Monday, April 25, 2011

Walking: Not of this World

A role model of mine said to learn to be in the world but not of it
I think of that as I walk the world today in awe of what’s beneath my feet
and everything well above it

There’s a purpose for today's walk
as I am in search of a summit
Where I can submit whatever in my life amiss
before what is amiss in my life makes me plummet

And it’s in the process of finding my way to this summit
that the world began to honestly admit
the way that some people today exist


The first thing the world showed me was a women
walking out of her apartment dressed to impress her fellow worker bees
As she walks by I say good morning and hi
but she is to busy
and in to much of a hurry
to even look me in the eye and reply
So instead of saying hi
she gives me a slight apathetic wave
and continues on her way into the maze of the rat race.

Now did I miss something or is something out of place?
Maybe for to long my mind has been in outer-space
cause it seems out of this world to me
that she was in such a state that she couldn’t stop and elevate her eyes to mine
and find it within her to smile and say “good morning, good day,”
or in any other way conveys the slightest value of another persons existence

Our interaction was only a few seconds
but those few seconds made stop a second
and listen to a world that beckons to be heard
thus as I continued onward
I made a point listen to the worlds words


Because a role model of mine said to learn to be in the world but not of it
I think of that as I walk the world today
in awe of what’s beneath my feet and everything well above it

There’s a purpose for today's walk as I am in search of a summit
Where I can submit
whatever in my life amiss
before what is amiss in my life
makes me plummet

And it’s in the process of
finding my way to this summit
that the world began to admit
the way that some people today exist


The next thing this world showed me was a man of about 5.3,
who woke up angry that he had to clean a pool
instead of being in school
and you could tell by the look in his face that this wasn’t cool

Yet he was not drowning so much in his pity party drool
that he couldn’t stop smile and open the pool for me.

Oh sorry their is a gap in the story, lets me go back and fill that in:
After fighting Rudmongors through the forest of apartmentia,
crossing the plains of pissoffius,
and flying on top of a dragon up to mt. Poolantis
I arrived at the submit where the Pool Orgor Guarding the Gaint gate,
after explaining my epic journey,
let me in, enabling me to begin to write the worlds words down.

So flash forward to now

Now this guy had been cleaning and fixing this overflowing pool since 5 this morning
while we are all snoring
picking and pulling out it’s dirt and leaves
while relieving it of an overabundance in water

I guess it’s not always true that the early bird catches the worm
because not a single worm of wisdom or revelation squirmed in this worthless water
So why even bother go to work?

The truth hit me in a flash so fast that it hurt

That this guy had to do what he had to do,
to do what it was he wanted to do
Thus for the sake of his dreams and goals
he was glad to do anything
to get everything
and that’s when everything came full circle

that this guy, and that woman, as well as me
are in the same world just trying to be
something

And it wasn’t that that saw me and saw nothing
but that her dreams and goals
were gathered together in where she was going
in that moment

That’s why instead of using the energy to say hey to me,
she was using that energy
to prepare herself for where she was going to be eventually
which may not be where she necessarily wants to be right now in her life...

Or shoot,
maybe she just didn’t notice me saying hi!

But regardless...
It was on this road to the submit I saw darkness,
but upon arrival to that summit I saw light
A darkness came from within the world,
but the light was not of it
for the light that lit the light bulb of this bright idea came from a place well above this

So as I come down from the summit to submit to you these words
I hope you receive them in the world
but not of it
In a way you never before,
have heard...

