In Search of Purpose, We Walk in Circles.
- RETRO1920
- Jul 16, 2017
- 11 min read
Updated: Aug 8, 2022
In Search of Purpose We Walk in Circles
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Editorials are missing that spark. In middle school, you develop a fascination with storytelling. Nodding your head to Hip-Hop records and taping them to A and B sides on cassettes while the beast down stairs takes off his suit and tie to beat the joy out of life.
In college you get a three summer work-study position at a news station. This eventually spills into a one year entry-level position you take after about a year out of college. Oddly enough, you make more money as an intern (fourteen an hour), and only one out of the three rotating departments you work in are tailored toward your dream job. For one summer, you had a chance to produce entertainment news. The production department is in house and there to balance some of the hard news on their non-stop digital network. Eventually this department is discontinued.
Besides the summer where you gain news experience as an associate producer, the only motivation to wake up in the morning and go to work is reading a weekly newspaper.
Two-twenty a.m., once a week, you park your car and head straight to the break room. You walk past the rectangular containers holding pounds of sugar and cancer wrapped in pretty plastic wrap and grab a copy of the Miami New Times. Real investigative reporting. Some storyteller out there shadowing a person with a webcam, a body, and a dream. Another beat reporter fact checking and connecting some college kids from the same university and their major league friends to a large illegal steroid distributor. Story goes viral, and the paper trail is strong enough for national media to report from.
Yes, just a few outlandish stories that come to the top of your head but the publication is committed to fairness and justice in the political and social realm and telling the untold story. These stories hip you to a world close and far from the bubble you put yourself in.
Before you look at the front cover illustrations and think how they all are in line with the illustrious covers of past prints, you sniff near the edges of the thin sandpaper concoction for that fresh off the press smell. Fnnnfffgh.
This free newspaper you assume to be composed of dried up rat bones, recycled rough lined paper, gray Cheetos, and chai seeds - in your hands - heeds value of a fifteen dollar book of collected essays. You hold the object to the same standard, except because of its ease of feel in your hands you tend to leave it on your desk upside down or underneath your chair in the control room - like its a pin up magazine. Or its pulled up in a shoe box to keep on ice in the guest room where you either throw them away because they are taking up too much room on your unused dresser, or because they are not durable enough.
The lack of durability means that if you sneeze near the paper, it will disintegrate. Your favorite editions, somewhere buried in a second pile that is indistinguishable from the okay pile, might as well have grown rat feet and found a way back to the newspaper processing machine. You can never find them. You are disappointed, but you look forward to the next weekly edition.
You look at the author of the main cover and hope its Allie Conti. You skim through the first few pages to look for her name or that one author who put you on game last week about some political or social issue boiling up in South Florida. These articles were how you got over. In the newsroom you were in, they were the only stories that mattered.
Flash back one year later and you read a satirical jaw dropper from Michael E. Miller, exposing the weaponry dump off in South Florida with FIU as a backdrop (or front) to a martial law headquarters in Kendall. Brilliant. After this weekly segment, you slowly see the paper losing traction, but you look at the newspaper and continue to ask, "Is it me? Or you?"
The news station, doesn't renew your contract. You start to read Miami New Times online. The digital version makes you anxious.
A year and some change before you write this blog post, Allie Conti interviews Martin Shkreli during a friendly game of chess. Four simple graffiti-styled letters pop-up out at the top right corner of the screen and you have the widest grin on your face. Your favorite media entity gives your favorite writer from the weekly-ritual read newspaper a job. The same newspaper you picked up off the newspaper rack, hidden to the side by the cube container filled with boxes of processed food in pretty plastic wrap.
She made it.
XXXX
You used to read news stories online and they made you feel tone and voice were gifts from the gods. You had this thing where you would read the article first and if it was uninformative, had no life in it, or was copied and pasted by a freelance blogger you kept going about your day. When you came across a brilliant news story you would scroll up to see the name of the author. On any occasion it would be one of your favorite thinkers - Touré or Pablo Torre. You never think to yourself how can I write like them. You just ask yourself, can I sit here and admire this for a bit longer?
Eddie Huang showed me that we can tell stories to people, through outlets that have traditional media standards, and still be ourselves (still keep it hip-hop). Thank you. I don't know if I'd be writing this entry without your first step in the media game.
