This is Freedom

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This is freedom.

This is love for what you do.

This is where your work is your art.

Thom Yorke’s performance is open and honest. He’s immersed in his art, his work. He’s not afraid of being vulnerable. He’s in his music and is simply reacting and behaving in the moment. He doesn’t care what anyone else thinks.

To me, he symbolizes the freedom we all want, in one form or another. To be who we are and who we want to be.

And it doesn’t matter whether you like what he’s offering or not.

Frankly, we all need to be lost in what we do. To be who we want to be. To perform at the limits of our potential and express what we are really, truly about.

It doesn’t matter if what you do is in the arts or in business or in some other field.

Our work should be our art, not a vehicle for monotony and the progression of an agenda we don’t buy into. And certainly not a vehicle for empty achievement, superficial plaudits and cynical profit.

And if we’re not moving in this direction, we need to ask ourselves why we’re not. To understand that perhaps it’s time. 

There are many silver bullets at our disposal in order to be able to change.

You have to believe in what you do. You have to believe in why you’re doing it.

You have to let go of your cynicism, and your doubt, as finely honed as it has been over so many years.

You have to give of yourself. You have to expose yourself.

You have to ignore the opinions of others (many perhaps well intentioned). You have to be willing to be ridiculed.

You have to go, often, against conventional wisdom. Because conventional wisdom is often full of shit.

You have to be willing to be the outlier. You have to willing to exist in the fringe until your art is realized. Not because you reverted to the mean, but because the mean moved towards you.

Note that these are not simple, easily implementable ideas.

They have to be discovered, realized through your vulnerability, openness, honesty and commitment.

That’s difficult. And it typically calls for emotion, trust, commitment and focus that we aren’t always used to. At one level or another, it calls for sacrifice as well. Definitely difficult.

But I suspect it’s worth it.

The difficult path usually is.