courage and boxing
today, as i was leaving church, i had the urge for chicken and waffles. and on such a nice day, i figured there was absolutely no problem in walking from 125th st. to 116th st. so thats what i did...only to be faced with a life-altering decision two blocks later.
on august 10th 2005, i wrote my third blog on this site, "author's note". in it, i tell a former professor of mine about my recent life changes, and the changes wsh to come over the coming months. and on a sidenote here, of those changes i wanted to happen later, none of them have. yet, the good note is that, of the changes that i have wanted to have happen over the coming months, none of them have changed. they have remained very present and feasible goals over the last few months and at the very least, i have made progress two of the four. the four goals were to join a boxing class, learn the guitar, coach a youth sports team, and learn how to write grants. the last two are still on the drawing board. i did enough research on the youth team to know that it's not going to happen anytime soon (although i do help out with the school's boy's basketball team when i can). and the grant writing just hasn't been touched at all. but i have done extesive research on the boxing and the guitar. i have found the gym that offer boxing classes and have priced them accordingly, and i was about to buy a guitar last week, but opted to learn more about what i need as a beginner first. so, really, it's not that my goals haven't been met, they are just still in progress. after today though, one is definately in progress more than the other.
walking down the street from church today, i had only gone s far as 123rd street when i saw a man running towards me about a block away. behind him, a little woman, maybe in her 40's, was trying to catch up with him, screaming, "my phone! my phone! that's my phone!! someone stop him!" and as i was walking, it dawned on me that i could very easily get in this man's way. trip him up or something. confront him about her phone and make him give it back. but by the time i realized that, he was running right past me. but then, i noticed that he wasn't really running that fast. either he was just out of shape, or had been running for a while. my guess is the latter. i mean, this was a pretty big guy. tall, relatively muscular. but in noticing his speed, i knew i could catch him. i knew i could run behind him, jump on his back, bring him down, and hopefully have enough people there to help subdue him.
so i turned around.
i headed for him. and around this time, i'm thinking to myself all of the possiblethings that could go wrong. what if no one helps? what if this guy tries to fight me first? what if this is a personal issue that i know nothing about? this could be his girlfriend. or some type of petty domestc dispute. or the matrix, in which he had to steal the cell phone in order to call in to the operator to escape agents. it could be anything. and then i thought...shit, if i had been in that boxing class for a while, i wouldn't need anyone elses help.
you see, from the boxing class, i expect to learn how to take a punch, how to bring a signficant punch, and how to put some more muscle and meat on my skinny body. without any of this knowledge, i'd just be throwing random, half-powerful punches. and with no rage or anger behind it, i might as well be tapping him on the shoulder.
as i got to the end of the block, close enough to see where a quick dart could land me on his back, i asked myself, "is this ladies phone worth my inevitable ass-whipping?"
now that i think about it, even if i had been in that boxing class all this time, would i have put t to use in this situation. hell, had i been a boxer for years, was her cell phone worth his ass-whipping? and my very possible jail time for assult (provided that it was some quirky lovers quarrel).
after i made my walk to the chicken and waffles place (a meal i never got - another story though), i thought about my decisoin to walk away. this time, i don't have too much regret. but what of next time? when a woman is getting raped in an alley i walk past. or when a guy tries to prove something in the next club i'm in. and not to say that a boxing class is the "end all, be all" of the situation, but it's the effort that will count in the end. it just may be the motivatin i need to stick with a workout plan.
for right now though, i'm just glad to see that i am not just creating 5-minute goals up here, which i have a tendency to do. over the years i've claimed to pursue photography, film, stand-up comedy, fire-fighting, street-hustling, condom-selling, private stripper party organizing, halmart card writing, yoga, cooking, foot modeling, dj-ing, traveling the world, and ferret breeding. and sadly, some of those had more progress made than others. i won't disclose which ones.
as for the lady, she wasn't hurt and hopefully she had insurance for her phone.
as for me, i should be boxing and playing the guitar by the end of spring. hold me to it.
as for society, we should all make more of an effort to eliminate the social constraints of the day, through unity, balance, and love. buy only from authorized dealers and stay off the phone in central harlem.
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