Movin' Down the Line
The way Marvin Gaye ends Trouble Man with the music fading gives me a sense of pride and accomplishment.
Marvin Gaye’s song Trouble Man, the theme of the movie with the same title, was a song from my childhood that profoundly affected me. The smooth rhythm, the words, and his voice blend in a way that still touches my soul every time I hear it.
I was in seventh grade when the film was released. My friends and I wanted to emulate the main character, Mr. T, played by Robert Hooks. He wore fine suits, drove a luxury car, and always had beautiful women. The thing at that time for an impressionable young black kid was to be hard and cool. Try as I might to play up to that facade, I wasn’t nearly like that at all. When I matured, I realized I was only fooling myself and nobody else.
The biggest part of that awakening was that being hard and cool isn’t real. It was an outer shell to impress others and win approval. I learned that nobody pats you on the back to commend you on being that way.
Life events are the teachers. I have often shared that there is a point in life. When you come to a fork in the road, it makes you reflect on your life. You take inventory and ask yourself. Do you want things to stay the status quo, even if things are not what you want, and take that road? Or do you want to make the change to make yourself happy and take the other fork in the road?
I took the change road because the things I went through in the status quo hurt, and it broke me down. I realized you can’t make a change by doing the same thing. Doing things to please others for me was not working. I wanted to move ahead.
The thing to me with the status quo is that it is about as real as being hard and cool. You’re given a way to go on in life that is like everyone else who looks and seems happy. In my case, it was being in the church. I was to get a job, get married, and be a man of God. Somewhere in the midst of that, have children. Doing that will please the Almighty, and you’ll be richly blessed.
Nobody told me what happens when you get laid off from your job. Go through a divorce. In my case, twice divorced, I may add. To others, I had to have done something wrong to displease God for those things to happen. But they’ll pray for me. I realized being prayed for has a nice sentiment, but little else.
The bottom line was I was alone. My fork in the road was either keep trying to fit in the status quo, even if things didn’t work, or make changes. I decided to make changes. My thought is if you’re going down a road with a big pothole and you messed up your car by hitting it twice, going down that road a third time isn’t going to change the outcome. Try a different street.
However, making the change is not for the faint of heart. First, I had to look at myself in the mirror and be honest about the things I had done. Why didn’t they work out like it was supposed to? Add in, why did I accept what I was told when experiences earlier showed me differently? This part was dark and frightening when I saw the fullness of everything.
Second, there are those in your life who want you to be part of their status quo to feel good. Your feelings and how you are aren’t acknowledged or respected when it comes to things. To them, when you go through a challenge, you’re the same person you entered. When you go through hell, you’re never the same when you come out. I had to choose not to have them in a close part of my life anymore. That alone caused a very big stir because I took control of myself and stopped trying to please.
With that said, hard and cool took on a whole new meaning to Marvin’s song. Making the change in who I am was hard. However, with the experiences I have had, I’m cool with them. They’re a part of what made me. Are there scars? Yes! But holding on to what caused them, I released, because that no longer serves me. Out of the process, I have learned. You can’t change what happened. Just live, learn, and move on. I opened my heart to love myself and receive the good things I never allowed myself to fully enjoy because it wasn’t like the status quo. Hence, movin’ down the line.
The way Marvin Gaye ends Trouble Man with the music fading gives me a sense of pride and accomplishment. When he sings, “Hey… movin…down…the…line…”