1. |
What We Took
05:52
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The things I took in High school included:
Calculus, Music Theory, AP Bio., AP Chem., Photo & Lit. Mag.
Marijuana, Alcohol, Ecstasy & Speed.
I balanced studying with partying
& graduated 14th in a class of almost 1600.
I've always been pretty good at the balancing act.
The things I took in College included:
Philosophy, Sociology, A.M. Chem.,
Psilocybin, Ayahuasca, Amphetamine, & Cocaine.
I graduated with a degree in Philosophy, which qualified me to ask
"Why...Would you like fries with that?"
Unsatisfied with a minimum wage paycheck
I took to selling the drugs that I did,
But the things in life you take, sometimes,
will take things from you.
Steven was 19 when I asked him to go to Staten Island to do a drug deal for me.
The people I contacted did not have the product they promised
but they did have a need for the 5 grand in Steve's pocket.
And 4 small pieces of high velocity persuasion
that left him laid out on a street corner
in a pool of my decisions.
At his funeral, his mother asked if I would speak for him
because Steven always thought so highly of me.
The weight of her words
balanced with the weight of my guilt
finally broke me.
And she held me tight and brushed back my hair and said,
"Everything is gonna be okay. It's all gonna be okay."
I could barely breathe, much the less tell her this was all my fault.
I'm not always perfect at the balancing act.
Sometimes, when I fall of the balance beam,
other people feel the impact.
The next to go was Thomas,
one of the few people I truly believed could fly
if he could just set his sights to it.
He died on a rooftop with a needle in his arm
and his wings spread out wide
because angels were never meant to stay on Earth for long.
Next came Lydia,
A crack addict before she left the womb.
She survived 2 days on a respirator
and more than 10 years in my mind.
Sometimes, angels aren't meant
to even touch foot to the Earth.
Then came Amir.
He told me that I drew lines
when other people drew straws.
Amir drew lines on CD cases with $100 bills,
his image dark
his thoughts dark
Amir was never taught that
razor blades are not made
for mirror or flesh.
And I know that you won't rest in peace my friend.
But at least now,
you can rest.
Just last week I lost Dave.
A man that I have far more in common with than just a name.
We chased dragons together after school.
He finally caught one
and it killed him.
Because the things you take in life
sometimes, will take things from you.
You can take 2 to ease the pain.
But it will only tease you.
It will only feed the pain.
It's no longer a game
when your life is a name
on a shuffled deck of funeral cards
whose only suits are hard drugs and soft hearts.
I know friends who have left last messages on dressers
or shoved their messes into bottles
and I want to make a message in a bottle that says,
"DON'T TAKE LIFE FOR GRANTED."
Because the things in life that are taken from you
will take you too much time
to get over.
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2. |
Grandfather Clock
03:25
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When I was 8,
my grandfather took apart a clock
to see what made it tick.
He carefully laid out the pieces
on a table with a tight white cloth,
slowly laying out each tiny gear,
each softly coiled spring,
each wooden cog and dowel in order
and said that "Time is like a puzzle
that we spend our whole lives trying to figure out.
But time is not a puzzle you can solve.
It's the careful movement
of a thousand pieces,
of a million people,
of a billion possibilities,
and it unfolds as it is told
and we hold onto it's experience.
Set to the tempo of our heartbeats,
to the flutter of our breaths,
to the rise and fall of our chests,
to our best and worst ambitions,
to the wisdom of those we allow ourselves to love
and whose wisdom we allow ourselves to be moved by."
When I was 18,
my grandfather was taken apart by a doctor
to see what made him tick.
He was carefully laid out on a table
with a sterile white sheet,
and was pulled apart piece,
by test,
by specialist,
until they tapped into place their diagnosis;
Trigeminal Neuralgia,
or as it's more commonly known,
Suicides Disease.
Affecting the nervous system of the afflicted,
It feels like lightning bolts across cheekbones.
He would tuck me in at night under clean white sheets
and would whisper, "Son,
everyone of us is like clockwork.
Every movement,
every motion...
is clockwork."
