Livity — Life Lessons from Bob Marley
Today would have been Bob Marley’s 76th Birthday, and anyone who has known me for longer than 5 seconds, would know, that I am completely obsessed with this legendary Aquarian Revolutionary!
I had planned on writing an article for his 75th birthday last year, but I put it off because I tend to put off things that I love and find ‘frivolous’ in favor of the more ‘concrete and serious’ tasks on my to-do lists. But in 2021 I am actively pursuing the things that fill my cup — Dancing, Writing about Bob Marley, Laughing, Making Kombucha, Doing Nothing!
There is a lot I could talk about in regards to Bob Marley — His legendary Afro-centric reggae music, his charisma, his revolutionary lyrics that centered the liberation of all black people, the fight against the machine that has entrapped the working class in a rat race. But in this article in celebration of his birthday, I just want to talk about his Livity. It’s also important to note that he was a flawed human being still and just because he was great doesn’t mean he was perfect.
Last year around June, the Marley family released an HD recording of the famous ‘Live at the Rainbow’ concert from June 1977 in London on the Exodus tour. The first time I watched the concert in my room, I cried. I felt like I was in that concert hall and I was just in awe of him and his presence. He embodied what the Rastafari community call -Livity. Aliveness. Livity encompasses many different things including holistic natural living and, emphasis on community and collaboration. The livity that I see in Bob Marley’s performance is an acute sense of being in his body doing what he was placed on this earth to do. He is completely immersed in the music and the message that it transcends the physical realm and becomes a mystical and spiritual experience. He’s not concerned about perfection or how it will be received or how much money the tour makes. He is present. He is fully alive and fully present, which then allows him to be used as a vessel for the radical revolutionary message that is still so relevant today.
He is completely immersed in the music and the message that it transcends the physical realm and becomes a mystical and spiritual experience.
I often feel like I’m sleepwalking through life, that I do what I do because that’s what I’m supposed to be doing according to societal norms. I’m not really living my life instead I am living somebody else’s vision for my life. Like I have been handed a script I took no part in creating and I’m living my life according to the role prescribed for me on that script. I don’t want to live my one and only life in this body from the passenger seat. There is no ‘Big Other’ for whom I must consciously or subconsciously shape my life around. I am the captain of my own ship, master of my own destiny. This doesn’t mean that I have full control of what happens to me in life, but I do have the complete agency to decide how I will receive what life brings. And that I take the driver’s seat in defining what my life will be, regardless of whether my desires and actions produce the fruit I was hoping for. In the words of Bob Marley himself;
Emancipate yourself from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Every time I listen to Bob Marley, I am reminded of what life can look like when you truly step into who you are and live out your life. Happy Earthstrong Bob Marley!
