Be More Like Yourself
By Dan Blank | December 23, 2016 |
I just received an email from someone who started getting my newsletter about a decade ago, and still reads it every week. In the email, she mentioned her favorite posts, one of which I had completely forgotten about.
I was overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude to her for reaching out, and for allowing me to be a part of her life for so long. It had me reflecting on what we create, and how over the years, it helps us learn more about who we are, and how we shape the lives of others.
I want to share three things today. The first is a reposting of one of the emails she referenced — the one I had forgotten writing. Then I want to share a story she shared that blew me away, and then end on something very special to me.
“We Take The Songs Of Old, And We Sing Them Into The Future.”
What is the song you will leave behind?
A song that others will sing long after you are gone?
I don’t mean this from just your entire life, but even a single interaction you have with another. What do you leave behind that inspires them, grows in them, affects them in a positive way, and helps shape their actions?
Perhaps it is a story, or an attitude, an experience, or knowledge. Something about you that lives on in others, that they embrace, come to embody, and in doing so, a small part of you lives on far into the future. Not as merely a memory, but an action. That the actions and attitudes of others are shaped by you, long after your time here and now is gone.
This has been a theme that I have been obsessed with this year.
I work with writers and creative professionals, focusing on how they can craft their work, engage an audience, and have their ideas shape the lives of others.
This is something that is sometimes hard for a writer, an artist, a musician to fully understand or embrace. Their work will essentially be remixed, and evolve without them. You can write a song from your heart, but you can’t control what others hear in it; what it means to them. Same with a book and most forms of creative work. You write it from the context of your life, but it is read in the context of someone else’s life.
One of my favorite singers, Glen Hansard, performed a medley of songs back in 2010 that I often listen to. It includes “Parting Glass,” which he describes this way:
“That’s an old Irish song from the 16th century, made famous by The Clancy Brothers. All the Clancy brothers have passed. I guess in oral tradition, you take the songs of old, and you sing them and you sing them and you sing them and you sing them into the future.”
Glen sings another song in this medley, “Heyday” – a hopeful song by his friend Mic Christopher who passed away after an accident in 2001. As Glen travels the world, he sings Mic’s songs to new people he meets. In a tiny way, Mic’s attitude and ideas live on. His music lives on.
Recently I read something that moved me in the deepest ways, and I can’t think of anything more appropriate to share as we end this year, and enter a new one. This was written by someone I used to work with, Jeff DeBalko. We stay connected on social media and via email, but seeing this written on his Tumblr really gave me so much to consider:
“On Father’s Day in 1996, my son Ryan was diagnosed with leukemia… his treatment was 2 1/2 years. During that time there were a lot of ups and downs, a lot of rushed drives to the hospital, and the incredible anxiety and fear of every test to see if the cancer had returned. Ryan, unfortunately has been left with severe developmental disabilities. At 20 years old, he struggles to read and write, struggles to tell time or do any kind of math, is unable to tie his shoes, and has a hard time walking down stairs without help. When he was 16, he was diagnosed with Epilepsy, likely caused by brain damage from the chemo, and now takes daily medication to reduce seizures.”
But what Jeff takes from this, and how it affects his daily life is inspiring to me:
“Despite all his challenges, Ryan is truly the happiest and most appreciative person I have ever known… It’s amazing how your child getting cancer can straighten out your priorities very quickly and make you realize that there are very few things in life worth arguing about.”
“Even with what has happened to Ryan, our family realizes how lucky we are. Many of the friends we met in those early days in the hospital lost their son or daughter. Out of this tragedy came many great things and great lessons… We cherish every single day together and enjoy every vacation and holiday together. All because of Ryan.”
All of this is not to say that daily life cannot be a big challenge for Ryan, Jeff, and their family. But the perspective that they take from their experiences helps create more special moments than bad days.
As I look forward to next year, I am keeping this in mind. How fortunate we are to have the opportunity to create. To not just create books or songs or art, but to create moments for others. That these experiences become the building blocks for their lives, as they are inspired and informed by the work that you shared with them.
