I’ve been thinking a lot about security lately. And how it’s over-rated. We’re trained from birth to seek what is safe and familiar, but we are never told that that way, death lies. Not literally, of course. Or maybe yes… All I know is that the  very essence of safety is stagnation, when everything in our being cries out for change – for the next challenge that calls forth the next and the next. When everything is too familiar – i.e. safe and secure – we can lose the wonder that the unknown provides. Safety is, by its very definition, conservative – and it asks that we stay right where we are, with the devil we know, all the while proclaiming that the devils we don’t must be far more wicked…

I used to subscribe to this theory. But not now. Today, I appreciate the unknown, and seek to chase it. The reaching for that thing just beyond the known universe is what life is.

My song, “Two Men, One Choice” is about this. One man taught me about security. And that was nice. Some would say a fundamental human need. But the other man – the one society would deem less acceptable – taught me about the life-giving power of not-easily satisfied desire. Of course, the guy just beyond the pale is NOT the one you bring home to mama. Or so, conventional wisdom would have it. And certainly, your shrink would say your attraction to this man means have Daddy issues. Even your friends will say “You deserve better.” And they mean, “you deserve a sure thing.”

We are taught that the man who provides security is the one we should seek, but I would argue the opposite.  Because first of all, it is really all that wise to rely on someone else for our own well-being and survival? Someone else who could leave or die? But even more than this, I say we should all be so lucky to have a man (or woman) that won’t “cooperate.” Won’t submit to our every whim and demand. Because it is only the untamable one who truly teaches us self-reliance. When he doesn’t do everything we say or wish, we are free. Because it is only then that we do not demand someone else make us happy; it is only then that we know that our happiness – and yes, security –  is up to US.

So is it two men, one choice? Not really. The only choice is to follow one’s own irrepressible spirit – and may we all settle for nothing less in ourselves, or in our partners.

What do you think? Show me in the dance! There’s still time to enter the “Kelly Maglia Rocks” contest. The deadline is midnight, Thursday April 30. Details here: https://www.kellymaglia.com/contests