Shootin Ya Shot.., As A Five Percenter

Customarily, when a brother within the Five Percent was interested in knowing the status of a sister he would simply ask, "Do you have a God?" This is appropriately done in a shared environment of Five Percenters such as a Rally, Parliament, Family Day, Show & Prove or other environments where we get together. This is done face to face. Nowadays with the growth of the Digital Age, particularly with SNSs [Social Network Sites], customs such as these become more difficult to express. Because of the nature of SNSs as a platform, appropriation of the English vocabulary and introduction of social media slang, a "Do you have a God?" Facebook inbox or Instagram DM can easily be filed under the folder of thirsty or jumping/sliding in somebody's DMs. Regardless who this brother or sister may be in real life, that brother or sister may not know how to appropriately engage one another using this platform, and social media vocabulary, from a Five Percenter perspective. Much can get lost in that translation. I've seen brothers naively poking brothers without knowing what the Facebook "poke" function implies or the digital reputation they're creating. I've also experienced one of my sisters "❤" a photo of me and another woman assume she was my Queen. It's a dilemma, like with some of our other customs of engaging one another, that have become challenging to express under these virtual conditions of technology often veiled as progress. I say "veiled" because many of us, especially Millennial social media natives who don't know of a world without the internet, are becoming more and more detached from certain customs that maintained our relationships.

Many Moons ago I had one of my first online experiences of a woman being interested in me who was once connected to a brother I didn't know but heard of. He was also a Five Percenter so I took the liberty of reaching out to him to find out the status of him and this sister. This is something we customarily do, yet the medium of the internet complicated it. He told me they were working on it, she said it was done and I found myself in the midst of an unresolved issue that I actually strived to investigate before getting involved in. The brother tried to accuse me of trying to get at God's Earths and if it wasn't for the printed screen copies of our online correspondences showing people the truth, people may have believed him. In this regard the internet saved my reputation but at the same time I could see how some of our customs began to be lost. A new technological language and social media etiquette was evolving and many of us were simply unprepared for what was on the horizon. Many of us are still unprepared and we find ourselves falling a victim to this every day.

The Online Dating Sites of the mid 90's were the morning star of the SNSs movement. At one point people frowned upon folks using dating sites because of their -social- awkwardness of meeting people. Nowadays maaaaaany people connect using social media, which are like dating sites on steroids. Even if they meet people in real-time, they still may defer to deal with them in a social media context. What we began to lose in the 90's when folks chose to use dating sites instead of meeting real people, is the same thing we're losing with people who choose to exist in a virtual reality today; human contact, intimacy, social etiquette, reading body language and the overall ability to effectively communicate. In fact, studies have show that only 7% of all communication is written or verbal while 93% is based on nonverbal body language. As I've shared, even as a Five Percenter, many of us aren't exempt from this either. 

So the logical question is, "What can we do about?" The first step is recognizing that our method of communication, and the etiquette that goes along with it, has changed. Twitter now allows people to use 140 characters text + image or gif or video or quote. Some of those characters can substituted with emojis; such as the secret emoji language many youth use. The good thing I've learned about using 140 characters to convey a thought is that it challenges you to be more concise and truncate our ideas. As a writer and public speaker this can help in the area of creating effective soundbites that Spin Doctors have a hard time remixing. On the other hand it does truncate our ideas and can have a negative impact on a person's attention span [because of excessive stimuli], ability to communicate, write, read and ultimately relate to others. As Author Paul L. Guthrie remarked about this technological paradigm shift in our Table Talks Interview, "Since the rise of the internet, literacy has been in decline. And even literacy itself, is changing. Reading words printed on paper (in books) is a different process than reading online. When I first began to read online I had to almost re-learn the kind of thought processes used while reading from books. It took me several months to re-learn how to mentally process online information. Computers throw the information at you at a different speed and with a different flavor. It's not the same; it comes at you from a different angle. I promote that people use paper printed books (while they’re still available), and maybe supplement their reading with online sources." 

