Monday, December 24, 2012

I Suck at Christmas

This is the thing, I love giving gifts. The only problem with that is that I really suck at giving gifts.

Quickly, let's run over a few things that make a great gift:


  1. The very famous advice "Buy something for them that they wouldn't buy for themselves".

  2. Thoughtful presents that makes their lives more bearable.

  3. Make the gift with a particular skill or a picture to commemorate a special moment in time.

  4. Give them a book that you've read so that you can share the experience.

  5. Give an expensive gift that is thoughtless but keeps them in the updated realm of technology.

  6. Ask them what they want and give it to them.

This is my checklist for gifts. Seems like a decent list if I don't say so myself(well, I guess I'm saying so). All the same, it's as if I have no check list at all. I am so insecure. No confidence. Using too much brain to estimate and weigh appreciation and acknowledgement. I do know that people generally accept the gifts they are given in good nature but something about this "Inner perfectionist" destroys my holiday spirit to the point that I don't even like the holidays.

When I hit 19 years, my mother go me a flash light. Christmas was so destroyed as in the anticipation of receiving. I simply just stopped caring about getting gifts when I realized that I was equally shitty about giving them. I have put in some serious effort and given some very deeply emotional gifts. Lately, there has been no reciprocity. It makes me wish I could just not be included. Like an opt out option. I am perfectly fine with not giving or receiving gifts. I excel when I can just gift to people when they need because I'm much more reliable in that situation.

I just don't do well with the holidays and despite how much I try to change, all of these thoughts interrupt my effort and nullify my spirit. In the last few years I had come to an opinion that naivete/ignorance was just as useful as intelligence & resourcefulness. Then yesterday, while watching one of my treasured animes, I came across a line that said "The steeper and more dangerous the path, the greater the need for both wit & ignorance to move forward." Hunter x Hunter

I felt like history acknowledged my hypothesis. Of course, if I were a bit better read, this would have been cemented in my recall centers. I'm a sharp boy; I should have read more books. Maybe then I would be more disciplined about things of this nature where I currently struggle. Who knows. I'm not one for the woulda, shoulda, coulda game. It was or it wasn't. You did or you didn't. And I failed this year and last year and the year before. Even with my small victories.

Check out my melodies. I'm creating a nice little pattern of gifts for my loved ones and it'll be the same thing but different every year. Because I simply refuse to be a gift card guardian.

Sunday, December 23, 2012

I Breathe Love

Y'all might think, after reading any two of my blogs a few things. Well, those things are true. I like love. I like to remember love. I like everything about it. I've never felt as immortal as I did when I was in love. Yeah, this is going to be another touch on that topic. If you are bored of me already, well, my bizzle but maybe next time? No? Kay.

Look, I remember when I lived in Germany and I fell in love with this little Puerto Rican girl. I was bit with the love bug so hard. I was so nervous. People useta make fun of me. I didn't mind that much but I was too afraid to approach her. A simp from a young age. Whatdya do about that? Well, without a father, whatever you can manage.

I kept my attachment cycle going in silent. I grew more and more patient. Then, I got courage. Well, it was more like I was tired of not giving the girls a say in it. I kept running into girls that liked me but I never let them know that their feelings were reciprocated. I know, it's weird that I did it. It's weird that I remember it. It's weird that I'm even mentioning it. Fuck that. It's fun for me to remember all of the beautiful faces that I've appreciated. All the women I put on a pedestal. All the horrible human things they've done.

See, I don't blame a single one of them for being human. I may vent from time to time but I don't take it personal because it isn't. It is what they wanted. But there isn't a woman who hurt me intentionally. Well, one but she's still so in love with me years later that I feel for her. She was a great girl too. And I hurt her first. I crushed her reality. But this ain't 'bout that. I learned, grew up and moved on. We all have faults. I'm human too. Any Way.

It was most likely due all of the cartoons and movies I consumed but I had this really thick sense of morality & chivalry. It lingers. There are some things I have simply made my mind up to always do, regardless of where I'm at in life. My mother has gotten so many compliments for raising me. She raised some gentle boys. But my point is that I used love as motivation. I used accomplishment in physical tasks as a way to merit my personal worth to the women I was interested in. That mess almost never worked. Although, I was always popular in school. It was more of my disagreement with the other students that inspired me to sorta keep to my lonely. It was a beautiful thing. I liked the silence. I liked not needing to interact on something completely pointless. And this may be a surprise but life in school is precisely like life after school with the change in choices of consumption or work. The interpersonal dynamics are what I'm referring to. Those dynamics almost never change.

