Something Profound

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Hey, so um back.
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And um I've taken a few weeks off because uh I didn't feel like recording anything.
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I thought I wanted to record something, but something always came up, and I've realized that I have to protect my piece because it'll be a phone call.
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I may like start listening to music to prepare myself and get in that creative mode, but then I'll listen to too much music and I'll get consumed in other people's thoughts.
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And that's kind of one of the things that uh brings us here is getting consumed in others' thoughts.
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Because man, I was listening to uh Life of the Party this morning, unpacking some trauma, and in unpacking that, you know, you're listening to Andre 3000 and Kanye talk to their mom, uh their deceased moms, and it's just an amazing song.
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Like I text Parlay Pete today and was like, hey, that song is like uh LeBron James of hip-hop, right?
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It has a goat case.
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You think about the production, the lyrics, the artistry.
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It's just a beautiful song.
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Uh I mean, there's even disses in the song.
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Uh it's just the complete song, you know.
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And but also the things they were getting off, man, and I kept listening to it and listening to it, and it made some things make sense to me because these two guys were having an honest conversation with their mothers.
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And I recently had an honest conversation with my mother, and there was a disconnect.
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And listening to the song, I was just like, man, I've got to make sure that when my mother passes away, I don't have to write the letter, say the words, do the artistic creative piece to have the conversation, to have conversations with her.
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You know what I mean?
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And not like a like I'm definitely gonna talk to my mom because I've I've gotten in touch with my family and I I go to the family graveyard uh on a regular basis now to talk to my deceased, some of my deceased family members, uh, because I do believe there's power in that.
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But point being, it's not that I'm not gonna talk to my mother in that way.
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It's more so the it's more so not having anything to work out, you know.
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You want to have that alignment before.
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And I think about that with anybody in your life, you know, just want to make sure everything is good.
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And oftentimes words confuse us.
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Some would say by design, but wow, that was a rant that I didn't plan on opening with, but that's the beauty of showing up without topics, is that you kind of free flow.
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And earlier today, what really confirmed that I was going to pod was that I I was unpacking some some trauma, right?
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And the way that I live now, I've simplified a lot of my day-to-day life, and I create a lot of time for myself, and I've really started to gain ownership of my time.
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So even when I go to work, yes, I know I have to be here for this many hours, but this is where I want to be uh because this is my means of making money right now and uh acquiring skills and building community uh to live the life that I want to live.
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Right.
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So I take control of my day.
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And in that, I like try to unpack trauma uh because you know, the things that lead us to medicine lead us to needing regular therapy.
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Somebody who goes to therapy and I am all for therapy, right?
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If you're healing yourself, um I try to like regularly unpack things so they don't fester and then I can move accordingly.
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And uh I've learned that through yoga.
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And I actually talked to a friend about some yoga and he and he recommended me a book.
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And um, I'm gonna order it, I'm gonna read it soon.
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So, but, anyways, in that unpacking, I was just like, wow, I'm an only child with two sisters.
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Something's profound about that.
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And I often look at things conceptually first when it's not emotional.
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Now, if it's emotional, I'm in the moment, and I look at it for kind of what it is actually.
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But when I don't bring emotions into things, I think about the concept uh conceptually, and I go, what does this mean?
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And it took me to my first tattoo, angel and a demon, like fighting over my heart.
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And hit his this constant conflict with duality and understanding duality and my inability to level set with people in communication of I wouldn't even say duality, of the fact that multiple things can be true.
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And it's like, yeah, I know multiple things can be true because I'm an only child, I'm my mom's only child.
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I grew up in my mom's home.
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But I have two sisters that came before me.
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So for my dad, you know.
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So yeah, it's different, you know.
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And for so long, I've like clinged to this only child thing, and and now I'm kind of at a point to where it's like, well, let's figure out how to unpack and create true bonds with my sisters because they're my sisters.
