Doing It Like Dylan

I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more…

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan has been a force in my life for as long as I can remember. My earliest memories were sitting around listening to “Coach Taylor” strum his guitar and belt out old Dylan tunes in the living room of my childhood home on the west end of Holden Beach.

Dylan’s music and life define paradox.

Consider…

he wrote and sang as the leader of a movement, but loathed the very idea of being that leader…

he was worshiped by the masses as the god of folk, but then just up and decided one day to plug in and he got booed off the stage for it…

he was a revolutionary and a rebel, but then he “got religion” and again was booed off the stage for it…

What is it with this guy?

I have to say that in many ways, I am similar (well, without the guitar, but I can do a pretty good nasal-twanged impression).

I am alarmingly paradoxical and all you have to do is go back and read through posts to my old Costa Rica Guy blog to see that very clearly.

Consider…

my earliest posts reflected my deep love for Costa Rica and that was the impetus behind my initial blogging efforts…

later on I shifted gears and started writing on topics like sustainability, anti-materialism and capitalism run amok…revolutionary stuff that could get me in trouble…

I went through troubled times in my marriage and wrote a lot about relationships (incidentally, back then I also started translating my posts to Spanish – why? – well, rationally to gain more Spanish-speaking readers, but deep down in hopes that it would get the attention of my wife and, hey, it worked!)…

then I just kind of stopped writing for a while (the creative genie was bottled by the lizard brain)…

I went through another relationship hiccup, moved to Perez Zeledon and started writing a lot about my faith (which, similar to Dylan, pissed off some of my readers)…

and lately I have looked deep inside to “find my voice” or what it is I really want to write about and for whom and that inspired me to launch the Revolutionary Misfit blog…

It is no wonder that my posting has betrayed my schizophrenia. After all, like Dylan, I am paradoxical. A person who wants to do good, but too often is quite “bad” (in self-destructive sorts of ways).

My recent struggle deciding on an ultimate direction for my blogging, or even if it should have one at all, is indicative.

Sure, I would love to “make a living” blogging. It is a passion and I love doing it…my way. But the idea of figuring out what an audience wants and pandering to them kind of makes me, well, queasy.

It certainly is not at all inspirational.

I also blog for my vacation site and those posts do pander quite a bit (and are always a chore for me to write). All the experts (those who incessantly write about the 10 ways to drive traffic to your blog) tell me to do that.

But then the rebellious (revolutionary misfit) side of me says fuck no! I will write what’s on my mind (and in my heart) and if it pisses off the world (or just my mom) so be it.

Because in the long run, while I am many things, conformist doesn’t appear on the list. And I’m okay with that…even though I do suffer for it.

I listened to an interesting interview that Merlin Mann did of Seth Godin a few years back this morning. They talk a lot about Dylan and his nonconformity and paradoxical tendencies.

Seth is also one of my nonconformist heroes. He is a marketing non-conformist (now if that’s not paradoxical, I don’t know what could possibly be). He tells me that I must have the guts to create art and then to ship it and if the masses don’t approve, then screw the masses…you’re not writing for them anyway.

There are many who hate Dylan and I am sure he is well aware of that. But, I doubt very seriously that he ever sat down to write a song and thought…now how can I make them love me.

So, I’ll take my own advice in this post on doing it like Dylan and refuse to do that as well.

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