An open letter to my little man, Jackson Clay Blevins

I got you a matching hat to wear when you finally make it out to share this beautiful world with me. It's just like the hats I like to wear, but much, much smaller… I completely understand that you will be you and not who I might want you to be. Heck, you might not even like wearing hats. Hat hair is a real thing—especially if you end up having thick hair like your mom and dad (I've broken more than a couple of sets of hair clippers in my day).

Seriously, if you don't like hats, I won't make you wear them. You don't really have a choice about our daddy-son picture with matching hats (Hey, I'm still trying to get over 100 likes for a profile pic, and, uh, thanks in advance!). Until you learn to talk and make your opinions known like a grown-ass man, you don't have a choice. Yeah, you’re going to have to learn that you have to be strong to have choices. The world will try to control you, and you're going to have to learn to stand on your own. You're going to learn. That's how life works, but you'll have me here to teach you, don't worry. And if for some reason I'm not, you've got some crazy cool aunts and uncles that helped me become the man I am: They will do the same for you if I can't...

That’s just plan B, though. I will be here to tell you how life works; it doesn't. It isn't fair, and it's going to be tough. That's my job, to teach you and guide you through finding your place in this world. I’ll teach you to create your own joy. You’ll need to be passionate about something. This world has a lot to offer you, and you have a lot to offer it, but it won’t ever give you anything that you don’t find for yourself (I can hear myself lecturing teenage you about being bored right now.).

The only thing I ever want from you is for you to care. I would love it if you were to learn to sing and play the guitar; enjoy the outdoors and building a fire in the rain; and keep Sundays open for football. But if you play soccer, the violin, and Magic the Gathering comes back and you are the king of that at your lunch table, I'll make t-shirts and cheer you on (I’m going to embarrass you with how much I love you; get over it.).

I want to tell you things, and I want for you to trust me because I’ve already learned a lot of stuff the hard way. For starters, go to your school dance, and be a man and take the girl you want to take. Just make sure she doesn't dress like a hoochie momma (your mom won't like her if she does—trust me on this one.). When you get there, dance like you don't care who is watching because you won't. If you're not embarrassing your friends on a daily basis, you aren't a good friend, and you probably won't have any, anyway. Dare to be different, and don’t care about what other people say or think. Use the haters as fuel for your workouts, practices, and all the times you need courage.

I realize that my last paragraph was a little assuming, but it’s not exclusive. Hell, if you’re the type of guy that takes a guy to a dance, don’t let him dress like a hoochie momma, either (Moms really just don’t like slutty outfits.). This is the other thing I will teach you through my daily acceptance of who you become: There is the world as it is for everyone, the world as it is for you, and the world as it is going to be. Your world is the only thing you can control, and the world as it will be will be because of you. You can change the world, but it might just be on a smaller scale than you would like. Do it anyway.

No part of my existence cares about anything more than you, Jackson, and I can’t wait to hold you and to tell you everything I know and to teach you everything that I can do. You and me, kid; we’re going to do big things… or small things… or everything.

Evolutions cannot be disputed. Well, you can say whatever you’d like: Thankfully, in our country, crazy is a right. Adaptation has been proven in many forms of life. All species change and adapt to survive as a species. This is not an attempt to discredit a higher power. Any scientist that would like to retain that title will not dispute natural selection or adaptation.

As humans, we aren’t changing much physically. We haven’t needed to change for quite some time. Sure, we are getting taller (some of us—not me), more of us have blue eyes (lucky me!), and we’re becoming resistant to diseases, but we aren’t all that different than we were hundreds of years ago.

We have reached what I like to call a Post-Physical Evolution Stage (PPES). We are the only species to have reached this on earth. As David Attenborough, a British broadcaster and naturalist, points out in his work, we are the first species that has chosen to “opt out” of natural selection with the advent and use of birth control. This is big news for the human race.

So, what does it mean? As a PPES, we are now evolving because of knowledge. Our growth and prosperity as a species is now reliant upon what we can pass down, what our children can learn. The survival of our species is directly tied to our knowledge. We live in what may well be the most pivotal stage in human development. Knowledge and scientific discovery is our key to survival.

Intangible sociological concepts have overcome tangible physical characteristics in our evolution as a species. We are different than our ancestors because of how we interact: We have moved (mostly) from the first stages of social interaction—hunter/gatherer societies—into the fourth stage, what Lord Kames called the commercial stage. While property and trade brought about the complex legal systems that our civilized societies now have, it is becoming clear that a fifth stage has emerged: mutual reliance as a race.

With the emergence of scientific knowledge—modern medicine, nuclear science, etc.—we are our own gods, so to speak. We have a never-before-seen control of our own destiny. We can blow ourselves up, fail to invent a vaccine for a super virus, or pass on false knowledge and societal practices that will kill our race. We have entered a new social contract that is directly tied to our lack of physical evolution. Evolution, meet sociology. Mind matters.

So we learn. We adapt. Freedom is no longer a luxury; it is the key to our survival as a race. We must be free and learned. Tyrannical governments have no earned power under this social contract as the meaning of the greater good evolves.

What we choose to teach our children will ripple throughout time. Knowledge can only be guaranteed a half-life: Will our children cling to the morals of a free-society? Only if we teach them…

To learn is to evolve. I choose to learn and to teach. Much of my life has been dedicated to learning, but this learning has only been possible because of those before me that have chosen to teach through their writing (Lord Kames, for instance) and because of those who have chosen to teach me in their lifetime (my family, teachers, and friends).

