Lessons from Bono - Part 1

One of the books I am currently reading is Bono on Bono. I like Bono. I like his music because it is honest and he doesn't mince words. And I also like him cause I he, like me, believes that poverty can be made history and is working towards that. And he challenges convention.

There are some thoughts from the book which really hit home. Well, there are many of those really. I emailed Gina these thoughts and she thought these were blog material and that they should be shared with the wider audience. So, I will be putting up a select few of these thoughts in my blog along with my thoughts about his thoughts. Hopefully, this will be a series of posts.

“There are stories to tell that are not songs.”

This is one of the reasons he gave for working on this book project with the author. I just thought it was a cool quote.

“If you wake up in the morning with a melody in your head, as I do, it’s all about how much you compromise that melody to take it out of your head and put it into music.”

I feel this way about writing. I have sometimes compromised my ideas simply because I could not find the right words to express them. And when I wrote them, I would either end up something very different from what I started out with or I would not have expressed the idea in its entirety. I am glad I found his words to help me capture this compromise.

“It’s a very hierarchical business. What table you get in the restaurant tells how your career is doing. It’s happened to me many times, where you turn up at a restaurant or a club and they haven’t got the booking right and you have to queue or get turned away…

…But I don’t want to stray too far from the street. I’m not saying I’m not good at the penthouse life – but I’m also good at the pavement. That’s a source of pride for me, that I’m good at both. I’m good at high life, I’m good at the low life. It’s the middle where I lose it.”

I wish I could say that of myself… The bit about being good at both lives...

“…If you look to writers and painters and poets, then you’ll often find the search for the ecstatic, the trauma of religious experience.”

“All the Renaissance painters, torn between God, patronage, and the desires of the flesh.”

"Coolness might help in your negotiation with people through the world, maybe, but it is impossible to meet God with sunglasses on. It is impossible to meet God without abandon, without exposing yourself, being raw. That’s the connection with great music and great art, and that is why it’s uncomfortable, that is why cool is the enemy of it, because that’s the other reason you wanted to join a bad: you wanted to do the cool thing. Trying to capture religious experiences on tape wasn’t what you had in mind when you signed up for the job.”

I guess this is not something that only musicians and artists alone face. It is true of me and my work as well. Why do I want to do development work? Is it to please man, to earn a living or to do the Kingdom work? Like the artist I struggle with the three loyalties. The desire to be noticed, the desire to climb the rungs of career ladder, and the desire to serve – all three compete for attention.