It’s easy for a lot of us to forget that we are currently living on a giant sphere of molten liquids, rocks, oceans and large expanses of land. This place we call home has provided us with everything we have utilized to fulfill our passions. Life is subjective, of course, and your ideas aren’t the same as someone else’s and your goals could be far different. On that note, allow me to introduce the term known “Asolare.” More than just a restaurant, this Italian word means, more or less, to spend time in a meaningless yet delightful way. It is great to have your goals, your dreams, your aspirations, and it is wonderful to pursue them. But, sometimes it can do you well to do something delightful and not constructive at all. Nothing is arguably more delightful than listening to music and losing your sense of time dancing with friends.

A project that I was apart of a few years ago took this principle, along with this pass time, and combined them to create a video for the city of Philadelphia. And here you go…

If you watched close enough, the kid who did that cool spin kick in the middle of the video, that was me. No beard back in them days.

I was lucky enough to become apart of this project by being in a film class at my after school program YOACAP in downtown Philadelphia. The program’s primary focus was to get teens dedicated to their education through plenty of different means. The film class was one of many ways we were engaged in our community whilst still obtaining experience in a practice that wasn’t totally academic. Our teacher, Walter Wimberly, inspired my brother and I to take him up on the offer to join the production and even be on camera representing the livelier side of the population. In a somewhat ironic fashion, we spent the day trying to capture the right shots and gather certain people which really made for a stressful task. But, it was worth it to see how everything played out. 

Anyway, I don’t personally think that we were not brought to life just to always stress about what we have to do; it’s important to focus on what we simply have. A lot of us who do not live in poverty or suffer from hardships like war or widespread disease tend to focus our energy towards our day to day lives and struggles. It would do us well to take a step back from it all and just have fun in a way that doesn’t need to have meaning. This video project was the perfect representation of Asolare in my eyes; what we were able to accomplish in this day long project was that we brought together complete strangers in a happy environment, we livened up the streets with song and dance, and we did it all for the fun of it. Yes, this day had meaning, but it didn’t feel like it at the time, and that was okay.

Another blog that I came across spoke on this same topic and I wanted to share it here.

Asolare… figure out what you would like to do today and do it because you know that you have a lifetime to handle work and responsibility. Make good decisions, of course, but never forget to take a break and breathe every once in a while. Life will still be here when you get back.