Cultural Catfishing

Realizing that this poses some serious psychological and social issues, especially for our youth, the next step is making sure we reinvest in real-time connections with one another as opposed to using the internet, particularly social media, as mental and emotional retreats from everyday society. Keep in mind that there is nothing inherently bad about using SNSs. When people primarily rely on them to "virtually" socialize instead of actually socialize, that's a problem, for humanity and the environment. In regards to Five Percenters specifically, this article highlights a larger ongoing discussion on SNSs protocols and cultural rules of engagement we need to have within our respective ciphers. Five Percenters need to learn appropriate ways to DM a potential Queen or Earth outside of the context of thirsty or jumping/sliding in her DMs. Sisters and Brothers need to learn appropriate standards to engage each other publicly and privately on social media that upholds the level of integrity we see in actual ciphers. Our Parliaments are a legislative body of Five Percenters that come together by consensus to enact and modify rules that help regulate our collective cipher. For example, any issues or activities going on in my region of Western New York and Southern Ontario that impact us and our communities, positively or negatively, is addressed at our Parliament. Even though a virtual Parliament model has not been established, I have been a part of closed, secret and open Facebook Groups that have been able and unable to serve a very limited parliamentary purpose -based upon the integrity and protocols of those maintaining these internet ciphers [Administrators]. These and many other customs we express offline, such as verifying a person's identity, length of study, lineage and cultural understanding, have been challenging to ascertain using SNSs as a platform. "Building" in person allows us to gather much more information about each other as opposed to corresponding in Messenger or replying to questions on a Facebook thread. In these and other instances it's hard to verify or even validate if people are who they say they are, especially if we've never met them in real life. In real life if I asked a person to quote a lesson or share their understanding of something I can see their response in real-time. If I inboxed that to someone or asked them on a social media post it's easy for them to copy and paste an answer, or get someone to respond for them, to appear genuine. Cultural Catfishing is much harder to pull off in real life. What many of us are growing to understand is that some of our customs are nontransferable, meaning, there are limits to what we can actually express using SNSs as a platform. The limit is the platform itself, not us as the Five Percent. People reach out to me from around the world all of the time that are interested in learning the culture of the Five Percent. Many ask for books, documents or even a desire to speak on the phone. In most instances it doesn't occur to them that they're asking to learn an entire "way of life"; everyday living that doesn't have a page count, that isn't a bunch of documents and is not something you just email or talk about over the phone. This misconception of culture and assumption [and presumption] of access is the direct result of SNSs and the shift into a Digital Age. Like I've said on many occasions, all of the services I share using the internet [articles, books, radio shows, music, videos and etc.] are routing devices to everyday reality. What I share online is virtual evidence of what I do offline.

As Five Percenters we're in a state of transition where learning to repurpose some of our customs in a virtual reality can successfully or unsuccessfully alter our cultural life expectancy, change our real-time sex ratios and set a socioemotional and economic trajectory for our future generations. It is not beneficial to entirely denounce the Digital Age as many of our Baby Boomers have, or be totally immersed in it as many Generation X and Millennials are; both are too extreme. We must strike a healthy balance. A balance that empowers us to engage each other with technology to continue building brick and mortar institutions, concrete relationships and solid communities where our families thrive.

