Blog of M.

I haven’t really been inspired to write anything lately, but hey, the blog title says “My LIFE in my words” so, here goes a little about my life in the past few days;

I haven’t felt like going to work out at all this week. In fact, physically, I’m not sure I’m able to. I’ve just been feeling really weak and hungry, even when I eat more than I’m supposed to be eating.  Included in my vitamin regiment is a hunger suppressant; sometimes I think its actually working in reverse and causing me to want MORE food. Not very cool at all.  I have been wondering if its really all just a psycho-somatic reaction to something; but, the question is “what?”  I think I may just MAKE myself go work out to see if this is real or not. If I pass out today, I know not to go back until I feel better LOL

Emotionally, I feel kinda hypocritical.  I really want myself to feel upbeat and “happy” (read my previous blog on the “Pursuit of Happiness”) about my life, because honestly, i have it great. I am in better health and better shape than I ever have been, I’m doing a job I really like doing (even if the pay is the greatest, its more than I used to make), my second job is almost completely optional to keep if I get sick of it, I’m just all around blessed.  So, why do I STILL sometimes deal with “unhappiness” and dispair and doubts and all this other negativity?  I mean, every morning, I get up and I tell myself that I’m going to have a great day, no matter what.  Thing is, it doesn’t always happen that way; sometimes I get thoughts in my head that I don’t immediately eject and they change my mood; sometimes I just get hit by this wave of loneliness that doesn’t go away (usually not til I go to sleep); sometimes I just get sad for seemingly no reason at all … it concerns me cause I feel like its not normal to feel like that … I also feel like I should be in better control of my feelings … its upsetting, especially since I don’t really know how to fix it, or IF there is fix for it …

On a more upbeat note, I went to a wedding Saturday. Its not the first wedding I’ve been to obviously, but it IS noteworthy for being the first wedding I’ve been to that was a “non-ethic” wedding. It was a little bit of a different experience for me; the most different being the fact that the wedding actually started ON TIME. 3:30, the church bells were ringing and the wedding party was coming in; NEVER seen that happen before. EVER. The ceremony was over in 30 minutes; there was a hymn sung and some scriptures read, and thats it. Nobody doing a 30 minute rendition of “Always and Forever” or “Here and Now” or nothin’.  The reception was the real kicker; it was on church grounds and people were DRUNK by 6:30. ON CHURCH GROUNDS. 6:30!!!  Obviously, this was a fun night LOL.

Also happy my friend Kim got back from overseas safely and had a great time while gone (if you’re reading this, hi kim!).

Thats about it for now. *double checks mental list* Yepp, thats it :-)

Hasta la vista todos!

I was wondering what I could write about, but have been coming up with blanks for a while. Then I get a tweet from my friend ( @TopDiva_904 ) with an article link attached to it. I like reading stuff, so I figured I would check it out.

Best decision for my writer’s block ever.

The article was written by Necole Bitchie ( @necolebitchie ) in reference to a blog posting done by Tameka Forest (Usher’s estranged wife). In the blog, Tameka discusses racism in the black community against … get this … dark skinned black people!!!

Ok, stop the presses; it is 2009 people!!!

How can one black person in America have the AUDACITY to hate on another black person because they have darker skin?! We are all one race, and as black Americans, we already have enough issues with ourselves to have IGNORANT black people bring our own people down. We are already grossly underrepresented in most areas of the media, and when we DO hit tv screens and front pages, it’s rarely for the good that we do. How can any self respecting black person add to all if that?

But then, that’s it, isn’t it?

A SELF RESPECTING black person never would … [ Let that marinate ]
—
Source Links:

• http://necolebitchie.com/2009/08/12/shes-pretty-for-a-dark-skinned-girl
• http://globalgrind.com/content/901458/Shes-Pretty-For-A-DarkSkinned-Girl/

Last week I received a post on my facebook wall from a friend of mine who I hadn’t heard from in a very long time.  The post simply said “You inspired me to write a blog.” and with it was the link to her blog.  I was excited, I don’t really think of myself as the type of person who inspires people. I checked out what she posted and I was filled with an appreciation for her artistic talent (she is a photographer) and kept reading til I got to the very first post.  Then I wasn’t so excited, at least not at first …

She left Charleston, and moved to D.C., to further pursue her dream.