When I was 28, my grandfather was laid out in an all white coffin
lined with loose white silk.
And the people whose lives he had moved
walked up and put in little pieces of their lives
that he had affected them with.
He told me that on that day,
the tears that I saw would not be sadness.
They would be the water that he had sent from heaven
to wash away our pain.
He told me that day,
the last time my little hand touched his big hand,
that it would be my time to make sure
that the clocks
kept
running.
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3. |
Mars Won
03:40
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By 2035 we will be on the surface of another planet.
This timeline matches the closest approaches from Earth to Mars.
Thus reducing fuel cost and communication lag.
What it won't reduce,
is the cost to human life.
The crew of Mars 1 will have a one way ticket.
When they leave the Earth
they will no longer be able to call it home.
We do not have the capability for return flight.
Instead they will set their sights
on creating a settlement when they get there
with the few,
the brave,
the insane enough
to volunteer to be part of a mission
that guarantees that they will never live to see
the ones that they love again.
To feel a cool breeze blow past their cheeks again.
No, the know that what they will be giving up
will only be everything
that we consider to be human.
They will be prohibited from having sex for the rest of their lives.
A human child would provide too much strain
on their already constrained supplies
and would endanger the lives
of everyone involved in the project.
And I project,
that the madness that infects this mission
is the Carpe Diem of this generation.
When the Earth has been poured over like DuPont dreamt,
and we can explore no more on this poor painted rock,
we will rocket ourselves to other places.
"We will spread, we will cover the Earth"
is outdated as purpose.
For instead,
"We will spread, we will cover the sky."
With our heads held so high
that we cannot see anything else.
Like our starving children,
our weak and homeless.
Anything that threatens to ground us
to our humanity,
to our Earth,
to our dead.
So instead we will set our sights
on the heavenly bodies.
We will not rest
until the god Mars' body
is under our feet.
And what we see that day
will be read throughout history.
A red flag set against a red horizon.
That does not wave, it only stands still.
An unwavering sign
that we are not ready to fight the god of war
if we are still so busy
fighting with ourselves.
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4. |
Bionic
03:12
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She was a pressurized cylinder that he loved to dip his piston in.
It was more than oil.
It was more than lubricant.
This fluid motion of hydraulics and precision.
The pieces fit.
They were meant to.
This machinists dream of perfection.
The sound of etching serial numbers on plastic.
The drag of metal on concrete.
The methodical plodding of programming that lead to something greater than their parts.
She was a bobby pin twisted into the shape of a ballerina.
He was the factory that bottled emotions to make a living.
Together they were a system;
closed and fluid
apart they were scrap.
But, they refused to be refuse.
Over time,
even metal rusts.
Over time,
even concrete turns to dust in the breeze.
Things got thicker,
Things got dirty,
Viscous is the word.
The world is Vicious is the world.
The elements have never been kind to machines.
So when the time came for them to go to the yard
they both drank a bottle of the sweetest emotion they could find.
It was a good year.
The one where they were first put together at the factory,
all glistening and gleaming and ready to do great things,
and they listened to the hum of the factory
as their gears wound down for the last time.
And the last thought that went through their mind was bye binary.
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5. |
Peace of Paper
03:46
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Violence never solves anything.
But sometimes to get results,
you just want to punch something.
Dad put a hole in the wall again.
Mom covered it in silence
and moved the piano.
She always finds weird places to hang new paintings.
She's gotten good
at covering ugly
with beautiful.
I don't want to be like him.
I want my violence to accomplish something beautiful.
On purpose with paper.
On paper with purpose.
I want to punch holes into 3 ring binders
instead of being part of this 3 ring circus.
One day, we will make confetti.
And it will sparkle like glitter.
And the pain we drink
will be champagne out of paper cups.
When the only hearts that get cut here
will be paper hearts.
When they're the only things left
to be hung in this house.
This house,
with it's paper thin walls
and it's origami love.
It's so tightly folded in on itself
that it looks like something else.
Here mom, I made you a flower.
Here mom, I made you a crane.
Here mom, I made you a heart.
It doesn't beat.
The last thing this house needs
is more beatings.
