Contrary to its intent, I continue to find that school acts as a blockade to goals and accomplishments I wish to achieve. Sure, post-secondary education is beneficial in the long run, but what about things I want to get done now? When I’m not studying or attending lectures or tutorials, I’m commuting to school, or working to pay off the astronomical tuition bills. Now, I’m sure that you’ve heard this from probably a gazillion university/college, even high school students who share the same feelings of angst and misdirection, but damnit, I believe that I have other ways I’d like to live my life that would not only be more enjoyable and maybe more profitable to myself, but I think it would be more beneficial to my community in general if I was more able to take routes which I would enjoy in life.
Enough complaining, though. What have I been up to? Other than the aforementioned, getting down to the crunch with that last exam coming up on Monday, I’ve been reading up on a lot of hip-hop history. It always surprises me how much I really don’t know about the genre. For instance, did you know that Run from Run-DMC is Russell Simmons’ little brother? I’m sure that some of you knew, but hell, it still surprised me. I’m trying to build up a library of hip-hop and pro-Black themed books. Am I trying to become the next Malcolm X? Quite the contrary. Similar to the beliefs of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr., I believe that everyone should co-exist as equal people in an ideal world free of hatred, bigotry, and other such senseless forms of expression.
However, I am not so quick to be disillusioned. Not to be disrespectful to King, but human nature has never been something I have looked highly upon. I see horrible choices made in life, people who choose to live in ways destructive to themselves and those around them—and stemming from this, I must agree with Malcolm X that Black people need to rise up and claim their own in the world. In today’s age, we need to do this without exploiting our culture by continually making ourselves look like fools in the mass media. And stemming from that, I believe the best way to attain the power to stray from this path is through continual knowledge and self-education.
Soon I’ll post the books that I’ve read so far—I’ll be putting out a request for books that others have read so that I can better understand the culture which I have come from, and also that which I have become so engrossed in.
That was a mouthful.
In other news, work’s a challenge, but I don’t feel so rotten nowadays. If anyone follows the community, they’ll see the battle between myself and tastydm300, a talented lyricist who’ll most likely win, but in my honest opinion, I’m improving well and did hold my own to a considerable degree. Only opinion, of course.
Other than that, things stay pretty dry. Work and school take up too much of my time, and since my friends are living out of town, I keep having to skip their parties due to monetary constraints which demands an equally constraining work schedule. But the strong shall survive and even the “dawg” shall have his day. Y’all better believe.
They can come closer than close. Invincible they never will be. I bump it from coast to coast. I’m just trying to make them see…
…Nobody does it better.
–case p.
