“Fight for It”

Something I wrote a LOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG……… time ago, but never posted. But AM now.

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“Fight For It.”

My favorite song on the Hamilton soundtrack is “Wait For It.” Every time I listen to the soundtrack I can’t get the song out of my head, except that when I hear it in my head the words “wait for it” are replaced by the words “fight for it.”

In the song, as everyone knows by now, “wait for it” portrays Aaron Burr’s ethos.  Whereas Alexander Hamilton “doesn’t hesitate” but constantly seizes the day, Burr waits.  In the song, he describes “waiting” as a survival strategy.  He says, “If there’s a reason I’m still alive while everyone I love has died, it’s because I’m willing to wait for it.” In this way, ironically, it also perhaps portrays his own strategy for “fighting for it” in his attempts to achieve his goals and some sense of existential, or otherwise, security in the world.

In a quote describing his mindset when writing the song, Lin Manuel Miranda says, “I think we’ve all had moments where we’ve seen friends and colleagues zoom past us, either to success, or to marriage, or to homeownership, while we lingered where we were—broke, single, jobless. And you tell yourself, ‘Wait for it.’ ”

One of my biggest weaknesses is hesitation, i.e. waiting for it.  Even over the smallest of things.  It has cost me more pain and anguish and missed opportunities than it is possible for me to count.  I’ve missed out on the timely completion of academic programs, I’ve missed out on jobs, and I’ve missed out on relationships, both friendships and romantically, because of it.  It’s a fear of self-actuation.  Or, as one of my favorite psychologists, R. D. Laing says, “In a world full of danger, to be a potentially seeable object is to be constantly exposed to danger. Self-consciousness, then, may be the apprehensive awareness of oneself as potentially exposed to danger by the simple fact of being visible to others. The obvious defence against such a danger is to make oneself invisible in one way or another.”  Mostly, however, it is a fear of confrontation, and, ultimately, of Interface: with myself, with the other, and, ultimately, with God/the Universe/Whomever or Whatever.

Many years ago now, as very few people know anything about, I had a very severe mental breakdown.  In fact, I guess it could be classified as a severe acute psychotic episode.  I lost, really, seemingly, everything.  And it happened, both proximately and ultimately at root, because of hesitation.  Over a fear of making myself available to the other and to the Other.

Seven years later I’ve recovered much or even most of my lost vitality, but I still hesitate.  I hesitated in posting this.  When you’ve had the experience of having had one bad choice formerly sending you over a cliff, it’s hard to do anything but equivocate even over the smallest of choices or details.

But I’m growing.

And as in the rebirth that occurs following a forest fire, breakdown has long since given way to breakthrough.

And I’m emboldened.  To understand my past.  To live in the present.  And to live and fight for the future.

Shades of Burr are giving way to the light of “Hamilton.” I’m fighting for it and I hope you will too.

“Fight For It.”

#MakeAmericaGreater #1776 #FightForIt

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