Sunday, January 08, 2006

another beginning

Greetings. We have finally made it through the usual festive madness and, tomorrow, everyone starts crawling back into the office.. well, everyone except for me. I am officially self-employed, following a few months of unemployment. The end and beginning of every year serve as periods of introspection, re-evaluation and resolutions for many of us. Never been big on the resolution thing, but I do try to take the opportunity to re-examine my life and determine where I am going. My biggest decision was that, the minute we hit 01/01/2006, I would re-define myself as self-employed. It is said 'we manifest our thoughts' ... this is my way.

Truth be told, that is as far as I have been able to go in developing a plan for 2006. In fact, I am probably more confused about my future than I have been in a long time. Is poetry in my future? Should I just get a normal corporate job? Am I on the right track? What am I doing wrong? It's the questions that define us. And I still struggle to find the right questions that will give me answers that inspire peace of mind.

Anyway, have been doing a little scribbling over the last month. Nothing complete, some things slightly coherent, but lots of ideas. Thought I would start off the year with this. May your dreams be fulfilled.

the answers are not in the lamentation
the tragic memories of yesterday
they do not come to us in blood
that runs through ancient rivers
or in the tears and pain that paint the sky red
coating the clouds with a twisted crimson

the solutions are not born out of repetition
recycled words of a past & present reality

history is not washed clean by a never-ending chant
babylon will not be defeated with hollow words or idle dreams

the revolution HAS been televised
and we missed it
fingering remotes
flipping through channels

the revolution had more than a cat's nine lives
and still it died
because tomorrow was never built on a lack of hope

hope implies looking into tomorrow and not yesterday
a future implies working towards something
not drowning in a past riddled with hate
living implies clarity & vision & dreams
beyond the haze is infinite discourse

the future is in the hands
of those who live the revolution in action
each brick carefully laid
each word carefully spoken
each battle ground carefully chosen
each action transcending reaction

when this happens
the revolution shall be reborn
and live again

2 comments:

Roy Blumenthal said...

Yo Kojo...

Three things:

1) Happy New Year, dude! May it be filled with learning, loving, joy, and abundance. My life motto: 'I live my art in prosperity and abundance.' May that flow your way.

2) Would you mind heading to your BLOGGER settings, and turning your feed settings to 'full'? I read all of my blogs in BLOGLINES, a feed aggregator, and your blog cuts off after a few lines. It's just enough for me to be frustrated. I really don't like leaving BLOGLINES in order to read blogs. And most people who use RSS feeds don't dig it either. But hey.

3) Congrats on your new identity as self-employed, dude. It's a biggie. I've been in that space for about thirteen or so years now. But I'm taking it to a new level. I'm defining myself now as a business owner. I want to recommend that you get your skanky ass into weekly therapy as soon as you can. If you haven't got the cash, all the therapists I know will do deals with you. Sounds like you're in one of those turbulent times, and it's really useful to see a shrink. As you know from our coffee session, I'm a fan of shrinkage, and am an active evangelist. If you need my shrink's number, I'll gladly zap it to you.

Blue skies
love
Roy

Kojo Baffoe said...

Hey Roy,

Firstly, I think I have sorted out the feed thing and hopefully you will no longer be frustrated by my words cut short. Thanks for the tip, it was a 'oh, that's what that's for' moment.
Secondly, never really thought about the shrink thing, but will give you a shout when I feel up to it. Went out with an aspirant psychologist throughout high school and she scared me away from shrinky types - her ability to read my mind was uncanny.
Finally, the whole self-employment thing is one of my many attempts to venture out on my own and this time, I am going to make it work. Mood tends to swing from extreme optimism to extreme pessimism and back, and today, things are looking up. May have two freelance gigs lined up for the next few months. we shall see.
Anyway, I may just share in your motto this year. Got your sms haiku... I like.

Easy