The Movement Continues...
- Rhetorical Artz

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Waving

I stand in the ocean waters of a Florida beach
one arm wide open
the other arm...
waving
waiting for that special wave to wash me in

I'm body surfing
and when your body's surfing
it can't just take any old wave
it has the be the right one
that comes in at the right time


In the past
whenever I would go body surfing at the beach
their was a feeling I got
just before the right wave would rise up
from the stomach of the sea
so when I saw it
I didn't have to wait and determine
if the wave was great or not
I just knew


Cause when I would body surf
I could close my eyes and connect with the ocean
as I became one with the water
and in that moment
me and the Ocean were married
and the waves
were our sons and daughters
and the clouds
became my rich step-father
that would shower us with money
whenever we were broke
so that our family wouldn't evaporate
due to a bad economy


When I would body surf
I could open my mind and connect with the ocean
as I became one with the water
when that moment came
me and the Ocean were married
raising tidal waves of sons and daughters
who would wash me away
in the joy of seeing them grow
as they'd go into the lands of their adult lives
submerging the world in smiles, love, and laughter
giving boats of people hopes something to float on
even those who were land locked
in the feeling that all was lost


All this at the cost...
of a couple early gray hairs


So I stand here
one arm wide open
with the other arm
waving
waiting for the day that I can marry the Ocean
and open wide
with all our passion and emotion inside
waves of sons and daughters
given from the heavens above


It hasn't happen yet
but when it does come
and I get that feeling that the family body of water
of my wife, daughters, and sons are approaching

I'll stand there
one arm wide open
and with the other arm
waving...

The Movement Continues...
- Rhetorical Artz

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Inspiration: A small part of a bigger conversation

The other day, I was watching the Charlie Rose Show online. It was an interview between Richard Serra, Eric Kandel, Oliver Sacks, Chuck Close and Ann Temkin .They were talking about creativity and where it comes from. As I was watching the interview, I hear Chuck Close say how he has always said that "inspiration is for amateurs," and that "the rest of us just get up and get to work." He proceeds to say that you can't just sit around and wait for an idea light bulb to light up because it may never happen. The point he was trying to get across was that one has to constantly work in order to excel in their craft.

While Chuck made a good point about the importance of working, I think he's only looking at a part of the picture- in terms of his views on inspiration. For to levy off inspiration as a "bolt of lightning" that randomly strikes you in the head, traps us in thinking about inspiration as being an unreliable source of creativity. Similarly to Chuck Close, I too have something that I have been saying for some time now: That there is a reason why trap and part are spelled with the same letters; that when you only see part of what something is, without a) seeing what it's connected to and b) how and why it's fits into the larger model of what it's connected to, your left unable to ever assess it for what it is; stifling you from seeing the whole picture.

This is what has happened with the word inspiration. In our society inspiration has been singled out as being a mere spark, a moment, used for firing up the creative process. This may be one of the reasons why quotes are so popular in our culture. They represent "moments" of honestly, in which a thought or insight lightning bolts out of a persons' mouth; shedding light on a situation. These "moments" are accredited as being hallmarks in the creation of new products, philosophies, and practices as well as future ideas and innovations. Yet the problem about the use of quotes lies in their tendency to be used either out of the context of their original meaning, or used in a way that fails to convey the full story. So when a reporter takes down a quote and puts it in an article- as I toke down the quote I heard from that Charlie Rose interview- it can lose it's true meaning if the person seeing the quote, and/or the person taking the quote down, does not understand the process that lead to the quote being said.

The same idea applies to inspiration. For I have come to understand inspiration as a "quote" from a larger, ongoing, inner conversation. Within this conversation lies a continuous stream of wisdom, resourcefulness, and brilliance, which rests upon the essence of who we are, and what we are collectively connected to as human beings. However, due to the many indulged upon distractions, chosen obligations, and inner conflicts that play out in our lives, this inner conversation becomes too low in volume to be heard consistently(if it's even heard at all). It's only when we really listen closely, that we catch quotes or glimpses of this constant conversation happening; which we misguidedly label as only being an "inspiration"- sectioned off from the inner conversation that houses it.

My point in mentioning all this is to offer an alternative as to what we perceive to be inspiration; to illuminate another option for creating great works; to point out an accessible power within us ,to create great works, if we only take the time to stop and listen to the ongoing conversation that is happening within us. For I believe, that allowing inspiration to be to both seen and present in the whole inner conversation, is a key to the creativity, spirituality, and the all-around vitally of our existence here on earth. For to truly live out our hearts' visions of life, we must begin living it within first.

