We can't sing without moving our hands. Singers know that. Similarly orators need to move their hands while giving speech. With some singers, different and subtle nodes are accompanied by different and subtle movement of hand and fingers. This shows that thoughts and words are actually movements of body. When the body wants to execute a thought, it can do that through only one way of execution that it knows of - movement. Our body is still not used to speaking. Our body, which was formed under millions of years of non-speaking era and knew of only one way of executing its needs/desires - movement, has not fully accepted speaking as another form of executing tasks yet, as speaking is a recent invention.
Humans can sing and produce music by subtle movement of hands. We make music, hear back the music, and when it resonates with body, it sounds pleasant. All great musicians say that music comes to them, they don't create it. They say it comes from god and they merely act as vessels to it. When the music resonates with body, body starts dancing. Dancing is an activity that I always found strange. I mean ok, maybe we learned music from birds or hollow wood sounds or echo, and it can have practical uses too. But why dance? why waste energy on a non productive activity? When music resonates, body starts dancing in rhythm. We also feel like dancing when we are happy and elated. That happens without music. It opens a correlation that music or musical notes are basically a picture or pattern or map of our inner body and show the pattern in which body is most happy. Maybe this is our resonance frequency. People of different personalities like different type of music, although basic theme of all human music is same consisting of seven basic notes. Animals rarely dance to our tunes. They sometimes do but rarely. Maybe we can experiment in this area and find at what music frequencies different animals dance or their body shows rhythm. Sufis use dance as a way to god.
An argument commonly given is that music and dance is used by animals to attract partner. This is an incomplete argument. Why would partner get impressed by useless sounds and moves? Maybe he/she wants to see how 'in tune' you are with your body? Those better synced with their body can make better/quicker decisions.
Words are thoughts expressed/executed. Body hasn't fully recognized act of speaking yet so it produces a movement to execute those thoughts. Thoughts are brain recognizable body needs/desires/fears.
It is a myth that people can think without moving. People can ‘remember’ without moving. Thinking is a different process. New thoughts arise when you’re in motion. That’s why we have rocking chairs which are favorite of writers and thinkers. Nietzsche said he got all his best ideas while walking. He used to go on a mountain walk everyday and suggested walking method to others as well. Idle body cannot generate new thoughts, exceptions aside. If nothing else, we move the eyes or head. When people become clueless in a situation, they start moving their head and blankly stare at meaningless objects, as if seeking a new idea from them. The objects don’t give them the idea, the movement of head and vision does. When we dream, our eyes move. This phenomenon is called REM. The deeper the dream, the faster the eye movement. Why would eyes need to move for a purely brain activity? The movement generates creative dream ideas.
Thoughts are brain recognizable body needs/desires/fears. Brain acts as an intermediary between inside world and outside world. Thoughts aren’t exact body desires. They’re outcome of how brain interprets those desires and quantifies them in thoughts. Brain learns from outside world. Whatever brain knows, it has gathered from outside. So when brain translates body desire into thought, this is what it does - it scans all the knowledge it has gathered from outside world and tries to relate it with desire. And creates thought based on whatever it decides as the best possible combination or relation. It is a learning process. In the beginning, it is really a hit and miss. The thought brain settled upon may actually have nothing to do with body desire. An example of this is the classic teenage angst and the outcomes it produces. Hormonal changes occur rather suddenly creating intense body needs/desires and teenager’s brain tries to interpret them based on whatever it knows. But it knows very little. So the thought brain settles upon is most of the times a miss. And what thoughts they are! It can be anything in the world. Controlling parent, school groups, boyfriend/girlfriend, sports, politics, race, capitalism/communism, state of planet etc etc. Whichever of these the brain decides upon, the teenager lashes on it with all his might. He wants to satisfy that intense body desire. And how often it happens that he returns disillusioned? Very often. Because the thought was a miss. The things he thought will satisfy him, do not, even if he manages to achieve them. The body didn’t want them, the body wanted something else.
