Youthful Life: X

Truth - The dating landscape has changed drastically in the path few decades. The ways that people are getting together, why they're doing it, and how long they stay way varies more and more. The notion of traditionalism that centers heteronormative coupling may be alive and well but the normalized narrative has received quite a few retoolings, edits, and both compatible and not-so-compatible counternarratives. The reality is some folx have partners, other don't - that's okay. There are still ways in which the former relegates those "without" as (dun, dun, dun) undateable.  " Single is no longer a lack of options – but a choice. A choice to refuse to let your life be defined by your relationship status but to live every day Happily and let your Ever After work itself out.”   Mandy Hale I'm undateable. There I said it. At the same time I'm also the "ideal" person. Body type, height, weight, smile, fashion sense, gainful employment, do...

I don't know what to say . I know exactly what I want to say. I am constantly on the verge of tears. I shake uncontrollably, I panic constantly, and I am paranoid. Racial battle fatigue is the traumatic aftermath of  never-ending psychological warfare. I teeter in this obscurity of pretend bliss and mortal fear. I exist only in the marginalia. Outsider, other, thug, brotha, criminal, savage, animal, subhuman. Am I a human being? Am I here right now? God where are you? Why did you do this to me? Why am I like this? My skin, my melanin, my culture, my language, my nose, my lips, my teeth - my body, broken, battered, beaten. Here I am, do you know me? Am I one of your children? Why have you forsaken me? I lay hear at your feet, begging, pleading, praying, that you will hear my cries. My literal cries. My screams of horror. My tears of sorrow. My heart that never stops beating as if to escape from my chest, from its cage, from the compounds where they used to keep us, from captivity, f...

Truth - We should all be feminists. For the sake of the world and creating the best reality possible, we must prioritize dismantling the patriarchal system we have been indoctrinated into. Everyone and I mean absolutely everyone has a stake in the fate of womxn across all diversities and intersections of identity. The liberation of womxn is inherent to the emancipation of all from rigid gender roles, societal expectations, and adverse stereotypes that prevent people by from reaching their full potential. Agency is the ability to choose, and to choose for yourself. Feminism is about dynamic agency in all aspects of life. "Feminism is hated because women are hated. Anti-feminism is a direct expression of misogyny; it is the political defense of women hating." Andrea Dworkin I am a feminist because people should be able to have choice in all aspects of life. Freedom is choice and to be so without the bondage of a world order that demands restriction, complacency, and...

Truth - Sometimes life seems to be good to be true. Isn't it odd how we spend so much time waiting for calamity to strike. We are constantly on the lookout for strife, hardship, and challenge. Sometimes, on rare occasions it seems (or more often if we wide our perspectives), life really can be as good as feels. Learning to capitalize on those dissipating moments is a skill many of us have little to no experience in doing successful. We have to learn how to be happy. Seems implicit but reality shows us otherwise. This is content. "The secret to happiness is freedom... And the secret to freedom is courage." Thucydides I have a confession to make. I don't know how to be happy. I don't think I allow myself to be happy often enough to recognize it when I'm feeling it. I have grown accustomed to just settling for being mostly appeased but less than stellar. But as of late, I would say my post-collegiate years, I have been surrounded by happiness. I'...

Truth - People spend a significant amount of their lives working. The work environment can be a wild place. Navigating it's hierarchies, pitfalls, and trick question is a job in an of itself. Being successful in your work is not just about the qualifications, talents, and skills you bring but build community, connection, and networking where you are, and beyond. It's about deciding how you want to show up at work, and holding yourself accountable to doing so. It's about finding that mythical sense of "balance." " Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony." Thomas Merton Starting a new job , in my case my first job, is a process. Navigating the workplace, particularly the organizational politics takes times, and figuring out where you fit into it all can be woefully confusing. Building connections and maintaining relationships honestly seems to be the main work that I've been doing with my task orien...

Truth - Life is full of ambiguity. Things never happen the way that we imagine them to. As much as we try and plan it all out, life always does it's own thing. More often than not, things tend to work out for the better, or at least gravitate towards some semblance of relative normalcy. That randomness that we all dread and strive to avoid though can be inevitable. Sometimes we have to embrace the haphazard nature of life, and just go with it. Doesn't make it any easier venturing into the unknown. "There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven't yet met." William Butler Yeats   One of the most dubiously exhilarating, and simultaneously most terrifying things in life is moving to a new place. There's new people and places to discover. Things to do, food to try, and connections to be made - the possibilities are endless. At the same time, you're absolutely all alone, fear can be truly debilitating, and doubt can settle in. It's this con...

Truth - Things rarely, if ever, work out the way we imagine them to. In fact, all the time spent obsessively trying to forecast the future only to be disappointed by the difference between our projected premonitions and reality, could be better spent trying to take things as they are. There's this part of humanity that desperately tries to make sense, meaning, perfect - what have you, out of the ambiguity of life. It's the paradox of predestination juxtaposed against the conceptualization of free-will. Are the two diametrically opposed, mutually exclusive, and the antithesis of one another? All I know is that people maybe vie for control because it gives them power to make things the way they want them instead of life running its unpredictable course. Who knows what will next. I think people just want some closure.  "I don't believe you ever get closure on anything. Things leave a permanent mark on you."  Allison Anders Life is messy, people. Life is r...

Truth - We live in a world of communication. To be human is to be in contact with other humans. That ease of communication ranges greatly though from one experience to another. Some people have access to resources, devices, and networks that make communicating nearly instantaneous. Others are limited in that respect. And yet somehow people convey what they need to across barriers of medium, language, ability, etc. Conversations go on around us all the time, and sometimes they don't. The dialogues we're part of all depend on the context we find ourselves in. How do we regulate our correspondence? " Everybody is continuously connected to everybody else on Twitter, on Facebook, on Instagram, on Reddit, e-mailing, texting, faster and faster, with the flood of information jeopardizing meaning. Everybody's talking at once in a hypnotic, hyper din:  the cocktail party from hell." Maureen Dowd I remember in high school , back in the days when we had limits on ...

Truth - People behave differently when they perceive themselves to be under observation. This phenomenon is called the Hawthorne effect. If our lives are all based on our interactions with others and the world around us, then who are we? If who we are changes based on the context of where we are or who we find ourselves, the question becomes, are we ever actually being ourselves? Maybe the question is rhetorical, in that we can only ever be ourselves? Regardless, there's a lot to unpack here. This is the big interview. "I sometimes find that in interviews you learn more about yourself than the person learned about you." William Shatner It's been funny for me the amount of advice, the vast majority of it unsolicited, that I've received ever since I started my job search process. People have truly come out of the wood work to give me their opinions on how I should approach every aspect of the process. Most, if not all, of it has had benign intentions but ...

Truth - Sometimes we are prepared for life and other times we have to learn on the fly. It's those times where we are underprepared that often become the most significant for us. Who are we when we are caught off guard? How do we react when we receive bad news? Why do we behave in certain ways? Being told no has a sting to it but what's truly is poisonous is letting that venom subdue us. We can take rejection, it doesn't have to take us. "Most fears of rejection rest on the desire for approval from other people. Don't base your self-esteem on their opinions." Harvey Mackay Nobody likes to be told no but how we respond makes all the difference. More often than not we want TJ respond with denial and rebuke. It's like when you like someone but they don't like you back and so you take back your confession of feelings for them, or turn around insult them. It's juvenile, petty, and low. It speaks more to an immaturity in us than anything. We can...