No More Playing Small

Last night found me wiping away tears as the credits rolled on the new Springsteen biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere.

It’s the story of an artist using poetry and rock & roll to pull himself out of the haunted house he grew up in. We were given glimpses of Springsteen pouring out his heart on stage, drenched in sweat before a fast-growing audience during his breakout years.

But the part that really undid me — the one that took forty-five years to be told — was the story behind the curtain: a young man nearly overcome by the same darkness that had haunted his father. This was Bruce not yet “The Boss,” a man who almost didn’t make it out alive.

We saw how his manager and a diner-waitress girlfriend anchored him back to solid ground. They gave him both the truth and the love that kept him from disappearing into the black hole of his own success.

The fact that Bruce Springsteen didn’t become just another post-star casualty — crashing into an early death — had everything to do with the people who gave him something real to hold on to. Real friendship. Real truth. The kind that gives a man the courage to face his ghosts and stop running.

He had to choose not just to survive, but to rise up and play the role of a man honest about who he was and where he came from.

This hit me hard last night because in the months since the violent assault this summer, I’ve found myself teetering on the edge of my own darkness again.

My tears came from the resonance chord tugging at my heartstrings — a reminder that the era of playing small is over. There’s no more hiding behind the quiet.
It’s time to stand in the full heat of the stage lights, unflinching.

—Rick
Paris, October 2025

If you’re done playing small, this is your invitation to step into the fire with me.
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