Hara-Kiri, or Nah?

To whomever cares… I know you’re out there- somewhere.

You don’t have to answer this.  I just need to vent.  The pressures of chasing after something that might not happen are extremely difficult. Especially when you are haunted by the feeling that the thing that may not happen is your soul purpose in life.

Sometimes,  I feel like you’re the only one I can reach that can help make sense of the shit that goes through my head.  I know everything doesn’t have to make sense,  but most days making sense of senselessness is the only sensation that can help to numb the pain.

I feel lost, Man… I hurt. The days where I feel like I have NOTHING left are becoming too frequent.  I’m probably at the lowest point in my life and the only thing that makes me doubt that harsh reality is the fact that every time I think I have hit rock bottom,  I sink even lower. My love life is shit. I’m broke. Lonely. And growing impatient. Everyone I care about thinks I’m living in a fantasy world, or suffering through some sort of phase, or midlife crisis. Many days it seems as if the main people I want love from the most can only return the love I show with words. They say that sometimes you love a person in a language they don’t understand, but there are libraries of books with more viable translations than Rosetta Stone has yet to even catch up with. What language do I study to convince the people I love that they don’t have to be ashamed of me, and the sacrifices I have made was not only for my self, but also a desperate attempt to gain their affection?

Lately, I have been brought down to the point where I can’t even get shit done because I’m too afraid of results that may not even come.  All that said, I can’t find the strength to let go. They think I’m crazy, the bill collectors are calling, and my kids are wondering why we haven’t been to see Mickey Mouse. I turn to you because I know you’ve been here. Everyone who has ever accomplished anything great can vouch for my current dilemma, but these days, I’m starting to think that maybe they were just the lucky ones.

This state right here… is man-made. It has to be. Honestly, there have been many times where I’ve felt like the only way to leave it- is to leave it.

As a result of this lonely train of though, the drive to become successful has been on a bitter road.  Most days I feel like stepping on the gas and veering off into a ditch at full speed. I won’t,  but it’s a miserable feeling to wonder how many people would care if I did. There will probably be 1,001 people crying at my funeral,  but I don’t have the confidence to not wonder how many of their tears would be genuine. I’m ready to just quit. Get a meaningless job in a mediocre house and a mediocre car just to please mediocre minded people.

These are the cards I’ve dealt for myself,  and there are no more left in the deck. No more tunnel vision. I’m ready to join the living dead and forfeit my desires to a more safer lifestyle. I’m ready to submit to my fears as everyone around me would love to see me do because I feel that even if I get where I’m trying to go, I’ll be there by my lonesome. What good are all the legendary accolades that come with staying strong, if I don’t have the people I love around to enjoy them with. Now I truly understand what it means, when successful people talk about how lonely it is at the top.

With my luck, if I do decide to quit, it will be a few inches short of the goals I’ve lusted for my entire life. Then I’ll have to live with the pain of wondering how good things might have been had I not stopped. Tug of war is a game that is only played by the strong, and I’ve grabbed the rope with a pair of bleeding hands that were already scarred from giving up on so many other dreams for the same reasons. I jumped in line with no gloves, and no practice because I believed in myself more than I probably should have.

Motivational speakers, preachers, life coaches, and philosophers should begin their speeches by saying, “Follow your dreams- unless you’ve already started on another path because the transition can sometimes be too much for mankind”.

Caterpillars go through a lot of pain before they turn into a butterfly, but they have the luxury to do it boldly because they will never have to hear the overwhelming statistics about how they can get stuck in their cocoons until Man feels he is not directly affected by their (the caterpillars) swathes.

I wouldn’t recommend this journey to anyone who has never had a single stroke of luck- of any kind. If you do, prepare to lose the battle of keeping those you hold dear in the process. Prepare to form new bonds. Today, I have made a horrible discovery of the main reason so many people get big, and leave everything and everyone behind… Other people.

SlanK

Sleeping With The Enemy

WARNING!!! Never go to bed with pride. Pride will screw you over. 

Pride only wants to slut you with its dreadful conditions. It may approach you in a very comfortable manner at first… but once you lie down with it, pride will give you a thrashing you’ll never forget. It will tear down your walls and use your body until it is old and spent, and when it’s done, it will leave you naked – lying next to a cold sink hole that was once filled by the much warmer spirit you chose to neglect.

Once you’ve been screwed, it will leave you behind with a cluttered mind, and a tired heart. All that will be left of your body would be a broken down shell to protect them with. Ultimately… You’ll end up stuck in a place where only other miserable people can find you and you’ll do nothing from there but look at the entire world as if it is just one big lonely habitat for inane entities. After all of that, pride will mark you as just another notch on its belt and move on to the next host as if you’ve never existed.

SlanK

FEAR none, LOVE all…

“An entire body of water cannot sink a ship unless it gets inside the ship. Similarly, negativity can not bring you down unless you allow it to get inside of you.”

FEAR is a cancer that creates a hazardous environment that threatens all who dwell within it.

From the very moment you decide to step out of bed, your energy can determine the outcome of your entire day. Even if you wake up in a good mood, there are many challenges you will face throughout the day that will ultimately threaten weather you go to sleep happy, or afraid. From the potholes in the streets to the trash on the grounds, continuously taking in bad things can bring bad vibes that will guide your heart to make bad decisions. The way we feel about the things around us control our lives, and most of us don’t like to acknowledge that.

