Releasing the Notes

Over the past while I have realized how much I focus on nostalgia in these posts, and how I have grown to romanticize the past. While I am a storyteller, and love sharing stories from my life, I don’t feel like I am as focused on the past in my real life. I think I may do this in my writing because the connections made in these musings are easier done through a lens of reflection, a practice in looking into the past and plucking out the lessons I should have learned.

And then learning them too late.

In high school, I had the opportunity to play music over the school’s PA system between classes. There was only one time (that I remember) that I was called into the office after playing a song and asked to never play something like that again.

This was the offending song:

There is nothing offensive about this song (lyrically, some would argue that his voice is offensive, but everyone has a wrong opinion once in a while).

The Kings of Leon are a well-known band, but this is from their less illustrious days, the days before performing for arenas and having extensive radio play. Their earlier work is majestic to me, I love the uniqueness of Caleb’s voice, the texture of his sound is so hard to describe. I love the authenticity of the voice, something that is beautiful because it makes no attempt at being so. My all-time favorite song of theirs is Charmer, where Caleb just lets out a random scream at the beginning of each line, something that was definitely a risk, but added something to the song that could not have happened with any safer choice.

Anyways, I will stop trying to wax poetic about his voice and move on with the story.

After playing this song to the whole school, which, in reality, was only like 400 kids in a small town, I was called down to the front office where I was met with concerned stares from the secretaries, and told to calm down my musical choices.

I understood it, as much as I disagreed.

Part of the beauty of the song was in the fact that the majority of the lyrics are focused on being sad about what happened long ago, he spends more time singing the phrase “Day Old Blues” than he does with any other lines in the song.

The blues he is feeling are day-old. They are in the past. He is spending his time sad and upset about things from a distant time. The real meaning behind what caused the blues is lost, it is just the down feeling that is left behind that is haunting him still.

Beyond that, the second verse always hit home to me:

Low and behold things are killing me
Silly expectation of a dream
Girls are gonna love the way I toss my hair
Boys are gonna hate the way I seem

My seventeen-year-old self, the one who still wanted to “make it” as a musician, to play my songs in small venues and to massive crowds, understood these words as the singer’s lament of his success. He had wanted to be a musician, had put in the work to become successful, and still had people who hated everything he put out into the world, or people who liked him regardless of what he put out. All the effort he was putting into the music was not changing the ways people felt about him, or about the world.

He had worked so hard to create something beautiful to put out into the world, hoping to change the world. Once he had done it, he had realized his dream was naive, because no one listened to the music. They either loved him for his looks (the way I toss my hair) or hated him because he wasn’t like other musicians (the way I seem).

I have spent a lot of time wanting to put something out into the world that would change it. I wanted to make people think, I wanted to change the way people view each other, I wanted to make the world a better place.

I chased those notions all over the place.

And I quickly learned that I was killing myself trying to do that. I was over-exerting myself, I was putting in countless hours into many different avenues, and no matter how much I was “changing the world”, I still hated myself at the end of the day, I was still depressed. I still occasionally daydreamed about dipping out of this existence.

So I quit trying.

I quit my job. I uprooted my life and moved. I let go of all of these things that I thought were so important, and found something interesting.

On two separate occasions, with two separate therapists, I have had to craft a written document of what I wanted from life.

One was a lot of fun. She asked me to write an “About the Author” if I didn’t need to follow the standard format. It was fun, I will share it with you sometime.

The other was a list of what I wanted out of life in five years. It was a way to say “write your obituary” without calling it that. This one focused on a handful of things I wanted to do for myself – it talked about writing books, it talked about growing my own food, it talked about being a family-oriented man.

Ever since I let go of the idea of making the world a better place, since I quit dedicating large portions of my life to some ethereal idea of heroism, I have found three things that I am working on.

Writing books.

Growing my own food.

Spending time with my family.

The exact three things in my life that I wanted more than anything else seemed to fall into place when I quit doing what I thought was expected of me.

It’s not all peachy by any means. I still have to put in a lot of work to do things. I still struggle with my mental health. I have had to pick up side jobs once in a while to make things work.

But I am a hell of a lot happier.

It has made me wonder what I have done because of perceived expectations that have ended up being more detrimental than helpful.

Things like going to college. Ever since the focus changed from learning broadly to training to specialize in a profession, college education has become a lot less meaningful and helpful. I honestly view my time at college as the years I spent too much money on a paper that said I was smart enough. It wasn’t a time of great learning, it was a great waste of time.

I’ve already talked about how getting my Eagle Scout award was a waste.

I once tried to be a YouTube star by doing a bunch of things that I didn’t really care about, like exercising.

It seems selfish to focus more on myself like I have been. I struggled with that for a long time.

But the way I was trying to save the world was not me. I was giving up my own voice to sound like what I thought people wanted to hear.

I don’t need voice lessons, we have plenty of people who sound pretty already.

What we need is people who sing with the voice they have.

I thought I needed to change myself to change the world, but when I look back on the people who have really changed my life, they weren’t following a prescribed path. They were doing the best they could to be themselves, and that made much more of a difference than the “approved methods” ever could.

I don’t need anymore rule followers.

That isn’t what the world needs.

What we need are people who live life as authentically as possible.

We need more therapists who decide to do a session in their hot-tub because it would be relaxing.

We need teachers who see a tired kid and let them skip class to sleep on the couch in their office.

And we need to be less judgmental about the weird music kids listen to, and more curious about what makes them like that oddball song that means so much to them.

We need more people who are less concerned with the way people seem, or the way they toss their hair, and more interested in the dreams they are killing themselves to try and achieve.

Just like we wished someone had cared when we were in their shoes.