Post 350 - Holding Pattern

After I promised a good friend that I'd post a couple of written pieces and a spoken word joint I found that time was working against me and I didn't post them. In an effort to actually have something to blog about, I will attempt to do just that in the upcoming days.

I hope.

I'm a couple of days away from getting my travel on so posting is not really on the radar. To be honest, I've given thought (once again) of shutting down operations for a while, possibly altogether.

I've learned from the people closest to me that the things that either come from my mind or my mouth have only been taken at face value. Upon further review it seems that no one can really remember what I said for the most part, meaning I've been wasting air speaking on things. So imagine what the rest of the world is doing when I speak?

You guessed it, absolutely nothing. Not that I expected anyone outside of my five was paying attention anyway. So what am I doing this for?

(crickets)

Exactly.

We all know that the world moves on without our ass. That our opinions and views are not really taken as serious as they appear in our minds. There will always be violence, racism and us killing folks that look like us, so what am I doing to combat that those processes in the grand scheme of things? Nothing really. I'm just like everybody else. I talk about how certain shit grinds my gears and it goes out into the universe relatively unheard.

But it has to pass the folks we 'know' first... Right? Do any of your people sang a little of your shit and hold onto it for review... Nah, because everybody usually has their own shit to deal with and that's important to them just as your shit is important to you. And that means you blow a lot of hot air (or burn your fingers typing unnecessary shit) and you don't really have to.

Now I don't have a problem with that and I certainly don't have a problem with those that stop by and chop game with my ass and info share, exchange ideas and big up the movement, what I tire of is how folks can stand right in front of you, or listen to you, or see or read you, nod their heads in agreement and then let that shit roll out of their other ear like nothing, knowing there will be a pop quiz shortly just to see if you really were paying attention.

So I've decided to enter a holding pattern of sorts to see if blogging is something I want to continue to do. If I have the time, I'll put up my works so you can check them out but I must say that seeing as I need to get back on the road and do my thing, my focus has to shift to that as well. That is where my head is at right now.

I am not the town crier, I am not a talking head. I'm not really a "blogger" in the sense of how bloggers relate their spin on politics and such to the masses, I am an artist who enjoys being in the midst of creation. I haven't been in that realm for the past couple of months, it's time to place myself back in that neighborhood and finish what I started. Than means getting home and putting my focus on what matters, that art y'all are voting for over there.

Happy born day Nikki... I wish you heaven.

Peace Y'all

Hassan Versus The Voices Pt 1

So this one time when I was grown but not a man, I was fat. I mean straight overweight. I went from eating a healthy army meal to at least 8 pieces of chicken and 3 liters of soda a day. And that was just one food group. I had a girlfriend that was miserable. I knew that she was unsatisfied with her life and my bloated ass made it no better.

Misery needs company.

Every morning I woke up, got dressed and went to work. Had big lunches and spent money on fly ass clothes. Had friends that went out with us and we ate, drank and was merry. We did everything together. It was fun, they were miserable too. Hell, they didn't even belong together.

I had bloated over 400 pounds but I carried it like I was 350. It was no problem to be me. I had friends, a woman and money so what was the fuss? There was no fuss until my main man DJ MorninMan got married to the love of his life. That's when I realized that even though I got the bomb on the in-house, this woman would never become my wife.

Did you know that she didn't even like me?

Word is born, son. This lil chica was just playing out the string, waiting for the end to come, though she never wanted to press the panic button herself, she knew that one day I would just snap... And end it all.

And then I lost my job. Okay, I quit and went somewhere else and lost the downtown hustling privileges one gets when he works with the true players in downtown Chicago. I was relocated all the way out near the airport, so no more seeing a plethora of blazing beauties on the regular.

The money was fine, but it wasn't like the money from the old job. Our friends started having problems when they were away from us. They only started hanging around more to keep from arguing with each other. We would just have fun drinking and going to karaoke. Me and the sister from the other couple used to have these heart to heart talks and thangs. We wanted to switch partners because we believed that my girl and her guy were perfect for each other seeing as we saw them as deadbeats.

The nerve.

Then that one day came. I got fed up in being in a one sided relationship, hated my position and hated egging on my girl and my homeboy in that couple that hang out with us.

We deserved more.

I didn't know how to get it.

Maybe I did, but that meant...


Yep. She had to go. They did too. Job did as well. How would I live? Where would I go? Who would love my broke ass?

