Last night, my friend Vince posted this music vid, which got the beat stuck in my head, inspiring me to write this poem. It's not the greatest poem I've written, but for a twenty to thirty minute verbal diarrhea session, I'm really impressed with it. I started with just the idea of talking about time, and I went full circle with exploring how the universe is a byproduct of a self-replicating binary algorithm. There are a lot of details that I did not even think about concretely, but noticed in the read through of the whole thing. Writing (virtually) every single day for a few years has really paid off!
I really like logic puzzle games. Things like Minesweeper, Hexcells, and Suduko have all tickled my brain for an extended period each. And for each of them, I also got good at shooting from the hip, so to speak. My brain could just see how everything came together, even if I wasn't concretely thinking about what solutions were there. I had trained my autopilot to pick up patterns and execute on them.
The same is happening with my writing. I used to story-board, and obsess over every little detail. But, this only stifled authentic creativity. True creativity comes as the result of making quick connections and jumping between ideas so that you keep that idea-generator piecing together new things. This is why I've also started delving into freeflow, stream of consciousness pieces. It's like going for a run; it just exercises the right parts of the mind.
Like I said, I used to be more ornery about what I put down on paper, even thought these are all electronic glyphs. Now, I can just dance with the ideas in my head and something at least coherent comes out that has some depth to it. I don't need to force myself to chisel away all the details, because what's coming out already has been processed by the heuristic mind.
I'm hoping the same happens to my speech. I have begun to make videos. They are only vlogs, and they are pretty low quality, but the entire point is just to regularly activate those neural pathways associated with talking firing regularly. There was a period of my life where I was functionally mute, just by the fact that I was always isolated and alone. I noticed these skills atrophy pretty bad, and I had to work to get them to regenerate. Being alone again, I don't want that to happen. In fact, I want to use this time to improve on my ability to communicate.
I've begun rapping regularly. I'm able to memorize and regurgitate the lyrics well enough, I just have to work on stuff like my voice and inflection. The timing itself is down, and I know with that I can succeed if I keep putting in the work. I've only been juggling for three years, and that's blossoming into something truly amazing. I can't imagine what I will be like down the line. How talented will I be ten years from now?
Just keep swimming. I suffer a lot. Last night I broke into tears again, thinking I didn't deserve anything. Oh well. There will be lows to balance the highs. I just know that if I keep putting effort in, I won't be stuck like I once was. The journey of a thousand steps begins with one. Maintaining momentum is more important than having a crazy take off.
I was talking with my friend Lawrence the other day. We were discussing his band, and I told him that there are two types of guns. With the traditional firearm, there's an initial burst of energy, which shoots the bullet out of the barrel fast. But, there's also rail guns which accelerate the bullet consistently out the barrel. Of the two, the latter has a much higher potential to hit higher speeds, and thus travel the greater distance.
There's no shortcut to success. We're all mortal, and we all have to put the work in every day if we want to achieve our dreams. The pieces are coming together, and while I still feel like I am missing the most crucial piece of all, I know the picture will complete itself in time.