I hate it. I hate interacting with people that refuse to mature beyond backstabbing and popularity contests. I could play the game now just like I could have played it then but there is still something I don't get because today, I realized, the reason I can withstand so much emotional abuse is that I use love as a motivating factor. What causes me joy can never cause me enough pain unless you compromise the joy. That's why my standards are set the way they are. I'll go back to a woman no matter what as long as there were no other men involved. I hate feeling less than and other men are always playing the pissing match game. Always saying some irrelevant shit that shouldn't mean anything to anybody. But they find a way to make irrelevant shit seem like the world. This is why other guys cannot be involved in my loves in the least. Friends, cool. Brothers, fathers cool. But sharing a lady? Fuck outta here. That's my motivation.

If I love a woman, no matter my pain, Imma get out of bed and run for what ever will help us be together. It's too strong an urge. EVERY OTHER URGE is one tenth the strength. This is why I can say, I'll never do .....again and stick to it. Because I am that focused on love. Not pussy. Not sex. But love. And from a very young age. I don't have a problem with that. I'm no idiot. And if I had a real issue, I'd know what to do to handle it. This last relationship was the closest I've come to implosion. And this girl was awesome. I mean, she is making the school newspaper every other month. She is receiving money from anonymous donors. She is getting jobs that she isn't qualified for. AND I DATED HER FOR TWO AND A HALF YEARS  BUT STILL HAVE NO IDEA HOW. LOL. Sometimes, I think I was way out of my weight class. Lol. Be that as it may, I grew rapidly because of the shit I was put in constantly. Look, my point is, that while I was in love with her, my tendency to overcome everything and beast circumstance eroded. She just quantum fucked my mojo away. Lol. And I can already feel it oozing back into place. I can feel the motivation for love returning to my finger tips. Commanding my tongue. Sparking my wit. And augmenting my new additions of growth and maturity. But I ain't tryna brag or show off. That's why I'm typing this way. Sorta of informally and colloquially filled.

Basically, I found another way to do the same old thing; to be motivated by love without a proxy. I don't need an agent. Without an agent, I formerly didn't care. When I had an agent, I would get A's. When I was conflicted, I got C's. This last girl was the epitome of conflict. Look off of that. It's about my transition back into strength. No matter what comes my way. No matter what I need to go through. I will not lose sight of who I am. Who I have grown into being. While I don't fully have myself mapped out; I'm no longer afraid of the awesome that I can create. I'm no longer stuck on the minutia. I am a man that knows his "self". A man "realized".

Going over that "girls I loved for ammunition to make it through my days phase" was painful as shit. But that's just who I was. I will always be that person even after I change.

I live to interact with women. I love them. I love fruit. I love the fuckin lamp. I love lovin shit. I breathe love. I am motivated by love. The more love I am offered; the more love I create. I'm back on my bullshit. Non violence, non violence. LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE.

What am I listening to nowadays? Miguel...that freaky lil half black/half mexican has some freaky lil songs. John Mayer. Yo, that dude. He's dope. Got White man rhythm but he is dope as fuck. I'm probably going to get back into Van Hunt and Yazarah. Janelle Monae. Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill. D'angelo. Jamie Foxx maybe. JILL MUTHA LOVIN SCOTT. NO Doubt. OUTKAST. Ghostface Killah be killin these tracks. Pac ain't really got shit for me to hear anymore but that man raised me with music. Kanye KRACKS. I'm trying to avoid rappers that mention themselves in either third person or every third bar. That means Nas is out. LOL. Rakim. is out. BUSTA is in. Twista will have a small part. One HIT WONDERS. Ray J. cool with me. Dream. Cool with me. Ginuwine was that dude. Look PRINCE.

GIRLS LIKE YOU, REMIND ME THAT I'M LONELY....REMIND ME THAT I'M Looooohhhooonnnnneeelllleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! That's my shit. That shit jams with the techno-esque beat. It just hits that spot. 

Anyway, somewhere in there, I tried to make a point about breathing love. That's what I came here for. What ever it takes to get where I need to be. Starting when I wake up, regardless of the world I wake up in. 

Let's go and get this work in.

