FREESTYLEVISION

Three nights ago the heavens rained upon us in New York city, taking breaks but not fully shutting off their showers until Saturday morning. In the mist of one of these storms while making my way home from work. I fell upon this young woman who unfortunately lacked an umbrella during the down fall. She walked past me, her jacket trenched and hood so out weighed with water it concealed her face. I called to her and offered to share my umbrella. She accepted but seemed shock at the offer. We continued to walk up the block together, chatting along the way until finally stopping in front of her building, she thanked me and said “ I thought chivalry was dead in the world” I replied to her with a smile “ No, it’s only on life support.” we both laughed and went our separate ways but my mind began to turn from the comment, seeing how it was not the first time that I have heard it.

The gears in my brain began to twist and the obvious came to me, chivalry really is dead or at least dieing in the world. To hold a door is to be courteous, to offer your jacket is to be chivalrous, to carry a bag, to offer a light, to assist a damsel in distress, well maybe distress is an intense word, but to offer your services as a gentlemen, acts like these have become too few in the world.

Thanks to individuals with video cameras, like this tourist in Times Square last summer, we can bear witness to the world.

You don’t even have to be on a bike in NYC to see this kind of unrighteousness. I was shocked when I first moved here, but now I know that you ALWAYS have to advocate for yourself. One cop stopped me on Houston for no reason. He just saw me on a bike and wanted to ask me where I was going. I felt like he was going to ask me out on a date. Another common thing I’ve witnessed constantly: cops spittin’ game to flirty girls.

I also have a summons now for riding about 10 ft on the sidewalk in front of my apartment. I live on a busy one way, but the cops still suggested that instead of riding on the sidewalk, I should ride against traffic. Yeah. What’s more baffling is that there were about four of them posted right there in front of the bodega, “on patrol,” and I’m thinking, “YO, you’re across the street from Marcy Projects and you don’t have anything better to do than to give me a petty summons for cruisin on an empty sidewalk? I guarantee someone’s there’s a carjack happening right now.” Sure enough, one week later my neighbor is jumped and beat down near Myrtle-Willoughby by 6 guys, knocked out for nearly half an hour, bleeding internally, while they walk right in to my building and steal all their valuables right across the hall. Where were you then Mr. Officer? I know–mere chance, indeed. But when the kid finally came to take the report, my confidence in his competence rapidly deflated.

Most of the cops that I’ve seen (like those directing traffic) hate their job so much that you can clearly see an emotional recklessness unleashed in their gestures and yelling throughout the day. Many of them are just kids, yet they don’t have to be in order to show their insecurities. They are no different from your average worn unstable and aggravated New Yorker, they just tend to have a more destructive outlet of power when they put on their cowboy costumes.

The point is not to arbitrarily hate on cops or just anyone of authority. Rather, it is to require accountability of injustice. I believe there are people in power with integrity, self-control, and a decent set of ethics. Even though we can answer “Obama” to every drama as much as we like, we know that it is our responsibility to advocate for ourselves and each other. We are all we’ve got. And you don’t need to pick up a gun to start a revolution. The only piece you need is your voice. You’ve heard before that “your word is your weapon.” But your every action is your affirmation. Let it be known.

So, I’m trying this thing where I turn one thing into another, right before my eyes. Or squinting, wide shut, blinded, whatever it takes. Because I was on my way to work the other day and I was thinking: (sorry if this is an over simplification of something truly complex, but I’ve never been too good at science, so I have to brake things all the way down for it to make sense to me) if we and everything around us are made up of atoms and atoms alone (at our core) then everything is just the same. It’s the same atoms in different forms. So what makes the same atoms into different things? Why are my atoms me and those atoms over there making up a billboard? The only answer that I reckon makes sense is that it is all in our perceptions. We perceive what is and what isn’t and our perceptions are the only things that make anything different from something else. Because if you go blind, an object is different to you than if you can see it. The only way that isn’t true is if you trust someone with sight to tell you differently. And that’s the same with all your senses. It’s created in your head by the resources you have at that moment. We happen to trust our eyes the most, but if there was no such thing as sight, we wouldn’t be iffy about what objects were; we would use our other senses and be definite about it. So is anything really what we make it out to be, or is everything just silly putty (aka empty atoms) that we make into something? I haven’t seen it in a few years, but I think that’s kinda what The Matrix was getting at (the world is a hologram).

So I say all this to ask, why can’t we make whatever we want into… whatever we want? Our brain must be doing a whole lot of work to create all that is, so why not work it a little harder so it can paint the picture we’ve always wanted it to be? Well, I answer, because you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. We’ve seen it this way forever; all of us have been programmed to see things the way they are currently and that’s a nearly impossible thing to change by now. But my rebuttal is that it isn’t too late if you think it all matters. If I think it is important enough, and all true, then I shouldn’t be afraid to try to break it all down to build it back up again. What have I got to lose except time that I’d probably be wasting anyway? But if you don’t truly believe it, then it can’t happen because your mind isn’t allowing the unimaginable. I guess this is what The Secret was getting at, but brought about all the skepticism for its vagueness. I might bring about a different kind of skepticism because this doesn’t make any kind of sense. Like I’m shroom trippin’ for the first time and I actually believe that the shit I saw was real. But once again, I have nothing to lose. I’m talking about reversing the laws of gravity; not having a need for excuses like the one of human nature; waking up a dream so it can take its rightful place as king; having my cake and eating it too. Even when I’m the one saying, I’m having a hard time believing it myself. The notion that we can melt the walls and replace them with every possibility is killing me. If I’m wrong, I’ll just chalk it up as another delirious daydream. But I hope I’m talking about reality, and my conception of it not just being a fallacy. Because I’m figuring that it’s all just matter. Why not take control of it?
I hope a physicist doesn’t come and poo all over this sporadic parade. More importantly, I hope I’m on the right track, because that would mean there is a place for dreamers on this earth and all the hope wasn’t kept in vain. And if I’m at all on to something, this raises more questions like: Do humans need a better depiction of themselves, or even a blank slate? Are we less predictable than inexplicable, more everything than entity? If we can create whatever we want with the right amount of skill and an abundance of imagination, does that mean that, in our own right, we’re all gods? I don’t know. But I think… I’ll save that for a next blog.