Plan BK: The Solutions - The 10 Year Fear vs. The Matrix of Ideas (Or, Q: "What do you wanna do with your life???" A: "I wanna RAWK!!!")

(sigh)







"So much trouble in the world...
So much trouble in the world...

Bless my eyes this morning,
Jah sun, is on the rise once again,
Way earthly things are going,
Anything can happen...

You see,
Men sailing on their ego trips,
Blast off, on their spaceships,
Million miles, from reality,
No care for you, no care for me...

So much trouble in the world...
So much trouble in the world...

All you've got to do is: give a little!
Give a little!
Give a little
One more time!
Ye-a-h! ye-ah!
Ye-a-h! ye-ah!

So you think you found the solution?
But it's just another illusion!
So before you check out this life,
Don't leave another cornerstone,
Standing there behind, yeah...

We've got to face the day,
Ooh we, come what may...
We the street-people talking,
We the people struggling...

Now they' sitting on a time bomb,
Now I know the time has come,
What goes on up must come on down,
What goes around must come around...

So much trouble in the world...
So much trouble in the world...
So much trouble in the world...

There is so much trouble, there is so much trouble...
There is so much trouble, there is so much trouble...
There is so much trouble in the world...
There is so much trouble in the world..."

- Bob Marley, "So Much Trouble In The World"


(...)


I was trading combo-convo with a shorty yesterday, as smart a chickie as I've seen, and I recycled something I told an old-homie last summer when he was going through his own similar stuff - among others I've mentioned this to.

In fact, I'm recycling my solid-stuff all the time and losing my mind, but people seem to like it and nobody's arguing, so what the hell.


(...)


I think the most important song I've posted online so far is "Bitchin' Bout Bullshit", where I say "Gotta take the bile, outta bitchin' bout, bullshit..." because getting genuinely angry about stoopid crap is messing us up. It was based on my study of Jay-Z's smooth-staccato flow, and while I didn't try to flow or sound like him, I was inspired by the ability of his conversational-control within a rhyme-scheme to reach people and focus them on key ideas.

I've got a bunch more, but what strikes me about this is while it's one of my favorite songs and I feel one of my most solid, it's not charting, and nobody is downloading it. Nearly all the others are and 5 songs were downloaded yesterday, but nobody's touching this one.

Is it the Guantana-pic beside the lyrics?

The filthy-filthy language?

The fact that no one knows what "bile" means?

I have no idea, but whatever, the message is true.

"Bitchin' Bout Bullshit" spiritually and mentally weakens us to the point where we are unable to handle any of the bigger issues...

...such as "So Much Trouble In The World".


(...)


We get home, we're tired, we're bitter, we're powerless, we're angry, we're sad, and we pop-in panacea's to distract us from the state of being we're being sold as "normal".

I know people who are unable to handle anything serious, a movie, a song, a book, a conversation... anything really, because they feel their "life" or "job" is stressful enough. Some of these same people will then watch the "news" out of a sense of obligation instead of "Fahrenheit 9/11", and feel even worse at the bits'n'bytes of half-wit garbage they see sold as their reality.

The fact that we "frame" problems incorrectly causes us undue stress, and makes them seem much bigger than they are. It's like we look at things with one-eye, and can't see them in 3D until we open the other one. We don't even need our 3rd eye for this little exercise, just the two we've got with a decent brain to match.


(...)

1. The 10 Year Fear

When deciding what to do with your life or "career", many people focus on finding a "10 year answer" (give or take).

This is insane.

If you are not sure right now, then the odds of you guessing correctly are poor, not to mention the scary idea of looking at something that your are "not sure of" as a 10 year commitment. Perhaps your journey will involve taking on a short-term commitment that grows into a longer one, and really, that's probably the best way to play most of them. Perhaps you'll learn through spending a year or two at a job what you actually want to focus on long-term or what you think of the industry and people in it; perhaps you'll meet people that will change your life and expand your options; or perhaps you'll fundamentally change in a positive way as a result of your choice.

Either way, you'll mess yourself up by throwing ideas out that you arbitrarily feel you need to stick-with for a long time, when you know in your heart-of-heart's and brain-of-brain's that it's not true. Even back in high school they said the average person changes careers seven times, and frankly I wouldn't mind if I did just for the variety. (In fact, I think I have.)

It doesn't matter what you want to do 10 years from now, figure out what you want to do now, and if in 10 years you're doing the same thing, congrats, you picked right.

And if in 10 years you are not but you've been relatively happy with your path and where you are, congrats, you picked right.


(...)

2. The Matrix of Ideas

In the same "career" vein, and frankly with many aspects of decision-making in general, ideas are only focused on individually and robbed of any nuances.

To wit: What do YOU want to DO?

Be a Lawyer? Doctor? Bus-driver? Janitor? Activist? Stripper?

If you know then you know.

