Sojourn

One of the things I discovered in college and grad school was that my past as a folksinger, road bum, and general ne’er-do-well was not universally appreciated by professors and peers who had “played by the rules” all their lives. Time spent among the creative dregs of society was not appreciated. The better-off toyed with their hippie infatuation but returned home to Mom and Dad when reality intruded for the payment of rent, food, or treatment of social diseases. After all, there are creators and then there are consumers. The more locked down you are, the more likely you are to be a consumer, and not a creator.

I learned the truth of Richard Farina’s Sellout Agitation Waltz very rapidly:

Society is never geared

To people who grow a beard

Or little girls with holes in their ears

They’re liable to hunt you down

And dress you in a wedding gown

And offer substantial careers

They’ll buy you a suit of clothes

And pay to get another nose

So no one will turn you away

Moving On

Eventually, I stowed the boots and hid the past. Or at least I tried. Undergrad was easy. Grad school was tough; there were too many Ivy Leaguers who’d never worked a day or seen the rough side of life, and thought there was something dirty about it. You consumed life; you did not create it.

By the time I left grad school, I could kind of pass. But, I was a mole in normal society…a sleeper agent for unconformity. So, I found that occasional slips-ups were not too noticeable. My sojourn among what passed for the normal was pretty dull. I played games when frustrated. I tied knots in the devil’s tail and loved the double entendre and satire. 

Charge!

How does this tie into leadership ability? Well, I discovered that many times people were not interested in a John Wayne type waving a flag and running up a hill. They were more interested in someone who’d also put in a day’s work – been there and done that. Sometimes you’d have a sarcastic perspective on what the front office really wanted, deserved, but that you all had to deliver, anyway.

sometimes that was just what was needed.