Do you know David Whyte?
He’s a scientist, poet, philosopher, and author with a lot to say about what it means to be human and how to be the version you were meant to be.
In his book, Crossing the Unknown Sea, he says, “It seems to me that each of us must identify in our personal history those who represented freedom in the world. Those who managed to live just outside the rules, who seemed not beholden to the forces that held others in place…someone who seemed to exude freedom by the way they lived, who was not a slave to all the truths repeated so easily by others, who had a breath of spontaneity on their lives.”
Upon reading this, I immediately think of Elbert Hubbard. Followed quickly by my maternal grandfather, Norman Dumais. Two people whom I believe had a “breath of spontaneity on their lives” while exuding that freedom David speaks of through their way of life. To me, they both represent freedom in the world.
The kind of freedom I aspire to exercise and perhaps represent to others. For me, core to this freedom is knowing from what place should my freedom spring forth. For me, that source is my purpose, the gravitational pull to recognize and become myself increasingly. To throw off self-deception and expectation that inclines me to be anything other than the most true Erik that I might be in time.
This is another lens to view your Message through, the thing you have to share with your world that you and you alone possess. Your Message is a means of representing your freedom to the world. It’s a responsibility to honor and, when you and I do, we experience that freedom as well.
You know the feeling I speak of. Because you’ve at least glimpsed it, if not luxuriated in extended seasons of it. The feeling of living in a way aligned with your deepest sense of who you are and what you may still become. You also know the feeling of faking it. For all the reasons we do, often for seasons long and lingering. It’s the dull hum of loneliness and isolation in spite of the appearance of community and connection. Because one of your most important connections is splintered, the connection with yourself. When this is your state, you cannot commune with your highest potential because you have not the ears or eyes for it.
So what about Willie Nelson?
I believe Willie is a Messenger. I believe he has the breath of spontaneity and exudes freedom in the way that he lives. From my seat in the auditorium, Willie knows who he is, what his purpose is. He has a Message and he has faithfully carried it. He still carries it at 90!
One of my favorite Willie songs is “Write Your Own Songs.” A sarcastic rebuttal to the criticism he and his fellow Outlaw Country artists like Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, and David Alan Coe received from the musical elite of Nashville…
You’re callin’ us heathens with zero respect for the law
But we’re only songwriters just writing our songs and that’s all
We write what we live and we live what we write is that wrong?
If you think it is Mr. Music Executive why don’t you write your own songs
And don’t listen to mine, they might run you crazy
They might make you dwell on your feelings a moment too long
We’re making you rich and you’re already lazy
So just lay on your ass and get richer or write your own songs
Mr. Purified Country don’t you know what the whole thing’s about?
Is your head up your ass so far that you can’t pull it out
The world’s gettin’ smaller and everyone in it belongs
And if you can’t see that Mr. Purified Country
Why don’t you write your own songs
And don’t listen to mine, they might run you crazy
They might make you dwell on your feelings a moment too long
We’re making you rich and you’re already lazy
So just lay on your ass and get richer or write your own songs
So just lay on your ass and get richer or write your own songs…
Hubbard said, “To avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.” It seems that at some point Willie Hugh Nelson decided that he’d rather do, say, and be something than acquiesce to the critical feedback and uncritical expectations offered by those who had more than their hands full attempting to live their own unlived lives.
Willie has a Message to carry, critics be damned. He sums it up in “On the Road Again” when he sings, “The life I love is making music with my friends and I can’t wait to get on the road again.” So it’s no surprise that he’s still playing shows around the country. It’s not the common tale of someone past their prime refusing to hang it up. It’s the story of someone who knows who they are, why they’re here, and what it looks like to carry their Message.
Criticism often comes from within, does it not? Our own lack of belief or fear prevents us from ever exposing ourselves to the potential of being criticized.
“We grow by doing. Not by thinking of our thoughts or feeling of our feelings.”
How true, Elbert, how true.
Thank you Willie for showing us what it looks like to carry a Message, to write your own songs.
So, do you believe you have a Message within?
Do you know what it is?
Are you carrying it, even if a little clumsily?