Shit.

The cost of making change definitely outweighed reasons to stay. I didn't want to be lonely and struggling. I never wanted to be in a destitute situation. I didn't want to make a mistake like getting rid of the people that could help me out financially if I started down this road of doing things for self. I had already lost weight and got down to about 330. The weight got scared off because of the diabetes thing but I knew that lounging around 350 wasn't enough. I was still unhealthy and needed insulin to get by. All of a sudden, like in a split second, the relationship ended with sistergirl after damn near a decade and a half. I found a place to stay that cultivated my artistic side. I found a new job and gained a best friend out of the deal. I started dating a personal trainer and we moved in with each other. How did I do this and so quickly?

That's a secret that I'm willing to share with some, not all.

The first thing I did was change my internal dialogue. How I spoke to myself determined the course of my day, matter of fact it controls one's life. I knew that a long time ago when I said that "This is going to be a shitty day", 'shit' happened. Seriously, I would steer myself right into the biggest shitpile... You should have seen me back then. Why is it so natural to talk yourself into being surrounded with bullshit? Is there comfort in chaos? My brain functioned properly, All my chubby fingers and toes worked. I had been given and was taught how to maximize my common sense. I had faith in the Creator and knew that gifts had been placed in my path for me to succeed, but why didn't I do what was best for me? Why couldn't do right by myself?

Because I talked myself out of all of that stuff.

A mentor told me to write down all of the stuff my 'little voices' told me when I was able to hear them. Like a bad Steve Martin movie, at some point, I started to hear all of these different voices during given situations. Sometimes I was a master ventriloquist doing new voices and sabotaging my own shit. When I was shopping, one voice told me that I wasn't worthy of me spending money on me, even though I worked hard for my loot and was deserving. Other times when a sister was giving the big man some rhythm, a little voice would tell me I was too fat to even have her extend the courtesy even though she was right there... Extending courtesy.

My little voices were telling me to stay in the house, not do anything and just clam up because I wasn't shit. I was a fat, miserable lonely man incapable of making things happen because I micromanage everything and overconsume all the time. Why were my voices telling me these things? How come when I was getting ready to do the do my little voice would throw that sexual assault thing at me? Why is it when I felt bad my little voice told me to eat my problems away, even though I was insulin dependent at the time and overeating would blowuptuate my blood sugars sending me to the hospital? Why did my little voice tell me that I was ugly and not worthy to be loved every time I brushed my crooked teeth? That my eyes were too big? That taking out another student loan to go back to school was not only a waste of time but would make my big, black, Professor Klump looking ass (I shole' looked like him too) overqualified and under appreciated in whatever job I took? Why did they tell me to stop writing music?

And why when I asked my little voices why they lived to sabotage me, they blamed their reasons on shit that happened from way back when?

They told me they were scared.

Fear of the unknown is the major reason a whole bunch of isms' are prevalent in society today. Being in fear I learned, is a matter of choice. I learned this over time: If I chose to live in fear, then I'm wasting time The Creator has given me to make change and touch others. Why else would I still be here? I lived in a disfunctional black family with an alcoholic as the matriarch. I got touched as a kid. My dad drank himself into a cocaine addiction and then my mother left him, leaving my little brother and sister fatherless from the late 80's to early 90's (the time I was in the military). I survived alcoholism after I enlisted into the service during wartime. I survived growing up on the streets in one of the most violent neighborhoods in America and came out unscathed. I got a chance to travel the globe and live in other countries, not for a few months or for vacation time, but for years. I beat a few scares with growths in my body and with diabetes and reconstruction of 2 major bodyparts and after all of that, I am damn near ideal weight, off of insulin and don't even have a limp after having my knee rebuilt.

What can I be scared of now?

And why when I asked my voices that shit did they gang up on me and started to close in?

Listen To Yourself...

Do you hear that?

What in the hell did you just say?

Why do you speak to yourself like that?


If you had the chance to give yourself a pep talk each morning, you know, that time in which you're looking into the mirror right before you leave the house. You know, the self-sexy check?

Riiight.

Okay, so if you had a chance to give yourself that talk, what would you say?


(stolen from LadyLee)

*crickets*


Okay, so why does the answer to my question differ from the one you already give yourself now?

Time to change your internal dialouge, eh?



More to come on this... We gotta talk, fam.