To Pimp A Butterfly | antakalipa

Demon

Propelled by a woman’s love. She projected her spirit onto me. She looked at me and dreamt, dreamt of the impossible, dreamt of the mthyical, the mystical. She was intrigued, subjegated, locked in trance. She was hopeful. Her eyes gleamed with excitement. Through me she saw the avenues that where hidden to her by life, by the universe, by God. Her reality was renewed, refreshed and she was rejuvenated. It was like she was a child again, innocent and pure eagerly waiting for Christmas with all its cheer, new clothes and presents. She believed in me like a Christian blinded by faith, for she could see the potential. She was a visionary who understood that to attain success you have to give up what is, to sustain what could be. A long shot? Sure, but in life you have to gamble on yourself. Bet on yourself to beat the odds and get even with the universe. Believe it or not, everything in the world is set up for you to win. Life is all about you, life revolves around you. You are the center of the universe. She projected onto me, bid all her money on me, attached her spirit on me, me – the biggest underdog in the world. Her energy is not misplaced.

I have demon that possess me. It helps me do things that are above me. I have learned to harness the energy and power of this demon within me. When I engage in a creative activity, it takes a hold of me and forcefully pushes me aside. I let it man-handle and dominate me. I let it take control of my body. I let it roam freely in my mind. I find that the demon makes me better in the activities of life even though I am prisoner to it, a slave, a passenger, an accomplice. I don’t know where the energy of the demon comes from, it’s so violent, unsympathetic, unrestricted and chaotic. The demon has explored other domains of my life like a cancer. It now dictates my everyday life, leaving me with time to detach from my body. I often float over my body like a ghost, observing beforehand the routes that will accommodate my structure of being. My demon has allowed me to operate in two realms. It is because of this that I live life with absolute confidence, I know I am not alone. I found that invisible forces are always conspiring in my favor – the only requirement being that I listen to the demon, that I let it consume me and make all the decisions. I found that the universe only wants me to nurture the demon, to take care of it, to stand by it and be proud of it. The demon is that inner voice in all of us. You see I found out that somehow, unconsciously we already know what we want, we are not lost in some maze, we are not the labels the world assigns to us – we are greatness! I found that to get what we are rightly entitled to [greatness] we need to follow our inner voices, our demons.

This has been reflected in history. Legendary artist Leonardo Da Vinci, work only on his paintings when his demon took ahold of him. He was very passionate about his work, he would work on a painting for 7 years incorporating realistic details on his artworks. Commentators often referred to Da Vinci as a procastinator. Because of those comments, history is unfavorable to such commentators. They are simply shunned and relegated to a world of fools. Da Vinci’s artworks are timeless and ranked among the most expensive in the world because of the time he spent working on them, because of the spectacular detail he added, because of the times he didn’t work on the paintings because he couldn’t access his demon. In making the perfect art, all conditions have to be perfect every time – you have to be one with yourself, you need to listen to your inner voice. Urban Poet, Kanye West created the perfect craft in 2010 with the release of “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”. He explained that the album took 5000 hours of manpower to create. The album is a burst of creative energy concocted by Kanye West’s demon. The title of the album is so descriptive and animated. The album is a piece of destiny and immortality. Another example of an artist who was consumed by his demon when he was working on his craft is Urban Poet Kendrick Lamar, who created without a doubt the greatest hip-hop album of all time with “To Pimp A Butterfly”. For the creative process of the album, he had to go to South Africa to learn more about apartheid and Nelson Mandela. The album explores human nature, greed, self-gratification and expediency, existentialism, suicide, self-appraisal and self-love, money, the plasticity of the human soul, self-exploration, fulfillment, peace and death. The album has been dubbed a classic and was recognized by the Academy who awarded it 5 Grammy awards. On the last song, “Mortal Man”, in a conversation with hip-hop legend 2Pac, Kendrick Lamar talks about his demon and how the spirits come from nowhere to possess him. He explains that he sometimes doesn’t know what type of energy his going to bring out into the world. 2Pac concurs and seems to understand, he responds that it’s the spirits of the “dead homies” speaking through him and that they are just the outlets. That is a sophisticated analogy considering Carl Jung’s work on the collective unconscious.

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Return of Saturn

“Every twenty-nine years the planet returns to the same point in the sky that it occupied at the moment of our birth.” That is a Paulo Coelho quote, bestselling author who is known for producing works like “The Alchemist”. By “the planet”, he refers to Saturn and he states that at the moment we are born we have twenty-nine years of unlimited potential, in that time we can choose to become who and what we want to be. After the twenty-nine year cycle the world closes and we become our dominant actions and thoughts. He states that the second cycle comes when we are 56 years old and at that time we can reinvent ourselves again and become what we desire. Paulo Coelho states that after those 29 years in which Saturn has returned to the same point in the sky that it occupied at the moment of our birth, life becomes automated and passive. Life becomes the product of those twenty-nine years. It is a beautiful analogy, one that makes me take an interest in astronomy. Neuroscience seems to agree with this notion and our culture is articulate in expressing this phenomena. We see this on movies like “The Incredible 2”; Jack-Jack is a superhero baby who has unlimited powers. Edna, the artist who creates the heroes super-suits calls him “pure unlimited potential”. This of course is a metaphor because when babies are born, they are born with the capability of becoming anything they want. Babies are infinite. Babies are pure and their eyes are clean, yet to be indoctrinated by any external forces. Babies come from the world of Gods, completely untainted by the idea of mortality or fabrications of humanity. The statement that you can become whatever you like holds true for babies because they are yet to explore their maps. That is the idea for the character of Jack-Jack in the Incredibles franchise. We see a complete contrast of this idea when we pay attention to his father “Mr. Incredible”. Unlike Jack-Jack, Mr. Incredible is specialized. He has one superpower which is strength and he has made it into a skill to fight bad guys. Mr. Incredible knows his limitations and his strengths. Something that cannot hold true for Jack-Jack as he can do anything – including teleporting to an alternate dimension. There are neuroscience reasons for this phenomena, when we are young our neuro-links are liked to a lot of stuff in our minds. As we get older some of these things in our minds dissipate so we can specialize in certain tasks that are conducive and promote our way of life. This is the direction we must take to become competent adults in the world. We have to narrow down and specialize. This means getting a job and becoming responsible. This means instilling order in a chaotic world.

