Ballet & ThinkingCultureVision2 Great BallerinasRelated Pages6 Groups of Topics9 Skills & Topics
Ballet & Thinking
- We’re All Insane! Second Edition will teach you how to think better and saner.
“I would not know what the spirit of a philosopher might wish more to be than a good dancer.” —Friedrich Nietzsche
- Read and discover the best diagrams and maps of how people play games with your mind and heart.
Ballet Is Culture
- Ballet is the high art of culture.
- It is the only art where perfection is required.
- It is the only art where you must go beyond what is humanely possible.
- We are going to use ballet as an example of “how to” and “how not to” use thinking.
Helpful Thinking for Appreciating Ballet
- This page provides some perspective on ballet that can help you to either to appreciate or appreciate it more.
To See Ballet
- Look at a ballet performance as two things happening simultaneously.
First
- The dancer is moving and the movement needs to be followed.
- You can follow the outline, the form, the arms, the hands, the legs, the feet.
- Whether you choose to follow a part or the whole of the dancer, this way of two still works.
- You should experiment and note that some dancers and dances are better appreciated with one aspect over another.
Second
- The dancer is cutting and the cutting needs to be followed.
- The dancer is precisely cutting and shaping space with their movements.
- Let us repeat, space is being shaped by the dancer’s cuts.
- The dancer is the scissors cutting the air into perfect patterns, shapes, and lines.
- If you prefer, the dancer is the pen and the air is the canvass for the invisible line-drawing on your mind.
- You must see these ideal shapes and lines to enjoy ballet.
Rule for Seeing Ballet
- You must simultaneously see the dancer and the lines cut by the dancer to be affected by ballet.
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Human Vision
- Dance takes advantage of an aspect of human vision that Leonardo da Vinci was probably the first to comment on—trails.
- Your eyes make trails of movement even when you do not see the trails externally.
- Some call the trails visible persistence.
Trails Are Used
- You can see trails easily with fireworks displays, which take advantage of trails for our entertainment.
- Trails have long been exploited by animators like Walt Disney to create a sense of motion between still images.
- Sometimes you see trails externally that you would not normally due to special effects, special lighting, special contrasts, failing vision, or hallucinogenics.
- For the purpose of ballet, it is important to know your brain registers and is affected by these trails even when you do not see them externally.
- These trails are what ballet is designed to affect you with.
- The meaning of art is its effect.
- Ballet has no effect and no meaning if you do not follow and so feel the trails.
- Once you are sensitive to the trails, they can affect you with surprise, joy, amusement, and many enjoyable emotions and experiences.
Dancers Need
- Dancers must understand that pausing is often needed to form trails.
- A dancer can set a trail too fast or too slow.
- Dancing is an art in part because a dancer must understand and work with trails.
- Sometimes the difference between marking a trail and missing marking a trail is only a couple of microseconds.
- A great dancer develops a feel for how long it takes to mark a trail.
Helpful Thinking
- See how helpful thinking can be.
- Now many more can appreciate ballet in particular and dance in general by becoming affected by line.
Hurtful Thinking
- Now if you try to see the dancer and the cuts with thinking, then you will fail to see.
- If you think about the dancer making cuts, then you will fail to see.
- If you try to interpret or understand the trails, then you will fail to see.
- If you try to follow a method to see both dancer and cuts, then you will fail to see.
- Thought will never see no matter how correct or ordered.
- There is no procedure for seeing, so no thinking.
Thinking Cannot
- You cannot see the ballet with or through thinking.
- Thinking was only helpful by telling you where to look.
- Thinking itself can never look or see for you.
- Thinking can only interfere with, distort, and disrupt your experience.
- Think before and after seeing not when seeing.
- You can stop to think but go back to just seeing.
Thinking Good & Bad
- So thinking was good for pointing us where to look.
- And thinking was bad for looking.
- Thinking is both good and bad depending on how you use it.
- Read for help understanding your thinking.
2 Great Ballerinas
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Related Pages of Free Information
- CBT, CT, & REBT Cognitive Psychotherapies: List of Pages
- Coping Skills: Free Help
- Counseling Issues: Free Help
- Ego & Self-Esteem Fast-Facts
- Emotional Responsibility & Maturity: List of Pages
- Exercises, Methods, & Techniques: List of Pages
- Feeling & Coping: Fast-Facts
- Meditation: List of Pages
- REBT (Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy): List of Pages
- Self-Esteem Issues: List of Pages
- Thinking Skills: Free Help
- Unconditional Self-Esteem (USE): Defined
- Read and discover the best diagrams and maps of how people play games with your mind and heart.
- Read and master the life skill of acceptance using the best combination of CBT, REBT, & Stoicism.
6 Groups of Topics Menu
- 1. Pages by Topic
- 2. Fast-Facts by Topic
- 3. Quotations by Topic
- 4. Poems by Topic
- 5. Scripture by Topic
- 6. Websites by Topic
- Read and master the life skill of acceptance using the best combination of CBT, REBT, & Stoicism.
- Read and discover the world’s best breathing exercise for your feelings and stress.
- Read and discover the best diagrams and maps of how people play games with your mind and heart.
9 Skills & Topics Menu
- 1. Anger Issues
- 2. Blame Issues
- 3. Communication Skills
- 4. Coping Skills
- 5. Counseling Issues
- 6. Praying Issues
- 7. Recovery Issues
- 8. Responsibility Issues
- 9. Thinking Skills
- Read and master the life skill of acceptance using the best combination of CBT, REBT, & Stoicism.
- Read and discover the world’s best breathing exercise for your feelings and stress.
- Read and discover the best diagrams and maps of how people play games with your mind and heart.