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But in understanding that, you go, wow, two things really can be true, and there's not a right or wrong approach to life, there is the approach you choose to take and the results that come with that approach, uh, based upon the situation you're in and the circumstances.
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So if I can accept that about myself, I can accept that with anybody.
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And because I can see it and it's true, I could tell you that, hey man, oftentimes when we disagree, it's because we're not having the same conversation, we're using the same words, but by design, words are confusing, and words are used to express what's going on in your brain, and oftentimes we struggle to truly express what's going on in our brain, and the words that we use can be one of the best representatives of it, but like words don't speak to emotions, right?
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Words don't always have the same emphasis, you know.
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Sometimes when you want to hug somebody and you feel them close to you, yeah, like there's no word to describe that actual feeling and what it feels for you.
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And so because we use simplified words, words simplify things, right, to communicate, oftentimes things get lost in translation.
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And because things get lost in translation, we are using the same words, but they mean different things.
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And even with fet definitions of words, there's still a different understanding of the word because of how it's introduced to you, your your ability to retain information, your experiences, all of this, right?
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So it creates fog.
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And in this world we live in today, things are so foggy.
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So we have to we have to cut that out.
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But back to this idea of things meaning multiple things, and it takes me to hey, you know, I wear a lot of uh paraphernalia from the colleges that I uh have degrees from, right?
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I have on a Morehouse hat right now.
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Pretty much every day at work, I have on something Morehouse or University of Tennessee, right?
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Anytime you see me out, I usually have on something Morehouse University of Tennessee.
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At a former time in my life, I used to wear a lot of my own material uh branded stuff that I made, right?
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And I wear Morehouse and UT stuff because it skips a lot in conversation, right?
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Uh somebody sees you wearing Morehouse paraphernalia at my age, they assume you're an alum because it's niche.
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And then in Bulldog country, there aren't a lot of Tennessee fans.
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So if somebody like sees me in the Tennessee stuff, they say something and I'm like, yeah, got my master's there.
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Boom, changes the conversation.
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We get a lot out.
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And oftentimes that works in my favor because these are positive institutions and they represent you know good things.
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But oftentimes, especially in the black community, based on someone else's experience of a Morehouse man, they make a lot of assumptions.
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And it's like, hey, yo, man, I went to that institution, but them niggas don't represent me.
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And in that same context, I think about how in our miscommunication, because of the complexity of, for one, the English language, it's like, oh shoot.
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This word means generally something, right?
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But even a word in itself lacks context.
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Even when you use more words to contextualize it, it lacks context.
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And now imagine taking those words that already lack some context, then you translate those words into another language.
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And anytime you translate words into another language, you lose context.
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That's why you can't really know a culture if you don't know the language.
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So I didn't think I was going here today.
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So now you take this these words that are already out of context because they're expressing things that happen, translate them into a different language, then you remove them from the context in which they existed, and then you try to interpret and contextualize those same words and apply them in a different era with people who have different experiences you and define things differently.
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In a world where we say words are bond, but we also say actions speak louder than words, so we should move off of actions and let words support actions instead of actions supporting the words, right?
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You follow me here?
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And we wonder why we aren't confused.
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We wonder why there's so much turmoil, and I don't even mean in the world, I mean day to day.
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But we don't take that and then work with the person who we describe that word, who we describe with that word, and have that relationship with, to then level set what it is they mean by that.
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So if we don't do that with our loved ones and it causes communication, what the hell does it do with our people we don't know?
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People that we deem as threats, people who are we are told that are threats to us, right?
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It creates confusion.
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Yo, it's crazy how you can unpack things in your life.
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Oh, a life, you can unpack things in your life and then put that into reality and then be like, dang, hold on, I gotta do this right here, and then put that into like reality and realize that we are all a microcosm of the world that we live in.
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So, with us being a microcosm of the world that we live in, if we work on ourselves, we will actually see the world in the way that we want it to be.
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Instead of trying to work on everything else, we should work on ourselves.
