Open Mic Week 32 - indie rock exploration: "Quarry", inspired by nelson mandela.

Here's a song I wrote about two years ago in NYC, called "Quarry." Scroll past the video for a blog post about how the track was inspired - makes for good reading as you listen :-). peace out!

---

While living in NYC, I read Nelson Mandela's autobiography "The Long Walk to Freedom".

The story of Mandela's life is utterly foreign to my own. He recounts his youth in a Xhosa tribe where they had no electricity or running water. It's a completely different conception of life - in some ways much freer, in others much more humble than my own.

It's completely foreign to me. On one hand, I envy the idea of a childhood without mass media being piped into your brain 24/7. You could actually sit and think for yourself in some quiet surroundings.

On the other hand, you are removed from any ambition or connection to the global culture. Nelson Mandela himself admits that, were it not for a stroke of luck that sent him away, he may have never left the tribe. The rest of the world would never have met the remarkable man.

Later in his life, Nelson was famously imprisoned for 27 years. This is the part of the story that inspires me. In his late 40's, jailed as a political dissident, he has no reason to feel optimistic anymore. For several years he wallows in pity, but then discovers that he can still act with his own free will.

After that moment, he spends his near-three-decades in jail slowly reclaiming his freedoms. Outsmarting and out-maneuvering his captors, he gets bigger prison cells, then roommates, then his own house in a locked compound. Finally he emerges from jail, triumphant, to lead the nation as president.

For anybody like myself - a young adult working the slow grind towards financial stability & creative fulfillment - it's an important lesson. Patience and gratitude are hard to learn in this society - but when I look at Nelson's 27 years of prison time, I am forced to recognize my luck and good fortune.

Even if life is painfully slow and awkward at times - like right now, as I save money to move to the city - it's a hell of a easier for most of us than it was for Nelson Mandela.

Anyway, this song is about the idea of maintaining hope in the face of adversity. It starts out in Nelson's situation with the first few verses, then shifts to a more modern day perspective. I hope you dig it.

---

follow me: @heymattsokol

_{one more thing before you go - have you heard of my "Spirit Medicine" mailing list? it's got new music, musings, and recommendations from me. I send it to your inbox twice a month, so you can enjoy my stuff whenever it is convenient for you.
if you enjoy my content, this is a 100% super helpful way to support me :-D. click here: https://www.mattsokol.us/}