happy new year everyone! ive really needed and enjoyed this time away from social media, in peace and quiet and solitude, with much reflection and much planning and re-organizing of self. i never actually left new york city. brought in 2015 doing something i love, yoga and mediation on the lower eastside of manhattan right as the clock struck midnight on january 1st; then i hung out with my boys who produce the freedom party at their new years eve event right in the dj area, so i could just soak in the music, and that was that. i had no real interest in paryting or dancing, just the power of a community coming together to enjoy great music and being festive. sometimes it is mad cool simply to be the fly on the wall. that made me happy, and then i went home and slept a good portion of new years day. i pray you have an incredible 2015, and figure out ways to have love and happiness in your life, in your space, no matter what else is going on around you. be kind and forgiving to yourself, be kind and forgiving to others, even when it is hard. especially when it is hard. ive finally finished my 12th book, my memoir, more or less and turning it in this week to my publisher, thank god; so very very very hard to look our lives in the mirror, but we must. so that we can learn, heal, grow, be better, do better, get better. this book hurt, yo, a lot, to write, but it also is liberating, a lot, to get it out completely. truth, honesty, transparency, the only paths to travel, at least to me. several times these past two weeks i have been reminded that life is also mad short. i am thinking about ESPNs Stuart Scott, former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, former U.S. Senator Edward Brooke, and the 90something grandmother of my friend Shannone Holt. each one just died in the last few days. my Aunt Cathy always likes to say Death is a part of life and she is so right. i am not obsessed with death. i am obsessed with living. fully. without apologies, with no fear. and ignoring those whove been conditioned to say, over and over, Be careful or Be safe. my response is forever the same: i would rather be fearless. we cannot control, as they say, how long we live. but we can certainly control how well we live, how fully we live, how adventurous and enthusiastically we live. certainly be smart and aware and alert, but be fearless, because fear is a prison. finally, i started on december 31st with a new personal 60-day exercise and diet challenge. those who know me already know i am a vegan and about that daily workout grind. exercise and a healthy lifestyle both make me very very very happy. so mos def taking things to a whole other level this year, spiritually, mentally, and physically. like i said i do not believe in resolutions, per se. what i do believe in is non-stop education and non-stop observing and non-stop movement and travel to higher places, both inside ourselves, and whenever and wherever we can get the opportunity to get on a bus, a train, a plane, or a car and go somewhere weve never been before, to do things weve never done before. being free is where its at. we each must decide what freedom means for us, and move toward it for the rest of our lives. and i humbly hope that quest for personal freedom includes caring about each other as human beings and knowing that if one person is suffering in any way then we are all suffering, together. life is pretty empty if we do not, at least some of the time, do something to help someone other than ourselves. and if we are not willing to challenge things like oppression and discrimination and hate, even if those things are normal to the people around you. be free, and be fearless, in every single thing you do.
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 20:11:27 +0000
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