The Worst Thing I Ever Said

I have gotten into some knock down, drag out fights and arguments in my brief time on this planet. I have said some things that were completely out of pocket and inappropriate. I have said some truly hurtful things, only a few of which I regret. I have held grudges and talked about people behind their backs. I regret all of those incidents because they contradict my attempts to be a man of integrity. I have said things in anger that should not have been said. And I have said things from places of fear and immaturity that forced me to grow into a better man.

None of those circumstances, however, were the place and time I most regret saying something hurtful. The most hurtful thing that I have ever said to someone did not occur in a fight or an argument. The worst thing that I have ever said wasn’t a lie or a rumor or a terrible opinion. It was the truth, or more accurately, a fact.
The worst thing that I ever said to someone was telling my dad that my mom had sold a piece of property. I don’t know what his expectations were or what his attachments were to that property. The house was the first house in which my family lived. None of us had lived in it in years. My mother had rented it out and subsequently decided to sell it.

I told him because he needed to know. But, I will never forget the look on his face when I told him. He looked like someone had given him a gut shot with a wrecking ball. It was the most hurt that I had ever seen the man. I had never seen him like that. He hardly ever let on when he was in any type of pain when he got hurt or was sick with a cold or flu. And as he has grown older and experienced different traumas and health challenges, he just accepted the consequences of aging because he can’t stop time. I don’t know if it is a type of armor that he has always worn or that he just didn’t let things get to him.

This time, he looked like he wanted to nuke the world and cry a river of tears. He looked like he was in shock. I still don’t know why it hit him so hard and I’m not sure that I will ever ask.

I felt really bad after I told him because I could tell that he felt bad. I didn’t feel guilty about telling him, just bad. I didn’t do anything to harm him intentionally, but that doesn’t change the way I feel about his reaction. I was glad to be honest with him so that he knew what was going on. I just never thought that it would hit him the way it did. I can honestly say I never want to see him look like that again.

There is no way to know how my words will affect anyone or how they will affect a situation. I know that I would rather be truthful with the people I care about than to lead them on. I believe that misleading people can end up being more hurtful and damaging in the long run. Still, I never want to see anyone hurt the way my dad was hurt on that day.

Desperation

A few months ago, my dad told my sister and me about a cousin in Virginia. I found it hard to remember if I had even met the guy. My dad told us that he had been laid off from a job that he held for about 20 years. He couldn’t find another job and he fell into a serious depression. One day, he wrote a note to his wife and wrote a note to his mother. He then went to a parking lot and killed himself. Despite the fact that I couldn’t remember him, I found the news disturbing. I know that times now are hard, but I think that anyone would agree that is extreme.

Unfortunately, he isn’t the only one who has felt the effects of economic displacement. There are plenty of people who have decided to off themselves over lost money or a lost job. There are many more that have sunken into deep depression over these issues. They do themselves what may become irreparable harm by allowing these circumstances to dominate their consciousness and to dictate how they should feel about themselves.

There seems to be no way to convince these people that they shouldn’t base their life worth on how much money they have or control. I have been through the same kind of circumstances. The day of George W. Bush’s first inauguration I was laid off from the best job I ever had. Not realizing that the economy was going to take a severe downturn in my industry, I turned down a wonderful opportunity to go elsewhere. It was a big mistake that cost me. I thought that because I had this fantastic education, great experience, and a set of credentials to back up my experience that I would immediately get picked up by a local firm.

I was totally wrong. I ended up finding nothing. Time passed and I ran out of money. I really started to get down on myself. There were mornings that I didn’t want to get out of bed. I shed a few tears and even spent a lot of time staring at a matte steel .44 magnum that I owned. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it, but some really bad and hurtful ideas came to mind. I got so upset that I damn near gave myself ulcerative colitis. All of this was complicated by fracturing my foot on a vacation designed to reduce my stress levels. I moped around like my world had ended. In a way, it did.

