I Saw A Tweet Today That Said: “If You Love Someone, Please Don’t Fuck It Up”

The Feeling Here Is That If You’re In Love With Someone, Then You Should Cherish It And Never Take It For Granted. If You Truly Love Someone Though, And Understand/Appreciate The Merits Of That Love On Your End And Your Partners End, Then There Is No Way That You Can Fuck It Up.

This Is Different From Those That Feel ‘Comfortable’ In Relationships And Are Just With Someone To Ride The Wave, For The Sake Of Not Wanting To Be Alone (Even If It Doesn’t Make Sense To Be With That Person) Or Just For The Sake Of Being Bored.

I Feel, As A Result, That Not Everyone Has A Soulmate, Strictly Based On The Lack Of Recognition Of Those ‘Love Merits’. This Is Not To Say That People Can’t Be Compatible With Each Other, Which Is Certainly Not The Case, But To Have A ‘Soulmate’ Would Mean To Have A Certain Knowledge And Understanding Of How Love Works, And That Is An Understanding Few People Can Attain To. Love, The Noun, Has Been So Diluted Over The Years That It’s Easy To Think You Know What It Is, But The Totality Of Love Is So Powerful That It’s Almost Esoteric In It’s Existence And Ethereal In It’s Standing Within Our Conscious.

The Only Way To Enter Into That Stratosphere Is To Learn To Comprehend Love In A Holistic Way, And Not To Sell It Short Like We’ve Been Taught To Do.

Love Is Powerful And That Power Most Certainly Works Both Ways.

Appreciate It.

Everything Was So Different As A Child.

Hopeful. Optimistic. Worthwhile.

When Timeless Icon’s Leave Mother Earth It Almost Makes You Think “Well, What’s The Point?”

2009, Which To Me Was The Biggest Asshole Of A Year, Felt Like The Beginning Of The End Of Optimism And Longing.

We Lost Britney Murphy, Natasha Richardson, Farrah Fawcett, Les Paul, DJ AM, Dom DeLuise, Ted Kennedy, Billy Mays, David Carradine, Patrick Swayze, John Hughes, Ed McMahon, Walter Cronkite, And Michael Jackson (Just To Name A Very Short Few)

Since Then We’ve Lost Amy Winehouse, Etta James, Don Cornelius, Teena Marie, Leslie Nielsen, 3/4’s Of The Golden Girls, Tony Curtis, Alexander McQueen, Steve Jobs, Patrice O’Neal, Joe Frazier, And So Many Many Others That I Can’t Bare To Remember But Will Never Ever Forget.

It Seems Since That Barrage, Death Has Showed Up In Unimaginable Ways That Never Seem To Make Sense. And It’s Not As If These People Are Dying From Natural Causes, It’s Always Some Freaky Kind Of Death Like A Skiing Accident, Accidental Overdoses, Different Kinds Of Suicides And The Like, Just When It Seemed A) You Couldn’t Possibly Fathom Them Dying Or B) They Were Turning Their Lives Around In Some Capacity.

I’m Sure The 24 Hour News Cycle & The Twitterverse Don’t Help, As In Some Ways, We’ve Kinda Forgotten How To Mourn Properly (Not To Mention The Availability Of Asshole Comments From People With Seemingly No Moral Compass).

You Would Think That Living In A World Where You Know You Won’t Live Forever Would Make It At Least Understandable, But No, It Still Hits You Like A Freight Train And Feels Like Absolute Shit.

I Don’t Ever Recall This Many Notable People Dying This Quickly And This Close To Each Other. It’s A Circumstance I Don’t Think I’ll Ever Get Used To. And Considering The Breeding Of Timeless Icons Are Kind Of Hard To Come By These Losses Weigh That Much More Heavily.

I Don’t Know, All This Stuff Takes A Toll On Us All And It’s A Burden That Is Becoming Heavier And Heavier To Shoulder.

For The Sake Of Their Legacies And Their Leaving This World A Better Place Than When They Got Here, I Guess All I Can Do Is Continue To Hopeful And Optimistic And Believe That Something Good Will Come Out Of All Of This.

Something Has Too, Right?

