so reader, if i could take a moment to be honest with you--i have been caught in the limbo between arrogance and diffidence. i don't know, perhaps that's a perfect balance that results in a well-maintained ego, but regardless i feel restless within my own self and also in the air that surrounds me, at times.

from the beginning, i've been a writer in order to acquire perspective--first in my situations (i.e. as an asian american in a wack society, in the frustrations that love unveils, to prove to myself that i can bust a nice punchline). but when you begin gauging your perspective on life based on the progression of your writing, things become inside out. blues become reds, ups become downs, and nights where you once fell asleep at peace with musings of getting shorty's number are now replaced by regurgitations of your restless mind at 2:22 am.

perhaps if anything, let this entry tonight be an indication, a trace of perspective. because i swear a year ago i would've never imagined all of this happening in my life. scratch that, during the summer i would've never imagined this. the arrogance in me (if i'm really to be honest) wants to pop a collar at the freshness that has entered this miniscule realm. between now and august, there are only four weekends where no one in ill-lit is on tour. the recordings for the album are coming out solid. our fanbase is devoted. to really sit back and reflect, i can definitely remember a time when terms like "tour," "album," and "fanbase" were foreign, trinkets of a lifestyle beyond the reaches of my ambition.

and then the doubt comes in. the shit rappers don't really like to talk about. when the glass ceilings (set by society, set by self) become apparent, when what was once aspiration becomes played, the moments when you realize that your milestones might be anomalies in all of this chaos. at the same time, it's what keeps you going, that feeling of things "never being enough." when you ask yourself why you're sitting at home blogging instead of conjuring the next universal classic (or are you?). it's what keeps you hungry, goggly-eyed at your 50th screening of fade to black like it's only a matter of time before dot dot dot. when even logic and circumstance and obstacle can't tell you shit.

i guess in the end of it all, i just want to move people. if it's not in the way that i already am, it's because jay-z's doing it bigger. if i ever get on that tip, it won't be enough because stevie's done it bigger. then fidel's done it bigger. masses of human beings clung to every word, internalizing, uplifted, reciprocating the energy that you expel from the gut upon them. it's nothing short of magic.

so in the end, maybe it's not about arrogance or self-doubt. it's basic hunger for things i have yet to experience, which is what makes us human. animals only have a taste for what they've already tasted. as people, we have the capability to fantasize. even if it's snapshots from another's life, we often find ourselves creating mental collages of our future aspired, as a collection of snapshots from other peoples' experiences that we witness third-person. it's a really crazy concept. but i guess it's also the only way we ever get anything done.