Morning wake up routine, beginning in a few hours?
50 pushups.
100 lunges 
100 squats into calf extensions
ten minutes of stretching

Friday, December 21, 2012

Gambling Odds

You meet a new person. You really like the person. You think about them constantly. You go to sleep dreaming about the fabulous connection that you two might have. You wake up thinking about how great they are. At some point, you realize that the awesomeness that this person embodies, simply isn't meant to be for you. And what do you do? That's right, you slowly pull away. At first gently but progressively less gentle.

There are more than a few reasons for why you'd do this. It may be a cop out to say somebody isn't meant to be in your life. When there is a will there is a way. On any given day, you'll meet plenty of possible lovers. Each of them stepping back into their path after you avoid snagging them. It is a beautifully miserable strategy. Because you want to love them. You want to take there gorgeous humanity and decorate your moments with their laughter. Alluring.

What could possibly stand as a viable obstacle ? Just that; obstacles. The distance; the differences in lifestyle. Even in the miracle that coming together is accomplished with love and nobody else is left to the throes of agony, building a great foundation for the future is the first and most important task to undertake. And systematically, the two would need to come together to build forward while building upward. It is complex and complicated. Too many emotional issues lie, camouflaged, in between. What's most? Insecurity destroys most relationships. Trust, communication, they destroy many others.

Matter of fact, let's digress into a metaphor of emotions. The ninja village is called The Land of Hidden Emotions. There are different specialists classes training in this village. There is the insecurity squad; the arrogance squad; the betrayal squad...well you get it. These emotions are ninjas out to assassinate what ever connection you are attempting to foster. The only way to defeat ninjas was to communicate and distinguish a threat from a normal denizen(reasonable request) of the relationship.

When it is clear the the gambling odds on a relationship are stacked in the favor of the house, it becomes clear that you should fold your hand and aim for the next set. But this makes meeting amazing people emotionally difficult. As humans, the desire to fall in love is strong.As humans, belonging to somebody is an unparalleled feeling, especially when the connection is nurturing, encouraging and healthy.

Yet, this is just one way to skin that cat. This way is based on the odds or probability that the desired result will be achieved. Curiosity killed the cat but there is more than one way to kill it; remember that. Seriously, don't forget to consider other ways to "kill" that cat.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Never imagined I could be so hurt

This is going to be another bitter man hurt post rant, well kinda. You see, I have this winner mentality and I refuse to give up on a person as long as they are there and working with me toward progress. When I met her, everything slid into place for the first time in my life. She exonerated every insecurity I ever had in just a few conversations. She was the woman I wanted. I had made my mind up, then & there that I would not let her get away. I just had no idea how heavy the scars would feel from giving 99% of me as a show of faith.

She had trauma in her life. I've had a little in mine. I felt like being together would heal us. I wanted to make sure that she was completely alright to move forward, with me. I asked all of the right questions and jotted the responses on a notepad in my head. As time marched forward, we unintentionally hurt each other by either joking or trying to protect each other. It was like break up to only rediscover that initial spark of greatness that we shared. All of the annoyances along the way helped me to look at my behavior in a meaningful way and decide to mature instead of staying the same. 

I'll be honest, I'm from a wildly emotional family. Passionate about everything is each of us. We are lover; fighters; orators; we go for ours. My father is a bit different. He is relaxed, strategic and purposeful with his every effort. I have a very peculiar mixture of both. This makes me very reserved yet prone to moments of inspired social brilliance. Inside of my thoughts, these moments are one in the same. To everyone around me, it makes me appear to be randomly energetic. It is confusing. Mixed with extremes of hot & cold in a world where warm doesn't exist. People don't like handling me. And that's fine, there is no obligation. However, this woman, she appeared to exist in the same realm betwixt the cut & dry versions of black & white. As time moved on she became more white than black; more cut than dry and less gray in between.

She began to move from our connection. I'd try to remind her what she was losing but she didn't like the idea of communicating her inner fears as to help me help her. She did not like to bring me in. She just blurted things; hurtful things and expected that I would be able to handle the broadside of negativity flowing from her mouth ever so constantly. And that began to wear at me. I began planning for an escape. I knew I couldn't maintain our stagnation. I had to be honest with myself & her. I was and it hurt me a lot to do so. She made what seemed like a final push for us. I wrote so many blogs asking her if she could dedicate her energy and effort to bringing us together. Of course, she told me that I was the only one for her. I was her last hope. I would tell her that I shouldn't be. I would tell her that she shouldn't give up on love because we didn't work out. I would tell her to have hope and faith and to stay positive because that is who I am. Or, shall I say, who I was until I lost her.