I was a little saddened by that news, but then I realized something; her doing what she did is pretty inspiration in itself.  She wasn’t happy with her current situation and took drastic measures to change it.  How many of us are willing to do something like that?

I know I haven’t been.

It seems that we are far more willing to suffer in unhappy conditions than to take a chance to change them.  I told a friend yesterday that if you act as you always have, you’ll continue to get what you always have.  Writing this, I feel convicted in some areas, because there are things that I have been willing to suffer through, rather than take a chance and change them.  It requires a faith in yourself that I honestly don’t have sometimes, but I am working on.

So, Kristan, if you happen to read this, just know that you have inspired me as well :-)

This poem is not about a person in particular; but rather sparked from a statement my room mate made about me being easily addicted to things, and me thinking about girls on the way out of the gym :-)  Its rough, I realize that, but hey, gotta start somewhere, right?

I’ve been told I’m easily addicted, and sometimes its true
I can’t deny this; I’ve become addicted to you
But try to help it? No, there is no help …
You see, I need you; no, I feen for you, something like that Jodeci
Your mere presence is intoxicating, your fragrance like the finest Cali green
Just one whiff of you is like one hit of you; after than, I can’t stop the feeling
I need more … and more … and more … and more …
Its like, I GOTTA have that next fix, like I need your lips pressed against my lips
Its like my skin needs the touch of your fingertips …
Some just call it a “want” … but nah girl, this is too far beyond just wanting
Call me a crackhead for your lovin’, cause like they think about crack
My thoughts you always haunting … .
For this addiction there is no cure, no out … no fix
None except her
She is my drug, my world, my love … my addiction

How often in life do we truly take time to listen to (not just hear) things the first time around?

I confess that I don’t. Rarely do I pick up on lyrical content of most music the first time I hear it, I just nod my head to the beat and possibly take some mental production notes. Sometimes it takes a while after I learn the words to start truly listening to them and the motivation and emotion behind them. I suspect the reason I can and have read some of the books I own so many times is the same basic principle; I hear the story, but I didn’t really start listening to all to details until the second or third read through (movies are the same way).

We hear things all the time; the vast majority of it probably gets filed away in some dark corner in the recesses of our minds and is forgetten soon after. But, it’s funny how the mind will immediately recall this information when we find ourselves in situations where we should have been paying more attention.

All those lectures and lessons from Mom make alot more sense now that I’m older and have been through some stuff. Yeah, should have listened when she said I need to start saving money, or stop being so anti-social; she was right about far more than I give her credit for. And all my teachers throughout the years, especially the ones from Stiles Point Elementary, I should have listened to them when they said that even though I thought homework was pointless, I had to do it anyway (I was one of those kids that made A’s even without studying or homework). Man, I REALLY shoulda listened to them, cause when I got to college, I had absolutely NO study habits …

Anywho, the moral of the story is this; take some time out not to just hear, but to LISTEN.

@}-%—-

I have felt pretty uninspired to write all day, but somehow have been thinking all day about nothing, and everything.  Personally, I hate days like this … random thoughts like that just make me confused and confusion puts me in a not so happy mood.

Take this for example; its something i actively try NOT to think about, but a friend of mine on facebook had in his status how he is tired of not being able to find that right girl, and that all his efforts are for naught and stuff like that. Not really complaining per se, but expressing genuine concern for his situation. A situation I, and many others, share … and it troubled me. If that dude has trouble finding a good relationship, I wonder about me! [ I’m just being honest right now, I know its stupid, but its how I felt ]. So, all day, I’ve been trying to forget about it, and it keeps popping up. I’m ready to be done with that thought, really.

In fact, there have been way too many reminders of relationships coming my way today …  I really want to just sweep all that under a rug somewhere …

I apologize for ranting, I just needed to get that out, maybe now it will leave me alone.

“Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Matthew 6:34

Since joining the National Blog Posting Month initative, I don’t think I’ve written once about the actual monthly subject.  Last month I didn’t even know what it was LOL.  But, since this month’s topic is “Tomorrow”, I figured I could throw my two cents into the bank.

