‘Don’t let others get your kicks’
Matt Pearl
Growing up at the Pearl house, when you felt like thinking or adjusting your perspective, you went to the tape player (and later, CD player) and you listened to some Bob Dylan.
Cue to everyone who had my dad as a teacher — those of them reading might be fighting the urge to roll their eyes, or possibly revisiting a pleasant memory.
Anyways, Bob’s biggest hit on the radio was “Like a Rolling Stone” back in the early 60s. It’s not my favorite of his offerings, but a lyric from it had my attention recently:
“You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns when they all did tricks for you
“You never understood that it ain’t no good – you shouldn’t let other people get your kicks for you …’”
Lyrics like this are so simply true that it’s why I’ve enjoyed Dylanology for a long time.
I have a distaste for people who lightly ignore those who work to make them happy.
They are typically the same type of folks who allow others to decide how they should live their lives, and what should be fun or accepted by anyone and everyone. Letting other people live our lives for us — what a massive waste of our years down here on this earth.
Well, I still see it all around me, and I still get angry when I spot that type of pointless conformity in myself.
I have a general set of worldviews, a set of perspectives that I rarely see any type of politician mirror in his or her speeches and actions.
The common reaction by most of us is to settle.
We think, “Well, if I can’t get what I want, I’ll vote against the person whose ideals are the furthest from my own.”
And so the lesser-of-two-evils effect stays in full swing. It’s part of the process, I know: it would be hard for any of us to find a candidate whose views completely matched our own.
But don’t you get tired of settling?
The parties give us their choices, we pick the least terrible one — essentially, we let other people get our kicks for us.
Our money fuels the party machines, and the lengthy pipeline of bad candidates beating a path to Washington, D.C., continues to supply us with mediocre offerings.
And our politicians become Dylan’s jugglers and clowns: they put on a show for the voters, but discontent, deceit, and downright crookedness have led to misery on the national scene.
The picture can be just as bleak at the state level at times.
I hope that you and I have the sense to turn around to see the true negativity tied to our political leaders, then have the sense to elect fresh ones. Not clowns who put on a fake face to keep us distracted, and not jugglers working to manage all the various special interests they have tossed into the air — but good, honest folks who want to lead by sensibility and by example.
When we allow ourselves to be pursued that other people have a better handle on our own interests and needs than we have ourselves, we give up the lion’s share of our own freedom.
When other people get your kicks for you, whose freedom has been threatened? Whose voice has been silenced? Whose rights are being suppressed?
I wish at times we had in this nation a more 1776-esque view of liberty: back then, they feared Great Britain would soon totally control Americans’ everyday lives. We need to consider that Uncle Sam’s desire to get our kicks for us is growing.
