Doing It My Way

“For what is a man, what has he got?

If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels

And not the words of one who kneels
The record shows I took the blows

And did it my way.”

— Paul Anka

Individualism is the spirit of this present age. And actually, that is not an unmitigated evil.

I used to think it was. When I was young Christian and more inclined to overreact, I found Anka’s lyrics, popularized by Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, more than a little cringe-worthy. I can’t take credit for the impulse since it almost surely came by osmosis from a church environment that tended to read the worst possible motives into every pronouncement of popular culture. Looking back on it, it seems to me the reaction of older Christians to the observations of the pop philosophers of my teen years was generally spot-on, if ever-so-slightly paranoid at times.

But not always.