During the latter half of this decade, there is a growing passion to put out thousands of videos and newsletters about how to monetize our passion and find our purpose in life. Most of the passionate are preaching this to us while they are not really established themselves, just like their viewers. For those of you in the far along future, I understand this is something I may have grabbed out of a Chuck Palahniuk book but this is truth.
To the future, I see power in the platform my generation is building. We have young, like minded humans on the screens, giving us - well...time. I can name only a few who have come off as very genuine in this regard and its mostly due to their approach. They do not teach, rather they show. In showing, they act. In acting, they leave foot trails and deconstruct their trial and errors. Through their errors, we silently learn.
I'm a hip hop fan and a time traveling journalist so it's a hobby to see millions of interviews throughout a life time in a parallel universe. Regardless of your perception of Lil Wayne, one thing he said in an interview repositioned wires in my brain.
At the time of the interview, fans would rather have any Wayne than the current Wayne we've been hearing. The reporter asks Wayne a question that alludes to his current music being off the mark and what he will do about it. It went something like this, "So what kind of sound can we expect from you in the near future?"
By this time, Wayne had been known to stop interviews midway through. For some, it seemed to be some form of mood swings taken place. His interviews were also accompanied by weed smoke or codeine use, and hours upon hours of being on a tour bus. Here's the duality. There was also a rumor spreading that Wayne was taking online college courses and had been inducted into Zulu Nation. So the duality leads us in suspense.
Wayne starts off his response by stating evolution is not an up or down siutation. It's not a rollercoaster, it's actually a circle. Wayne states, when we evolve we move along this circle taking cues from our past, present, and future. Sometimes we have to go back to what used to work and learn from our past, sometimes we have to go towards something new. Wayne said this in a very calm manner and he said it with such clarity. He understood the implications the reporter and the fans were making, but he also helped me understand his philosophy on evolution could also be applied to life.
Not a line, it's a circle.
See, I never fully understood how to grasp the concept of purpose but somehow its connected to my meditations on evolution.
In search of purpose, we walk in circles.
In my past, I could never answer a stereotypical question from an employer like, "Where do you see yourself in five years?" A lot of my future didn't involve getting my goals hand tied and stuck with an employer in the first place. Once I understood the validity of my pain and fears of my past, I was able to see the future clearly.
XXXX
The hardest thing about your apprentice phase is most of the mentors you want to surround yourself with at work don't have the real resources or articulation to help you through your growth process. You start to understand that you are not looking for advice, you are looking for a chance to learn - you are looking for experience.
During the latter half of this decade, there is this growing passion to put out thousands of videos and newsletters about how to monetize our passion and find our purpose in life. Most of the passionate are preaching this to us while they are not really established themselves, just like their viewers.
Going online, and having rookies learn from rookies is becoming the way, and I know why it's happening. Soon we will find a better strategy that involves the overlooked and not yet established learning from one another, maybe we'll build some type of guild.
Now back to the media consultants who received their degrees from the university of Gary V. The generation I am currently surrounded by looks towards the younger players, the young Gary V minions, to give them and inside scoop on the learning experience. Why? Because we have run out of options. We would like to vicariously experience their work, through our eyes, and try to use it as our own work experience process. In doing so, we tend to overlook the importance of our own trial and error process. So in return are we deprived of a true learning experience?
I've always wanted to tell stories that would be published in the Miami New Times, in hope that I could eventually have a strong enough portfolio to move onto a platform like VICE, Noisey, or a little cash on the side to buy additional storytelling equipment. My goal: to build a small enough portfolio on my own, use the portfolio to get hired as a freelancer to tell stories for a local publication (Miami New Times, The New Tropic), build my freelance portfolio at a equal or higher publication once I relocate, then work for a media entity like VICE and Noisey. This would be just enough to build a buzz so I could pull a Justin Hunte. The company man is the real spook who sat by the door.
The blueprint came to me in a serendipitous manner that was somehow unrelated to Allie Conti's come up. Nonetheless, my drive was heavily inspired by Allie Conti and Eddie Huang's ability to be themselves. Most recently, my creativity was sparked by Sean Dunne and the many conversations I've heard on podcasts where he's discussed his mindset going into projects.
