Esteemed Reader: April 2010

by Jason Stern, March 24, 2010

Esteemed Reader of Our Magazine:

At a meeting of parents for my five-year-old’s kindergarten class, I asked his teacher what she saw about the specific group of children.

“There are nine children and seven of them are boys,” she said. “In their play they are ever wielding swords and guns, and playing at piracy and battle. I am still trying to understand how to help them channel what is clearly something natural and real.”

The assembled parents looked at our children’s gentle teacher sympathetically. And I don’t think I was alone in feeling some relief that the warrior behavior shown by my son at home is not a dangerous aberration portending a terrible future. Perhaps, she had suggested, it was simply a quality, which could be characterized as masculine, and which begged to be expressed appropriately.

At home, in the evening, the boy started talking: “Dad, imagine what would happen if there was a missile with two nuclear bombs—one made out of love and the other made out of peace?”

“That would be a powerful weapon…” I answered.

Some years ago I was a performer in a dance concert. The dances were more a ritual practice than performance material, so the emphasis was on embodying presence and self-awareness, while carrying out a complex and precise series of movements in concert with about 30 other performers. We had been practicing together almost continuously for a week, and when we arrived in front of the audience, everything was the same, but also completely different. In that moment, I realized that I needed to not only be attentive to myself and fellow dancers, but also to the viewers.

I began to “listen” to the audience, and “speak” in response to what I heard. Externally the audience sat in their seats, still, receptive. And we were on our feet, dancing, active. Internally, the audience was actively attending to us, and we were passive, receiving their attention. In the dynamic stillness, it was clear that the two poles—performers and audience—were of a piece and inseparable, both essential and indispensable, and together participants in a real Event.