Peace,
Saladin

College Access: Setting The Course

College Access

Setting The Course

On Saturday August 13th I had the pleasure of attending the College Simulation Experience to speak on a panel for high school youth about the importance of Self Advocacy and role of Social Justice. The College Simulation Experience is an initiative dedicated to improving college retention rates for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. This stylized enactment of college life used dramatic role playing to help pre-college students develop time management and financial management skills, as well as better understand the responsibilities associated with collegiate success. For the last two decades I've worked with youth, from preschoolers to college age students. Of my many experiences one of the most alarming has been the lack of career preparedness on the part of our young boys of color. It's been quite common for me to talk to a young man who is finishing his junior year or in the middle of his senior year of high school with a desire to go to college with no knowledge of the SAT; an entrance exam created by the College Board that's used by most colleges and universities to make admissions decisions. When I say no knowledge I'm talking about they never even heard of it before. On a couple of occasions I've had this conversation with young men with their parents and the parents didn't know what the SAT was either. My response? I began to educate them, and youth as early as elementary school, about college access and provide them with the resources so they're successful in their undertakings. One project I did was the A.S.I.A. College Tour Project which enabled me to sponsor two high school students on a black college tour. In recent years I learned about another subject we need to be educated about in regards to college access and that is the trending concept of Previewing and Forward Credit summer school classes.

Previewing and Forward Credit Summer Classes are classes offered by high schools for students who are striving to get a head start on a class they'll be taking next year or to earn credit for a class they won't need to take next year. One of the sixth graders in my STYA Program actually earned Forward Credit this year taking a math and science class this summer before he starts middle school in the autumn. Students also take summer classes to accumulate AP [Advanced Placement] class credit because College Admission Boards look at AP exams. In many cities college access has become so competitive that high schools often hold summer school lotteries for students to be admitted to their programs. Many of these programs such as Northfield Mount Hermon in Massachusetts have tuition costs of $2,900 per day and $3,700 when English is a second language. Horace Mann School in Pelon [Bronx] offered a summer physics class to students for $4,175 and the Hun School of Princeton in New Jerusalem [New Jersey] offered boarding tuition for $5,675 this year. Therein lies a problem that widens a disparity that already exists between students who can afford this and low income students; low income students simply don't have access to these summer school programs and an opportunity to preview or earn forward credit for classes next year. low income students already find it difficult to compete and this puts them even further behind unless we can help supplement their access to creative ways. This is also important in terms of encouraging our youth to explore the trades and entrepreneurship as viable alternatives. Not because they can't compete but because data supports the fact that many of these students competing for college access usually don't settle into a career path that's in alignment with the degree and debt they spent their life paying for.

My young Queens don't come from a place of financial access where their mother and I had/have the kind of disposable income to pay for the college access other parents could. We've had to canvass the landscape to find any and every program available to give them an advantage to academically compete with those parents who could send two to three of their children to a Hun School of Princeton for summer without robbing Peter to pay Paul. This has also been challenging because we co-parent our Queens and reside in different states. Canvassing that landscape resulted in finding free SAT classes being offered on Saturdays, taking them on college tours, doing community service, networking to gain access to resources and enrolling them in programs such as project Forward Leap. We also encouraged them to explore high school sports or extracurricular activities they'd like which would could result in a partial or full scholarship to college. My eldest Queen Asiyah played lacrosse in high school and successfully earned an athletic scholarship to Howard University to play lacrosse; ranked #2 among all Black College and Universities by U.S. News and World Report. She's a senior this year and has been awarded Defense of Player of the Year twice. My youngest Queen Aziza also attends Howard and is in her sophomore year. She's 19 now and I have a picture of her wearing a Howard U shirt when she was 8 years old; which says a lot about her vision and ability to execute her plan to reach her goal. Although we as parents helped provide them with resources, encouragement and access to experiences to expand their mind and its possibilities, it was/is ultimately up to them to be self-determined and discipline enough to set forth a plan to reach their goals. It's their life, not ours and we're proud to see them evolve into young women.

