Thank You Mr. Crab

So, I've been unemployed for a while now and trying to find my way. Along with my unemployment came feelings of being unaccomplished and frustration. I felt like I was 18 all over again. Thoughts of going to the military to gain some skills and make myself more marketable. Thoughts of going to college again. Feeling like I wasted years of my life in education now that I'm going in a different direction.

My mother reunited with an old friend and bragged about his connections/network. He had me call some people for what I assumed to be guidance and support. I spoke with two of them. One was a younger guy around my age that was very encouraging. The other seems to be older and possibly more accomplished. The older one had a no nonsense approached and ended up advising me, "cut the hair, cut the crap."

Maybe I was foolish enough to believe that the world wasn't so caught up in being clean cut. I guess I saw that episode of Living Single when Kyle refused to cut his hair and made the mistake of thinking that was based on reality. My conversations through email got more intense with this older guy and eventually ended up in me exploding and telling him what I thought about him. To me he was another example of a black man that excels and instead of helping uplift others kicks them while they're down. Luckily I had the privilege of communicating with this guy.

I remember writing a poem called ex-girlfriend. The last line of the poem was the deepest to me. It said, "A young black man trying to survive in this world, who woulda thought that his poison would be a young black girl."

I know that I'm still young, but reflecting on that line now, I can see how young I truly was when I wrote that statement. I had heard the stories about black people being like crabs in the barrel, pulling each other down. The more I experience life, the more I am revealed to the truth in that story. As militant and pro black as I feel inside, it goes against all of the logic that I should have obtained from my experiences. Black people have always been more detrimental to me in life and yet I constantly speak of racism and bias from white people. Is there something wrong with me?

Love vs In Love

Today I was listening to Steve Harvey on the radio. I stopped listening to Steve Harvey a while back because I didn't like his all about women kiss ass technique of giving advice. But, when I chime in on an seemingly interesting conversation on the radio, I usually stop to hear the debate. He was advising a woman that when a man says he loves you but is not in love with you it really means he can live without you.

To me it is annoying when people compare love with in love. I honestly thought these were terms made up by women to continue to make it difficult to communicate with others. I guess that if you are in love with someone it means, you currently love them and if you love someone it means that you loved them at some point, but you don't love them the same anymore. Instead of saying, I love you, but I'm not in love with you, why don't people just say I loved you or I don't love you anymore??

I tried to relate to this idea by thinking about an ex girlfriend. If she were to ask me if I love her, I'd say no. Did I ever love her at some point, yes, but do I currently love her, no. I wouldn't use in love or love to describe the way I feel about her. If you are no longer "in love" with someone, that simply means you don't love them. Maybe you still care for them but why use the term love to describe what you don't currently feel? Seems misleading to me.

Maybe some feel that love is supposed to be unconditional, so if you ever loved someone you will always love them. I doubt this is the case, but if it is most people don't love unconditionally. We usually love the other person under the condition that they still love us. I guess I'm weird in believing that love is love. When I tell someone I love them it means, that I care for them on a deep level, the deepest level that a word could express. That applies to everyone that I tell that to. My love for two people may be different, but the meaning of love stays the same. To say you love someone, but are not in love with them is just a way to confuse someone into believing that your feeling are deeper that what they truly are. Simply put it's just a way to be deceitful.

New Quote

"Those who want everything get nothing because they aren't satisfied with something."

I guess life inspired this quote. I love quotes and old sayings because I find them useful and very insightful. Whenever I come up with something, I'm worried that it was just something that I heard somewhere and its not really something original. I love this quote though. It applies to multiple situations and I feel that it is true more often than not, especially in my experiences.

While I'm writing right now, I am reflecting on a time when this quote was very applicable. College. I remember hearing about high rates of unemployed college graduates while I was in school and it didn't come as a surprise to me. Although, I didn't know a lot of unemployed college graduates in my mind, it just made sense. I imagined people that graduated college and thought that the struggle was over. After graduating they expected employers to knock at their doors to recognize their accomplishments. When employers didn't knock down their doors, they went looking with extremely high expectations. When they didn't find that 100K+ position willing to hire them, they wouldn't settle and decided that unemployment would be better. Again, I didn't know many, but in my mind this is how it worked out. Those who want everything get nothing because they aren't satisfied with something.

