Saturday Night Lights.

              I should thank you, because of you i'm writing again. That in and of itself is a great accomplishment, a welcome addition that you've added to my life. Red Hot Chili Peppers Greatest hits album is currently looping and I've got a soul to squeeze. I think love and hate are seriously divided by a sharp line, a line unfortunately that runs parallel. Universally speaking I love you, I love everything about you. I also hate you, hate the way you don't want to be with me. Hate the way that you rationalize being by yourself, alone, miserable with your scar tissues and  somehow that's better than fighting the good fight with me.  I wish I could take the higher ground and get over you, my friends all advise me that I should give it away, my love for you. but I can't, every couple of months I come crawling back because I feel my fortunes faded. Soon though I will find the courage to never return, and I honestly long for the day to be on that Otherside. By the way, I see your post about how you can't find a man and wish you were in a relationship and they strike like daggers, daggers that I cant help but stab myself with periodically; Masochistic. I have a problem I always try to save the population, but I cant even save myself. 

Alright I'm done with whatever that was. I have terrible relationships with several important people in my life. I want people to be better than they are and it fails every time. that's not okay with me. I've made a lot of mistakes and I pay for them or repay the universe in some ridiculous attempt at justice. I've been drinking way too much and I might have a problem, I think I need to go to a meeting. On another note I currently have 103 College Credits and I'm 17 away from being a college graduate. Only took me six years. Law School is next, lets see if we can get that done in three. Under the Bridge is my favorite song from Red Hot Chili Peppers, and its the first song on the album, I think they knew what they were doing. 

On that note I'll leave you with a quote from Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī  known to us Westerners as Rumi-- 

                 “The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing
            blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.” 

Honesty..

                    For a very long time I have hidden who I am from the public's peering gaze. I have purported  to be something that I am not. I am a liar. I am not a malicious liar if that is any consolation. I lie in an effort that I believe to be genuine so that I can placate others. Because so very few of our interactions are genuine and  sincere, and because of my many interactions, I find myself constantly being disingenuous and insincere. The constraints of polite society are vast and powerful. I have to be respectful of others opinions, I have to be careful to use the right gender pronouns..... do you have a partner? The world of academia has inspired me to write again, and I thank it for that. I haven't written in eleven months and what a roller-coaster have those months been. I've fallen in and out of love, I've greatly increased my life outlooks by joining this honors program in my junior year of college. These are the things that I've done, but they don't tell you about how I felt during this time. we all hurt, I am inclined to think that I hurt in more profound ways than other. although, I know this not to be based in logic I still hold it to be true. I've lost touch with the person that I was two years ago, its interesting this adventure that I am on, I am a passenger and driver at the same time. I am able to experience things and be the driver for those experiences but simultaneously extrapolate and reflect on those experiences in the passenger side. I constantly find myself writing in abstracts because I like to think that I am an Artist and I am creating a work of art when I write, and I leave that work open to interpretation. Yes, as younger man I hate contemporary art and by extension abstract art due to a reverence that younger generations pay to non-contemporary artist but I am doing the thing that I hate and being abstract. I am going to end this here, I have an almost two hour commute home and there is a solitude during that commute that I serenely appreciate. 

I will dedicate a future post to divulging that lost love, and figuring it all out.

Dry cry, even tear.

    I have tried to remain impartial during the Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman Trial, but I have failed and can no longer remain apathetic. All of this emotion is welling up inside of me and is looking for an orifice to explode out of. I chose you, the words that give my life meaning as a medium to deliver some of my grief and anger. We live on different parallels and very likely a different multiverse. I theoretically understand the application and practicality of the rule of law. The importance that the  rule of order delivers as well as benefits of behavior modification that law provides to the masses. But I want to throw all of that learned reasoning out of the window in this case simply because I look like Trayvon. I want to abandon all levels of logic and reason for emotion, which goes most aversely against everything I stand for. I am a young black man, and I have gone during half time of a football or a basketball game to get some beers at a local deli;  I could have been Trayvon. That fact, mixed with a lifetime of being told I am innately inferior  by indirect measures of economic selection has sent me over the edge. The realization that I have taken my whole life for granted, that blind luck has simply saved me from being shot through the heart for being born the way I am has finally demolished my resolve.
    I have read Roxannes Article about what is really on trial and Its not just the "stand your ground" laws but the grandiose notion of the validity of the contemporary black man, that is what is on trial. I am being weighed and measured in that jury room, the acceptance of irrational fear and stereotypes is on trial. Is the human justified in believing the narrative that has been presented to him with or without cognizant acceptance. Are we responsible for our conditioning? This is a troubling time for me, a lot of self image idea's are being confronted and barriers I have constructed to protect me from notions of racism I was not ready to admit have been sieged. Yes I am extrapolating a wide range from small parameters, but its past time that we confronted these issues.
  I am not a juror, I study the law and its practicality and also its shortcomings I have seen when it has failed humanity, and when it has triumphed in the service of some greater good. I am grateful that I do not have to be one of those six jurors with the full weight of a nation on their shoulders. I am torn between the concept of jurisprudence and being a dutiful citizen and looking down at my fingers while typing these words  and seeing brown hands, hands that have been placed outside windows when pulled over by police officers just to exemplify cooperation and ensure survival. I walk a tight rope of understanding and aggression   This mockery of justice has tilted the
bar in favor of ignorance. Violence Begets Violence, I believe that but one has to ask when is enough, enough?

