What
Does a Nobody Have To Do With it?
So,
what is the contribution of Bob Dylan? In 500 words. A man
changes his name as part of a performance for the stage.
He
discovers New York City at a crucial moment in time, 1961-ish, when
he is very young, 19, and unknown...where music is happening as a
part of a whole wide spectrum of an art explosion in a local scene in
the “Village”. It was a freak show. But, a really interesting
one. There were lots of chances to perform and not so many
restrictions on a nobody to take part in it however irritating. This
explosion of free expression was not happening in many places, some
say there were none like it in the United States or anywhere else at
the time. These things happen from time to time and nobody knows why
they happen…it takes a nobody who knows nothing really to know
something important at such a time and place. I know this to be true.
Perhaps so do you.
I
want intentionally to make this short, compact or it will miss the
point. I aim to point. To point to what you most want to know. It is
about you.
What
the actor did for us is this- he in a hurry proved what one of us can
do. Not somebody else. Anyone. Acting alone. By 1965 Dylan
was famous in the U.S. and abroad. By doing the opposite of what the
world told him to do he became overnight a force it (the world) was
powerless to halt changing all the rules along the way as if he were
in charge! But there was a reason that cannot be stopped.
Now,
for the heart of it. Dylan's action reworks by direct demonstration
the very essence of man's understanding of what is a genius.
World-wide.
We
know by his life a genius is
not a special human being who stands above most or all of the rest,
he is you. And he is giving that demonstration very often more than
50 years later! That is generosity. Love.
This
has come to me slowly, sometimes haltingly. At several points I have
felt I have lost the strain of thought altogether. I am so glad to
arrive at the point finally. I am not wasting time explaining his
songs. I am accepting them humbly for what they are.
Nobody
is not a genius!
Before
the flood, Bob Dylan did not think of himself as a songwriter at all.
What drove him was an urge he had to
fulfill that has no name. That is where genius resides. In that seed
of an idea. It is expressed
poetically as I am going home.
See
the difference? We, civilized man as he thinks of himself, we have
been wasting enormous resources of creative energy in a game that
makes most, nearly all, of us dullards
who await instruction from a so-called hand full of geniuses. These
are fakes, entirely, and it is obvious. These are merely those few of
us who show great skill
at a game that is going nowhere. They drive a train that will derail
and we all know it. Bob Dylan
was and is going somewhere.
The
funniest part is that all we do today is ask for an angel to come
among us and fix us.
All
that has blocked humans from the dream ever since we betrayed
ourselves...before the Great Pyramids...has been a simple
misunderstanding of our nature.
The true genius is anyone who
dares step forward as a true man. You
say, I don't know how to do that.
Truth
is, it is the only thing you do know how to do to perfection.
Thanks,
Bob.
