Turning 27 nearly two weeks ago afforded me yet another opportunity to reflect. This time around I thought about what it means to be a young (I use that word loosely) black man at 27. Moreover, I thought about the 'how' and the 'what' of me coming into a most critical time in my life and engaged them from an analytical view of what it means to be black man at 27.
Flooded with thoughts prompted from conversations with friends and the experiences of my life, the following is a list of sorts involving choices, thoughts, and pivotal points of direction that could have led me one way or another. In no particular order of significance I share these so as to draw careful consideration on where you were at this time in your life if you so happen to identify with any of the sentiments below.
So read, reflect, think, and discuss.
What kind of man would I be if I didn't admit when I'm wrong? But beyond admitting fault, seek to make it right. Beyond restitution, learn to seek forgiveness and simultaneously learning to forgive.
What kind of man would I be if I didn't learn to maintain and seek integrity in every situation? Even at the cost of public approval and the lauds of the fickle, remain steadfast in what is right and what I hold to be true.
What kind of man would I be if I didn't know my limitations? Boundaries promote a concentration of sorts but more so understanding that I am not called to be like the next man nor am I to even covet after his innate capabilities.
What kind of man would I be if I didn't have goals and set a vision for my life? In doing so with guidance from the Almighty, the trajectory for my life is set. Therefore I plan my work and work my plan.
What kind of man would I be if I didn't acknowledge my emotions? But beyond acknowledgement there is reconciliation, and where there is reconciliation there is application which therefore gives causation for the mastery of the emotional components of my life.
What kind of man would I be if I gave in to every whim of temptation? Temptation is nothing more than an appealing to the senses to do wrong in spite of what we know to be right.
What kind of man would I be if I didn't treat my mother as the queen that she is and support the needs of my family? In doing so I learn first hand how to treat women right and to develop unadulterated loyalty and the support necessary to raise a family.
What kind of man would I be if I didn't seek to make wise decisions?
What kind of man would I be if I didn't pray?
What kind of man would I be if I didn't have good friends? People who know me well enough to think my thoughts after me. Who push me to success and call me to my greatest good.
What kind of man would I be if I weren't educated? A good friend of mine says that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Who would I be and where would I be if I didn't read and engage in meaningful discussion? What kind of man would I be if I didn't actively learn to shun ignorance? If I didn't challenge myself intellectually to be better tomorrow than I am today.
What kind of man would I be if I didn't make myself accessible?
What kind of man would I be if I didn't love? Love not on a superficial level similar to lust but on a deep level whose rewards are immense but also valuable enough to be shared.
What kind of man would I be if I didn't take care of myself? Where would I be if I didn't have a commitment to health, living well, and maintaining a certain quality of life?
What kind of man would I be if I didn't learn to be by myself ? In learning to be by myself I develop a healthy sense of love myself for myself and come into greater understanding of myself. It's here where I learn to laugh at myself, to not take myself so seriously but always looking at myself as a continual work in progress moving from to good to greater.
What kind of man would I be if I didn't strive to be single minded in matters? If I didn't learn to observe and consider all viewpoints but commit myself to make sound decisions.
What kind of man would I be if I didn't learn to take my time? To value quality over frequency. To invest in the long term and prepare myself to work to generate the greatest outcome.
What kind of man would I be if I didn't understand that 'No' is sometimes an even greater answer than yes? To be comfortable with saying no but wise and most of all graceful in its application.
What kind of man would I be if I weren't sensitive to the needs of others? Learning when to put the needs, wants, aspirations, and desires of others before my own.
What kind of man would I be if I didn't learn to listen more than I speak? But when asked, be available to give an answer worth listening to.
What kind of man would I be if I didn't learn to step away? Not in defeat but in knowing that healing for myself is more important than a victory won with many detrimental scars. More importantly knowing when not to win at the wrong battles.
What kind of man would I be if I didn't know that humility and grace go hand in hand? That I should be readily able to dispense both in voluminous amounts and to receive in a manner likewise. What kind of man would I be if I didn't seek to set aside pride, ego, and pretension?
