Tuesday, October 04, 2005

when does persistance become obsession- another random rant

this is just one of the many thoughts dancing thru my mind on any given day that
makes me just think and I was curious on what everyone else out there thought about the subject, please post your comments and let a brother know what you think...

when you first attempt or make up your mind to get in this industry at whatever level, the one piece of advice everyone recieves is to be persistant, stick to your guns, never take no for an answer. but I see madd heads I know, really cool people who bust their butts and do the damn thing that never seem to get their break. some past their prime, some just didnt get they big break, some that just dont know what to do to get to that next level.

so I ask all of you this one question,
when does persistance become obsession???

when is it that you have past the point of being able to truly make your dreams come true and you just cant let go. I see 35 damn near 40 year old emcees still goin to the studio and making hot tracks and still tryna get that deal that will take them over the top. cats that still tryna get their record company or whatever industry related company they have off the ground, still grinding but may be way past their time. but they are also past the point of no return and don't have anything else to go back to so they continue to grind, working 2 jobs to support their hobby or habit if you will.

this business is addictive, the success and the climb to success is like a drug. being on stage with madd heads (whether its 100s or 1000s) screaming your name and singing your songs word for word is a high that cant be replicated by any drug. many artists have tried after the limelight has died and they turn to drugs and liquor but never recreate that high. the dream of success is also a high as well.

when does persistance become an obsession, personally I have left the game atleast 10 times and it keeps calling me back in. when do u throw in the towel and try something else
many of us who are older now have families and grown man bills, but still have that love for the game and are addicted to it. that may be why many have compared the rap game to the crack game. there will always be dealers (record companies, major corporations, managers etc) peddling dreams of getting paid in full to the youth. more kids wanna be rappers or athletes than doctors or lawyers or want to go to college for that matter.

sports isnt much different, master p with all his success is still trying every year to make it on a pro basketball team roster and look at all the athletes that desperately wanna be rappers or in this industry. they get all that paper to play a kids game, living many heads in the hood's dream but they still wanna be in this game.

but what about those who havent had that kind of success, working at the local gas station, supermarket or whatever still spending every awakening moment outside of their job chasing a dream. everyone must have dreams dont get me wrong and everyone should try their hardest to make that dream come true, but when its all said and done

at what point
does persistance become obession

holla back at ya boy and let me know what you think

8 comments:

Adam Bernard said...

Persistance becomes obsession when it engulfs your life so much so you can't seem to function with other normal aspects of life. If you find yourself not dating, ignoring friends, etc, for the sake of your work, or hobby, it's officially an obsession and a major problem.

Anonymous said...

Persistance reaches resistance when one can not meet the basic standards of living i.e. you are not taking care of financial responsibility, you have nothing to fall back on and you are on the brink of depression.

One must know when to hold and when to fold. A perfect example is the Roy Jones Jr fight. This man is no longer in his prime and is not the best at what he use to do (knock motherfuckers out). Sometimes you got to quit while you ahead.

Anonymous said...

On the real, that is dope, people need to see it man. It will open up alot of eyes bro.

Michal Delano Trammell
Publisher
Break Magazine

Anonymous said...

WOW!!! All I can say is, 'WOW!!'

Anonymous said...

I agree with Adam but then again if that man is trying to make his dream a reality who are we to tell him not to. He has to come to that realization for himself and see that shit just ain't going nowhere. At some point in time in our life we will hit rock bottom, the very bottom of the fucking barrel and it is here that every man has to make that decision on whether to give up or to continue.
Like AJ said he knows mad heads who are older who are still on the grind and that shit is real, I worked with (I'mma name names here fuck it) Old School artist Mr Freeze who was knocking out tracks with me weekend after weekend after weekend trying to get back in the game but after a while it started to become hard for me to watch and hear this go on week after week after week till I just cut him off, (but that wasn't the only reason) but the fact is he kept trying and trying and at the same time he was trying to put on the younger guys in the game to the peeps he knew but shit just wasn't happening. I lost contact with him and as of this writing I don't know if he's still on the grind or if he gave up. In my eyes he was trying to capture the glory days of a yesteryear gone by from his era and he figured if he could just grab a hold of that brass ring one last time everything'll be alright.

Anonymous said...

Yo This is real deep. I often think about this topic. I feel persistance becomes obession when that person is doing what that love. When a person has a dream and they are out to achive that dream to make it come true. They will do anything for however long it takes just to prove it to themselves and others. While chasing their dream they encounter opticals good and bad. More bad ones then good ones, but they let the good ones out weight the bad ones. Once that person realizes that its been years that, they have been chasing their dream and nothing major or big has happend. They began to have that mind set that hey I've been doing this too long to turn around now and if they give up people will look at them as a quiter or they just don't want to hear the ole saying I told you so.

Anonymous said...

Persistance becomes obsession at the moment your life changes in a bad way because of your "persistance". You're absolutely right AJ, and a great topic. I try to create a balance and spend most days with my children, while i write mostly at night...and i think more folks need to budget in time to spend with family like it's a job also, because raising well balanced children in this age can be a task... Loved your article by Dave Thompkins in Wax Poetics too, btw. Peace, ya girl cherryl reppin nc to the fullest baby!

Anonymous said...

Yo that's deep...it's something I noticed about some cats too. I know this one dude who I had on my
show who's 37 who quit his job to focus solely on trying to get his music out there in attempts to get a deal. I was like "Wow!"
At 37 that's kinda deep, but I do understand his will to focus on making it happen. Good topic man....


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