I have an aversion to being mislabeled. Here's a label I'd accept: I'm an 'individual.' I'm someone who can't follow, and doesn't want to lead.
Interpretation
This quote expresses a desire for personal authenticity and individuality, rejecting labels that misrepresent one's true self.
In this quote, Joni Mitchell articulates her discomfort with being inaccurately categorized by others, emphasizing her commitment to individuality. She identifies herself as someone who neither follows others blindly nor seeks to lead, instead valuing her unique perspective and independence. This statement resonates with the broader theme of self-identity and the importance of maintaining one's true essence in a world that often pressures individuals to conform.
In practice
During a speech about self-acceptance, one might quote Joni Mitchell to emphasize the importance of being true to oneself.
There's a man who's been out sailing In a decade full of dreams And he takes her to a schooner And he treats her like a queen Bearing beads from California With their amber stones and green He has called her from the harbor He has kissed her with his freedom He has heard her off to starboard In the breaking and the breathing Of the water weeds While she was busy being free
Unlike some of my peers, I haven't really hit a writer's block. When I hit a block I just paint, which is an old crop rotation trick.
This is a nation that has lost the ability to be self-critical, and that makes a lie out of the freedoms.
You wake up one day and suddenly realize that your youth is behind you, even though you're still young at heart.
What I do is unusual: chordal movements that have never been used before, changing keys and modalities mid-song.
At the point where I'm trying to force something and it's not happening, and I'm getting frustrated with, say, writing a poem, I can go and pick up the brushes and start painting. At the point where the painting seems to not be going anywhere, I go and pick up the guitar.
Whatever you do in life, if you want to be creative and intelligent, and develop your brain, you must do everything with the awareness that everything, in some way, connects to everything else.
An eye for beauty locks onto faces that show signs of health and fertility - just as one would predict if it had evolved to help the beholder find the fittest mate.
Place principle above all else.
Eloquence, at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection, but addresses itself entirely to the desires and affections, captivating the willing hearers, and subduing their understanding.
Anything that you resent and strongly react to in another is also in you.
Our particular problem in America at this point in history is the widespread loss of the sense of individual significance, a loss which is sensed inwardly as impotence.
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