These are a few things that I've thought amount most recently. This piece is subject to change as I continue to grow.I'll probably revisit this subject matter again, however in the mean time as you grow and develop I implore you to think about who you are becoming.
Let us not come into who we are without pondering carefully the makings that give meaning to our lives.
-WAC, III-
Showing posts with label thoughts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thoughts. Show all posts
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Swagger in the academy
I remember when I really started latching onto the idea that being smart is cool. The more I bit into this concept, the greater the search for an adjective to describe how awesome I found this idea to be. It happened sometime between my sophomore and junior year at Hampton University. Somehow, some way my intellectual faculties were jarred awake and heightened. They had lain dormant in a passive state and at most times were an external reference only to be accessed on very rare occasions. In high school I never saw myself as an intellectual and thought my contributions to classroom discussion were not to of value. In retrospect I wished that I could have been or made myself smarter. More intellectual. More challenging. More out spoken and less accommodating. Not that I may outdo or prove anything to anyone but for myself. It didn't help that my predominantly white high school presented me with a narrow, nil, and at most times absent figure of what a black intellectual looked like.
In reflection I think it would have been impossible for me to blossom there because at that time I perceived the environment to not be intellectually nurturing nor calling forth my greatest good as a student. Probably because I found myself in defense and survival mode as I tersed the landscape.
So fast forward to HIU. There I was; right in the middle history, heritage, pride, tradition, and scholarship. Suffice it to say that Hampton was my dream school and lived up to the menagerie of embedded images in my mind posited by School Daze and A Different World. Little did i know that this impression would have profound implications for future academic success.
I write this post so as not to attract attention to myself or so that people can laude me. It is far from that. I invite you to this narrative intending to call attention to an experience that I believe should be happening in the academy, home, and in daily life. Being a graduate student has made me to think how I might be better able to encourage, cultivate, and impart this skill to others. More personally I thought about my younger sister and how growing up I wished I had expressed more often that it’s ok to be smart and intellectual. Heck it even looks good on you. But then I jumped back to the time in my memory when being smart wasn't so cool. When using words such as 'deft' and 'adept' would garner strange looks of bewilderment. And I thought. I thought.
In reflection I think it would have been impossible for me to blossom there because at that time I perceived the environment to not be intellectually nurturing nor calling forth my greatest good as a student. Probably because I found myself in defense and survival mode as I tersed the landscape.
So fast forward to HIU. There I was; right in the middle history, heritage, pride, tradition, and scholarship. Suffice it to say that Hampton was my dream school and lived up to the menagerie of embedded images in my mind posited by School Daze and A Different World. Little did i know that this impression would have profound implications for future academic success.
Being a first generation student, college was very new to me. I drunk in every experience presented as a nursing babe desperate for a bottle. There came a point when those nutrients transformed into intellectual capital/muscle and I found myself articulate and was able to see myself outside of myself waxing strong in logic, reason, deduction, and scholarship. I found myself being immersed in conversation able to retort and sift through sensation to find substance which produced a confidence not attainted before. I was most amused with the command of vocabulary that I was acquiring and my inclination to dispense it at will. I mostly saw this occurrence happening in either the classroom and in my peer interaction. It was healthy for me that this experience was coated in black for it enabled me to have a deep appreciation for academics because no longer was the concept of a black intellectual foreign, it was internalized.
I write this post so as not to attract attention to myself or so that people can laude me. It is far from that. I invite you to this narrative intending to call attention to an experience that I believe should be happening in the academy, home, and in daily life. Being a graduate student has made me to think how I might be better able to encourage, cultivate, and impart this skill to others. More personally I thought about my younger sister and how growing up I wished I had expressed more often that it’s ok to be smart and intellectual. Heck it even looks good on you. But then I jumped back to the time in my memory when being smart wasn't so cool. When using words such as 'deft' and 'adept' would garner strange looks of bewilderment. And I thought. I thought.
