Dearest reader,
My sincerest apologies for my absence; I appreciate the patience.
It’s been 75 days since we last spoke - er, I last wrote - and I’ll be honest, I am a completely different person than I was in April.
To be brutally honest, for a majority of those 75 days, I woke up to a stranger in the mirror…
…and I don’t mean that in a negative way.
But we’ll get into that later.
If something calls you, pick up the phone.
June 3rd, 2023.
Two years ago, to the day — this southern boy packed up his belongings in Texas and hopped on a jittery one-way flight to California in the midst of what he believed to be an existential crisis.
The only thing I vividly remember: the conflicting feelings of anxiety and excitement that I felt in the air, in my heart; in my bones.
Everything else was a blur.
Bad time for my mental.
Perfect time to crash out!
The anxiety mainly stemmed from the distance I’d be away from my family and friends — everyone and everything that I knew. The excitement sparked from a new chapter of becoming. A chance to start fresh, and throw every single mistake I’d ever made in my life into the endless abyss that we call failure.
I had an opportunity to re-locate not only my physical self, but my mental self as well. What would transpire in San Francisco over the course of the next two years is, in hindsight, the most transformational period of time I’ve experienced in my 25 years of life (damn I’m getting old).
Simply because I answered the call.
when the city called him, he answered; as he often did but not with the usual confidence — uncertainty filled his heart as he zipped across the bay abroad, so did the mind: go on. no. go. no. go on then, go. go. go– & the thought of becoming what everyone suspected: A FRAUD, A MAN WITH NO SPINE but his mind rebalanced, and he was back home; knowing things aren't built in one day, he thought of Rome to think of an interesting thought, is to know that you’re interesting but to live a life worth interest, is to do more than just Pinterest to the grave: where dreams are destined to go but where there is authenticity, an abundant river shall flow; & as his family says, “Go on then, son”, he is: BECOMING EVERYTHING HE WAS DESTINED TO BE
A FRAUD, A MAN WITH NO SPINE, BECOMING EVERYTHING HE WAS DESTINED TO BE (A Sonnet) - Nathan Khane Morales
| Special thanks to my cousin, Joshua Nguyen, PhD for helping me review and edit this piece. Truly a special poet. |
You either die a hero…
Yes, we all know the infamous quote from The Dark Knight.
If you don’t, then go watch it ASAP. I’m not even talking about the movie — here’s the clip of Harvey Dent on YouTube — go watch it. Hall of Fame quote.
“You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”
I’d say I was born a kind, caring human being. Someone who genuinely cares about others and how I affect them. The only thing(s) that throw off the hero complex within me are: people, places, and purpose.
When life throws me curveballs involving any of these three factors, I flip into a very introverted, un-social dude. I retreat into a slightly villainous mindset where I don’t really care about anyone, or anything — only thoughts about why & how the world is a truly wicked place. When in a state of stress, I revert back to my naturally introverted state. A contradiction of my present identity. Interesting how the human mind works.
I love seeing the look on people’s faces when I try to explain to them that I am a natural-born introvert who developed extroverted tendencies and nuances by way of life and career.
I usually receive a friendly scoff and a response like “shut up dude.” or “yeah, whatever you say buddy.”
Reality is — the hours of isolation that I’ve spent reflecting on my pain and how to handle my own intrusive spiraling thoughts have created a certain level of both self & social awareness within me — I take pride (humbly) in being a beast of a communicator with reflective, introverted thinking patterns.
The very skills that enable me to light up rooms were actually forged in the dark.
Heroes and villains aren’t technically enemies; they’re co-authors of the same stories.
Stories that wouldn’t be possible without both the protagonist and the antagonist.
Each of us have our own internal story. We are constantly dying as heroes, respawning as villains, and finding our way back to our virtuous states. The past 75 days have been a wild ride of leading my head and my heart back to where they belong: the bright side.
Life is full of circles.
We are all products of our environments.
Ever heard of the word sonder? John Koenig recently coined the term as:
The sudden, passing realization that every stranger around you has a life just as rich, complicated, and vivid as your own — in which they are the central character and others, including oneself, have secondary or insignificant roles.
We’re just background extras in each other’s story.
Being an empath (and because of the hero complex I mentioned in the last section), I try my best to maintain a perpetual state of sonder. This mindset enables me to relate to people not only from shared experiences, but from shared story structures — being the protagonist of our own story is something we all share as living people.
We’re ALL the “main character”— for our own story at least.
A comedian is funny not because all they know is joy and laughter, but because they understand pain. Their identity as a funny person is often built off the fact that they’ve experienced a great deal of misery throughout their life, and now understand how to twist tragedy into comedy.
What looks and sounds like contradiction is actually a re-construction of sorrow into joy. The deeper the pain, the louder the laugh.
Excellence is beautiful from a distance, and brutal up close.
That brutality is the price we have to pay for even a chance at being someone who can create change in a world where a majority of people don’t care much about, well, anything.
After all, there is no finish line.
As it turns out, the trials I was going through weren’t necessarily existential. I was existing perfectly fine, and I was pushing through the days as well as I ever had throughout my life. I was having an identity crisis — or a period of intense questioning and confusion about one's sense of self, values, and purpose.
As I mentioned when I started this bit, another season of crisis arrived in April, and has now passed. (Thank you GOD.)
I was facing the crossroads of my purpose, and my pleasure. A mental and emotional lapse of judgement that turned me bitter. All I needed was a few months in the character development lab— isolation island. The villain version of myself fought hard to stay, but I told him to kick rocks.
Identity isn’t a statue; it’s a series of skins you’re supposed to outgrow. Each new skin will probably contradict the foundation of who you are in some form or fashion — it’s how we’re able to build true self-awareness and emotional intelligence.
That’s the bargain of becoming: you trade yesterday’s blueprint for tomorrow’s blank page.
We lose a version of ourselves so a better stranger can walk out of the mirror.
My cape will always be on. Not for any particular person, but for my community; for my people.
The hero is back.
It’s never too late to meet a version of yourself that you love: go find them.
All it ever cost me was everything I ever was.
Subscribe for more collections of my introspective thoughts blended with external influence.
If you’ve made it this far, I just want to say: You’re real.
Hopefully everything I’ve covered to this point has made some sort of sense to you, or at least opened your perspective to a relatable concept.
⸻
Man… the way you put everything into words — the crisis, the growth, the whole journey — it really resonates. That line about losing a version of yourself so a better stranger can walk out of the mirror? Perfectly written.
It’s wild how identity keeps shifting like that. Like, just when you think you’ve figured yourself out, life hands you a new version to meet.
Curious — do you feel like the version of you now is someone you chose to be, or someone life pushed you into becoming?
I’m glad to hear that the hero is back.
Even though you were never gone in my eyes.
Such a good read. So raw yet so profound. I'm always in awe at how you lead with vulnerability. And while we're at it, I can testify that I was one of the doubters that you're not an extrovert first but reading this gives me such a clear understanding hahaha.