The Movement Continues...
- Rhetorical Artz

Friday, April 22, 2011

The Unquestioning Mind of a Miracle

People of the west,
please stop asking so many questions...

Because true miracles happens to those who shape them
When we were born,
we were given a dogie bags from heaven
filled with leftovers from the fruits of the spirit
that we had already eaten and inherited

as the Maker of those miracles manifested
into those spiritual fruits within us a body of clay
clay crafted within us
so that we could shape miracles into our day-to-day

Yet instead of using it we started abusing this gift
as we drift through an analysis paralysis of trying to perceive the process of how Miracle happens

believing that we can consciously capture it, master it
and bottle it into a top selling self-help book for only 9.99

People of the west,
please stop asking so many questions...

Because blessings happen in disguise
like masked vigilantes
and to ask a vigilante to remove it's mask
is to move it towards death itself
thus becoming the architect
of it's destruction

We are an obstruction to justice
The justice of blessings bliss
And no it's not just some outside circumstance
outside of our control
it's just us that are doing this

and it's a crime

a crime worthy of capital punishment...
for the heart

Cause blessings in disguise are the arteries that keep blood pumping into the heart
keeping it alive
and trying to find out the human hideout
in which they hide

is like doing an open heart survey
and tearing the heart apart
all out of an unbridled scientific curiosity of where it was
in this world
that Blessings began to start

People of the west,
please stop asking so many question...

I'm not saying to stop asking questions altogether
just to stop asking so many
Cause now-a-days
it's become more as if were holding some Q&A session
with a preconceived agenda of asking and answering questions
that will contain something

that was never meant to be contained here
that will explain something
that was never meant to be explained here
that will clarify something
that was never meant to be made clear
here, on earth...

I'll answer this one question for you...
by saying Miracles DO happen...
But the biggest one of all...
didn't happen here first

The Movement Continues...
- Rhetorical Artz


When Plants Talk Back

Walk into her house, go past the living room, open the sliding glass doors. Outside, you'll see a beautiful array of flowers and fruit trees. All my life my mother has been a gardener. Growing up, I would wake up on weekend mornings and peak through my bedroom window to see my mother weaving the magical wand of a garden hose across the plains of her own plant paradise, where she, was it's protector. When my mom was in her garden, I would watch an almost seed-like light in her eyes blossom into a beauty rose. When her hands were working in the dirt, her heart rose into the sky and when you looked up, you could watch as she conquered the sun and all the rainclouds; only accepting the suns' rays and the rainclouds' rain as peace treaties to end the turmoil.

It was a sight to behold. But as I watched the growth of her garden kingdom unfold, I often wondered why: why does she loves gardening so much? So I walk up to her one day and arrogantly ask "hey mom, why do you love spending so much time with these stupid plants? You know sometimes it almost seems like you like them more than you like us." For a second my mom just looked at me, garden shovel in one hand and a hose in other, to my surprise smiles, and replies " well unlike my kids, when I talk, my plants don't talk back."

But it was more then that. Cause every time my mom steps back into her garden, a transformation occurs. When I close my eyes and really look , I can see a well with the purest of water rise up within her heart, transform into a geyser and shoot out from the very essence of her soul. This garden is her oasis, amongst the desert of day-to-day stresses, a way in which her spirit expresses its need to be released from this neurotically work work work driven society. But more importantly, it's a space where she can just be; where she can breath deeply due to the oxygen of inner peace that her plants produce and induce within her.

Two weeks before I graduate college, I arrive at my mothers' house to spend some quality time with my grandma. I sit down and listen as grandmother offers me words of wisdom; reminding me how important it is to pray constantly, then to do unto the world that which speaks life into your own being. As my grandma and I speak, we briefly step outside amongst my mothers wonderland. And as I stand in the motherland, surrounded by beautiful arrays of flowers and fruit trees , I can feel the power that these plants command. When grandma goes back inside, I sit down in the middle of this plant paradise; finally able to fully understand why my mother loves this "stupid garden" so much.