That word settle bothers me. I remember watching a broadcast about why there are so many single black women. Although, I recognize the lack of "suitable" black male counterparts for black women in our society, this triggered more thinking. Women love to talk about how they are not willing to settle, but I think that more often than not their lists of requirements are unreasonable. At age 21 when women are sought out by a majority of men suitable and unsuitable that list contains 30 requirements (give or take 30 requirements based on how beautiful society at large considers that woman). When that woman approaches 30, whether beautiful or not, the list has lost a minimum of 15 requirements. For some reason, the 30 year old woman doesn't consider her lack of requirements settling anymore. She thinks back to the men that possessed 19 of her 30 requirements that she wouldn't give the time of day back then. Now that she would consider talking to him, for some reason he's not as passionate about her. Is this the wisdom that only comes with age? Those who want everything get nothing because they aren't satisfied with something.

I consider myself a jack of all trades type of person. I still feel that I can do anything I put my mind to. I wonder to myself, 'Why am I paying someone else for this when I can do it myself?' After all if he/she can do it, why can’t I? Taxes, car repairs, providing information, etc. But then reality hits me and I realize that there is no way I can learn to do everything. That was when this quote first hit me. I felt that I was the jack of some trades and the master of none. That thought first came to mind when a friend talked to me about moving to Africa. I entertained the idea, but I couldn't imagine moving and not having any skills to contribute to my society. Since quitting the teaching profession, I have struggle with feeling useless. I don't regret my years of teaching because if nothing else it provided me with a wealth of stories and memories. However, since looking for a new career I have realized that I'm 27 years old. Not old by any stretch of the imagination to the unyoung, but when I'm looking at my 27 year old counterparts with multiple children, married, 5 years into their mortgage it makes me feel like I wasted 5 years of my life. A majority of these people have experience in a field that they can teach. Maybe I could have been a teacher teacher if I was a good teacher, but I'm sure I don't have enough experience for that. Now I am seeking to become good if not great at something. I wonder to myself if I haven't gained a skill because I was so busy trying to get all the skills and learn everything. Those who want everything get nothing because they aren't satisfied with something.

Perception Is Reality

The phrase that I have as my title is on that captured my attention many years ago. I understood this phrase, but I would have a hard time explaining its meaning to others. I feel that a lot of situations can be defined by this idea. When I try to explain it to people, I think they confuse the statement perception is reality with perception is truth.

Whenever I make the statement, I give a situation that I was given to help understand the meaning. A rumor. Tammy is a virgin. Someone starts the rumor that Tammy is a slut and sleeps with everyone. Although the truth is that Tammy is a virgin, everyone is under the believe that Tammy is a slut because of the rumors that they have heard. Those who don't know the truth, only know the rumor and treat Tammy as such. Since everyone believes that Tammy is a slut and Tammy is treated as such, the reality is that Tammy is a slut. The truth is that Tammy is a virgin.

This thought applies to many other situations that I think about on a day to day basis. When I think about the powerful affect of stereotypes and their effects. Whenever I meet someone from a culture outside of my own, its sparks great interest. I'm interested because of my open mindedness and my understanding that although perception is reality, it is not always truth. I want to learn first hand about the individual I'm encountering, their family, and their perspective of their culture. Although, I have already had ideas implanted in my mind prior to meeting them based on the media and previous experiences, I try not to let those experiences cement my ideas on who that person is.

Unfortunately many people are not aware that perception is not always reality. There are plenty of people who believe that all black people are dangerous, violent, criminals. More unfortunate is the idea that perception guides who many become. Although Tammy was a virgin, over time she may feel defeated by the idea that everyone perceives her as a slut and feel that there is no reason to maintain her virginity if it has no value to those perceiving who she is.

