doh - RE - mi - fa - so - la - ti - doh

You see, the beginning is the end.

In this 7 Deadly Sins series, we’re on #2, aka “re,” bka Envy, which we’ll define as:

Envy (latin:invidia): The intense desire to have an item, quality, or position that someone else possesses accompanied by sadness at their prosperity.

The “sadness at their prosperity” cannot be ignored.

Academics, artists, and athletes act in their vocations and professions to achieve a state of glory, which we will define as being recognized and appreciated. The tranquility of our minds, cultures, and nations depend on each group’s ability to access glory. Harmonious existence contains high and low notes of varying depths–without balance, our medium for sharing ideas becomes a monotonous buzz of single-mindedness. What is understood need not be explained, and it is a form of narcissism to:

…be intoxicated by one’s own voice
…admire the reflection when standing alone in a hall of mirrors.
…infinitely absorb applause.

We exist as members of teams – heroes and villains in a game to which we know no ends – the beginning or the new beginning.

Envy

On the playground, envy is easy to spot. One kid is the fastest, another is the smartest, and the girl who the most boys like is the prettiest. Everyone wants to be something. Who doesn’t desire to be loved, respected, and adored? Children’s clay-minds are shaped by their environments. Before getting set in our ways, we move in many directions in search of North Stars, our paths for serving humanity. Children learn quickly – early on we learn by the beaten path of being “best,” and these reputations hauntingly persist to adulthood.

Very few positions are more challenging when a new person attempts to take the role. These are superlatives. Best, worst, fastest, and slowest are positions which only one may occupy – uniqueness commands attention, as it exists on the margins of everyday life. Despite the infinite aspects of people that make them who they are, we’re limited by the words at our fingertips.

Language is a sublime fluid, defined by minds, cultures, and zeitgeists. Plasma.

Envy evades exposure. Since text-based language became the root of natural conversation, people have been losing the ability to use each sense to understand the world around them.

The ability to understand the unsaid – the mist around a topic – is a key life skill. Posture, stance, and positioning are three types of body language where actions speak louder than words. Not to mention subtextual language like the spaces between words, tone + inflection, and knowledge unshared. Perceptiveness is a gift of awareness and presence.

In secondary school, I learned about the concept of comparing and contrasting through the symbolic logic of Venn diagrams. Here, comparing meant finding similarities and placing them in the center shape, and contrasting meant finding differences and placing them in the respective outside shapes. As an adult, I recognize that comparison is a path to unhappiness that results from acknowledging differences. If comparison is the thief of joy, could contrast(ion) be The Giver?

I don’t remember the year I read The Giver in school, but it was 3rd or 4th grade; this book taught me I was more textually perceptive than my classmates when I revealed that nearly all people are unable to see color; those who see hue have a heightened responsibility to teach and inspire. Memorizing facts is a valuable skill, but perceptiveness and intuition are different senses altogether.

Sunday Best (God, Family, Football)

Profession vs Vocation

Da Art of Storytellin’ is a vocation as old as known time. Every generation has a share of artists called to illuminate the past for future generations. Competition between gatekeepers is unconventional; it’s a battle to tell a more compelling story. The best story is true, but if a storyteller doesn’t present knowledge properly, the message will fall upon deaf ears.

Lately I’ve been listening to Dr. Cornell West’s lectures. I understand that the work is never complete, and in even a lifetime I would be unable to recreate his intellect and spirit. However, like basketball, boxing, and board games, styles make fights. If I am to lead change, I must clear a path for others to follow. The steps before trailblazing are in the footprints of giants.

To profess means to claim, thus a profession does not need to be true. We can take a job we don’t love and go through the motions, even when – especially when – we’re good at it. How many people do you know who do their job, go home, and on weekends don’t personally identify with how they’ve spent the last 5 days of their lives? Is this a good path?

Vocations align with purpose. I do not have a brand. I have a cause. My cause is to make the world kinder, more truthful, and more diplomatic. I would love for us to share these ambitions, but it took me years to concentrate my values into three core principles/virtues.

Nails

On Sunday, March 1st, I found a nail on the ground in front of my pew. My church is undergoing maintenance, but I can’t stop considering the symbolic relevance of finding this piece of metal on the first Sunday of Lent. Now, it sits on my typing desk. Every few days I consider ways to discard it without potentially injuring someone. I am no carpenter, nor do I know anyone who would be willing to find a use for this tool.

Sir Smoke a Lot

When I was about 8 years old, I attended a bible camp during the summer after 3rd grade. My immediate family occasionally attended a baptist church, but my aunt – whom I was visiting for the summer – was Catholic. Not only was I removed from seven days of playing sharks & minnows in my next door neighbors pool, but I had to go to Bible camp. You can imagine my delight. There was none.

Luckily, I was fond of my aunt’s children, my cousins, though they were older than me by 8+ years. My first-cousins, who I often spent time with, were boys, and I always had access to them. Whether it was bonding over sports, video games, or being outside, I felt safe. Aunt D had daughters only. What an L for an 8 year old boy.

One day at Aunt D’s, I wiggled my cousin M’s doorknob only to realize the door was locked. I was used to having infinite access to cousins, but I understood that people — especially girls — deserve privacy. My sister always seemed to have more in common with them at the dinner table, but I took no offense (at least, I don’t think I did). I did feel sad at my loneliness, and I imagined that’s how my sister felt when I spent so much time with my boy cousins.

Bible camp was cool, at first. My reading comprehension and social skills were strong for my age. Maybe too strong. Before long, I had questions that my teenage camp counselor could no longer answer. My presence in class became disruptive as my inquiries persuaded other campers to question authority.