Who was the person who made it 'uncool' to be smart?
Why is the problem pervasive in the black community and often manifests itself in a negative aspirations to post-secondary education?
Then I got it. Through observation of interactions, media, and conversations I'm repeatedly told that it’s preferred and more cool to live out the stereotypes often found on the local 3 letter cable station and 3 letter athletic association. But, allow me if you will to present you with this thrill, I guarantee you will have greater time dismantling, escaping, and breaking stereotypical limitations while creating new knowledge in the process.
I'm beyond convinced that TV, internet, video games, etc. lulls youth into stupor and distraction. But they aren't solely to blame. We who have been educated have a duty that we aren't living up to which is to call the younger generation to their greater good. The key is engagement, not a dumbing down to make something relevant. I ask you, how do we engage our youth and also one another so as to make scholarship relevant again? How do we imbue them with a sense of aspiration that translates into intellectual swagger in the academy? We have to go back to creating cultures of literacy. It’s easier said than done and at best a far off wishful thought. I know such an idea is unfathomable today because instantaneous gratification rules our society. This short sightedness tells people what to think as opposed to how to think.
I move that we become more outcome oriented. Be intentional and nurture potential. Suggest a book to a youth that you've read and are familiar with.
But FYP (for your polishing), I would be remiss if I didn't leave you with this: Go get lost. Yeh. Go get lost in a library.
When is the last you've been to the library strictly for recreational purposes?
-WAC, III-
Thursday, February 3, 2011
The life examined
Reflection. Thorough examination of yourself. It's testy. Scary. Heady. Dissonant. But one has to know their self. Sometimes life presents us with situations where we're splayed open and split in two. Situations where previous thinking is rendered irrelevant or is at worst shattered. This shattering gives us a rare chance in this transient life to look at the pieces. To really examine them. To scrutinize them. A rare opportunity to look at you; to see what you're really made of. Look at it. Understand it. Know it. Own it.
Sometime life's circumstances at times will drive us to go into ourselves. This experience can be either good or bad but hopefully the outcome is positive. Hopefully you emerge a better person. Be cautioned not to withdraw so much into yourselves that you get lost and can't re-emerge. Much like the body intrinsically has what it needs to heal when cut, likewise does the mind. And those qualities won't be activated until demanded upon to do so.
There comes points when we are in conflict with ourselves. Times where don't always act on what we know. Sometimes we fall short of being what we say we're all about. This confusion about ourselves can easily give way to doubt. I however surmise if not challenge us to move beyond the battle of the dichotomy between thought and action to overcoming and conquering with knowledge and definition.
For me knowledge of myself is only revealed through knowing God. In knowing and cultivating this relationship I have an opportunity to know what the Creator intends for me, what He says about me, what He has articulated in his word as definition for things in my life of which I am uncertain. Knowledge that says as much of a good man that I think I am, no goodness of my own can ever compare or do anything to warrant the goodness that God extends toward me. When life brings about confusion or fleeting moments that seem unclear, I'm kindly reminded of the words in Jer 29:11 that He knows the plans He has has for me and those are good and for His glory. For God is ultimately and always good. Anything that He allows to happen in my life, regardless of how I feel, is for my good and ultimately for His glory.
Does this mean that I should wallow in the unclarities of my life, that more grace may abound? No. In wrestling to understand and in seeking, I am to act on what I already know. Though I don't always understand me; wretched and depraved me, He does. Apart from Him, I by myself have no sense of purpose. I have no sense of a greater good that exist because even on my best day I'm still prone to failure and depravity that makes no sense. Any good that I exhibit is a result of knowing Him and His purpose being hammered out in me.
-WAC, III-
Sometime life's circumstances at times will drive us to go into ourselves. This experience can be either good or bad but hopefully the outcome is positive. Hopefully you emerge a better person. Be cautioned not to withdraw so much into yourselves that you get lost and can't re-emerge. Much like the body intrinsically has what it needs to heal when cut, likewise does the mind. And those qualities won't be activated until demanded upon to do so.
