Amanda. Fucking. Palmer. If you don't know who she is, well, go here and here and here. She makes herself more than available for you to know her. And that is one of her most endearing qualities.
So many artists withdraw from their community when they gain a little bit of popularity. But Amanda digs in and engages with her fans in a way that builds a community around her instead of lifting her up on a pedestal. She's in the trenches, so to speak, pulling more and more people into her world wide party. And it's tons of fun to watch her do what she does, maybe even more so than it is to listen to her music.
But really, what I admire about this woman the most is the balls she has. I mean huge, whopping cojones. Just to be who she is and put herself out there, raw and honest and without a hint of timidity for people to either accept her, love her, criticize her, or cast her aside. And I'm sure all of those things happen to her every single day, just like they do to each of us. But most of us walk around with our eyes half skipping over the people we encounter hoping not to be noticed. Amanda Fucking Palmer struts down the street hoping you're watching. Hoping you'll love her. But not giving a flying fuck if you don't. Because there are plenty of people who do.
It's all there in her music. In the lyrics she writes. It's in the absolutely perfect commencement speech which every person ever needs to listen to (it's on her YouTube channel linked above, but here, I'll make it easy for you) about the Fraud Police we all contend with inside us, telling us we don't deserve what we have because we're just faking our way through life. I would have called them Doubt Monkeys, but that's just me. But her point was that even the most confident peacocks amongst us have these moments of self-doubt and questioning and wondering when people are going to figure out that we have no clue what we're doing. That it's all a part of being a human adult. When we're kids, we think we've got this mythical time to look forward to when we'll have the whole world figured out. I'll wait until he's twenty or so to tell my son that's bullshit. Until then, I'd rather him think I've got a handle on things.
In My Mind is probably one of my favorite songs. In fact, I can't sit here and talk about it without directly embedding it here for you to watch, mostly so I can listen to it as I type.
And despite the Fraud Police who don't seem to skip her house when they're knocking on doors, she still puts herself out there and she still reaches out and beyond her boundaries every single fucking day to find new and better ways to be awesome.
"Fuck yes. I am exactly the person that I want to be."
We should all be just an ounce of that fearless.
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