The Loner ( Rides Again)

Where was I?  So, I love Neil Young's song the Loner, always had an affinity for the reputation Neil had for being a talented recluse, unpredictable and prone to wanderlust.  Stephen Stills was in many ways his partner in crime, equally talented, but possibly less reclusive.  Maybe just as much a hard ass when it came to asserting his will, but he could back it up with his craft.  When I bought Illegal Stills and this song came on, I didn't immediately recognize that it was a cover of Neil Young's, partially because at the time I listened to music in the chronological order it was released, a couple of artists at a time, so a long time passed between listening to Neil Young's self title debut from 1968, and Stills 1976 record (released the month I was born no less).  But when the hook comes in, complete with CSNY-style harmonizing it hit me.  The main arrangement sounds like it could be used to back action sequences in Magnum P. I. or the A-Team, but that hook honors the original.  And of course, the crux of the song is the lyric, the subject of the song, which in my head is still the cagey, uncompromising, contrarian.  You could argue that I saw that as autobiographical of Neil Young, in all his ramshackle virtuosity. He, the master of grooves and vibes, with a propensity for deconstruction, certain songs seeming like architectural marvels that are then imploded for the thrill of it, so he can then play with the newly formed fragments that litter the pit where the building once stood.   I saw myself in that, but not until I was older. Not until I was trying to become a singer-songwriter in my own right.  It took some strange and informative life experiences to get me there, which is saying something given what I'd already experienced in my life up to that point, so I better get back to that.

Once I literally got back on my feet after my surgery, I remember reading Lord of the Flies in English class, and nothing could have been more topical and timely for me.  I tried to figure out where I would fit into that story, how my personality would assimilate into that situation. That in turn made me think of how I fit into the social groups that existed in that class. I didn't. I moved into that school district in 5th grade, so all the would-be friends I met had pretty much established their childhood peer groups. I found a place over time, but then our small group was bused to the other side of the district as a minority among all the kids from that side of the county who'd gone to school with each other, at larger elementary schools. By the time we entered high school we had gotten to know a lot of these kids, for better or worse, and then had to endure the upperclassmen. So making it through the isolation of my post-op experiences in the wheel chair and trying to rehabilitate my social life primed me for some sort of transformation, then the death of several people I looked up to steeled my resolve to find myself and have some altruistic purpose in my existence, which I had lost clear sight of since my childhood.

By the time I was finishing High School I'd come to realize the magnitude of my own psychological shortcomings, and was ready to do what was necessary to overcome them, even if it meant being vulnerable. I was finally content with rejection, emboldened by fully accepting the idea of being an outcast.  It was easy for me, I'd developed the expectation of rejection as part of the particular Christian ministry I'd been exposed to.  The parts of  my identity that didn't prosper me were discarded.  I was self-righteous and conflicted, severely alienated, and found myself going off to college with no friends in tow, having fallen out with my best friend by nature of being perpetually indignant towards each other.  So college was a new beginning, in an entirely new environment, full of possibilities, including ample opportunities to be disappointed with and by situations, and personality types I'd never dealt with before. And so it went.

Essentially, what was at issue was, I truly was all over the place, interested in so many things, that I refused to conform, and instead isolated myself  and compartmentalized aspects of myself so I could have the freedom to pursue those interests and dedicate myself to them in my own time, in my own way.  I was undiplomatic and didn't want to do anything on anyone's terms if I felt that compromised my own state of well-being.  I was always one or two things shy of being able to fit into a social circle.  My attempts to reconcile contradictory values were always a year or two too early, such that things I was searching for in culture and community hadn't evolved enough so those I knew at the time felt it belonged in their diet for cultural consumption.  I willfully and vocally celebrated these things when they came to pass, but usually all I did was bias my friends against them by overselling whatever it was I thought was the best thing since whatever the last best thing was.

A lot of this was my effort to cope with the deaths of friends and family, and an inability to broach those subjects with anyone close to me, and no desire to self-medicate with anything other than music and media.  This was all part and parcel with the fragmentation and dissolution of my peer groups over time each passing year as a meandering undergrad.  By the time I was finished with college I was known-of by many, known by few, and faced with the reality that the new friends I'd made on somewhat my own terms, weren't going to be anywhere near me when school was over as far as I was concerned.  No job, no car, no long distance phone, no internet, just USPS.  I was going to be isolated even more than ever, especially since my family have moved my freshmen year of college and I would now be in what I felt was a remote part of the greater St. Louis Area, as far as I was concerned, with no means to escape. And that's when I began to focus on my songwriting, exploring my psychological and spiritual state, and how I felt about the world.  That's when I made an effort to become a performer, and embraced social engagement as a means to an end, and accepted that being social was going to be a skill I had more than a desire I would pursue.  I'd been bred by circumstance, and on some level, my personality, to accept isolation could potentially be the predominant condition of my existence.

I'd come full circle, thinking back to Robin Williams as Popeye when I was oh so young.  My convictions took roots, and it became easier to express them, and easier to accept that others would reject them.  It was enough that I held them, validation was nice, but not necessary. I knew better than to bank my peace on the world embracing what I might have felt was sound judgement and altruistically good.  My experience paralleled the rise of entitlement culture, the advancement of cultural and generational pluralism and isolation for the purpose of marketing. Society has been evolving to serve the market place, and nothing serves the market place greater than individual attainment trumping communal ownership and sharing.

If everyone wants everything for themselves on their own terms, we have to expend more to acquire it, which means those providing the things we all want will profit from our expenditures.  By fostering a culture where everyone has to have their own something or another Demand increases, which allows for price increases.  It's simple supply and demand. It's social science, and as I have aged, I have learned to see that the social factors that have influenced my life along the way were a product of the prevailing culture influencing the people in my life and myself just as much as any personality quirks we had.  I don't know if anything alienated me more than studying Sociology, Anthropology, and Communications, but to the credit of those fields, they pulled the veil back on just what has been and continues to be done to persuade and influence people's perceptions and behaviors towards their circumstances, and each other.  This realization makes all the dysfunction I see make sense.  It informs my notion of Evil, the power of Sin, it allows me to look at humanity with a even keel.  It tempers any misanthropy I may suffer with the knowledge that there are social mechanisms in place that are served by promoting alienation and insecurity, and unfortunately they have co-opted many of the efforts to undermine them, turning them into alienated commodities, or marginalizing them by polarizing the rhetoric.  But beyond all the philosophical and theoretical analysis, I am still a human being, who more often than not, by virtue of the vessel my consciousness is housed in, and the things I have experienced, feels on the outside looking in, with no desire to pretend to feel otherwise, especially when that feeling is reinforced so regularly.  But you know, the person who doesn't fit in anywhere, knows their place everywhere.