”Whatever its results, the California trip would have a lasting impact on me. I got to see the country. I came up against some real talent and held my own, but the band that took us out at the Family Dog stayed with me. They had something we didn’t, a certain level of sophisticated musicality. They were better than us and that didn’t sit well with me. It’s not that I didn’t expect to come up against superior talent; that happens, it’s the way God planned it. I was fast, but like the old gunslingers knew, there’s always somebody faster, and if you can do it better than me, you earn my respect and admiration and you inspire me to work harder. I wasn’t afraid of that. I was concerned with not maximizing my own abilities, not having a broad or intelligent enough vision of what I was capable of. I was all I had. I had only one talent. I was not a natural genius. I would have to use every ounce of what was in me – my cunning, my musical skills, my showmanship, my intellect, my heart, my willingness – night after night, to push myself harder, to work with more intensity than the next guy just to survive untended in the world I lived in. As I sat there in the back, I knew when we got back home, there would have to be some changes made.”
Truth be told, ”I” is all that all of us have. I have me. You have you. And yeah, of course, we also have each other, but if I don’t show up for us, there won’t be an us. So: I am what I bring to the table. I am all I have.
Reading this excerpt from Born to run, it’s not surprising at all that Bruce Springsteen became the rock n roll legend that he has become. But I wonder – how many people don’t give themselves to the world, in the way Bruce has? What are we all missing out on, because people don’t value their ”I” enough, don’t see that their skills, intellect, heart and willingness, would give their onlyness to a world that needs it?
Inspired to continue blogging on the theme from the #blogg100-challenge in 2017 I give you:
The book ”Born to run” by Bruce Springsteen.