As parents, we are like many parents who simply didn't or don't have the money to do certain things for our children that others could. What we didn't or don't have financially we learned to find or create. For example, every year since our Queens have been in college they've attended summer school to earn Forward Credit for college. They didn't have to pay for these classes because their ole Earth works Administration at a college where they could take these classes tuition free. We learned creative ways to help our children gain access to those resources and I've likewise shared these creative ways with parents and youth I've worked with over the years. While this is a start this definitely isn't enough and cannot replace actual credit hours many privileged students are literally buying during the summer to bolster their high school transcripts and earn free transportation to college. Even though The No Child Left Behind Act signed into law by George W. Bush over a decade ago [2002] under its Title One was established to distribute funding to schools and school districts with a high percentage of students from low-income families, funding needs to be directed to assist these students seeking to Preview and earn Forward Credit during School Classes. This funding is initially distributed to state educational agencies who then allocate those funds to local education agencies that invest those funds to public schools in need. This means that it will require active Parent/Teacher Associations and other Lobby Groups to work with local city and county elected officials who can leverage state officials to address this disparity. If you're already living in a school district where schools are already in need there is already funding being directed to those schools under the guise of No Child Left Behind. Therefore the goal is simply a redirection of funding already there to help improve college access and retention rates for disadvantaged students by offering SAT/ACT classes and practice exams, scholarships for students seeking Forward Credit in Summer Classes and even transportation to other schools in the district that programs that will help close the college access gap. 

In closing, whether you have children or not, you may have nieces, nephews, cousins or friends with children who need to understand this changing academic landscape in America where youth are no longer being sentenced to summer school for failing but choosing to go, and paying money, just to get ahead. This is setting the tone for the level of competitiveness within our future global market and the power dynamics between the Haves and Havenots. If we're not in a financial position for our children to formally Preview a class next year then we need to find out what they will be learning and have them enrolled in some program, find a tutor, tutor them ourselves or explore other creative ways to keep them academically competitive so they don't fall behind their peers. If we don't personally have the financial ability to help them enroll in summer classes to earn Forward Credit then we must consider creative ways to finance it such as crowdfunding, gofundme and etc. There are also organizations and agencies that provide scholarships to support youth like this. We gotta canvass the landscape! Many of our children aren't college bound and they also need to know that it's O.K., everybody isn't. However, they also must understand that they must have a career alternative such as learning a trades and being an entrepreneur. If they're not striving to legitimately eat to bring something to the table or build their own table they will be on someone's menu.

Peace,

Saladin

"It's not you, it's me"

For those of you who didn't know, I facilitate a youth mentor program called STYA which is an acronym for Successfully Transitioning Youth to Adolescence. My demographic are nine to twelve year old's and we do everything from critically analyze cartoons, arts & crafts, cooking classes and etc. to encourage them to expand their consciousness, build self esteem and discover their purpose in life as they transition into their teenage years. What I love most about working with youth, which I've done with various programs and initiatives for over a decade, is learning ideas, attitudes and behavior adults have in their infancy. In other words, I see nine year old girls learning to play the "make a boy jealous" game that eventually becomes a fully functioning operating system I see thirty something year old's use every day. Some things don't change, people just get older and continue doing the same thing. And the same way jealousy games may not change among females, some male's level of sophistication to appropriately respond to these games doesn't change either. I can't tell you how many times I've had to talk a ten year old boy down from an emotional ledge because some little girl was playing with his emotions. His reaction is no different than seeing emotionally unstable men committing social media seppuku because of what some female is, or isn't, posting on Facebook. Some of us simply never matured intellectually or emotionally; we're just older versions of the same child.

Because my Ole Earth was a Psychologist/Sociologist I've been orientated to analyze human behavior my entire life, literally. Normal family outings were going to places just to people watch; my Ole Earth would find a public place to sit with some of my siblings and I and we would discuss what we see in people's body language, style of dress and etc. One of the games she would also play with us was the book of questions -which I discovered later in life was a psychology book, not a game at all. This kind of investment into my growth and development as a child, coupled with the cultural contributions of my Ole Dad, has helped in my successful transition from boy to man. Some males never had a mother invested in them in this way nor did they have a father around to teach him what it means to be a man. Because of this, some of us have manufactured our idea of manhood 'a la carte' and the emotions and intellect surrounding this lacking remain raw, immature and underdeveloped. This is not an excuse, it's an assessment of what I've witnessed in its infancy and what it has the potential to become when it's not responsibly addressed as an adult. Ladies, young boys may destroy toys when they don't get their way. The same boy who doesn't get his way as a grown male, will destroy you. There's a lot of truth in what Drake says about these days.