I gaze at her garden, filled with so much magic that I can't even come up with a metaphor to relate it to, and wonder if my mother and her father- who I now know something about through the green thumbs he passed down - may have felt this magic to. As I begin to wonder this, the wind whispers silent words through her garden . And though it fails to match up with what mom said about her plants before, I could have sworn that for just a second...I could hear her plants, talking back...


The Movement Continues...
Rhetorical Artz

Friday, April 15, 2011

An Uneducated Approach to Learning

What we do not call education is more precious than that which we call so
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The issues at hand
Students are graduating college with nothing but a piece of paper and a possible position for jobs that justify the uncreative mind. Mind you now that in the eyes of many students, and many people in general, that is a perfectly acceptable end. To many students, college is nothing more than a means for momentary fun and money, not a means for true joy and enrichment. This seems to be todays' version of a "rich education"; acquiring professional skills instead of purpose building ones; closing in ones mind to finding a career instead of freeing it up to finding a calling. If this is the model which entails a "rich education" then I would much rather receive an abhorrently poor education- one that cannot, in itself, enable me to make massive amounts of money or get me the justification of a job- but one that will empower me to learn valuable lessons about truly living and loving life. However, to a certain extent, I do recognize the value of a capitalistically centered education that has fueled my own inner capitalist. It is, in all honestly, a big part of what has kept me in school this long (minus the fact that much money and sacrifice has been given for me to get this education). This inner capitalist, in collaboration with my conscious, shouts out "hey Adam, lets make meaningful money! Lets profit doing something positive! Lets prosper pursuing your most authentic of passions! It is a voice that I have come to accept into the Adam Keene club as the executive director of my financial thoughts.  
For those financial thoughts never once double-crossed my core beliefs on what learning was really about. Before I continue, if I have not stated what it means to be a learner well enough in the first paragraph, allow me to state it clearly here: To be a true learner is to be a liberator of ones mind, and the mind of others, in the pursuit of a fulfilling life. This central idea has been injected and accepted into the depth of my identity(by conscious choice) in order to better build my uneducated learning life in this bitterly broken system that is our schools.



Tales of the Uneducated Learner
Now if this was an action-adventure movie, this would be the scene where an angry army of academics, administrators, and security sheep(these being some, but not all, of the parents, students, professors, and professionals that were crafted within academia) storm into the base of the insurgents, demanding them to surrender their inventory of insights on the issue of education or else. The insurgents would promptly refuse, and all be hanged...or would they? For just as they are about to be put to death...BAM! In comes the special insurgent forces to set the caged captives free once more. But how will they escape the treacherous School city? The answer is that they don't...well not immediately anyway. Instead, they temporarily integrate themselves into School city as citizens, binding their time and building their resources for when the time comes to strike out against its reign of tyranny.


The United State of Our Society
But in doing so, the insurgents discover that School city is only a servant to an even bigger system failure known as the United State of Our Society. When gazing upon this bigger Goliath, the problems in our school system only reflects a even larger problem in society today. For our society has made a shift in focus from true substance and scholarship( note: I am using the definition of scholarship defined as the process of learning and gaining knowledge received by studying) to truly superficial and stagnating standards of living. This shift can be seen in the news, entertainment (two subjects that seems to now be synonymous with one another), and education which I shall now return back to through the fiction framed battles of the Uneducated Learner.
Back to the battles of the Uneducated Learner
With the true menace revealed, the insurgent forces quickly realize that they will not be able to fight these dark forces alone. In order to have a fighting chance against this gigantic foe, the insurgent forces would need the help of the very education system that they were trying to change. So they began to look for people and programs within the system who shared a similar desire in liberating minds to pursuing a fulfilling life. As they sought these people and programs out, the insurgent forces soon discovered that their was indeed a voice of these individuals and initiatives. In fact many of these individuals and initiatives were ones that the school system had willingly allowed in to promote such a cause. 
This was just what the insurgents were looking for. They started seeking a way to become one of these initiatives that the school system allowed in to liberate minds in a way that certain wiring(And bureaucratic red tape) within educational hardware had stalled. But to maintain their presence and growing influence in the schools, they needed to be registered in the system as something that wouldn't raise suspicion. Thus, no longer would they hold the hostile position of insurgent rebels. Instead, they would rise up as a phantom-like force known as the Uneducated Learners. With a new identity in place, the Uneducated Learners were then able to use that positioning as a foothold to form a quiet uprising through the citizens of School city who shared or sympathized with their cause.