We decided that we would finally, after two years in the dark, make our relationship "Facebook official". That lasted for about two months. I moved in with her for a week. She had an issue with her job and got all rattled. I thought it was a bit too easy for her to be fundamentally shaken over a little job scare; after all there were two of us. We could find a way. My parents are not struggling, finally. I had support. She began to bring up how exes had trust and inheritances that made her feel comfortable. She has a son, so I tried to be very understandable. She MUST provide comfort and safety for lil man. She asked me to leave. I complied. I thought, that she would come to her senses. Instead, she waited three days and sent me a text message referring to a common sad song about good byes. I'll never forget that level of anger. To be in such a low place because I keep giving effort because it was asked of me and to have that trust destroyed in the effort of 150 character text? I deserved to be handled better than that. I urged her to call me and she basically did the same open ended good byes she had been doing for the prior two and a half years. It hurt. I recovered by telling myself to hold out hope and see where she came up for air. It was nowhere near me.

Three weeks go by and I have a mutual friend with her. She has known him longer but I'm actually a friend to him. Well, she doesn't really excel at interpersonal communication. But she will lie and tell half truths to alleviate her sense of guilt & shame. She cages herself in a prison of conceptual pity and stays there roasting in the hell of her own design. I tried tirelessly to break her out; to inspire her to desire freedom. None of my attempts worked. I tried to literally take her to church when science wasn't working. Nothing I utilized served any purpose. Anyway, I've gotten off track. This friend of ours called me because I told him about our break up. When he called, he asked me if I had talked with her. I responded with "Of course not". He then says, "well, she's engaged". MY HEART STOPPED. ALL OF MY PAIN ENDED. MY SPIRIT DIED. I realized I wasn't giving her 99% of me but everything I had. And when I heard that, a mere three weeks after I moved out, I was completely demolished. I called her, to see why she didn't tell me herself. Cowardice. Pitiful explanations. She said God showed her the way. Ironic he speaks now. 

All my life, I poured myself just shy of the brim just so that I didn't end up spilling myself about for someone who wasn't truly worth it and here I end up splashed all over still. I tried to hold myself together. Thought I'd be alright because of how well I seemed to accept and understand what transpired. Then, two or three days later, I broke out into tears. Those tears became sobbing. I was falling apart. I was aching in a place I couldn't feel. I sincerely wished her happiness despite the pain she caused me. I know her pain is deep. I'd rather her be happy than sad. Not even a small doubt in my mind. Even still, I do not feel like I needed to be discarded and hurt so very callously. I admit, the engagement is what hurts the most. To be done publicly and so soon after we part. I felt like it was intentionally damaging. This same thing was done to her a few years back. I took that in mind and tried my best to let it go. 

In the following weeks, I did my best to cling to positive energy from other women. Guys just tend to annoy me. I'm pretty sure I have issues from growing up without my father. I've got to. I had to be strong on a level so close to evil that it is hard to come back completely unscathed. The other women helped a lot. There was a ton of consideration and love flowing my way. Eventually, it did not matter anymore. Eventually, they were all echoes of how "expensive" I'd made myself. How valuable I should see myself. But I wasn't one man's trash...I was simply trashed trash. And I began to slip in my effort to climb out of depression; out of being humiliated by the supposed love of my life. 

It was at that point that I said to myself "Fuck everybody, I'll climb out of this for me & I'll do it now". And in the process of doing that, I began to feel much better. I had studied what I was going through. I did more research and rehashed my notes. I gave a damn in the moment and I put in a serious effort to overcome my emotions because emotions can change. 

Fast forward another few days to today. I'm playing tetris battle on facebook and level'ing up fairly easily when I stop for a moment to check in on twitter. I get to twitter and somebody brings up an old song. That old song takes me to a newer song. That newer song reminds me of an even newer song. When I play that even newer song, the tears begin rolling down my cheeks and I'm slightly surprised. And before I know it, I'm sobbing again. At this point, it has been 4 weeks since I was last caught sobbing. I feel like a bitch for sobbing. I feel like less than a man. I feel like hiding in every dark corner I've ever not been able to see into. And in this moment, as it happened five minutes before I decided to write this blog post, I decided "No! I will not run and hide and keep my shame private. Fuck er'rybody." This my blog and ain't nobody need to read it. Judge my life. Feel how you feel. 

In a moment where I'm so hurt that it feels like the soul is being sucked out of my eyeballs into a pit of fire, I've decided that ain't nothing nobody can tell me about being me. All of my doubts and hesitations, fuck'em. I am who I am and I've worked damn hard to be me. Call it what you like. You don't have intercourse with my dick; don't feel full from my food; don't feel ill from my sickness and you don't hurt from my pain. Why would I then care for your judgment? 

