Bob Dylan Musicares Person of the Year Speech:

I have been inspired by every perspective and interpretation of Bob Dylan’sspeech.  Thank you all for sharing.

 

There is so much to think about after reading this speech-

A couple of phrases grabbed me from my first reading of it and have

stuck with me.

Dylan has been accused of making a career of Confounding Expectations.

How great is that?

It made me think about expectations- mine, others, how expectations enhance us, excite us, how we benefit from expectations, how they can limit us.  

The definition of expectation is: A strong belief that something will happen.  A belief that someone will or should achieve something.

That’s not a bad thing. Unless expectations prevent us from doing what is true for ourselves. That’s the limiting part. The Shoulds. The expectationswe put on ourselves as well as the ones put on us from outside of ourselves.“I should be a doing my asana practice and look just like this ..”, in spite of the pain in my knee. I should be, look, sound, or whatever like something other than myself  as I am in this moment in time and space and in this body.” “His voice should sound more like that”. Expectations can crush us.  They can prevent us from Singing the Truth.

Or, like Bob Dylan, we can Confound Expectations.

I looked up the word confound. I have been using it recently. I like it.

It means: To cause surprise or confusion in someone, especially by acting against their expectations.

Synonyms for confound are: amaze, astonish, dumbfound, stagger, surprise, startle, stun, throw, discompose, shake, bewilder, bedazzle, baffle, mystify, bemuse, perplex, puzzle, confuse, take aback, shake up, catch off balance, flabbergast, blow someones mind, blow away …flummox, faze, stump, beat, fox, (and my favorite)- discombobulate.

It seems like it would be a full career to do all of those things.

Dylan did them all by Singing His Truth. What else could he do? Did he have a choice? Do any of us?

Confound Expectation. Sing the Truth.

                                                                                                             - Diane Sjoholm