Bringing the battle back to a reality
So what is the moral to this little tall tale? For me it is that as much as I have seen school fall short of the core ideas that are supposed to drive it(As all organizations do to a degree), I recognize that I also have needed school-and will still need the support within the school system- in order to become a full fledged vessel for social change in the society that surrounds us. So what I have decided to do over my many years of schooling is to become an uneducated learner amongst the education system. 



Educated learner vs. Uneducated learner
Yet in making this decision I have taken notice to the tension that lies between uneducated learners and more educated ones. The educated learner stands as those people in the system that benefit from it working the way it does. They do not wish to change the system(despite any claim to want to), but in fact wish for/contribute to making the system run more efficiently and effectively. 
Now before I continue on, I must make something clear. Being an uneducated learner does not mean wishing for the system to be destroyed and dismantled to the point of degrading the educated learner. It only means changing the system so it can support both types of learners, and in doing so acknowledging there differences.
For there are many differences between the educated and uneducated learner. Differences that the school system,and our larger society for that matter, currently are not doing a good enough job in acknowledging/serving with equal respect. In this instance, the difference being highlighted that distinguishes the educated and uneducated learner lies in how they are informed and uninformed about what it means to live a fulfilling life. To fully explain this, I need to first briefly talk about the relationship between society and the school system.


Society and School= Husband and Wife Stereotype
In an old-fashion stereotypical marriage, the wife is subservient to her husband. She takes care of the kids, maintains the house, and prepares the food so that when her husband comes home from work, he has a peaceful environment to return to after a long day out in the "real world." This is the relationship between Society and School. Societies wife(School) raises her kids(students) to be good little boys and girls for Society to deal with. They are raised to "do as they are told" and to "not talk back to your mother, or else daddy will give you a spanking(a degrading, doubt-filled, penniless life) when he gets home." The house is kept nice and tidy to support a stable environment for Society and his kids, so they can live "happy and content lives". 
I'll break away from this allegory now and give it to you straight: the big problem with the education systems lies in how strongly and subserviently they shift to the whims of societies current state. In other words, because our society works largely under a 9 to 5 structure, that is what schools largely educate students about; because society is polluted with the promotion of fear, that is what schools largely talk about; because society set it's citizens up to finding a place in it, instead of making a place in it, this is what schools largely encourage people to do. This is not to say that those are the only things that school does(if it did, I would honestly have already dropped out, don't care how much money I would be wasting). But I would venture to say that this is one of the loudest voices in the school space today(knowingly or not). It may not be said out loud, but 93 percent of communication is conveyed through what is NOT said verbally(As a communication studies major, I have been well informed about this).

