Mark: Most of us think the great enemy of a good life is time. We fight wrinkles, we dread birthdays. But what if the real enemy isn't getting older, but standing still? What if stagnation, not age, is the thing we should truly fear? Michelle: That’s a powerful reframe. Because we spend so much energy trying to turn back the clock, when maybe we should be focused on just… winding it correctly for the moment we’re in. It shifts the entire battleground. Mark: It really does. And that very question is at the heart of Keep It Moving: Lessons for the Rest of Your Life by the legendary choreographer Twyla Tharp. Michelle: And when you say legendary, you mean it. This is a woman who's won Tonys, Emmys, and is recognized as one of the world’s leading artists in dance. She wrote this book in her late seventies to answer the one question everyone kept asking her: "How do you keep going?" Mark: Exactly. And her answer isn't about some magic pill or a secret anti-aging cream. It’s a philosophy. A way of life. And it all starts with fighting that enemy we just mentioned: stagnation.

Mark: Tharp has this incredible, punchy quote that just cuts right through all the noise. She says, "Age is not the enemy. Stagnation is the enemy. Complacency is the enemy. Stasis is the enemy." Michelle: I love that. It’s a declaration of war, but on the right thing. It’s not about fighting your own body or the calendar. It’s about fighting inertia. But that’s such an abstract idea. How does she make it concrete? Mark: With a fantastic story. She talks about working with Mikhail Baryshnikov, arguably the greatest male dancer of the 20th century, on a new ballet. This is when he's at the absolute peak of his powers. He's 27 years old. Michelle: Twenty-seven! So, basically a physical god. Untouchable. Mark: You would think. But after a rehearsal, they're in a coffee shop, and he's just morose, completely down. Tharp is worried he hates the ballet she’s creating for him. But he says no, he loves it. And then he drops this bomb. He looks at her and says, "soon we will be old." Michelle: Wow. At 27? That's… honestly, that’s kind of heartbreaking. It speaks to this immense pressure, especially in a physical profession, but it also feels so universal. This idea that your best years are a tiny, fleeting window. Mark: Precisely. And Tharp uses that to show how deeply this fear is ingrained in us, even when we are at our strongest. But then she gives us the antidote. She tells another story, about the master cellist Pablo Casals. Someone asked him, late in his life, why he still practiced the cello for hours every single day at the age of 91. Michelle: I’m almost afraid to hear the answer. I feel like most people would say "habit" or "what else would I do?" Mark: His answer was just two words. He said, "I'm improving." Michelle: Oh, that gives me chills. "I'm improving." At 91. That completely reframes the purpose of life. It’s not about arriving at some peak and then desperately trying to cling to it. It’s about the process of getting better, forever. Mark: That’s the core of it. And for Tharp, the way you do that is by taking up space. She argues that as we get older, we tend to contract. We literally make ourselves smaller. We stoop, we sit more, we stay home. But we also contract metaphorically. We stop trying new things, we stop taking risks. Her solution is to consciously push back. To expand. Michelle: Okay, but "shut up and dance" is easy for Twyla Tharp to say. She’s a dancer. What does "taking up space" look like for someone working a desk job, or a stay-at-home parent, or someone whose body is genuinely failing them? Mark: That’s the beauty of her definition. She says, "Are you walking? Are you moving through time and space? Then you are dancing." For her, movement isn't about a perfect pirouette. It's about intention. It’s choosing to walk to the farther coffee shop. It's stretching for five minutes when you wake up. It’s deciding to learn a new skill online. It's any deliberate act that breaks the pattern of stasis. It's a choice to move, in any capacity you have, rather than letting yourself shrink.

Michelle: That idea of a deliberate choice feels like a perfect way into what I think is the most powerful concept in the book. This distinction she makes between a goal and a pledge. I’m still wrestling with it. Mark: It’s a game-changer. She argues that we're a goal-obsessed culture. We want to run the marathon, get the promotion, buy the house. These are all finite things. You achieve them, you check the box, and it's done. And often, there's a weird emptiness that follows. Michelle: The "what now?" feeling. I know that. But isn't a goal just a more concrete, manageable version of a pledge? I’m not sure I see the fundamental difference. Can you give me a clear example? Mark: She gives the perfect one. She talks about the long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad. At age 64, Nyad achieved something staggering: she swam from Cuba to Florida. It was her fifth attempt over 35 years. An incredible, monumental achievement. Tharp says that was a goal. It's done. The box is checked. Michelle: Right, and it’s an amazing goal. One of the greatest of all time. Mark: Absolutely. But Tharp contrasts it with her own story. In 1962, she's 21, a college student studying art history. But her passion is dance. She’s in a dressing room in Manhattan, seven months from graduation, and she has this moment of decision. A safe, respectable career in art history, or the uncertain, physically brutal, and short-lived career of a dancer. And in that moment, she walks out of that dressing room having decided to pursue dance. She says, "I chose my life, it did not choose me." That, for her, was a pledge. Michelle: Okay, now I get it. The pledge is the process, the goal is the event. Nyad's goal was to cross the water. Tharp's pledge was to live a life of movement. The pledge has no finish line. Mark: Exactly. The pledge is a guiding principle that informs thousands of daily choices. It's not a destination; it's a direction. Tharp’s pledge to dance meant she had to constantly learn, adapt, and push herself every single day. It wasn't a one-time victory. It was, and is, a continuous state of becoming. Michelle: That’s a much more resilient way to live. Because if your identity is tied to a single goal, what happens if you fail? Or what happens after you succeed? A pledge seems to be about who you are, not just what you do. It’s 'I am a writer,' not 'I will finish this book.' Mark: And that’s why she says the only choice that is certain to be wrong is the one you don’t make. Inaction is the only true failure, because it violates the pledge to move, to choose, to live deliberately.

Michelle: But what happens when that process, that pledge, gets interrupted? When you fail, or your body breaks down, which it inevitably will? It's easy to have a pledge when things are going well and you're 21. It's a lot harder when you're 65 and your hip gives out. Mark: This is where her philosophy gets really beautiful. She doesn't offer platitudes about staying positive. She introduces a concept from Japanese art called kintsugi. Michelle: Oh, I think I know this. Is that the pottery? Mark: It is. It's the art of repairing broken pottery, but instead of trying to hide the cracks, the artisans mend them with a lacquer mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. The break isn't hidden; it's illuminated. The piece becomes more beautiful and more valuable because it was broken. Michelle: Wow. That’s a stunning metaphor for life. The scars are not something to be ashamed of; they're proof of your history and your resilience. They're the most interesting part of you. Mark: That’s her entire point about bouncing back. It’s not about pretending the break never happened. It’s about mending in a way that makes you stronger and more interesting. She tells the story of George Foreman. In 1974, he loses the heavyweight title to Muhammad Ali in the famous "Rumble in the Jungle." He's devastated. He retires. Twenty years pass. Michelle: An eternity in boxing. Mark: A lifetime. Then, in 1994, at 45 years old, he gets a shot at the title again against a much younger, stronger champion. And he wins. He becomes the oldest heavyweight champion in history. He didn't come back as the same fighter. He came back as someone who had been broken, who had lived a whole other life, and he used that experience, that wisdom—that kintsugi—to win. Michelle: He was stronger for the mending. That’s incredible. Tharp also talks about something she calls 'kludges,' right? How does that fit in? Mark: A kludge is an engineering term for a clumsy, inelegant, but effective short-term solution to a problem. In life, it's the bad habit or the workaround we create that gets us through a tough time, but then we never get rid of it. It becomes part of our system and holds us back. Michelle: Like relying on three cups of coffee to get through the morning instead of fixing your sleep schedule. Or avoiding difficult conversations instead of learning how to have them. Mark: Precisely. And for Tharp, a "second act" isn't about starting from scratch. It's about having the wisdom and courage to go back and dekludge your life. To look at those temporary fixes, those cracks you just papered over, and to finally mend them properly, with gold. It's what allows people like Jimmy Carter to go from a one-term president to a Nobel-winning global humanitarian, or the artist Hokusai to change his name and style dozens of times, always improving, right up until his death.

Michelle: So when you put it all together, the message is so clear. It’s not about avoiding the breaks or the passage of time. It's about how you mend. The core idea isn't 'don't get old,' it's 'don't get stagnant.' The purpose of life isn't to achieve a perfect, unbroken state, but to always be in the process of improving, of moving, of mending. Mark: And her final advice is the most direct and powerful of all. The book's last chapter is titled "Shut Up and Dance," which was also the name of one of her famous ballets. It's a command, but it's an empowering one. Find your movement, whatever it is—a walk, a new hobby, a difficult conversation, a creative project—and just begin. Take that first step. Michelle: I love that. It’s so practical. It’s not some grand, abstract theory. It’s a call to action. It makes me want to ask our listeners: what's one small movement you can make today to break out of your own stagnation? Mark: A perfect question to end on. The choice, as Tharp would say, is yours. Mark: This is Aibrary, signing off.