The IT Factor

I don’t understand IT, but I think everyone recognizes IT’s existence.  To a certain extent, I feel like everyone possesses the IT factor.  IT is what helps us to relate to one another and makes Facebook and Google rich.  You can put your friends into circles, just like you do in real life.  Assuming you have friends to put in circles and that you use the circle method.  I’ve been frustrated lately because I’m not sure why I don’t have the IT factor, but I’m sure that I don’t have IT.

Tebow, the quarterback for the Denver Broncos has IT.  Scalabrini of the Chicago Bulls has IT.  IT is not always based upon something, but there’s something about IT that appeals to everyone.  The most popular guy in school has IT, usually the gothic person doesn’t have IT, but in today’s society anyone can find a group to relate to.  Even people that don’t have IT can find other people that don’t have IT and that becomes IT.  I even know people that have an abundance of IT.

I think about how 2pac says so many things I can relate to.

“Ain’t nothing worse than this cursed as hopeless life”
“I ain’t got no muthafuckin’ friends”
“Fuck the world”
“It’s just me against the world”

All of these things from one of the most popular hip hop artist ever.  Kids still talk about him though he’s been dead for over 15 years.  I guess when you’re able to express yourself on a public stage and you have a voice, those people that are tucked away thinking life sucks have someone that speaks their pain.  I think about all the people that hated high school or middle school.  I never hated any of my experiences.  And yet I still find myself sitting here felling like IT doesn’t matter. 

I can’t help but think about how when people ask me about my siblings and I tell them how many I have; they tell me how big my family is.  I always think, ‘Wow, I do have a big family…who woulda knew.’  My “friends” tell me how great of a friend I am, yet we know the same people and I never get the wedding invitations or the same calls they receive.  Quite frankly, I recognize reality. In reality, many words that people consider descriptive are action words.  You can’t be a smart kid and get in trouble all the time.  If you’re in jail, you’re not a good criminal.  If all of your students fail, you’re not a good teacher.  If you don’t have any friends and no one likes you, you’re not a great friend.  You’re not a great catch if no one wants to catch you.  If you don’t have time for a person, don’t show them affection and don’t reach out to them, you don’t love them.  I’ve heard all of the above and honestly it’s a little insulting.  If I were homeless, you would walk up to tell me how rich I am?

So, now I’m thinking about change.  The thing about change is that there’s no easy way to bring about change and change doesn’t always provide the results you seek.  I keep wondering if it’s something about me that’s I’m just not seeing or understanding, but since I can’t figure out how or what it is I need to change about myself I feel that I only have one other choice:  I must change those things around me.  I would like to just delete all of my memories, like a person with amnesia.  But, then I’m always worried about who I should and should not “erase” and how do you live and enjoy life with no memories?  One way or the other, I have to do something.  Like Michael Jackson’s album, this is IT.

Farewell Fair-weathers

One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself.

What goes around comes around.

These are statements we grow up hearing, but I find to be meaningless in reality.  I used to get frustrated by fair-weather friends, but they have become such a commonality throughout my life that I feel like I should be used to it by now.  But I feel that the notion is similar to how I tell people you can't get used to cold weather in Chicago, you can only prepare yourself better for the cold.  I feel like I've done a pretty poor job preparing for fair-weather friends.  I've had the conversation with real friends several times and I've been told that I expect too much from people, but it's only because I expect so much from myself.  Unfortunately I bought into the hype of the statements above.

When I first joined my fraternity, I can recall many times when I would meet other people that valued the bond as much as I did.  They all echoed the same feeling of expecting the bond to be stronger generally amongst at least a majority of members, but they failed to meet expectation.  These people would tend to become inactive members of the fraternity and later be asked why then didn't chose to stay active.

I'd need as many fingers as an octopus with human hands to count the number of times I have been stiffed in a "friendship."  When people visit my city, I drop everything outside of the undroppable to pick them up and drive them around touring my city.  If I'm without transportation, I catch public transportation.  When I visit other friends, the story seems to be unchanged.  I have to drive to meet up with them, IF they have time.  They would meet up with me, BUT...for a million reasons its not possible.  I wonder why I even desire friendship sometimes.  With this in mind, I moved back to Chicago to the comfort of family only to discover that the same is true with family.  I've thought about cleaning the slate and starting anew.  I've deleted the Facebook account and revamped the phone book, but its difficult to delete & forget about your entire history/past.  The older I get the more antisocial I get and the more I understand why people don't like people.


Happy New Year.

Beautiful Girls

What is it about a person that makes you think about that person all the time forever?  Why can't you choose who you do or don't think about constantly?  Why can you make the person you want to think about the person you actually think about?  I guess it's just the cruel nature of life that make you fall for the one person that doesn't fall for you.

