Inspiration from oppression

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The Last Poets @ Jack Adams Hall, SFSU.
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Have you ever walked into a room and felt greatness fall into step behind you? or sat and listened to a man speak his heart and feel chilled by his criticisms because you don't truly understand them? Ever feel uncomfortable with the thought that another man's belief is more powerful than yours?

Today
I was humbled, truly humbled. And once humbled, I felt inspiration and a hint of consciousness. I felt chilled by words that certainly weren't meant to be warm; they were ice cold and yet lit fires under the asses of those not down with revolution.

"In all history, it is the poet and philosopher who always starts shit; then everyone starts thinking and that's when revolution begins."

I felt proud to be a writer,
I felt proud to be a poet,
I felt proud to be a philosopher,
even with my semi-arbitary musings of microscopic and cult detail. Even with my niche of claimed knowledge, I am empowered.

"If you can't speak about your beliefs, then you need not speak at all."

I felt proud to be one who believes in his own words, who would rather speak his truths than silence his dreams.
I felt and feel proud to bear the title of thinker, dreamer, idealist, and perhaps revolutionary-in-waiting. Though, I hope judgment and criticism soon catch up to my soaring horizons.
Call me stoopid, but I feel momentum; I feel anxiousness enthralled by excitement-heavy remnants of despair, and it makes me smile.
Indeed,
today I am proud.

"You hear that? 'We are in alliance with our own self-destruction.'"

"Siddhartha: 'I can think, I can wait, and I can fast.' If you can do all those things, then you can do anything. But if you need your cell phone and your car and all that, yallre fucked."

The Last Poets. Indeed, they were one of the first to make me claim Yang over Yin in a neverending war of words, despite it being fought in ivory libraries atop checkerboard soapbox with the 1st Amendment privelige of wigged aristocrats.

And yet truly, I can't refrain from asking: do we simply claim struggle for the inherent right to rally against it? Are we necessarily immune to judging too quickly and unfairly, especially when that which we judge inherently draws energy from us?

It is time that I included statements along with my questions, answers to my own queries. Only then might I truly be able to compare myself with likeminded people. Set my own standard, and I'll have foundation.

All in all, seriously not a bad day.

PS Hello Rikki, who takes a Black Studies class in hip hop and politics and works at the bookstore wearing black, green and her hair swept over her left eye. Your lips shimmer.