The First Love of My Life

Sometimes I just want the intoxication; I want to lose myself, sometimes.

Music, created for the faint of heart. But what power it possesses, the power to smother you with its words, and how you feel it, how you watch yourself waft up and sway with it, and as you float away, you wave goodbye, because you’ll be gone until the last vibration has worn out, until it’s faded away and we’re forced to be ourselves again.

And how it feels okay to lose ourselves, for a bit, because it seems when we return, we’re not the same person. Like something’s gone. But it’s okay, because it was something nonsensical and harmful and we didn’t need it anyway. And something has been lifted, and we can breathe, finally, all as we reminisce in the memories of the tunes, slowly flirting with the air around it, and we smile weakly and close our eyes, thinking about what we once were, what we thought we would be, and what will happen.

And how music makes us appreciate what we have, what we are, what we can be, what we see ourselves as, others as. And how the little things in life are suddenly enlarged, put under a microscope and displayed for those who want to see. How the rasp in one’s voice is multiplied and concentrated and seems to mingle and how beautiful it sounds, how singularly lovely it is, it makes you want to run, run to the utopia that is so rare, but you believe you’ll find it, because music has seeded the truth in you…a brilliance of hope, coming only in situations where you need it most.

Music can take you farther than any form of transportation ever could.

It can strengthen the emotion you feel.

Music can be created, or simply enjoyed.
Music is around you, your mom, your cousin, your crazy pet, your obsessed secret admirer, your boss, everyone, even if they don't take the time to notice or appreciate it.

Music can be encouraging, or make you feel like the universe will eventually collapse, because of its burning desire to crush all of humanity.

It can heal wounds that doctors will never be able to fix, and create tensions among even the most close of friends.

Music does things to people that even drive them to insanity, or cause them to commit a crime so unforgivable that they live out the short remainder of their life in a damp corner of a dumpster.

But it also acts a reminder;

A reminder of someone you love, a reminder of how much you despise your ex, a reminder of thoughts in the back of your mind that were never even contemplated until this very moment. It has the capacity to store secrets and stories within its meaningful lyrics and notes, secrets that no one except the one who wrote it can ever truly know about.

Music should provide company when you're alone, and solitude when around others. It connects events and times in your life and in others, with ideas and descriptions too powerful for human ears to understand. But we do try our best to believe every single word they pronounce, and every single note their guitar or piano creates. Often times, music is considered a religion, where the individual can be drowned out in sound and prayer, through whatever musical instrument or stereo system they own.
Music is and always will be all these things, and obviously it would be lying to say that it is not an important part of our lives.

It's certainly an important part of mine, perhaps even everything.

The way I see it, people can choose to be content with how they live, or take the wrong path and end up in misery for the rest of their lives, until they get hit by a bus or develop an incurable disease. The way I see it, music can guide you when all the maps in the world become inaccurate, and all the help in the world has disappeared.

Miracles can and do happen.

What is music, in any sense but a miracle? How can something so simple make us simply feel so much? And touch us so much?

Music can be born, but it will never die. It's immortal, just like time.

Curtain Please...

I am Girls Girls Girls in '01 released by Jigga
I am Nas waaay before he came out wit "Nigga"
I am Lauryn Hill when the Sweetest Thing was all she could know
I am Bob Marley getting ready to Turn My Lights Down Low
I am Weezy feenin' to release the Cannon
I am Common when all he wanted was his parenthood to come from plannin'
I made it Through the Wire and became a Golddigga just like Kanye said
I am Pac when he found out Brenda's baby was dead.
I am Janet Jackson when she was still a citizen of Rhythm Nation.
Shit, I am the first time you heard How Does It Feel and you got that tingling sensation
I am Talib Kweli just trying to Get By
I am Jadakiss just wondering Why
I am Whitney Houston when her bodyguard was a white man.
I am Aaliyah when she Rocked the Boat by the sand.
I am India Arie when she was Ready For Love.
I am Monica when he became her Angel from above.
I am just a dream when shit for Big was just getting Juicy.
I am when you just wanted to dance with Tony Tone and Lucy
I am Tyrone when Erykah Badu was telling dat nigga to call.
I am Papoose in the Law Library pullin' books off the wall
I will knock you out like Ladies Love Cool James.
I am the first time Destiny's Child told you to Say My Name.
I am when Ice Cube told you It Was A Good Day
I am when Naughty by Nature had you singing Hip Hop Hooray
I am when Jill Scott was living her life like it was gold.
I am when Boys to Men took you to the End of the Road
I am when Missy Elliot had alllll the boys feeling hot
I am when Usher told you the time was 7'o clock on the dot.
I am Not Guilty like Jay Z and R Kellz
Damn, I am the shit like Cam and Hell Rell

