The title of this post comes from a song of the same name by the reggae artist Burning Spear (a.k.a. Winston Rodney). Somehow, I'd listened to the song for years without ever realizing what it actually meant. Maybe I never had any way to relate to the message of the track. Now, it seems, I'm becoming familiar with the essence of the lyric.
These past years have been a concentrated time for me and my partner of five years. They've been good years but ones with the requisite struggles. One such struggle has been the challenge to branch out into the thriving social scene where we live, an art/pop/rock/university scene with more than its share of hipsters and critics. Even so, it has been a decent place to live and truly one of the only urban places in which we could ever live in this state.
Remarkably, after many months of malaise and near petrifying self-consciousness, we're venturing out into it again. It feels good to meet people, find some commonalities, and realize that you can't 'click' with everyone, that not everyone has a judging eye. I may be the one with the critical bent, frequently sizing up and then internally cutting-down passersby and acquaintances. It happens much, much less with the latter as I discover the individual talents and interesting quirks that almost all of these folks possess to some degree.
As Winston Rodney sings, "Social living is the best". His way is the way of our nature; to talk, look, relate, laugh, listen, think and smile...together. So, in the context of a real society is where I'll endeavor to live, facing insecurity daily and surmounting fear just as much.
"An animal rubs its itching flank against a tree. A man asks his kinsman to scratch it." --paraphrased from "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe
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