Sometimes Living Passionately Isn't Enough

As I am writing in Art Star, I am on a 30 day fast/prayer/spiritual walk with God.

The four principals of "One Month To Live" are:

1. Live Passionately

2. Love Completely

3. Learn Humbly

4. Leave Boldly

I was reflecting on number one, because I felt like I used to do a pretty great job of living passionately.

In fact maybe you could say that I lived too passionately.

At my height I was somewhat famous character at my small college. During the first semester of my sophomore year I was constantly in the school newspaper. I held a powerful position in student government. I would throw $600 dollar dinners and parties that hundreds of people would go to. I got to write a letter that was delivered to all faculty, students, and staff. I was an officer in the top fraternity on campus. There were pictures of me with the most beautiful girls on campus plastered all over the school for an art campaign. I performed spoken word to great acclaim, I was a hot shot young artist. 1/4th of the school had joined a facebook group that was called "Darryl Ratcliff Is The Most Interesting Person That I Know". I had a gorgeous girl friend who was a real life African princess and was an even better person than myself. I had just come off of a stellar first year where I had made school history twice, and it really seemed like the world was my oyster. Even the President of the college was willing to write me recommendations. I was a finalist (along with my gf) for the highest award a sophomore could get at Davidson. There was a good buzz that I might become the youngest student body president in school history. Women loved me and men wanted to be me.

Yet, it was the worst time period of my life. I was miserable, I was psychotic, I was spiritually bankrupt, and I almost withdrew from college.

It was the first time in my life that I had ever done something that I could qualify as a "Regret". I watched my GPA go from a 3.56 to a 2.13. I had a major manic episode that almost killed me and ruined some of my best relationships. I was depressed. My best friend transferred, my girl friend left me. I lost the election. I blew up at the administration. I didn't win the award. More and more people left my fan club. Everything that had been so good faded away.

And I was left with this simple fact: it is not enough to live passionately.

While living life to fullest I had neglected to learn how to love.

More specifically I hadn't learned how to love myself. And what I didn't know is that if you can't love yourself you can't love anyone else.

So the healing process really started that summer. And I decided to resign from everything that I had been doing for my Junior year and to just focus on learning how to love people.

It is an ongoing battle to learn how to love completely. And honestly love can humble you like no other.

However, it was really focusing on learning how to love myself that still is the hardest thing for me to do. Some people might say that I love myself too much, and I am arrogant and cocky.

Unfortunately there is a huge difference between pride and self-love.

I lived my life to fullest during my teenage years because I thought I was going to die before I was 20. And I did a great job of making this a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But God must not be done with me yet - I made it through and now I am a young twentysomething. Now I am learning how to love completely. How to be open with people. How to trust people. How to not be so defensive.

I am learning how to make unselfish love for the other a lifestyle.

And everyday I am humbled.

Faith Versus Fear: The Dark Side

I want to talk about the flip side of faith versus fear.

I want to talk about those times when faith falters. When you don't win. When you can't save someone. When you can't save yourself.

I want to talk about those times when you try as hard as possible and it isn't enough.

Sometimes you meet someone who is very similar to you, who shares your same strengths and weaknesses. And you love them, because you understand them. You know where they come from. You share the same demons.

And it is so hard not to love someone, almost unconditionally, who shares your demons. Because who knows them better than you? Who knows you better than them? You don't even have to try to communicate in words or descriptions, because you know how it is. You know how hard it gets, and how bad it is. You know in the words of Brand New "all the quiet things that no one ever knows".

And knowing all of this, how can you not want to help them. They are yourself. They are who you are, and who you can be. If they fail, it means you can fail. If they succeed, it means you can succeed. It goes beyond being friends, beyond being brothers, it goes to knowing what it means to look death in the face close enough to discover you have the same cheek bones.

And this is the person who I failed to save. Who I in fact stop trying to help. Because I knew his demons, and knew I wasn't strong enough to save him. Just like most people couldn't save me. I knew that the only person who could save him was him. But how do you tell a person that? How do you get someone to save themselves?

