Subscribe
The Daily Grind Video
CLOSE

Hollywood is a beautiful world. It embodies everything that represents glamour, ambition, individuality, creativity and more. If America is the Earth’s melting pot then, Los Angeles is it’s Red Carpet in High Definition. In this town, there is a place for everyone no matter one’s backstory or journey to the City of Angels. Everyone is given a shot at the bright lights of stardom. So many transients make their way from small towns with big dreams, narrating stories chronicling what was left, in return for what could be gained. I’m pondering this thought as I sit in a Barnes & Nobles ‘people watching’, a very entertaining thing I do when I get bored. From afar, it looks as if Dr. King’s ‘Dream’ has come true, but then again when is perception ever really reality.

I feel that in our pursuit of the extraordinary, we sometimes believe we should steer clear of the ‘ordinary’ as if the components can’t co-exist. The truth is, they seamlessly co-exist and without ‘ordinary’ you merely have ‘extra’. This is often spoken of when you hear ‘rags to riches’ stories in which the subject ‘makes it’ but believes their success has nothing to do with their rearing or community. I’m here to talk relationships though, so lets put a twist on it. Everyone has heard the ‘I got to the fork in the road and went straight’ story, and that’s wonderful to have the determination to not be ‘average’ in comparison to your peers when the scale measures success. However, this trend has trickled down to relationships, and it’s ruining cultures.

[pagebreak]

If you look at television and mistake it for reality, then you have just reassured that network the salaries being spent on their creative marketing team was well-endowed. The evolution of diverse ethnic images are skewed whether it be an exotic look or multi-cultural friend circle. These optical illusions are not meant to be a reflection of the societies we exist in but rather to create a connection with viewers (i.e. A Blockbuster Film with Will Smith, Brad Pitt, Aziz Ansari, Jet Li and Antonio Banderas would not realistically represent the progression of male friendships, BUT it would attract audiences from every corner of the world; Understanding the business side of our culture will allow you to see past the smoke screens). It is popular belief that what got you through most of your journey is what has also been holding you back from reaching your full potential, and 90% of the time that is incorrect. We live in a world that rewards the people who think outside the box, the ‘statistical anomalies’ I like to call them.

These are people who you look at and you can’t categorize. The thing that is wrong with this image is these people tend to spend their existence trying fight who they are to be what they think they are in an attempt to be ‘extraordinary’ … ‘not the average’. In this inner-fight, almost always, the 1st punch landed hits someone very close to home, the people of their community. For some reason ending up with the beautiful kid who was raised up the street with similar values, with features that resemble yours, and has loved you since your dreams were just dreams isn’t good enough. It’s the fairy tale that the world could predict. So, in your quest to not be ‘average’, this is a road block. You then turn your back on the people that believed in you before you knew how to believe in yourself to chase rainbows because the chance of finding fool’s gold trumps the treasures that are buried in the heritage of your culture, which is the foundation of ‘you’.

[pagebreak]

I’m not here to say who you should or should n