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And that's one of the conflicts I've been having with just people in my life because I've truly started working on myself, and for many reasons, uh the way that I've gotten there is through yoga.
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And doing yoga is just discipline, man.
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It's discipline, and what I thought discipline is was having a routine and sticking to the routine and all of that stuff.
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But it's like, no, that's part of it.
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But then when you vary, when you waver, right, you understand, oh, here's why the routine, this is why I'm off routine.
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Oh, this is why, oh, this doesn't make sense.
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Oh, okay.
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The discipline is knowing when you're not being disciplined, and then having the discipline to correct yourself, and also living with the consequences of what comes with breaking your discipline.
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One second, I gotta pick up this.
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Uh gotta pick up this over time.
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Got my overtime at it.
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Anyways, so yeah, like the yoga's helped me like look inside and it's helping me understand why I have issues with people because it's it ultimately an issue within myself, because those people are being themselves.
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And if you put yourself in the in their shoes and you can level set, even if they don't do that for you, if you can get an understanding of what they understand and how they view life, you then can understand why you get the responses, and if you can understand what you do to contribute to the responses, and you let go of doing things for a response, it's no once you do it, it's done, and whatever comes back comes back, but not trying to dictate the response, you know what I mean?
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Not putting the cart before the horse, not making your not saying words and then those words equaling actions, it's having actions first, you know what I mean?
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Like leading with your actions and then using the words to support your actions.
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And honestly, if you want to take an analytical approach to life, look at the connections between people's actions and their words, and that can help you level set and understand their perspective.
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Because if you watch their actions, don't listen to shit they say.
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Excuse me, I forgot I'm gonna stop cursing.
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If you don't listen, just don't listen to anything that they say and just watch what they do and watch what they do with you, their interactions with you.
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Hear the words, right?
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Whatever.
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But the actions tell you exactly who somebody is.
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And then the disconnect between their words and their actions, that's the disconnect.
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That same delta is what you need to understand when they give you words.
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Look for the consistency, the trends.
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We're man, we all, everything's in cycles.
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Life works in cycles.
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I look at my life right now and I see just the different cycles, the different evolutionary phases of my life.
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And I go, oh, that's it's cyclical, that's crazy, but that makes sense.
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Hold on, I gotta do something about this camera because that that's probably a terrible picture.
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Let's stop tracking.
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Almost got a half-body.
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But yeah, everything's inside of you, and if all of us start to look inside of ourselves for the answers, we can actually meet up together in community.
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Oh, another thing, man.
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I I I don't know if y'all know, I'm kind of off of sports.
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Uh, I just canceled my YouTube TV yesterday um because I've been meaning to cancel it for a while.
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Now what can't and I said I was gonna cancel it in the offseason.
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And then with my work schedule, I work on Sundays, so I don't watch football on Sundays.
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I'm fairly busy on Saturdays and resting and doing whatever I choose to do.
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But nonetheless, it's a um for$82.99 a month, I don't watch enough YouTube TV.
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And if watching a football game is that important to me, I'll just go to my mom's house and watch it because they got cable, they're gonna keep cable.
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And that forces me to bond with my grandmom and my mom if I want to watch football, and that creates a new dynamic for us because I I don't really watch football with my mom, she's not a big football fan.
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Uh, and I watch football with my grandmama, and it's actually really cool.
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So it's like, okay, this is how I watch football now.
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Again, accepting the the reactions to your actions.
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But in saying that, seeing how all of these teams in football are are reacting, uh leading up to the trade.
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Deadline now that they understand that they're not gonna compete, they start moving the players around.
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And I go, dude, like the Colts thing is what really got me.
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Like seeing the Quentin Nelson and Jonathan Taylor maybe on the on the move.
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I'm like, and they already moved Zaire Franklin.
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And I'm like, yo, this is this is really like the modern day slave trade.
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I mean, yeah, they get more money, but you have no control over where you work.
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It's like, hey, we traded you.
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Oh, I mean, slave trade, play, trade.
