We are only five days into Mental Health Awareness Month, and I can already feel the weight bearing down on me. Setting a goal to write every day is a challenge while working full time, along with being a father and husband. Forcing myself to write some big epic essay every month made me forget the whole thesis behind my self-imposed challenge. To write from the heart and let the words flow from my brain to the keyboard. When I think of my writing and my dreams, I realize it has to come from the heart and soul before the mind.
I had this whole piece worked out for today about Cinco de Mayo and how commercialization has made it lose its true identity. Then I came up with a crazy idea of trying to tie it into a tech thing with artificial intelligence that I couldn’t even six degrees of Kevin Bacon my way out of. Instead, I’m sticking to my challenge and just creating something raw and unedited. That is what life really is at its core: raw, unedited, and unforgiving.
Ironically, that actually ties in nicely with Cinco de Mayo, which is actually a day to celebrate Mexican victory against France at the Battle of Puebla. It wasn’t the battle that won them independence, but they won against overwhelming odds. The day is about celebrating victory, even the smallest wins in the face of adversity. A symbol of resistance and resilience.
Sometime just continuing to fight, not for perfection or to win, is the best way to fight and win the battle. In the words of Tim Allen’s character in Galaxy Quest, “Never Give Up. Never Surrender.”