A second article worth reading. Op-ed NYT

Find yourself.

         I just asked Ten different people on facebook, both men and women to tell me a secret. All within my age range; early twenties, mothers, students, lovers, military personal, shallow lovers of the fading celebrity that we place too much import on. Yes I am biased, these are my thoughts and if you came here for impartial critics on the world: welcome to humanity.  I was disappointed these people know me they know what I stand for they know who I am or what I portray and simply enough im the type of friend who ask you at 11:20 to tell them a secret, so needless to say they were not surprised. "She lies, He lies, but numbers do not". Out of the ten people I asked seven people questioned my motives, wanted to know why? Were guarded, held tightly onto secrets as if somehow the fact that no one knew them protected them from the affliction of suffering.  I simply replied "never-mind" to the inquisitive minds, didn't need secrets born out of resentment. I needed to know I was not the only one suffering, harboring ill will to my place amongst the cosmos. If you are one of the people reading this now that decided to question my motives, let this be a lesson to you. Take a leap of faith sometimes, it's okay to not know whats going on and still go with it, I offered you an opportunity to share something with me to connect, no judgements no false equivocations just a friendly ear to whisper truths into.
        I miss being in love. its been several years now since I have loved someone that was not compulsory (think family member) and I think I know what its like to be in love but the memory is fading. Like when you were little and you remember doing something but its hazy, certain aspects you just are not sure about. Thats the current relationship I have with being in love. I think I remember what it feels like to love someone else but im just not sure. This stage of life is teetering on. Sometimes I dip into adolescences and find myself in questionable situations. Other times I find myself lecturing someone about how to act on the first couple days of a new job. It's like life happens and you blink and your twenty five, still grasping at straws. A friend of mine after revealing to me his secret told me he figured I was doing it for school or something and told me good luck on my spiritual pilgrimage after I told him it was just for me. How right he was, I am a pilgram. 


P.S. Listening to Go Ahead by Rilo Kiley.  "If you want to hold your own hand going up that cliff or you want to hold back because you aren't up to it; go ahead."