“The Same Cycle Has Made This Game Psycho/You Can Keep Your Ke$ha’s, Just Give Me Back My Michael’s” (c) Darth Dream

I’m Starting To Feel That [Almost] Unavoidable Pressure From Most People In My Life To Do Something. Those [Almost] Unavoidable Crossroads In Which Now Is The Time In Which I’m Supposed To Decide On The Rest Of My Life, As If That’s Something You Can Do At 22; As If People Don’t Have Various Changes Of Hearts; As If People Who Get Married Young Are Immune To Divorce 5, 10, Or 15 Years Down The Line.

Life Is Malleable, Which Is Evidenced By The Food We Eat, The People We Talk To, The Clothes We Wear, The Interests We Enjoy, And The Skills We Learn/Unlearn Etc..

The Only Thing That Happens During This Point In Someone’s Life, When Being Pressured To Live A Life That They’re Not Absolutely Certain About, Is The Guarantee That You’ve Just Put A Down Payment On Your Own Mid-Life Crisis.

Mid Life Crisis’ Happen To Those Who Seem To Forget Like They’ve Left Something Unfinished Early In Their Lives And That There’s Suddenly Not Enough Time To Live Out All Of Your Dreams And Fantasies.

There Are A Million Different Ways You Can Turn Once You’ve Hit These Various Crossroads And It Mostly Has To Do With How One Interprets ‘Dreams’ As They May Mean Different Things To Different People.

For The Young, Dreams Are Everything That We’ve Known Since Childbirth And As We’ve Grown From Innocence, Our Entire Purpose In Life Becomes To (Subconsciously And Eventually Consciously) Actualize Those Dreams As Best We Can And Try To Transfer All The Images We’ve Known Since Childhood Into Something That Will Carry Us Now And Mold Us As We Grow Older.

For Older Folks, Dreams Can Mean Either One Of (Maybe) Three Things Depending On If They’ve Gotten The Opportunity To Actualize Their Own And If There Is Any Lingering Bitterness If They Had Managed Not To. There Are Those Who Fully Endorse The Dreams Of A Younger Generation, Knowing That Creative Freedom And/Or The Freedom To Pursue Comfort And Happiness Through Their Own Vision Is Essential For Sustaining Life. On The Flip Side, There Are Those Who, For Whatever Reason, Were Not Able To Fully Actualize Their Dreams And Resent Themselves And Others For It, Falling Into A Machine-Like Way Of Thought Where The Only Way To Find/Achieve (This Arbitrary Definition Of) Success Is To Follow A Formula And Become Another Link On The Conveyor Belt Of Mediocrity.

I Realize The Harsh Generalization Of That Last Group (As Some People Might Become Happy And Content With A New Reality, Which Also Is Perfectly Fine) But I Feel That This Is Where The Pressure To ‘Be Somebody’ Is Birthed From. It’s Been Well Established That Everyone Is Not The Same, Thus We All Use Different Barometers To Measure Our Own Progress, But Because We’re Infatuated With This Particular Formula Of School & School & Work & Work & Love & Marriage & Monogamy & House & Kids & Life And So On…We’re Sometimes Forced To Live Life By Someone Else’s Standards And It Is In That Very Moment That We Begin To Stunt Our Development And Diminish The Chances Of Actualizing Our Dreams As A Result.

Everyone I Know Has Felt, Is Feeling, Or Will Feel This Particular Pressure At Some Point In Their Lives And It May Not Be A One Time Thing But The Only Way I’ve Known How To Alleviate It Is To Stay The Course That You’ve Set For Yourself.  No One Wants To Wake Up 20 Years Down The Road And Realize That They’ve Been Living Someone Else’s Life.

Your Life Is Your Own, And No Matter What Anyone Says, No Matter What Conventional Rules And Illogical Formulas Tell You Is The “Right Path” To Success, No Matter What Kind Of Pressure People Put On You, Remember That No One Can Live Your Life For You So It’s Up To You To Fulfill Whatever Purpose You Feel That You’re Alive For.

The Influx Of Rappers That We’ve Seen Emerge Over The Past 5-6 Years Has A Lot To Do With, In My Opinion, Something Other Than Just Money.