That it is not about living up to expectations, but honoring who we are, and the magic and beauty in that.
Going Viral
At the beginning of this post, I mentioned a woman who reached out to me; she is a writer named Rebecca Nimerfroh, and she shared a piece about how a photo that her husband took went viral, and how it affected his life and career.
You can read the full piece here. What jumped out at me was how going viral was at the intersection of doing what came natural — his instinct to create — and sheer luck. It wasn’t about trying to find a shortcut, following “best practices,” or reverse-engineering it.
She ends the piece with this advice: “Someone once said that luck is simply preparedness meets opportunity. Be prepared. And dream away.”
That advice resonates — that we can’t expect success, but we can prepare for it. That the process should be one of honoring who we are, not rejecting it in the search for fame — the quest to “fit in.”
Be More Like Yourself
I want to leave you with my favorite thing on the internet, ever. I have watched this video countless times, and to me it speaks to where the ability to create great work comes from, as well as a sense of personal fulfillment. It encourages you to be more like yourself, instead of trying to fit into what others expect of you:
Thank you.
-Dan
Dan Blank is the founder of WeGrowMedia, where he helps writers share their stories and connect with readers. He has helped hundreds of authors via online courses, events, consulting, and workshops, and worked with amazing publishing houses and organizations who support writers such as Random House, Workman Publishing, Abrams Books, Writers House, The Kenyon Review, Writer’s Digest, Library Journal, and many others.
Dan,
I used this post for my morning meditation as the sun suffused the Shenandoah Valley. I opened every link, listening for the old songs that need to be sung in the future. Imagining a photographer in front of a frozen wave, freezing. And then the joy of his dreams coming true.
Stories, songs, and solidarity will bring us through. The forces of conformity around us are strong and getting stronger. We need to be more like ourselves, together. So different from being just like each other.
Wow Shirley! Thank you for this reflection, so beautiful!
-Dan
One other thought to share. I was struck by the importance of the verbal image as well as the visual one in the “slurpee waves.” Slurpee was the perfect word. Unique. Easy to remember and google.
“We need to be more like ourselves, together.” Shirley, thank you for this reminder.
Beautiful post, Dan! Full of hope and gratitude and the wish to leave behind a song. (I, too, love Glen Hansard.) I look forward to working with you in the New Year.
Thank you Mary! I’m looking forward to it as well.
-Dan
Be More Like Yourself. Startlingly simple. Resonantly true. So easy to forget. Thank you for the reminder.
Thank you Stephanie!
“What is the song you will leave behind?”
I am carrying that question with me into the new year and will call it to mind whenever the public and private uncertainties and perplexities appear (they lie; they always lie) to be the only reality there is. No matter what, we can always sing and make something sturdy and beautiful.
I’m reminded of Neil Gaiman’s dictum: “…when things get tough, this is what you should do: Make good art.”
Thanks, Dan, for rolling so much good stuff into one column.
Thank you Anna! And thanks for the reminder from Neil.
-Dan
Beautiful. Simply beautiful. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, the stories, the video. It all resonates with me, with everyone, I’d imagine. Be grateful for all you have, keep those you cherish close, don’t sweat the small stuff, share your art with the world no matter what the results, and above all, be yourself. What a great way to start the new year.
Thank you so much Diane!
In the seventh grade, my drama teacher listened to me read a scene from a play and told me, “Stop acting.” He said to be a good actress, I had to stop acting the way I thought actors were supposed to act and be myself.
This wasn’t terribly useful advice for a twelve-year-old girl who didn’t know who “myself” was yet. Since preschool I’d been instructed to act a certain way. “Stop being difficult.” “Use your inside voice.” “Put that book away and go play with your classmates.” My mother told me to stand up straight and stop staring at my shoes, and now this teacher was telling me to stop being self-conscious and just walk naturally. It was very confusing.
