Ryan Ross

My “Rushed” Essay

"I will choose freewill!" sings Geddy Lee of Rush passionately in the non-conformist

track "Freewill." Rush is not afraid to shy away from their inspiring ideals in their lyrics, while

they display their talent in musical performance. This is one of the reasons they are my favorite

band of all time. Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart, the members of Rush, have been there

when I was growing up, inspiring me through their sheer expertise as musicians but, as I have

matured, studying lyrics they have written have inspired my way of thinking and my outlook on

life.

The song that got me started on a new way of thinking is the song that got them big:

"2112." Clocking in at over twenty minutes long, Neil Peart, the drummer/lyricist captures a

dystopian society heavily inspired by Ayn Rand's books Anthem and Fountainhead. Not only did

this song started my passion for dystopian and futuristic novels, but it also got me interested in

Rand's ideology of objectivism. Rand described it as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with

his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest

activity, and reason as his only absolute." Although Rand's ideology comes from a fear of a

future of extreme collectivism where individuality is nearly non-existent, and my cause is much

smaller than that, my younger self digested some high values and lessons from Rush' and Rand's

work.

Common in most people's lives, and my life, is a fear of not fitting in with a group or

being rejected. It's our instinct; if we get kicked out of a group, there is a lesser chance of

survival. Yet that's not a problem anymore in our advanced society, so why have it? That's a

question I ask myself when I fear to do something out of the norm, and I realize I shouldn't have
that fear. Rush always encourages getting over this fear and embracing uniqueness in a large

amount of their discography. Obviously, I can't just overcome fear like that so quickly, but over

the years, I have developed so much when it comes to these things. I joined my friend's band

with almost no guitar experience and scared utterly out of my mind to play anything in front of

anyone, but I was able to overcome fear and not be afraid of what other people thought. I ran for

student government my junior year, and won, with one of the weirdest videos I've ever made.

There are many other experiences of mine recently where the easy route would have been to just

stay in my house and hide because of the fear of other people's opinions—joining the tennis team

with little experience, getting a job, showing people my strange creations in photo and video

editing, having to socialize with new sophomores coming into my school—but I chose to do

them because I wanted to do them and nobody else's opinion mattered.

Rush' music has inspired me to overcome my social fears to gain something much more

significant: the things that make me happy. From them, I have read books and researched how to

overcome fears, achieve success and have self-love and I can say I am developing so much in

those fields all because I decided to look into the lyrics of a strange song which led me down a

fantastic slope of self-improvement. I hope to be able to help people develop these philosophies

wherever I go in life because even though I still have a long journey ahead, I think everyone

could use the ideals of Rush in their life's path. I am thankful for all that I have learned from

them that Rush taught me "the freedom of music."