Creativity and me

Throughout my entire life i have constantly found new ways for me to express myself as a human being. During my early years i was heavily influenced in art and drawing. Art class was my favorite class of the day because it allowed me to escape all of the other classes that i didn't enjoy as much such as science and math. I never really wanted to do much outside of art until i hit high school, but by then i had discovered new interest within myself such as: a love for nature, poetry, music and martial art. Simply having one interest didn't satisfy me at all. I wanted to be more involved with the things i loved and at one point i became obsessed with them. I would draw pictures while listening to my favorite bands and artist, Play my guitar while listening to the rain and trying to catch a beat from it to play along with, Listening to the sounds of nature along with classical and smooth jazz instrumentals. All of these things i have mixed and matched to give my imagination the pleasure it needed to get me through the day. One of my favorite bands that i would listen to for inspiration or ideas for a project was Evanescence. There was something about Amy Lee's voice that put my mind in a trance. Even though alot of her songs were indeed sad, it was the push i needed to bring what lurked deep inside myself out and into the light. The sound of the rain and rolling thunder was a beauty that i could never fathom but in a sense it spoke out to me, and whispered deep secrets to my heart which were dying to be told. I usually wrote what i felt in the form of poetry, but writing short stories was the best way for me to fight my demons. I would have people constantly telling me how good of a writer i was and how i should be a journalist, poet, author etc. Little did they know that they were reading a story about  me and everything good, bad and ugly that happened in my life.

Sadly alot of my talents and gifts that i had are locked up tight on the inside for good and bad reasons. For a reason that i have yet to discover, art has slipped through my graphs for reasons that i am not too sure of. One day in class i simply told myself "This is the last picture that i am going to draw". I worked on it for two whole class periods and it was one of my best works yet. Of course i drew small things here and there since then, but never have i actually put everything that i had into my work since that one picture. I have tried to pick the pencil back up a few times since i came to KU, but it has become a slight stranger to my hand.

Playing the guitar was very odd for me because my skill and abilities was constantly changing and sometimes i could barely keep up with it. There were times where i believed i was no good, and other times where i would sit and play for hours on end. My guitar teacher was a big motivator for me because he helped me stay at it. Ive done a couple of gigs in my two years of playing and my teacher considered me to be a very quick learner in the amount of time that i was with him. Sadly i always felt that everything that i was doing was for him, to accomplish a dream that he had for himself. I soon realized that to be true once he refused to teach me because my father took pictures and recorded me playing with live professionals.Once Mr.Bill left, so did my desire to play.

The art of writing is one of the most powerfulest form of expression that a person can have because with words on paper u can do what you want how you want it. No one can tell you other wise because what you write on paper is what you want to say to your audience, you just do it and the only thing that people can really do is listen or ignore. My writing hasn't really depleted or strayed from me at all, especially since I'm now a college student. When i look back when i was in high school and how i am now, i see a dramatic change in who i am. I feel happier, and better about myself now then when i did back when i was fourteen, fifteen. I was extremely reckless in my early to mid teens, depressed occasionally and i always seemed to put some type of stress on myself as well as those close to me. Writing and poetry helped my get through it until i simply grew out of that stage in my life. Its like a Caterpillar on the road to becoming a butterfly. He has to travel, experiment, learn and fill himself with knowledge and experience that it goes through in its early stage of life. Once it goes through the struggles, it will then mature into a stronger, freer, more independent form of life, and that's with all of us. We are all caterpillars trying to become that butterfly.

Today i have found an extreme fascination with Bruce Lee and Jeet Kune Do. The art of fighting without fight, way of the intercepting fist, and the art of expressing the human body. I have longed to be a martial artist since i first came into high school. My family didn't have the money, neither did i have the time. When my friend, Terrence Lyles, told me about JKD i was automatically intrigued by it and bought a book on it. The summer before college began i was reading and studying Bruce's philosophy and fighting methods. Alot of the things that I've studied by him i live very closely by, just like alot of the things I've taken with me in life from the Holy Bible. Bruce Lee has motivated me to challenge myself in every way i can, to have no limits as my only limit and not following a specific way as the only way. Today i am currently studying four of Bruce's books and five of his movies. He is the reason why i want to unlock the shackles and chains on my "lost" talents and abilities, he is one of my greatest heroes.