(no subject)

"The urge to transform one's appearance, to dance outdoors, to mock
the powerful and embrace perfect strangers is not easy to suppress . . .
The capacity for collective joy is encoded into us almost as deeply as the
capacity for the erotic love of one human for another. We can live
without it, as most of us do, but only at the risk of succumbing to the
solitary nightmare of depression.

"Why not reclaim our distinctively human heritage as creatures who
generate their own ecstatic pleasures out of music, color, feasting, and
dance . . . There is no 'point' to it -- no religious overtones, ideological
message, or money to be made -- just the chance, which we need much
more of on this crowded planet, to acknowledge the miracle of our
simultaneous existence with some sort of celebration."

-Barbara Ehrenreich, *Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy* (via Rob B.)