speak no evil

There are competitors in this world. You'd think you baked the best pie because your children said so, but then you entered the county fair pie competition and realized you had nothing. You have two options: you can either give up making pies and start working on your hummus recipe or you can connect with other pie makers, learn their tricks, take pie-making workshops and seminars, buy instructional DVDs on making pies, and experiment by pushing your own envelope.

I'm not exactly here to talk about winning or losing in a competition. I've blogged about my objection to belly dance competitions. I'm here about the less direct form of it: the rivalry.

It's not only about rivalry. You can watch a dancer's video across the globe and wonder why he or she gets praises because you don't see that kind of magnetism found in dancers you adore. Do you push on the "Like" button and or type in positive comments anyway? Well, it's up to you, but I won't do that. Do you press the "Dislike" button and or write discouraging remarks? Again, it's up to you, but I won't do that either. So what do I do? Easy: I just keep silent. If it's someone I know, I just congratulate him or her on the performance, but I don't praise. It'd be dishonest to both the dancer and myself.

Now the big question is: what if the dancer asks, "In which areas can I improve my dance skills?"

I seriously don't know how to answer that, except from an audience point of view with a wee bit of belly dance background.

Then again, dancers don't really ask that question to rival dancers now, do they?