The Difference: educated vs. uneducated learners
What someone listens to and how someone listens to it ultimately determines what's actually learned. And here is where we make our difference between the educated and uneducated learners in society. For the Educated Learner is informed by what they are told. They listen to what society says, and shape what they've learned/heard from their schooling to fit into societies image of them. In doing so, they risk compromising their creatively (aka the ability to make a life for themselves) and allow society to create a life for them in the same way that a chameleon compromises it true colors to match it's environment. They are literate in the language of losing your authentic self to better drive society onward. You can find the Educated Learner saying something like "that's just how the world works, so you better learn to work with it." They graduate college with all the basic knowledge needed to survive as a pawn in societies game of chess. Some of those pawns even make it over onto the other side of societies chessboard and- after "having" to stomp on any chess pieces that get in their way- evolve to become societies knights, queens, rooks, or bishops.
The Uneducated Learner, on the other hand, takes what is being told and uses it to advance their imagination- the ability to create essential and personal ideals into concrete realities- while refusing to compromise their identity. By doing this, the Uneducated Learner opens up doors into a life directed by a divine consciousness. This often drives the Uneducated Learner to pursuing timelessly valuable meaning over money, branding money as a by-product of moving in infinitely meaningful pathways, instead of the opposite being the case. In taking this route, there is no need to step on anyone else to get what you want because that fails to produce anything meaningful (beyond possibly a temporary period of false bliss). This route often fills the Uneducated Learners' path with bumps, twists, turns, and one unexpected event after the next. Yet it is within the unexpected, the unknown, and the uncertain that the Uneducated Learner both consciously and honestly lives life. 
However society, specifically the Educated Learner, tends not to look very highly on Uneducated Learner for this. To them, how the Uneducated Learner lives ought not to exist. For society has only taught the Educated Learner how to live linearly. Therefore, the non-linear lifestyle of the uneducated learner- that doesn't have a well defined step-by-step method to moving towards fulfillment- is viewed as an anomaly, or even a glitch in the matrix. In fact for the Educated Learner, who has been taught since elementary school that everything has a beginning and an end, the path of the Uneducated Learner may even appear to them not as a pathway but as a mere fantasy, or a lofty dream.

End of the Uneducated Learners Journey?
There is no end for the Uneducated Learner. For to be the Uneducated Learner means to continually look out at life with an air of undying thirst for adventure. Thus what the Educated Learner makes out to be an unseen end, the Uneducated Learner envisions into a beauty beginning, and a new revolutionary road to ride upon. 
Through this road isn't easy, that is the path that I have chosen. I will enter the next stage of my life, after gaining my undergraduate degree, with a sense excitement, adventurousness, and an uneducated spirit of freedom. Because true freedom happens when one makes a conscious choice to walk amongst the world untamed by it's teaching, unhampered by it's horror stories, and uneducated by it's standards. So continues the exciting tales of the Uneducated Learner, where only life will tell, what will happen next.

The Movement Continues...
- Rhetorical Artz

Friday, April 8, 2011

Expanding the Essence of my Art

I came to recognize something about where my storytelling craft currently stands and where it is moving towards. Throughout the day, as I began looking through a lot of the content in my spoken word and hip hop music, I noticed not only that a lot of the messages are mirror images of one another but that even the approach the content takes to getting to the meat of their message is the same. I think this has to do a lot with where I have been both mentally and spiritually in my life.


For a long time now I have been on this quest to identify myself, and my relationship to the world(A quest that I don't see ending anytime soon). That quest, for the past couple of years, has taken a large focus on what it means to make(as well as how to make) the decision to stand as being authentically yourself(on the inside and outside) in both this society and the larger world(whether you really know yourself or not). A by-product of this focus has been that I have come to find and explore my own voice, which may sound weird to some. But there has been more moments then I can count when something beyond me speaks through my voice. When that happens, although I know it's not me speaking, it produces this refreshing feeling of hearing my own voice speak for the first time. It's similar to the feeling that you get after holding your breath underwater for a long time and finally surfacing to grasp for air, or the feeling you get when you step out of an incredibly hot car after being in it for hours on end.


Yet, the Spirit seems(throughout this year) to have moved my craft into a new terrain. In this terrain, I have been walking on the road of authenticity in my everyday life, instead of in the surreal or abstract sense that derives from my everyday life. As I've been on this path, I've noticed a slow but steady shift(through pieces like TV Empowers Me to the most recent piece I've done titled Oppositional Attitude) towards writing out of the current real life experience. That's not to say that I won't be producing those surreal and abstract type of pieces anymore, but that even those pieces(because of how they are beginning to walk into my day to day reality) are changing, as they are being put into the whole experience of life. The reason why I often wrote and will continues to write with such fantasy was because for a time period I didn't know how to mentally deal with much of this reality without looking at it from a lens of pure imagination. It was(and still is) my way of taking the world out of it's actual setting and putting it into a fictional setting that makes the world easier to reach out to and understand.


