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What you see is (not) what you get. Our reality is virtual, built on semantics, filtered by psyches, and mediated by associations. 

This is old hat for the Vedic philosophy, where our perceptions will always be hidden behind the veil of maya, illusion. And for the Jewish mystics as well – the Hebrew word for world, Olam, is more aptly translated with an association of the mystery, what is hidden, what cannot be seen. And Bertrand Russell says as much in the Problems of Philosophy – we cannot see things as they are; we project a visual idea onto the objective world, but that is a subjective experience, not inherent to reality itself. If all three of these are pointing at the same truth, that we cannot witness an objective reality, then there is a curious plot twist: whatever we imagine reality to truly be, it cannot be, because we’ve imagined it as thus. 

The question is not “is this real?”. The question is – what does it mean to you? 

We limit ourselves to thinking of as real that which reflects light. But our relationships, the systems that surround us like some mycelial network, our semantics… all are real. More real than the philosopher’s archetypal table, which turns into a chair when I sit on it. One becomes two, two becomes none. 

What you see is always more or less than what there is. 

Movement as a practice is a way of operating the most sophisticated tech, this human “mindbody system” (for lack of better word): reducible neither to the flesh nor the neuron, but rather considered as the collective of the hardware, software, and firmware.

Humanity has never come so close to losing itself – the juggernaut of progress is moving so fast, leaving us choking on the dust of a modern existential crisis. Who are we, who do we want to be? Movement can be a major piece of that puzzle – nothing else both sits at the origin of what we are and can, yet simultaneously guide us along a path of growth and complexity.

This is what makes movement so appealing as a practice. Beyond its functionality, beyond its contributions to health, movement can serve us in times that feel like standing on the precipice of losing ourselves.

Just as breath is invaluable for sitting at the intersection of conscious and unconscious processes, and thus became a primary tool in meditation, movement is invaluable for sitting at the intersection of origin and complexity. These two opposing poles, where we come from and where we go, compete in what seems a zero-sum game – as binarism gives way to cyborgism, as dualities yield multiplicities… Do we align ourselves with the past or the future?

But, inside of this dilemma, a hidden path…

This hidden path hints at resolutions to our greatest challenges – social, technological, political, spiritual… If we can find the hidden answer to the riddle of the zeitgeist, we can push open the door to a new era, the next step in evolution.

Everything we’re doing through this movement practice seems to be for the sake of injecting more complexity into this system. Whether it’s improving predictive systems and timing mechanisms, refining motor maps, developing coordination of disparate elements to yield a coherent outcome, building an internal/cybernetic architecture, pattern acquisition, etc… it all takes us towards higher complexity.

And yet, even as the complexity of the system increases, something of the origins remains, and indeed, becomes strengthened and fortified. Perhaps this is because physical movement is fundamentally constrained by every evolutionary step we’ve taken since our protean origins. Inside of the limitation, the seeds of freedom. The freedom to grow and expand while staying close to the source to remain, at heart, human.

When you’re going to the edge, whichever edge, the edge of reason and sanity, or of weightshift and balance… what defines the moment is the quality of attention. You can afford no lapse in concentration, no hubris to lure you beyond the base of support. 

To stay sane, to keep balance as you flirt with madness and falling… this is how poets live, but it’s how we all realize the moment. 

Why do you think we return to these places, over and over? 

Where do you think the mystery and paradox of creativity is born? All life is an improvisation, but we’re asleep to that fact 99% of the time – making it feel like anything but. We live for the other 1% – when we realize, oh shit, I have no idea what’s coming next. Of course, we never knew what was coming next, we all just fall for the statistical anomaly of a seemingly persisting state of things. Pattern recognition is the boon of humanity, and the curse. 

So it’s up to us as a society to find the edges, to constantly generate pattern interruption.