?  How do you know it is your best if you have these physiological and psychological limiters in place?  Did David have judges with numbered cards watching as he danced for God [II Samuel 6] ?  Given this story exists why do some churches ban dancing?   Did he doubt or have a clue what his style was, or worry about if he could do it again in front of the audience tomorrow.  "Thanks again folks we're here with the ark all week."   

            The unreality which we are all fed is that we must be the best according to judges and there is nothing worse than being ordinary.  That was satirized in the movie "American Beauty." Mediocre people just wont be remembered and when they are gone they are gone, forgotten, buried in the mass unresolved humanity and of apathy.  That is a finite, small, very human perspective. 

            If you don't have religion then you believe in lasting effects but how much do we control those?  Do butterflies know or choose how they affect weather across the globe?   No.  Do even the best built human artifacts last forever?  No.  How long a streak of FAME is long enough?  In the face of eternity and infinity what finite goal is permanent and lasting enough?  I can use archival quality products to preserve my photography for a relatively long time but not forever.  Those moments affect me and other people and maybe they affect others and so on.  With an infinite timeline even a "long" but finite line segment is reduced to a geometric point when viewed from an infinite perspective.  Only one being I can believe in has an infinite perspective, knowledge and wisdom and I believe He thus has the ability to remember that all those points were/are human lifetimes.  That they did have length, all be it finite.  We did have feelings and ideas though selfish, limited and ignorant though they may seem from an infinite perspective. In him the best part of people and their ideas could last forever.  That is external validation.