Naws Tal Jah - 21 is the new 0

I completed a lot of writing in the last couple of weeks. I've started a few projects and outlined others. I've made headway with larger tasks and generally I've been feeling pretty good about my progress. Today I found I had several documents open at once and decided to save them, then discovered while looking in the "My Documents" folder that it had become quite cluttered with a lot of documents from the past and a lot of things that aren't too important. More than that, even though some may be worth saving, the filing system for them was horrendous.

Anyway, I started going through and opening the documents, browsing through them, renaming them and moving them around to be better organized. I had a lot of documents tranferred to this computer from my family's home computer in the suburbs and it's got a small portion of files from my now deseased laptop. As a result I found myself looking at a relatively comprehensive survey of my writing in the past 4 years, similarly this represents a fairly accurate snapshot of my thoughts, feelings, and values throughout this time period. It's been quite revealing.

My writing hasn't really changed all that much over these years, I think it's probably a little more sophisticated, but the style has not changed very much at all, I'm still in love with alliteration and metaphors seem to be my favorite plaything, that sounds so nerdy. I've learned that the core of me really hasn't changed that much over the years either, I know I've gone through a lot of different phases, and a lot of people around me have talked about ways in which I've changed, but looking at my writing now I find that I really haven't changed on the inside, the changes that have occured largely fall into two groups: First, cosmetic changes, surface interests and actions, and Second, the apparent changes that have occured simply because I've been given occassion to show different sides of myself.

It's this second thing I want to talk about this evening. What I mean by this second set of changes is that they do not exist independently, but rather have come in the form of reactions to changing climates within my life. In this sense these things are a lot like what I was talking about a few weeks ago with never really knowing who we are until we are tested. Much as it may seem trite to quote from a genre movie I feel that this quote from Batman Begins is one I have thought of recently: "Deep down you may still be that same great kid you used to be. But it's not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you."

I think that a lot of bad things happen to people in life, in the past 4 years I've had my ups and downs, and I have to say that looking back I'm fairly proud of the ways I've reacted, I think I've managed to stand up for what I believe in and represented what I feel is a general goodness. It's my 21st birthday at midnight and I'm taking solace in the battles I've weathered. I've acted poorly at times, but I think I've always recovered well enough and remained true to myself.

There are a lot of people in this world who are good, or want to say that they are, and perhaps they could be, but when the shit hits the fan and something bad happens to them they react equally badly. I can't blame you for this, we've all felt weak and vulnerable at times and we've all had bad things happen to us, what I'd like you to do is stop and consider what possible good you are serving in replicating those same bad things on others.

Those that know me also know that I have been through a lot of shitty situations in the past couple of years, I've made some mistakes and I've had some shitty things done to me. Last night I found myself thinking about how satisfying it might be to make someone else feel that way, how justified I would be in protecting myself from having the same shit pulled on me again by pulling it on others. The truth is I'll never be justified in hurting someone else, and I will always regret it if I do. So if I have ever hurt anyone out there, I probably do remember, and I am sorry.

In under an hour I will be 21. I've been feeling nostalgic tonight, but at the same time I'm looking ahead to the future. I'm nt going to allow my past to jade my future, and I'm not going to accept that in others any more. I'm wiping my slate clean and I'm starting fresh, I want to thank everyone who has brought me to this point in my life, apologize to those I might have wronged, forget all my history and wake up tomorrow renewed.