Quote Of The Day By Jim Morrison: 'I Think I Had A Suppressed Desire To Do Something Like This Ever Since I Heard ...'

Jim Morrison, the American poet, singer, and songwriter, had anything but a conventional life. Born James Douglas Morrison on December 8, 1943, and no stranger to nomadism after growing up in a military family, Morrison found himself enmeshed within the '60s counterculture and its affinity for free love and psychedelics, as well as an aversion to authority.

After graduating from UCLA's film school, he would co-found the Doors with keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger in 1965, skyrocketing to fame on the West Coast. While their commercial hit "Light My Fire" truly put them on the map, their 1967 self-titled album also set the precedent for Morrison's darker, more philosophical lyricism with songs like "The End," "Break On Through," and "The Crystal Ship." Taking inspiration for their band name from Aldous Huxley's book "The Doors of Perception," the Doors produced six studio albums influenced by psych-rock, the blues, and even a little bit of pop.

However, Morrison's troubled history often got in the way of the band's studio sessions, performances, and even got him arrested. His personal issues followed him until his death on July 3, 1971, in Paris, France, making him one of the formative members of the infamous "27 Club." Although Morrison's rock-star attitude often overshadowed his pointed and philosophical wisdom, he managed to learn a lot in his short time on earth, and that's why "The Lizard King" is today's quote of the day.

"I think I had a suppressed desire to do something like this ever since I heard ... y'see, the birth of rock and roll coincided with my adolescence, my coming into awareness," Jim Morrison explained in a July 1969 interview with Rolling Stone, in response to a question about how the Doors' frontman had decided to become a performer.

He elaborated further on how "It was a real turn-on, although at the time I could never allow myself to rationally fantasize about ever doing it myself." When becoming a musician had become a reality, he hypothesized that "I guess all that time I was unconsciously accumulating inclination and listening. So when it finally happened, my subconscious had prepared the whole thing." With an IQ as high as Morrison's, there's no doubt that he would have left his mark on the world through any medium.

Jim Morrison had been aware his whole life how truly difficult it could be to "make it" as an artist. Even though he described flirtations of fantasy as a musician, it was almost a self-preservation tactic to suppress his desire for it. As rock 'n' roll was essentially the soundtrack to his life, coming to prominence throughout his adolescence, the allure and the influence were essentially inescapable — and as a person who loved to create, the medium seemed to have chosen itself.

In his 1969 Rolling Stone interview, he shared how he originally envisioned his life path as being antithetical to singing, with a focus on the humanities such as sociology or theatre. Even some of the Doors' lyrics reflect how he translated his fixation with humanity into music, including one of their most haunting tracks, "Riders on the Storm." His music was based on what he described as a "... fantastic rock concert that was going on inside my head," making the quote a clear example of how you can't hide from the person you're meant to become.

If we didn't have that voice at the back of our heads telling us that we could never achieve our dreams, what would our lives look like? Are we drawn to the things we love because we're meant to shape them in our own unique way? Morrison encourages us to never dampen our own desires, and take inspiration from the art that shapes us.

• "We fear violence less than our own feelings. Personal, private, solitary pain is more terrifying than what anyone else can inflict."

• "If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it's to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel."

• "A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself."

• "Nobody would stay interested in me if I was normal."

• "The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first."