I Did it My Way

“For what is a man, what has he got? If not himself, then he has not, to say the words he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels. The record shows I took the blows and did it my way.” My Way, recorded by Frank Sinatra; way back in the day when music was actually music without any screaming or vulgarities to contend with. I remember listening to this song, which was the theme song from Man From LaMancha  and thinking to myself, “Self, this is a really meaningful song.”

I really don’t want to put up the entire song’s lyrics even though there is a lot of meaning to it. I just want to go with this one verse, otherwise, I would be writing a book instead of a blog (I am trying really hard to make it short, Buzz).

If you think about what the lyricist is saying here, I mean really think about it, you will understand what he is trying to say. What is a man and what does he have? If you cannot be YOU then who are you? You become what I like to call, a ‘sheeple.’ A sheeple is a person, or persons, that follow blindly what is being told to him/her/them. Another way of saying it is that you become a slave to whomever it is that you are following.

I see this so much in politics. The red and the blue, following blindly those in power, will fight to the bitter end to justify what their party is up to. If you remember back to when King Obama was first coroneted, one of the networks interviewed a young, black woman after she had voted. This woman was so excited that a black man was actually running and winning. She made this statement, “He’s gonna take care of me. I won’t have to worry about my mortgage or putting gas in my car. He gonna take care of me.” She, like so many, is a sheeple. She drank the Kool-Aid.

Fast forward to now… I watched an anchorman interview several black people that think the Constitution should be changed to allow a president more than two terms so that their king can run again. Isn’t that why, after three terms of Roosevelt, the Constitution was amended to keep one person from having too much power? George Washington was offered a kingship when the war with Britain was over and we had our independence. He turned it down knowing that it would lead to the same corruption and tyranny that they had just fought against. Now, those that feel they have had a bad hand dealt to them want to go back to that tyrannical form of government.

I know, I know, it looks like I am one of the biggest racists on Earth. I am not. I am equally racist- I hate everyone equally. I really don’t care if the President of the United States is black, white, green, brown, pink, purple or polka-dotted. I don’t care if he is Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Mormon, Muslim or Buddhist. If the person in charge of this country is following the Constitution, is PRO-America, will fight for the rights and freedoms of the citizens of this country, will do everything in his/her power to keep this country safe and secure does it really matter who, or what, they are? NO. But, that does not mean I will become one of the sheeple that blindly believe what the government is telling me and follow to the ends of the world.

You may notice that I call black people, well, black. I don’t label blacks as ‘African-American’ as that indicates that they have emigrated from Africa to America. Most of those people that demand being called ‘African-American’ have never seen, much less lived in, Africa. To label a person like that would mean that EVERY LAST PERSON (save the American Indian) would be labeled as “Such-and-Such-American.” I, myself, would be something like a “Scottish/Welsh/English-American,” my Hijo would be a “Mexican-America,” there would be Italian-Americans, Polish-Americans, Vietnamese-Americans, Chinese-Americans, Swedish-Americans, Irish-Americans…. And so on and so forth. There would be no real Americans (save the native Americans- the Indians and they immigrated here across the Bering Strait from somewhere else long before history began).

Wow, I need to keep with one subject. On my bloody soapbox again, aren’t I?

So what is a man, what has he got? If not himself, then he has not, to say the words he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels. The record shows I took the blows and did it my way. I have always done things my way and would not change that for anything. Has it gotten me into trouble a time or two? Of course it has. I refuse to follow along the path of conformity when I believe that conforming would be against my core values and beliefs. It is sad that more often than not people will change their values for the sake of fitting in with everyone else. They become just ‘another brick in the wall.’

I think I’ve said enough for now… gonna get into big trouble with the blogger police if I keep non-conforming.