Talk Less, Smile More

"Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken." Micah 4:4

I’ll be honest, I’ve been a little late to jump on the bandwagon that is the musical Hamilton. In my teens and early twenties, I was very interested in the Broadway scene. Of course, living on the left coast, I wasn’t able to attend the shows in person. However, having dedicated over half of my formative years in choirs and school theater performances, I was always quick to keep my ear to the buzz that was (and still is) Broadway.

Shows have stood out as favorites over the years and their soundtracks became the background music of many seasons of my life: Cats, Fiddler on the Roof, A Chorus Line, Les Miserable, Phantom of the Opera, Into the Woods, Miss Saigon, Rent and Wicked top the list. But then, upon getting married, joining the workforce, and having children, Broadway became a thing I used to know, something I used to be into, something that I knew a lot about… a while ago.

I probably first heard about Hamilton in 2017. I didn’t know much. I had no idea who Lin-Manuel Miranda was and was confused when I saw people of color playing white historical figures. I thought I must have missed something. I didn’t get it. And honestly, I didn’t really try to get it. I had other things going on.

When the touring company came to town I got super stoked about getting tickets. That bubble was quickly burst when I logged on to the Keller Auditorium website and saw that the “good seats” (good, not great) were in the neighborhood of $210 a pop. I decided to wait. It was sure to come around again, someday, right? I was probably more excited about the prospect of having an evening away than what particular show I saw. Tickets to Come from Away did the trick and my Broadway itch was scratched. (And just for argument sake, Come from Away is a phenomenal show, in its own right.)

Fast forward to Spring of 2020. We are all in lock-down. We are all in quarantine. On the kitchen cupboard I post my quarantine bucket-list. One of the items: “Listen to the Hamilton Soundtrack.”

When I started listening on my smart-speaker, I was a little lost. The language was fast. The voices, although talented, all sounded one like another and I couldn’t discern who was whom. I was unfamiliar with the characters other than Hamilton and Washington, and it was hard to sort out the love triangle: Angelica, Elisa and who was Schuyler?

But I was compelled. I was attracted to the characters, the contemporary music, rapping and the non-traditional language that was fresh and contagious. I would find myself humming “It’s Quiet Uptown” as I cleaned the bathroom. I’d bop along with King George, reminding the early colonists of his love, as I made dinner. I was beginning to catch the Hamilton bug.

And then… As luck would have it… In an effort to keep restless American’s entertained in a seemingly endless pandemic, Disney (God, bless ‘em), released a filmed version of the 2016 OG Broadway cast performance of Hamilton on Disney Plus for the Fourth of July weekend.

I’m embarrassed to say how many times I watched it that weekend… how many times I watched it and cried. I cried for John Laurens’ missed opportunity... and when Aaron Burr sang to his Theodosia... and for Phillip and Angelica and Elisa. I cried for Alexander’s humanity, passion and intelligence and I even got a little misty-eyed when George Washington retired-slash-resigned-slash-whatever it is the first President of the United States does when he can finally go home and sit under his vine and fig tree.

And… I cried (oh, don’t even get me started) at the end... A surprise the Original Cast Recording could not have prepared me for.

Thank goodness for good old King George, without him, I would have been a soppy mess.

I was hooked. I was drawn into the hype… but can you really call appreciating brilliance hype?

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s lyrics followed me for days. A welcome earworm. Stunning lyrics that convey pages of text in a simple refrain. One of those refrains stuck with me and dug deep into my conscience. It was a lyric from the proverbial “bad-guy”, Hamilton’s friend/enemy, nemesis and eventual murderer, Aaron Burr (Sorry, 215-year-old spoiler alert. Let me guess, you didn’t pay attention in Freshman History either?). One of Burr’s first tips to a young, enthusiastic Alexander? “Talk less. Smile more”. Talk less. Smile more. I don’t know how historically accurate this interaction is, but if it is true, 215 years later, this is still profound advice. It becomes a theme, throughout Hamilton. The nuances of these four simple words could probably be debated or evaluated ad nauseum. So, I’ll simply throw out my two-cents and consider it enough.

In this hurried society of saturated news and social media, everyone is vying for their voice to be heard. Four-year-olds have YouTube Channels. Eighty-year-olds are creating TikToks. Every celebrity has a Twitter account. Every eighth-grader has an Instagram. We, as a collective planet, are screaming over one another to be heard .

Hear me! Hear me! Hear me!

What if, for just a moment, just a blink in history, we followed Aaron Burr’s advice and talked less and smiled more… in the grocery store, at the bank, as we waited at a red-light, with our family, with our friends, with our coworkers. Just stop talking and listen and smile, engaging with human-kind. There is power in quiet. There is power in the waiting and the listening. There is power in a smile, maybe even more power than we have in our words.

Talk less, smile more.

I would never attempt to compare my intuition to that of Aaron Burr (or Lin-Manuel Miranda), but if I can be so bold, I would like to add one word to his advice to Alexander, Talk less, listen, smile more. Call me crazy, but I wonder If we were all to follow this simple piece of 215-year-old advice, if we could possibly change the world as profoundly as Alexander Hamilton did.