The only way that I got past it was to work on something else. I ended up spending a lot of hours with my brother at the county courthouse doing research. We managed to make some connections and do some legal work to clear up the title to my mother’s house – something that thousands of dollars spent on lawyers didn’t accomplish. It helped me restore my confidence in my abilities. I also realized that none of what I was experiencing was life and death. I also got to the point where I understood that I was the one hurting myself. Finally, I found out that I was not the only person having those thoughts or those experiences.

Money is a tool. It is a means of communicating and standardizing value. The only reason that it has value is that we gave it value. That’s it. What was created to be a helpful tool has become the means of our enslavement. I hate seeing people debasing and hurting themselves and others over a desire to gain money. Money is necessary, but it isn’t life. Even if it is lost, it can be regained.

I am looking around and seeing this huge and profound wave of desperation gripping everyone. I see people being distorted and beaten down over misplaced values and desires. Watching people, especially those I care about, experience all of these terrible feelings and their repercussions is almost as bad as experiencing those feelings. I just want to pull out a bullhorn and shout, “This is bullshit.” I want to shake people and tell them that this is just an illusion and all they really have to do is wake up and make some different choices and the nightmare will go away. More than anything, I want to tell them that it is not their fault.

Right now, I wish that I could make people understand that we are experiencing a radical paradigm shift. Old principles are passing away and giving way to new principles. Things that used to work just aren’t valid anymore. Things that were hidden are coming to the surface and lies that held us in place are crumbling. The people that constructed these lies can’t scramble fast enough to put up new lies. I really think that we are at a point where, individually and collectively, we can redefine ourselves and get closer to what we really ought to be. At the very least, that is my objective.

Redefining My Happiness

One of my favorite movies of all time is Superfly, the classic story of a cocaine hustler that is trying to get out of the drug game. My love of this movie has nothing to do with the time period, the outrageous clothes, that it is a Black action movie (I am getting away from the term “Blaxploitation.”), or the fact that in the end Priest sticks it to the man. What I love about this film is that, despite its trappings, it is about profound transformation. Or at least, that’s what I take from it.

There are three scenes in the movie where the main character Priest goes into his motivations. For any one who hasn’t seen the movie or hasn’t seen it in a long time, here are what I consider to be the pivotal scenes in the movie. First, Priest talks about his thoughts with his partner in the business Eddie. He tells Eddie that he wants to get out. Eddie runs down the list of material goods that he has accumulated and the fact that he can snort coke any time he wants. Priest tells Eddie that he wants to get out of the game before he has to kill someone or before someone kills him. Initially, I would assume that it was because Priest was mugged by some junkies. (For those that have seen the movie, he talks to his mentor Scatter about getting out, but not about why.)

The second time that he discusses his motivations is when he is walking in the park with his main girl Georgia. He tells her that he has to get out of the game because he needs to buy himself some time that is “not all fucked up with things... .” He needs to be free and happy and that he has never really experienced that feeling. The last time he really delves into his desire to get out of his lifestyle is with his other girlfriend. He tells her that he thought that his life would be complete because he had the car and the clothes that he wanted and even a taboo relationship with a white woman. He goes on to say that he doesn’t know why, but he has to change the way that he lives.

I don’t know how many times that I have watched that movie. I know that each time that I get to these scenes I find that I can relate to what Priest is talking about. I don’t have the level of material goods that Priest had relative to today. Yet, I know the importance of what he was saying and why he was saying it.

When I had some money in my pockets, things were OK. However, I found myself not doing the things that I said that I was going to do for myself. I didn’t buy the things or pursue the projects that I knew would make my life more complete. And when I bought things that would have pushed me toward my goals, I didn’t use them for their intended purpose. I have a library full of esoteric and rare books that focus directly on my passion for historical research and I still haven’t read any of them. I have a bunch of instructional books on music and I haven’t sat down to work through them.