Like with any group or society of people, some of its members are going to be emotionally and intellectual immature. One of the challenges I've dealt with over the years are these same boys/girls, not yet men/women, referring to themselves as Gods/Earths. Thankfully this doesn't reflect the overall consciousness of Five Percenters I know, yet there are some of us who are like that -sometimes for reasons only known to them. This is the reason I wrote the book Explorations of God/Earth Mental Health; to empower my peers to recognize and address it. Because one of our cultural motto's is "Peace" or Positive Education Always Corrects Errors, we've always encouraged each other to grow and develop beyond whatever circumstance we've come from or are presently in. For any of us who are sincerely striving to elevate their consciousness and condition, it's a journey that involves removing the negative residue that comes along with seeing and believing ourselves to be inferior. All of us who have taken this step to gain KOS [Knowledge of Self] started out emotionally and intellectually immature. On many levels we're rewiring ourselves emotionally and intellectually and that takes work, sometimes a lifetime. Nothing happens over night, except the night -especially not the growth and development process.

In closing, I want to reiterate the importance of us men getting ourselves together. This is not to minimize the responsibility of grown females who need to grow up either. There are women I know who are successfully speaking from this perspective. As men, we can start getting ourselves together by being more vulnerable with one another by speaking honestly about our upbringing and emotions. I'm not talking about ranting, posturing or posting inappropriate stuff on social media under the guise of "keeping sh#t real"; that's immature and messy. I'm talking about investing the time to really examine the who, what, when, where, how and why we think/behave the way we do with each other and the opposite sex. That is one of the most integral parts of KOS. Females share and are vulnerable with each other all the time. That female-to-female Educator and Student relationship directly, or indirectly, has remained pretty much intact since we've been in this country. Males are the one's usually holding stuff in and back from one another. Some of us males were grown up before we had an open conversation with men about hurt, lost, frustration, insecurities, inadequacies, embarrassing situations and etc. Even though some of us aren't sharing these things with each other in a healthy way, it always come out in the most unhealthy of ways -whether that's throwing tantrums or shade, being abusive, gossiping, broadcasting how great we are, taking serial selfies, being a whore or etc. Additionally, there are some things we've experienced as boys that we decided to take with us to our grave. Part of the emotional frustration or indifference you see us express is us trying to live with that lifelong decision. So ladies, when some grown males tell you, "It's not you, it's me", believe it! Also believe the likelihood that they haven't said or done anything about it for over twenty something years and don't plan on saying or doing anything about it after telling you that. We got work to do in order to help get our families/communities back in order and emotional instability and intellectual immaturity won't get us there. As civilized men who advocate righteousness, as Five Percenters and definitely as Gods, we must expect more from ourselves, and each other, to get that job done.  

Peace,
Saladin

Brand Ambassadors

In Search of Coretta Scott

Towards the end of the Summer I was having a very in depth conversation with a close female friend of mine. After explaining to her some of the things I deal with as a public figure, and the considerations/challenges that come along with finding a mate, she said something to me that was both hilarious and insightful in terms of compatibility. She said, "Dang, you sound like you're looking for Coretta Scott King."

