I just finished Ghost Rider, and it was so good I can hardly put words to it.
I feel like... everyone who has ever lost, and hurt, and despaired, should read this book. Not because it necessarily makes anything any better to know that someone else has felt this way. Not necessarily because the writing is so clear, so pure, that I can say about passages of the book, "this... this is the exact shape of human pain."
But maybe because of the depth of raw emotion given over, because of its complete sincerity, that someone could read this book and no matter how hurt they are, maybe they too could come to believe that a soul can pain this much and still get better. To recover into... at least a reborn incarnation of self, if not the same exact person that one was "before." Maybe this book could give hope to someone who feels hopeless.
Maybe it only meant so much to me because it is the story of a musician whose work I've admired for many years. And because I myself have, for a few years now, been on that almost-imperceptibly slow road to the recovery of my own heart, my inner spark. I can't even say for sure that I'm "out of the woods," but I think maybe I could be. I can't say I have all of it back, but I have back parts of myself that I thought I never would. Maybe the book wouldn't have touched me as deeply if I had never been through that depression.
And maybe, probably, it couldn't have done what it did for me had I read it while still in the depth of my own depression. Probably I wouldn't even have been able to tolerate reading it, facing those feelings, and acknowledging that someone else felt the same pain and for more reason. Probably, I wouldn't yet have been able to believe that, even though he did, that someone so lost as myself could possibly find herself again.
So, I'm glad I have read it now, when I could acknowledge the reality of the whole cycle of loss, including the ever-so-gradual transition from hopelessness to the possibility of redemption and rebirth.
I've always been one of those people that wished I could somehow get the chance to tell, and to really convey to artists that have inspired me, how much their work has mattered in my life. I know that's a little silly in a way, but at the same time, being a musician and a performer on the smaller scale that I have been, it has meant something to me to hear that my song, or my performance, helped, inspired, or gave something to someone. It doesn't mean I am going to have a friendship or any ongoing relationship of any sort with that person, that I "know" them, or that they "know" me. But it still has meant something to me when I've been on that side of it.
Still, someone who has been this successful for this long hardly needs to hear it from me, to know that his music and his story have helped people. Especially someone who expresses in no uncertain terms in this book, how uncomfortable he is with fame, with being recognized, with "fans."
I'm never going to "know" this person, and likely never going to personally say "thank you" for putting so many words together into expressions that I've found meaningful. And that's ok. That sense of responding, relating and connecting is more significant within myself than it is to try to directly reciprocate it.
Despite this, however, as I was thinking about taking some Rush music with me to the gym to run to tonight, and thinking about watching one of their DVD's that I just got, I realized something else: Just as Neil Peart expresses in this book, how he sees the "himself" of before his losses as "that other guy," I also see him differently now. Even though I fully understand that I do not actually "know" him personally, I do feel like I "know" him better now, from his own direct expression of what has transpired inside his heart and mind, than I did simply from admiring, albeit deeply, his metaphorical and philosophical expressions in song lyrics, and from seeing him from the outside as a player on a stage. I do think he shared of himself very greatly in the writing and publishing of this book, inviting people into some deep parts of himself, even if he does not make the reciprocal visit to every reader in return.
There is a third book that he released last year, Traveling Music, which I much want to read now! I will have to go to the bookstore and look for it.
And, obviously, I wholeheartedly recommend Ghost Rider to anyone who wants to ride through a beautiful and painful true story.
I feel like... everyone who has ever lost, and hurt, and despaired, should read this book. Not because it necessarily makes anything any better to know that someone else has felt this way. Not necessarily because the writing is so clear, so pure, that I can say about passages of the book, "this... this is the exact shape of human pain."
But maybe because of the depth of raw emotion given over, because of its complete sincerity, that someone could read this book and no matter how hurt they are, maybe they too could come to believe that a soul can pain this much and still get better. To recover into... at least a reborn incarnation of self, if not the same exact person that one was "before." Maybe this book could give hope to someone who feels hopeless.
Maybe it only meant so much to me because it is the story of a musician whose work I've admired for many years. And because I myself have, for a few years now, been on that almost-imperceptibly slow road to the recovery of my own heart, my inner spark. I can't even say for sure that I'm "out of the woods," but I think maybe I could be. I can't say I have all of it back, but I have back parts of myself that I thought I never would. Maybe the book wouldn't have touched me as deeply if I had never been through that depression.
And maybe, probably, it couldn't have done what it did for me had I read it while still in the depth of my own depression. Probably I wouldn't even have been able to tolerate reading it, facing those feelings, and acknowledging that someone else felt the same pain and for more reason. Probably, I wouldn't yet have been able to believe that, even though he did, that someone so lost as myself could possibly find herself again.
So, I'm glad I have read it now, when I could acknowledge the reality of the whole cycle of loss, including the ever-so-gradual transition from hopelessness to the possibility of redemption and rebirth.
I've always been one of those people that wished I could somehow get the chance to tell, and to really convey to artists that have inspired me, how much their work has mattered in my life. I know that's a little silly in a way, but at the same time, being a musician and a performer on the smaller scale that I have been, it has meant something to me to hear that my song, or my performance, helped, inspired, or gave something to someone. It doesn't mean I am going to have a friendship or any ongoing relationship of any sort with that person, that I "know" them, or that they "know" me. But it still has meant something to me when I've been on that side of it.
Still, someone who has been this successful for this long hardly needs to hear it from me, to know that his music and his story have helped people. Especially someone who expresses in no uncertain terms in this book, how uncomfortable he is with fame, with being recognized, with "fans."
I'm never going to "know" this person, and likely never going to personally say "thank you" for putting so many words together into expressions that I've found meaningful. And that's ok. That sense of responding, relating and connecting is more significant within myself than it is to try to directly reciprocate it.
Despite this, however, as I was thinking about taking some Rush music with me to the gym to run to tonight, and thinking about watching one of their DVD's that I just got, I realized something else: Just as Neil Peart expresses in this book, how he sees the "himself" of before his losses as "that other guy," I also see him differently now. Even though I fully understand that I do not actually "know" him personally, I do feel like I "know" him better now, from his own direct expression of what has transpired inside his heart and mind, than I did simply from admiring, albeit deeply, his metaphorical and philosophical expressions in song lyrics, and from seeing him from the outside as a player on a stage. I do think he shared of himself very greatly in the writing and publishing of this book, inviting people into some deep parts of himself, even if he does not make the reciprocal visit to every reader in return.
There is a third book that he released last year, Traveling Music, which I much want to read now! I will have to go to the bookstore and look for it.
And, obviously, I wholeheartedly recommend Ghost Rider to anyone who wants to ride through a beautiful and painful true story.