it is what it is

Another trip on public transport and another moment of inspiration for the blog.

Sitting here, just looking out the window, eyes red from fatigue, T.I. Telling me to no forget about him, and the greatest copywriting book sitting in my bag, and it hit me, Sunday evening around this time, just after 8pm is the most peaceful time of the week, for me anyway.

If you manage to read this on a Sunday evening, then you're probably there in your pj's or just had a shower, got all your clothes ironed and packed, ready for the unexpected that the week ahead will bring, or you're just there lounging watching tv, either way, hopefuly you're at peace.

That ubiquitous type of peace, when nothing said or done can take you outta your zone. I get like this mostly on Sundays, which coincidentally is the day I seem to write my material for IDLT, maybe its they key to practice my writing, to get better at what I do, whatever it is, I wanna share it with you.

Got me thinking about how little time i've had recently to just sit and be at one, just chilling on my own, no interruptions, just enjoying my own company, you knw what i mean, just me, myself and I.

I once read that there are four enemies of peace that live within us all, avarice, envy, anger, and pride.  If those enemies were to be defeated, destroyed or even banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace. I'm trying to just get to where it is i wanna get to by the time i leave university, battling the four enemies daily, suffice to say, my Sunday peace makes me realise that i'm making giant leaps in defeating my enemies, and when you're in your moment of peace, just remember that you too are conquering that which aims to hold you down.

Stay Up

Saints Stay Up

Sitting here on my tube to Brixton, been a long day at work, mainly coz I'm tired as shit from staying up to watch the Superbowl. WHO DAT SAY THEY GON BEAT THEM SAINTS!! It dawned on me what I've thought for a long time was proven to me in the early hours of this morning.

The New Orleans Saints were a team that went from providing a shelter for Katrina victims, their own Superdome Stadium, a team with no home stadium seemingly at the bottom of the pile of the NFL pecking order,to a team who in '06 drafted Reggue Bush out of the USC and things started looking up.

Fast forward a few years later, a whole lot of player trading and a new head coach, and what you have are first time SB participants and eventual first time SB winners.

So what do they have to do with the thing I've long suspected, that sports, are a microcosm for our lives, which is why I think people speak about their favourite sports team as "us" and not "them".

Sports teaches us that with absolute effort and dedication to your goal, that the right frame of mind, confidence in self and those around you will only lead to one place, success.

Some of you out there might not watch sports, but you do have someone or something you look up to, who's positive and represents what you define as success, whether spiritually or financially, they're not where they are because they got lucky, they're there because through it all, through the adversity and tests that life threw at them, they triumphed.

"Our victory last night was the culmination of four years of hard work, fighting through a lot of adversity, ups and downs and more importantly than that, representing a city that has been through so much,"

Drew Breese, Saints Quarterback

Stay Up

A LAUGH A DAY KEEPS EVERYTHING AT BAY

told you i had a lot to say, third blog in a week, enjoying this a lot recently.

Sitting here at work, it's Sunday afternoon and i'm just here chilling to some R. Kelly, nothing much happening around here.

Was watching some stand up comedy earlier by Rhod Gilbert, you'll know him when you see him, but incase you don't YouTube him, he's awesome.

And this got me thinking about how much i value having a good laugh, and how much we should all laugh just a little bit more. I'm blessed to have friends and family who enjoy nothing better than just having a laugh, at eachother and themselves, being the topic of ridicule is something we'll all endure and remember forever. The funniest moments are those where we're the joke. Maybe that's just me, but it's always hilarious.

I can't tell you how many hours I've searched the net for the comedians, blooper reels, outtakes from movies, anything that would make me laugh, nothing is as valuable as a good stomach hurting laugh, which is why the more i think about it, humor is an absolute prerequisite for whichever girl i end up with.

I say some pretty outlandish shit sometimes, and if you've ever spent a certain amount of time with me, you'll have witnessed this, i can't really distinguish why i say such things or where they even come from, but i know they make me laugh, even if it's just me, at least i heard it.

And in my current state of mind, just being happy and laughing at life sometimes is something i'm doing more and more of. Recent events have taught me that tragedy can strike at any moment, and that sometimes people never get the flowers when they can still smell 'em, you gotta smell the flowers, harvest them and remember them, coz one day, they too shall pass.

"the most wasted of days are those without laughter"

Stay Up

("much love" is no more, decided on "Stay Up" coz i think it reminds all of us that no matter what, you gotta keep it moving, time waits for no man)

cleaning out my closet

So as my new found clarity continues I've been rummaging through some old stuff of mine as I've moved house recently, so as with all house moves you end up asking yourself, how in the blue sam hell did I end up with so much crap?

It's funny but as I was going through the stuff I started remembering where I was when I got some of this stuff, that NFL ball, or who I was with when I got some chinese money I'll never use, weird stuff like that.

All of this nostalgia got me thinking about what "baggage" I've had laying around in my head for god knows how long, and what the hell am I still doing with it?

You know what I mean right? Those old songs you used to hate because they reminded you of an ex, or not going to certain places for fear of running into that semi-serious person you were dating, all that becomes irrelevant after a while, but you still carry it with you out of habit.

Well I'm having a mental spring clean if you will, and I'm listening to Ne-yo's "sexy love" again, and Michael Buble's "I wanna go home", because the importance I once attached to those songs is no more, I actually just enjoy them for being just a good song.

Time to make room for new trials and tribulations, and maybe in a few years time, I'll look back and have some new smiles and some new cries, which inevitably will become as important as the crap in my room.