But that is beginning to gradually change. For the world that I used to mostly only reach out to before, I now see within the presence of what's happening in my life right now. I am living the path that I would only dream or idealize about being on before. And as this living has been happening. I am more freely able to see the connection between the day to day recognition and deeper rooted insights, which gives more a grounded breath to the stories told through me.


This might be a better way to explain this. In Speak Life Storytellers(The storytelling performance group I am in) we have three types of stories that we address:

Truly Fantastic: Stories which are not necessary true/non-fiction in terms of it's literal presentation but in the core of the message/theme that it's conveying.

Fantastically True: Stories that seem so incredible that they seem unreal even through they are.

True Stories: The straightforward, honest (yet still both imaginative and creative expressed) stories of life.


The stories that I have been telling have been at large both Fantastically True and Truly Fantastic, but have been less True Stories. Yet it is the True Stories that bridge the Fantastically True with the Truly Fantastic, or at least that is what the Spirit seems to have been saying to me. So like what I have always fallen back to doing, I will follow that voice of the Spirit. It's should be interesting to see what shall be forming out of this ongoing shift in the stories being presented through my spoken word and rap. Whatever it is, it shall always remain a channel for Love and Honestly. That is something that will never change.

The Movement Continues...

- Rhetorical Artz

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Oppositional Attitude

Sometimes I just want to cry
til I die
So I laugh
and laugh lively

Sometimes I just want to sit
and pretend I don’t exist
So I stand and raise my hands

Sometimes the world get me so down
that I want to give up
with a frown
So I smile
bigger than the happiest child

Acting in opposition is something I've been doing for a while

And I think the reason why is because growing up
I began to notice that when people wanted something
they often never got it
But when people wanted nothing
that something seemed to always be want they got

Personally
this didn't happen to me all the time
just enough that I began to see a trend

A trend I saw many of my family and friends follow...
willingly
Which I really
couldn't understand...
at first

Cause it just seemed so weird to me
to see someone who wanted peace
to be acting mad
or who wanted joy
to be acting sad
or who wanted goodness
to be acting bad

I mean if they really wanted those things
then why the heck would go and do...
the reverse?

But then I grew a tad bit
And as I did I had to admit
that I had come to understand it more

What I came to understand is that
insanity is defined as doing the same things
expecting different results
but ultimately
getting the same ones

Which would mean sanity
is doing different things
expecting the same results
but ultimately
getting different ones

So then doing something
in way that’s completely different from what your expecting
and getting completely different results
is better than doing the same thing
over and over again,
but getting
none...
of what you expected


Which told me that basically
somewhere down the timeline
humanity must have joined forces with insanity

Because it is insane
to walk around being cruel, or upset, or depressed
And expect to ever get anything less
than that

Yet...
people do all of these things
thinking that somehow
that will be rewarded
with kindness, or peace, or joyfulness

Look
I’m not saying that I haven’t done any of this
nor that I won’t do it ever again
What I’m sayin is that I have
and continue to hold
an attitude of opposition
against insanities transmission

Cause without an attitude of opposition
I don't see how anyone could live in a world
insisting
On holding one another through a grip of hatred
or kissing fellow human beings with lips of cruelty
Without having some means
of resisting it

So I laugh
even when I feel like I want to cry
And I live
even when I everything in me wants to die
And when the voice of despair
tells me I should just sit
and cease to exist
I stand-up
and raise my hand
in a fist

Cause otherwise how can tell my future children
much less my own inner child
that when everything in life that comes around
seems to be trying to pull you down
That smiling...
is still okay

Because sanity is defined as doing different things
while expecting the same results
but doing them anyway

So I implore you
although I don’t know you
Or necessary relate to what you’ve been through
Please
don’t give in the whim of this messed up world
But to that oppositional attitude
of wisdom within you...
be true

The Movement Continues...
- Rhetorical Artz