Total control. Total freedom.

I am joining the ranks of ideological bloggers today, I hope no one minds. Oh who am I kidding, who even reads this?

I have been in Humanities 101 with Lauri Haddock for 4 semesters, once as a student and three times as a TA/mentor. Every time we talk about dance this quote by Edward Villella is introduced to the students. And every year I hear about it, it resonates with me more and more and causes me to think for weeks on end about it. I have had about 3 perspectives of thought regarding this quote. The first just has to do with dance itself. The second regards to the Gospel. The third and the one that has come most recently, has to do with creativity.

As for dance. I am a dancer, and this quote was said by a dancer, so clearly this was my first train of thought in hearing this quote. And I don't think there is a dancer out there that would argue of the truthfulness of this idea. Once you gain complete control over your bodily faculties, the possibilities are endless. When a ballerina has mastered the technique of her art form, she then becomes free to execute moves that would be impossible otherwise. I usually think of this in term of my core or balance. If I don't have control over my core or my balance, I can't do any of the dance moves I want, and thus my freedom is much less.

The Gospel implication are very clear in this to me. It brings about the mind-boggling concept of human agency and obedience and how it is that they fit together as they must because they are both eternal truths. It is interesting to me how while this concept of total control and total freedom will make sense to people when applied to something temporal such as dance, but when the concept is introduced in a Gospel sense they scoff at it. "It just doesn't make sense," they say "that in giving me a list of rules to obey constantly (i.e. The Ten Commandments) I gain more freedom." How often do we hear as Latter-day Saints or just religious people in general that the commandments, both scriptural and modern, take away their freedom and doesn't allow them to "do what they want to do". But for those of us who have adhered to those commandments we have been given, we have seen the blessings in our lives. This is, I think, even bigger than the usual answer given that when we keep our bodies free of certain substances we are more free to make better choices and have better control of our faculties. When you are making choices that are conducive to the Spirit and to the Light of Christ, how can your freedom not be enlarged? With these two instruments you are able to be inspired and see things that you cannot see without it. Furthermore, how much more clear is your mind when you are happy than when you are not? With obedience to commandments, that internal happiness can always be present and can always be effective. This argument is only the tip of the iceberg, but I must move on.

The last idea I have had concerning this quote has come very recently and it struck me today in a beautiful tangent we went on in my American Christianity class. (I could probably write an entire blog post on that tangent. After hearing what my professor said I just wanted to walk up to him and say, Professor Fluhman, I LIVE in there I am so with you on this. Does this intrigue you?) So the phrase that was said that got me thinking was when Professor Fluhman mentioned that he liked the fenced-in-ness of the Mormon Church because it forces us to bloom where we are planted. Suddenly something clicked! I grew up feeling like creativity would come when I was given a metaphorical blank sheet of paper and told to go at it. However, for me this never produced very good results. The more parameters and rules I was given, the more creative I became because I had to become so. I experienced this a lot in the modern dance classes I have taken at BYU. For a final in one of my composition classes we were told to base our dance on a painting and I was so annoyed by this because I had so many ideas that I wanted to use! But once I dug into the assignment not only did I love the end result, but it was an end result that NEVER would have happened had I not been given the parameters. So in fact I was introduced to new opportunities and new avenues that I wouldn't have even known existed had I not followed the rules. Isn't that amazing? New opportunities just for following the rules? It kind of melts my brain a little. But it's pretty true. :)