Feeling really focussed on what it is i have to do in order to achieve my goal and complete my five year plan. Maybe it's something we can all do to gain a more positive outlook, try it, see where it takes you.

much love.

clarity.

ok, so we're back, well, i'm back. Haven't been around for the best part of a month, inbetween getting my dissertation to a respectable standard and having other assignments with our creative team (LMC) i haven't had much, or any time, to do the blog thing.

so i'm off for a week from uni, a much needed break, and i actually thought i'd have lots to say, well, i do, but not much makes good blog material.

Anyway, was reading this book call Don't Sweat The Small Stuff by Richard Carlson, awesome book, i recommend it.

So the book talks about living life and just being happy, to not worry so much about dissatisfaction and anger, and to just embrace what's good in your life. Offering different meditation methods along the way.

The title of the book is something i've said for years to people, i don't even know where or why i started saying it actually, but i liked it, didn't even really understand it to be honest.

the book got me thinking about some small stuff i always have. I always have coins in my pocket, and not just like 20p or 50p or whatever, i mean like £10, in coins, God knows how i gather all these coins, but they're pretty heavy sometimes, sometimes i actually worry about spending the coins, just so i don't have to have them in my pocket, buying things i don't need, mostly food really, but that's another story.

why am i talking about spending coins? coz sometimes, the little things in our life are the things we should care just a little bit less about. Something i've been trying to do of late, just letting go of the things that i have either no control over, or aren't really of importance when i think about it.

We all have bigger fish to fry in the grand scheme of things, right now, my fish is university, so i'm focussed on that, getting my degree, getting a job after that and just generally start living for me.

Along the way, i'll dissapoint some people, because i'm not sweating over their small stuff with them, and i'm ok with that, i wouldn't expect them to worry over my small stuff, like my coins.

Just try it for a while, see where it takes you, for me, i've been transported to a place of clarity, where it's all starting to break down and make a lot more sense, my moment of clarity if you will.

"May the best of your todays be the worst of your tomorrows"

feels good to be back on the blog.

much love.

(more blogs coming soon, i actually do have alot i wanna say)

live life proceed progress.

Today while on the train to Uni for the first time in 2010, as i sat there eating my Soho Club bagel from Bagel Factory, it hit me, this journey has become so mundane and habitual that i no longer look forward to coming to university. Is it the journey, is it that I've been in education for so long that i no longer feel motivated by it, is it my impatience to get going onto the next stage in my life and start building a career?

You know, back when I first started coming to uni, 3 years ago, all seemed new and important, all seemed exciting and i anticipated everyday to be a new discovery. I think as the time has passed by and people have come and gone, the one constant has always been the dreary campus i frequent now, rather than live at, as i did in my first 2 years.

The people here too, something has changed, we've all changed, for the better i believe. But as i now sit here in the library, taking a break from writing my dissertation with Kanye cheering me on, i'm forced to think about whether this is all worth it. I've always been someone who has to change with the times, to adapt to the maze when the cheese is moved.

Lately i've been thinking about who has moved my cheese and why they moved it. Right now i have no idea, i just know everything around me is becoming stale, and a lot of people i know seem to have not noticed that things around us have changed, for better and for worse, but i'm aware of this and i've gotta keep it moving, the cheese has now been taken away from me, i'll find it again, so off i go, on my travels once more, in search of that next thing, that next high, a high provided only by life.

I blogged once about habits and repetition, and how i refused to become one of the drones, seems like i need to take my own advice on this one. As the Jay-Z song goes, it's on to the next one, whatever it may be, if you're not rolling with me, you will be rolled over.

"i am suffocated and lost when i have not the bright feeling of progression"
Margaret Fuller

much love

to be or not to be

"that is the question, whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them?"

ok let's rewind. Today i was texting a friend of mine and asked her about maybe some inspiration for a topic for the blog, and within seconds, i got a reply, the topic she recommended was "should or shouldn't" and about having something you want right in front of you, but seemingly unable to have this thing, whatever it may be.

This got me thinking about when i was 17 and read Hamelt for the first time, and his soliloquy in Act3 Scene1 and how he ponders over his suicide. Now obviously i'm not talking about suicide here, but what i am talking about is the power we have to do certain things, but then almost ironically, through conscience, we take that power away from ourselves.

It's like this, we've all had those moments when we're faced with something that we're enamoured with, that we're seemingly suffocated by, the thought of you and that person or thing fills you with excitement, anxiously waiting, anticipating the outcome....but then, conscience strikes and all those external factors come tumbling down, a scenario looms, seemingly awash with complication and confusion, what do you do??

"Thus conscience does make cowards of us all"

I think that we tend to make things a lot more complicated than they should be, through fear of judgement by others, through lack of self belief, through self torture, whatever, it all boils down to the same thing, are we willing to make the decision we want, for us?

To understand that in life you have to be at least a little selfish for your own hapiness, that the faith we have in our friends and family is the same faith we wish for them to have in us, to appreciate and accept that all of us, at the end of the day, just want to be happy.

Life is all about choices, and sometimes the easiest ones are in their own right, the hardest one's too...in a way i'm glad nothing is ever black and white, coz that'd make life boring, and no-one likes boring, Shakespeare knew that a 110years ago when he wrote Hamlet, i'm only learning the true meaning 6years after reading it.

"if you don't ask, you don't get"

Mahatma Ghandi

much love