A Manifesto

I really wish it felt safer to be weird.

People are urging us to “just be yourself” all the time, but we simultaneously get a hard time if “just being ourselves” looks different from the norm. (Often, from the same people who told us to be ourselves in the first place.)

In fact, often when I have made a choice that others find unexpected, I have had people try to get me to think that I wasn’t being true to myself. Recently when I was hard at work making the album of my dreams, I shared my vision of a big, boldly produced pop/rock album with someone I knew. He said, “But that’s not you. You’re an acoustic folk musician.” Really? It’s not me? Tell me again how you know more about my self-identity than I do.

When I was a teenager and dressed differently from my peers, I had a guidance counselor who sincerely believed I was doing so “for attention”. I did get attention--unwanted attention in the form of teasing and verbal harassment on the daily, which I was not actually enjoying. But I strongly felt that dressing like everyone else and trying to “fit in” to make it stop was not the right choice. It never dawned on my guidance counselor that I was just expressing myself -- differently than those around me.

Here is something that it took me a long time to learn: when people are dismissive of you, or when they seem to hear and see selectively, it’s not about you. It is about their own discomfort.

But it doesn’t feel that way in the moment. When every time you share something true about yourself, the reaction you get is “What? Why?!” -- it really starts to feel like constant rejection. It’s very painful. And actions speak louder than words --people may be telling us to be ourselves, but when we get pushback every time we do that, the real message is clear. Eventually, we learn to hide who we really are.

It’s heartbreaking, because the people who are getting that pushback for being different are often the people with the most beauty and innovation to offer the world. When we constantly send a message of “be yourself--but not like that, you’re doing it wrong,” we silence those voices.

Real talk: for a lot of years I have felt pretty messed up around this. I am still working on teaching myself that I am worthy, that I can have friends, that life does not have to feel like a daily battle. For many years I stayed true to myself out of sheer stubbornness, and I am very grateful for that stubbornness now. But, I also feel that being different and creative is a great gift — and it could have brought me much more joy if I hadn’t felt squashed by judgment. I am working on teaching myself to find that joy every day now.

And this is becoming my life’s work. I do not want anyone to feel the way have felt. Rejected and disliked for being themselves. For not fitting. And yet I see it happening CONSTANTLY. It is heartbreaking to watch young people turn away from themselves because all they are getting is pushback and subtle rejection.

So when I say I am making music to empower people who don’t feel like they fit, it is not a nice pleasantry. It is a mission, because I have been there and lived it. I want to be a voice of hope for you. I want to tell you that who you are is important and real and valid, because that is what I most needed someone to tell me. I want to make it safe to be weird.

Related posts:

Eine Freude an dem Moment. Ganz besonders, weil er veränglich ist. Dankbarkeit für vollkommenes Dasein. Im Moment. Dem nichts zu Leide tun kann. Denn der Moment ist-, und bleibt, vergänglich.

If you wanna get to the Met Gala, having an online store is essential-with the right platform, setting one up can be as simple as uploading images and adding product descriptions. Including a FAQ…

One of the worst diseases of the 21st century is the corruption in the public sector and we all pay, from our pocket, how much money does corruption cost to us? Running for any political post in any…