These are only a few, but the point is clear ain't no need to go through the rest.
Period. Point blank, Ladies and Gentlemen I am the best of the best.

*grins*

dreams.

Romeo: I dreamt a dream tonight.

Mercutio: And so did I.

Romeo: Well, what was yours?

Mercutio: That dreamers often lie...

Romeo: ...in bed asleep, while they do dream things true.

Hope.

A friend once said this to me : “Society just makes me so mad sometimes. But then I just think who cares. We’re all just going to die eventually anyways. And everyone's just too selfish and lazy to do any real good for the world anyways.” I thought on this awhile and realized something: Cynicism does nothing for me; I need to be an optimist. Too much so I think sometimes. I told her this and she responded, “I’m tired of optimism. All it does is hurt.” I thought again and I realized something else: That is what destroys life. Degeneration. We start happy and joyous and our world kills us. We have to fight back and be that happy one. We cannot just give in and be like every other defeated human.

Optimism is not a difficulty... when you fall to cynicism everything seems bleak; when you live in optimism everything is bright. Its not hard. Cynicism is hard. Just as frowning takes more muscles than smiling. If we allow our backs to be bent by perceived injustice we will never learn to truly enjoy ourselves

She told me she used to be happy, but it’s too hard now.

Joy is never found when one is lost in sadness. That seems obvious. Being happy is all a matter of willpower. You have to want to be happy. I know, that seems absurd, who wouldn’t want to be happy? What’s the point of being sad? The point of life? What is it? There is no point to life! And if there is no point to something should you not try to enjoy it all the more?

There is no great point, no world altering meaning. There is only one point: Pointless things usually are for enjoyment. And that is self. Our meaning is rooted in selfish things and selfishness engenders purpose, because we are here, by ourselves for ourselves. We are here only because we want to be here. That’s still not a point, nor a meaning.

Meaning is not real. It is self created. It is not found. You must decide for yourself what you enjoy and that is your purpose.

While reading this, I'll ask you now, whilst in the throes of true happiness, be it with friends or someone you love or something you love doing, have you ever questioned your purpose in doing it? The continuity of happiness, which is our purpose. The continuity of life.

Because life is for us and meaning made by us. Therefore we must create a meaning.

But no meaning is to be found in the realm of sadness because sadness, by definition, is rooted in a lack of meaning. And following this line of thought, the antithesis of sadness is rooted in doing something.
Searching.

Happiness is not found in the finding, it is in the searching and that brings us back to a former point: what are we searching for? What is the meaning?

We are searching for something to search for.

And that thing is inevitably something we will never obtain, it is when we realize this that we succumb to sadness, because if we do not ever find true happiness, what is the point? Those who are sad and apathetic have not yet crossed the next threshold.

Acceptance. A concept I have thought about before but never truly understood.

Its not finding true happiness that matters!

If we were always truly happy we would become disenfranchised with life, because there is nothing further. Because of this lack of meaning we would probably tear down our own happiness. Because we are all restless, we all want something to search for and when we have found it all semblance of meaning has been lost.

And so we have sadness.

Sadness when you recognize the need for searching, and sadness when you have found it. We are only truly happy when we know what we want, but cannot quite obtain it.

You might, at this point ask why? How?

Why do we need it and how do we find something to search for?

Purpose! We need purpose and we find the thing not by becoming apathetic and cynical, we find it by being optimistic, understanding that each bad thing is only a travesty if we allow it to be.

We keep walking.

