- how did you pay for your ticket? What’s your profession?
OK, this is getting annoying now… My ears are still buzzing from the airplane flight and this guy is asking me repetitive questions… so I tell him once again…. slowly this time
- STUDENT
Figure it out buddy… Students some times work, they get student loans, they get money from their parents, etc.
He wrote something on my customs sheet. It read BCC and some other three letters I couldn’t make out… Now what was that about? I was pretty sure those letters meant something pretty important. Somewhere down the line before I get to baggage claim I’m going to be asked more questions…
Passing through Immigration… Check
I’m on my way to Baggage claim, but then… a security guy asks for my customs paper again.
- Where are you coming from? Where are you going?
Same questions all over again. Is this really necessary?
This time he only asks two questions and I’m off. But I had to ask him something, I’ve been asked twice already and I don’t know why:
- How come you are only stopping black people today?
I noticed that while I was waiting for my luggage, two black girls were stopped and another black guy. Those are all the people they stopped. Those were almost all the black people waiting for luggage.
- I beg your pardon sir?
I repeated my question exactly the same way. No attitude, just an honest question looking for an honest answer. You can tell I caught him off guard. Both times I asked the question while looking at him directly in the eyes and without hesitating. It was unexpected.
- I’m sorry sir (he stutters a bit), I’m starting to have a problem with you, what was that question again?
He rests his hand on his pistol like all police officers do when they want to feel in power.
Quick thought: I got a plane to catch and if I’m detained because of this guy, I may not get on it on time…
- Oh nothing, don’t worry about it.
- Alright sir.
I turn in my customs paper, I get my luggage, I think I made it.
Now the customs officer I gave the sheet to:
- Oh, sir, please go through that door on your left and follow the green arrow.
She puts my customs sheet on a purple folder and gives it back to me.
I knew it, it was those letters the first guy wrote on my customs sheet. As I enter, I look around the room and there is about 10 passengers from different flights, I suppose. One white lady and another old white man, the rest are blacks and hispanics. I had to notice it because in a country where 60% are white, the probability theory tells me that there should be a higher amount of white people. At least that’s what I understood from my Statistics class.
Now most of the people have blue folders, I got a purple one… Shit, that first guy made me extra special. He must have not liked it when I made him look stupid when I said “student” slowly.
The officer that attended to me was actually nice. He asked me the same questions all over again, except when I told him I was in Panama he asked me where abouts.
- Albrook, I said.
- Oh that’s a nice area, big and expensive houses around there.
- …
- I’ve been to the Albrook airport in Panama a few times.
- So what is all this about? Random checking?
- Yeah, nothing to worry about, he said.
He scans my luggage with the x-ray machine then asks:
- What’s that round thing you have in your luggage?
He points at my friend Lange’s luggage. I’m doing him a favor of flying it to San Diego and shipping it from there cause its cheaper.
- I don’t know, its my friend’s suitcase.
- You should never take things from friends if you don’t know what they are.
He’s right, but the truth is I forgot what it was. Any answer I was going to give him would have been stupid. So I just spit one out.
- I know, I said. He’s a good friend. I know him well.
Open the luggage, rip the newspaper wrap, uncover the round object… It was a cup.
- Alright dude, have a good one.
- Alright man, you too.
I was walking to my gate, the loud speakers at the airport come off.
“Any remarks or jokes to security may result in your arrest…”
Ooops. Well I don’t opose security, but if I want to know where all the questions are coming from, I think I deserve an answer. An honest answer.
What I like: by now I think it’s pretty clear that I’m into brunettes. She’s got beautiful skin, good height, born in Hawaii. She’s 29 and seems to have the type of body that will stand the tests of time. I actually like the dark colored eyes on her.
