rebellion (lies)

i wasn’t a particularly bad kid growing up.

i didn’t burn down any houses... i didnt get any girls pregnant... and i didnt fail out of school…

‘you know the worst thing about niggas? niggas always want some credit for some shit they supposed to do. for some shit they just supposed to do: a nigga will brag about some shit a normal man just does.

a nigga will say some shit like, "i take care of my kids.’

you're supposed to, you dumb mothafucka! what are you talkin' about? what are you braggin' about? what kind of ignorant shit is that?

‘i ain't never been to jail.’

what do you want, a cookie?

you're not supposed to go to jail you low expectation having mothafucka!!!’

(source: rock, chris. Rock This! new york: little, brown & company, 1998.)

don’t get me wrong, i wasn’t a saint, i just wasn’t a terrible child.

of course i regret the time i ‘accidentally’ shot my sister in the chest with a bb gun (even tho she deserved it).***

i also probably could have done without playing rock wars in the construction yards behind my elementary school (fortunately, i wasnt the one who beaned a friend with a rock on the crown of his head... i was just there throwing 'supporting' fire).

and it probably wasn’t the brightest idea to drop a handful of slingshot ball bearings from the roof of my twenty nine story apartment building… onto the cars below (eh?!? a couple mercedes, a porche or two, and maybe even a rolls royce limo). doH!

stupid, dangerous, and maybe even downright criminal, most of my actions really weren’t that different from your average boy growing up.

and like most boys, i was punished (when caught) for the deeds that id done.

aside from the usual spankings, groundings, curfews, chores etc. my parents were particularly inventive when it came to punishments.

one year i only got coal and onions for christmas.

another year i wasn’t allowed to participate in halloween.

and at one point my mother decided that i needed to pay dearly for the ‘abuse’ that i rained down upon my little sister, and made me make incremental monetary payments to her [my sister] for every deed, bad name, insult etc. that i committed.

in retrospect they weren’t the most HORRIBLE punishments ever, but it certainly seemed that way at the time.

and at the time i was usually pissed!

so to make a long story short, i know a thing or two about punishments.

i know that a punishment is only successful if its enforced. i also know that a successful punishment requires a greater than equal response to the bad deed performed (otherwise the perpetrator might start thinking its almost an equal trade).

finally, i also know that the most effective punishment is not only a forfeiture (of rights, of material things, of privileges), it is a forfeiture with the spoils being provided to another recipient (usually the victim).

this last ‘rule of thumb’ is key; punishment is most painful in the form of contrast – because without the contrast, the punishment is merely looking at life from a different point of view (a different albeit shitty one).

for example: when you break up with someone, and you’re miserable, it makes you doubly miserable to think that your ex is slutting around having a fantastic time meeting new people… who aren’t you.

or how about when you have work on a friday / saturday night? it makes it ten million times worse when you get drunken phone calls / texts from friends who are having a great time (without you around).

the pain inherent in punishment is in the contrast, not in the punishment itself. because sometimes the contrast can be absolutely BRUTAL.

lately i feel like im being punished… punished for something that im not even sure i did.

my life is by no means shitty – its just not where i hoped to be at.

and when you KNOW where you should be, and you KNOW where you are currently… well then the contrast is certainly a punishment in itself.

wah!!

*** now that we're all grownst up, my sister and i are very close.