Her statement made me reflect upon my past relationships in comparison to where I'm at today. In my teenage years the major qualities I looked for in a girl were how attractive, nice and smart she was. Of course this was before I had my first sexual encounters, and when I did.., this also became important to me. Two decades later, I never thought I'd be considering other qualities that are important to me when it comes to compatibility. Qualities that some of my contemporaries often don't understand because there are things I deal with that others don't have to consider. For example, this niche website now receives over 120,000 visitors a month. Although some of these visitors purchase my books/music via the links I provide, this traffic is primarily for the purpose of reading my articles. This translates into emails, messages and inboxes I receive every day from people throughout the world for various reasons; which means a certain portion of my day, every day, is dedicated to following up with people who are reaching out to me. Mind you, this has nothing to do with correspondences I receive in the postage mail or my other social networks Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and even LinkedIn. Add the various initiatives/events I organize or participate in, my STYA youth program I facilitate in my local community, other projects I work on as a creative artist/book publisher and it gives you a partial glimpse of what my world entails. It's a lot, and sometimes feels overwhelming, yet I love what I do! 

All of this got me to thinking about how my perspective of relationships has evolved to the point of seeing each other as Brand Ambassadors; someone who is capable of effectively representing your relationship [the brand] at home and abroad [nationally and internationally], in person or via their social media networks. Your brand is your mark, label, identity and what you represent. Therefore, when we're considering potential mates, dating/courting is really a rebranding process and how we're living is a graphic representation of that brand. Fresh off of the campaign trail running for public office in my City, I came upon an online discussion where women were talking about attire to wear at formal events. Some of them, although sweet, were totally inexperienced and didn't understand that flats/sandals or other accessories were inappropriate for such a venue; especially when your companion is the guest of honor where you may be called upon to say a few words. Although this may appear to some as a small thing, in terms of cultural competence, etiquette, social graces and the level of sophistication required to recognize certain social cues and navigate various environments, a woman like this would not be readily compatible for me, brand-wise. Consider if President Barack Obama had Joseline Hernandez (from Love and Hip Hop Atlanta) as his first lady instead of Michelle Obama as his Brand Ambassador... Sure she may be perfectly compatible with someone else, yet she is not presently compatible with The President of the United States [POTUS] for various reasons. Can she become compatible? Possibly, in time. Yet a POTUS doesn't have time, they have at least four years and that's a lot of public image/relations work and public scrutiny to deal with while striving to fulfill the duties of that Office.

Ironically, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. chose a woman, who by her own account, was incompatible with him at the time of their marriage. As a young Coretta Scott, she aspired to be in the music industry and had no real interest in MLK or his future as a Minister when they met in College. Coretta wasn't smitten, she looked at Martin as short, literally, and in time he grew on her. Even months before their wedding day Coretta was still uncommitted to marrying him and confided these reservations in a letter to her elder sister Edythe. This wasn't a case of cold feet, she understandably didn't want to give up her promising career and become a Preacher's wife. So on their June 18th, 1953 wedding day, in which she had the vow "obey your husband" removed from the ceremony and retained her name "Scott", Coretta Scott-King reluctantly sacrificed her dream of becoming a classical singer and became MLK's Brand Ambassador. It was actually in the years following the death of her husband that she was brought to the forefront and became the face, political impetus and momentum to carry on the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement. She wasn't down from day one, she learned to love Martin and his mission. I mention this to illustrate that even Coretta Scott King, as notable and world renown as she is, was unresolved about her commitment to the brand. Today, with the proliferation of professional women asserting their autonomy and pursuing their careers, men are more likely to find women who will face this same dilemma when it comes to compatibility. And many of these women are remaining career women because they're not enountering men with an actual mission.

Keep in mind that everything I'm saying goes both ways! A woman should also consider if a man is capable of representing their brand at home and abroad [nationally and internationally], in person or via their social media networks. Sometimes I see brother's women leisurely post statuses/comments via social media that a woman by my side would get publicly burned at the stake for, but I have to remember, "That's their brand." Some people exist in a world where they only need to consider how their words/actions affect their family members, friends or co-workers because that's the extent of who they deal with and their sphere of influence. In my world I may get an email from France or South Africa about something I say/do or meet some random person who recognizes me in a different State/City who'll ask me about it. Its happened and happens so I have to consider differently what I say and do. I also have to consider differently how I respond to what people say and do against or in alliance with what I do. 