This isn't based on a current experience, just a thought.  I remember in high school that there were girls that liked me, but when I recount high school I always tell people about my struggles to find a girlfriend.  I'm not sure if its a matter of beauty or just a lack of a connection.  When I was in high school I started talking to two girls at the same time.  I found them both equally attractive, but one took my heart and the other didn't.  Til this day I can't figure out why/how.  The one I didn't chose, was probably logically the better choice, but I still didn't choose her.  I've seen this dilemma in movies, but it's crazy how much it happens in everyday life.  I hear/see the same issue in every day life and it still doesn't make sense to me.  Why do women want a bad boy knowing that the bad boy can't provider her with the security that she desire?

Why do men in prison have so many more children than men that are trying to better themselves and are on the "correct" path?

Does Absence Make The Heart Grow Fonder?

I hate it when I can’t sleep, especially when I need to wake up early the next morning.

It seems like my mind wonders on forever with no end in sight.  My thoughts tonight led me back about 6 or 7 years to one of my previous relationships.  I remember a conversation that I had with an ex about sex.  It was a crazy conversation, but it doesn’t feel taboo to discuss it in this blog.  Like many of my other thoughts, I feel like this conversation was about sex but applies to life.  We were talking about why she doesn’t try to make sex great every time she does it.  Her argument was that if she tried her best every time then it wouldn’t be special when she did.  I argued that if you apply that concept to school then she would intentionally be a C student so that her parents would appreciate it more when she got an A.  We debated all night and I’m still not sure that there’s a right answer.

I fully understood her perspective because I feel like in order to appreciate good times; you have to have bad times.  I think about how much I agree with that stance and at the same time how much I disagree with it.  I recently commented on a blog (yeah, I’m not sure why either) about a former skinhead that went through a great deal of pain to have his racist tattoos removed.  Although I could understand why people felt like this was a good act I also couldn’t understand how you could applaud a person who used to hate and has decided to stop hating when there are so many that never hated in the first place.  It made me feel like I should have been a worse kid so that when I decided to turn my life around I would get more attention.  Somehow, I don’t think it really works that way for black people in America.  Compare the number of people that know Malcolm X as a hateful racist person to those that know of his view changes later in life.  Then again, he wasn’t a skinhead and didn’t go through a painful procedure to have his tattoos removed.

Alright, back to the title.  Does absence make the heart grow fonder?  I think about the fact that people look forward to the weekend so much.  When people get a vacation they travel or do something to celebrate.  However, when people have all week off because they’re unemployed or retired, they get depressed and feel useless.  When you have a crush on a person you are overwhelmed with love for that person.  Flowers are given, doors opened, constant touching but eventually that gets old or people use the excuse that they got old and things change.  If not for distance or some form of absence, things seem to get harder to appreciate.  It makes me wonder how people do any particular thing for any length of time.  For some reason, this concept is easy to understand based on how and to whom it’s presented.  If you ask anyone about eating the same food every day most people would agree that at some point they get tired of it.  Some people would argue that they could eat pizza every day if its prepared differently, but some would realize that even though they love pizza that would not be as tempting as egg foo young after having pizza for a week straight.  If you apply this concept to anything else then it becomes a great debate.  Personally, I’m tired of restless nights.

Nervous Confidence

I’m still not exactly sure when I got the balls to actually propose.  With my negative-real perspective on life, I always figured that I’d gather the courage to propose later.  Never did I think later would be now.  How do you decide what person you are going to be with for the rest of your life?  Before I did it I think I put life into perspective a little bit.  I feel like moments like this cross our paths all the time, but we never give them as much thought.  For so many men, there is a similar very short lived question that possesses the same or more impact on our lives:  What if she gets pregnant?  For some reason that question doesn’t carry nearly as much weight in terms of decision making, but usually requires a longer commitment .  I’m an analogy thinker and my mind always attempts to make experiences connect.

My latest connection, wrestling and proposing.  I guess to be more general I could just say competition and proposing.  There is a certain feeling that you get right before a competition.  Before I would go into a match, I definitely had confidence in myself, but there was a nervousness that came along with it.
'This guy looks huge, but I’m going to win anyway.'
'This guy looks like he’s never trained before, but what if he catches me slipping.'
I think all the time about the fact that I’m going to be married sooner than later.  I’m very confident that the woman I will be marrying is a wonderful person, but in this case disagreements and lack of self-confidence causes me nervousness.  Am I the husband type?  Growing up I’ve had girls tell me that I’m the relationship type, but I’m not sure that means the same thing.  I also worry about the disagreements.  They happen all the time in every relationship, but do I have the ability to contain my anger and not allow the straw to break the camel’s back (the disagreement to end the relationship)?

With the commonality of major decisions, I figured that I should be used to it.  I could have been scared to choose the wrong college.  Instead of just picking the one I thought was best, I could have continued learning my entire life and never have obtained a degree.  Everyone knows someone like that in terms of relationships, usually someone you refer to as family because they’ve always been there but never actually married into the family.  Maybe that’s why they call it common law.  Or I could have let the decision choose me.  I could have just waited until I got the letter in the mail saying, 'Come to my school and you’ll earn millions more over your lifetime.'*  I feel like people let decisions choose them a lot.  When I think about my mentality in wrestling it helps to relieve some of the anxiety.  Regardless of the match I always worked hard and I very rarely got pinned (never by my count and 3 times by crappy officials).  I’m sure this won’t be an easy match, but I’m confident that I’ll win.

