“It’s easy to stand in the crowd, but it takes courage to stand alone” Mahatma Gandhi
One! Dylan, Patti Smith, Madonna, Picasso, Rumi, Marilyn, Chaplin, Gertrude Stein, Miller, O’Keefe, Kerouac, Ginsberg, Jobs, Joplin……..
One cannot be Undone.
There is only One when it comes to the unique individual, who does, acts, creates, lives, in a different spectacular universe far removed from the rest of the rest. Encompassing the Best of the Best.
When these alien species appear, they are usually mocked, rejected, cast out, and scorned.
The masses just don’t get them. And – they are not supposed to.
But yet they persist like the crazy glue you can’t get unstuck from your hands.
They are extremely focused, loyal to their identity, used to the blowback received from peers and society clamoring for sameness, the pervasive herd mentality, yet commandeering their particular OneNess with overwhelming solidarity and singular ness, as they machete their way through the dense forest of criticism, denial, mockery, and rejection.
But still they persist.
The OneNess.
Van Gogh had it. Michelangelo nailed it. Gertrude Stein invented it. Picasso owned it. Einstein invented it. Warhol flaunted it. Dylan folk singed it. Kerouac wrote it. Neil Cassidy drove it. EE Cummings rhymed it. Billie Holiday sang it. Emerson thought about it. Einstein hypothesized it. Freud analyzed it. Kerouac typed about it.
And we are still talking about these icons today. Because they are one of a kind. Unique, special rare, and everlasting. They are never disappearing into the abyss, as so many lesser personalities have done, but remained constant, with eternal, staying power, their destiny gave them, imprinted into infinity for all of us to share, learn, and reap the benefits of their unique Oneness!
Cool. Crazy Cool. The kind of cool that never warms up with the blasé cynicism of time.
ONE signifies the pioneer spirit of discovery! It’s revolutionary and life changing in theory and process . Who wants to run in a pack? Who wants to be a sheep when clearly it’s the sheep herder possessing the real power? But it takes guts, perseverance , creativity, solitude ,and self awareness, to separate from the sheep herd, and run alone.
One can be a lonely number, true, but it’s the ONLY number, existing for the trend setters, artists, and scientific geniuses of all time! The Kafka’s, the Jobs, the Edison’s, the Twains, the Thoureaus, the Pollocks, the Sontags, the Kahlos! No different from the great explorers of history, seeking new worlds in the abyss of the unknown.
While the world seemed flat to most, for the explorers coming from their unique revolutionary experience of thought they knew that there was another theory waiting to be proven. And prove it they did. But it required charting unknown territories and blasting through the cemented thinking of popular opinion.
To be the One in a chosen destined field of creativity is to be blessed and cursed.
Like famed actor Robert Deniro told the graduating class at Tisch School of the Arts in NYC “you are fucked”! He would know!
Following your dream, passion, fantasy, whatever you want to call it can be a lonely and torturous road. One beset with rejection, poverty, and disappointment. You have to put your Man Pants on if you want to crush it! You have to keep it moving, or you may fall off, never get back on your unique ride towards your individual destiny.
But what’s the alternative?
When you are on a creative path you can get side tracked but will eventually get back on the right road. The one leading to your destination. The one that makes you who YOU are. The twists and turns are necessary roadblocks teaching and guiding on the way to greatness.
That’s the beauty and the magic of ONE.
It all starts
And
Ends
With
ONE!