Because if we don't we will wonder why we are walking and we won't know whether to keep going or to turn back.

So we walk.

And we find happiness in the walk.

I don't think we should ever question the understanding. We must learn to both accept and then react! Because when we question ourselves we have confused ourselves and thus lost our concept of happiness.

Don't be cynical. In cynicism we find loss and lack of action, in lack of action we find sadness and in sadness we find cynicism. It is a circle from which there can be only one escape:

Hope.

Homeless Culture in Toronto

The other night while driving home from the hospital with my Dad…we came across a homeless man who came up to our window and offered to clean our windshield in -15 weather. My Dad rolled down his window and coldly told him no, and started muttering some jibberish under his breath, and I took $20 out of my pocket and gave it to him through my window. My Dad looks at me, and told me I was crazy for giving the man $20 of my hard earned money and went on this power trip. He then told me I was SUPPORTING the homeless culture in Toronto. I disagreed, I just told him I was being humane and doing my part as a human being and lending a helping hand, he then told me instead of supporting it, I should seek to put an end to the homeless culture…so… .. .

How would I tackle the issue of homelessness in Toronto?

I think that’s a premature question – after all, maybe I wouldn’t need to. One of the greatest mistakes that we as a society make is our interference with other societies, groups, and cultures. Too often, we attempt to dictate terms to people we don’t understand, and we end up causing lasting damage as a result. Perhaps these people are living on the streets. Perhaps these people are living in poverty. The bottom line is that they’re living – they’re adapting to a way of life, and they’re making it work for them. Now, let’s assume for a minute that perhaps homelessness IS a problem, and not another group, culture, way of life, or society. Let’s assume that we’re looking at this whole situation as a problem. Why don’t we just get a big yellow bus, drive through the streets of Canada’s sprawling urban Torontonian nightmare, round up all the homeless we can lay eyes on, stick them into apartments, houses, or prisons somewhere from where they can be safely integrated into our definition of Canadian society? Doesn’t that just sound like a great idea?

Of course not. You’re taking people out of an environment they’ve become accustomed to, an environment they’ve grown into, and you’re forcing them to change the entire way they live. Chances are good that as soon as you’re not looking, many of these people will revert to what we perceive as a savage, barbaric, “homeless” form. One needs to look at this group as its own culture in order to make it better, because that is what they are. They are like an indigenous people – Toronto is their home, and the way of life they have chosen is their culture. To strip them of cultural identity is possibly the worst thing you can do for these people.

One needs to step right into that culture, become a part of that culture, and attack the causes of a culture’s problems, or crises – not the effects. So, you ask, how would I attack this issue? I would hire several full-time observers – both male and female, to eliminate any possible gender bias – to observe homelessness as a culture, and identify the difficulties and the obstacles this culture is trying to overcome. My team would observe all types and all sorts of homeless individuals – males, females, the young, the old, homeless in different areas, homeless of different backgrounds, and would attempt to identify causes and effects for the everyday problems that plague these people, like drugs, sexual harassment or abuse, and violence. They would identify the causes of all of these problems – who’s distributing these drugs to homeless citizens? Who’s producing the drugs in question? Who is instigating the violence – the homeless, or Toronto citizens? Is the media perhaps, in part, responsible for the mindset or the mentality of homeless citizens, or the bias against them by ‘normal’ citizens of Toronto?I would attempt to not only integrate those on my team into homeless culture, but I would try and have a homeless individual integrate with my team, and assist my team, as an ambassador, more or less. It’s crucial not only that we understand this culture as observers, but that we understand this culture from their own point of view. This ambassador, or consultant, would be crucial when weighing pros and cons of different projects, or courses of action. We can certainly enforce rights as we see them fit, but it’s a much more prudent idea to learn the way that Toronto’s homeless see the world, learn rights as Torontonians see them, and find a way to reach compromise between the two.