What I don’t like: I was going to say that she seems like she would have a lot of attitude when she’s off camera, but after looking at some more of her non-music videos on YouTube, I can’t say I still feel that way anymore. I don’t know what I don’t like about her, yet…
I read that the first two singles on her new album didn’t do well. I listened to them and I liked them. Could be a marketing problem…
Hypocrites, have you seen one lately? If you think not it is because you are being fooled, but at one point or another in your life you came to see one so you know exactly what a hypocrite does. These backstabbers, good-for-nothing double-crossers spend their time pretending to be something they are not. They smile at you when they see you and when you are not around you are the victim of their endless mockeries, insults and negative criticisms. The worst part is not their hypocrisy, but what happens when you realize their “wrong” doing. Looking for approval from your so-called friends you start criticizing your new discovered adversary: “I can’t believe she would do that to me, I would have never done that to her.” But you are doing it, right there and then. You are talking about another person behind their back. You just feel it’s different because “she started it.” The truth is, there are two sides to everything. Which side is good or bad is subject to interpretation. Perhaps, the best approach to the problem is to look at things from all perspectives before reaching conclusions.
How often are children told not to play with fire? The child usually learns not to play with fire after that first contact with an object heated at over one hundred degrees of a new experience. The day my child comes to me screaming and crying because he/she just got burned, I will take care of the wounds and ask: “Do you understand now what I was trying to tell you?”
Isn’t it much better to know why, than to follow the beaten track? To know exactly why things happen the way they do is bliss. What’s even better is that by understanding that there are two sides to everything, we can take a negative and turn it into a positive. With this type of thinking, we are not just destined to have a glass that is always half full, we are also now wired for success. Can you imagine if we focused all that energy we spend getting angry with those who critic us and put it into something else? Find out if what your critics are saying is true and then use that information to get even better! People with negative attitudes are always ready to tell everyone else what is wrong. They make for much better friends than the ones who smile but never tell the truth.
There is no reason to experiment on the two sides of everything though, you got to be smart. If you decide to rob a bank and you get shot and die, you won’t have a opportunity to try something else, unless you believe in reincarnation that is. Know that there are two sides to everything and learn to make the right decisions. It is just as dumb to believe there is only one way to everything as it is to believe in single-sided coins.
I like what Will says starting on 4:43 when Charlie asked Will how he decided to do the roll of Muhammad Ali. Will says he had doubts at first because he couldn’t see the road from doing the T.V. show “Fresh Prince of Belair” to becoming a legendary and world renowned boxing champion on the big screen. That was until he was given the blueprint, or the step-by-step guide to how he was going to reach that goal.
Having a plan is very important. To me, there’s nothing great about going from point A to point B if you can’t do it again and again. If that happens, it means there’s a great amount of luck involved, and how many times can one person get lucky?
I’ve been thinking about the “wall” metaphor Will uses to answer the question on 22:25. He says his parents thought him not to build a wall, but instead to concentrate on laying out one brick at a time the best way possible. Soon enough there will be a wall. I learned about concentrating on the small picture a while ago, but I still think it’s important to know where I’m going. I like to dream first and then lay the first brick. I feel that without well-thought goals there might be a problem later on in terms of self-motivation. Suddenly we lose interest in something or we just stop because we don’t know how far we actually want to go. My problem, as I see it right now, is getting into the habit of following my plan without interruptions. I’m always working, but I’m always dreaming too. It’s hard for me to continue working on something all the way to the end because I get excited about new ideas and I can’t wait to start working on those too.
Right now, for example, I’m reading the scriptures of John from The Bible, Malcolm X, Pablo Neruda Poems, I’m working on the design of antoniobullen.com, I write poetry and music, I am trying to market geecho.com and I write about all these things. I want to do every single one of them and I also have the responsibility of going to my classes and soon I will be working again. I do spend most of my days on my music so that’s a good thing.
To me dreaming is important because that’s how I have set the standards to be not just number one, but also the first to do something never done before.
Will says something really good around 30:04 when he says that he hates the feeling of fearing something. The fear to pitch an idea or meeting with someone for the first time; and that he didn’t want to even take that meeting because of that fear. So he developed an attitude of attacking things that he was scared of. I admire him for that and I wish I had that at my age. I realize that’s a problem in my life and I’m working on it. In my case I feel like I will only attack things when there is no other route to take. In Spanish there is a phrase: “entre la espada y la pared,” it translates to “between the sword and the wall,” and that’s when I usually start pushing back.