The topic was free will

〰️

The topic was free will 〰️

Without being disrespectful, I presented my arguments against free will – and thus the concept of evil – given God is omniscient. Before long, my instructor had to get her Big Homie to talk to me outside the class. I began to present my burden, and after a short exchange I understood they thought I was unable to make sense of the concept because I was a child. When she asked if I “got it” I said, “Yes, and I don’t agree, but I won’t disrupt the class.”

She responded, “Thank you.” That was that.

My aunt was a member of the church, and I didn’t want to cause her problems. I elected to behave in class, but I learned four lessons:

Adults aren’t always right
Everybody has a Big Homie
The Big Homie’s most important responsibility is keeping order, not being “right.”
I’m persuasive without coercion.

More Nails

In spring 2022 I started working at an Arab-Russian owned coffee shop located in Chicago’s Wicker Park Neighborhood. At the time, bills were piling up – in the brokest way – and I was working 3-4 jobs at the time. Despite my efforts, the electric company cut the current and the only light in my apartment was a resilient spirit.

While working at Brü, I had a coworker who we’ll call Elise. She was a dentist in Ukraine before the Russian invasion. We bonded over being underemployed, and she told me how Americans work so much and don’t enjoy life. In the back of my mind, I couldn’t help thinking about where black people who live in the United States could reasonably find refuge during periods of white nationalistic terror. I wish I shares this quality of life with her, and I am admittedly sad about it.

Between working at Five Guys, LA Fitness, Brü, and a downtown boba shop, the absence of a functional fridge was minor. Sometimes I showed up to the gym smelling like peanut oil, but was fed and I found time to work out 4 days a week – partially because the gym showers had functional lights after 8pm. In the evenings I closed the coffee shop or the gym, then used the wifi to apply for jobs, write, learn new white collar skills, and build the Eye of Apollo Instagram.

I could’ve moved back home, but I was determined to find a way out of the hole I had dug. In an effort to help, my family attempted to help me get a job as a train attendant. Thankfully, I was able to get Mother’s Day off that year, and my father bought me a ticket to see my Mother and Grandmother in New Jersey. On this trip, I would be reunited with one of my favorite uncles.

Envy is often unspoken in conversation. A caring uncle may show pride in a nephew, yet be jealous of a child’s youth. Whenever my great-uncle came to my grandmother’s house, I always enjoyed his visits. His smile and warm presence always reminded me to be optimistic.

Upon shaking his hand, my great-uncle told me, “If I had your hands, I would cut mine off. Now, tell uncle something good.” The reason he came, at least to my knowledge, was that he was offering me a job at Amtrak. At least, he offered me a contact for an interview. For that, I am grateful.

My Uncle R was a career train conductor. With his cosign, and my college education, (so he said) I had the potential to quickly grow in my career within the transportation industry – at least that’s the story I would’ve chosen if I was an industrialist. I don’t deal with exchanging physical artifacts like cars, coffee, or human bodies. Access to a pension wasn’t a strong enough bribe to avoid my true nature → one who deals knowledge.

Who needs Enemies?

Seriously, ask yourself. Who needs enemies? An agent that benefits from disorder.

Touch grass, they say. Go outside and play, they say. Take a walk. These actions help clear my head, but Chicago is a cold city, where a strong gust will knock you on your back pockets. I moved here from Southern New Jersey at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 – what a year that was.

Making friends was never a problem – growing up. I was confident enough to make the first move, and I treated rejection like a door-to-door salesman.

Gender War White Flag

As an adult male, making friends is leagues more complex, without factoring race and class. Women often don’t trust men – at least we must often prove that we’re trustworthy before we can exchange tokens of friendship. I do not blame them (or you). I empathize with the instinct to protect oneself, especially when personal experiences and mediated narratives foster negative images of different peoples. If I was less trustworthy on the basis of gender, I can gratefully say that I would not be here today.

That is not to say I am immune lust or misogyny, but there is too much on the line if I fail. My cause is too important to damage via failure to focus on the larger picture. Either way, it’s not within my power (and it should not be) to say that I am a trustworthy man. If you’re walking around trying to prove who you are, you’re better off turning around and working through your position.

Cagy Dogs

Old connections can bring fruitful relationships if one is willing to expand comfort zones. I am grateful for my reunion with Sameen Swint, a friend and former high school basketball teammate. These days, he plays professionally and coaches in Bangkok, Thailand. On both ends, maintaining the relationship takes work, what a blessing it is to talk to friends with colorful, worldwide experiences. Throughout our conversations, he casually states that we grew up together – each time he says it, the message sinks in deeper.

Let’s say there are 1000 people living who knew me as a child. By 2030, this number will surely drop. This is the nature of life. If we’re fortunate and maintain healthy relationships, the possibility of keeping contact with people becomes more likely. Still, there’s no guarantee.

Life… life is precious and evades our control, no matter how many digits exist in a bank account, or where ya momma stay, or which neighborhood you leave in pursuit of a better life. At 17, my family and hometown sponsored my education in a college town surrounded by corn fields, where my self-image and worldview shattered into a unique mosaic. I understood conquest wasn’t feasible strategy for changing the world. Before we can bring revolution to our environments, we must first evolve our own characters.

Hopelessness is a bitter weed in the garden of progress – not a dandelion, either. It must be removed.

I want to live a full life. I want to have children and lifelong friends. I’ll turn strangers into family.

I oppose hate in every form.

I am not

Hospital Blue,

blinding darkness.

Alive.

When I go, it’ll be to

Survival, it’s the biggest rival,

of all times.

What a blessing it is to have a eulogy which reads,

“He scribbled in a notepad and created life.”