I have always been somewhat of an oxymoron when it comes to how I do things; its not on purpose, but its just how it is. There are certain things about the future that I could care less about, like WHERE i plan to retire, or where I’m going to be living in the next ten years, or things like that. Actually, the vast majority of my future right now is pretty much up for discussion (NO, that does NOT make me a bad person!) … I’ve just never been a person for long term planning.  I am getting to that age now where that fact needs to change, and I am working toward that, but for the most part, my “Tomorrow” is undecided.

Why?

Because I have enough issues just getting through today!!!  Why should I stress myself out about how bad my future kids are going to be when I don’t even have a potential wife today? Why stress out about the high cost of living at my future place of residence when I don’t even know if I’ll be alive to experience that? Why should I stress out about being fired tomorrow when I don’t know if I’ll still have my job(s) in the next five minutes?

Life changes SO FAST that in a lot of ways, its almost pointless to worry about tomorrow when you life could DRASTICALLY change for the better or worse by the end of this sentence … I already wrote about this in some previous blogs, but God knows what we need, when we need it, and how best to give it to us. In my clear headed state, I know that basically, my worrying is akin to me trying to do God’s job; my worrying is me trying to figure out what I need (or THINK I need), when I need it, and how best to get it. This is the understatement of the year, but God is FAR better at doing His job than I would be.  So, maybe I should let Him do his thing.

So, here I am, feeling not all that happy [ been this way off an on most of the weekend ] and I since I’m kinda burnt out playing soul calibur IV, I decide to watch a movie or two. Got through Starship Troopers without much trouble, now time for Casino Royale [ the one with Daniel Craig ]. Uncharacteristically, I let the previews roll, and one popped up for “The Pursuit of Happiness” on DVD and I had a very immediate, interesting thought …

Man, Screw happiness!!!

Whoa, kinda pessimistic right? WRONG!!! Just hear me out and you will see why I feel this way and maybe even come to agree with me.

The pursuit of happiness is something I used to he very involved in. When I was in grade school, I thought that good grades would make me happy. I was an a student, but didn’t have friends, so I wasn’t happy. I tried to make friends and it worked better sometimes than others, but I was always in pursuit of that happiness. Thank God I had a revelation by high school that the people I was trying to seek acceptance from weren’t really worth the effort and the people I was friends with were really friends. So, I learned to be happy; until I wanted a girlfriend.

College was spent in pursuit of happiness; happiness just happened to be in the form of a significant other. I never found her at college. But, I realized that I could find something else that would make me happy and hopefully lead me to that true prize; the thing I found was choir. Choir made me a happy Matt for a time, and even almost got me a girl too … But then college was over and I once again became unhappy.

If you read previous entries in the blog, you can figure out what basically happened after the college stage, so I won’t recap here. Suffice it to say that there was a period of happiness that then gave way to my current state of not really being happy.

Truth is, I’m starting to realize just how temporary happiness is. Just like any human emotion, it’s as fleeting as the wind; yet we spend our whole lives in pursuit of it, knowing it can’t last. It’s interesting to note that the word “happiness” doesn’t even appear in the KJV Bible …

God doesn’t want us pursuing happiness; He wants us to persue Him. “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God …”; it can’t get more self explanitory than that. Yet somehow, I always find a way to let myself get distracted from the pursuit I’m supposed to be on and keep looking for all this other temporary stuff. Maybe it’s why I seem to write this type of thing all the time; I need that reminder to keep focused and stop drifting off course …

Anyway, that’s pretty much all I have to say about that. Hopefully, you see why I don’t want to spend my life looking for happiness, especially when God says “He will add all these things unto me” if I do things in the right order.

Thoughts … words … phrases … images … all these float in the sea of my mind
Not a sea of tranquility however; no, this is a sea in constant turmoil … dangerous and dark
The vast infinity that is my creative subconscious won’t let these things leave …
Not the thoughts, nor words, nor phrases, nor images; all are trapped on that stormy sea
A prison without bars or walls, yet more confining than any phyisical place.
For I am cursed with the perception of freedom that I know isn’t real
Allowed the ability of creativity, yet denied the outlet of all fruits of that labor …
So, for now, there they will stay, those words, and thoughts, and phrases, and images …
Trapped in my mind, on that sea … floating around in the vast eternity …
That prison with no bars.