In life you find a lot of emphasis on competition and what you don’t have. With what you have, it could be addiction, health problems or any number of problems normally financial. I remember talking to a youth about art and he asked what he should do to improve. I said try and get into art school and learn. He said with his situation that would be impossible. I said to him to go to the library and find books on drawing or art in general. Learn from books if you have to.

KRS1 tells a lot of stories of how he started to live in the library. Libraries want people to use them. A lot of things I learned when I had no money was from going to the library. People will say yeah you were lucky you went to art school but I literally risked everything to get into art school. Also when I turned 50 I finally paid off my learning debt. I risked everything in my HSC (year 12 certificate) because all I did was art. I was lucky but I knew what I wanted. My aunt Betty Shaw  let me use her basement as a studio.

I basically lived in that basement pulling long nights and smashing out a lot of work. I submitted 21 artworks for my year 12 art major. I basically almost failed every other subject I did other than art. What gets me is that young people aren’t given many options, what I mean is some youth are encouraged to do sport, get a high paying career or that sort of thing. Self development and self growth to me should be the emphasis and funnily enough that is what Hip Hop can provide although people twist it and think they can harm themselves or others in Hip Hop. 

That isn’t the point and anything that is worth doing takes a lifetime. So working on yourself should be the priority, not what you can earn or how many points you can score in a game. Life is bigger than just competing for money or status. I must admit that I learned a lot of life lessons from listening to KRS1. Even though the lyrics looked hard there were the messages that underlie the hard words. The messages were to work on yourself. The real gift for me besides the library was martial arts. Learning to control my body. 

If your mind is taught to control your body, your body and mind become friends, they unite. You literally become a whole person purely through self control. It is so obvious but nobody realises the correlation because there is so much noise about competition. A lot of the ‘no pain no gain’ mentality is that your mind has to dominate and subject your body to pain to grow but that is not how your mind and body become friends. You literally dislocate the option for unity through mere dominance. 

There are rewards in dominance but it is not sustainable. Something will always rise up that is stronger and more domineering. It could be as simple as ageing, for some people that finally dominates them. Think about how you work towards sustainable options. What in life is giving you the real tools you need to live a good life? Some people pray, some meditate or do yoga, some do hard martial arts or internal martial arts. The most important thing is looking for what you really need at the time. If the library is an option, take that. You are always in need of self growth and that won’t come through money or fame or competition. At least not in the long run. Think about the end, not just about the beginning.