I’ve come to believe since that a person’s “natural self” isn’t natural at all. It’s something we cultivate through trial and error. Our adult personalities are a compromise between how we want to act to make ourselves happy and how we have to act to get along with others. (After all, if everyone insisted on being their absolute natural selves with no filters whatsoever, we’d all be insufferable jerks.)
Similarly, our writing voices are a compromise between how we express ourselves naturally and how we have to express ourselves to communicate effectively. In my early twenties, I had to learn to write less like myself because my stories were an incomprehensible mess. In my mid-twenties, I had to learn to write more like myself because my stories lacked the honesty necessary to touch my audience.
I guess it’s like becoming a painter–first you have to build a technical foundation by copying the greats, and then you have to stop copying the greats and develop your own style.
Wow — a lot to think about here! You make such good points, and I appreciate your sharing these personal stories. I was reminded of a quote I once heard from Peter Gabriel when he was in his 50s that went something like, “I’m fat, bald, and have never been more comfortable in my own skin.” He was making a point about understanding who he was an being comfortable from the inside, even if the world judged him from the outside.
Thank you for this!
-Dan
Oh, Dan, thank you for bringing that video back to my attention. I believe I saw it sometime in the last couple years and loved it. While I haven’t always tried hard to fit in (there were seasons, believe me, but I eventually had a lovely little “f— it” moment and stopped caring) I have always imagined that others were always looking for (and finding) lots of little things about which to judge me. In reality, they were likely worrying about me doing the same to them. What a waste of time and energy for all of us!
I have been thinking a lot over the past several weeks about resisting a deconstructionist view of people, things, places, and events, of taking things as wholes rather than dissecting, labeling, and judging the pieces as we did in college English classes with my gleefully postmodern profs. Things have meaning in themselves, and not everyone has ulterior motives. I’m sick to death of the general call to maintain a suspicious and skeptical attitude toward everything, the expectation that I must react to every little thing or else I’m “not paying attention.”
I have one life. I’m one person. I’m me, and only I can be me. If I don’t find time to be me because I’m so caught up in wagging my finger at others (for not being exactly like me or not being angry enough about the thing I’m currently angry about) at some point my life will be over and what will I have to show for it?
May 2017 be a year when all Unboxeders come more fully into their own. Happy New Year, everyone.
And I’ll add this excellent quote from David Foster Wallace:
“You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.” (Infinite Jest)
:)
Wow — thank you Erin!!!
“Be prepared. And dream away.”
Be prepared is the Boy Scout motto. (I was an Eagle Scout, and remain highly prepared.) The Scout Law, meanwhile, lays out twelve admirable qualities for Boy Scouts to have.
Being a dreamer, though, is not one of them. Perhaps it should be. It’s essential to me now. To me, prepared as a writer means having craft. Dreaming means seizing a rich nugget of story and running with it.
Thanks for your great posts this year, Dan. We’ll need them next year too. Happy Holidays.
Thank you Benjamin! Happy holidays.
-Dan
Hi Dan!
This is such a perfect beauty of a post to close out the old year and carry us into the next. Being myself isn’t always my instinctive choice, but lesson learned, anything less is simply not a well-fitting outfit.
And thanks for tipping us off to this fabulous video–which is now, quite easily one of my favorites :-D
Merry Christmas and all best wishes for a Bright, Beautiful, and Richly Blessed New Year!
Thank you so much Barbara! Happy holidays!
-Dan
This also reminds me of moments as a teacher. I’ve encountered students later on after they’ve left school, and sometimes they tell me about something I said that changed their perspective or something they’ve always remembered. And often it is something I’ve forgotten even saying (though I certainly continue to believe). We just never know what of everything we put into the world, someone will pick up and carry on.
That is SUCH a great point! Reminds me of the movie Mr. Holland’s Opus.
:)
I like how you frame this — which showcases the value of doing a blog, or podcast or newsletter or anything on social media. It is easy to perceive the value as fleeting — something that doesn’t add up to much. Yet, it does add up to a great deal when some of those moments resonated and stuck with someone.
Thank you so much!
-Dan