Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are. — John Wooden

It takes many good deeds to build a reputation, but only one bad one to lose it. — Benjamin Franklin

So I had this thing all queued up about fear that I like a lot, but something happened and I wrote this instead. Maybe I will still post the fear thing, maybe not. Writing has been pretty therapeutic for me lately, so this will be an interesting experiment in outwardly publishing my thoughts in a more immediate manner.

I spent part of the morning meeting with a Lower East Side official about creating a dog park in the neighborhood. It’s sorely needed, and I think dog runs in NYC are a centripetal force in their communities. Dog owners are intimately connected to their neighborhoods. This is partially due to conversations with others while walking around, partially from the network of other dog owners/lovers, and partially from walking around the neighborhood so damn much.

Katie, the person I was meeting with, informed me it would likely take about a year to get to a functioning dog park. We both conceive it behind the old bathrooms on Allen st (pictured in my profile banner).

I am down with this.

I think its a good thing. I think it would help the community. It is something I would personally like to be a part of. I also, selfishly, see it as something that could be a personal legacy. A piece of my reputation in the neighborhood.

You see recently, like the past two years, I’ve been thinking a ton about my personal reputation. Traditionally, it has not been great. This notion has been reiterated to me frequently when someone I met recently will meet someone who ‘knows me.’ It happened last week actually, I imagine it starts with a smirk… but maybe that’s in my head.

Before two years ago, I could have given two shits outwardly about anything. Perhaps I partially wanted that to be my reputation, that I did not give two shits. I knew I was smart, so I had no problem doing poorly in school. I didn’t care about long term effects because I thought I was clever enough to figure it out when I did graduate. I can remember attempting to rationalize this stance in defense of plenty of poor performances.

I have done some awful things in my life, and I have done some good. My life is a sea of extremes. I think many people don’t live like this. I thrive in chaos. People that know me intimately know the truth behind my character missteps: I have a tendency to intentionally fuck things up when they become good in my life. It is masochistic. I don’t think I deserve anything good. I don’t know what to do when chaos settles.

I certainly have/had a reputation for being crazy. I think there were many times in my life where you could’ve probably dared me to do just about anything, if I didn’t take it upon myself first. Donuts in cars, jumping out of windows, climbing on roofs, getting in fights, cliff jumping, putting myself in precarious situations… generally just dumb stuff. I can’t think of many instances when a younger Nick said no. Some weird badge of not caring about myself. Some preconceived notion on the importance of being a badass. I doubt I ever achieved that given the public foolishness and crying that accompanied much of this behavior.

This all sucked. I treated people poorly. I hurt people. I made lots of mistakes. I also learned a lot, but at what expense?

I hope there are some people that recognize moments where I strived to help. Moments where I did some good, maybe not though. I definitely wasn’t an immature asshole all the time. Just sometimes, just in extremes. I know I would do anything for my friends, even if my previous actions alienated me from some of them.

I get it man, no one wants to be around someone acting the way I use to.

At the end of the day, thats where acting like that brought me… to feeling very alone. Lots of lonely nights when you’re the only one awake staring at the ceiling smoking cigarettes…. but the masochist in me wanted that. It felt refreshing. It felt.

I am a lonely kid. I think isolation has always been a thing for me. I spent a lot of nights alone in high school, and as much as it may not seem like it, I have to actively avoid isolating. The moments when I know my friends are together without me, I am all like ‘Fuck… Everyone hates me.’

Lots of personal tribulations, many of which I chose to internalize and not share, even with my closest friends, reinforced the loneliness. The difference. ‘I am different’. I would happily share those scars with girls to win affection or on college applications to gain admittance… but never share in the light of day. I would never share for fear of losing. Losing whatever feeling of normalcy my pack provided. I can laugh off anything to your face. I can hold back tears when someone close to me nearly dies. Those things change when I am alone. The truth is everyone has problems. Everyone has demons.

This feeling of overwhelming sadness. It’s a hole. I have tried to fill it with tons of things, not that many helped. Zulu did though. We learned to take care of each other in a way.

Flash forward, and I have made serious inroads on becoming a better person. I used to attack my underbrush of problems with a weedwacker of psychiatrists and medicine, both prescribed by myself and others. These are short-term fixes that simply lead to resurgence for me. Weedwackers can’t even cut through the big bushes. They suck.

One day it hit me, I need to change. I need to change, or I will go to a worse place. One that I may not be able to come back from.

So I lit that motherfucker on fire. Thats how you get rid of a whole forest. It’s also how you foster new growth in a forest that’s dead.

I am happy now… at least most of the time. And when I am sad, I am actually sad.