But I don't care 'Cause I know my happiness is waiting out there somewhere
I'm searching for that silver lining
Horizons that I've never seen.."
Lional Richie wrote a great song back in the day called Zoom. Zoom was all about folks dreaming their way out of their condition.
Unfortunately you can't just dream your way out of your condition. It won't go away if you go to church every Sunday. It won't go away if you party every Saturday night, it won't go away if you get high every day, and it sure as hell won't go away if you sit on your ass all day and wish it would.
I write a lot about injustice and institutionalized racism, and I write a lot about individual racism as well. I do it because all these things are still very much ingrained in our culture and our way of life here in America. But the best way to fight racism and injustice is to fight back. You fight back by getting off your ass and trying to improve your condition. If that means going back to school and getting a GED then so be it. If that means cutting loose that no good man or woman who has been dragging you down, then so be it. If it means you have to get up a little earlier and go to work, or stay a little later when you are at work, then so be it. The bottom line is that nothing that rewards you in a positive way will ever come easy.
"I'd like to greet the sun each morning
And walk amongst the stars at night
I'd like to know the taste of honey in my life..."
You can do all those things , maybe not literally but it will certainly feel like it.
Here is how you do it:
Find a good partner in your life; someone you can love uncondionally who will love you back. Find a job you like doing and work the heck out of it. Try to understand what is truly valuable in your life and work to make sure that it never goes away.
"I wish the world were truly happy
Living as one
I wish the word they call freedom someday would come
Someday would come"
The world will never truly be happy. And we sure as hell will never live as one. But the "word they call freedom" is already here. Now it's up to you to act on it.
sweet post.
ReplyDeletebasic instructions for leaving earth...
ReplyDeleteyour words are prophetic but not easy to do.
some will find a job they can tolerate but never enjoy.
some will find a partner to share their life with.
as for understanding how valuable your life is, it is a goal many people strive for but will never reach for their own myopia. we aren't self-actualized right away.
i agree the world will never be happy, we for damn sure won't live as one. But while freedom may be here in posts you and other bloggers have written previously it sometimes appears freedom is fickle and is only truly available to some.
And today you write the "Come to Jesus" essay and no trolls appear. Amazing how positivity repels them?
ReplyDeletekhia, you are right, no troll food in this post. :)
ReplyDeleteNikesha, outward freedom is fickle, but we can always free our minds.
Loved your comment.
I'm definitely feeling this post.
ReplyDeletefield negro said...
ReplyDeletekhia, you are right, no troll food in this post. :)
Trolls usually are the ones you disagree with.
From one of your conservative readers, one of those "wingnuts" I would like to say this post was just plain awesome.
There will always be challenges, trials and tribulations, injustices. But I grew to have the opinion you posted today. You can go through life as an externalist or an internalist. When you internalize issues you sometimes amaze yourself at the problems you can avoid and what a good life can come by assuming control of your life. Even planning ahead for things that will impact you that you don't fully control.
Just to clarify when I say internalist vs Externalist I mean the two types of personalities. An externalist will always have a reason - a brick wall that stops them dead in their tracks and only allows their pointing finger to move.
An internalist solves that problem and will when faced with a brick wall go around, left, right , over or under until it's solved and learn to foresee future ones to avoid them more easily.
Thanks for the empowering positive post. If half us listen to your words who knows things might get better but we also might even get along better.
Nothing is more satisfying and empowering than sweating a bit and working through some tough times with your brains and ingenuity and coming out on top.
It's easier to love and respect someone else when you love and respect yourself first.
wow! I didn't know you spit inspiration like that. Great way to start me day. Thanks for this.
ReplyDeleteField this is beautiful....thank you for writing something so positive and lovely.
ReplyDeleteAnd...funny isn't it? No horrific statements by your resident trolls...because our happiness repels them!
Keep up the good work and come visit me...diaryofanegress.com
I disagree that the world can NEVER be truly happy. We've yet to really try.
ReplyDeletekudos!
ReplyDeleteditto!!!
great post
i love that song
lionel was a soulful black legend before he bacame a wm pop star
thanks for the black trip dowm memory lane
ps:
dreaming that hobama is a noble democrat will do NOTHING to improve anyone's life...
he is a racist global warlord bankster
pretending that hobama's entire life is NOT a lie will not help one soul create a new/better life
fyi
http://aliciabanks.xanga.com/758055237/happy-2012/
n:
ReplyDeleteu have penned sheer poetry
thank u
nothing is more powerful than the globalists who use poverty as a global weapon
hobama's joblessness and homelessness trump positivity always
cc this to all the waiters in nyc with doctorate degrees etc
What a lovely and super inspiring post Field! Preach!:)
ReplyDeletehow will hobama's endless global wars for oil and opium
ReplyDeletesave one positive soldier
ie
it is too late for the positive brandy fonteneaux
i bet hobama will miss her vote in his 2012 selection...no?
http://newsone.com/2018617/brandy-fonteneaux-female-soldier-stabbed-74-times-in-own-barracks/
http://aliciabanks.xanga.com/747103873/the-new-american-global-war-crimes-spree-%e2%80%93--hobama%e2%80%99s-international-thug-swagger/
http://aliciabanks.xanga.com/746893773/false-flags-and-real-ruses-%e2%80%93--on-osama-bin-laden%e2%80%99s-9-lives%e2%80%a6redux/
"The world will never truly be happy. And we sure as hell will never live as one."