Somehow, I became this other self that was ego driven, that focused on material accumulation and comfort, and that reveled being middle class with disposable income. While having things isn’t bad, all of that accumulation really didn’t enhance who I was or who I am on any level. I now find myself weighed down with things and desires but no space for those things and desires. I need to shed those things and desires and move on to something else that is bigger in scope and, at the same time, lighter and smaller. I really don’t know how else to describe it.

I have made the excuse many times that life has gotten in the way of my dreams. That is really a big, empty lie. I didn’t make time for my life, my real life. I found time to accomplish a lot of work related goals at speeds that frightened my bosses and co-workers. I just didn’t make the time to do me. I find that all of the complication and BS that I have allowed to rule me don’t mean anything anymore. Doing me is what is important.

Like Priest, I want to get out of the game. My game happens to be the great American rat race. I want to do it the right way, like Priest did it. I want to have enough put away and a good enough plan so that I don’t have to get back into the game at this same level to survive. Nobody in this is stupid. I need money and resources to pursue my goals. At the same time, I know that I can’t use the pursuit of money as an end in and of itself when peace and real happiness are what I want.

On a deeper level and implicitly stated was the idea that Priest had to engage in a basic redefinition of what happiness means to him. I know that I have to do the same. For Priest, happiness meant not being tied into a potentially deadly lifestyle and having the power to choose his direction in life. My happiness is about not being enslaved by someone else’s ideas of what my life and aspirations should be. It is also about doing the things that bring me a sense of fulfillment.

Redefinition doesn’t mean living in a luxury condo or driving that elegant and expensive car, although having those things would be nice. It means finding passion, purpose, and a goal that doesn’t have a dollar sign in front of it. It means that freedom, not money, is the objective, and that money is one of the tools that can be used to achieve freedom. I also know that there are no guarantees, and I am cool with that.

Expecting the Worst

I wrote an entry about a month ago called “Letting Go of Expectation.” I think that this is part two of that entry. “Somehow”, I think that I have moved a little closer to another of the underlying reasons why I am not living the life that I desire. And, it’s another case of me doing it to myself.

There is an old cliché that says, “Expect the best; prepare for the worst.” Somewhere I got it twisted, extremely twisted. I have been expecting the worst and in some cases making sure that the worst arrives. And it shows in how I have been approaching many of the things that I have experienced in life. I could make the excuse that I have been conditioned into that type of thinking because so many of the things that I have experienced have been so negative. That is really just an excuse. The real problem has been my attitude toward my experiences.

Growing up, a lot of the things that I experienced started off in a very positive way and ended up being extremely negative. I was not abused or the victim of a horrible accident. I just kept experiencing things that promised to be great and never fulfilled that promise. I always tended to get the short end of the stick in my endeavors, or at least that is how I perceived it. Whether I had an opportunity to participate in something, to go somewhere, or to just find some enjoyment, things always seemed to go awry. Sometimes the issue was money, sometimes it was time constraint, and sometimes it was being dependent on people who just didn’t care what I wanted or needed.

Whatever the cause, my perception of disappointment started to grind on me and wear me down. I think that because I experienced a lot of disappointment at an early age, I began to think that should be what I should always expect. And so my expectation became mostly negative. After a while, I think that I lost the ability to see the glass as half full. I saw the negative and ignored the positive. Truth be known, the positive usually outweighed the negative.

Negative expectations transitioned into self-fulfilling prophecies. Consequently, I have been continuously cycling myself back through those types of situations because I couldn’t see that I was the source of those feelings. Nothing was right or good enough. Disappointment and frustration became constants in my life. In short, I had written a loser script for myself. And, I seemed fully intent on acting it forever.

I have continuously put myself into bad situations that didn’t have to be bad. I have been aggressive and combative in situations that weren’t meant to be at all contentious or conflict driven. On some occasions, I sought out conflict and I don’t know why. I have gone so far as to make up situations in my head and get emotionally upset about the fantasized outcomes. Usually these situations never came about or, if they did, the outcomes were never as bad as I had imagined them to be. I don’t know what I wanted to prove. I have no idea what I accomplished through the unnecessary expenditure of energy. I can’t explain it; I don’t want to try.

As I have been working on myself, I have begun to take the time out to observe myself and take stock of my reactions and motivations. I can honestly say that I have been totally full of shit. There is no better way to say it. A lot of the situations that I have put myself in should have been much better. I realize that I should have looked for the positive. I should have just waited without expectation or judgment and reacted positively and in my own best interests.

Anyway, I have decided not to beat myself up over the past and my bad judgment. Now that I know what I have been doing to myself, I can avoid the trap and find something else to do with my time and energy. I figure that if I am going to make mistakes (all part of being human), at least they should be new mistakes.

We Obligate Ourselves to Things That Hold Us Back

The other day I was having a conversation with a good friend. He said something to me that was so profound that I had to write it down for fear of forgetting it. I have a pretty good memory and I don’t often forget things, but this I had to write down. He told me that sometimes “We obligate ourselves to things that hold us back.” It was like being slapped in the face because I needed to check myself. Its impact was just that forceful; it really woke me up. I had to step back and take a few very deep breaths after he spit that one out. This eloquent thought let me know how hard I had been working against my own best interests and against my right to choose for myself.

For the last couple of days, I have been trying to come up with some clever, droll, or useful way to expand on what he said. I was going to try to put out some concrete examples of how this applies to my life and experience. I was going to bring up how I had been volunteered into things by people who disrespected my right to choose for myself how to best use my time. Or, I was going to try to talk about long-term, ill-conceived efforts that stretched on for what seemed like interminable periods and that produced horrible results. After all, relating these thoughts to my experience is what this blog is all about.

None of it seemed appropriate. This was nothing that could really be relegated into a simple set of observations. Talking about the importance and irreplaceable nature of time wasn’t enough. I even considered going in another philosophical direction by mentioning that obligation implies an artificially produced debt that never truly exists. Acceptance of that debt prevents benefiting from the higher value that conscious choice brings. I could get esoteric and discuss how when we don’t question the belief systems and opinions we are given; we obligate ourselves to ways of existing that may not be appropriate for us. The truth is that sentence could have a million different meanings a day to a million different people and all of those meanings would be valid and appropriate.

The most meaningful thing that I can say is that this summarizes a lesson that it has taken me many years to learn. That lesson is simply that I have a right to choose how to use my time and a right to say no when I deem it appropriate without guilt or recrimination. Over my lifetime, I have found it very difficult to simply say no to people. I can’t pin down one exact reason for it.

Somehow, despite my protestations to the contrary, I have felt the need on many occasions to seek outside approval for and recognition of my character and generosity. I have felt the need to be validated. It has taken me a long time to know that I need to balance my overdeveloped sense of idealism and desire to help with my underdeveloped sense of self-interest (not selfishness). It has taken a long time to mature in this respect and to begin to truly make decisions that are right for me.

Because it has taken me so long to become fully internally motivated versus externally motivated, I am sure that I have missed opportunities, including opportunities to do interesting things and to meet good people. I can not begin to calculate what it may have cost me. But now I accept the potential loss without regret or need for validation.

I am not sure that even this explanation is complete enough conceptually. I am not sure that I have enough intelligence or wisdom to boil the essence of this thought down any further for anyone but myself. I decided that the best thing to do was to leave interpretation open to anyone who reads it. That is what I would hope for in any case, but especially in this one.

Word of the Day: Demagogue

I think of myself as a reasonably intelligent person. Some but not all of the people that know me agree with that assessment. There are a few people think that I am a complete idiot, but that is another story.

I have a fairly large vocabulary. That large vocabulary, however, does not mean that I know everything or that I am infallible. Sometimes, in my reading or conversations, I come across or use words that I really don’t know. I understand some words in contextual use, but I really couldn't give a standalone, coherent definition like one that you would see in a dictionary. I have tried lately to look up words that I know, hear, and use but cannot accurately define. I have been doing this to keep myself honest and to prevent myself from becoming a total blowhard. (I have only been partially successful.) I figure that if I use language incorrectly I back myself into a corner; my judgment and my credibility become suspect.

I looked up a million dollar word the other day. That word was “demagogue”. I looked it up on Wikipedia and was passed to “demagogy.” I'll be damned if something really interesting didn't show up on the screen. I encourage you to look it up yourself at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demagogy. Whoever wrote the article included a definition originally written by HL Mencken. Mencken said that a demagogue is “one who will preach doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows are idiots.” That man can turn a phrase; he can even find a smooth and prosaic way to call someone a liar.

The author goes on to outline some of the techniques used by demagogues to achieve their aims. Here are summaries of the techniques listed.

1. Apples and oranges – mixing of incomparable quantities
2. Half-truth – making statements that are only true in a strict and relatively meaningless sense
3. False authority – relying on the general authority of a person who is not proficient in the discussed topic
4. False dilemma – assuming that there are only two possible opinions on a given topic
5. Demonization – identifying others as a mortal threat
6. Straw man – mischaracterizing the opposing position and then arguing against the mischaracterization
7. Loaded question – posing a question with an implied position that the opponent does not have
8. Unrelated facts – bringing facts that sound in favor of the speaker's agenda
9. Emotional appeal or personal attacks – attempting to bring a discussion to an emotional level

After I read this I was amazed. I see this stuff everyday used on television and I keep wondering why people are still going for it. What in the world is in the Kool-Aid?

These techniques are why nothing in America is getting solved, even though the answers are right there in our faces. This is the playbook on how to mislead people who are only half paying attention and who have abdicated their duty to think for themselves. This is the stuff we used to call “tricknology.” Watching this stuff work would be hilarious if it weren’t so scary. At least now, when I am watching those Sunday morning political shows or the news, I can check off what they are doing to screw with public opinion.

My Man Holmes

I had this friend back in my “wild” undergraduate days. He was a pretty cool guy. His nickname was “Holmes”. He had a bit of luck with the ladies and the name stuck. We hung out with other friends at parties and sipped on a beer or two together. Sitting here, he popped into my mind. Holmes reminded me of a time when I didn’t live up to my own standards of behavior and friendship.

Holmes and his dorm mates were playing a game on intramural flag football. Holmes became the victim of a freak accident. He took a block wrong or something and ended up falling hard on his neck or upper back. Holmes ended up in a wheelchair as a quadriplegic with limited use of his arms. He came back to school after about a semester of recovering and got back into the swing of being a student. From what I could see, he was alright with his life and had a handle on how he was going forward.

I would see him around campus, occasionally at a party or in someone’s dorm room. Although he couldn’t walk anymore, he didn’t seem to have missed a step. He was always really cool. He would always invite me to come by and hang out. And I know that he was sincere about the offer.

I never went. I can’t for the life of me figure out why. Nothing was wrong with me; nothing happened to me. He was the one who suffered the injury. And I didn’t hurt him. I just couldn’t go. Maybe, I thought that some of what got on him would get on me. Whatever it was, I failed to be a real friend and I am a little regretful about it.

I am always talking this stuff about how I think that friendship is a divine thing; that friends are people that we choose to love and that bond is a sacred gift. In this case, I blew it and can’t understand why. I just know that I wasn’t the kind of friend that I should have been. I mean the least that I could have done was show up every once in a while to spend some time with the guy.

I honestly don’t know what Holmes is up to now. I should probably check the alumni association. Knowing him, he is probably a billionaire or a successful lawyer. Whatever success and happiness he has found; I wish him a million times more.

I don’t think that I have a point with this post, except that I hope never to punk out on a friend like that ever again. Do I have to always have a point?

Being Unreasonable

I have come to the inescapable conclusion that I am through with being reasonable. I have found nothing but harm, frustration, and pain when I have chosen the path of reasonableness. (Is that really a word?) I have spent many years digging myself out of holes caused by my acceptance of some reasonable decision. I have spent years deferring things or circumstances that would have led to more fulfillment or to a better life because those things that I desired were not reasonable. I am done with that. I don’t want to go back to that way of being.

In no way am I promoting illogical or irrational behavior. Instead, I am running away from reasonable behavior. Someone might ask whether all of those terms mean the same thing in a general sense. They might under some definitions. I choose to define them differently. Illogical or irrational behaviors arise from people choosing to not to follow an ordered or organized train of thought, whatever that might entail or to whatever those outcomes may lead.

Being reasonable, on the other hand, means something totally different to me. Being reasonable is about conformity. It is about accepting the prevailing opinion of the masses and allowing that opinion to dictate to you your future and your desires. It is about allowing oneself to be controlled and directed by people or forces that may not necessarily have one’s best interests at heart. In my own experience, I have allowed people to convince me on many occasions to be reasonable. I think that when I allowed this to happen, I was truly out of alignment with myself, either because I wasn’t being honest with myself about my capabilities or because I didn’t trust myself to decide what was right for me.

A prime example of this in my life is music. I have been a musician since I was eight years old. I have played in all types of groups and have played all types of music. I finally decided when I graduated from college that I would try to take my skills to the next level. I packed up and moved to LA to go to a famous music school to get my skills together. I didn’t go to become famous or to get rich, I did it because I love music and I love playing music.

Things didn’t go the way that I planned. Certain people in my life didn’t do what they said that they would do to help me in my quest and tried to talk me out of doing what I needed to do to succeed. Fortunately I wasn’t hearing it. I went and got to it. I had to take a full time job and didn’t get to fully experience all that I wanted to experience. I really should have fought and worked harder to get everything out of the experience. Regardless I made a quantum leap in terms of personal growth that I would not trade for anything. Being unreasonable got me to the place that I could have the experience; being reasonable limited the outcome to something less than optimal. I still want to get to that elite level of ability and I have regrets about not completing what I started so many years ago.

I am a student of history. Whenever I look at the lives of “great” people, people that did remarkable or astonishing things, I see a pattern of unreasonable behavior. How many great inventors were constantly told to give up their inventions because they just wouldn’t work or because no one would want their products? How many philosophers were told that they were crazy and that their thoughts were ridiculous? How many people that have achieved anything of note by following the reasonable path?

History doesn’t remember the reasonable person. That guy that dutifully sits in his cubicle everyday pushing papers will never leave a real legacy. The woman that arrives at work everyday and keeps her head down while working toward a safe retirement won’t even be a footnote in history. They follow the reasonable path and allow that path to destroy their dreams. Reasonableness (there goes that word again) never really did anything but create slaves. It crushes dreams and kills spirits.

Even if you look at some of the greatest monsters in our history, you will see that they pursued paths that had nothing to do with reason. Every conqueror, despot, tyrant, or dictator of note achieved amazing and terrible results because they refused to recognize conventional reason as a determining factor in their strategies. While these people are reviled, they are immortals in our collective consciousness because they dared to be as unreasonable as possible. They didn’t accept external limitations.

The most recent, incredible example of unreasonable behavior comes from our last presidential election. In November of 2007, there couldn’t have been more than a few thousand people that actually believed that a Black man could be President of the United States. Most people, including me, thought that it was a pipe dream. I looked at our history as a nation and the promises of our national philosophy that are so often broken and said that there was no way could this happened. As the campaign progressed, I started to believe, even though there was always a little doubt lingering in the background. A year later in November of 2008, the unthinkable happened. I was stunned, shocked, and amazed that a Black man was elected President. He and his team did it with brilliant strategy and fund-raising. But it was all based on a belief that almost everyone in America would have called unreasonable.

