“I had told you earlier that I had one class of really troubled kids. These kids had trouble at home, trouble at school, and trouble with the law. I taught them how to make WEB sites, and they built a great one (http://www.picture-indian.com/). Many of you visited the site, and they got many hundreds of email congratulating them on their work. This literally changed their lives. They learned that they could be good at something. I am happy to say that half the class is now signed up for college, and I am committed to getting the other half signed up before this school year is out.

“I am so proud of the progress that each of these young people has made. In particular I am proud of Dustin, who came into the class with the most baggage.”

I took dance classes not too long ago and it was a lot of fun. I highly recommend it. The benefits of taking even one dance course are numerous: you get to meet interesting people, you get to experience the richness of life, prevent boredom, learn a new skill, other kinds of dancing also improves (not just the one you take), you become more comfortable in your body, you learn that no one else knows what they’re doing while dancing so you stop being self-conscious, and you enjoy yourself! If you’re in college or university, check out your gym, they will probably have dance classes. There might also be dancing clubs. If you’re not, check out your local gym, they may have dance classes or be able to refer you to some good places. Or google, “(hometown) dance lessons” and substitute your hometown for the word. One of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve had.

I should make this clear: in my class, the guys did the leading and the women did the following. However, the instructor explicitly said that that did not have to be the case. So, any time I say “guys” just substitute in “leader” and when I say “women” you can put in “led”. At least one lesbian couple chose one of the partners to be a leader and the other person to be led. Leader and the led are just roles in dancing, in this case filled by guys and women. I’m not sure dancing where both try to lead or be led would work well. You can find dance lessons that are alternative-lifestyle friendly if you ask around.

At the beginning, everyone is awkward and unsure of what they’re doing. However, an odd thing happens with the instructor starts to dance with someone: they look beautiful together. When the instructor starts to dance with a woman, it’s like she knows the moves, even though she’s a beginner like everyone else. This puzzled me. It took me a while to figure this out but here it is: he was leading her firmly and clearly. The guys weren’t doing that so it all looked like a mess. So, why didn’t they all do it?

There’s a number of reasons why the guys weren’t doing that. The first was that the guys weren’t really sure of the dance moves themselves, so they didn’t really have the attention to spare to lead the woman. The second was that the instructor didn’t explicitly teach leading and just taught the steps. I don’t know whether this was just something he did but didn’t know he did (implicit vs explicit–watch this entertaining video by Tim Ferriss for his dance story). This is important because leading works two ways: you have to be teach how to lead but also to be led. To lead, you have to send clear signals with your arms and body. To be led, you have to keep a taut stance to be sure that you receive the signals through the arms. Finally, I think that a lot of people just aren’t very comfortable leading. There may be self-confidence issues there such as, “who am I to lead?” and others may be in the love-hate relationship with the masculine role that guys seem to have. A guy should be strong and lead, but also allow the woman to lead? A lot of guys get confused by the mixed signals they get about the nature of manhood.

In any case, I started to lead with confidence even if I didn’t feel it and everything went wonderfully. Everyone I danced with had a lot more fun and we looked great. I realize that the role of the leader is a sort of stewardship. You have to fulfill your responsibilities to the other person, as well as listen to them while working towards a common goal. You can try bossing your dance partners around, but it doesn’t work very well. Sometimes your dance partner will tell you clearly what isn’t working through her body. She’ll refuse to do a move or be very resistant to it. How is dancing a metaphor for life?

Life is a bit like dancing. Your life is your dance partner and if you don’t lead, it will be a mess. The vagaries of chance, circumstances and past habits will lead you and you’ll end up with something you didn’t really want. Life will often tell you what’s not working and you won’t get the results you want. You have to listen to your dance partner. But you also don’t want to make assumptions about how life is. Don’t let timidity make you assume that you shouldn’t lead or that something is not possible. Try it and you’ll find out quickly. Let life tell you what’s working and what’s not and learn to listen to it, just like on the dance floor.

Even if you’re wrong, be confident and keep leading. Even if you make a mistake, you’ve learned something and the other person’s learned something and keep leading. Right after a mistake is when leading is needed most and that’s when most people stop or lose confidence. A lot of the dancers got thrown off by a mistake in the dance, lost their confidence and messed up the rest of the routine. If you keep leading, though, the mistake is barely a hiccup and people will often miss the mistake because you don’t make a bit deal of it and just keep on dancing. If you lose a job but go right into following one of your dreams (like living in Spain), or getting another job or starting another business or volunteering, the job less will barely look like a hiccup and it will just like it’s part of the plan. But if you lose a job and just sit at home, you’ve lost confidence after a mistake and ruined the rest of the routine. But you can start dancing and leading again at any time. Even if you’re wrong, you’re right so keep leading the dance.

Life is your dance partner. If you lead clearly and strongly, people can see a beautiful dance and go, “boy, they’ve sure got a great life”. If you let life lead you, you’ll often end up somewhere you didn’t want to. Live consciously.

