"And then there's Leroy Smith. Now you guys think that's a myth. Leroy Smith was a guy when I got cut he made the team - on the Varsity team - and he's here tonight. He's still the same 6'7" guy - he's not any bigger - probably his game is about the same. But he started the whole process with me, because when he made the team and I didn't, I wanted to prove not just to Leroy Smith, not just to myself, but to the coach that picked Leroy over me, I wanted to make sure you understood - you made a mistake dude."
-michael jordan
can't sleep. need to. gotta drive tomorrow. but i think this is one of those times where the thing i need to do is being overshadowed. i have come to a realization this late at night/early in the morning: i need motivation of a certain very specific nature, and to be honest, it's kinda hard to talk about. which is why i've decided in my infinite wisdom to tell it to the drewniverse.
i must admit, i am not confident my writing is more as gooder than it used to was, so don't not make with that bad talking about it.
what motivates you? money? praise? the respect of your peers? maybe it's just the knowledge that you did whatever it is you set out to do. perhaps the promise of a better tomorrow fuels your drive. well, cousin, none of that pretty shit works for me. i tell myself i'm gonna earn a nice salary and nothing. just nothing. i don't care about money. i never believe people are being totally honest when i receive any sort of praise. and even if they are, praise makes me physically uncomfortable. and what in the blue hell is respect anyway? you can't rightly quantify it. there ain't a unit by which you can gauge the amount of respect you get. "hey Shiz, you wanna go out tonight?" "sorry Keef, i'm about 7 centarethas short on respect today. i gotta hit the gym and turn in early" is a conversation you've never heard. ever. and even if you think you got it, you can never be sure that it's genuine. i mean, what guarantee do you have that niggas have the same opinion of you when you're out of earshot? none. nada. sorry but your peers? they're the most likely to form negative opinions about you because they see you all the time. they know the crust of you. they see you at your worst in the most high stress situations of your respective lives. eff the respect you think you have. i've heard more foul shit about people from the ones who they see on an academic and professional level in the past year than i ever have. you know what i don't hear a ton of? respect. next please. and tomorrow isn't promised so that doesn't motivate me. trust me i've tried. i wake up on a daily basis with the promise that i'm going to better myself that day and go to bed every night vowing not to repeat the same mistakes the next day. guess what happens the next day. no, guess. if you said the same old bull, congratulations, you get a cookie.
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| it's not even a cookie for real. the cookie is a lie. |
so what motivates the masked warrior? i warn you, this is gonna sound really shitty. like really shitty. it may even cause your opinion of me to change, but dammit, i think i can handle the shift. if not i can always remove the mask and walk around in anonymity. my motivation is simple: spite. that's it, really. i don't want to be rich or respected or even "happy" whatever that is. what drives me is the desire to throw my successes in the face of whoever i perceive to have doubted or misunderestimated, misjudged or undermined my talents and abilities. and hell, it worked for michael jordan, who attributes his drive to win in no small part to the collection of grudges and emotional wounds both real and perceived he amassed through his career (he even thanked leroy smith, the kid he was left off his high school roster for, albeit [half]jokingly, in his hall of fame induction speech). look, i don't hold grudges. my christianity kicks in really hard in that department, so i can't help but forgive. but i never forget. you dare to tell me something, act in a way, hell, even hint at a suggestion that you're better than me, that you don't think i have what it takes, that i'm not good enough? congratulations, you just became the target of my vitriol filled success missile.
