Embracing Your Soul Rebel

Written by Veron Graham

Topics: Blog

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By Melissa 't Hart

To explore truth you need a bit of a rebellious spirit. Oh, and you must be willing to learn how to die, and I’m not sure I was born with either.

But maybe I showed some promise.

If you were to ask my parents when it was they first noticed signs that I was going to be the child that gave them the most issues, well, I don’t know what they would say.

Maybe it was when I was 8 years old, and they caught me playing “house” with the neighbor girl?

Or maybe the time I was so curious about what smoking was like, that I made a homemade cigar out of grass, and lite it up? Or it could have been all those nights I snuck out of my jail cell window(bedroom), so I could “live a little.”

These were definitely moments of impulsive childhood rebellion. Trust me, there were more.

Blame It On The Preacher Man

Despite my propensity for disobedience, I did have an appetite for the transcendent. Regarding religious things, I had always been enamored by preachers, especially the ones that could make you feel like crying your way to the front of the church. Their ability to preach sermons that wielded hope with the agility of a master samuri’s sword, cutting away any seeds of doubt, or despair, exposing in their wake, all of the universes secrets. And yes, all within 35 minutes?! Yeah, I thought it was pretty gangsta too.

My father tells me, I looked him straight in the eye one day when I couldn’t have been more than 7 or 8 years old, and swore that I was going to be a preacher when I grew up. He still mentions that from time to time for some reason.

But in many ways my childhood deviance was only half driven by an innate curiosity that would often prompt me to impulsively nibble on the edges of temptation and worry about the consequences later. The other half of me overcame the fear of risk with the help of the conformist in me: The need to fit in.

“You can’t talk about truth without talking about learning how to die because it’s precisely by learning how to die, examining yourself and transforming your old self into a better self, that you actually live more intensely and critically and abundantly.” – Cornel West

The “Soul” Rebel In All Of Us

Maybe a part of me was just trying to distinguish myself and my identity. It was in the HipHop & Alternative music I gravitated towards. Some stirring up pseudo revolution.

By Melissa 't Hart

Some awakening the dormant peculiarity of the individual. Others just inviting a mass produced message of conformity.

And in many ways, we all have an old self, and a new self, a conformist, and a rebel waring within us.

The voice of fear, caution, and being over-realistic, right next to the voice of risk, daring, and idealistic adventure, inviting us into unlimited possibilities.
The voice of indifference and apathy, right next to our deep seated curiosity, and need to make a difference while we are alive.
The voice that aims to sabotage our dreams, and deny our true selves, and the side of us that can’t help but refuse to be satisfied with mediocrity and a purposeless existence.
The voice that makes it uncomfortable to think against the grain of society, or a point of religious dogma that leaves you little room to engage in fruitful open dialogue. All right next to the voice that is simply beholden to truth/Truth.

But we also have that Soul Rebel inside of us. This is not the childhood rebel that just sought to defy our parental figures of authority, just because we could, or because we wanted our own way. I hope that this inner rebel has been enlightened some, giving rise to the matured rebel in you. The part of us, deep at the center of our DNA, that identifies us as fully human. It is what separates us from the sheep. From the majority thinking. Although it can become trapped by years of societal conformist training, or constantly threatened by group thinking, this is the part of us that can, and we hope, prevail.

I’m not sure if this is what Bob Marley was singing about here, but for me the Soul Rebel in you is the force that seeks to welcome the dying process(not the event per se), when you begin to explore for yourself, asking the big questions, and going wherever that journey takes you.

This is the matured rebel in you. The part of you that reaches for more, beyound authoratative, and traditional mandates, but understands that change does not come without dying, and in turn living anew.

“The need to let suffering speak is a condition of all truth.” - Theodor W. Adorno

And at its brightest moment, I think soul rebellion is a peacefully constructive responce to all the darkness in our world and in our lives. For to ignore the suffering of others, is to kill our soul with the slowest suicide of do-nothingness. And in the end, it is this deep seated commitment to leave a legacy that transcends an inflated bank statement, that fully respects the awesomeness of this mystery called life.

I have not arrived, but the journey continues.

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