#2.

You have to start at the bottom to get to the top.

First & foremost, happy 20th birthday to me. 

Not nearly excited as I feel I should be -- but hopefully that will change soon enough. 

About a week ago, the "high low life" had a completely different meaning than it does for me today. In fact, about a week ago -- everything was completely different. I was living this life that I glorified corruption in every way possible. I had gotten caught up w. what I thought was going to bring me this permanent happiness, which turned out to bring me the complete opposite. When I used to tell people about this whole "high low life" scheme I was coming up w. I never seemed to have a solid answer to what exactly it meant. It once upon a time could have meant it was for the 'potheads' that stayed high, but because of their marijuana use they were considered to be the 'low lives' of society. And for a time, I thought that was acceptable -- acceptable because not only I did it, but my friends did it too, so who out there could possibly judge us? If anything, I considered us to be those "cool kids", parents warned their children about. Then I realized, I didn't want to be that blunt about it -- ha, no pun intended -- because I did want this to be this big movement that everyone would catch onto with absolutely no purposed behind it whatsoever. Not a good idea. I felt I needed to attract those that didn't smoke, that were just 'normal' people. So, I moved onto the the "high low life" representing a society of people that are considered 'nobodys' in life being able to live this 'high' extravagant lifestyle that celebrities do. Eh.

But still, something was missing.

For a while, I was just stuck w. this title w. absolutely no meaning behind it, trying to give it some type of meaning just so I could use it for popularity over the internet. Clearly, I watched too many VH1 internet celeb shows. It wasn't until the weekend that just passed that everything became clear to me. So, what does it mean to really live the "high low life"? Well its simple, you have to start from the bottom (low) to reach the top (high). 

As I explained it to Los around 3AM this morning, you can't build anything until you have a solid foundation -- something a week ago we lacked for months on end. I went as far as comparing it to the story of the three little pigs. A week ago, we made a house of straw -- not thinking about the future, only building for today, definitely something that wasn't guaranteed to last us at all -- something a lot of people do; a search for this temporary high that makes no difference in the long run. But after all, we all know what happen to the pig w. the straw house. His shit was the first to go ASAP. But, instead of running to the next pigs house & freeloading off of his temporary shelter, that isn't that much stronger -- we are staying where we are. Running gets you no where, at the end of the day, we're the ones that made this mess, so we have to clean it up -- you know, the responsible thing to do. But unlike those three little pigs, we have friends. Friends that were willing to give up their last to help us rebuild a foundation from scrap, which at the end of the day is going to be stronger than ever. But first thing first, we have to pick up our mess -- pick up all the straw before we can move forward & lay the bricks down. 

The "high low life" is a representation of struggle -- struggle that everyone goes through, whether they want to admit it or not. Life is full of highs and lows. But the constant mistake that people tend to do, is aim for the highest of high without setting a solid foundation. You have to start from the lowest of low to get to the highest of high. Clearly, last weekend marked our lowest of low period & from here, I believe we can only continue to move in one direction. Up. This is our second first chance.. 

So, I guess this was the introduction I was once looking for. 

1:44PM.