Sunday, January 25, 2015

Discuss the meaning of the Beckett quote: "Dance first. Thinking later. It's the normal order."

I am not sure that the full meaning of Beckett's quote can
be understood without understanding his context as a thinker and writer.  Initially, it
has to be stated that Beckett is a real complex individual.  He was a shy and courteous
man in private, but in the direction of his plays, he could be stubborn and intense.
 His work featured characters who struggled to find meaning.  For example, the
protagonists in his seminal work Waiting for Godot are individuals who wait for a
mysterious dinner guest.  They wait for meaning. They wait for their identity to be
formed, where inaction gives way to paralysis of action. The way in which Beckett lived
his life is one where he is afraid of this fate upon humanity.  His joining the French
resistance against the Nazis, remaining loyal to his adopted home of France, as well as
the fact that even at the zenith of his fame, Beckett never reveled in the spotlight or
the attention and notoriety upon which  someone of his intellectual caliber could have
cased in on is noteworthy of how he lived his life.


The
idea of "dance first, think later" reflects how terrified Beckett is of a world of
inaction.  The notion of individuals who think and overthink at the cost of action and
vitality of life is something that Beckett could not embrace.  Consider his own life
when faced with a critical choice of standing against the Nazis or simply withdrawing.
 If Beckett, "thinks" first, perhaps he does not stand against the Nazis, allowing them
to win.  His desire to "dance first," in the dance of freedom in the face of oppression
is noteworthy.  At a time in human consciousness when thought and rationality
demonstrated itself to a point where dehumanization and automaton reality reigned
supreme, Beckett's quote demands individuals to break free from this patterned
existence, one that seeks to silence individual voice and relegate it.  The idea of
"dance first" as a "natural order" is Beckett's own believe that individuals can reach
into or tap into an organic reservoir of humanity to embrace something that allows the
world to see individuals who do not "wait" and are not "paralyzed."  Rather, the
redemptive force of humanity becomes one where individuals "dance," despite the
protestations of others who tell them to "wait" for something that may never
arrive.

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