If not, then you need to know how to find out.

As I said to my buddy last summer, here's a sample sentence:

"Hey man, tell me what you think of this idea: let's go get high, then play some music, then wander the city, then sodomize a chicken, then steal a car, then get Pho, then hit the club, then club a baby-seal, and then..."

He was like: "Huh?"

I told him that we have a list of stuff that we may or may not want to do, and while it was all said, not all of it needs to be done. Perhaps we'll leave the chicken, the car, and the seal alone, but freely putting everything up there in a Matrix of Ideas gives us an idea of all the crap that's on our minds and the clues therein.

When it comes to "career", unless one is excited about it's possibilities they get very scared of looking at the stereotype of a "job" by itself, and focus on that stereotype and many of it's drawbacks and limitations to the exclusion of their own passions or tastes.

Perhaps you want to be a lawyer, and even though Shakespeare said "Kill all the lawyers", you're not worried because your peeps drafted laws against that.

(Bastards.)

But that's okay, I know a bunch of lawyers and a bunch who've left law, it's not relevant.

What is relevant is putting the word "lawyer" either physically or methaphysically in a Matrix of Ideas along with a bunch of other interests, such as your love of music, art, computers, puppies, sports... whatever.

Once that's done, you have a narrative of your sub-conscious, and a list of elements that will stand out and possibly work together. From there you can add nuances to the "career" you are choosing, feel empowered to explore the possibilities of incorporating some of your passions and tastes, and become far more comfortable with the idea of YOU doing this as opposed to fitting into a stereotype of how it's been done. Then you can be the lawyer you want to be, as opposed to the lawyer you think the word "lawyer" means.

There.

Good luck, go make a lot of money, and buy my damn CD's so I can stop singing Kanye's latest and greatest song to my shorties from the completely opposite perspective of Mr. West...


"Now I ain't sayin' she a Goldigger,
But she ain't messin' with no broke niggas..."

- Kanye West, "Goldigger"


(...)


BONUS: And then maybe we can REALLY understand the rest of what he's saying...





(...)


BONUS: What the hell, just some old shit I found...


Weapons, of Mass Destruction,
A mass seduction,
Jerkin’ off our fears,
Secures, a reduction—

In proof,
Don’t need to tell the truth,
Just send, the-youth,
To-fight, tooth’n’nail,
Desert-sands, hot-as-hell,

Plus, don’t forget,
The mortar-shell,
'Caused a single-mother,
To wail,

Hell, what’s a life-here, a life-there,
Only for Western lives, do we-care,
Civilians die? Muslims cry?
That’s just, splittin’ hairs,

Like splittin’ pairs,
Then doubling-down,
Blackjack, on the ground,
And some of our methods, seem,
“Unsound” (*use Brando quote from Apocypse Now)

And yet, these sound, ideas,
Get the loudest cheers,
Let’s have, this game of Risk,
Over a couple of beers,

And they’re gambling too,
That’s our biggest fear,
This crippled-grain of sand,
That’s nowhere near—

US,
We’re scaredy-cats, ready to bust,
Bloodlust, do ‘em dirty,
With no, fuss or muss,

And cuss-out,
Every stinkin’ sand-nigger,
Glad we got triggers,
Let’s kill ‘em all,
Before they get bigger,

And badder,
We can’t get ‘em, any madder,
Threw ‘em off the ladder,
And we like ‘em, better sadder,

And weak,
We’re so advanced, and unique,
Umm, 3-Mile’s leak?
Oh, we tried to keep that discreet,

But heard the feet, they catchin’ up,
Let’s ratchet-up, the-pain,
Break his legs,
First time, The Karate Kid,
Does the crane,

The can’t fight,
Night-vision, pins ‘em,
Into submission,
And I love the Atari graphics,
On, television,

We’re no Playstation-nation,
Of superbit resolution,
I guess, the game of death,
Missed,
The video-game, revolution,

Pollution of the facts,
See, who really cares,
To explore,
Why this maniac dares,
To get us all, scared?

Just kill ‘im! He’s a villain!
It’s the sequel, greater evil,
Still, we did, starve his people,
So the scales, are never equal,

The death-penalty,
Kills, just one at a time,
Our war-crime?
To get him,
Had to bomb, bread-lines,

The missing thin-red-line,
Is a mystery,
And how the worst-Prez-in-history,
Can orchestrate, this mastery,
Of a catastrophe,

Savage imagery
To paint, the evil picture,
That killing-a-million for one,
Is written, in scripture,

A Church-goer?
Well: he’s slower than molasses,
Makin’ us asses,
For, future classes, to-say—
Thank-God—
That era passes,

Like Nazi-gases,
We’re gonna-see, the shame in the claim,
For killin’, willin’, but chillin’,
When helpin’, won’t bring us fame...

- Black Krishna, "Weapons of Mass Destruction", December 24, 2003