Something I’ve been learning lately is to always stick to what I believe. To not let anyone ever make me doubt myself in public. It’s OK to do the thinking when I’m alone, but if I start doubting everything I do and say every time somebody confronts me I’ll end up looking dumb and without confidence. But before I get into a “stick to what I believe” situation I need to be ready for it.
The past few days I’ve been thinking about my personality changes in the last three years, because I’m seeing how I’m starting to be the way I was before I started dating Katie. There were good and bad things about my personality then, just like when we were together. I was a much confident person before her. I trusted my instincts and my decisions, once made, they were unquestioned, simply acted upon. I was also arrogant. I thought everyone else was beneath me and I would make that clear by the way I talked to people. When I got with Katie I started changing my attitude towards other people. From the beginning, she would always tell me how I didn’t need encouragement from her for me to believe I was God in the flesh.
I became less abrasive towards people, but I also lost my confidence. I think it was a combination of not knowing how to treat people the right way and also not knowing how to treat my girlfriend. By the latter I mean knowing when to listen and when not to. In trying to be a better boyfriend I listened to all the… all the…. well… I’m going to call it bullshit. Why was I thinking everything she said was correct? I don’t know, but I took it all in and end up just as confused as she was. This is how I ended up being:
Stranger: Hi, how are you?
Me: I’m doing great thanks.
Thoughts just a minute later: I didn’t ask him how he was. I was rude. I probably offended him…. blah blah blah.
STOP THAT!
I started doubting my every move. It wasn’t me and I didn’t know how to fix it. I needed to understand why I felt better about myself before Katie and how I could get back to that same place minus the arrogance. I have figured out that it’s all about confidence. It’s a lot easier for me to make a decision and stick with it. I just have to make sure I’m making the right decisions. If I can’t stick to my decisions then it means I wasn’t ready to make the decision in the first place, so I need to be 100% confident in what I decide and, when necessary, know how to make those decisions fast.
One thing I know girls always liked about me, even though I was arrogant, was my confidence. When I changed that about myself, I took away one of the main pillars of my personality; and although I remained highly attractive, a big part of me was missing.
My girlfriend/wife opinions should act the way councilors do to a president. Not everything she has to say is good or may influence my final decision, but two heads are better than one.
The older I get and the more experience I get. I understand how important it is to feel loved rather than be loved and also to have at least one other person you can love the same way.
I’ve said many times before that I didn’t feel loved for a very long time. I didn’t start learning how to express my feelings, be social, be able to give hugs or used the words “I love you” until I was about 21 years old.
I was seriously lacking in the area of communication and expression of feelings. Being defensive and acting with constant aggression is where I was comfortable. It just has to do with the way I grew up. My parents are not bad people, but they’re not gifted in the area of socializing or being affectionate either.
Becoming an independent young man and separating my self from the rest of the family at an early age was to me a very good thing. Thanks to my first girlfriend, Tracy, I started learning how to communicate. And yes, it was very uncomfortable for a very long time. I still remember the stupid fights we used to get into because I could not communicate effectively. I would hold all my anger inside and let it out in just one single emotional blow, with so many mean things to say that by the time I was over, she was crying herself insatiably, not knowing where to turn and wishing she was dead. And then I was happy. Happy because she was suffering the way I had suffered all my life, when, as a little boy, I cried myself to sleep listening to songs like “Hero” from Mariah Carey’s CD. Wishing a hero would come and rescue me. Tell me I was adopted or something of that sort and I was going home now. And I no longer had to hear the constant verbal abuse from my mom, or put up with my dad’s “power trips”. I’ll have more to say about that later on, right now I just want to tell Tracy and every other person I hurt with my attitude and struggles at the time that I am sorry. And I know some of you have already forgiven me.
I feel like doing nothing. I’m tired of this B.S. I feel like I’m not doing what I want to do again. Maybe I’m just lazy and don’t want to do what I’m supposed to do, but I don’t think I get enough credit for the things I’m doing.
Most of the people at my school really suck. I’m tired of Victor’s “better than you” attitude, and I’m tired of all these hypocrites, from the students to the professors.
If they don’t want to say “Hi” they don’t have to. Just because I don’t look like one of them or act like them, trying to be what I’m not. Fuck them…