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Then you go, it's labor, right?
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It's exploited labor, yes, highly paid labor, but the billions that are made off of their backs in the other industries, they they don't get to touch that.
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Like they fuel so many different industries, and I go, wow.
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And then it's like now with these trade markets, you can trade on whether or not players will move.
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And I'm like, wow, that's another way to make money off of them.
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And obviously, some of them, like LeBron, have the deals, but conversation for another day.
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And then you go, these media accounts clip this stuff up and they make money off of them.
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And then now you got like the girlfriends going viral and the wives going viral when they say stuff and they get podcasts, and you go, Wow, that is a lot of revenue streams generated off of football.
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And then sometimes you want to blame the players, or some of us want to blame the players because they don't take a stance.
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And I go, well, ha ha ha ha.
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From your perspective, it's easy to take a stance.
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But when you've dedicated your life to doing something, it's what you love.
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You may not be aware of it, or you may not have the understanding to truly grasp it because you were busy becoming this warrior, this football player, this athlete, that you didn't have time to understand the markets around it and how you're being exploited.
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Or, or even worse, you get so deep in that your taste, you increase your taste, and you're now bought into this mega corporation.
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So your livelihood is tied to it.
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So in order to get free from it, you have to cut your leg off.
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And everyone's not gonna cut their leg off.
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And everyone's not, I don't I don't really use right or wrong, but I don't blame everyone for not cutting their leg off because we all want different things out of life.
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We all view things differently.
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Now, don't get me wrong, that doesn't make me want to try to better educate those people and help create systems in which they don't have to cut their legs off, they're just cutting the shackle off.
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They're freeing themselves from a shackle with a key instead of cutting the leg off to take their shackle off because I want you to dance, right?
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And when you take the shackles off, you're supposed to dance, not limp.
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You know, now if you're limping, you're still free, but I want you to run.
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I actually want you to dance.
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You know what I mean?
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Shout out to Mary Mary.
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Um, so, anyways, that was an aside, but it's just really interesting to see how it was once a game, it was fun, it was entertainment.
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It was like, hey, we can make money off of this, we can make an industry out of it.
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Boom.
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Then it no longer becomes an industry about the thing.
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The thing just is the pump for all of this money.
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And then a society where we are consumed with money, money's in our face, consumption's in our face, we think going to get money is okay, and making money is okay.
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But I ask you, do you want to make money or make wealth?
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Do you want to make money or do you want to make institutions?
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Because a great scholar, thinker, his book two, maybe up here, said how can you in order to create a nation, you must be able to feed it.
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So after I've gotten back in touch with the earth and started stripping a lot of the fat from my life, from my body, from my mind, my consumption.
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Like, dog, I had a conversation with the doctor today, and it's like, dang, I gotta strip this out of my diet, strip this out of my diet, because I don't want to be on any type of medication long term.
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And in order for me to be get off of this GERD medication just for my indigestion, I have to dramatically change my diet and some other habits too.
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And it's like, oh, I've always wanted to get rid of these things, and again, it tie that knot together, again, working through your trauma actively.
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Um, it's a great thing, but I totally lost my train of thought, sorry y'all.
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Uh, these are all rough drafts, right?
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But in breaking your chains, man, it's important.
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That's why it's important to break your chains because some of the chains that I'm attached to, some of the shackles that had me down had me lose my train of thought because again, I didn't have total ownership of I don't have total ownership of myself.
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Working on it though.
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I'm working on it.
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So, yeah, I hope you found something profound in this.
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Uh because I I definitely find something profound in daily, unpacking trauma and getting behind the whys of things, and just seeing uh how multiple things can be true at the same time.
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Sports can be a great thing to watch.
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Uh, the athletes can be creating wealth for themselves and their families, uh, while also building wealth for a system that is against them, and doing this at their detriment and giving up their freedoms for this opportunity uh for wealth.
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And it can be good, it can be bad, it just depends on which lens you view it through.