Unlike That Other Contemporary Form Of Music, Hip-Hop Is Malleable And Ever-Changing. Of All The Hip-Hop Songs You’ve Heard In Your Life, There Are Plenty More That You Haven’t Heard, In Ways That You’ve Yet To Come Across Or (Possibly) Think About.

Everyone Has A Story, And Everyone Is Vain Enough To Think That Their Particular Story Is Worth Telling (It’s Also The Reason I Believe People Start Their Own Blogs).

Most Everyone I’ve Come Across In My Life Are Children Of Hip-Hop. It’s Only 33 Years Old (Officially) Despite It Seeming To Be Around Since The Advent Of Vinyls And Microphones, So It Has A Ways To Go Before It’s Ever Considered “Old” (Though The Internet Has A Way Of Making Us Feel Older Than We Should Feel).

Because We Are All Children Of This Great Medium, And Because We All Have A Story That We’re Vain Enough To Think People Want To Hear, (And Excluding One’s Need For Money, Chains, Cars, And Clothes) We Tend To Start Rapping.

Everyone Who’s Ever Been Affected By Hip-Hop In Any Way, Shape, Form, Or Fashion, Has Written Rhymes At Some Point In Their Lives. It’s As Natural As Singing In The Shower, Starting A Band In Your Garage, Or Trying To Do The Moonwalk. We’ve All Done It. All Of Us. (Poetry Counts).

The Difference Between The Innocence Of Those Activities And The Influx Of New Rappers And Rappettes (Yes, I Just Said That) Is That The Software Used To Create And Cultivate Those Particular Activities Has Become Easily Accessible, Thus Turning The Internet Into One Giant A & R, Thus Eliminating The Need To Stand Outside Of Some Label’s Building, In The Cold, Waiting To Pass Your Demo Off To Some Nigga Who Could Care Less.

Hip-Hop Isn’t The Only Medium To Change As A Result Of This Access Though. Photography, Videogrophy, Visual Art (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.), And Other Forms Of Contemporary Art Have All Seen An Increase In Activity Since It Was Deemed “COOL” To Walk Outside With A Canon/Nikon Around Your Neck. (Flannel Shirts x Fixies Not Included).

I’ve Come To Accept That It’s Part Of The Times And I’ve Stopped Trying To Fight It (Because It’s An Exhausting Fight). I’ve Come To Understand That With Everything, There Will Be Peaks And Valleys; Ebbs And Flows.

I Understand Also That There’s A Fight For Originality And Creativity, One Which I Am Totally For, But Believe Rests In A Somewhat Different Argument. I’m Just Giving You My Reason For Why I Think Things Have Gone Down The Way They Have.

So, The Next Time A Rapper, Producer, Photographer, Painter, Director, Journalist, Or General “ARTIST” Passes Their Work Along To You In An Attempt For Feedback And/Or Support, Just Remember That They Too Have A Story, And That They Put Enough Work Into Trying To Get That Story Across To You In A Way That Makes Them Feel Fulfilled.

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But, If They Can’t Do Any Of Those Things, PLEASE Tell Those Niggas To Stop.

People Are Natural Dreamers.

If All You’ve Ever Been Exposed To Was The Beauty Of Nature Your Entire Life, Then Naturally, You’d Want Something Different.

A Little Something More.

There Are A Lot Of People Who Are Not Born Of Nature’s Beauty Who Aspire Everyday To Where Those People Already Are.

Contention Is Not A Natural Quality.

To Be Curious Is To Be Human. It’s Why We All Have Imaginations.

There Is A Wanderlust Inside Of All Of Us That Deserves To Be Paid Attention To.

This Is Not Because Of Greed Or Selfishness, But Because We Are Born Dreamers.

And As Such, We Have An Obligation To Feed Those Dreams With A Reality Just As Vivid And Just As Intense.

darthdream:

Can You Imagine Being Consumed By And/Or Consuming Something So Much That You’re Numb To It?

Like When You Take Certain Kinds Of Medications And They Stop Working Because Your Immune System Is Already Used To Effects.

That’s What It’s Like When I See Anything That Has To Do With Beyonce Or…