In many ways, we were both starting over, together. My brother and I didn’t have much in the basement, but what we did have, we appreciated. A small TV. A DVD player. Scarface, Land Of The Lost, and Smack URL DVDs. We played them over and over on repeat, which would result in the memorization of certain scenes, using any opportunity in public to act out. It seemed insignificant at the time but having less felt like having more if you know what to do with it. This ideology would be one that I embrace tremendously over my career. I used whatever inspiration I could draw from a minimalistic lifestyle, and harnessed it to entertain those around me. I obsessively watched videos on my phone and at work of people more well-off, but less entertaining than I was. I started to see how pressure makes diamonds, and began to appreciate the hardship. Blunt after blunt. Beer after beer. Every day and every night. It was molding me in real time, and I became aware of it. In realizing I was in the land of the lost, I had somehow found myself again. And so I continued forward, waiting for the universe to guide my next step.
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