Bob Marley once said “Money is numbers and numbers never end. If it takes money to be happy, your search for happiness will never end.”
We spill ourselves over every day trying to ensure our livelihoods,
Only to see the goal posts right in front of us move – like a carrot dangling on a fishing line.
Fuck the rat race.
As we circle around this giant blue ball and it rotates around the sun and spins
this ‘Choose How You Survive’ game we’re in won’t let us win,
Inflation frustrates us, long hours drain us, new waves of challenges keep us on our toes – even when we’re laying down.
“And we’ll never be royals…” Lorde sang,
But it’s not like I’d want to be,
My dreams don’t come with castles and guards with big, silly hats –
I just hope to live in a more forgiving, caring, all people-focused world eventually,
Where self care is the norm instead of a personal form of activism.
Until then, I’m just going to seize my moments to be less productive –
I’ll give myself some pause when I can by just pressing pause on my neverending to do list.
Find time to show love to yourself.
Bob Marley said it best, probably with a smile on his face:
“The day you stop racing is the day you win the race.”
-RSM
Peace Through It All
Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, or however that classic code goes, it shows
the principal of balance –
that, at times, life comes in opposites, to embrace each up with each down, letting each turn take you toward something different.
Having no expectations is a real ‘code’ I use in life to adapt, show love to myself and others, and to get through life itself.
If I were digging for happiness somewhere, it would be wherever peace begins to peak out of the ground.
Happiness can grow when peace is assumed as the norm, when peace blends in with the air.
The same way we all breathe every day, let us find peace through it all – throughout the hard times especially, whenever we can fit it in.
Peace is the key that unlocks our best selves, our best lives, and puts out our wildfires of stress like it were blowing out a candle.
From the Sega Genesis days til now and beyond – embrace the unexpected, and tranquility will find you. – RSM
Contemplating at LaGuardia
As the beautiful dancing fountain projects city scenes so serene, I’m in between –
It feels like I’m playing catch with friends and fam across 2 different places
When I really miss feeling like I’m on some sort of team.
I don’t mean to take for granted what I have in this life,
I actually just wish I had it all a lot closer to me. People wise, I mean.
A trade off is coming, and I’m beyond willing and able,
But it won’t be easy, and there’s a lot to be grateful for what you’ll be exchanging for the formerly familiar.
It doesn’t sound like you, but it is.
“Well, I guess this is growing up” is what first comes to mind, and “…even children get older, I’m getting older too…” follows right behind,
I’m trying to make the best choices and stay at peace, but the uncomfortable is inevitable if you want to grow in this life,
and I just honestly hope that at the end of every day for everyone, things will be alright. – RSM
Pockets Of Heaven
Extra time before a flight.
Just barely catching a train you worried about catching all night.
Putting together an outfit so extravagant that Elton John feels it somehow.
Seeing 100% on the top right of your phone.
Finding wet cash in your laundry you forgot you had.
Being able to help strangers in a language you’ve been working hard to learn.
Hitting that savings goal, seeing your patience pay off with what you’ve earned.
Passing that big test with flying colors.
Being completely dry, but drenched by the sun.
The first time you open the door to your new place.
Waking up refreshed, only to realize you still have a lot more time to sleep.
And last, but not least, whether it’s 5 minutes or 20 years:
Time with the people you love. – RSM
A Feeling of Dreams Achieved
Throw Some D’s by Rich Boy on repeat
on my headphones at work to remind myself – this is how I eat,
While I knock down problems while hopscotching the floor of life as it caves in beneath my feet.
The greens keep you lean and I prefer green to lean
But I throw on some hood classics to get me all the the way through the day, not just stuck somewhere in between.
I’ve been making a living working on my job, making a fortune working on myself,
But the real ‘NEW MONEY’ I got is how I work on my health.