Maybe some part of being reasonable is filling in the blanks with things and ideas that are limiting and just not true. Whatever it is, I don’t want any part of it. I think that I would rather be called crazy and ridiculous. I would rather have all of the doubters and haters trying to bring me down. I think that they are all indicators that I am on the right path.

I have just as much time in a day as anyone else. I now choose to spend that time doing things that benefit me and that make me happy. I know that it takes the same energy and that the pay-off is much greater. I still find it hard to believe how much of my time and effort I have given away for little or nothing to support the dreams of people that couldn’t care whether I live or die. I did this to myself all in the name of finding a reasonable way to live my life.

Amer-I-Can or Amer-I-Can't

I love Jim Brown, the former NFL great and movie star. I admire and respect his accomplishments in football and entertainment. I think that he is the greatest and most dominant football player to play the game, and possibly the greatest lacrosse player ever.

My admiration for Jim Brown is not centered on his exploits in football or in the movies. My respect for him grows out of his record of community involvement and leadership. (I distrust the word activism because it seems shallow and has become a code word that sends signals to the mainstream. It says, “Here they come, those Civil Rights people. Even if what they say is correct, marginalize what they say.”) Jim Brown has gone into neighborhoods where heavily armed cops won’t go and has pulled young Black men out of gang violence, the effects of government malaise, and hopelessness. I think that the essence of what Jim Brown is doing is teaching disenfranchised people how to behave and participate in this American paradigm.

Despite this fact and the undeniable effectiveness of his Amer-I-Can program, he is under constant attack by all kinds of people. Women’s groups attack him because he has had some violent episodes with women. Some mainstream groups see him as too Black. Although he is in his 70’s, many people still fear him on the most basic, physical level.

I don’t see Jim Brown as perfect or as a saint. On some levels, he is deeply flawed. But, who isn’t. He has consistently admitted that some of his reactions to situations were improper. He has taken responsibility for his actions and continues to evolve.

This post is not really about Jim Brown, though. It is about the name of his program and about my attitude. His program is called Amer-I-Can. For many years, I was an Amer-I-Can’t.

I am part of the first generation of Black Americans born after The Civil Rights movement accomplished the goal of getting laws passed to protect the rights of all Americans. I have no direct experience of the type of oppression, bigotry, and violence prosecuted against non-white Americans prior to the movement. Despite my lack of traumatizing experiences, I have found it hard to turn toward accepting, on my own terms, a fully American identity.

I fully realized the effects of my attitude toward the American paradigm and legacy during my time in grad school. One night, I was at a fight party. Tito Trinidad was fighting William Joppy (and putting it on him I might add). I watched some of the pre-fight shots of the crowd. If memory serves, the fight was in Madison Square Garden and the crowd was heavily Puerto Rican and partisan for Trinidad. They were waving Puerto Rican flags and singing songs and exuding this love for their homeland. I made the comment that I have never felt that way about this country. About thirty minutes later another guy came in and made almost the same comment. I was surprised and sort of taken aback.

I was not surprised that two people expressed the same type feelings. I was surprised that I found that there was really no reason for feeling this way. I could understand this feeling coming from ex-slaves. They didn’t get anything close to a level playing field, but they persevered and accomplished amazing things. I could understand those sentiments from people who lived through the dark days of Jim Crow, which was just slavery recapitulated. I could especially understand it from non-white veterans, who, despite their service to this country, were often in danger of being lynched in full uniform. I just got to a point where I couldn’t understand or justify it fully from myself or my generation.

I think that mine is a generation, among other things, of unfocused anger and aggression. We were brought up being taught who the enemy was but not having any consistent outward manifestations on which to focus. So we manifested our anger outwardly on anything that moved. Some of those manifestations had a certain beauty to them, like Mike Tyson knocking someone the fuck out or KRS-ONE or Public Enemy verbally destroying the Reagan Era law and order paradigm. Other manifestations were horrific, like the crack epidemic or the gang violence that Jim Brown has spent so much time fighting.