Why Are Men So Afraid Of Commitment?

As always, I don’t speak for a whole group of people just because I am an element in the set.

Marriage is a beautiful thing. Two people decide that they love each other so much that they want to spend the rest of their lives together. Despite the fact that most people won’t die at the same exact age, 41 to 50 percent of marriages in the U.S. end in divorce. I’m pretty sure that this is a well-known fact and I’m not trying to discourage marriage, but I’d like to explain why marriage is scary to me personally. This is one supporting fear, not so much marriage, but divorce.

#1 – Divorce. I don’t like to go into any venture with a negative outlook, but the number of divorce seems to be everywhere. Everyone makes mistakes, but divorce is a pretty big one. Being a former math teacher, I recognize that everyone makes mistakes (and the importance of erasers on pencils). Everyday mistakes include missing a lay-up in a pick up game, getting dissed by a random chick, or tripping over your own feet walking down the street. Divorce makes up a different set of mistakes. Other mistakes in that group are accidentally running over a child with your car, tripping over your own feet with a pencil in your hand and poking Mike Tyson in the eye with that pencil, or confronting the other man that’s having sex with your girlfriend in the back of the car you bought on Cheaters and getting knocked out 2 minutes later for the world to see.

For a better understanding see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w8Wp6dsQDo

#2 – Death. In my personal and possibly selfish opinion, the union of husband and wife would also represent the death of self for me. Not literally, but in taking on the responsibility of heading a family you have to make major changes. That to me means, lots of sacrifice, including your own personal happiness. I have seen and heard so many cases where people stay at a job they hate because of the need to provide for a family. I can’t help but compare it to my most recent career situation. For the current me, the loss of a job was pride crushing and insulting. For married me, that would have meant extreme financial hardship, an excuse for my wife to tell everyone that I’m worthless and get advice that she can do better, and possibly a drug or alcohol addiction. It’s not that I’m not willing to give up my own life and dedicate it to the happiness of a child, but I still feel too young to give up self-happiness. Maybe I just haven’t experiences the amount of happiness as most others or maybe happiness for others is providing happiness for someone other than themselves.

#3 – Change. I believe in sayings although I know that many of them are contradictory and situational. Two sayings that have always resonated with me are, “Never say never” and “Nothing lasts forever.” Of course, never say never because I’m a math teacher and that’s a double negative (a negative times a negative is a positive). No, but seriously these both made a lot of sense to me. Nothing lasts forever, really stood out to me when Andre 3000 used it in one of his songs (Hey Ya!). By the end of college, most people recognize that they’re completely different than they were in high school. That’s only 8 years! So what do you do 12 years into a marriage, when bodies and mentalities have changed? For many people, it doesn’t matter because at that point their love for their children and financial ties will take care of thoughts of divorce.

I’m sure that within 2-3 years after writing this I’ll be married, but I felt the desire to share this thought while I was thinking it. This may not answer many questions, but hopefully it will inspire thought which is a big part of the reason I write my blogs.

D. Jones & Pierre

I attended one of the nations best historically black colleges, Morehouse College. Whether the choice to attend that institution was the best decision for me will undoubtedly come up in one of my future blogs. During my time in college, I had the opportunity to experience a lot of things and meet some great people. Of those great people were two people that I considered good friends and fraternity brothers. One of them was D. Jones and the other was Pierre.

In addition to being my friend and frat brother, D. Jones was also my roommate in college. One of the experiences that he had lingers in my mind and has formulated what I call daymares for me. D. Jones has always been a very focused and intelligent student. After spending extra time in the lab one day, he got in his car and headed home from our college. He was driving a few blocks away from our school with his window down. When he stopped at a stop sign, a guy approached his car with a gun and got into his car along with two of his friends who got into the back seat. D. Jones said that the strangers smelled like marijuana. They stripped him of his clothes and shoes as they drove around the streets of Atlanta. They drove to an ATM and got money out of his account and he said he feared for his life. Luckily when they stopped at a gas station, he was afforded an opportunity to jump out of the car and run until he ran into police officers.