And if you can't convince someone to save themselves have you failed them? Was it a shortcoming of faith? Was it the triumph of fear? Shouldn't have love conquered all - or could I never really love him because he was the walking truth of the dark side of myself.

I wonder if I hate him even now, because I know in my heart of hearts, but for the grace of God go I? I know we are both guilty of doing terrible things. I share his temptations. I share his affliction. I know how it isn't his fault. Not all of it. I know there are some things he can't control. And maybe what I hate most of all is that knowing him so well, maybe as well as I know myself, I still couldn't save him.

And it does hurt. It hurts so much I rarely even think about it. I sometimes forget he even exists. Because I tried to save him. A lot of people tried to save him. For years, we all tried. And it wasn't enough. It was never enough.

Yet, you hope that maybe it was. You hope that maybe your efforts meant something. Maybe you caring meant something. Maybe all of your energy, your life, your time, that you put into helping another person, meant something.

And you pray and you pray and you pray.

But you know that you didn't save them.

You know that almost doesn't count.

That your faith did not win out.

And the only question left at the end, is who to blame?

Poetry Freestyle: Jay-Z Is Not David Ben-Gurion

shakespeares on the corner in wife beaters
standing in front of trap houses, reciting poetry
green and white, dimes and birds,
hands on steel with hamlet dispositions
howl of cats announce the pressing of triggers
thats why ambulances live here
line breaks mean life breaks makes pen pause
wondering what houses writing can build
because words can't replace fathers
semicolons don't hold lonely mothers
so we hide behind dumpsters
because getting caught means cold summers
so i lied for my brothers
pass the can, spraying names, poetry games
ain't nothing glamorous about walking
streets, don't come equipped with rap beats
because the radio doesn't tell your story
never had a platinum necklace only rubberbands
34 white tees, 5 pair of blue jeans, can't confess
what I did for a fresh pair of kicks
on nights deranged, my hand insane
walking around holding a blade
sharing a cell with bukowski
turning tricks for jars of ink
it's so easy to make girl's trick
we all gotta pimp
swappin hand me down dreams
for usb drives filled with bootleg movies
being broke makes your peanut butter
appreciate jelly. makes you want to rewrite
dante's inferno, blocks have cantos
people forgot jews lived in the ghetto
jay-z is not david ben gurion
so the block stays devoured
dim echos of silent holocausts
of darfur's and rawandas
so gunplay only brings few tears
what's a driveby in the greater scheme of things?
what can a poem hope to mean?

She loved me with her entire 16 year old being, and it was enough

Sometimes it is necessary to share stories.

I often feel that those stories that are most hurtful and scary are the ones that are most important to share.

Because sharing a story helps one lose the feeling of being alone.

Sometimes it is so easy to suffocate in our own uniqueness.

Yet, it is our ability to be touched by other people that saves our lives.

My life has been saved many a time.

When I was 13 or 14, I had an incurable desire to experience emotional extremes. I wanted to see how happy I could become. I wanted to see how sad I could become.

I thought that having a larger emotional range than most would make me a better person.

So, one day I decided to write a suicide note.

Just to see what goes through the head of a suicidal person.

The process of writing the note made me so sad that I couldn't even finish because I was crying so hard.

Sometimes I wonder if I was manic even then.

There would be times I would be inexplicably happy. So excited just to be part of this world. I would jump up and let out yelps of joy. That joy would surge through my body as I went outside and watch the green grass blow like clouds in my backyard on a sunny day.

All it took to make me happy was long grass blowing in the wind.

So, maybe it shouldn't have been so surprising that a few years later I wanted to kill myself.

As it always does, it started with feeling alone. Feeling alone turns into feeling worthless. Feeling worthless turns into despair. Despair turns into nothing. And nothing turns into death.

However, the first time wasn't so simple. There was a story behind it. A definite trigger. And I am thankful that my first time is memorable like that.

I lived far away from high school and didn't have a car. I was in student council and it was homecoming. We were having an after party after the game. My ride had left me so I asked the other student council representative from my class if he could give me a ride. He was a remarkably decent human being and said yes.

