Kindred spirits 知音

Reader question:

Please explain “kindred spirits” in this sentence: John and I are kindred spirits, especially in our love for the outdoors.

My comments:

The speaker considers John a like-minded friend, a really close friend, a soul mate even because they share similar interests and concerns, especially their love for the outdoors, camping, mountain climbing and so forth.

They’re not family, but it feels like they’re kin, like blood relations.

In other words, they’re really close in terms of common interests and how they look at things.

“Kindred”, you see, has its roots in “kin”, as in kinship, which means family and blood relations. “Spirit”, on the other hand, points to the moral and emotional nature of our being. It’s our soul.

Kindred spirit, therefore, refers to a similarity in spirit, in terms of emotions and value judgments.

If two people are kindred spirits, then they share the same outlook on life and have the same or very similar hobbies and interests.

They have so much in common that it feels like they’re family, like they are brothers and sisters.

They feel that they’re that close.

I said you can consider them soul mates even and that means they understand each other at a deep level.

Maybe the speaker and John don’t have the same deep level of understanding and spiritual connection and mutual support and acceptance that two soul mates enjoy, especially between a man and a woman, but it’s close.

That’s it. Let’s read a few “kindred spirit” examples in the media:

1. I recently learnt a fact that gave me a fresh perspective on life. Something that stirred the foundations of all that I understood to be the norm: Bruce Lee was the Hong Kong cha-cha dance champion of 1958.

Bruce Lee! The film star that defined a generation of martial artists, movie goers and back garden make-believe was a champion dancer. Though this didn’t surprise me for the reasons you might expect. The differences between martial arts and dance, between a form of combat and a form of physical expression, can often seem minimal. As our bodies undergo few physical changes between laughing and crying, Bruce Lee’s ability to meander between both disciplines came as little shock to me.

The real wonder was not his ability, but the intent. Despite his public persona, like many artists he had another string to his bow that defined him as much as anything in life. Many renowned figures harbour hidden talents. Amanda Seyfried knits like a champion, Kristen Stewart juggles, and it’s commonly reported that Beyoncé’s prowess at Connect Four is to be revered. The activities vary, but we’re all replenished and spurred on in life often by our creative outlets.

The BBC recently launched their Get Creative project to help everyone in the UK unlock their creativity. As a result many have been discovering their artistic niche. I have been involved in Get Creative as an individual and as a judge for the Royal Academy of Dance’s new competition, Moving North. Taking place across Northern England, we are looking for budding young performers from all over the UK to showcase and celebrate their dancing.

The response has been incredible, with more than 200 acts applying, and 600 young dancers in ballet, contemporary, jazz, and street dance/hip hop. I hail from Scarborough, and having been through similar experiences myself I know that the chances to perform in events like this are crucial to nurture growing talent.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a bedroom dancer or destined for greatness on the international stage. What matters is that it all stems from the simplest of pleasures, that same love of dancing. We are one giant dancing community. And that, to me, is enough evidence that Bruce Lee and I are basically kindred spirits.

- Why Bruce Lee is my kindred spirit, by Matt Flint, BBC.co.uk, January 12, 2019.

2. The bodybuilder is causing a stir in Place Vendôme. Prada-clad pedestrians are loitering outside Gagosian’s Paris showroom on rue de Castiglione, peering through its window, perplexed by the presence of a muscular man taking a breather on a bench, a damp towel dangling from his lap. He looks as if he’s pondering his performance on the barbell. Outside, passers-by try to work out if this is a sweaty performance piece.

It isn’t. Duane Hanson’s unnervingly lifelike “Bodybuilder (1989–90)” – a hollow polychrome bronze sculpture of a shirtless iron-pumper – is the Gagosian gallery’s showstopper at “The Art of the Olympics,” a two-part exhibition curated in association the Olympic Museum in Lausanne to celebrate the upcoming Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games. If featuring in Instagram posts was an Olympic sport, Hanson’s hunk would win gold.

The gallery is selling 10 sports-related works by artists, ranging from 20th-century masters Andy Warhol and Man Ray to contemporary figures such Andreas Gursky and Takashi Murakami. Meanwhile, across town in its rue de Ponthieu gallery, a selection of posters from the museum’s collection, created for both summer and winter games over the past half a century, show how art has promoted sporting excellence.

For Gagosian, the exercise is both commercial (prices for pieces range from $60,000 to over $2m) and part of a broader engagement with Parisian life. In 2019, it staged an exhibition in aid of the reconstruction of Notre-Dame. And part of the sale proceeds will go to the Olympic Refuge Foundation, which supports displaced young people through sport.

The works in the exhibition explore – either realistically or conceptually – sports such as surfing, golf, shooting, running, football and boxing, and include paintings, drawings, sculptures and photography. Pieces range from the monumental – such as Gursky’s huge photograph of a soccer match between France and the Netherlands – to the whimsical (Mark Newson’s aluminium surfboard is a quirky statement piece).

The parallels between art and sport are myriad, says Elsa Favreau, deputy director at Gagosian when we meet at the exhibition. “There’s a lot of money, there’s a lot of competition. But I think there’s also a lot of excellence.” Similarly, art lovers and sports enthusiasts are kindred spirits: the cheering crowds in the stands are like bidders at auctions, while collectors support artists like football fans worship players.

- What does a sweaty bodybuilder sitting in a window have to do with the Olympics? CNN.com, July 23, 2024.

3. Enlightenment by Sarah Perry: Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay have lived all their lives in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though separated in age by three decades, the pair are kindred spirits – torn between their commitment to religion and their desire to explore the world beyond their small Baptist community. It is two romantic relationships that will rend their friendship, and in the wake of this rupture, Thomas develops an obsession with a vanished nineteenth-century astronomer said to haunt a nearby manor, and Grace flees Aldleigh entirely for London.

Over the course of twenty years, by coincidence and design, Thomas and Grace will find their lives brought back into orbit as the mystery of the vanished astronomer unfolds into a devastating tale of love and scientific pursuit. Thomas and Grace will ask themselves what it means to love and be loved, what is fixed and what is mutable, how much of our fate is predestined and written in the stars, and whether they can find their way back to each other.

A thrillingly ambitious novel of friendship, faith, and unrequited love, rich in symmetry and symbolism, Enlightenment is a shimmering wonder of a book and Sarah Perry’s finest work to date.

- 2024 Booker Prize Longlist, TheReadersRoom.org, July 30, 2024.

本文仅代表作者本人观点，与本网立场无关。欢迎大家讨论学术问题，尊重他人，禁止人身攻击和发布一切违反国家现行法律法规的内容。

About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.

（作者：张欣  编辑：丹妮）