ReplyDeleteHow true. Nothing in this secular world will lead to happiness. You can't treat an emotional and spiritual illness with outside stuff. It's a good thing to work because as humans we need shelter, clothing, medicine and food to live. But don't get carried away with it that you become a hoarder. That won't make you happy, only greedy and selfish.
Life works from the inside out, not from the outside in. Happiness comes from the inside...deep deep down inside the spiritual heart.
Great post Field.
ReplyDeleteFree your mind and your a$$ will follow. The Kingdom of Heaven is within!!
=)
That is some excellent advice, and it applies to everyone. But it is not a way to "fight back"; it is a way to fight for yourself. Saying that racism is still very much ingrained in our culture is not going to motivate anyone to apply themselves, it is more likely to discourage them.
ReplyDeleteJust as insidious as any "institutional racsim" is the idea that many blacks have a lifelong excuse for any bad choices they make. From childhood they are told that failure is not their fault, so they never learn that they are responsible for their lack of skills. While other people are working hard to become competent to avoid feeling like failures, many blacks don't fear failure; after all, it's not their doing, it's the system.
Tell kids that they'll never get a fair shake, that they'll have to be twice as good to get half as far, and they will make the rational choice that busting their ass is not worth it.
And it's not true. Corporate America is wide open to qualified blacks.
Falure is always an option. Externalizing failure saps initiative. People struggling need to fear failure. One person's failure affects everyone else negatively - increased costs, crime and social disharmony. Believe me, it is in no one's interest to hold the black man down.
Yeah man, I can dig it
ReplyDeleteYou turn a pretty nice phrase yourself between the passages of Lionel Richie's stuff.
Another poet once said free your mind and surely your ass will follow
from racist buffoon to felled coon
ReplyDeleteshame!!!
http://blogs.ajc.com/radio-tv-talk/2012/06/04/neal-boortz-announces-retirement/
____
i wish the kingdom of heaven within could save us from that demon hobama within DC
cc this to troy davis
http://aliciabanks.xanga.com/755229454/a-letter-to-troy-davis/
Field,
ReplyDeleteThanks, your comments speak to young and old alike. IOW....
Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud,
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
-- William Ernest Henley
Now get busy making IT happen!
"If that means cutting loose that no good man or woman who has been dragging you down, then so be it."
ReplyDelete*Sigh*
diaryofanegress said...
ReplyDeleteField this is beautiful....thank you for writing something so positive and lovely.
And...funny isn't it? No horrific statements by your resident trolls...because our happiness repels them!
Keep up the good work and come visit me...diaryofanegress.com
Leave it to the racist to defecate all over herself and try and fling it onto everyone else as they pass the bars of her cage.
Why would anyone ever be upset should you ever become happy and empowered. Thats what we want. See even in a positive post you still have to find someone else to blame for something. You have a disease Dear negress and if you don't cure it you will die with it alone because no matter how hard you try to cast it onto someone else, they aren't accepting it.
When you wake up smile, feel strong, know that you are in charge of your life and always have been. No one else has and will never be able to reach into your head and make the decisions that you do.
AB, I have written comments to you in the past two threads and you have not responded. What does a person have to do to contact you? Are you a racist who hates your fellow Blacks?
ReplyDeleteWhat is with you? Are you depressed like me?
depressed Negro
"Another poet once said free your mind and surely your ass will follow"
ReplyDeleteActually it has been said just the opposite many times:
"Bring your body and the mind will follow." It takes action.
It suppose it depends on where you are standing. But for our folks, they need to get off the couch and get their body moving, esp when it comes to voting and political strife.
That crap going on in FL to disenfranchise Blacks' voting rights requires Blacks to "show up" with their bodies en mass. Sitting around on asses complaining with mind just isn't going to cut it. GET UP! Respond, fight back!
Sounding pretty Booker T. after the conference Field, but then you've always done a real balance between him and W.E.B. That's why you are so interesting to read; you're not binary black/white if you'll excuse the phrase: you know what's real but tell people to see it and overcome it. That's what my Godfather, a Trinidadi from B-more always told me about obstacles "so what, they're in the way, climb over."
ReplyDeleteYou're getting all inspirational--I like it (:
ReplyDeleteField, you on fire! Preach it!
ReplyDeleteGREAT post Field!!
ReplyDeleteYeah, everybody is getting fired up and singing Kumbaya. How long will this head trip last?
ReplyDeleteLet me answer that for you: for as long as long as depressed Negro remember's Field's inspirational Post. Now that ain't gonna be long at all. Maybe a day or two max?
It's kind of like going to a weekend seminar and coming back home fired up. But as soon as the next rolls in and someone pisses you off, it's gone. And you are back to your old depressed self.
depressed Negro