A Wise Voice

Anna: Hi, Paul, I totally agree with you on "Good human values are based on what is beneficial to the humanity rather than an individual person or gender." It is so beautifully said and so wise. Freedom and human rights movements led people to put a lot of emphasis on individuality and as a result, the inflated self-image lessens our ability to view the world as a connected whole. This inflated self-image is also probably the root cause to many modern psychological ailments and problems: loneliness, depression, and mental disorder. If we can zoom out and see ourselves as a tiny one, rather than the one, in this big universe, a fact that has not changed a bit since the big bang, we may again find the beauty in the ancient natural law and adopt the right perspective towards the self and the rest of the world.

I had a few Tango lessons by now and was deeply touched by this beautiful dance. I am a woman with strong characters in other people's eyes. When I first started, I experienced a lot of struggle, questioning, and doubt. As you have explained in your excellent blog, unless we adopt the appropriate values and mentality for this dance, we cannot dance the real Tango. As a matter of fact, unless the man and the woman take the right role, they cannot even get the dance going. They will be constantly on each other's toes. No agreement, no harmony, no beauty. Then one day luckily I met a partner who did all the things you mentioned that a good leader should do, he guided me, protected me and let me shine. And without me knowing I surrendered all my wariness and entrusted myself to him. The steps followed naturally. At that moment, I knew how Tango should be done and how beautiful it can be when it is done right, when a man is a man and a woman is a woman. Looking forward to more of your sharing.

Paul: Dear Anna, I appreciate your comment deeply because it summed up so well an important theme throughout this blog, and you did it with such simple elegance. When I started this blog, I thought it was just about tango as a dance. But I soon discovered that in fact I was in search of the lost humanity in ourselves, without which tango lost its soul. Tango awakens our humanity because it forces us to zoom out and see ourselves as part of the whole, to understand our smallness, loneliness, vulnerability and interdependence, as reflected in the “ancient natural law”, and to appreciate the beauty of Creation from a macro or cosmological perspective, as you eloquently put it. The individual is trivial. The strength of mankind comes from our connection, solidarity and cooperation. This truth, as attested by tango, must not be forgotten no matter how much we have achieved individually. Please write and let your voice be heard! My best wish to your tango!