On the way home it started to rain. He dropped me off and I thanked him and said good night. The next day we were supposed to be finishing up the final homecoming decorations. He wasn't there. A couple hours past and finally he came in. I asked him what was wrong and he said that he had hydroplaned into a concrete ramp and totaled his mother's brand new car on the way from my house.

I felt bad, but there was much work to be done. It wasn't until I was at the dance that it sunk in what had happened. That this marvelous human being could have died last night. And I blamed myself. If he had never been on that road, he would not have had an accident. I felt responsible. And for the first time, instantly, miraculously, slowly unwrapping itself in layers upon layers, I felt suicidal.

On the way home that night I kept imagining getting into a car wreck and flying through the windshield. I kept longing for the car to slam into the concrete barrier. Luckily I didn't have license and my Dad was driving. But I had never wanted to meet death so badly.

I later started fantasizing about taking pill after pill. Wondering how many do you have to take to kill yourself. I thought briefly of slitting my wrists, but decided it was too bloody. Too unseemly.

I called this girl who I loved, who had moved away. And she reminded me why I should live. She loved me with her entire 16 year old being, and it was enough.

But that was my first time, and first times are forever.

It was the start of a period of time where I genuinely did not care whether I lived or died. There would be times later, times involving cars, times involving pills, times involving knives, where the death impulse got the better of me.

I would be intentionally suicidal at least twice more before I graduated from high school, but I constantly did things to put my life at risk. And upon reflection I am certain that not caring whether I lived or died was more dangerous than those moments of suicide.

However, those are their own stories and will get told in their due time.

What is most important is that you realize, in those moments of loneliness and desperation, that you are not the first to feel that way, that there is probably someone who loves you with all of their being, and that you are never alone.

Continue striving upward.

Power Relationship Building

Marshall Howard offered the four fundamentals of "power" relationship building:

1. Reach out. To create high emotional-impact time with prospective donors, consider how you communicate with them. "I don't email. Emails create the lowest impact of anything - one notch below letters." Having figured out through relationship building what his clients enjoy, Howard, for example, takes one client shopping, and another wine-tasting - high emotional-impact time.

2. Be more curious. "Why in the world do you keep your curiosity under wraps?" asked Howard. He then cited the "law of reciprocity," which, when loosely defined, suggests that when you share, there's an urgent need to share back. "Share, and ask questions. They will share back -- they can't help themselves."

3. Put the "person" first. Get to know the prospective donor as a person first, prospective donor (or board member, volunteer, etc.) second. Collectively create mosaics about the prospective donor -- and do it as a team, both organizationally and through high emotional-impact time with the prospect.

4. Uncover values, goals and interests, mutual and individual. The ability to connect is controlled by emotions, feelings and beliefs, said Howard. Every human being seeks to connect, and the stronger that connection, the more emotional energy that exists. The law of emotional reciprocity, loosely defined, suggests that when one gives, there's a need and a desire by the recipient to give back. "People decide emotionally; they justify logically. That said, why when we go see a donor do we plow them with facts?," asked Howard, who said that 88 percent of decisions are based on gut feeling, not fact.

Read the full article here

Continue to strive upward.

Wynton Marsalis Rocks The Colbert Report

Sometimes its nice to see a glimpse of that truth on the mountaintop.

Until next time continue striving upward.

What We Would Be God Over

I recently asked my friends the question : If you could be god of anything, what would you be god over?

Here are the responses I received.

Goddess of Passion
Goddess of Books
Goddess of Trampolines
God of Love
God of Music
Goddess of Sex
Goddess of Knowledge
Goddess of Wisdom
God of Hearts
God of Feelings
God of Childhood
Goddess of Lions
Goddess of Water
God of Opportunity
Goddess of Light
Goddess of The Night
God of Organs
Goddess of Dance
God of Flesh
God of Serendipity
God of Literary Ideas
Goddess of the Ocean
Goddess of the Dawning of the New Age
God of Killer Dance Moves
Goddess of Penguins
Goddess of Cupcakes
God of the Female Orgasm
Goddess of Weather
Goddess of Words
God of Magic
Goddess of the Hunt

and I would be the God of Small Things

What you be god over?

Continue to keep striving upward