There comes points when we are in conflict with ourselves. Times where don't always act on what we know. Sometimes we fall short of being what we say we're all about. This confusion about ourselves can easily give way to doubt. I however surmise if not challenge us to move beyond the battle of the dichotomy between thought and action to overcoming and conquering with knowledge and definition.
For me knowledge of myself is only revealed through knowing God. In knowing and cultivating this relationship I have an opportunity to know what the Creator intends for me, what He says about me, what He has articulated in his word as definition for things in my life of which I am uncertain. Knowledge that says as much of a good man that I think I am, no goodness of my own can ever compare or do anything to warrant the goodness that God extends toward me. When life brings about confusion or fleeting moments that seem unclear, I'm kindly reminded of the words in Jer 29:11 that He knows the plans He has has for me and those are good and for His glory. For God is ultimately and always good. Anything that He allows to happen in my life, regardless of how I feel, is for my good and ultimately for His glory.
Does this mean that I should wallow in the unclarities of my life, that more grace may abound? No. In wrestling to understand and in seeking, I am to act on what I already know. Though I don't always understand me; wretched and depraved me, He does. Apart from Him, I by myself have no sense of purpose. I have no sense of a greater good that exist because even on my best day I'm still prone to failure and depravity that makes no sense. Any good that I exhibit is a result of knowing Him and His purpose being hammered out in me.
-WAC, III-
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Paradigm Shifter
Getting over someone after a break up is never easy. There's no prescriptive method on how to do so. For a long while there existed this paradigm in my mind. This paradigm was this multi-faceted construct of everything I thought the she in my life should be. And I thought what I needed to get over someone was what I call a 'paradigm shifter'. That is someone who would come along and change my thinking on how I look at women, what I expected of them, and who would eradicate the standard of someone else that I was holding them to. But I was wrong.
It was me who had shift my own paradigm. I had to break the mold. And now I have to reconceptualize the standard. In my previous thinking about searching for a paradigm shifter, I was giving too much power away. I was expecting someone to do for me what I could have done for myself all along. I had to really sit down with myself and truly think through what it is that I want in someone, what it is that I expect, and define for myself what is my standard. I had to stop worrying about the 'what ifs' of the past and start focusing on the 'what will be' or 'who will be's' of the future. In doing so I gained more control. A greater control over what I expect to give and receive. But to get there wasn't easy and often times we're afraid to break that paradigm because its safe and familiar.
In reflection, we have to thank them for the time they spent with us. We have to appreciate, cherish, and respect the time and memories but we can't remain in 'what if' land. You have to protect your emotions and store them up for that next special person that is destined to come along. And we have to move on. We must move on. There is someone out there who requires so much more of you and to not prepare yourself for them by living in the past is to do them injustice. There's no love lost its just compartmentalized. Compartmentalized as part of my past and bears witness to the capabilities that I posses to be someone's great significant other. The breaking of the paradigm is not to be lamented over for in subscribing to the previous constraints of said paradigm, it by its very nature is severely limiting. If anything we should be inspired, for we are to be expectant to see who and what will be. I'm convinced that the magic isn't in the possibility of getting back together, it now exists in the possibility of what is to come.
-WAC, III-
It was me who had shift my own paradigm. I had to break the mold. And now I have to reconceptualize the standard. In my previous thinking about searching for a paradigm shifter, I was giving too much power away. I was expecting someone to do for me what I could have done for myself all along. I had to really sit down with myself and truly think through what it is that I want in someone, what it is that I expect, and define for myself what is my standard. I had to stop worrying about the 'what ifs' of the past and start focusing on the 'what will be' or 'who will be's' of the future. In doing so I gained more control. A greater control over what I expect to give and receive. But to get there wasn't easy and often times we're afraid to break that paradigm because its safe and familiar.
