Backspace, Ctl+z, delete - what is simply reversible?

The movement principle of reversibility can actually help our writing practice and attitude. (Did you just do a double take, or utter a 'say what?')?

The purpose in able to reverse something is to indicate that you had the intention of doing that something in the first place.

As a recovering overthinker, a failed underthinker, and a holistic thinker/feeler in the making, I have embraced many ways to temper the overactivity of my head and put it on equal footing with the rest of my body. Because even the thinkiest of people know that the body should not be seen as an object or a head-taxi.

Since the early noughties I have been exploring different movement principles*, and the first one I pulled out of a deck of cards (literally, a deck I’d made to help me learn the many principles of this ‘modality with no principles’) was “reversibility”.

What is the point of being able to do something in reverse? How often do you walk around backwards? I mean, really? If you are an adult, this is generally something we don’t do. If you are, however, a ‘follower’ in a partnered dance style, you may walk backwards from time to time. But unless you are a professional Argentine tango dancer, you don’t do this on the daily.

There are many reasons for people to get more reps in, doing things in reverse. Like open and close jars. Or door handles. Using a screwdriver. Driving a car, right? What about sitting to standing and standing to sit? All useful. There is a lot of use in being able to turn clothes the right side in, if they’ve been taken off carelessly and are presented (read: flung all about the house by small children) inside out.

What about how you think? What about how you feel? What about how something tastes?

Yep. There’s function in reversibility in those areas too.

Have you ever changed your mind?

Have you ever had mixed feelings, or realised that after the passage of time, you feel differently about an event? The loading or the charge is no longer there?

Have you ever made a too-sour soup and … do you want to know how to ‘fix’ it?

Actually, that’s not really my point. Being able to reverse something doesn’t mean you can change the outcome necessarily or that you can ‘fix’ or cure something. (But often with sour soup, add some baking soda).

The purpose in being able to reverse ‘something’ is to indicate that you had the intention of doing ‘that something’ in the first place.

So picture yourself coming from standing to sitting on the floor. There are many ways to do this. Getting down on your knees first, then sitting on the side and swinging the legs around in front and crossing them. Using other furniture to lower yourself down and arranging the legs. Crossing the feet at the ankles and whizzing around James Brown style and “ow!" you’re on the floor! You could even trip over like a circus clown and then do a somersault and fall in a heap somehow arranged neatly with your legs folded underneath you. But that’s a trick.

Photo by Kin Kwesy on Unsplash

Sometimes, we just fall backwards onto our bottoms and there’s no way we can stop ourselves from fighting our lack of balance and gravity. It’s when we fall, or ‘have a fall’ (after a certain age). That’s how a sprawl can come to be. Almost no one really intends to execute an ungainly ‘sprawl’.

Of course, I encourage writers to embrace happy accidents of interesting connections or random ideas found from the least obvious sources. These are cause for celebration.

Still, you can’t replicate a fluke. You can’t build a robust writing practice on a series of coincidences.

So, reversibility is a great concept to hold close. If I write an idea, and get a draft down, when I come back to edit it, ask yourself: can I look at it and honestly say that I was true to the idea? Can I find the point where I started to veer off track and then put myself back on course? (If you decide it’s worth more to pursue the new course, then change the core idea - certainly, please do. But you get my drift.)

If I get some feedback on my work that really stings, because it reminds me of how my Grade 3 teacher spoke to me, or a conversation I overheard at university about me between two professors, am I able to stop - recognise that those are echoed memories of the past and have nothing to do with what is happening now? Can I return to the present moment or even to just before to how I was feeling before the feedback came from this ‘unrelated-to-those-other-events’-person, in front of me?

Even when you’re writing with pen and paper, and you have to strike something out, or make a little asterisk with an arrow from it to another section; there are always chances to change the order of an initial stream of consciousness.

Photo by Adeel Shabir on Unsplash

No, we can’t take back hurtful words that come out of our mouths or control how they are received. No, we cannot undo a physical lunge at a person that ended up being harder and more aggressive than we thought it would be. No, we cannot ‘just’ unthink a thought that has been hardwired and reinforced over again over many decades. I’m not suggesting that these things can be done with the flick of a switch.

I am suggesting that as each new moment unfolds, we can be more intentional in our expression of words, through speaking. We can exercise how aware we are of our feelings before they translate into uncontrollable and unedited actions. And we can unpack an old idea and be curious about how others think differently about the same thing and perhaps open up to new ways of seeing the world.

When we start off with a sense of deliberation and selectivity - of poise - we send a message to ourselves that there is time! Time enough for for us to slow down, stop and reverse, to back up - or backspace, control+z, delete - should the need the arise. Maturity is about having collected lots of options to choose from, and not just the things that you were told, or have worked maybe once or twice before.

What ways does ‘reversibility’ turn up in your world, and in how you think, sense, feel and act? In how you write and create?

* I moonlight as a Feldenkrais Method® practitioner in-training. Many newcomers to this practice become embodiment geeks, and I guess I’m no exception. I don’t want this identity to overtake my voice here on this newsletter, but thought I should put it out there ….