“The Emptying of the Dancer” (a parable)
Can you imagine the exhaustion if a professional dancer was contractually obligated to dance everywhere he went? If the stage became his whole life?
He just wanted to share his gift with others—in its context—to allow the art to stand on its own and forge a path apart from himself, the artist (the person).
But now he’s asked to merge the two. To become a Living Performer. To dance at the theater, in the streets, at home, and on camera. To maximize every public opportunity…blurring the lines between the transcendent beauty of his gift and the limits of his humanity.
“Why am I required to dance all the time?,” he asked his employer.
They replied, “because it’s working. Because you’re changing people’s lives. Because ticket sales are through the roof!”
For a while the man obliged, and for a while the endeavor was rewarding, even intoxicating.
Until he began to feel like a caricature of himself—awkward, beaten down, anxiously estranged from his core, and unrelatable. He knew the more his life and art were merged together as One Grand Performance, the greater the impact he could have—right? The momentum was real.
His body and soul also knew (with reluctance) the un-sustainability of the contract—the toll of his unwitting self-objectification.
I wrote this little parable privately a few years ago, just to name some of the tensions of our climate. KJ & I continue to grapple with the joyful and perilous contradictions of social media. After the release of two books, she is learning her stride as an author and we’re asking (in dialogue with community) questions about long-term integrity.
What does fidelity to craft require?
Can we practice simple hospitality online without the shrapnel of enmity and scarcity?
What changes are needed to champion human limits (ours and others)?
How do we show up equitably?
I think of women like Judy Wu Dominick, a powerful writer and thinker who left social media in the last couple years because she could no longer reconcile the costs and compromises. I hope I continue to heed my own conscience with the same sensitivity.
Still, there are many who 1) have experienced real personal and professional blessings from social media or 2) know that without it, a pathway for their writing and art is severely limited. Not to mention, many abuse survivors have found community and hope for justice thanks to digital engagement when they were denied it in person.
The perceived binary tension—especially with art and social justice—can be exhausting. “Either I leave and tank my dreams or I stay and injure my soul.”
But like the opening parable, notice this is usually a burden felt by individuals rather than a shared responsibility with both village and industry. However we imagine a way forward, we’ll need circles of integrity that can shelve the numbers and engage the spiritual milieu of vocation, affliction, and soul.
Jesus sustained a ministry of artistry and activism by remaining a contemplative. He frequently withdrew into obscurity to pray (Lk. 5:16). He guarded his humanity and connection to soul, an abiding attention with the Father. For those of us committed to our own work as advocates, etc., the limitlessness of social media requires we ask: how would we know if our presence was being diminished by engaging so much?
When the impulse to protest, respond to needs, or simply ‘check the latest’ overrides the soul’s capacity, it’s easy for our engagement to become compulsive.
Seems appropriate, then, to end with these words by Thomas Merton:
“It is useless to try to make peace with ourselves by being pleased with everything we have done. In order to settle down in the quiet of our own being we must learn to be detached from the results of our own activity. We must withdraw ourselves, to some extent, from the effects that are beyond our control and be content with the good will and the work that are the quiet expression of our inner life. We must be content to live without watching ourselves live, to work without expecting any immediate reward, to love without an instantaneous satisfaction, and to exist without any special recognition.”
I struggled with this tension as well. I just want to write, why should I have to master a whole other craft (marketing/social media)? 🥴
This one came just at the right time for me, as I've taken a break from social media with these very tensions in mind. The Thomas Merton quote you shared might be my new favorite.