You know, I've been intimate with women over the years, more often than I'd like to admit, yet as I've grown in my purpose I understand the level of responsibility, accountability and scrutiny that has come along with being a public figure. Even if we aren't, I think being responsible and accountable is important. I also understand that the women by my side will immediately inherit that responsibility, accountability, scrutiny and probably more so because 1.) How society defines females and 2.) The lens females assess each other through. It's a lot to deal with and in some cases I've only shared a part of my world with women in order to not burden them with everything I do. The more I shared, the more they learned they would have to share me with the world, and would ultimately be expected to speak for me in my temporary [schedule conflict/sickness] or definite [death] absence. Some women are simply not prepared to be an active part of a legacy and I've learned to accept that, sometimes reluctantly. The opposite is also true; Some men are simply not prepared to be an active part of a legacy and women must learn to accept that. So No, respectfully, I am not looking for a Coretta Scott King. Although she grew to embrace his mission, Coretta was a career woman who wasn't looking for MLK and didn't recognize him, or his purpose, when she saw him. I am looking for someone different.

Peace,

Saladin

Plumb Line: used for finding the depth of water or determining the vertical on an upright surface.

Unity

I recently had a conversation with a brother about naysayers, haters or people who are simply jealous of what you seemingly have and/or who you are. I say "seemingly" because in the grand scheme of things, in a universe that's one where every force and object is interdependent, it's impossible for someone to actually have something you don't. In other words, whatever a person has, whether it's materialistic such as clothes, or immaterial such as patience, it is not a personal possession. Those clothes didn't come out of thin air; they were created from the materials of the planet, with the hands of many people, including those who contributed to its marketing and promotion. Patience isn't an immaterial quality that one person on the planet personally owns. Every one, in some capacity, demonstrates it; some more than others and even a child with ADHD has some degree of patience. Even on a subatomic level we're all composed of the same stuff; undifferentiated matter energy. Psychologically and Socially? The source of all thought processes is one Collective Consciousness or Universal Mind. Our brain is a conductor, our bodies are physical vehicles and as sentient beings we interact with one another and our planet. So at the root of any naysayer, hater or person that's jealous of what they believe someone has, is a cosmological glitch. Somewhere along their journey they never evolved to the degree of grasping the oneness of the universe, understanding how interdependence works or recognizing the role of dynamic opposites.

When a child is incarnated [born] and they're discovering themselves and how to attend the world, one of the first lessons they must learn is how to share and cooperate. Developmentally, psychologically and socioeconomically the world revolves around a child for a number of years because its very existence [ex. food, clothing and shelter] depends upon what its parent/guardian must do for them. Every person began from this state of only receiving and giving nothing in return, yet not all people evolve beyond this parochial mindset to understand the importance of equality, reciprocity and the interdependence of our universe. The jealous banter adults make about what someone has or is doing is no different than the teasing five year old children do in a kindergarten classroom. The pouting response a middle schooler gives you when they're asked to clean their room is no different than the antagonism a neighbor shows you when they're encouraged to clean up their community. The petty competitiveness, constant comparisons and insecure commentary 16 year olds make amongst each other in high school hallways across America is no different than the petty competitiveness, constant comparisons and insecure commentary adults make across social media. Some of us have not grown up. Some of us are striving to grow up and some of us could care less about ever becoming a mature adult. As my Enlightener's Enlightener Life Justice once told me, "The child doesn't go willingly, it must be driven out of a person in order for them to evolve."

