work hard and don’t complain

Growing up in Memphis, there were 3 general things I was inculcated with from either my Grand folk, Mom or Uncles:

1] If you gone be a ditch digger be the best ditch digger and they will always call Torrance to dig that ditch

2] Somebody gotta be number one, may as well be you.

3] Competition is for folk who have to prove something to themselves; you don’t need to compete boy if you already know yourself.

Over the years, I have had a lot of things said about me, but never have I been called lazy nor have I ever had my work ethic questioned. The little I know about my mothers father and my granny’s brother, I do recant both of them giving me advice as a child under the age of 4. My Great Uncle, while drinking Scotch and chain smoking Pall Mall Red would say “what makes a man is how hard he works, not for himself but his family and neighborhood – men take care of others.” These were straight old school cats, with my great uncle, like my granny, being straight up on out of Yazoo City, Mississippi.

Even after they both died, and my mother’s brother took over the reign of my family being the last oldest male in the household, he said the same thing to me over and over but added “we will always work hard and take care of out children, and working smart is the hardest work to do.”

I am writing this because of a request I received from one of my readers. He suggested that I was always talking about self suffiency and that I should share my joy of hard work and working for myself to others such to maybe motivates them to do the same. I honestly hope that this tractate does his request honor. For it is a joy, a joy unfortunately equal to that I experienced when my son and daughter were born, only without the tears. You see after both were born, I left the delivery room, looked at the moon in one case and the rising sun in the other and cried, like it was straight out of Roots.

Nowadays, not like there is nothing wrong with it, but many of us want the easy way out, We want to rely on our looks and become models, or we want to rap, or worse, we spend $10 to $20 dollars weekly trying to hit the lotto. No longer do we desire to wait or even earn what we desire for in our myopic purview, me, and me now is all that counts. We will complain while we have other providing or taking care of us because we cannot see that their work ethic is what sustains us, or that the opportunity given to us is always a function of chance; and that we need to make the best of all opportunities for we may not get another.

But for some of us, the easy way is the best way. Even if that means selling drugs, jacking someone’s shit, depending on others or just not being able to be on time for a job if one is fortunate enough to have one. And dont give me this bitch azz shit about its the only way folk can make money. Truth be told, hard work is a throw back like black and white TV. I mean we are so lazy that we will walk in front of a TV looking for a remote control to change the channel instead of doing it manually. We even too lazy to change our oil or even cook our own meals, preferring to waste loot at Jiffy Lube or McDonalds, while at the same time being, or saying we are too busy to sit at the dinner table together. To busy with all the convience around us – go figure. All I am saying is that work ethic is what engenders sprit of faith and accomplishment. Without such, we have nothing, for we will ask and wait for folk to give us shit, even if its freedom, liberty or equality. I see what George Clinton meant now when he said Free your mind and your ass will follow. For I am the last eldest man left in my family and outside of love, alll i can leave them with are my actions through my work ethic - can u dig it?

Amplification: In last post ACTION means macking or trying to get a girls number for yawl lames LOL - not sex.

power or deceit

My folk Rich has been leading an extensive discussion on this book called the 48 Laws of power. And I have seen a lot of other bloggers caught up in reading (I hope) this book as well. Although it does not interest me, I have skimmed through it briefly for I could not write what I am about to with out doing such. Initially I asked my boy Tony oh to write about this given the lengthy discussion we Sensei had on the book as well as the epistimological (quality of the reasons for our beliefs) nature of power. But he took too long so I’m going to take my stab at it although I am confident he would have done a better job.

The book is written by Robert Greene and Joost Elffers and to put it briefly, it as much to do about power as it does kool aid. In fact it is more of a book on deception and how to deceive. And by deception I mean presenting a misrepresentation or to mislead, or to brandish falsehood – all of the aforementioned being on purpose, intentional and/or deliberate.

From all of its postulates from Preaching the Need for Change, but Never Reform too much at Once (45) to Working on the Hearts and Minds of Others (43) to Playing to People’s Fantasies (32) to Concealing your Intentions (3) are not even related or associated with power but rather fabrication, deception and falsehood.

This is by no way power, especially to folk like me who has studied the sciences in particular physics. In physics, power is the rate at which work (image to right) is performed or energy is transmitted/ It can also be understood as the amount of energy required or expended for a given unit of time’ in terms of a rate of change of work done or the energy expended to do such work - when a force acts to move an object.

I hate to rain on folk’s parade, but power cannot be obtained from one book. It is not hop scotch. As Malcolm X said in his book Malcolm X speaks “The problem of power is how to achieve it responsible use rather than its irresponsible and indulgent use.” This book is just another way to make money on the non thinking and poorly read weak minded plebeians that think things, even of the esoteric kind can be learned via instruction. For as my boy Tony Oh always says, “It is not the goal to become just a king, but to be a just king.” Francis Bacon was right, when all said and done, “Knowledge is Power", and you can’t obtain such from a single book; I guess, unless one is a fool. For without reading this book, brain cell against brain cell, i feel comfotable that I will smash any one intellectually that does, as well snatch they heart and mind (thats where power lives). Ok, that’s off my chest.