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| i write my success in korean. keep reading to find out why.... |
you don't even have to mean any harm by it. hell you can even like and honestly respect me, but if i get that twinge of doubt from you, better believe i'm grabbing whatever brass ring you thought my arms were to short to reach. hell i might grab the harder to get brass ring just because, fuck you! you don't tell me what i'm not capable of! don't believe me? i once went on a three game win streak against a close friend of mine who was more talented than me because he said i couldn't beat him... in a game of pickup basketball. and you know what? he's still better than me, but he would never be able to say it again. he got real mad and wound up throwing the ball away, but still...
hell you don't even have to suggest it! if i think you might be perceived by other people as better then me, that someone else might doubt my abilities next to yours, even if the thought never entered your mind, too bad, i got a missile for you, too. ask Devin Roundtree. who is that? just the guy who was making straight A's in my department back in undergrad. i made it my personal mission, even though he was a cool guy who had never personally given me reason to believe he doubted my ability as a student, to never let him get an A that i didn't match. two year later, i go from academic probation to graduate with honors and you know what? my last three semesters in school i was a straight A student. and every waking moment i vowed he wouldn't be better than me.
even in video games! if a friend of mine beats me in a PvP game whether its a tourney fighter or a sports game or RTS, whatever, i'm prone to make them play me until i win. i've come to blows over this.
and it takes every bit of reasoning in my body to not start training for the octagon. not because i'm into the idea of getting face punched and armbarred for fun, either. here;s why. i'm a 12 year old red belt in Tae Kwon Do when it comes to my 12 year old attention that TKD would be an Olympic sport starting in 2000. that was all i needed to hear to run to my instructor and inform him of my intention to train for the 04 Olympics because, you know, i'd be the shit by then. at this time i was fully prepared to make this sport my whole life. i told my folks that i was going to korea to study at the Tae Kwon Do university in Seoul. all i wanted in life was to be great at TKD. you know wat my instructor says? "IF.... IF you can beat Sam, i'll prep you for the Olympics in 04" my 12 year old world was shattered. no more TKD university. no more Olympics. no more serious TKD. why? because my 12 ear old brain didn t recognize the challenge. see, sam was in his mid teens, and the closest i'd come to beating him with my 12 year old ability was not getting my ass handed to me. i could SORTA hang with him, but i wasn't in mid teen form at 12, i'd not even started t grow into my body yet! (i was already about 5'6" and over 200 pounds). i got my black belt, but all my fire was gone. and today, 1.5 degrees and a teenager older all i want to do is shove that if in mr. kempka's face SO HARD by bludgeoning grown men until they say uncle. and twist their limbs outta socket for every fight i should've been more into. and it takes every bit of civility and higher learning in me to not do that.
and you know what the fucked up part about kempka's "if" was? i stood almost head and shoulders over everyone else. i could beat his brother, who was my age. i wasn't allowed to face most people 1 on 1. the adults would strategize to face me last on sparring days in hopes that id be worn out. you know, from ass kicking.when he needed a hitman to humble somebody who thought they were too good for the discipline side of martial arts training, he didn't sic sam on em. it was me! i was the hitter! i was the one who humbled that ass. if only he'd said "WHEN you beat sam" instead of "IF you beat sam" the little orientation speech we got when we first got to hofstra might have included "... and Olympic athlete" and i would've quietly fist pumped to myself.... and now i really wanna fight....
OK so what am i writing all this for? other than the fact that this was swelling my melon and keeping me awake i gotta admit something, and it's a thing i've only just come to fully accept. the simple truth is i've developed a far to structurally sound wall of fuck it around my vitriol center and thus no fuel has been able to reach my motivation ducts. it was a combination of too many good things and a few devastatingly hurtful instances happening in quick succession. the same minor slights that got me in law school (too a little too long on those recommendation letters, didn't ya,professors??) and fueled my pre law school weight loss (i know you can't recognize the sexiness, college girl. you don;t have to say it. i'll show you how sexy i can be [side note: yeah, so my desire t not fall into the diet related health pitfalls my uncles, pops and grandfather did was the reason. the girl was the catalyst]) no longer seemed to work for me. nothing did.
recently, the mortar that held the fuck it Wall together evaporated and the vitriol has started to seep through. and with the mortar now up in the clouds, something punched a hole in the brick. for the first time in almost a year and a half i felt the twinge again. hopefully it wasn't just an apparition. i NEED a new Leroy Smith. my old one's are broken.