Evolve your mind. The human race is counting on you.

When I am writing my music, I feel like I am communicating more clearly and louder than I ever have in my life. It is a fusion of the creativity of poetry and song, except that the words have a tone, an urgency, and an energy—a voice, my voice. There is no misunderstanding what I mean. It is a direct line to my soul; I am naked on a canvas. A true songwriter is a true artist, in this sense.

I’m not famous, and I definitely don’t make money off of my music. Hell, I might not even be good at it—yet. The yet is the part that keeps me going in everything I do. I was raised to believe that I could do anything I wanted to do, and life has taught me that I can do most things that I want to do (I never got drafted into the NFL, shocker). Regardless, I approach obstacles as possible until proven otherwise. And, sometimes, the journey in being wrong can feel so right.

I wrote my first song almost a year ago today. I’m a little late in the game, but my can-do-anything attitude got me learning guitar about two years ago, so it makes sense when you put it in the perspective of my talent timeline. I wrote it in the car. I was driving to Memphis with love on my mind. And I just started singing it. I slowly added more rhymes and structure to it. Then, I recorded what I had in a voice memo on my iPhone. I barely even killed anyone that night driving. Don’t worry. I was responsible and didn’t pull out my guitar until I got to Memphis.

This is how my music generally comes to me. I need to be in the right place to where I can think of nothing but a feeling or an emotion. Sometimes, I get there without even realizing that I’m there, and, then, bam, something insistent comes to me, and it becomes a line in or title to one of my songs. The only time that I’ve been able to sit down and write a song without something nagging at me was when I decided to write a song for my momma for Mother’s Day. She is a different sort of inspiration altogether, I suppose. Mom’s do that to a guy.

When I have an idea come to me, it ends up here, in my book. My handwriting is horrible, and the organization often has arrows going all over the place to move lines and verses around; writing is not a linear process, after all.

I would love to witness and document another person making music, and, yes, I know this would be the equivalent of tagging along on their wedding night to watch as their nuptials come to an intimate close. One day, I will get a chance to do this, and I will share it with you. Oh, and I want to watch some one write music, too . . . In the meantime, this is how I wrote “Mending Our Wall.”

The line, “The sun cannot set without mountains to hide” haunted my thoughts for a day or so. It has such beautiful imagery and meaning to it. It sparked the theme for this song, and it was the first thing I put to paper. You see, I was in one of those reflective states: I wasn’t on speaking terms with my best friend, and I wanted desperately to fix what was wrong between me and my ex-girlfriend so that she could still be a part of my life (I know, foolish. I’m a hopeless optimist).

This led me—naturally—to the first lines I wrote. I had to do something with them. I felt an enormous weight of regret for my part in mending these walls, now that I knew them for what they were. I felt my mortality. YOLO, and I wanted to live for once. And I had hope and courage again. The artistic journey had brought me here:

I finished this song that very night, and the next night, I had my friend over to apologize over a beer. And, that week, I even texted to my ex . . .

I do own quite a few hats, and I do have a hat for every occasion--my ball cap for when it's warm and I run, my beanies for when I run in the cold, my artistic-power cap (I've got a picture of me in this on here), my beanies that my ex-girlfriend knitted for me, etc., and that's as good a place as any to stop talking about my hats. You get the point. I own them: I wear them. I'm over it.

If you haven't gotten it, yet, the hats are a metaphor, of course (not to insult your intelligence). I wear many hats. They are easy to change out. They fit the mood; they fit the task. I've never met someone like me--siblings excluded. I've always been a contradiction. Like an Alanis Morrisette song: I'm short, but I'm tall. I'm a geek, but I play ball. How many high schoolers do you know that have a job, are president of the chess club (a board one player), sing in choirs, play varsity football, and still have time to work for NASA? I mean, I did a lot more than that, and maybe I'll write about that sometime, but going on about it right now just sounds like bragging, so I’ll stop. If you want to know more, there is a good article about me published in Missouri State's FGB Times.

The real point is that I enjoy my many talents, and I wear each hat with pride, knowing that I only get to wear it for a short time before it's time to change it out for another one. I wouldn't have it any other way. I was born with a lot of abilities, and this world doesn't get to tell me to pick just one or two for the rest of my life. I'm far too intelligent. Participate? Yes. Conform? No.

This will be the theme for my blog. It is a record-keeping site for my self-development journey. I will explore who I already am and who I want to become. Some of the things you will have the chance to follow me doing are: writing more music and explaining the creative process behind what I’ve already written; learning Spanish, Italian, and French; reading new books; developing and enhancing my physical health through workout and diet; working toward professional goals; writing about language; learning to play piano; exploring Mother Earth; and exposing my world views through creative writing.

These are just a few of the big ones. My interests are ever changing. If I can find the time, I want to learn to dance. I know that you’re asking yourself, “Rob, I’ve seen you dance. You are a machine. What do you mean?” I mean that if I am to become a real-life version of the Most Interesting Man in the World, I need to be able to tango, salsa dance, two-step, etc. I don’t take a superlative adjective like most lightly. I am the comparative adjective better than that. Read about it.

Stay tuned this next week as I . . . (and the dot-dot-dots strike again).