Dancing in Chains
Dancing in chains: making things difficult for oneself and then spreading over it the illusion of ease and facility so that both the constraint and its conquest are noticed and admired.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, §140
A dancer embodies two extremes. On the one hand, there is the sensation of freedom and abandonment. A great dancer appears to float effortlessly through their movements.
On the other hand there is absolute discipline. For a dancer to achieve this sensation of effortless freedom of expression, they must subject themselves to extremely rigorous training. Body and mind must synchronise around a set of rules - the rules of a particular style of dance.
The dancer is always dancing in chains, mastering the constraints of their bodies and the rules of their style, just so that at the crucial moment they seem to be completely free.
Nietzsche uses this image to talk about how we live our lives. It’s easy to do just one of t…
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