That experience has made me a more paranoid driver. When he told me the story, I couldn’t believe that something like that could happen to someone so close to me. Heck that could have been me driving to work for my overnight shift at the gas station. The fact that he was driving home from school and that his car was an older, basic necessity looking car was what threw me for a loop even more. At times, I’ve thought to myself that I feel safe from robbery because I don’t have anything worth taking. This disproved my theory. That incident often runs through my mind while I’m driving. When I’m driving around my own neighborhood and see people, I’m reminded to lock my doors. If I were a white person, I would surely be labeled racist. It seems like I have a frequent daymare of that situation happening to me. The scene in Menace to Society where Cain’s cousin gets his brains blown out and Cain gets shot in the process of them being robbed, doesn’t help much either. I guess D. Jones’ experience helped me to realize that movies aren’t always just movies.

Pierre was also a good friend. He came to visit me several times while I was living in New York with no friends or family. He would try to convince me to move to D.C. and become a teacher out there like he was. I’ll never forget the things that were said about him at his funeral. If you ever had the opportunity to meet Pierre, you would know that every word being spoken was accurate and true to his character. If you never had an opportunity to meet him, you would question the validity of the things being said and think to yourself, ‘Do people like this still exist?’ I’m still not certain what the cause of his death was or exactly how old he was when he passed. I know that he was only a few grades ahead of me and I was 23 at the time. I also know that his passing was related to a disease/illness.

Pierre’s passing at such an early stage of life makes me more appreciative of each day. I feel somewhat guilty about not writing about my family’s tragic experiences, but in time I’m sure those stories will be revealed as well. When I attended another funeral, the pastor at the funeral spoke of the sad song that people sing, “Nobody knows, the troubles I’ve seen.” He asked that people recall the story of Job in the bible while singing this song. He also asked people to recall the story of the father of the murdered 22 year old male the funeral was being held for. The father had recently lost his wife to a disease, almost lost his daughter to violence and lost his son within a 3 month time period. During a time of financial struggles and the struggle to survive such as the one we are all faced with in today’s society, I personally count my blessings. I would ask people to reflect on the words from one of my top 10 movies (Vanilla Sky) and ask themselves, “What is happiness to me?” With all that money can buy, happiness is not one of them.

An Email I Received

A Holy man was having a conversation with the Lord one day and said, 'Lord, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like.'

The Lord led the holy man to two doors.

He opened one of the doors and the holy man looked in.

In the middle of the room was a large round table.

In the middle of the table was a large pot of stew, which smelled delicious and made the holy man's mouth water.

The people sitting around the table were thin and sickly.

They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles that were strapped to their arms and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful.

But because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths.

The holy man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering.

The Lord said, 'You have seen Hell.. They went to the next room and opened the door. It was exactly the same as the first one.

There was the large round table with the large pot of stew which made the holy man's mouth water.

The people were equipped with the same long-handled spoons, but here the people were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking.

The holy man said, 'I don't understand.

'It is simple,' said the Lord. 'It requires but one skill.

You see, they have learned to feed each other.

The greedy think only of themselves.'

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I thought this was an excellent email. When I'm talking to my friends we often talk about how corrupt and unbalanced this American society is. If this email has any validity, then there really is a hell on earth and it's referred to as the United States of America.

This email brought to mind all of the people I have reached out to for information about employment, not a handout or a hookup. It shocks me how often people (specifically "my people") will withhold information about opportunities that will not negatively affect them, only positively affect others. I have way too many stories of that exact situation. However, I do have great examples of people not being so greedy or selfish that they're willing to help others even with something as small as time and information. Unfortunately, none of these examples involve "my people".

Happy Recession!