I mean real joy, like time disappears and you’re completely engaged, sorta like flow. You’re fully in the moment doing whatever it is that you’re doing. Be specific. If it’s kids, what about kids?

By defining what brings you real joy, you can then start to add more of it to your life.

For myself, I get real joy from solving mechanical problems and building mechanical things. I get totally energized and start thinking super-clearly. I’m totally wired up and in the moment. Lately, for example, I’ve been thinking about how to build a crane/jib for a camera and how the design would work and I’m really excited about it.

Another thing that brings me great joy is hanging out with someone or people where I’m constantly making them laugh. There is usually another person of my wit-level around and we just sorta play off each other. Super fun and gets me totally in the moment and gives me lots of energy.

Two other things that give me joy is an idea in implementation, whether that’s a technical challenge or a funny post or whatever. I also love the kick of solving a problem. I get really excited and joyful when I solve a problem. For example, I jumped out of bed this morning because I figured out a problem related to this site, my sense of value and making money.

So, what brings you joy and excitement to the point you forget the world exists? Rock-climbing? Or just hanging out with a few good friends?

It may be useless, but it is gorgeous.

Some interesting tidbits:

Jumbo, probably the most famous elephant that most people know of, is actually how the word “jumbo” entered our lexicon, it originally meant either “hello” or “chief”. He was supposed to be 13 feet tall when he died. That is huge. Do you know how he died? He was crushed by a locomotive. Many metallic objects were found in the elephant’s stomach, including pennies, nickels, dimes, keys, and rivets.

“Jumbo’s skeleton was donated to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, New York, USA. The elephant’s heart was sold to Cornell University. Jumbo’s hide was stuffed by William J. Critchley and Carl Akeley, both of Ward’s Natural Science, and the mounted specimen traveled with Barnum’s circus for a number of years. In 1889, Barnum donated the stuffed Jumbo to Tufts University, where it was displayed until destroyed by a fire in 1975, coincidentally a fate that befell many of Barnum’s exhibits during his own lifetime. The great elephant’s ashes are kept in a 14-ounce Peter Pan Crunchy Peanut Butter jar in the office of the Tufts athletic director.”

Batyr was a talking elephant. Not much more can be said about the subject except that it’s astonishing, read up.

Tusko, a common name, refers to two famous elephant. The first was touted to be the Meanest Elephant, weight a ton more than Jumbo (though a bit shorter) and had tusks that were 7 feet long. Holy crap.

Another Tusko was given a crapload of LSD. He collapsed within 5 minutes and died within another hour forty.

An elephant could probably win a fight with a rhino. However, elephants generally haven’t done that well against organized modern humans.

The final two famous elephants suffered a worse fate: execution. Topsy was electrocuted after she killed three people in three years (although there may have been abuse involved and elephants can be vindictive). Thomas Edison used AC current to both discredit rival Tesla and to electrocute the animal which 1,500 people witnessed. Edison even captured the event on film and released it under the name of Electrocuting an Elephant (youtube). You can see the elephant being brought in and bound to chains. 6,600 volts and a few seconds later, it collapses.

Mary was a similar case and her story is perhaps best told by Wiki itself:

Mary was a five ton Asian elephant who performed in the Sparks World Famous Shows circus.

On September 11, 1916 a hotel worker named Red Eldridge was hired as an assistant elephant trainer by the circus. On the evening of September 12 he was killed by Mary in Kingsport, Tennessee while taking her to a nearby pond to splash and drink. There are several accounts of his death but the most widely accepted version is that he prodded her behind the ear with a hook after she reached down to nibble on a watermelon rind. She went into a rage, snatched Eldridge with her trunk, threw him against a drink stand and deliberately stepped on his head, crushing it.

The details of the aftermath are confused in a maze of sensationalist newspaper stories and folklore. Most accounts indicate that she calmed down afterward and didn’t charge the onlookers, who began chanting, “Kill the elephant!” Apparently within minutes, a local blacksmith tried to kill Mary, firing more than two dozen rounds with little effect. Newspapers published claims that Murderous Mary had killed several workers in the past and noted that she was larger than the world famous Jumbo the elephant. Meanwhile, the leaders of several nearby towns threatened not to allow the circus to visit if Mary was included. The circus owner, Charlie Sparks, reluctantly decided that the only way to quickly resolve the potentially ruinous situation was to kill the elephant in public. On the following day, a foggy and rainy September 13, 1916, she was transported by rail to Erwin, Tennessee where a crowd of over 2,500 people (including most of the town’s children) assembled in the Clinchfield railroad yard.

The elephant was hanged by the neck from a railcar-mounted industrial crane. The first attempt resulted in a snapped chain, causing Mary to fall and break her hip as dozens of children fled in terror. The severely wounded elephant died during a second attempt and was buried beside the tracks.

Sad indeed.

I should write for Damn Interesting.