Knowhere | Stand Up

Thats me. On the shoulders of a random guy that I’ve never met before and probably will never see again.

Just over a week ago, I was at Ultra Music Festival Cape Town 2024 - an event that I had been hyping for weeks. I’m completely enthralled by all thing’s music.
Music Festivals, in particular, have come to be an ethereal, superlative experience for me. So much so that one my very first pieces of writing compared music festivals to monasteries.

Sometime during the first set that we went into the crowd for, we saw someone nearby us hop onto her partners shoulders. This isn’t uncommon at music events, but every time you see someone do this, you’re reminded that everyday humans have the capacity to do some pretty strenuous things.
My best friend turned to me and poked “you think you’d be able to lift someone like that?” and when I had responded “absolutely not,” proceeded to taunt me with the ridiculous notion that he, who happens to be 20kg’s lighter than me, could lift me easily.
During this particularly boyish conversation, a complete stranger, who I had later found out was called Daniel, interjected with calm surety, “I could carry you.”

One of the reasons I love music festivals is for the genuineness of the people you find there. Everyone is happy, social, excited. Strangers are friends. People are kind.
You’re all there in one accord, of one mind, joined together by a shared Elysian experience.
It’s a step away from the constant fear and distrust that we feel toward the people that walk beside us each day.
It’s the closest thing I’ve come to experiencing the world that God envisioned when he commanded “love thy neighbor as thyself.”

I scanned Daniel’s build. He didn’t look like he could squat my weight - but he did look like the kind of guy who knew what proper squat technique is.
So, I was like “yeah why not?”

He proceeded to bend down so I could hop on, lifting me up like I was a feather, and had kept me there for the duration of an entire song.
The experience was absolutely ethereal.
You’re perched above the entire crowd, a vantage point that heightens everything - you can see more; more lights, more people, more energy, more joy. It enhances the bigness of the emotions you experience.
You’re the center of attention - surrounded by friends who’ve got your back and random strangers cheering you on. You feel special, content, safe, loved.

This all happened during W&W’s set - the artists that I was looking forward to seeing the most - I’ve become quite a fanboy of their music over the past year.
I find the way you express yourself when experiencing art to be quite telling of how much you like it. In music, how hard you dance is often directly proportional to how much you’re enjoying what you hear.
Daniel’s shoulders afforded me the opportunity to appreciate the art I was witnessing differently. There was an element of “no matter how hard I dance, I would never be able to express my appreciation of this music in the same way as I could if I were cheering from atop someone’s shoulders.”

There’s a couple of lessons to take from this.

1. Stand up, atop someone’s shoulders. Change your perspective.
   Simply changing your vantage point can unlock a completely different experience of the exact same situation.
   You might access ideas or feelings that you might never have expected.

2. Stand up, with the courage to act on something you feel is right. Be a Daniel.
   Daniel was calm and nonchalant in his offer - he wasn’t grinny - he thought nothing of it.
   After a quick chat after he set me back down, he joined his friends to move to a different location in the crowd and I never saw him again, and probably never will.
   Yet, he gave me a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I will never forget.
   A simple act, a powerful impact.
   Whenever I think about it, I am consistently amazed at Daniel’s behavior.
   From his group, there were probably others who were equally as physically capable as he. Though, he, knowing that this was something he could already do comfortably and acknowledging it would be a fun thing to offer, was the only one to speak up and say something.
   An unassuming, perhaps even timid, guy had the courage and bravery to offer a random act of kindness to a random stranger.
   Who might you be a Daniel for this week?

Thanks for reading
Delano