+
hell you don't even have to suggest it! if i think you might be perceived by other people as better then me, that someone else might doubt my abilities next to yours, even if the thought never entered your mind, too bad, i got a missile for you, too. ask Devin Roundtree. who is that? just the guy who was making straight A's in my department back in undergrad. i made it my personal mission, even though he was a cool guy who had never personally given me reason to believe he doubted my ability as a student, to never let him get an A that i didn't match. two year later, i go from academic probation to graduate with honors and you know what? my last three semesters in school i was a straight A student. and every waking moment i vowed he wouldn't be better than me.
even in video games! if a friend of mine beats me in a PvP game whether its a tourney fighter or a sports game or RTS, whatever, i'm prone to make them play me until i win. i've come to blows over this.
 |
| artists depiction |
and it takes every bit of reasoning in my body to not start training for the octagon. not because i'm into the idea of getting face punched and armbarred for fun, either. here;s why. i'm a 12 year old red belt in Tae Kwon Do when it comes to my 12 year old attention that TKD would be an Olympic sport starting in 2000. that was all i needed to hear to run to my instructor and inform him of my intention to train for the 04 Olympics because, you know, i'd be the shit by then. at this time i was fully prepared to make this sport my whole life. i told my folks that i was going to korea to study at the Tae Kwon Do university in Seoul. all i wanted in life was to be great at TKD. you know wat my instructor says? "IF.... IF you can beat Sam, i'll prep you for the Olympics in 04" my 12 year old world was shattered. no more TKD university. no more Olympics. no more serious TKD. why? because my 12 ear old brain didn t recognize the challenge. see, sam was in his mid teens, and the closest i'd come to beating him with my 12 year old ability was not getting my ass handed to me. i could SORTA hang with him, but i wasn't in mid teen form at 12, i'd not even started t grow into my body yet! (i was already about 5'6" and over 200 pounds). i got my black belt, but all my fire was gone. and today, 1.5 degrees and a teenager older all i want to do is shove that if in mr. kempka's face SO HARD by bludgeoning grown men until they say uncle. and twist their limbs outta socket for every fight i should've been more into. and it takes every bit of civility and higher learning in me to not do that.
and you know what the fucked up part about kempka's "if" was? i stood almost head and shoulders over everyone else. i could beat his brother, who was my age. i wasn't allowed to face most people 1 on 1. the adults would strategize to face me last on sparring days in hopes that id be worn out. you know, from ass kicking.when he needed a hitman to humble somebody who thought they were too good for the discipline side of martial arts training, he didn't sic sam on em. it was me! i was the hitter! i was the one who humbled that ass. if only he'd said "WHEN you beat sam" instead of "IF you beat sam" the little orientation speech we got when we first got to hofstra might have included "... and Olympic athlete" and i would've quietly fist pumped to myself.... and now i really wanna fight....
 |
| ... like this. this is how i wanna fight |
OK so what am i writing all this for? other than the fact that this was swelling my melon and keeping me awake i gotta admit something, and it's a thing i've only just come to fully accept. the simple truth is i've developed a far to structurally sound wall of fuck it around my vitriol center and thus no fuel has been able to reach my motivation ducts. it was a combination of too many good things and a few devastatingly hurtful instances happening in quick succession. the same minor slights that got me in law school (too a little too long on those recommendation letters, didn't ya,professors??) and fueled my pre law school weight loss (i know you can't recognize the sexiness, college girl. you don;t have to say it. i'll show you how sexy i can be [side note: yeah, so my desire t not fall into the diet related health pitfalls my uncles, pops and grandfather did was the reason. the girl was the catalyst]) no longer seemed to work for me. nothing did.
recently, the mortar that held the fuck it Wall together evaporated and the vitriol has started to seep through. and with the mortar now up in the clouds, something punched a hole in the brick. for the first time in almost a year and a half i felt the twinge again. hopefully it wasn't just an apparition. i NEED a new Leroy Smith. my old one's are broken.
