Ah, internet aphorisms. They're always fun, aren't they?
Within my lifetime, the phrase "Dance like nobody's watching" has passed into aphoristic immortality. (You can tell a particular affirmation has achieved this level of notoriety when it gets attributed to multiple wits, and this one has been pinned to both Satchel Paige and Mark Twain -- I guess it isn't quite smooth enough to be believable as an Oscar Wilde. For what it's worth, the phrase originates from the lyrics to "Come From the Heart," a country song written in the '80s by Susanna Clark and Richard Leigh.) Despite the wild popularity of this phrase, I suspect a lot of people don't understand it very well. Too many people seem to think that this phrase assumes your ability to channel your inner Michael Flatley -- that if you dance like a spaz in public, people will be impressed by your sweet moves, whoop and rise to their feet and cheer you on like that scene in Napoleon Dynamite.
Not even sorta.
Truth is, if you dance like a spaz in public, most people will raise their eyebrows but say nothing. Others, Nelson-like, will laugh and point at your mad gyrations. A few will be mean and call you a freak or worse. So why tell people to do it at all? Why encourage them to boogie down like a complete goofball and endure public humiliation for it?
No, it doesn't have to be dance specifically. I don't usually dance in public or private, since dance is not my preferred form of creative expression. But if I'm in any public place and they play Billy Joel's "Tell Her About It," my life will temporarily turn into a musical as I break into song for the next 3 minutes and 52 seconds. If you have to make yourself scarce during that time, I'll try to be understanding -- but it's still gonna happen because nearly four decades on, that song (and pretty much everything else on the Innocent Man album) is still A BOP. #sorrynotsorry
The other day I picked up an oversized bubble wand for $1.10 at a craft store, because reasons. I was set to pick up a few groceries and go home, but it was a nice cool evening, I didn't need to be anywhere right away, and the bubble wand needed breaking in... so for about half an hour, people got to laugh at this crazy middle-aged lady randomly blowing bubbles in a grocery store parking lot. Some just sped past me not making eye contact, and I thought, "Welp, there lies the man with heart so dead." Some, such as the Francophone couple who didn't know or care that I could understand what they were saying, got into their car making arch comments about "the idiot blowing bubbles." A few teenagers laughed, pulled out their phones and filmed me from a safe distance. (No, I don't want to know if I ended up on social media.)
But most people got it. Their eyes lit up. They smiled. They sang "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" at me. They giggled and chased floating bubbles on the wind like sugared-up kindergartners (and not just the kids, either; a couple of big, beefy, heavily-tatted guys who looked like they could have been in a gang were grinning and popping bubbles like it was going outta style). Or they just walked by to say, "That looks like fun!" At the least, I made their Monday night grocery run a little more interesting. And how many other fun things can you do in public for just $1.10?
Yeah, I live in my own little cosmos. So do you, probably. And doing silly stuff that makes you happy, in a place where other people can see, helps you decide who you can trust inside that cosmos and who gets denied entry. That's what I think "dance like nobody's watching" really means. Because people do watch... and the ones who like you anyway, even after seeing you flail about like a dork, are the ones who deserve to get in on the fun.