MURICA

     It's Memorial Day in America, and I did what we do so well; fry meat outside surrounded by loved ones and engaged in pleasantries. I was apart of what politicians like to call "Main Street" or the preverbal heartland of our country, where simple folk live and life isn't too complicated (Think the Andy Griffith show). It was in Fairfield, Connecticut and I shit you not, their is a street called "Main Street" and a parade happened their earlier today.  I hail from what America likes to refer as Wall Street where we over indulged Liberal hippies are destroying American values I feel like I can attribute that to Sarah Palin, without actually having to check if she said that (I feel like I should throw in a GETTERDONE for good measure). Women generally have low standards, alcohol consumption is high, crime is high, schools are lacking and police brutality runs rampant (see: stop and frisk). So why do I stay you ask? Why not move to Main street where my son and his best friend can go fishing in the local pond, while simultaneously inflicting shenanigans on the harmless town residents? Main street lacks what Wall Street has, and thats the ability to create whole persons.
                    I will get a lot of what CIA agents like to call "blowback" for my above comments, but I believe it and can argue it fairly strongly. I was tasked with the all important mission of purchasing a recently depleted condiment; Ketchup! While on my journey to the local stop and shop I was starkly reminded of my blackness. Yup, I went there, I realized my difference and how I stuck out like a sore thumb. Literally every other shopper in the store was white, except the people working the cash register and pushing carts around outside, there at least some minorities could be found. I strolled around the isles in a wanton fashion just surveying the local populace and my initial thought, as it usually does, proved correct. Their weren't any black shoppers and to all my friends with B.S's instead of B.A's I do realize this was an isolated incident and doesn't constitue an actual study. It was revealing nonetheless and made me uncomfortable, in Wall Street I rarely am surrounded by so much homogeny and their is always such a diverse cast of characters It's not a pretense that comes to mind. I feel that I have to disclaim that I was not treated in any unusual fashion or made to feel uncomfortable by anyone in particular, quite the opposite actually, while picking out the ketchup in the isle a lady asked me if I have ever had "spiced" mustard and if I like it.
                   simply stated homogeny isn't ideal to making a whole person. I was gonna say it in some fancy shmansy verbiage something like "isn't conducive to fostering empathetic growth" but I recently came across a Yeat's quote (and yes I created an instance for me to share the quote with you) "Think like a wise man, but communicate in the language of the people" and i'll go with the "whole person". Wall Street forces me to understand different cultures and perspectives on the world, which in turn forces me to think about the world differently and it seeps into everything I do. You can extrapolate everything else from that such as Main Street's lack of diversity is creating a generation of automatons lacking in all cultural nuances that they will later seek on parent funded visits to Europe (yes I'm salty my parents couldn't afford to send me summering in Europe) while Wall Street has those nuances built in. But alas As I am constantly reminded I'm young and Idealistic maybe when I get some money and age I will move to the Main Street too, I would like to think I wouldn't though. In the meantime currently reading nonsense science fiction, listening to "nuthing but a G thing baby" and saw the Star Wars into Darkness which I would recommend. I, too, am America.

Sancho Panza

Hello,
              Usually this is naturally easy for me, the words casually write themselves. It would seem I am having some difficulty getting started (insert male enhancement pill advertisement here). Recently I walked along an old path that I used to walk everyday in junior high school and I thought about how I felt then vs how I feel now. I was happy, and careless, and used to think I was walking along a trail as a knight errant coming from some recent adventure where I conquered  and won the day in the name of good. Today I am on much less stable ground, which is exceptionally revealing. I can't differentiate between good and bad anymore and find myself constantly rationalizing my questionable actions.  I live in this morally ambiguous gray zone where the quote "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" has found a niche. My false sense of superiority is a detriment to my weak resolve and I find myself with what society would call "rejects", because they dont seem to judge falsely and then I would have no need to rebuff them as per what happens whenever im around what society would deem the "acceptable". I find biting my tongue a wanting characteristic and one beneath my abilities in the long term so I avoid and make my own small judgements which I do realize is no better, but we all have faults. Speaking of faults, I recently read John Greene's the Fault is in Our Stars and I must recommend it. Beg, Borrow, or steal to acquire this work of fiction and you will not be sorry, I personally stake my reputation on it. 
                I'm running out of moral lessons to teach or impart upon you. I hate being professorial and lording over you these truths that I have discovered as if I somehow have it al figured out. I don't, I am often more times wrong than I am correct and thats from my recent endeavors . So how can I attempt to lecture and "Educate" you the reader about some small inkling I have discovered? It's tough because I do have some nuggets of truth, but like you I still just dont know. One speech Obama gave that seemed to stick with me is that "America can't interject every time there is a wrong in the world, but that shouldn't be a reason to never intervene" I dont have it all figured out so I dont assume to tell you that I give you advice from that perch, but I do have some things figured out and if you move forward with this disclaimer you can take the advice I give not from above but from beside, as a sort of starting point. But be careful because as we mentioned before, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Hey you, look at me!

     This is just a ruff draft, unpolished and un-edited, raw if you will. I took an intro to art history course recently and the pioneers of generations lost have taught me about myself. I see their works and I feel, I lavish their accomplishment, I understand their motives, I live better knowing some small text book version of their craft. I also discovered my own art, my own ability and its limitations. I rediscovered my fickleness my inability to commit was laid barren before lives dedicated to perfection. I haven't written in a while because I was busy living, wanted to create grand stories and come back and report them to you. So you would be proud of me, so I could impress you and keep you coming back. Time never stopped, gave me no reprieve just kept moving like a story unfinished, told by a stranger in transit. I do the best that I can the best way that I know how.


Ps reading: Zinn's A peoples history of the United States and fighting to get through it I never finished the picture of Dorian and grey and I am sorry.