“Those who suffer understand suffering and thereby extend their hand.” \u00a0– Patti Smith<\/p>\n
I’ve used this quote before and I will use it again . . . and again. \u00a0Everybody knows the experience of being an outsider, if only for a few brief moments. \u00a0There is a silent minority (albeit a larger one than most will acknowledge) of those who have been that way all their life. \u00a0Some continually try to fit in and lead an awkward and undefined existence. \u00a0There are others who just give up and fade away. \u00a0Then there are the ones who feel they have purpose and drive on. \u00a0Some of these people become artists, some become quirky entrepreneurs or inventors and some others become just eccentrics. \u00a0They become intensely conscious livers (no reference to alcoholism intended).\u00a0 Maybe not entirely conscious in in the cognitive sense, but of other things.\u00a0 They observe things and note phenomena others totally miss.\u00a0 Many of these things are not considered important at the time.\u00a0 Later on they are acknowledged as important and then forgotten again.<\/p>\n
Is this explanation too abstract?\u00a0 Confusing?\u00a0 Good!\u00a0 Because “these things” I talk about are the most elusive of truths.\u00a0 When you are different, mostly you are shunned or at least just tolerated.\u00a0 Van Gogh was never acknowledged as a great painter until he was long dead.\u00a0 Volkswagon makes a commercial with a haunting acoustic song and suddenly Nick Drake is acknowledged as a genius.\u00a0 I’m sure you can think of many other examples.\u00a0 This, however, is not an article for Psychology Today or Starving Artist Weekly.<\/p>\n
Why is Jim Morrison “the Patron Saint of the Alienated?”\u00a0 Of course, I don’t mean that in the sense of Catholic saints but he is an advocate, a symbol, a representative of those who look through different eyes, if you will.\u00a0 The strongest example, I think, is the album “Strange Days.”\u00a0 From beginning to end it is very much from an outsider’s viewpoint.\u00a0 You can take the lyrics of “People Are Strange” in their entirety and get a clear vision of the experience.\u00a0 Never has anyone described it so well.\u00a0 Jim is like a reporter describing the inside of being an outsider.<\/p>\n
You walk down the street and people look at you, or worse yet,\u00a0through<\/em> you.\u00a0 They pretend that you are not there and they become ugly to you.\u00a0 Rejection is ugly and everything is awkward.\u00a0 Streets are uneven and women seem wicked when you’re unwanted (you know they tune).\u00a0 He had written this song with Robbie Krieger when he was severely depressed.\u00a0 It’s easy to laugh and dismiss this take on the tune.\u00a0 It’s just a song, right?\u00a0 No, it means a lot more.\u00a0 It’s a world.\u00a0 When Jim wrote this song he was not famous, he was not a sex symbol.\u00a0 He was not Val Kilmer.\u00a0 He was looked upon as a derelict (note the comment at the end of this entry) and an intellectual flake.\u00a0 Ray Manzerek’s friends thought he was out of his mind putting Jim Morrison in his band.\u00a0 Nowadays, you might say, “Who wouldn’t want Jim Morrison in their band?”\u00a0 The answer is you wouldn’t.\u00a0 Jim was not the easiest person to deal with (and that is putting it mildly).\u00a0 Part of the reason for this was that he was trying explain the inexplicable as well as dealing with a lot of inner pain.\u00a0 That person you make fun of because they seem a little out step with everyone else may be potential never realized.<\/p>\n As Henry David Thoreau once wrote:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “If a man does not keep pace<\/p>\n with his companions, perhaps it is because<\/p>\n he hears a different drummer.<\/p>\n Let him step to the music which he hears,<\/p>\n however measured or far away.”<\/p>\n (This quote has been hanging on the wall in my room since I was 15.)<\/p>\n Or the line in in the 1930’s film “My Man Godfrey”:<\/p>\n “I realized that the difference between a derelict and a successful man is a job.” ( This may not be the exact quote since I usually don’t take notes while watching the movie but it’s close.)\u00a0 Substitute the word chance for job and you get some of my meaning.<\/p>\n Of course,\u00a0 I’m not saying that every wino and drug addict is a hidden genius.\u00a0 But what I’m saying that some people have gifts that our society chooses to ignore.\u00a0 The function of the shaman was very important to many tribes.\u00a0 That function seems to be lost on us nowadays.\u00a0 We are so obsessed with the idea that we have it all figured out that we forget that we don’t.<\/p>\n To be continued\u00a0 . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “Those who suffer understand suffering and thereby extend their hand.” \u00a0– Patti Smith I’ve used this quote before and I will use it again . . . and again. \u00a0Everybody knows the experience of being an outsider, if only for a few brief moments. \u00a0There is a silent minority (albeit a larger one than most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,12,1],"tags":[32,31,30,33,28],"class_list":["post-28","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-experimental","category-pop","category-uncategorized","tag-jimmorrison","tag-outsiders","tag-psychology","tag-social-function-of-music","tag-the-doors"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themusicalalchemy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themusicalalchemy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themusicalalchemy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themusicalalchemy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themusicalalchemy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.themusicalalchemy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32,"href":"https:\/\/www.themusicalalchemy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions\/32"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themusicalalchemy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themusicalalchemy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themusicalalchemy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}