Ignorance is bliss....?

"I can't stand it when people try to get me involved in their cause. I mean what if I were trying to be politically apathetic" said a female in my English class today....

I sometimes wish that the irony of people's statements would hit them as hard and as clearly as the force with which they state them. Here was a woman sitting in a classroom of an institution that was, at one point in time, all male, across from a black male (me), conversing with others about her gripes with protesting, after explaining her plans for acquiring a PhD. in English.

Sometimes, just sometimes, I wish people would educate themselves on things outside of their own narrow-minded, personally affecting circle of understanding. How did she suppose she was allowed the opportunity to get somewhere other than the kitchen? It's a proven fact that people in power do not share it unless they have reason to. With this in mind, why in the world would a man have made room for an individual whom he saw as a "weaker (lesser) vessel" without some form of reeducation by the type of people who wanted to get others to see things from their point of view (individuals with a cause)?

Do people not see the political and social masochism in protesting....protesting? I may not like the idea of people rallying against organized religion, but I do realize that restricting their rights also restricts mine. I think that if people would step outside of the "it's them not me" mentality and see things as (at the very least) "them equals me in the long run" a great deal of ignorance would not automatically translate into widely accepted acts of cruel stupidity.

This idea applies to a plethora of other asinine acts of mass ignorance and denial that could be easily avoided with a moment’s meditation. The concept may be offensive to some (namely groups whose entire method of operation rests on seemingly unchangeable, outdated and often harmfully discriminatory rules) but I feel that peace will never come to people who maintain that the only right behavior is that which shares the same strictly upheld idiosyncrasies as their own.

I mean honestly, if individuals would only take off the lenses of their specific experiences and start judging the cultures, beliefs, and action of others based on observations that compare and not contrast their differences, I feel that a great deal more understanding and clarity would be shed on situations such as the one that happened in that classroom. The girl would come from under her politically apathetic, "if I don't see/acknowledge it, it can't hurt me blanket" and wake up and smell the, "but I was just a non-combatant/civilian riding the subway" coffee.

It's only but so long that people can ignore horrible situations that seemingly pass right over them until they are excluded from that passing over and they experience first hand what the fuss was all about. That shouldn’t be the ultimate motivator, but in this day and age...I fear that appeals to our intrinsic desire for self preservation are all we have.

Still walkin' that road....

I just came back from seeing the movie "Glory Road". Now for those who know me, I am not one to usually go and see a film that I feel I might choke myself halfway through due to sappiness and clichéd attempts at forced moralistic conclusions, but my little sisters wanted to see the thing and I, being the big brother, was all but required to take them. In three words, I was surprised. Sure it had a rough start in the beginning, the dialogue was choppy and the talk between the coach and the recruits was a shade dodgy, but after all of the necessities were out of the way... the magic happened, and it was because of this that I began to think.

I've tried to avoid it thus far in posting. I figured that my skin held a story in and of itself that required no testification (I have a habit of creating words), but here I am, banging away at the keys, trying to write down my view on this before I loose the nerve. Needless to say, I'm black. I've been this way from the moment of my conception and I will bee this way until the day I die. I've skirted around this topic for the sole fact that I’ve held the mentality that being black is not the sum total of who I am. I was raised with this mentality and sought to essentially overcome the stereotype of the close minded, militant, gun toting, durag wearing (despite my profile picture) African American with a chip on his shoulder the size of this 300+ year old country. In doing this however, I have (in this journal at least) been a Judist to a part of me that is as important as the air I breath.

Many times people of my color seem to believe that to be educated requires an individual to downplay and even ignore their ethnicity. When accomplishments of success garners congratulatory proclamations that originate from surprise that is rooted not only in the overcoming of obstacles, but also in the color of ones skin, we, as a country, fail. Yes, I said it. I've heard the assurance of equality given time and time again by those who have never seen the bad side of a day. I've witnessed the puzzled faces of those who believe this to be a free country, as they hear of individuals who, in living life within a racial profile, strike as blindly as a cornered animal at anyone who shares the same majority of their accusers. I've felt the tension in the air of a classroom mixed with blacks and whites as the topic of discussion faithfully landed on disparities in American society. And I felt that it was high time that I acknowledge this in this Journal.

I've purported to share what was on my mind in this journal, and I for the most part have done so. But, in watching that movie I finally came to the realization that my socialization has been through the eyes of one who is part of a race that has, for the better half of past few centuries, not been allowed to and has been seen to be incapable of even possessing the ideas that I have shared in this journal. That is something that I can hardly wrap my mind around. The fact that a few decades means the difference between being strung up from a tree for trying to read and being an honors student at a research university is almost incomprehensible.

This journal won't now become the rantings of a racially embittered black teen. I don't harbor enough anger or patience for that. I just wanted to throw into this stockpile of thoughts something that hints at the corner of my mind at every glance in the mirror. I believe James Brown said it best...

And Life Goes On....

It’s been a year, and I'm back home for another Christmas break. I figured that this post may have more significance than the others simply for the fact that it marks the anniversary (exactly to the day) of the creation of this journal. It is because of this that I have decided to reflect back on another year that I’ve had the privilege to live through....let's see...

The year has been one of (if not) the most interesting and inspiringly depressing years of my life. I have been through emotional extremes of joy and pain, have had sorrow tap me on the shoulder while happiness gave me a reassuring handshake, and have heard, felt, and known heartache knock on my door as peace tried its hardest to close the curtains of my soul. I've experienced a great deal (to say the least), and yet, I know beyond a shadow of the doubt that I've only scratched the surface of adulthood, which leads me to question the very validity of the claim that my age and educational status so deftly exclaims through every calligraphical nuance of my signature. Am I ready to lead a life of blaring uncertainties wrapped in a thin veil of analepticly assuaging promises of possible stability? Will I every be able to face the possibility of an inability to accomplish my lifelong dreams without the risk of taking chances that may not include the option of beginning where I started. How can I accept the fact that, despite the tears, love, contentment, and complacent frustration, I will still have to live through repeated instances of even deeper effecting emotions without cracking under the seemingly unbearable, monotonous pressure of them all?...

...I recently ended something in my life that had been atomically fused to every particle of my existence. Needless to say, it hurt. But the truth is, though I may never totally get over it, I’ll live. I figure that that's the beauty of life. The fact that joy and pain are like sunshine and rain never meant a thing to me until I cried tears of both happiness and sadness right before the end of that something came. The bliss I felt for having that something in my life and the hell I foresaw in that something leaving were for a single moment in time interchangeable. I'm guessing that in that same moment I saw the entirety of my life through those teardrops and I grew up all at once...

...Funnily enough this caused me to understand that, no matter how I may ever feel, I will never be truly and completely ready for each and every blow that life has the ability to throw my way. It is an incapability that I willingly concede to. But it is this incapability that makes me who and what I am. Life, at times, sucks harder than a marathon runner at the top of Mount Everest, in the middle of a hurricane (an embellishment?...yes... unfounded?...no...) This is something that I admit to. However, as long as I have a healthy desire to live, it is all but impossible for me not to roll with the punches (in spite of the black eyes and missing teeth). I will never be truly ready for adulthood because it does not come with a checklist of requirements. All I can do is plant my feet, take my stance and wait for the bell to ring.

Work in progress.....

I have a question. What does a person do when he or she, after finally realizing what is destined to be his or her calling, chooses to forsake it in order to be in good societal standing and to shield himself from the possibility of complete and total failure? If any of you who read this (assuming that anyone does) has an answer, I would like for you to contact me as soon as possible, because I am at a loss.

