Being conscience-stricken means to have a guilty conscience caused by remorse that one feels for a wrong that they’ve committed. On average, what’s the state of your conscience? For clarity, your conscience is like your sixth sense—a moral sense—that controls your ability to differentiate right from wrong. So, if your conscience is “guilty,” it’s because you’ve established and accepted the belief that you’ve done something wrong. Anyone who claims to never feel guilt is either lying or has no moral sense, both of which are red flags highlighting that person’s untrustworthiness. Personally, I reminisce and feel guilty all the time. For instance, I wish I’d been a better brotherly protector and motivator for my late sister, I regret many of the actions that I took while being a heathen in the past, I’m ashamed whenever I break my diet, etc. You know, human shit. But from my perspective, almost nothing promotes growth like guilt. When you can acknowledge and be apologetic for your wrongdoings, you’re on the right path for improvement and redemption. Right now, there are people reading this with anxious hearts, knowing good and goddamn well that they’ve fucked up, and that consequences are on the horizon. But I digress. A couple of good ways to avoid being guilt-ridden is to practice precaution and exercise empathy. I don’t want to get too preachy here, so I’ll put it like this—you know better! There are levels to everything, right? And though not giving a fuck is like a superpower, the highest level of insouciance can be like a self-inflicted kryptonite wound. In this scenario, let’s say kryptonite represses and eventually reverses every superpower. If nonchalance—or not giving a fuck—is your superpower, and guilt is your kryptonite, plus guilt stems from the acknowledgement of wrongdoings derived from not giving a fuck, how much of that kryptonite do you think you could take before your superpower is permanently eradicated? Ultimately, if you’re lucky enough to possess the power to avoid being conscious-struck by inconsequential things, but you abuse that power by neglecting the responsibilities that accompany it, you render said power obsolete. Diverging slightly, what would you consider your biggest strength? Of course, mine would be my intelligence. I believe that the ability to comprehend and consider more information than the average person is one of the greatest gifts that a human can have. How often do you depend on other people to help you conclude your thoughts on things? And when you’re awaiting affirmation, do you prioritize the reception of reassuring facts or ostensibly accurate arguments? Anybody can be wrong, and everybody is occasionally wrong, so do you see what’s wrong with relying on people over information itself? Granted, people can provide information, but information commonly comes from people’s interpretations of facts, and those interpretations could be inaccurate. For what it’s worth, I believe it’s prudent to receive your reassurances from facts over folks. Speaking of facts, without exaggerating, what percentage of your knowledge would you say is unarguably factual? And just to put it into perspective, thing like “the Sun’s surface has a higher temperature than Earth’s surface” and “Donald Trump is the most dishonest public official in American history” are facts. If I had to guess the percentage of factual knowledge that I hold, I wouldn’t. Because like with traditional institutional educations, much of the information that we receive isn’t inevitably applicable to everyday life, which means it’s better suited for entertainment purposes. In simpler terms, a lot of the shit that you know is only good for casual conversations. With that in mind, I guess that a better question would be, how much of your knowledge is consequential to your life? If intelligence boils down to the comprehension and consideration of information, how much of your knowledge do you actually understand, and how much of the information that you receive do you effectively consider? Think about it.
So, this morning, at approximately 10:45am, a young black woman driving a dark blue 8th generation Honda Civic sedan destroyed my neighbor’s mailbox, ran over their trash can, and crashed into my yard—nearly striking the light pole aside the top of my driveway. And all I could think was, “what if I had been mowing the lawn at that very moment?” What’s more, I had just sent an important email about 20 minutes before the crash occurred, which makes me wonder if the incident was an accident or something different. As for the “something different,” I’ll leave it to your imagination. Nevertheless, if you’re a regular here, you know that I write about weirdos a lot. But I digress, again. How many “shit happens” moments have you experienced recently? Better yet, do you believe in bad luck? I wouldn’t say that I give credence to bad luck per se, but I am certain that unfortunate and complicated situations are indiscriminately presented to everyone every now and then. Personally, I typically deal well under pressure, especially if faced with difficult decisions that are vital to my well-being. Comprehensively, I definitely lean more toward optimism than pessimism, yet I’m very cynical and don’t believe that most people are well-intentioned. Nearly every time I give a motherfucker the benefit of the doubt, I regret it. Moving on, I’m calling it early, America will elect its first female president in November of this year. Honestly, race doesn’t mean anything to me—despite the historic and ongoing disenfranchisement of and discrimination toward niggas in America. From my perspective, if people stop making a big deal out of race, it will stop being a big deal. When you think about it, what is history aside from memories? Memories can be either traumatic or pleasant. And oftentimes, people tend to be possessed by traumatic experiences—whether they were experienced personally or vicariously—which perpetuates ill will and discourages progression. Do you know how I know everybody’s stupid? It’s because motherfuckers search for reasons to hate themselves and anyone else! Dr. Umar, and his followers, are a perfect example of this. I won’t go too deep into it, but at the end of the day, hatred is offensive and objectionable. People who don’t care to change their objectors’ minds are always going to have an “if it’s fuck me, it’s fuck you” attitude. And immortalizing traditional tension, cultural conflict, and historic hatred is like willfully trapping yourself in a cycle of suffering. Lawmakers, politicians, police officers, judges, and everyone who affects lives are being influenced by the ideas that history sets—memories that make up minds. And if y’all don’t start focusing on pleasantness of the past, instead of the horrendousness of history, our future is fucked! Of course, that’s wishful thinking, but it doesn’t hurt to dream, right? What’s your biggest dream? And where would humanity be without dreamers? For instance, Jeff Bezos started Amazon in his garage. Bill Gates established Microsoft from a dorm room. Martin Luther King, Jr. began a revolution from a church podium. And I initially created this blog for less than $15. All successful dreamers are just people who never lost focus of their vision. And the closer you get to your dreams, the harder people will try to disturb your concentration. At this point, I’m sure anyone who thought they’d be able to break my concentration or blur my vision feels contrite about attempting to do so. Again, in the words of the illustrious Freddy Krueger, “you’re in my world now, bitch!” To whom it unquestionably concerns, I don’t know what you were thinking, or why you thought you’d get away with this, but you did this to yourselves. But I digress, for the third time. To the dreamers, no matter how far you’ve come or how far you have to go, keep dreaming! Because without dreams, we’d all be living nightmares. Peace.