I belatedly discovered the Drive-By Truckers last fall when I stumbled upon “The Secret To A Happy Ending”on tv. I bought all their CDs and soon found myself listening repeatedly to Jason Isbell’s “Outfit”.I've spent the last several days thinking about why I find this song so moving. I've thought about good parenting and how the attitude of the father who narrates the song exemplifies it. Unlike parents whose unresolved self-esteem needs cause them to demand that their children be just like them or to expect their children to succeed in spectacular ways the parents haven’t, the father in this song neither demands that his son “paint houses like me” nor expects him to be “bigger than Jesus”.I've also thought about the simple, yet profound, life code the song describes. Don’t try to impress people by appearing to be someone you aren’t. (“Don’t sing with a fake British accent”.) Don’t try to seem authentic by pretending to be less than you are. (“Don’t ever say your car is broke”. ) Enjoy yourself without being self-destructive. (“Have fun but stay clear of the needle”.) Stay connected to the people who matter. (“Call home on your sister’s birthday”.)But I've realized that what moves most about this song isn't what the narrator says but who his words reveal him to be. He doesn’t tell us what kinds of hopes he had for his life. But we know it hasn't turned out the way he wanted it to. We know he wishes he didn't paint houses for his father or feel old at 43. We know he doesn’t want these things for his son.On the other hand, we know that he doesn’t regret marriage and fatherhood or giving up his green Mach One Mustang to have them. And he clearly doesn’t regret giving up memorizing Frigidaire parts or working in a foundry that calls itself an industrial park in order to be with his family.I’m moved by this song because the narrator seems to have come to a place of deep and, to my mind, rare, self-acceptance. And he’s been able to do this, I think, because he’ isn’t preoccupied with what his life would have looked like if he had had choices other than the ones he had.He could have stayed in tech school. He could have stayed at the St. Florian Foundry. No one forced him to come home. But it was more important to him to be with his family than to be away.Would it have been more fair if he could have been close to his family and had work that meant something to him? Of course. But the disappointments of life often lead people to feel that they’ve had no choice about how their lives have turned out or to blame themselves for not making choices that weren’t available to them.This narrator is not a fatalist. He’s not claiming to have had no choice in the way his life turned out. He’s not a nihilist. He hasn’t concluded that life is meaningless because it hasn’t offered him better choices than the ones he’s had. He’s not blaming himself or anyone else for the way his life has turned out. And he has hopes for a better life for his son.Would it have been better if someone had given this character a greater sense of possibility for his life? Probably. But many people who have been given much more demonstrate much less wisdom about how they have chosen to live their lives. Jason Isbell has said that this song is about advice his own father gave him. Whether intentionally or not, he has given us a picture of the deep self-acceptance that makes that advice worth taking. 6.20.12