Music From The Heart

I was listening the radio one morning and found the announcer talking about Bruce Springsteen. I was lucky enough to go to the Coliseum in Los Angeles back in the 1980's and see him perform. I loved the concert. His songs talk about the value of hard work and the struggles of the American worker. The announcer was wondering how he could know about the struggles of the working man. After all, he's one of the 1%. But was he always? Of course not. His father was a working man, often out of work, and his mom had to take out a loan to buy him his first guitar, for $18. He knows about the plight of the working man because his father lived it, and so did Bruce in the beginning. From what I can see he's still a hardworking man. Just because he's made a lot of money doing what he loves doesn't mean that he doesn't understand what hard work is all about. I thought the announcer was really off base when he said that Bruce Springsteen knows about the plight of the working man because we all know about it. I don't agree. I feel you need to have lived it to understand it. You can't understand how difficult life is for an immigrant unless you are an immigrant.

I was thinking about the business of Bruce Springsteen understanding the working man in relation to my own experiences. I remember when Ron first left for Taft and I was alone, I would often have people say, "I know what you're going through." No, they didn't know what I was going through. That old phrase, "Don't judge anyone until you've walked in their shoes," is so relevant. You might think you understand what someone is going through, but until it's happened to you, you don't truly understand it. When Ron returned from Taft and told people how difficult it was to settle into a normal life, they couldn't understand why unless they had experienced incarceration themselves. Luckily for me and Ron, our life has settled into a normal routine, where we are both happy.

A few situations come to mind where people have been quick to say they know how you feel. Death of a parent, spouse or child, dealing with a loved one who is addicted to drugs, having a loved one incarcerated, losing your house to foreclosure, losing a job and not being able to get another, being discriminated against because of race or religion, or weight. These are just a few of the many situations that come to mind. Many of us have experienced discrimination, loss of a loved one, or loss of a job. We can empathize with someone going through this experience because we have been there too. But you can't really tell someone else how to behave towards a child with drugs. Until you've walked the walk, you don't really know what you'd do.

I listen to country music occasionally, and marvel at how the men and women who write the songs express love, compassion and dispair. Their songs come from the heart, from their life, just like Bruce Springsteen's song do. It's hard to write that stuff unless you've lived it.