Where are you more Moby and where are you more Lemmy?

In 1999, a musician called Moby released an awesome album called “Play”. Very catchy. I remember watching him play live on TV. He started playing some electronic dance music, then said “I am feeling heavy metal”, and suddenly switched genres. I remember being both excited and feeling violated at the same time. For me, music genres had always been a part of a musician’s persona. When I think of heavy metal, for example, the icon that comes up is Lemmy, the lead singer of Motörhead. Like a stick of Blackpool rock, if you cut him in half, he would have had the words "heavy metal" tattooed on his insides. (At least from 1975.) For me, the Lemmy/ Moby dichotomy is a tension I see in life, and a useful metaphor for thinking about how each us want to show up in our personal and professional lives.  Where do we want to be more Lemmy? Which things to do we want to stand for, stink of, fully inhabit and be inhabited by, be inseparable from? And where do we want to be more Moby? Able to flex at the drop of a hat? Sit above? Not commit to? We might think that the answer to that question is simple. We want to be Lemmy about our values, more Moby about everything else. But maybe there is also some value in being deliberately committed and inflexible in other areas. For example, the work roles we choose and the hobbies we love. What we are known for. Even where we want and choose to be inflexible (Lemmy), we don’t have to be so forever. But it makes sense to create a certain sense of inertia, so change is slow there. I would suggest that deciding where we are Lemmy and where we are Moby, and the rhythms for revisiting these decisions are some of the most important and powerful decisions we make. #unthink #unask #unlearn #learning #development