In reflection, we have to thank them for the time they spent with us. We have to appreciate, cherish, and respect the time and memories but we can't remain in 'what if' land. You have to protect your emotions and store them up for that next special person that is destined to come along. And we have to move on. We must move on. There is someone out there who requires so much more of you and to not prepare yourself for them by living in the past is to do them injustice. There's no love lost its just compartmentalized. Compartmentalized as part of my past and bears witness to the capabilities that I posses to be someone's great significant other. The breaking of the paradigm is not to be lamented over for in subscribing to the previous constraints of said paradigm, it by its very nature is severely limiting. If anything we should be inspired, for we are to be expectant to see who and what will be. I'm convinced that the magic isn't in the possibility of getting back together, it now exists in the possibility of what is to come.
-WAC, III-
On becoming a man...
It wasn't by choice that I became the bigger, better, or good man; life's circumstances demanded that I be.
-WAC, III-
-WAC, III-
Saturday, January 15, 2011
What is 'it'?
When dating a female, guys give one particular answer as to why they chose not to continue the relationship:
'She just didn't have it.'
The it is that certain 'je ne sais quoi' factor that we're looking to describe or fill in. The it is that substantive umph (for lack of a better word) that a man can really sink his teeth into. To put it aptly, it's the difference in pandering for candy or indulging in the rich complexities of a well prepared meal.
But ask seven different guys what it is and you're going to get seven different answers. I've been guilty of saying a female didn't have it and although I knew what it meant, it was hard to express. So what is it? I think it for me is simple. It is an ideal that's described as having depth of substance, confidence of character, and security in self that radiates from her that makes me want to involve myself with her not just on a superficial level but on an emotional level. It is when a woman ignites a passion in a man for him to get to really know and care about her beyond her beauty.
Keep in mind that this description is not comprehensive nor is it a prescription to go from ain't to it.
I've often been able to tell if she had it by the way she walked. I don't know how but I just knew. I believe that a female knows if she has it. Matter of fact, I like females who walk in their it. Not in a way that is ostentatious, over-stated, or beyond them but more demure like. Increasingly, I've found myself more attracted to the way a woman carries herself; the details of her personality, style (not just clothes but the way shes does everything), and sense of humor. Its the interplay between these that make it it. I think this plays a significant role in whether it is there or is not.
Such thoughts have led me to ponder if whether or not it is progressive, relative, or requisite. I don't think one can go out looking for it. It hits you smack in the face. Like walking into a glass door that you didn't realize was there. But when you get hit, slightly startled you take a step back, smile, chuckle, and realize it was there all along.
Yeah that's it.
-WAC, III-
'She just didn't have it.'
The it is that certain 'je ne sais quoi' factor that we're looking to describe or fill in. The it is that substantive umph (for lack of a better word) that a man can really sink his teeth into. To put it aptly, it's the difference in pandering for candy or indulging in the rich complexities of a well prepared meal.
But ask seven different guys what it is and you're going to get seven different answers. I've been guilty of saying a female didn't have it and although I knew what it meant, it was hard to express. So what is it? I think it for me is simple. It is an ideal that's described as having depth of substance, confidence of character, and security in self that radiates from her that makes me want to involve myself with her not just on a superficial level but on an emotional level. It is when a woman ignites a passion in a man for him to get to really know and care about her beyond her beauty.
Keep in mind that this description is not comprehensive nor is it a prescription to go from ain't to it.
I've often been able to tell if she had it by the way she walked. I don't know how but I just knew. I believe that a female knows if she has it. Matter of fact, I like females who walk in their it. Not in a way that is ostentatious, over-stated, or beyond them but more demure like. Increasingly, I've found myself more attracted to the way a woman carries herself; the details of her personality, style (not just clothes but the way shes does everything), and sense of humor. Its the interplay between these that make it it. I think this plays a significant role in whether it is there or is not.
Such thoughts have led me to ponder if whether or not it is progressive, relative, or requisite. I don't think one can go out looking for it. It hits you smack in the face. Like walking into a glass door that you didn't realize was there. But when you get hit, slightly startled you take a step back, smile, chuckle, and realize it was there all along.