Pa said, "People, like paper, when pressed, will fold.
And when the creases cease to be reassuring
it means they're molding you into something more."
and I swore that what we had was art.
Because I don't know if what we had
was ugly or beautiful,
but it stirs something deep inside me.
And that's what we art does right?
So I folded my heart just right.
Instead of hole punching bodies,
I struck out and not the sheets in front of me.
In pen strokes
and broken words
and folded souls
and in the eight and a half years
since I have been trapped
in that origami box.
I have destroyed countless sheets of paper.
I have watched 1000 cranes fly away,
and the only wish that I made
was that the words I put to paper
would be honest.
and beautiful.
and holy.
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6. |
Last Flight
06:19
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Last night, I took the last flight back from the Red Eye.
My son was waiting for me.
My wife was waiting for me,
and I was waiting too.
The air cabin pressurizes at 36,000 feet.
In life, sometimes,
it can pressurize on only two.
I started carrying a paper bag with me everywhere that I went.
Sneaking breaths in broom closets.
I was a success
I couldn't let people see my weakness,
My dirty little secret.
I had learned long ago
to let go of complete honesty.
It's so much easier to only let them see me through the oxygen mask.
Until the day I came home
and saw my son drawing and asked,
"What is that?"
He held up a blank sheet of paper and said,
"It's you.
I wanted to remember what you looked like.
Because sometimes I forget."
Breathe In.
Breathe Out.
Breathe In.
Breathe Out.
I'm travelling at almost 600 miles per hour.
But it's only when I'm travelling home
that I feel like I'm going anywhere.
Every time I pack a bag to leave
something dies a little inside of me.
There are no "Good Byes".
That is an oxymoron.
So instead we started saying, "See you soon!"
Which became, "See you later."
Which just became, "see you"
As if we were all afraid
that one day
I would become invisible.
And the one thing
that has become clear to me
is that the reason
this is called a terminal
is because this
is killing me.
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7. |
Immense
05:39
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Look at your life.
Everything you've said,
everything you've done.
Look at you life.
Is it enough?
It's gotten you this far,
but is it enough?
I'm here to tell you that NO, it is not.
The moment you realize that you are worth more than this,
that's when you'll start to make a difference.
That's when you'll start to fulfill your purpose.
Look at yourself in the mirror today
and say
that whatever it takes,
I will do
whatever it takes
to make my dreams manifest.
At it's best,
mankind tests the limits
of what can and cannot be done.
At our worst
we will not believe in ourselves,
in our abilities,
and we shelter ourselves
from even the possibility
of possibly making a difference.
Most men live in quiet desperation.
Afraid to make a change.
Afraid that deep down
they just don't deserve better.
But, fear kills dreams.
Fear kills hope.
Fear can hold you back
from doing something
you know you are capable of doing.
Fear is a choice.
You create it.
You can destroy it.
"Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure."-Marianne Williamson
There is not a person in this room
who is not affected
by YOU being in this room.
You are made
of the remains
of when stars explode.
Your breath is the dust of the cosmos.
You are Immense.
You are Powerful.
When you change the way that you look at things,
the things you look at change.
You are going to be amazed
at how far this is going to take you.
You don't need to prove anything
to anyone but to yourself.
But to yourself,
you need to prove your greatness.
Every moment of everyday
own up to the fact that you matter.
Own up to yourself.
You matter.
Anyone that has ever been great
has had an obstacle they've had to cross.
A mountain they've had to climb,
and in time
it made them grow to step over it.
You can let it hold you down,
or you can let it fill you up,
and build you up until you yourself
cannot contain your greatness.
You just need to believe enough
to leave the rough behind you.
Success is formulated through failure.
Your imagination is your ability to see in the future where you are going.
So if you are going to fall, fall forward.
If you are going to fail, fail forward.
Where you are is temporary.
But in the event that everything seems hopeless,
I need you to repeat this litany;
It is possible I can live my dreams.
It is important that I work on myself.
It is not over until I am complete.
I am never complete.
Because you are Immense.
Because you are Powerful.
And because you are only
getting better
and better
and better.
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