All of my previous posts about being unsure of my direction in life stem from not knowing the answer to this question. To put it in explicit terms (for those who do not know me personally) I am the epitome of a person existing outside of his calling, and it hurts me to no end. I am a follower of the belief that whatever it is I wake up in the morning and think about doing, whatever it is I dream of night and day, whatever it is that causes a joy in me that is surpassed by nothing else is essentially what I should devote my life to doing. Honestly and truly this idea is all well and good if one finds joy in doing something that would guarantee an (at least) stable means of living, but if a person who believes him or herself to be worth too much to gamble his or her prosperity on a path in life that is less stable then a tightrope walking elephant, how does this person cope with ( apparently needed) self imposed relegation. Better yet, what does this person do if he or she knows that the path to which they are called is one on which he or she performs exceptionally well. Is this person justified in taking a gamble in his or her future, or is it more imperative that the person think about the possible contributions that he or she is sure to be recognized and or thanked for in a field that is seen to be a more acceptable manifestation of his or her intellect and cognitive abilities? In plain English: should I pursue a music career or should I keep my future vested in the English/Political Science realm of thinking that is now my major scholastic focus?

I've tried integrating music into my life as an auxiliary occupant of my time and mental/creative energies, but truth be told it's not enough, because when I participate in activities with those individuals who have devoted their lives to the pursuit of happiness through this facet of inspired expression, I realize the void that is left in my life. It is a void that I have tried to cover with an alternate usage of my talents. It isn't that I am ignorant of the fact that covering this life problem will only result in a cursory quasi solution for an extensively actual predicament. I know full well that covering this void will only suffice in temporarily securing me through a day to day existence. I am even more aware of the fact that I will never be truly content with pursuing something other than what I feel I was born to do. My conundrum is not a result of a lack of understanding. No. The cause of it (put bluntly) is the lack of huevos and mental wherewithal that is required of me to pursue my life dream.

I try to normally end my posts on a positive or an at least objectively conclusive note, but this one seems to be too important to try to prematurely draw a close to solely for the purpose of perpetuating a sense of continuity. I'll just say that, for now, this problem is still a work in progress.

When all else fails....

It has definitely been a while since my last entry and it is from this fact that I have drawn a conclusion. The length of time between my posts is exactly proportional to the importance of what it is I decide to let off my chest in them. I don't know if it is a superficial internal desire for suspense or a fundamental internal fear of release (assuming that these ideas aren’t exactly the same) when it comes to writing in this here journal of mine. All this to say I've written a poem not only because it's my (and arguably the) premier literary device for communicating intensely inarticulable (probrobly not a word) ideas and feelings but also because free verse has always had a profound impact on me. Enough for the introduction...here goes:

My life has been a succession of disillusion and regression.
Plagued by struggle and confession of ethical rejection,
I cry the weary tears of unlearned lessons
I live the dreary years with overturned professions
My mind is lost in the sauce of intellectual discourse
Like prepubescent intercourse, I experience things before my time

With lack of reason or rhyme I struggle to find my meaning in life
In spite of the strife that keeps my mind and heart infinitely apart.
I press on, knowing deep inside that my actions are wrong
I potentially and existentially extinguish my mental energy in trying to reach synergy between the two.
Knowing full well the impossibility of what I propose to do.
I am proverbially screwed.

My reasoning misconstrued by none other then myself
I try and pull outside sources becoming a verbal contortionist
I falsely rationalize incorrectly criticize and internally ostracize my fundamental beliefs
In order to bequeath my desires to the entreats of others.
Now floundering, smothered within the blubber of these opinions
I heed the need for internal redemption,
An indefinite suspension of this inwardly harmful external retention

Realizing that every man is an island with interconnecting bridges
Philosophizing that each person is challenged with internally affecting decisions
I uncover (through contention with adamant outward dissention disguised as genial efforts of prevention) the self sustaining dimension of auto-inspired decisions.
Through this I resolve to change the focus of my attention
From an externally inspired diatribe to an internally conspired mental convention

No longer will I wallow in the shallow minded hollows of the public psyche
Now stronger I will follow the empirically ethereal overarching ideals that guide me.
Finally deciding to be the representative for the state of my being
It is now my own understanding on which I will be leaning.