Specializing is the biggest thing that we do in life. Specializing means ignoring all the noise and listening to the music. It means concentrating on the things that give your life value. Specializing means being in sync with yourself. Specializing means intense focus on yourself. This is the reason why elite soccer stars like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo play only football and nothing else. It also explains their troubles with the taxes and the law. Being an adult means letting go of all the things that could be to sustain what is. Hence, the Saturn analogy is a perfect one. After 29, you are the mass decisions of your life. After 29, your ways are set in stone and you have earned your strips. Donald Glover talks about this on his “Weirdo” comedy special when he states “If you’re a conservative when you’re 30, you’re going to be conservative for the rest of your life.” Pretty much by the time we turn 30, we are who we’ll be for the rest of our lives. We see an example of this from Billionaire Shawn Cater aka Jay –Z who upon getting his break in 1996 when he was 26 years old, never stopped working. He was relentless vigor. From 1996 to 2001, he released an album every year. Every album that he released was certified Platinum. First and foremost, he saw himself as a business, a brand and at age 31 in 2001 – he was already a great businessman and because the rules of Saturn are true, he became a Billionaire in less than 20 years. It’s fair to say that at age 29, in 1999 Jay –Z was already set in his ways. Everything after 1999 was automatic – he was an astute businessman for the rest of his life. On his critically acclaimed album “The Blueprint” on the track “Never Change”, he talks about consistency and being the same all his life. He hook of the song states: “I’m still fuckin’ with crime ’cause crime pays, I never change! Out hustlin’, same clothes for days, I never change! I’ll never change, I’m too stuck in my ways, I never change!” The rules of Saturn made his destiny concreate and for the rest of his life all he has to do is to show up. He has a chance to change when he turns 56 in 6 years’ time when the second cycle of Saturn will commence but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

The journey of Saturn starts when you are a little child and gains momentum when you are in your late-teens approaching twenties. This is because at that age, you need to be able to screen out the things that don’t matter to you and concentrate on the things that do. It is a very difficult thing to do and you can find yourself getting lost in a maze of peer-pressure and self-destructive behavior. It is also a time where the majority of people look outward instead of inward. It is a time when we are indoctrinated into society’s ideals and conventions. At this age, you are vulnerable because you lack an identity and society is more than willing to assign one to you. It is at this point where people are indoctrinated into mass thinking and lose synchrony with Saturn. Some find their way after exploring and unite with Saturn while others go completely off-track. The ones who return find their purpose and live fulfilling lives. They live with true freedom and value the experiences of life. 2 Pac talks about this phenomena on the awesome Kendrick Lamar album “To Pimp a Butterfly” on the track “Mortal Man” when he states: In this country, a black man only have like 5 years we can exhibit maximum strength. And that’s right now while you a teenager, while you still strong. While you still wanna lift weights, while you still wanna shoot back. ‘Cause once you turn 30 it’s like, they take the heart and soul out of a man.” MJ DeMarco continues with this idea on his bestselling business book “The Millionaire Fastlane” when he states: “When you are under 25 you have maximum horsepower and your choices discharge an incredible amount of horsepower. A simple choice I made more than 20 years ago is still felt today. That’s a lot of torque! If you reflect on your choices, you make them in an instant, yet their consequences transcend a lifetime, especially ones made in early in life.”

It seems as though the notion of being young forever is a myth, one that has to be shuttered. A life in your twenties chasing novelty after novelty has dire consequences. It has existentialist consequences for it strips away the identity of the person. It restricts potential and drowns in an ocean of mediocrity. A life in your twenties chasing novelty causes depression in your 30’s and depression at your 30’s is forever. Depression at your 30’s sets up nihilism and an unfulfilled life for all of your days. The problem of 30 is that we are supposed to have certain elements in our lives in order and under control, the problem arises when we don’t. It is a debilitating and paralyzing realization. One that questions your worth and purpose. One that fuels suicidal thoughts. However, it doesn’t have to be that way. The most important thing in life is self-awareness. If you have that, you can live the life of the hero – that is to turn unexplored territory into explored territory. The new things that you are doing in your life will make your legs lighter and new code will be generated in your neural circuitry causing pathways to be formed. With newly established pathways, you can push yourself and challenge yourself. You can demolish the preconceived notions that you had about yourself and create a new persona that the new constructed mind will be able coincide with. You can call upon Saturn to give you another change – your second cycle can commence immediately after the first one has elapsed! You can redeem yourself like a hero! Yes, a hero! But do I think that it’s possible to redeem yourself? Sadly, it was just banter and I don’t. Adopting the life of the hero after 29 is highly unrealistic.

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