While my epiphany started the process of transformation, my new attitude was brought to life by my travel overseas. I was in a culture that was totally foreign to me. I found in a very direct way that most of the people that I encountered didn't care what I looked like or where I was from. They just wanted to get where they were going and to do what they wanted to do. Four hundred years of slavery and oppression don't really compare in scope to five thousand years of recorded history and culture.

Regardless, for me that manifestation ran its course a few years ago. Since that little epiphany, I have refocused that part of me to try to understand my place in this American experiment. I long ago (before my epiphany) moved away from the entitlement mentality that is stereotyped into and onto the Black community. I have embraced the promise that is one of the most beautiful parts of the American paradigm: the opportunity to reshape oneself in one’s own image.

I still live in the real world. I know that there are still barriers and attitudes that seek to retard my progress based on outmoded assumptions and fear. But, I am trying to give less and less power to those attitudes. Now this doesn’t mean that I want to sell out, assimilate, or adopt a white-washed identity. It instead says that while there are no guarantees, I will take my chances to define myself as I choose, make a space for myself and my ideas, and live as I choose. I want to embrace the right to fully participate without being obstructed or hindered because of racial or identity politics.

The Value of My Words

I recently spent a few hours over a couple of days working with my mentor on his magnum opus project. He had come to a sticking point about his presentations and about how he was attempting to educate his audience on the value of his product set. He was attempting to show everyone everything in its set of capabilities to convince potential investors of the breadth and depth of his offering and of its benefits to their organizations. We talked intensely about what he was saying to them.

We concluded that he was not putting enough “sexy” into his presentation. He was also not controlling his audience’s perception of his product. The product is his invention. And as I told him, it is what he says that it is. If he wants to say that his product will fly through the air like Superman, then it will. It is up to others to prove that it won’t; not that he is intending to mislead anyone. I was able to convince him to look at his product from a more creative and market-savvy perspective. It was not necessary to overwhelm them with the technical. Instead, he should focus on seeing what he is presenting from the viewpoint of a sales and marketing expert who is out to make a sale.

He thanked me for my input and told me that our conversation was valuable to him because it helped him to re-frame how he was doing things. It made me feel good to help him out, especially after he has helped me so much to go after a better perspective in dealing with my issues.

None of this is about me tooting my own horn or about helping others through crises of perspective. Instead, it is about the value of words, specifically mine.

I have spent the last few years feeling marginalized. My word has meant next to nothing in corporate settings. In my private life, I have felt disrespected and denigrated by how what I have said and suggested has been swept aside and ignored. Whether because of my circumstance, my finances, my mood, or just the people with whom I have dealt, I have felt like a second class citizen. I have gotten to the point in many instances where I felt that there was no point in me saying or suggesting anything. I figured that I was throwing pearls before swine or simply talking over people’s heads.

My conversations and input with my mentor have pulled me back from that backward train of thought. I now know that my words and thought do have value, whether they are acknowledged as such or not. I am not saying that everyone is entitled to my opinion; instead, I am entitled to express my opinion as I see fit. More importantly, I don’t need approval from authority or peers or anyone else to say what I think I need to express.

Many times, the value of things that I have expressed to people has gone unacknowledged. That impact often shows up later in how they modify their approaches or behaviors to situations. I think that I have been caught up in a need for acknowledgment or some sort of thanks for giving them something that helps them to expand their perspective. I am coming to understand that the value in that type of sharing for me is in how it fulfills my need to lend a philosophical helping hand to those around me. It also corresponds with how I treat doing physical things for people.

I have never been one to look for outward displays of appreciation. I do things because I want to do them or because I feel that they need to be done. Maybe this shift in perception draws me more into alignment with who I should be. Maybe it takes out the need for externalization and takes more of my motivation to the internal plane where I think that it belongs. Only time will tell.