Fuck yeah to the little things that make us go,
May our favorite motivations keep us spiritually high, and may our mental, emotional, and literal currency never be low. – RSM
Ride The Waves
Anxiety washes away like waves
along the winding coastlines of SoCal during the day
No matter how many times I beat it, it returns
Just like how a fresh new crest of a wave re-emerges,
Eternally growing, moving, charging, crashing, repeating the cycle again,
when anxiety peaks I think of the sound of waves crashing
And try to think of things from a different lens. – RSM
team up
I wrote this while listening to Kendrick Lamar’s ‘dodger blue’
The same team that beat my yankees on their largest stage
I’ve been processing rage and sadness, but not cuz of baseball,
It’s other-shit-just-fuckin’ up-my life, trying to not take it personal
but it gets personal af when the demons you know and love to hate
come back with armor – sterling, stainless steel metal upgrades,
And all you have to fight back with is your hands – once again I feel like I got played.
the demons been kickin’ in the door wavin’ the four four since the mid 2000s
but my team showed up in force, their strength was boundless.
I didn’t have to face it on my own cuz my Avengers already assembled
and with time and love I made my own demons fucking tremble.
My team is across more places than in the past but we still team up nevertheless,
It could be a day or 10+ years, if you’re on the team you already know there’s no stress.
No uniform needed, and the field is just life,
The love of my fam and friends is the energy that gets me through strife.
So whether it’s dodger blue, yankee blue, mets blue,
Team up for your loved ones and your true colors will shine through. – RSM
Red Hat Basura
The world spins round and it’s all up and down,
To me at least it feels like it when I walk around downtown
It’s terrible, deplorable, the world I see surrounds me
Red hats galore bring the activist out of me
I feel like a bull and they want me to chase them
They see my people and want to erase them
So what other choice do we have but to stand strong
While the grand old cowards look down on us like we don’t belong
It doesn’t really matter what the comfortable ignorants think
Because sadly they’ve been taught to not think for themselves
But gladly I do, and even if my own people ‘other’ me,
Puerto Rico is beautiful, and I’ll see the haters in hell. – RSM
Wow, Sean. I Looked Up To You.
The first rap song I ever learned was
‘Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems,’ first grade, it was all over the radio,
I heard it so much and I would rap it on the daily, bro,
I asked my mom and dad if I could get a little boombox for my room, had it on Z100 for a while, but then I found Hot 97 on the dial,
It was wild! I was a huge hip hop fan since I was a young child.
Bad Boy Records dominated NYC, MTV, and everything else hip hop that you’d see,
I learned ‘I’ll Be Missing You’ before I ever heard of the band The Police
I was PROUD that Puff Daddy went to Mount Saint Michael in my neighborhood
and how he lifted up so many other artists all the way up beyond the stars, this,
Super fly business savvy young dude from Harlem and Mount Vernon
Putting on for the city and the culture, but I’ve learned,
That what once was “cool” in the past often changes
The same way every generation has their entertainment favorites,
Bad Boy Records was the door that opened into my love for hip hop
and my whole life I was motivated by the phrase “CAN’T STOP, WON’T STOP!(Eh-eh, Eh-eh)”
I joined the track team in the 6th grade, around the same time that Diddy ran the city,
Ran through Biggie’s whole catalogue – took it on my OG white brick iPod to school with me,
“Everybody sing it now PASS THE CARVOURSIER!”
Oh sure, yeah, dude, I still love all the music,
But truly, how does hip hop culture get through this?!
He’s not the only one for sure, just look at Hollywood,
there are far more media moguls making mad shady happenings happen and for decades it’s been happening
So how was I so naïve to think that the rumors may not have been true,
about one of the most successful dudes from around where I grew?!
The rumors aren’t true – because the truth is actually far WORSE
And it’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of an entertainment industry that’s so perverse,
And now here I am, a true student of the game, and I’m looking at Diddy, like,
“What a fucking shame.” – RSM
Don Zachariah and the Endless Storm
A ferocious wind whirrs, while in bed he turns, tosses and swerves,
Don Zachariah has moved up the ranks
and traded in his old sandals for new ones,
And remembers the times when he had just landed, with the hot humid air amplifying the sun,
Baking under the gaze of the jungle,
Wondering how he ended up there,
and where to go next.
Once a young monk in search of redemption,
Now a bit older, wiser; a bigger, heavier storm rages along, destroying the canoes and huts he helped to build.
And even though it’s a challenge, he’s been there before,
heavier winds of yesteryear’s past has
provided him experience to withstand any storm, inside and out.
The sun re-emerges, but the storm isn’t settled. He smiles at the challenge, though. – RSM
Rubén Sebastián Muñiz | ∞ 