Now, my team must be able to assist through projects where we can – in situations of drug abuse, sexual abuse, assault, and any number of other situations on the streets, we must be able to provide aid, but not through direct physical intervention or confrontation. We must also learn to identify the true causes of behaviors in homeless society – is the drug problem the fault of the homeless, or the fault of the interfering third-parties from mainstream society who are supplying them? Is the issue of abuse against women the fault of the men and women on the streets, or does some of it have to do with the concepts taught by the media, and mainstream society? Is the issue of assault the fault of the homeless, or is there perhaps a greater cause? We can intervene, and target the homeless themselves for the problems in their culture, but such courses of action are temporary, misdirected solutions. If we’re the ones interfering with THEIR way of life, why should they be punished for that? Why should they be punished if our culture is corrupting their society?

We must attempt to help Toronto’s homeless learn both the pros and cons of their way of life, and ours, and allow them to make the choice of which they choose for themselves. We must be able to respect them as human beings, and we must prevent ourselves from viewing them as anything less, at any costs. Assimilation and handouts are not the answer here. We cannot take away their homes, or their way of life, for to do these things would cause even more damage to individual and cultural identity. If their culture is to change, they themselves must be the authors of that change. We must provide information, and opportunity for them to change their own way of life. Why? Why stand by, and watch, while terrible things are happening on the streets? Why allow bad things to happen? Simple. If we step in as cowboy diplomats and change it for them, we band-aid a situation that will burst as soon as our team is removed. That’s unacceptable.

We must provide a base of support, and assistance, but the bulk of the work must be done by this culture, for this culture, and as we hope to learn something from them, we should treat Toronto’s homeless as equals, delegates of a new and alien culture – after all, perhaps there’s something that we’ve yet to learn from them. We were given the opportunity, from our beginnings as foragers and farmers to cavaliers and horsemen to one of the most advanced cultures in the world to learn from our own mistakes. The homeless of Toronto must learn from theirs. We must assist them in making changes that will better their culture, but we must allow them to be the authors of change.

So Dad...I hope you read this and please know that urban aesthetic, travelling, the nightlife and soccer are not the only things I am passionate about in life! :P

Infidelity.

Humans: Eat, sleep, and reproduce. And some specimens, a little more besides. That’s it, really. The most advanced creatures in the world (about from my friends cockatiel, now he is ingenious), striving for the survival of our species.

So, I’ll be blunt: we need to have sex. I’m not flirting with you, I’m stating a fact.

It is not an uncommon practice in the animal kingdom for male and female to mate, then for one or other of the partners to flee. Humans though, we bond. Partners can last a life time without a need of replacement. Such ties can lead to a companionship continually full of passion and admiration, producing offspring – a mix of your genes to produce another life, a bond that will tie you more than a wedding ring, more than that wedding registration.

Sometimes, things go horribly wrong.

Some people… Meet Mr. or Miss. Infidelity.

CHEATS.
After being found out, which they always are, and rightly so, eventually, the excuses pour out of vile mouths, always hopeful to be forgiven.

PETTY EXCUSES; “It didn’t mean anything” with a response: “but it was worth jeopardising our relationship”Slightly funnier: “She/he jumped on to my face, and his/my penis just fell into me/her”Personal favourite: “Someone of the opposite sex, it doesn’t count”. Interesting – because it’s not direct competition, but it is still a betrayal.

Then there’s the “it’s not the cheating that hurts, it’s the finding out”.To which the response is somewhat more complicated.One of which I shall come to in a minute.

If you have cheated, you have betrayed your partner. FACT!!!

The only exception if you are in an “open” relationship. In which case, competition of “who is getting more”… I hear can be quite fun if carried through light-heartedly.If not a mutual agreement, one or both partners will feel some degree of inevitable pain.

But cheating? Once is bad, but you can learn from it. Twice, thrice, then you really are pathetic. And your partner is even more pathetic for staying with you if you treat them like this.

That, is of course assuming they know.

If you fail to mention it, here comes the response to “it’s not the cheating that hurts, it’s the finding out”. Not only did you betray them by giving your body (and more, commonly) to someone else, you betrayed their trust by not telling them. You deepen the wound with fingernails you’d spent three years growing, and then poured on the salt you didn’t want on your chips onto the bleeding wound. They, still hopelessly in love with you, live in a fantasy, believing. Believing. Believing what? Believing everything. They are ignorant to the world, by no fault of their own.

