Don't Forget to Live

"Awareness Through Movement" is not an easy book to read, and yet it's the most accessible of any of Moshe's books. His writing takes a lot of concentration and energy to decipher. It's full of long, seemingly unrelated tangents on complicated and vague topics. It can be exhausting to read more than a few pages at once unless you're feeling particularly mentally fortified.

Tonight I decided to pick it up and see if I was feeling up for it. I've read parts of it before, and decided to start again at the beginning this time. Rereading anything written by Moshe is a good idea. You'll undoubtedly catch something you missed the first five times you read it. Anyway, I did very well with it, until page 6, when I got distracted by a quote and wanted to write it down. And hey, even better than just writing it down, I could write it down in my blog! And then write about it! That's what this thing is here for, right? So, I'll get back to reading eventually. First I have a quote to share, as Moshe talks about three things that help us create our self-image - heritage (genetics), education, and self-education...

"Every aspiration and spontaneous desire is subjected to stringent internal criticism lest they reveal the individual's organic nature."

Oh god no, don't let your true self show, whatever you do. That would break down all of your carefully built masks, and could ruin any chance you ever had of becoming rich and successful and maybe even famous, and those are the most important things in life, of course. Give in to the Man.

Unless... What if you took Moshe's advice and slowed down? Not just slowed down a specific movement to examine it, but slowed down your whole life and examined it? What would you find? Would you like it? Would you like you? How could you change what you don't like? Moshe spends a lot of time talking about the ways that we live our lives. His work offers a philosophy as well as a physical practice. We get so caught up in our day to day lives and in work and school and in all of our responsibilities that we often lose sight of the things we actually want out of life and forgot about somewhere along the way. It feels really good to stop and pick those up again sometimes.