I used to sit for hours lost in my own universe just drawing, it could be anything, in the 90s it used to be army and warfare, in first decade of 2000 it was Pokemon, Dragon Ball Z, Digimon, Bey Blade and Prince of Persia. I used to sit for hours with my G.I. Joe toys fabricating a story every day when my age was still in single digits. I was always lost in my own world imagining a more interesting life. I used to spend hours everyday playing video games to the point where parents started to say that I'm addicted to it. Won't say that they were wrong, actually looking back that's probably the only idea that I would agree on with my parents. I was addicted, what I do not agree with is that they said it was a bad thing. I was addicted to the challenges that video games offered me everyday, I was addicted to the way of story telling through video games, I was addicted to the thrill of winning after agony of losing 50 times. I used to admire the artists who put there hard work and creativity to make this game. It was amazing, the cut scenes, the perfect combination of it with proper music, the dialogue delivery, all of it was pure art. I was addicted to video games but that's how I am or I think that's how any kid is. A human being can do an activity that he or she enjoys for infinite amount of time but people call it addiction. Somehow we are supposed to sit down and study for two hours about some shit we don't give a fuck about but if we do something that we enjoy for 3 hours straight with us feeling like not even an hour has passed by, we are addicts. Being addicted is not bad, it is a way of living life with passion. It is being lost in other dimension, it is experiencing the true beauty of our consciousness. That's where art is produced, when a man truly experiences the depth of his thoughts, when humans just let's go to their imagination and let it do it's magic, when he surrenders himself to his imaginations and allows himself to enter into this infinite universe without caring about the what the world says regarding what we need to do to have a "successful" life. But this capability of being lost is not something that only few of us have, it's something that we all truly possess, the only difference is some of us is good at not giving a fuck about what others say. It wasn't easy though as I was naturally inclined towards art and did not had genetics of 7 foot tall football athlete so I turned out to be a skinny kid and because I was just not interested in studies, I turned out to be a less than average student in school. Both of which are just a recipe for bullying. Some kids were kind enough to just neglect me, others were asshole enough to pick on me whenever teachers were not around. When teachers were around, there was no need for bullies as they themselves did the job. Teachers throughout my life has been frustrated pricks who somehow had to take it out on weak kids. None of them ever tried to lift me up but did the job of demotivating me by saying you'll not amount to anything, you are not good at studies, your had writing is poor, your spoken English is poor, making fun of me and taking their hands on me in front of the class. So here I was 7 years old alone in the lunch break with no friends, a slapped cheek and and a 4/20 unit test result that I'm afraid of showing to my parents.
Was deeply fascinated by martial arts movies mainly because I saw skinny Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan whooping asses of 20 men and looked cool while they did it. And I said I can do it. Here's the thing that was good about me, if I saw even a slightest possibility of it helping me, I would do it. No matter how much of a fantasy it is, no matter if others don't think it's possible. I was always stupid enough to believe that it is possible in real life and was stubborn enough to make it happen. Yes sir I was stubborn as it gets. Don't think that because I was a skinny kid I used to bend in front of any one, if you pick on me I'll fight back, I was a small kid with big ego. That was a reason why I used to get beat up so regularly and I did not had any friends, because I would not lick ass of a big kid so that he accepts me as his minion, I would rather stay alone with a bloody nose. So when I was 8, I decided to eliminate my physical weakness with skill of fighting or so I thought. I joined Karate classes but only to get beat up in a legal manner in front of an audience with my sensei saying you lose. No body taught me any fighting techniques, they just expected me to learn by watching the crowd and I was a slow learner anyways. So I learned nothing new, the system remained the same big guys were beating the smaller guys, it was just young monkeys fighting with their raw strength, no martial arts was going on. I still won some tournaments using some raw spirit and talent towards fighting but I was not learning anything new so I left it after 2 years. I left it only to find that I'm turning into a pussy, as I started to be inclined towards making friends that would back me up when time comes but I understood pretty quick that the week doesn't get any friends. It depends on your capability to create value to others, it is the world of give and take. If you are valuable to others stick with you and world gives it a polite name of friendship. So I decided to get back at it when I was 12 as I saw no other option but this time I did it properly.
My journey with martial arts will be covered in the next Blog (An Artist who became a Scientist: Part-2).
See you There.
