It’s come to my attention that this blog is being read by members of my family. And being the beautiful people they are, they caringly inquired about whether I was okay. Also, made me realize that this blog, being posted on the world wide web, could be read by anyone, which of course will undoubtedly have an effect on the honesty of my expression. It made me even worry about some of the people closest to me learning in my music what they didn’t know before and what they might not like. I don’t want to sacrifice the integrity of this journal or my music. At the same time, I don’t want to portray myself as something that doesn’t represent me completely. I’ve wondered myself why most of my entries reflect such sadness but if you asked me “how are you doing” I would probably say that I’m blessed. At the moment, I have a couple of answers. The one that I thought of right now, is that readers and listeners are witnessing “Dahlak the poet”, “Dahlak the songwriter”, or “Dahlak the thinker”, which all believe, stem from a very big part of me – “Dahlak the philospher”. You are witnessing the boy who mentally wrestled for months with the idea and the inevitability of dying when he was 6 or 7. This one question, I believe, propelled my hunger to understand what this life is and what I am doing here. I know we all do that, but it appears to me that I might have started earlier and I pursue that question, not simply ask it, but toil with it more intensely than most people. And this philosopher, who intensely, and meticulously rips to shred all that which disables me and so many others from fully appreciating this gift of life through the form of distraction, manipulation, abuse of power, lies, and forced perspective that breed self doubt and fear, is who you are witnessing on page and on stage. It is probably the only person you will ever experience as a listener or a reader because it is that very hunger and that determination to make sense of it all that drove me to pick up a pencil and start writing in the first place.

I am beginning to realize that maybe I put too much of the work on myself. Slowly, I am beginning to give more to God – to listen, discover and be shown, rather than dig, and dig and dig. But I still want to be active about this pursuit because I don’t believe I can just sit and wait for the answers to come. Part of that pursuance are these journals, where I can begin to document so many of the doubts and fears that not only make up too much of who I am, but from what I have observed, too much of what too many people are. I want to lead by example. Confront the moments where my ego is battling me for domination. And when I can’t battle back, those moments that I know we all go through, I write. I write and I come back and read and begin to understand. So when it comes again I can remember that not only have I been here before but I have observed everything that was here with me, and I can choose to either remove them, adjust them, or just ignore them. I am TRYING. And it seems that when I try this hard, people worry about me, I guess, because no one seems to try that hard unless they are close to breaking. Well I’m not as close as you think I am but I believe we all are a lot closer than we think. So I prepare and I practice. I am changing my mind and that is not an easy feat. I don’t take the task lightly. I thank you SO MUCH for your concern. I won’t say don’t worry about me because the company helps. But I don’t deserve it more than anyone else. Whether they express it or not, so many of the people close to you (you included) are struggling through as well, and I hope we remember to express that care onto them and as well as ourselves.