i took a little break from writing, mostly cuz i was sick of hearing myself talk.
without sufficient action, the soul sickens.
studied for my finals and finished today, i was up till 2am last night finishing my verci internship take-home assignment, i tried to make it as good as i could i did the absolute bare minimum in school this semester,
and now i'm free.
i feel like i made it out of 1 rep. and i could do better.
I REALIZED SOMETHING TODAY. WHICH IS THAT I GOT SOFT. WHICH IS SOMETHING I DEEPLY DESPISE.
i'm listening to kanye's live version of ghost town with sunday service (in a red-lit room, so beautiful), at 7:42 pm, just took a shower and listened to my greg plitt david goggins alex hormozi tapes, something i actually deeply missed, being home, being alone, being in bed early today.
the past 2 days sleeping 4 hours was a good forcing factor.
i'm looking forward to the next 5 days i'll be in the city, no school no shit, picking my sharpness and aggression in life back together.
i genuinely despise being soft.
that's when i hate my self the most.
that's something i think my father instilled in me.
it's fucking hilarious and ironic that all the lessons i feel like i'm "learning", or dealing with now at the end of first semester, end of the year,
is all the shit i was warning myself about and thoeorizing against when i got here. like i would've said maintain your sleep schedule, it's going to be difficult to sleep at 8pm when other people stay up late, don't play small, etc. etc. and i feel like i really lived a piece of all those mistakes. felt 'em viscerally.
i also lived a piece of all the triumphs and beautiful things i said i would.
it really was like a taste test. tutorial.
i know i'm ramblin.
at the same time, i experienced dreams come true. i experienced what reality looks like in one of the world's great cities. i learned about my self. i learned about the world. i saw that even in a huge city, even in my little routines, i still had the ability to make a difference and inspire on a small scale, even when i was OFF my shit. so what happens when i'm ON my shit? what happens next semester when i come equipped?
i got a list of about 25 people i could reach out to if i wanted to start some kind of project i have the tech@nyu design & marketing role to tap into the tech world i (hopefully, if they resonate with my work) have the internship at verci to potentially learn from and connect with artists and founders in nyc i have the full financial support of my family going into this next semester i have greater clarity on what it takes, what it actually feels like, what can trip me up, what i need to look out for next semester. went from uninformed optimism to informed pessimism to informed neutrality.
i think sensitivity is a weakness, though.
that might be the most important lesson i learned this semester.
there's a reason why i numbed my emotions after high school. at least a bit. not because of trauma or some horrible pain etc.
it's because it FUCKS ME UP, slows me down.
the best growth in my life has come from pure EXECUTION, to stop thinking or going based off of how i FEEL so much.
that's when i respected my self the most, when i made the most progress, had most purpose, etc. when i was being STRONG. CHOOSING STRENGTH. choosing the difficult thing over the easy thing.
and i was STILL emotional/vulnerable/tapped enough to have beautiful conversations and make dope art.
so my shit is dialed to like 10,000, so it's not actually a bad idea for me to fuck my feelings and do the work.
biggest lesson i learned (again, in a new environment) this semester.
i look forward to getting my shit together.
elhamdulillah, beautiful semester, a lot of great times and great people and beautiful experiences, the mind tends to focus on the negative, but i have had infinite blessings and so much fun / excitement / wonder out here already, despite the stumbling, stumbling is not falling, and this is why i wanted to come out to this city: not cuz i thought it'd go perfect, but because i thought it WOULDN'T. so i could LEARN from being in "the world" instead of the suburbs.
and this world is huge.
i'm still getting the hang of it.
but i'm getting the hang of it.
onwards. winter break. winter arc. i look forward to it. fading everyone and finding that silence, getting back in that mode.
FADE ALL THE BULLSHIT.
p.s. here's the verci assignment i did: