Anyone who knows me knows about the fro. Some have given it names, many have asked to touch it, and most appreciate it. My parents and I fight over it. Now that sounds stupid, and it is, but my hair means a lot more to me than they realize.
We live in a cookie cutter society. For the most part we listen to the same music, watch the same terrible TV shows, dress the same way, talk the same way etc. It is the homogeneity of the American suburbs. It is something that I don't believe is good. It is something I actively try to avoid. Not to feel superior, but to feel different. I grow my hair out not to have an afro, but to show that one can be academically, economically, and socially successful without striving to fall within a standard image. I don't think there is anything wrong with the standard image, other than the idea of a standard image. I believe in individualism as equality. Not standards and guidelines to success.
I was told that I would never get a job with hair like this. I responded that I would not be willing to work at a place who did or did not hire me based on my physical appearance.
My parents don't understand that I need to have nappy hair. Not just an afro but fully uncut, unkempt hair. In a world driving me crazy more and more each day it is one of the only things I can look at and feel proud of. It is the byproduct of completely uninhibited growth, a representation of what I wish the children of the world got to feel spiritually and intellectually. It is my way of trying to recapture all the free growth stifled at every turn by the school system, job market, media, and politics.
I believe that one should be able to do what makes them happy, because it makes them happy. I can honestly say that I look better with short hair. Girls tell me that all the time. But right now, I don't care, because I love my afro. And when I get it cut, it will be because I wanted to get it cut, and for no other reason.
The Start of A Journey
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Thursday, February 9, 2012
A Negative Epiphany
What I really want is a quiet mind. This drive, this incessant thinking about the world and live and the universe and everything is terrible. I've come to the conclusion that the meaning of life is to find a way to live life without ever having to ask what the meaning of life is. And sure all these hours of thoughts give a superficial glimpse as to what life is, but at the same time keep me from actually living it. I used to lose myself in thought every once in a while, and now it seems I am permanently lost in thought.
A few weeks into sophomore year I found 'it'. Nirvana, Tao, Enlightenment, Freedom, whatever you want to call it, I had it. And although most rationales about 'it' say that you cannot have it taken from you, I am living proof that you can. I was living a life that should have been a television series. I was getting the best grades of my life, but most importantly I was happy. And it lasted all through junior year, all the way until senior trip, 2011.
It's not that there was anything about the incident that broke me, but moreso the incident in and of itself did. I was a firm believer in the good of the universe. Call me naieve, call me stupid, but for just over two years of my life I lived with the premise that if all I put out was positivity, that was all that would be returned to me. And for two years that was true. And then one day it wasn't. Obviously any realist or pessimist is laughing at the fact that I believed only good would happen in the first place, but that was my god. That was my salvation. It was what kept me alive. And with the terrible fiasco that was Santa Cruz, it was shattered.
My parents knew that I was depressed. They didn't understand why. They didn't understand that my whole belief system was shattered that day. Maybe it was growing up. They told me that I needed to find ways to deal with it. The facade that nothing had changed made school bearable. But I couldn't keep it up all day, and it fell apart at home. I don't know how to deal with things. I never learned, because I never believed in it. Necessity is the best teacher however, and I learned how to cope. Things were better, but there was still something missing. Today I understand that what's missing is life. There is a big difference between living by coping, and living. I can't live by coping anymore. It's a lie, a facade you learn to keep permanently, but its not you.
Everything changed. My outlook on life. I used to walk around the world in love with life. And now I walk around demeaning people in my head, feeling negative, feeling worthless. The ideas I come up with, about the futility of school, the hopelessness of elections are ideas I wouldn't have even touched on before, they are born out of my new found belief that things are not inherently good in the world. That fact makes me hate them even more. These ideas arose out of desperation to justify my pitiful lack of motivation to continue existing. They are not mine. They are a byproduct of losing everything that I believed in. And yet knowing that fact makes me believe them no less.
So the question remains, how does one continue living after killing their own god?
A few weeks into sophomore year I found 'it'. Nirvana, Tao, Enlightenment, Freedom, whatever you want to call it, I had it. And although most rationales about 'it' say that you cannot have it taken from you, I am living proof that you can. I was living a life that should have been a television series. I was getting the best grades of my life, but most importantly I was happy. And it lasted all through junior year, all the way until senior trip, 2011.
It's not that there was anything about the incident that broke me, but moreso the incident in and of itself did. I was a firm believer in the good of the universe. Call me naieve, call me stupid, but for just over two years of my life I lived with the premise that if all I put out was positivity, that was all that would be returned to me. And for two years that was true. And then one day it wasn't. Obviously any realist or pessimist is laughing at the fact that I believed only good would happen in the first place, but that was my god. That was my salvation. It was what kept me alive. And with the terrible fiasco that was Santa Cruz, it was shattered.
My parents knew that I was depressed. They didn't understand why. They didn't understand that my whole belief system was shattered that day. Maybe it was growing up. They told me that I needed to find ways to deal with it. The facade that nothing had changed made school bearable. But I couldn't keep it up all day, and it fell apart at home. I don't know how to deal with things. I never learned, because I never believed in it. Necessity is the best teacher however, and I learned how to cope. Things were better, but there was still something missing. Today I understand that what's missing is life. There is a big difference between living by coping, and living. I can't live by coping anymore. It's a lie, a facade you learn to keep permanently, but its not you.
Everything changed. My outlook on life. I used to walk around the world in love with life. And now I walk around demeaning people in my head, feeling negative, feeling worthless. The ideas I come up with, about the futility of school, the hopelessness of elections are ideas I wouldn't have even touched on before, they are born out of my new found belief that things are not inherently good in the world. That fact makes me hate them even more. These ideas arose out of desperation to justify my pitiful lack of motivation to continue existing. They are not mine. They are a byproduct of losing everything that I believed in. And yet knowing that fact makes me believe them no less.
So the question remains, how does one continue living after killing their own god?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)