I decided about a year ago after going through yet another unrewarding year of doing my best and being scrutinized and devalued that I would no longer pursue a teaching career. Over the course of the last year, I was put into several positions of leadership and yet I was one of the first teachers my school decided to let go. I describe the whole event to friends by describing a situation where you want to break up with someone in a relationship but they beat you to the punch. There goes the 'we need black male teachers in our urban schools' theory. With the new school year approaching, I'm still happy about my decision not to put myself through anymore torture. However, I find myself wondering what's next for me.

Luckily as a teacher, you continue to get paid through the summer. Unfortunately, I assumed that you benefits continued through that summer as well. Luckily, I was able to cancel my dentist appointment after this discovery. Unfortunately, I had two doctors visits that I'll be paying for out of pocket. One of them was worth it because I received antibiotics for my developing pneumonia. I'm sure that the 5 minute doctor visit bill will come soon and that it will be something close to $500. The other doctors visit is very upsetting. I went to the doctor and the doctor looked at my finger and told me that I would need to get a very expensive MRI that he wasn't sure was covered by my insurance. That was the doctors visit! $200! That was the day I decided that I'm not going to the doctor anymore. That lessen the blow from the fact that I no longer have health insurance.

In my thoughts about new employment, I considered becoming a doctor. When I told my sister she was excited and told me that I could see my family and provide them with medical services for free. I quickly corrected her and let her know that I wouldn't be that type of doctor. I would be the doctor that you paid to tell you which doctor you need to go see. I figured that medical school would be a little faster. After all, I'm pretty good at figuring out what's wrong with people after they tell me what's wrong with them. So, you have bumps on your skin...hmm, I'm going to refer you to the dermatologist. If a patient comes to me with complaints about something physical, I'd try to convince them that they are just fine and then recommend them to a plastic surgeon. My fee would be that of the average doctor, $100/min (and you thought mechanics were bad).

They say that what goes up must come down. Unfortunately, what goes down doesn't necessarily come back up and shit rolls downhill.

Step Ya Game Up

I haven't been motivated to write any blogs recently. I'm smack in the middle of a month long vacation and I've been mad active (I'm in New York right now). Over the past couple of months, I've been motivated to step my game up in certain areas of my life. I'm not sure what my inspiration was, but I feel like I should try to pin point it for those who may read this so that others can gain from my sharing.

If I had to name a point at which my motivation started, I'd have to say when I watched the movie Bucket List starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. If you haven't seen it, you won't need to after reading my summary. If you wanna go watch anyway, that's cool too. The movie was about the two older gentlemen being diagnosed with cancer and discovering that they have only a couple of months to live. I remember how rational Morgan Freeman's character seemed and how when he heard the news, he recognized that maybe he didn't necessarily want to know. I watched this movie at a time when I had been debating with myself the validity of common sayings. One of the two that plagued my mind was the saying, tomorrow is not promised. This is a saying that is often used, but rarely truly believed.

I have been debating with friends about what this statement should mean in terms of how we live our lives. I definitely don't think that understanding this saying means that you go out and spend all of your money and convince yourself that there is no future. However, I think that procrastination has become such a way of life for most of us that we don't truly value time. I decided shortly before or shortly after watching that movie that I would stop putting off small or simple tasks that I could do now. So, I started to talk less and do more.

Before my month long vacation I went on a weekend trip to New Orleans. I planned out and executed a birthweek for the first time. I went on a cruise for the first time. I went jet skiing, then skydiving, and I rode a motorcycle (dirtbike, not sure if there's a difference) for the first time...with no prior training or lessons (I don't endorse it), went out of the country foreal (no bordering country, La Republica Dominicana), and now I'm back visiting NY again and on my way to Toronto. Granted this is an extreme vacation, I feel that I've gotten things done that I could have done much earlier in life but due to procrastination and the belief that I can do it tomorrow I simply didn't.

I guess the purpose of all this writing is to let the world know that I'm stepping my game up. I'm definitely not simply applying this attitude to vacation time, but I plan to apply this attitude to the way I study, the way I work out, and the way I live. I do endorse that idea.

