Save me from myself

I previously wrote a glowing review of Sky Nelson-Isaac’s book, Living in the Flow and regularly receive emails from him about his courses and his music. Although I loved his book, I’m afraid his new song “Stand For Me” is an excellent example of a mindset that can destroy a country or any organization that is made up of individual people. This is so important, especially in the face of recent crises that I’ve pasted my review of his song here. I also inserted a recording and lyrics of another song, written and performed by my son Bobby, called “Save Me From Myself” to give you what I think we need from our artists.

*******

Hello Sky,

I watched your video, listened closely and read the lyrics to your song. You have a beautiful voice and play well. I love your spirit, Sky and I love your book Living in the Flow. In your email you said, “The more honest we can be with each other, the more we can forgive each other for our mistakes, the more we will build a just and resilient community.” So I will be honest with you. You also said, “I see examples of this interdependence around us.” The problem I see with the song is that you confuse dependence or co-dependence with interdependence. You can only get interdependence from a group of mature independent people. I recommend that you read Steven Covey’s book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People to understand this maturity continuum.

If the protagonist in the song was the voice of the collective consciousness saying that it needs people to stand for the whole world or even a small organization, like the the one against domestic violence that you are trying to help, I would say it was great. Even our great country cannot stand without its people because “the less it needs the more it disappears” as you said. But as it is, I hear the protagonist in the song as an individual human who can not or will not take a stand from himself. If the first verse had explained that the singer was abused to such an extent that he or she no longer had any hope of helping herself, then I would have felt compassion.  But instead, I was very concerned that the song will be sung by people who think that they are not capable of taking care of themself and beg for the generosity of others who, by the way did not just find, in your words, “a garden they can go to to shutter out the pain”. We all have to suffer the pain that comes from taking care of ourself. Everyone starts out entirely dependent, and the only  “garden” is the state that you are in when you can make your own declaration of independence. The “tyrant” that the protagonist faces is his own shadow and he is the only one who can defeat that shadow. To say, “I depend on you. There’s nowhere I can go, I’m counting on you” is the voice of a coward.

What about living in the flow? What’s wrong with flowing on the river of life – the river of other people’s courage and sacrifices?

If you are not actually the “water” in the river, then maybe you are something floating on the surface. Sure, you can float for a while, but eventually you will get hung up on some obstruction. Perhaps you are a fish in the river. If so, you will eventually be eaten by a bigger fish. Living in the flow is a wonderful and helpful concept for the dependent phase of life, but if nobody wants to become the water, the river will dry up. By living in the flow you come to realize that it is the only way to live, but you don’t really “get it” until you mature spiritually, when you become the flow.

Now is the time that our country needs heros. The protagonist in your song needs to understand that everyone has a hero within himself. Haven’t you ever noticed that the conscience  that guides you is much stronger and braver than you are? That conscience speaks to you from your very own “garden”. At the point in the song when you say, “I believe in you, I’ve seen your courage shine when it needs to,” in my opinion that should be the protagonist pleading to his own hero self. And that IS an emergency because nobody can stand FOR you. I will stand BY you but I can not stand for you. I, Theodore, am just a symbol and I stand FOR the collective whole (group, city, state, country or planet), united with those who are willing to sacrifice their own lives for the same whole. That is why I will always stand for the pledge of allegiance.

My son, Bobby St. John who I told to about, who owns St.John Music Lessons in San Antonio, TX wrote a song “Save me from myself”, which is about what he calls “the image in the mirror”, “the shadow you can’t shake that keeps shifting” and then a “lifesize ink blot” that follows you around. He understands that we are all holomorphic projections – seemingly separate individuals but actually just individual parts of that conscience that calls us all to be heros. I’m posting it, along with this review on my website.

 *******

Save Me From Myself, by Bobby St. John

Lyrics:

Verse 1:

When the image in the mirror gets so far from the truth and your footsteps lie contrary to you. Like a shadow you can’t shake that keeps shifting and making you make mistakes then the war is here it’s at your front door. Sometimes the only way to lay waste to a bad thing besides “the bang bang” is a train of thought a tough road to walk. When you’re caught with that lifesize inkblot following you around, fight the urge to throw your arms to the ground. Come on open your mouth brother make a sound and say

Chorus:

Save me from myself. I’m alone and I don’t want to find that a hero has been standing by. Save me from myself cause when there’s nowhere left to run and the man in the mirror’s got a gun, you’ve got the power to bring about the Sun.

Verse 2:

So fight the good fight. You could if you would step on through the night, if you stood up and bled just a little instead of fled, well then you should see the shadow start to fade from sight. And if you’re curious and I know it’s not easy but I wouldn’t leave you behind or show you a lie if you’re bleeding then that means I’m also cut.

Chorus:

So save me from myself well I’m alone and I don’t wanna find that a hero has been standing by. Save me from myself cause when there is nowhere left to run and the man in the mirror’s got a gun you’ve got the power to bring about the Sun.

Bridge:

And when there’s nobody else to… face except yourself, just come on down off your shelf now ’cause there’s no way without a fight we’re going down.

*******

By the way, if you wonder why I chose to include the photo at the top of this page… I don’t recall where was taken, but we were on a trip from San Diego to Oregon. That’s me staring at the carving.  The carving is also me, peeking around from the backside to see if the real me can tell that I am pretending to be a sculpture.