Yeah that's it.
-WAC, III-
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
An ode to living
What do you want from me? Yeh, I'm talking to you life. What do you want from me? My time? My well thought out plans? My energy? My money? My fears? My dissonance? My joys? My disappointments? My successes? My failures? Anything else that you want?
Well here's what I want from you: Everything that you have for me.
Here's what I expect from you: The best.
Here's what I'm going to give you: Me.
-WAC, III-
Well here's what I want from you: Everything that you have for me.
Here's what I expect from you: The best.
Here's what I'm going to give you: Me.
-WAC, III-
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Short thoughts with long term implications
There is knowledge--->intellectual refinement--->Application--->WISDOM
- The dignity of discipline and the decency of character.
- Hubris versus Humility
- Sensation versus Substance
- Intentionality in communication so as to obtain desired result.
-WAC, III-
Tough as nails
Yesterday morning I took my grandpa to the doctors for his routine dialysis appointment. On the way there, he asked me to stop by McDonald's to have his usual order before his appointment. His order consisted of a number three and a strawberry milkshake. Yup. A strawberry milkshake at approximately 9:27 a.m. Not an orange juice, sprite, coke, or ginger ale but a strawberry milkshake. Now I wasn't as taken aback as I would have been had not my father prepped me before I left the house. However I was still somewhat surprised, yet all the more perplexed, but found humor in the combination of this order. I began to think about his order and the possible rationale behind his order in the context and observations that I have made about my grand father.
Some would classify my grand father as stubborn and set in his ways. And to an extent I agree. But in widening the scope of my purview, I see that my grandfather has had a mental fortitude about him that has garnered him the right to order his '9:27a.m. milkshake' on a Monday as opposed to my 8a.m. coffee. When I say my grandpa is from the 'old-school', he's really from the old school. Not that pseudo romanced cliche' of a term 'old-school' but the kind that evokes images of long wooden plank barely sanded benches, dusty floors, and a chalk board in dire need of washing. Now I wouldn't say that my grandpa is the most educated or learned man but Wilmon A. Christian, Sr. has pretty much always known what he's wanted, what it takes to accomplish what he wants, and how to put together that which he wants. Wilmon Sr. knew that he didn't just want to have a family but wanted to start a clan so he married my grandmother, had six children, and provided land for each of those children. He also knew that he liked music but buying a radio was far too simple for him rather he opted to teach himself how to make music; strumming away at his guitar when he got the chance.
When I was born, he was going through this phase of building. Building any and everything, whatever he wanted on his land. If in his mind there was a necessity or desire to build something, it got built. Things such as massive tool sheds, garages, and structures that were incomprehensible sprang up all over his land. These seemingly unfinished, odd, and archaic structures were the adventuresome playgrounds of little kids like myself but to him they were the actualization of ingenuity.
Now to some, the way I have described this man he would seem to be a pragmatist. But he was more than that. Yes, pragmatic in the sense that if he had enough space and a need for something to be built then it was. But a mental fortitude in that he outright owned his ideas and creations, endured ridicule for what he created, stood by what he created even if no one else did but himself, and was able to bring to fruition that which he saw in his mind's eye.
As a young man I value this type of ability that my grandpa possessed. My hope is that I will develop the mental fortitude to be bold and to know what it is that I want, the mental tenacity to endure ridicule, criticism, and the process of intellectual development, and the mental dexterity to have an open mind and to be able to think on multiple planes.
Yeh, my grandpa or 'Pa-Pa' as he is called is tough as nails. He used to bathe in bleach after laying cement for construction, has had a tree fall on him, he's a heart attack survivor, a widower, a guitar player, a builder, a father, a grand father, has had numerous other experiences and is many other things. I believe the hardest part for him now is not being able to readily express his thoughts with clarity and be understood. For that old nail of a man, his point may be a little dull but every now and again I catch glimpses of his mental fortitude that speaks to his character.
-WAC, III-
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