!Empower!

The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.
Henry David Thoreau


Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.
Henry David Thoreau


The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
Henry David Thoreau


Being back in the bay is always a sick way for me to get new perspective on life and then be able to analyze my life back in Irvine through another scope, after spending quality time with the fam. It's a bit lengthy(sorry), but if you somehow finish, hit me back with some feedback and personal insights, and drop some knowledge on me, please! Thanks

With New Zealand and the road trip comin up in a week, my mind can't stop replaying and creating images of the possibilities and the opportunities in NZ, that are actually still in essence unrealized to me until i go there and actually experience it, but I've been aided by checking out photos online and blowing my own mind messin around with that savageness called Google Earth. As cliche as it may sound I've been really trying to visualize and realize the way i myself want to have a profound effect and somehow, in any capacity truly change the world, through empowering people, and giving people a voice, an outlet, a source, just anyway for others to never have feel silent or incapable of contributing to a world that BELONGS to them.

So i've come to the most essential realization so far that I feel like i've needed to come to, that I want to live my life as a channel for others and follow that completely. In realizing that and going through everything the past year, I think everything has just fell into place as far as what i hold to be important in life now. I feel like the invaluable things in life are the people, relationships, interactions, travels, mistakes, music, books, the labors of love/fill in whatever you would like, that provoke and instigate in you a true emotion, a true contemplation of what it means to live, a contemplation of what it means to live a life fulfilled, a means to which you find a purpose, an inspiration, a passion, or a dream, and the motivation to act upon it. I feel like while i do enjoy material things, and enjoy the entertainment they may provide, i hold no true profound value in them if they can't provide those moments.

When everything went down with my dad and his recovery, I felt like our fam went through a once in a lifetime change and we fortified our family bond a hundred fold and that everything we had conflicted about before was forgiven, because of that sacrifice, and unconditional love that we should each other during that time. But now i think im realizing that we still share that bond, but it does not change the fact that with my parents i share different views on many, many issues life, and a huge generational gap in our everyday thinking still is evident.

I know that my parents came here to the United States to pursue the great "American Dream". Is the "American dream" a chance to build a life less fortunate in another country into a life of opportunity and prosperity in the U.S? Or is the "American Dream" living as a law obliging citizen providing for his family, only to see the health care system turn its back on him once his cancerous tumor seems too forgone to operate on, with medical care providers left and right trying to wash their hands clean of a patient neglected within it? Is the "American Dream" living in a booming economy where everyone can get their due, and enjoy in its spoils? Or is the "American Dream" a system of constant consumerism, the chase of the latest and greatest, and the pursuit of external fulfillment and superficial satisfaction? Is the "American Dream" living free, and living safe within America's great borders, where everyone has the chance to be heard and understood? Or is the "American Dream" media and government, creating a society triggered and moved by fear, passing judgments and vilifying things foreign and unexplored? So what is the "American Dream" to me? I wouldn't be able to tell you, I'm still busy trying to figure it out, it's something I fully ponder now daily. But let me just clarify, I love living here and the freedoms and rights we receive, I just wish a little bit more that those appointed to represent and lead us could lead it with more integrity, with more transparency in the process, and with the ideals and vision that the founding fathers originally sought.

I feel as though my parents came to the US with the former intentions of those question pairings, but through the long and arduous journey have begun to blur those lines with the latter. In realizing full well that they sacrificed much of what they could have done if they were to chase their dreams, I see myself in a momentously blessed position. While we may not share the same views on many issues, I still realize that the unconditional bond is what links us, and ultimately is what is most important. Whoa, i just saw it right now but i just used this same line above but it was reversed, I guess I may have made some realizations myself in writing this, and might have answered my own question in regards to my parents. But anyhow, I see it now as my chance to take my vision to another level, and freaking do some motha suckin gigantic POSITIVE thangs! And as long as i do them in the honor of the values instilled in me by my parents, relatives, friends, strangers, artists, the superficial discrepancies in which we don't see eye to eye need not matter! We takin over the world son!!!

My music pick for the week. Justin Nozuka right here, this man has mad soul, and just brings it!