Success

Chapter One

Success. I seek to taste its immortal intoxication. I yearn to move the world with my words and my deeds. I crave, like a drunken man ogles a young woman, to inspire generations and destroy injustice. But who am I? LOL…that’s right, I laugh out loud at this question; though not so loud really, more of a chuckle, a sound barely audible, but audible nonetheless. I have no clue really; no idea of what is, and what isn’t. And yet this is all so trite. Even suggesting openly that my entire “quest for answers” is commonplace becomes all the more trite, and so on and so forth into the infinity the reasoning goes and where it stops, well no one can really say I would imagine.

Back, though, to success. So interesting it is. Clarity of thoughts. In a loosely connected series of words and punctuation, placed seemingly arbitrarily, I have regained myself. Lost, so it seemed, and connected and focused I am momentarily. Shit. I’d better take this opportunity to write something profound and amazing. I will dig so deeply into my soul. Spontaneity, where are you?!? You mock me…another chuckle. And I realize that the whole instant spelling/grammar checking algorithm is a very poor writing tool. Honestly, how am I expected to express myself honestly if I keep getting my mistakes thrown at my face with such familiar colors as red and green. It is my solemn oath at this moment, that I will discover how to go about eliminating this ugly alert system and never use it when I am attempting to write something. Well I suppose for a resume or a business letter it would be good, right? Because we’d better not send our boss something that has a misspelling!

Hallelujah! Amen my brothers! The lines are gone. This is precisely the point isn’t it? I mean, I can’t get anything done if someone keeps telling me I’m doing something wrong. Remember…I yearn for success. I’ve just opted to define success differently from the mainstream. Money is not important. Things are not important. Crap is not important. Clarity, that is important. I heard a recording of what I think was Bruce Lee on a really very charming hip hop LP by a group by the name of Binary Star. And, if I may say so, and I do hope that I may, this group consisting of two MCs which, from a distance appear to be as one, but up close actually prove to be two stars revolving around one another, is quite talented. Bruce Lee says to me: “I can come out here and be cocky and show you some very fancy movement. But to honestly express oneself, that is very hard to do.”

Well what the hell “that is very hard to do”? What the hell is that? Why is that so hard. Where does it come from? It’s like a connection perhaps. Spontaneity. That’s the key. But what is it? And how do I get it? Or perhaps the better question is this: how did I lose it?

Chapter Note: Immediately following the end of that last sentence I had a moment of reflection. This reflection was immediately preceded by fear. “My ideas are too big!” I exclaimed. I really did say this out loud. Then I settled down. My ideas are not too big. My ideas are the perfect size for me.



Chapter Two


It starts young. Remember when you were born? I can’t forget the day. I was resting restlessly in my mother’s uterus. It was a good place; I remember I used to sleep in the back corner, right next to the polyp. But then, like a trailer park in a tornado, I was whisked away into some new and magical world. (Well actually first I had a tube fashioned out of human flesh wrapped around my throat for a few minutes)

You know, this last little parenthetical tidbit was intended to be humorous to the reader because, well, I thought it was humorous to me. Then I thought about it…I realize that I really did have the umbilical chord wrapped around my neck when I was born. My parents told me when I was younger and it was all supposed to be like a little family joke. What if it was a nervous joke? Perhaps it wasn’t some small thing, but, in fact, the chord was wrapped for a long time. Perhaps the doctors thought I might have brain damage. Wouldn’t good parents keep something like that from me? I am pretty short. I could have been tall?!?!

Talk about funny, I might be brain damaged. I don’t think my parents would have told me about something like that. I can just imagine it now. Every time I made it a step further in life my parents sighed relief. “Maybe he isn’t brain damaged after all.” The frightened images of my parents crying. The weeks and months of uncertainty. I might have been brain damaged!?

But wait…isn’t this the point. So what if I’m brain damaged? So what if I was deprived of oxygen for 15 minutes when I was born? I am who I am; and having one more excuse for failure, now literally in my head, won’t help me in the least. I’m not looking for an easy life with everything I could ever possibly want. I’m looking for a place to drive my passion into with rage. Something that I can make my own and carve out a name for myself in the history of man (and woman). I have a mental disorder. I don’t doubt this. I also don’t doubt that there is one person alive who would escape a positive diagnosis for something much the same. So why worry?

Look, I’m just trying to be honest. I’m trying to tell you what it is that I feel. These feelings, however, tend to be interrupted by long bouts of thought. Conscious, tangible, thought. Uggh, makes me sick. It seems like such a hindrance. Uh oh… I’m sensing a paradox coming on *giggles like child*. Yes, I get excited about paradoxes. It’s when the whole “reason” thing comes crashing down. The old metaphysical mirror in front of a mirror routine.

Who EVER said that you “have to use complete sentences”? This has just struck me as the most bizarre thing conceivable. But they tell us in school…we have to, have to, have to. High school is frightening. School is frightening. And I’m going to become a teacher.