$360,000 Gift

Number 1, when did young black males start having SWEET 16 birthday parties?? Maybe P. Diddy knows more about his son than everyone else or maybe this has become a cultural norm for black males.

Number 2, I don’t feel like I can relate to P. Diddy in any way financially, so it’s difficult for me to judge his actions. However, I think that buying your son a car that is about 7 times the average adult salary is a bit excessive. To quote T.I. from I Can’t Be Your Man, ballin’s all good but that shit’s just wasteful.

Number 3, P. Diddy has six kids. That’s six $300,000+ 16th birthday gifts. And how do you follow up on a $360,000 birthday gift. I guess that for his 18th birthday he’ll get him a house and for his 21st birthday he’ll get him a casino or a small island. All that times six.

With that all being said, I think that P. Diddy is trying to buy his children. I hope that after he’s done giving his children fish that he also teaches them to fish so that they are able to maintain the lifestyle that he provides for them.

Life Is A Mile Long

John, Betty, and Duane decided to race one mile. The three lined up at the start line and right before the race began, John turned to Duane and viciously kicked him in his ankle, breaking it in several places. John then turned to Betty and shoved her on the ground and took off running. Betty got up, dusted herself off and started running behind John. Duane cringed and grabbed at his ankle for several minutes. After about 4 minutes, Duane got up and began to slowly limp towards the finish line. A few minutes later the race was over. Before the race was over, Duane had picked up his pace and was quickly limping towards the finished line, but he was still far behind the others in the race. At the end of the race, John and Betty questioned, 'Why is Duane so far behind?'

This is the story of race.

Moral of the story - Life isn’t fair.

Am I A Failure?

My favorite video/computer game is called Civilization. I love the idea or discovering a world and trying to create the best civilization. The game is full of knowledge that I don’t really take advantage of, but just from playing the game so often, I have been exposed to a lot of historical information that I didn’t previously know about. I have combined the knowledge that I gain from playing that game with the information that I obtain from reading a textbook about society. I love this textbook so much because it addresses inequality, something that I think about often. I learned about apartheid a word that I was familiar with, but never had defined for me before. I also learned about social mobility, socialism, & capitalism, again all words & concepts that I knew of, but never had defined for me. This led to deep thought about why a socialistic society would fail and also why the current capitalist society in America fails me.

After being let go from my job, I didn’t ask any question about the reason I was chosen to be released. The reasoning was irrelevant to me because I didn’t value the opinions of the “leaders” of this school. It does however force my mind to wonder and consider areas of my professionalism that I need to improve upon. This leads me to examine other and what makes them more suitable for the job that I was released from. The reality that I was faced with at the end of my college career after being unjustly released from the NROTC program returns. Life is not fair. This is a phrase that everyone has heard, but rarely do we truly believe it. In a socialistic society it is more than obvious that life is not fair because despite the effort put forth, everyone lives the same quality of life. In our current capitalist society it becomes more apparent to me everyday that this statement holds true. The idea of capitalism is that those who work harder will receive more benefits for their labor & efforts. Although the idea is a fair one, this society is far from fair based on another quote/saying. Perception is reality.

Therefore, if it is perceived that you are working hard you will receive more. As I continue to work in the teaching profession, I realize more and more that I am alone in my mindset. I am a stickler for the rules and I believe that it is important to establish commonality amongst teachers. Every time that grades are release, I realize more and more that I stand alone in my thinking. My grades are based solely on numbers that I put into computers without emotion. Other teachers incorporate their feelings about the students and fear of the perception that they are inadequate due to their failure rate. Today another teacher sent her student to my class to take an exam. We were given strict instructions, not to allow additional time to students that left the room or reported to the room late. I didn’t allow any of the students to continue working after the bell rand, but she allow her student (that came late just as many of my students came late) to finish his exam in her room. Now when students are assessed it will appear that her students are more knowledgeable because they are given additional time. And since perception is reality, she will be looked upon as a better teacher than me because she didn’t follow the rules.