Freeze Flame Productions Inc

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Setbacks & Milestones: The Rizes And Falls

Part 1: Introduction(Preface)

I had a good run right around the new year and I am still trying to find my way on this blog thing. I love to write, I have so many ideas of where I can take this. Right now I am just trying to get the flow back, I did my Decade of Development series and my mind exploded... I have many times looked back at my life and thought "Hey, shit, I could write a book off this stuff."

Slowly it seems that is kind of what I am doing, I met a counselor at school the first time I went back to college, and she suggested that I put my life into a time line. I did just that, from as far back as I could remember to that same year, 2001.... I continued it for about a year or so, after the fact, but the idea was to kind of document the past.

I have a ton of ideas that I could use from that time line alone.... I have told the stories of positivity in my life over a span of the last ten years or so. Now I would like to tell some more stories of why my life even needed to have a Decade of Development.

My life to a certain extent has been a journey of self discovery, I have only lived for 3 official decades in terms of years on the calendar. I say that because at times it seems as though I have lived for much longer, in many different situations.

For example, I have... been an athlete, a criminal, a prisoner, the first son in a family, a son of a young mother, homeless, a success story, in treatment, a street thug some may call it something else, adopted, robbed, beaten, heartbroken, harassed, arrested, charged, sentenced, trapped, locked out, lost, accused, innocent & guilty, empowered, disenfranchised, alone & lonely, a business man, a man of business, gone looking for trouble & found it.... just to name a few.

Living a life like I have and being able to tell the tale in detail without really having to put much effort into it is something I consider a gift. Most people can tell you where they been, what they done, but how many people do you know can write it down or speak it verbally in a way that captivates an audience to a point where they ask for more, can't stop reading and actually thank you.... That last one has only happened to me once or twice, but the feeling you get when people actually encourage the way you speak or tell a story? It doesn't happen often enough, especially in school.

I have been a student, a graduate, a drop out, I never however, belonged to one of those cliche cliques that you see on TV.... I was one of the quietest people in all my schools, I went to about a dozen high schools in a couple different cities... not really because I moved a lot, it was because I got kicked out a lot too.

I am just jumping around trying to filter some ideas through my big head, I think too much sometimes about what I should do, what I should write... I have to put in work on so many things on a day to day basis. I have been unemployed, under-employed, self-employed, criminally employed, and the only one that I have ever been successful at is the last one.... Not saying that I would go back to that lifestyle, my self-employment is turning into a good little investment. I started a company in 2003, with an idea that had been established since 1995 or so...it became more than just a hobby when I started taking it seriously, so I decided to Incorporate in 2006. Eleven years after the fact, from the day that gave my the idea... I'm seriously considering telling that story soon, just not too sure how to start. Now 2010, living in the future and it ain't all it was suppose to be 15 years ago. Does that mean that we haven't evolved as humans, or as a society that wants to better ourselves?

If many of the people I am now know as friends today, met me or knew me fifteen years ago, as a 15-year-old, roughly... I doubt they would even look at me twice. If I was still that same kid from back in the day, I think I would be very surprised at my "Future" self for dealing with many people I have met in my more recent life. Back then, thinking back in my mind, I actually used to consider killing certain people.... sometimes seriously, sometimes planned it and everything.... what made me stop? what keeps me from going back to that state of mind?

Honestly, I am not sure sometimes. Maybe I have changed, evolved... I know I want better for myself and my loved ones.... The hell I put my family through, my parents especially, Back in the day... The only way I could ever repay them for putting up with me, is to win the lottery.

I like to think that I have changed, most times I feel like a very different person that that young kid. I know going to jail really made me grow up faster, while I was locked up, everybody I knew on the outside went off and did nothing with their lives, some of them anyway.... Others, the ones that really got out or got away, may be the real lucky ones... My incarceration may have been a blessing in disguise, or an ugly ass mask. I went away at a crucial time in most young people's lives the people that stayed connected to me, to a certain degree, suffered a fall from grace... to put it lightly.... many of them were late blooming criminals, some of them are dead, many of them became drug addicts.... some of them survived and moved past their turbulent adolescence and were able to begin again.

I have been forced to start over, I have purposely started over.... Sometimes for the better, some times only to fall down again to begin again..... I was invited to a school once, to talk to a bunch of young offenders about my own experiences and I came up with a little thing I like to refer sometimes as Setbacks & Milestones. I laid it out for myself, and as much as one may fall there is is always a way to rise again. As you choose to improve, those setbacks get smaller, and the milestones grow into achievements and then goals get set, and so on.

Once you can start achieving goals, dreams are made.... and y'all know what I love to say about that... "I dream in Major Motion Pictures, I think in Soundtracks, And I Live for the Score"

So believe, I am a man with a lot on my mind....