174. Song No. 2,605: “Do It for the Love,” Michael Franti & Spearhead
All People, 2013

Michael Franti’s music was so important in my gentler, more neo-hippie liberal days. I still love his music and I think his messages are more worth listening to than ever, but the pissed-off leftist in me who gets worked into a frothy rage over inhumane injustices is a little impatient with unhurried pacifism these days. Still, spending some time with Franti’s music and his eyes-wide-open but earnestly big-hearted lyrics is always a good place for recalibration and perspective.

Because, no matter where you are on your journey of idealogical growth, leading with your heart is always a reliable guide, and anyone who thinks otherwise is afraid of what happens when you live ruled by genuine passion. And of all the recurring themes punctuating Franti’s songs, acting out of love in all its forms is the most prevailing and beneficial takeaway. (Also, Do It For the Love is the name of Franti’s nonprofit that aims to “inspire hope and healing through the power of music,” which is a thing I’m delighted to have accidentally learned while looking for the song’s lyrics.)

Do it for the love of it, do it for the smell of it
Do it for the joy and the taste and the hell of it
Do it ’cause you love it and it makes no sense
Not yens or euros or dollars or cents….

Fuck anyone who says “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life!” because that is some terrifically incorrect and misguided bullshit. Franti’s call to simply do what you do because you love it and can’t live without it is much better, healthier and way more realistic advice—and, honestly, for a certain kind of person, it is the best advice. Following your heart is far from a foolproof path and it’ll always make you a little more vulnerable than others who choose things like money and stability and respectably cautious career paths, but the authenticity of doing the thing you absolutely have to do and making a life around it is one helluva reward for the people who just can’t imagine finding happiness through any other way of existing.

Franti goes on to observe that “Life is never easy and you better know it,” a universal truth of waking up to face another day no matter how you approach it. Some days are harder than others. Some years are harder than others (‘sup, 20 months of COVID?). Some circumstances never get better. Some things never return to normal, or whatever version of themselves you liked best. The job you pick and the way you spend your life won’t negate or suppress that reality, but they sure as hell make life’s bumps a lot easier to manage with one less thing to dread if you followed the course that’s best for you, even if that thing you love is your current source of existential malaise.

The way you feel about the life you chose is never a constant. There are too many external forces and uncontrollable elements and general unknowables to guarantee anything, most of all your feelings. As soon as I figured out that writing was the only thing I could see myself doing until I keel over at my desk one day (or the apocalypse lands, whatever—either way, I’ve made peace with the fact that I’ll never get to know what retirement is like), I knew I had What I Want to Be If I Grow Up all figured out, and life as a working writer is exactly where I’m supposed to be. It’s the most professionally fulfilled version of me I could be, even if it’s not always easy and it’s certainly not always fun

Like…. I wrote the bulk of this while procrastinating on an article that’s due later this morning, because sometimes you wake up to finish something at 5 a.m., only to find out that today’s going to be ruled by wanting to do the thing you love for yourself and not for money. Or, consider how I’ve spent the past two weeks jumping at every email notification and phone call because I’m riddled with anxiety and worry over the fear that someone I wrote about isn’t happy with the piece, or I fucked something up.

But I’m going to be like that no matter what, and I’d much rather have those little blips of inevitable occupational dread punctuate days that are otherwise filled with doing the one thing I can half-ass and still do better than most people because I love word-slinging almost as much as attempting to pet every dog. And since petting dogs isn’t a viable career path, writing is a mighty satisfying alternative. It’ll never make me rich but that was never the goal: Being able to call myself the only thing I’ve wanted to be since a high school gig as an animal hospital nurse taught me I’m too soft-hearted for the veterinary field and spending my days immersed in the written word are the kind of rewards that make financial gain an easily dismissed afterthought.

Do it for the love, not for the money…
Do it ’cause it makes you feel alive…