* subject to ambition, socioeconomic status, drive, quality of education, who you know and luck, loans/loan interest not included

NBA Lockout

A few months ago, I had a conversation with a fraternity brother about celebrities/athletes.  He felt like he worked really hard to achieve his engineering degree and athletes shouldn’t make so much more than him.  I partially agreed.  Earlier today, I saw an article in a newspaper that said, “In a time in this country when smart, talented, intelligent people are struggling to make ends meet, faced with actual problems – not fake ones in sports – they’re actually thinking of canceling the season.”  This statement and many other thoughts about professional athletes spurred me to write this blog.  Granted I’m not an professional athlete, I feel that I’m open-minded enough to think about lives & situations outside of my own.

I wonder why athletes are scrutinized so heavily.  I feel as though I already know a possible answer and therefore shouldn’t wonder, so maybe a better question is why are people so short sighted?  Athletes are scrutinized because their salaries are publicized and addressed so often by the media.  Does anyone ever think about the owners’ salaries?  No.  Why?  Because no one really even knows who “the owners” are.  They avoid media coverage and being scrutinized by the public.  I studied a book about society that talks about the perceptions we possess in America.  We perceive rich people as having earned their money and poor people as the opposite.  Apparently this only applies to the non-athlete rich.  I guess in order to be smart, talented, & intelligent you would have to possess the talent to be a professional athlete and turn down the option to make millions.

As I drive through cities and suburbs, I often find myself wondering how hard people in luxurious homes worked to earn their status in society.  I guess they would be the owners of everyday society and accurately so since they own much of the property.  What exactly does a person have to do in order to earn their status?  I figure that not every person living in an above average position is a doctor/lawyer and has paid their dues through schooling.  Does schooling determine effort & worth?  What about the person who inherited wealth & status?  Should that person then be forced to earn their worth or should they be the beneficiaries of their ancestor’s hard work and how fair is that concept?

Although I’m not a professional athlete, I feel that they work hard in order to achieve what they have achieved.  They don't shovel rocks for 8 hours a day, but they practice extensively, every aspect of their lives is criticized & examined, and they perform on a stage regularly for about the same amount of time.  Is the stress they endure and the effort they put forth really that worthless, especially in comparison to the owners of the teams they work for?  They risk their health and well being to entertain millions.  Police officers & soldiers risk their lives everyday at work, so who then should take the financial hit and who is worth the least in society?  I think from the perspective of those who dissect athletes’ worth so much, it definitely shouldn’t be the owners.  Maybe a class in economics or an economist's feedback would do me well.  Regardless, I think people should be more considerate, especially people in the media whose opinions have such great power.

Love Yourself?

When I taught high school, I learned that people don’t mean what they say. As a general rule, we as a people say what we’re supposed to say. I say, “How are you?” You say, “Fine.”

As an adult, if you ask a high school student what they plan to do after college 98% of them will answer go to college. It doesn’t matter if the student never receives a passing grade, hates school, or can’t afford to go to college, they will always respond with college because it’s the right thing to say. Many times, people say things without thought or consideration. This led me to wonder if people mean it when they say I love myself. It’s not socially acceptable to say that you don’t love yourself or to lack confidence, so even if the latter is true, you never say it.

I recently had a conversation with a friend about interracial dating. In my mind the question posed was can you date outside of your race and still have pride and love for your own race? As a non-discriminatory dater who has dated outside of my race, I argued that it is very possible. I firmly believed this because I maintained my pride and love throughout my interracial relationship as I attended a historically black college. Then yesterday happened and questions arose.

Yesterday I saw a television show with a plus sized model. She said that she likes to date skinny or muscular men. This made me think about the actress/comedian Mo’Nique who has a clothing line named Big Beautiful and Loving It. It seems that in the current society your goal should not be self improvement, but self acceptance. Although I didn’t announce it, the first thought that ran through my mind was, if you love yourself so much why aren’t you attracted to people that are like you?

Usually when I think a thought like that, my mind reaches out for an analogy. Of course I quickly recognized that my latest thought countered my previous thought. As a black man who loves myself and has pride in who I am, why wouldn’t I date someone who is the same race as me? I still feel that my argument stands because I didn’t date outside of my race due to preference, but circumstance. However, I do recognize that there are many cases where this isn’t the case. The question then would be, can you truly love yourself and dislike those that are like you?

Socially, it is acceptable to date people that are not like you, but does that conflict with the ideals of self love. In college, I can recall several short girls telling me that they would never date a short guy. Their rationale was often because they didn’t want to have short children. Can you hate qualities that make you who you are and still love yourself?

Would it be okay to say, I only date white women because I don’t want to have black children, but then say I love myself?