Toys R Us Kids

So what does, "The child doesn't go willingly, it must be driven out of a person in order for them to evolve" actually mean in quantifiable terms? For one, it means that life needs to show a person how to share and that lesson may come in the form of giving away one of your most prized possessions. If we never learned how to work in a group and cooperate, life may teach us the need for cooperation and teamwork with the policies and procedures of our place of employment, or risk being fired. Sometimes people have a toy hording mentality; they're like a child that only plays with other children if they have control of the toys and make up the rules. A person with this mentality often only learns when life puts them in a position where they have no control over all of their toys [material possessions] being taken away from them and they're forced to follow the rules of someone else. This is what I alluded to earlier in this article about recognizing the role of dynamic opposites. Because every child comes into this world polarized, leaning in a way where they depend upon everything for their very existence, part of its evolutionary process is to learn independence and ultimately interdependence. From the beginning, a child is on one side of the scale of interdependence. That side is dependence. The other extreme, or polar opposite is independence. Both perspectives, dependence and independence, are 'horizontally' the same on a vertical scale of interdependence. In mathematical terms, interdependence is the right angle of this horizontal plane. In some circles it's also known as the living perpendicular, being upright or symbolized by a plumb line in the building trades. A person who is heavily dependent and a person who is grossly independent both fail to realize the importance of equality and reciprocity. While the dependent relies on what you give, the independent relies on what they can get. Both of them are primarily concerned about their singular needs and wants, and neither of them have evolved to the point of considering the needs and wants of the collective. Throughout the chronology of humanity, from our most classical endogenous societies to our most contemporary, the greatest examples of peace and harmony have always existed amongst people who demonstrate(d) the highest expression of interdependence amongst each other and our environment. The opposite is also true, the greatest examples of war and disharmony have always existed amongst people who demonstrate(d) the lowest expression of interdependence amongst each other and our environment. This also implies civilization and the degree to which a people are civilized. You can measure the level of knowledge, wisdom, understanding, culture and refinement of a society by how well it provides for and protects its most vulnerable members; its women, children, elders and the disabled. If those provisions and protections are in place, that society will function with a high level of civilization. Whenever you see those provisions and protections not in place, that society falls into a pit of savagery and despair. The story that Yacub was a six year child playing alone when he came up with his epiphany of making a Devil when he got older is not a game. This, amongst other things about his upbringing, suggest many things about his maturation process and his personality later in his life. We also learn that central to his life story are the themes of dependence, independence and how this ultimately exposed the importance of freedom, justice, equality, reciprocity and interdependence of the human family.

In closing, I want to remind you that everyone does not mature at the same rate. Some people may chose to never grow up and that's their choice. Sometimes I witness my seventeen year old daughter behaving more maturely than women approaching their forties. Personally speaking, I am far more mature than I was five years ago. With that in mind, it's important to respect where people are and not try to force them to be something they clearly aren't right now. "The child doesn't go willingly, it must be driven out of a person in order for them to evolve" doesn't mean that we go on a crusade to change adults who behave like children. That advice is for our own children and/or children we may work with professionally as educators, counselors and mentors, within the legal guidelines, rules and regulations of our organization and business. When it comes to adults, life itself and the experiences that come along with their behavior is what will change them -if they live to tell about it. Of course we must make knowledge born or share advice with people to save their life, yet when we realize they're not in a place to receive it, we must move out of their way and all of the obstacles they're creating. If naysayers have something negative to say about you, remove yourself from the situation and let your positive works be the consistent response to their criticisms. They project upon you the idea that you think you're more because they actually believe they're less and have less than you. They criticize what you're doing to assist others to try and keep others from critically examining what they're really not doing to assist. They never learned that in a universe that's one, where every force and object is interdependent, it's impossible for someone to have something you don't. In fact, there truly is no "you" and "me" essentially, it's only "we" and "ours" that represents the collective "All." How we reconcile that reality, with our dependent or independent ideas, will define the degree of peace and happiness in our lives. It also sets the cooperative stage to advocate any society of men [women and children] or group for one common cause. The only way we can truly want for our brothers and sisters what we want for ourselves, and genuinely support each other in what we do, we must know and understand that we are one. That degree of unity and sense of cooperation cannot be taught to some of us. Through the growing pains of experience, it must be driven out of us.

Peace,

Saladin