Some people want to live in this bubble - these are the people so mentally traumatised, that another setback could lead them to suicide. Frankly, and thankfully, there are few of these in the world comparative to the population.

Here, another excuse:
“I wanted to protect your feelings”
“Why? What sort of excuse is that?”
“Because I love you”
“Shame. Because I hate you” sorry, no, that’s not the response, though begs saying.
The actual words next: “If you loved me, you wouldn’t do that”
“It’s not that simple”
I’m afraid, yes, it is.

Some people think they are in love.Infatuation would be my diagnosis.Or a mentality and a history leading to any emotional attachment to be grasped clutched on to and intensified, to such a degree that its extremity could be mistaken for that of love.

Humans, build to eat, sleep, and have sex. And some specimens, able to build lasting relationships. Their instinct to reproduce, craving intimacy and sex, can lead them to cheat. Some do it purely for the variety.

But one kiss – it can be spontaneous. Sometimes inevitable, that’s the truth.If admitted, the relationship is reparable.

But sex - it takes planning. Plenty of time to say “no”, plenty of time to decide where your priorities lie. Plenty of time to say your own goodbye to a relationship. A relationship is imminently damaged. More so depending on the level of honesty from the betraying party. Forgiveness takes one of two things: A weak, retarded partner in desperate need of qualities this person can give, or a strong will and belief in the love that is shared.

Telling the person you’ve betrayed. Takes courage.

Humans are cowardly – few have this trait.

A contradiction by nature, some would say.

a necessity indeed...

Everybody is trying to live their life according to a music video. Everybody wants the girls, the cash, the cars, but nobody realizes these are just materialistic things. All things are glorified. Too many girls with bubbles in their hair, Dora bags on their back and smug looks on their face are pushing “extra” to another limit. As for the boys? Too many boys with all this “hood” bullshit seem to think that having a gun or pushing weight makes you hard. I doubt I would ever see anyone wearing a shirt saying “HEAL THE HOOD”. I wonder what a person trying to hire you for a job would say if you claimed you were from a hood. I highly doubt you’d get hired faster if you said you pushed crack and you were from the ghetto. So please stop repping your block like its hard and trying to mould our city into something it really isn’t. Remember you live in Toronto, Ontario not New York, Queens or Compton. I don’t think anyone who does live in a truly poverty ridden area really loves their predicament, if they’re experiencing strife and difficulties within their lives. There is a world outside your local crack block ladies and gentlemen.


Expand your mind and be open to everything. Education is an important thing that us young kids take for granted everyday. Without the proper knowledge, you won’t be heard or nobody will care to listen to you. Everybody wants pretty things, but NOBODY realizes that in order to attain these things, hard work is a necessity. Michael Jordan wasn't just born into this world with nice handles and I'm pretty sure Donald Trump didn't become rich by sitting on his ass all day. "Cause ain't no tuition for having no ambition and ain't no loans for sitting yo ass at home", says Kanye West.

intro.

Hello Toronto. Hello World.

I’m here. I can’t believe it myself either, and I had been throwing this idea back and forth in my mind for a while, but came to the conclusion, that it is really just innocent fun. Who knows if anyone will even read this? Why am I writing this “intro” to begin with?

My opinion – everyone has their own thoughts and judgements and they are entitled to them. We all have observations!

Do you ever get the feeling that you’ve got a lot going on in your head & heart and you have a lot of things to say and try out and share and you need somewhere to put it all and it would be so unkind to unleash it all on one person? Who really knows if people really care about all the things you forward to them? Enter Blog. It’s ideal because something, someone, somewhere, somehow is going to be able to receive my thoughts without complaining too much and just hold them–the good, the bad, the pretty, the ugly, the raw, the refined, the exciting, the boring, the helpful, the self-serving, the trivial, the tremendous–and pretty much just let them play out however they may…

What can you expect to see here? It’s not going to be a diary, nor a public picture album, I’m not going to post poems or short stories…I can’t even lie, maybe I will post those things…hmm…I’m going to play this one by ear…and make a mess of it.

My blog. My world…through my eyes.

xoxoxxx