I am a romantic, I admit it.

The words of Keith Jarrett—“I am a romantic, I admit it.”—shine with a simplicity that carries great weight. In them, the great musician lays bare his soul, confessing not with shame, but with courage, that he is guided by the spirit of romance. To be a romantic is not merely to love flowers, moonlight, or tender glances; it is to see the world through the lens of beauty and longing, to believe in what transcends logic, and to surrender to the mysteries of the heart. His admission is an act of honesty, for in a world often ruled by cynicism and pragmatism, to call oneself a romantic is to stand against the current and affirm the power of feeling, imagination, and wonder.

At its core, this confession reveals the essence of Jarrett’s music itself. His improvisations, which seem to flow like rivers from some unseen spring, are not cold calculations but offerings of the heart. To play as he does requires a faith in spontaneity, in passion, in the sacred moment. This is the very spirit of romanticism: to trust that emotion and intuition can lead us deeper into truth than reason alone. When he admits to being a romantic, he is admitting that his art springs not from formulas, but from surrender—to beauty, to longing, to the mystery of sound itself.

The origin of such sentiment lies deep in the tradition of the Romantics of centuries past. The poets—Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley—declared that imagination and feeling were divine gifts, higher even than intellect. The musicians—Chopin, Schumann, Liszt—spoke in notes of passion and melancholy, evoking both the ecstasy and the sorrow of the human soul. Jarrett, in his own way, stands in this lineage. His music, like their words and melodies, insists that life is not to be measured merely by reason or profit, but by the depth of what we feel and the beauty we dare to create.

History too gives us lives shaped by the courage to embrace romanticism. Think of Beethoven, who despite deafness, composed works that shook the heavens with their passion. His Ninth Symphony is not the triumph of calculation, but of belief—belief in joy, unity, and the human spirit. His work was not logical but visionary, filled with fire and longing. In the same way, Jarrett’s words remind us that to be a romantic is to see beyond what is, into what might be, and to give oneself wholly to that vision, no matter how impractical it may appear.

The meaning of Jarrett’s declaration is therefore larger than himself. It is a call to all who hear: do not be ashamed of your tenderness, your longing, your imagination. The world may call such things foolish, yet it is only through them that we touch what is eternal. To be a romantic is to admit that we still believe in love, in beauty, in the possibility of the sublime. And in this belief lies strength, for those who abandon romance become hollow, while those who cling to it remain alive in spirit.

The lesson for us is to carry romance as a sacred flame. Do not extinguish it in the name of practicality, nor bury it under cynicism. Instead, let it guide you in your art, your relationships, and your vision of life. To admit romance is not weakness—it is courage, the courage to live with feeling in a world that too often celebrates indifference.

Practically, this means daring to feel deeply. Listen to music that stirs your soul. Speak words of love without hesitation. Allow yourself to dream of beauty even when the world seems dark. Create not only with your mind but with your heart. For in these acts, you will discover, as Jarrett did, that to be a romantic is to be fully human, and to admit it is to stand unashamed in the light of truth.

Thus, the words—“I am a romantic, I admit it”—resound as both confession and proclamation. They remind us that the truest strength lies not in denial of feeling, but in its embrace. And so we pass this wisdom forward: let every soul dare to admit romance, for in doing so, they admit life, and in life’s embrace, they find eternity.