A lot of us have to deal with racism, job discomfort, crooked politicians, and poor education. Then we are poisoned by chemicals that infest our air, water and also the food we get from fast food restaurants that have been strategically placed right next door to the liquor store and right around the corner from the gun shop. We get home and turn on the TV, only to hear about the Ebola virus, the war in Syria, and get meaningless statistics on how many people got shot after a baby fell from a window. We are being hit from every possible angle and most of us don’t even know it.

Then we have black-on-black crime, relationship issues, job discomfort, poverty, social anxiety, ignorance, selfishness, greed, obesity, and even preplaced judgment from unlikely religious figures. Some of us deal with all of that every day and still have to come home to a dirty house, a sofa that sits on a dirt filled lawn, and a pit bull that won’t stop barking at everyone who walks past the fence. We look outside of our windows and see our very own kids being threatened by cars that carelessly speed down residential blocks doing about 50 mph. The kids play only inches away from the curb. Meanwhile, that same car is bumping a song from their 12-inch speakers that chants either violent or sexist obscenities. Kids put their hands over their hearts and recite the lyrics as if they feel them all the way to the deepest the pits of their souls. We are killing ourselves and some of us don’t even care.

Some of us leave the house and see things we don’t like, and walk right past it as if it’s none of our business. By the time we get home, we feel like shit and don’t even know why. Uncountable acts of fear have been accepted as the norm in too many of our communities, and most of us feel that all we can do is close our eyes and hope it away.

When you see an innocent child shot by a scared policemen because he feels threatened by the way he looked, remember that it is the thugs fault for nurturing such fears as much as it is the ignorant policeman who shot him. We aren’t all thugs, but majority of our men and women look exactly like the people who enjoy keeping that type of company. We also speak the same language, and place the same judgments on each other.

We’re not just trying to make ends meet anymore, we’re trying to stay alive. People are DYING out here.

You have wounded neighbors that are laying on the ground with their hands up, but you won’t lift them because you feel like you’re either enabling them, or worse off, you say you have your own problems to deal with. How dare you ask for your “government” to help us when you know damn well that you don’t believe in helping a person who isn’t trying to help himself? They look at us the same way and will never come to the aid of a scattered people. Logically, there’s just not enough hands for that. 

The only cure for the cancer known as fear is love. We have to love ourselves, and every single person around us. Whatever we do- should be for it, with it, and about it. Every step we take should be heartfelt. The people who don’t believe in love only avoid it because they are too afraid to take the necessary risks. Love takes courage. A lot of us were raised as cowards. Love strengthens the heart which makes us all brave enough to trust, and believe in the better good that is inside us ALL. Without that, we’ll continue to kill ourselves in infinite ways. If there are so many different ways to die, then there is clearly only ONE true way to live. Love, and be loved. EVERYTHING else will forever remain unsettled.

Hate is not the absence of love, but the presence of fear.

SlanK

Tell me… Why are you mad, again?

The average household in America has 2 bed rooms, 3 TV’s, 2 cars, a leaky faucet, expired canned goods, and a light on in an unoccupied room. We have various means of communication, carpet to walk on, and appliances to help keep our perishables fresh for as long as possible. 

Then there’s public transportation, free activities, parks, water fountains, never-ending roads, bike trails, beaches, ponds, trees, zoos, sanctuaries of all sorts, schools, libraries, and endless fields of grass to run around and enjoy…

But we’re mad.

Most of us don’t even know what we’re angry about. We just walk around with steam seeping from our heads hoping to find that one thing that will put out the fire that we have started ourselves. Most of us spend our entire existence mad at the world because we don’t own everything in it. Everyone is an actor, and our favorite role to play is that of the victim.

Don’t get me wrong.. It’s always good to want more… but don’t get mad about the “little bit” you DO have. There are people alive who’d give their right arm to be where we are, and all we do to appreciate it is spit on the ground because it isn’t paved in gold…

It’s quite embarrassing.

I just think we should smile while we chase whatever it is we’re after. Showing how much you appreciate what you have is the best way to prove how much you deserve. That’s the energy of good fortune. Energy is attracted by that of the same, and repels from the opposite. 

So, the next time you decide to be angry because you aren’t able to overstock your fridge with groceries, or throw a tantrum because you don’t have all the cable channels, be glad that you have food to eat, and eyes to see with. There are kids all over the world who’d trade places with you in a heartbeat. In fact, as you read this, some kids are losing their heartbeat.

Be thankful for what you’ve got. Stop complaining. Above all… Shut up and live. Be happy NOW

SlanK

Think with your heart… Not your eyes

Your eyes, and what you see are both physical elements. They are not enough to produce experience alone. It is the conscious awareness of what you’re seeing that makes it an experience. What you think of it, will determine your perception, your volition, and your feeling about it… or not.

Too many of us walk around and consume the world in an unconscious form. This makes us numb to violence, sexual exploitation, fear, and everything else that clouds our sixth sense (third eye, cognitive mind, soul, whatever you want to call it). Worst of all… Without being aware of what we take in, we also become numb to more important things like love, passion, desire, and all other pleasant sensations we need to move forward and want better for ourselves and others. Our sixth sense is what gives us the ability to make the daily judgments that ultimately shape our lives.

In other words… If you see something you do not understand, do not entirely reject it before you learn exactly what it is, and why. It may be the very thing you have been searching for your entire life.