I love how Brooke Gladstone opened her talk discussing the mass shooting in Nevada- focusing her discussion on current events strung me in from the start. This was a good point to open up with, and was the same tactic used in a performance I saw a week later.
In the following week, I travelled to New York with my dad to watch a dance performance at BAM called “A Letter to my Nephew.” The choreographer, Bill T. Jones, focuses on the political landscape of the present to create meaningful and emotional scenes. This performance also opened up with the Nevada shooting, which instantly brought me back to the Brooke Gladstone talk. I really enjoyed how performers and speakers really talk about these things with us and try to address these current issues that our society has.
My favorite moment in her talk was when someone asked, “How do you focus on your life?” Her response was almost immediate, “Don’t use your phone when getting places (cars, walking).” She said that this was a strategy she often did on the subway; by making more eye contact with people and having less phone time, you will have a more intimate connection with the people around you. When I was working in New York this summer, almost every single person was focused in to their phones on their commute. It annoys me when people walk and don’t look up and just stare at there phones because i KNOW that they are not doing anything of any importance. When I would commute in the mornings, I would try not to look at my phone too much and try to enjoy the city around me. Sometimes I would have my headphones in, but I would create a playlist so I could just keep my phone in my pocket as I walked to work and looked at all the places around me. This is really great advice from Brooke, and if everyone started to do this, our society would be a lot more observant and conscious of each other.