So, today, I realized that hurt like this isn't about healing. Hurt like this isn't about looking backwards or being mature. Hurt likes this is purely from the indoctrinated morals of society. The hypocrisy of a person who pretends to subscribe to a much higher doctrine of thought. This is the depths of betrayal. And I am in complete awareness that my pain could be much worse. It just doesn't seem to matter in light of what I just experienced. 

If anybody asks me "who hurt you" I'll be able to stand up and look them square in the face and tell them the truth, "It was me. I hurt myself." And that is the direction I'll choose to go in from now on.

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Religion to Squarls

What the hell do I know? I can only interpret and understand the world that I interact with. I was fairly low born. Neither of my parents had substantial means by any measure. I was raised from poverty and many of my characteristics come from that system of production. Rarely, does an understanding from other classes permeate into the patterns of another. Do you think rich people watch as many movies as poor people? If you want to know, research it. College isn't a poor people thing. Middle classed families raise middle classed kids. Rich families raise rich kids. Poor families raise poor kids. I'm from a poor family and my thinking should be pitiable at best. Even a genius raised in poor conditions doesn't climb too high. The world looks differently than it did 75 years ago but it is still a White man's world. Being Black opens your eyes to a litany of treatment that being White bypasses without a second thought. Even in the city, Whites cannot grasp the full extent of bias that Blacks(as well as other minorities) experience on a daily basis. From things like taxis and police officers to jobs and education. There is a long laundry list of crud that happens to target of minority descent specifically. And all of these things shape how we see the world. Now, this blog is about me. I don't really mind if you or anybody else reads it. I use it to organize my thoughts. I am kind of fed up with people believing that they have insights when they've done nothing to grasp beyond their already contented limitations. 

We already know that whites are ignorant of much of the disparity between skin color and how society treats different people. There was a point where they actually claimed racism didn't exist. Now, the common thread is that they aren't personally racist even if they do racist things. I don't have the time.I can't waste any more time explaining how stupid people are to them without being offensive. It's exhausting. It isn't worth having this amount of brain power. I'm beginning to feel like I wasted my brain learning things that humans don't like to learn. I need a new set of people to communicate with on a consistent basis. My current friends are beginning to think that I'm brainwashing myself; hypocritical and unnecessarily precise. I don't even dismiss these charges...there is no need to. They are baseless. I don't randomly believe things that have no proof. I don't base my beliefs on feelings. We are trained to feel. We are indoctrinated by experience. We are fed the emotions that we experience. And rarely do we break those moldings.

When my friends say these things, what they are really speaking to is their utter disbelief that I am condemning their way of life. They take it personal. They want me to be like them and if I listened, I would be just like them. They have a hard time distinguishing a woman from her finest parts. As if I cannot enjoy communication with a woman even if it stayed at communication. I don't get how I became friends with people who think like this. I don't understand how I've been friends with them for so long. I don't get it. 
Am I so different that...am I really just confused and lost in transmission? Do I not understand life? I've spent endless hours considering and weighing the importance of activity. I've been checking and researching and realizing. I relay my findings with a respectable source of intellect without perspective to the particular situation. I weigh those words of wisdom as well. And it all boils down to luck, belief, understanding and preparation. That is 99% of life in a nutshell.

As I try and share my wit with anybody else, they shut down, start calling me names and attacking my logic without so much as asking a serious question. They hear 10% of my ideas(on any particular subject) and offer a whole-hearted dismissal of my words. I feel like I'm telling them the world is round. I feel like I'm telling them that we revolve around the Sun. I feel like I'm telling them that God isn't selling plots of land in Heaven by way of indulgences. None of it makes any sense to me. Why keep hanging around people that have well wishes but bad juju? I would be better off alone. I know, that even geniuses don't make it alone. I know that being dead to right is pointless. Something about human stupidity reaches it's depths when it aims to prevent human ingenuity. How much should I compromise? No matter where I move, I'll end up with a different form of ignorance. That is the nature of the world. I don't feel like I ever fit in. I don't feel like I'll ever be decently understood. I don't feel like my life will have ever mattered to anyone but my family. But the rest of my life, I'll be lucky if I don't feel like I'm giving religion to squirrels. It is what it is. I am where I am. Forget people that want to make decisions with my life outside of my approval.