#312 / Clap Along

Prompted by my wife, who was prompted to tell me to do it by an article in the June 18, 2023, edition of The New York Times, I watched the video linked below. The article that prompted my wife ran in the "Sunday Styles" section of the newspaper and was titled, "His Room Without A Roof." That title appears only in the hard copy version of the paper. If you click the link I have just provided you will get another title. 

 

The video that my wife and that article prompted me to watch features Pharrell Williams (pictured both above and below). The video is what I guess you'd have to call an "upper." The title of the song in the video is "Happy." I am recommending it as a four minute reminder of how wonderful it is to be alive! Bob Dylan has "New Morning." Pharrell Williams has "Happy."

 

To be honest, I cannot claim that I am always as "happy" as those who are doing all that crazy dancing in the video. Maybe you aren't, either. If not, watching that video is a good antidote to that certain kind of "glumness" that can afflict those of us who are looking out the window, and "doomscrolling," as we seem to see our modern world implode. My wife uses the Pharrell Williams video in classes she teaches at UCSC, to illuminate some of the most common ethical systems guiding Western thinkers, including, specifically: 

Libertarianism

Utilitarianism

Egalitarianism

Religious and cultural (family) values

Prima facie values

It is fun to hunt for the depictions of those ethical systems, as you watch the video, but what I particularly liked about the song was that phrase in the refrain: "Room Without A Roof." 

I take that to mean that possibilities are endless, and that our existence (even if we don't seem to notice this, all the time) is just such a "Room." 

"No limits." No "Roof."

Of course, just to inject some realism into this commentary, to go along with all that "happy" dancing, I do need to note that the "Room" we inhabit doesn't really have much of a floor, either!

 

Given the options, I think we had better keep our eyes to the sky (and "keep on the sunny side," as I have opined before). There is not much joy or advantage in spending time pondering whether the beams beneath us will actually provide us with any long term support. Let's go with Pharrell Williams! All those people, dancing around - and that includes all of us - are living in a "Room Without A Roof." Let's not forget that's where we really are.

Clap along!

 

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Image Credits:

(1) - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/18/style/louis-vuitton-menswear-pharrell-williams-louis-vuittons.html

(2) - https://youtu.be/y6Sxv-sUYtM