Trailblazing

America once celebrated its trailblazers. The name that usually comes to mind is that of Daniel Boone. These are the men with the drive, vision, and courage who went first so that the rest could follow. I get annoyed when people describe America as a nation of immigrants. My ancestors who arrived on The Mayflower were not immigrants. They were colonists and trailblazers moving from the centre of British culture to its outer territories to build ollowed her. Thosthe cities and the nation that drew immigrants from all over the world.

The other day I was watching an interview with libertarian author, commentator, and former New Jersey Supreme Court justice, Judge Andrew Napolitano. He said,

It is clear that when a person resurrects an old idea, or even comes up with a new one, that challenges the authority of the establishment and the establishment has little intellectual argument against the idea, they will attack the originator or the proponent of the idea. So the name calling is to be expected.

Like Alice the visionary, all such people are called mad and not taken seriously. Take myself for instance.

The vision of my life did not become fully crystallised until about six years ago, and even then it took years to learn the territory. I certainly had the background from a lifetime of fragments, but this is when it all came together. Even in those days I possessed considerable small group influence culminating in being referenced in a few PhD theses and appearing in national radio shows and even a local television program, not to mention my published articles. Yet in all this I was a novelty from a mainstream perspective. Hardly a national movement.

What is my vision? I want a restoration of the Romantic Age. I want to go back to where we were at the peak of our civilization. A time before the Great War and the Great Depression changed everything. No, not just go back, but also go to where the track should have led us had we not diverged from it. I want to live in the world that our ancestors dreamed for us. If I cannot live there, then like Moses I can at least help lead others to it.

Such a curious trailblazer going back to where we have been. In the words from the VNV Nation song Genesis, "Even lands we once called home lie undiscovered and unknown."

The thing about trailblazing is that someone has to go first. I dress in tailor-made reproductions of c.1870 clothing. I do it because I like it. I do it because it manifests my self – it expresses my values and my soul. It also serves as a representation of the world I long for as an example for others to rise above the vulgarity of jeans, t-shirts, and post-modernity. Yes, I am ridiculed and yes I am praised. But these mean nothing to me, probably because I am incapable of being anything else. A friend recently told me of a "nightmare" she had in which I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. The horror of someone like me betraying his principles.

Today the libertarian movement is gaining steam. A year or so ago I read an essay from a man who was there at the start of the Libertarian Party forty years ago. In it he described the various types at the different tables, including the followers of Ayn Rand "with their cigarette holders". Even c.1970 this manner was considered passé and possibly pretentions. Yet there they were. Today I imagine the table might be filled with Goths, Dandies, and Steampunks. Either way, these were the trailblazers and over the decades their numbers have multiplied.

In our age of big media beating the drum for the masses there is the belief that you are nothing if you cannot capture the giant's attention. Even if you do it is as a novelty piece. "Oooh, look at those people, they are so different, interesting, and weird." I'm not interested in such back-handed compliments.

They say that the best advertising is word of mouth. Beneath the giant's gaze are the trailblazers on the internet. Individual Romantics, whether they see themselves as such or not, creating their art, writing their poems, singing their songs, sharing their visions, debating their issues. More importantly they are making connections with other like-minded individuals and they are taking that virtual experience into the real world. Perhaps like me they occasionally feel disheartened or depreciate there work or influence, and yet they do what they do because they cannot do otherwise, such would be against their nature.

The name Heather Sweet just came to mind. Here is a girl in love with the Romantic. She did her research and her work refining her knowledge and skill and she became an inspiration to millions of women as Dita Von Teese. She was like the Daniel Boone of trailblazers, but she would be nothing without the lesser trailblazer who followed her example. It was as if her success served as permission for them to follow their hearts. It even gave them a degree of social acceptance.

There are people who are drawn to the works of the Romantics and they enjoy it. In their teenage years they buy the music, go to the specialty shops, wear the clothes, and put the posters on their walls. Then they grow-up, join the vulgar ranks, and say, "Yeah, I used to be a Goth."

But there are a handful who truly get it. As they mature they branch out from the transient popular-alternative scene (such an oxymoron) and explore the full measure of Romanticism as a part of their soul, first in areas of aesthetics and then beyond. They understand Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and Love and these values become their guiding light in all aspects of their existence.

These people may be ridiculed or misunderstood, but if they hold true and speak-out they will form the foundation of the world to come in generations hereafter. They will be the forgotten trailblazers who led the way for the immigrants to follow.

...if you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, and if they can't stop you, then you become something else entirely...a legend. – Ra's al Ghul in Batman Begins