Archive for » 1999 «

It’s My Decision to Control My Destiny

28
Mar 1999
David Gaines   

Existentialism.

I’ve always said, “If it’s my fate to be successful, why try? I’m simply meant to be successful. And if I’m not meant to be successful, why try? Even if I try, I’m just not meant to be successful.”

Instead of putting my trust in fate and destiny, I tend to follow a thought pattern that everything that happens is a result of a huge matrix of human decisions. Billions of human decisions are made every minute and the future is highly dependent on those decisions.

Keeping that in mind, it makes me extremely conscience of the decisions I make and why I’m making them. If I had decided to attend college immediately after high school, I’d probably be a journalist at some high profile newspaper. Just think of everything that would be different if that was the case. I can name hundreds of people I would have never met. Hundreds of Aggies and locals here in Greensboro.

And as I venture into the entreprenuerial world, I am even more keen about the decisions I make. Being that I sacrificed my collegiate career for the business world, I have a lot of nay-sayers and nonbelievers in what I’m doing. The pressure builds with every decision I make to be successful and prevent myself from looking like an idiot.

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Category: Just Babbling

Taking Advice From a 14th Century Writer

25
Mar 1999
David Gaines   

When I talk to students who have taken a class in which Niccolo Machiavelli is a topic, I am surprised at how quick they are to thrash him by what they heard from their instructors rather than read his writings and make up their own minds.
I’ve read “The Prince,” and I must say, he has no doubt earned all of my respect. He is easily a must read for anyone who wants to know how to rule the world. No lie, though – the book is definitely a different kind of reading and you have to be patient in looking up a lot of end notes to get a better understanding of what he means. You also have to keep in mind of the time in which he wrote the book.

I quote a few lines from his book…

When ills are recognized in advance (and only the prudent can do this), they are quickly cured. But when, having gone unrecognized, they are allowed to increase until everyone may recognize them, then remedy is no longer possible.

This is beyond the truth. Look at drug and alcohol habits. When those who abuse drugs and alcohol get to the point they can’t stop and start doing ignorant stuff to get it, it’s almost too late to fix their situations. Cancer is another good example. When cancerous cells are diagnosed early, there is a higher chance to rid the cancer than when the patient’s life starts to degrade.

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Category: Quote of the Moment

To Be a Fayettevillain

24
Mar 1999
David Gaines   

Reminiscing…

Ever since leaving the place nicked Fayette’nam, I don’t find myself wanting to return anytime soon. Maybe the holidays and my mom’s birthday. But I can’t help but to remember the people of this place I still sometimes call home. Nowhere across this globe are you going to find the most mixed up medley of characters, personalities and the most insane fools ever to speak.

Fayettevillains simply have a completely different perception of life. We live in a world that exists because of men and women who kill for a living. It’s the elite of the military, the 82nd Airborne, that keeps Fayetteville on the map. Well, that and high crime concentration statistics.

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Category: Passing Thoughts  Tags:

Bruthas

22
Mar 1999
David Gaines   

Time is something I’ve always said was precious, but I’ve also mentioned that it’s my worse enemy. The more of it we use, the more important it is for us to remember the time already spent. And appreciating time is something people rarely do.

Now that I work at Wolf Camera in Four Seasons Town Centre, I help people everyday preserve their memories on film. First-time mothers bring in film just as fast as they go buy diapers. Newly-weds drop off pounds of film of their weddings and honeymoons. College students fill the store with pictures of their collegiate experiences and friends.

All these pictures one day will be much more treasured than what they are now. And some, buried at the bottom of those shoe boxes and back pages of photo albums, will be forgotten until one day they are unearthed and rediscovered.

BruthasWell, here goes one I dug up of me [right] and my brother, Charlson. I have the slightest clue of how young we were, where we were, why we’re wearing the “look-at-me green” shirts, how long it was since we had our last hair cuts and how far out our stomachs hung back then!

Wolf Camera has taught me so when I look at this picture, I’m thinking fill flash, slower film speed for graininess and a wider aperture setting for more light since neither of us is moving requiring a fast shutter speed. But time has taught me so when I take another look at this picture, I’m thinking how little time we had as children to be children before it was that time to grow up, be young men, mature even when we still wanted to play with our G.I. Joes and accept responsibility for ourselves.

My brother, Charlson Maurice Gaines, is now in San Angelo, Texas, in the Air Force. He teaches Kuk Sool, a Korean martial art, in which he is a black belt. But when you look at the little child to the right, all you see is an innocent little kid. Somewhere between the time this photo was taken and today, I lost track of when we developed from these two kids into the two young men we are now.

Time doesn’t give us enough to properly record all our memories. Time doesn’t even allow us the time to go back and change things in our past to improve our future. All time does is race ahead giving us just enough to witness life and get the most out of it as we can before we’re next on the list.

Category: Passing Thoughts  Tags:

A Man and A Goose

09
Mar 1999
David Gaines   

Goose with no golden eggsWhen I was younger, I read this book of fables. All of them were quite interesting, but one in particular caught my attention. Traditionally, I’ve been an impatient person. My mind tells me I have so many things to get accomplished and so little time. I fight to find more time, but with each minute that passes, that’s 60 seconds I can’t have back.

Anyway, this fable was about this man and a goose [of course, this is my remix considering I can't remember the fable verbatim]. The man was a lucky man; his goose would lay a golden egg each morning. With the egg, he’d go downtown to the market and trade it in for some money to purchase whatever he needed.

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Category: Just Babbling, Passing Thoughts

Learning Hard Way What We Already Know

07
Feb 1999
David Gaines   

Sometimes, people have to learn the hard way what they already know.

I met this woman last summer, in the most intriguing way, not realizing I was about to have my heart ripped out my chest. Neither of us was the other’s type. She liked the nightlife, was always in the streets and had a gold diggin’ quality that eventually kept our paths from crossing.

She was used to talking to guys who were older, had bank, phat transportation, dressed preppy, a defined career, a clean vernacular, credit and a college degree. Only older than me by a year and some, I felt what she was looking for was young-minded. Her motivation I understand was her two children, but I know without a doubt I am the best thing for them even without the cash flow.

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Category: Relationships

What’s So Embarrassing?

06
Feb 1999
David Gaines   

Yeah, this is embarrassing, but you have to remember one thing about me…

There is no shame in my game. I am a man of indestructable pride.

I have to admit, though, I did feel a little embarrassed about my situation with this girl. All I talked about since I met her was her. All my friends felt I was crazy. And I’d respond “I am – for her.” She was the numero uno. Point blank. And there was nothing else that needed to be said other than, “Cool.”

But then I started to lose that, “Cool.”

We never intended to develop a relationship, until one day I just felt beyond disrespected. After only meeting two months, I posed a question upon her. There’s some kind of medication she takes for cramps that she calls the “truth serum” and if I had a question, she said that was the time to ask because she cannot tell a lie when she takes it. She just warned me not to ask anything I didn’t really want to know. So, wanting to know, I asked how many other guys had she slept with since meeting me two months ago. She replied, “Five.”

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Category: Relationships