Here in the center there is a girl who is dancing exactly the way she is supposed to. The directions are given and she follows them. She's doing what's expected and she knows she is because everyone is laughing, everyone is delighted. She dances more and more, harder and harder, to please the people. If they like a little, they will like a lot. You can see her thinking this, or you imagine you can. Stick your tongue out, say the words, and she sticks it all the way out, she wants to do well, she wants to please, she wants everyone to be happy. When they are happy, that is like being loved. She looks ridiculous, but they keep laughing and she keeps going. Behind her there is another child who isn't moving, who doesn't know how or doesn't want to follow directions. That's okay. Some people love music differently. When she looks over her shoulder she sees that behind her there is another child who dances a little, but not as well as our girl does, since nobody is cheering for her. Probably she gets love another way. It's later then that she notices the child next to her. The child next to her is covering her face. In her exuberance at being the center of attention she has failed to notice what falls outside the circle, and what falls outside the circle is crying.
In this story you are the girl who is dancing. In this story you are the child who is not dancing, which is also an option. In this story you are the grandmother, laughing with delight, sharing the video with friends with famous people; "what a little actress!" you say. In this story you are the child who is crying.
There is delight and absence, there is laughter and there are tears. There's a lot of empathy for those feelings; you have a lot of empathy. What you don't understand is why nobody is comforting the child covering her face, why she's in the front row when she clearly doesn't want to be there. Surely there are adults making decisions here: a decision to put her there, made worse by decisions to film it, decisions to not help. You think of other situations where children are filmed and nobody helps. Can you imagine that? You find that you cannot. You wonder if it's the same kinds of people all the time, and you find that you suspect that it is.
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