From L.T.’s Chair

My wife, Hilary, came to yoga class with me last week.  I’ve been going for the past four years, and for the past three years I’ve tried to get her to come along.

This was her second class, and I think she might already be better than me, but that’s a different story.

This last time, Buddy, the yoga guy, played a new CD.  Usually, the music in yoga is, well, yoga music.  You know what I mean if you’ve ever been to a class.  But this time, Buddy played stuff with a much heartier beat—the kind of music you’d hear at a good club.

I dug the music—and I even felt myself move to the beat while in downward dog—but at the same time it had a surreal quality to it.  In yoga you expect Yanni.

This got me thinking about incongruity.  We’re always surprised when something is incongruent, be it a sentimental trucker or a cussing librarian.  Incongruity is therefore the basis for a lot of  jokes.

What’s even more interesting about incongruity, is that when we happen upon something incongruent, we mold the facts to fit our perception of the world.  For example, if we catch our favorite employee napping on the job, rather than face the incongruity (“I thought this guy was amazing, but here he is slacking off”) we’re likely to invent a story: “He must be working SO hard that he just fell asleep from exhaustion….”

That’s the thing about the world, we see what we want to see.  And when the evidence flies in the face of our perception—well, we just bend it to fit how we see the world.

“Dance music in yoga?  Cool.  I’m glad this is such a happenin’ class.”

This entry was posted Saturday, January 27th, 2007 at 11:45 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.