I thought back to all the times people didn't give me a chance to create in the newsroom. How I was overlooked and in time became a docile youth who was immune to this opportunity in front of him. I never wanted to work in a traditional newsroom, at a local level market like the one I was at. As I meditated through my evolution circle I could accept it. The higher ups in front of me could sense it. The mentors who were younger than my superiors, could feel my sense of energy and aspirations but they couldn't give me the hands on experience I was looking for.
One summer, for two and half months, I was as close to a dream job as possible but I still was not able to film a shoot or get the proper experience I was looking for before I left the station.
It would be great to see local online publications adding video segments to their editorial and feature stories. We tend to get one or the other. We are so used to the video format, but sometimes it's not as engaging. We also want to read a good editorial, but it seems like we have little to no time on our hands. When we do get some free time to read a digital editorial, it's packed with no tone, no enthusiasm, and 80% of it is plagiarized. They are using the same words with the same exact headlines. We just let the biting continue. It's all Hip-Hop.
I'm a huge fan of VICE and what they have going on. The beautiful thing about VICE is they produce great video doc-series and have great writers so they can separate the two platforms. However, local publications have an opportunity to hit the video market and editorial market hard, in unison, at least until both are credible enough to separate the two. It doesn't have to be a video for every single feature, but readers would like a hint of VICE style webisodes when seen fit. If not, I'll just be pushing this agenda myself.
XXXX
Work, no experience. Experience, no work. The irony or the purpose? I wanted to produce webisodes and doc-series for news stations so bad. Then I found a job outside of news, purchased a camera, and started filming everything I wanted to. I am feeling free not taking gigs here and there that would not expand my vision, the vision of our communities, or someone's truth. I have that privilege because I am doing one of my passions on the side. I am interacting with people in my community and finding ways to get untold stories out there.
My past taught me, you were being you the whole time and all you had to do was stop looking for someone else to help you and go out there and do it on your own time. Youtube tutorials are still lifesavers, but no one can show you how to envision your life. It's a vision you have to manifest through your own actions. Every person who I respect who has moved the needle of the status quo was deemed crazy for envisioning something they could only see themselves. Our purpose will manifest soon as we look inside for answers. It is too important to be put into the hands of others without our context or our control.
The entrepreneur boom is growing because there are so many of us with ideas that are politely asked to do it on our own time, with our own money, or with another company who is willing to take a risk. Our purpose cannot be identified until life gives us enough experiences that urge us to search for it.
What helps nurture the talent of the youth (metaphorically), those who are full of spirit and vision, is a place of shelter and community. I am getting this form of shelter from my community.
I don't really have coworkers. I collaborate with my peers in the real world and I communicate with people who allow me to pick their brain or shadow them for any story we are telling. And most of the time, the most precious stories in life come when I am understanding and just listening. I am not probing the angle or context I want to see in the world. There is something about our approach or aura on that given day that allows these special moments in the world to happen.
The streets, not the corporate office, are becoming our second home. The real people out there who are not politically correct, who let us into a better understanding of our surroundings and our potential, are welcoming us with open arms. They are providing us a place to rest our ideas so they can one day manifest. They are providing us with a place to crash at (to build or destroy).
We capture moments in the day time then sleep on an idea when the sun goes down. These accumulated days become bridges connecting all of our fears and desires, to help us cross over to a future we've already envisioned. A future that will ask us to look back and cross the same bridge so we can bring over tacit knowledge and wisdom. The people around us are giving us a chance to study and apply curriculum. Before I could not experience, I could not learn. Now I'm learning, I am experiencing.
- Big thanks to Eddie Huang, Allie Conti, and Sean Dunne.
Update: I am also inspired by the way Brian George establishes location and rapport with his subjects and surroundings. I enjoy seeing how he shadows his subjects and gets the best of their personality. Thank you @BrianGeorgeM
To the future, who has allowed me to travel from far and wide prepare me a gift of immortality a spark of knowledge upon you a lit candle in the darkness ready to shine on the rest of the universe
Welcome me with Open Arms
Provided a Place to Crash at
A Place to Study Math at...
American Gangster | 03. American Dreamin'
Jay Z
7.16.17 - MCMXX