Notes on finality

Cherry Blossoms by Cynthia Dragoni

Unlike so many professions, even in the arts: painting, acting, playing an instrument, the dancer doesn’t ask will I be able to make my living for my entire life on the stage? They know their time is limited, yet they continue, continue without hesitation- with the full force of their being. A madness of sorts. And yet the finality is built in, not with death, but with the marching of time, in this life.

It makes one wonder what is the point? As if any of life where ever meant to have a point beyond the ecstasy of nowness. Their approach to life, driven as they are is an acute kind of aliveness. Knowing that the first death blows just behind them, they are still asking do I have more inside of me to give? How can I be better, more beautiful, more musical? It is a life lived without illusions: tomorrows, perfections, all illusions. This is the great benefit of years spent in the studio, the practice of tangling with nowness and the inevitability of death. What to do with that? Continue to offer ourselves to beauty, to generosity, to life.

“We all live in the same time forever. There is no future and there is no past.”

-George Balanchine