Loops, pits and rabbit holes.

When I first started this blog I was stuck in a loop. When an existential crisis hits you there's nothing more you gravitate to but that one thing you know which serves as an anchor to your being- for me, that thing is writing. My earliest childhood joy before even going to school was reading and writing. My parents could already pick up I had an overactive imagination and keeping me locked up in the house when I wasn't at school only fortified the walls of my sociological imagination to home, school, and television propaganda. I thus have a very strong inclination to who I am as told by my father, explored through the education system and contextualized through mass media. The existential crisis is inevitable- for as long as we realize how big of a role our psychological framework plays in determining how we ultimately consolidate the complexity of views and people who directly and indirectly shape how you view yourself. Confronting yourself is triggered by an apparent need or dissatisfaction with accepting how things are. It is an anxiety arresting development causing you to be settled in a loop while you examine the evidence memory and prevailing mindsets brings before you as you put ideas and convictions on trial. It is an awakening in the simulation as you confront your avatar and the script being played out. That is why although I had watched Sarafina so many times- it became more than just a screenplay of a historical narrative. Questions were posed internally and as long as one is big on empathy, the fickleness of life had me questioning what is to live for when others died in circumstances you equally could have been in.

Race became an important bone of contention. A bone easily left in the sun to dry but such ignorance was no longer optional. While having an understanding of relative human coexistence philosophy I had generally found myself to be in denial of my perspective. Race no longer became an issue I could dismiss- not when there was hurt, pain and oppression attached to mine. It became the new predicate for my socialization. I was black. It is an identity I had to inculcate and reconcile with all preinstalled systems within me. It became the foremost apparent identity construct I couldn't pick and choose like my religious or political affiliations. No. Being black was most confrontational because it means something in this lifetime. It was a fair default setting. The loop had taken I some form of structure: Understanding myself is understanding my blackness. Understanding my blackness. This was all too fulfilling to me as it was explorative. It was a catharsis on its own.I could reflect on my past and ruminate on all I have been fed by black people who raised me. I could ponder on what they said and taught me. I can ponder on the behavior they also modeled before me. I could psychoanalyze them...empathy was at work. I could engage in my black counterparts and engage them on their progress in the conundrum. The loop took shape. I had found a great appreciation for sociological explanations and frameworks of understanding life. I was in a liberal institution and could ask all questions to all types of people. My mind was on overtime and this blog remedied the internal bleeding. I could have kept a diary and wrote and kept things to myself but that wouldn't have allowed the dialogue to ensue. The blog was all too personal and capturing my thoughts meant that I could let more people offer their two cents after reading mine. I am fortunate to have entered the rabbit hole- a dark knight cannot rise unless he is thrown into a pit first.

Man, however, is not just a racial being. This becomes further complicated when Race is diagnosed for the social construct it is. It becomes a puzzle to solve if we are going to diagnose identity as a social construct. Convenient for me however as at least I knew answers exist for manmade problems. The game of life has rules and the characters we assume in the game can easily be explained to us by those who know how the game has been set up. To say I am a construct is to say that I am as fictional as Batman is. It is not unfathomable to acknowledge this absurdity but this is as cutthroat as it is. We have come to understand that the system did not fall down from the sky We are programmed and wherever we find ourselves on the chessboard can be understood in the broader scheme of things if one can just broaden their sociological imagination and engage the psychological, philosophical and political school of  thoughts predicating the modern matrix we are in. I was able to deal with my behavior shifting from the what I ought to be to the who I am. It seems there is a drawback into the shadows in this regard. There is a beast which lies within once the bars holding anomie and restraint falls away. Man is in a dialogue internally with himself. Man is responsible for his convictions even if unaware of how to express them. Man needs to understand his construction if he is to relate to his neighbor. Man is projection so much he is facing within. If he sees society divided it is because he is divided. If he sees society divided and society is in its essence divided it is because Man is also divided within. Man is not in isolation from the game. The game is a collective simulation of individual projections of the schisms we are experiencing in the unseen. This makes sense to me. I am complex being and so is my neighbor. I have questions but my neighbor has questions too. I am looking for certainty but so is my neighbor. I feel I am different but so does my neighbor. If we are all divorcing ourselves from the situation then no one can be said to be responsible. Man is left to be a finger pointer where no one actually feels they are too be entirely blamed. If we all deserve to be judged but you deserve mercy than the same can go for the one you deem to be without mercy. I experienced a loop within me because I am essentially in a society caught in a loop. If you have been reading for so long then you should be experiencing the loop right now.

What I appreciate about the time from when I started this blog is the immeasurable treasure of experiential knowledge I have been able to gain. Books I have always read but the chapters of human hearts are usually paged with tears of pain, sorrow, betrayal, and loss. I am really okay now. I have searched so much in trying to understand others- I know I have lost myself in the process. I feel so rich though. There is no conversation I cower from. Overcoming nihilism and slave morality- it becomes easier now to understand the savagery of my own heart, its vileness, and cunningness. It was one thing to read about how desperately wicked the heart can be but it is another to experience it. I am comforted though to be vindicated by the same society- affirming what I have to offer and allowing me to continue amongst them. I have always felt that my reconciliation to society has been something I should've gone through earlier but being where I am now, I wouldn't have had it any other way. I am glad that my conditioners all taught me to ask questions and now that I have held the sword to all of them I am sane to know that I am left with the decisions of where to from now. What I appreciate about confrontation is that you are never truly alone until you know who wields authority between your ears. Life is a power struggle.

My biggest challenge right now is twofold. I have so many stories to tell, I am compelled to express the conclusions. Writing about them sounds like a good idea but because these are not things I have read but truly experienced, I am compelled to express a craft more creative and suitable to the gravity of the process. Do you see how out of crisis I have found purpose? My second challenge right now is rebuilding my spheres of social interaction relating anew not with those who I am trying to necessarily learn from or teach but those who accept me for who I am- as they have equally been exposed to the pages of my heart. This is important in finding out what my convictions are. I need to be free to express myself in all my political incorrectness. I need to express my passion and my joy too. The world awaits me and I am not arriving empty-handed.

Man has many faces. Man has many thinks.