The Warrior Stands Alone

Steve Vai - For the Love of God


Someone sent this to me awhile ago (thank you Metanoia), seeing more in me than I could see in myself. We never know what a kind word or deed will mean to another, or help another become. I liked it so much that I put it on my MySpace profile page, and use it to wake myself up many, many mornings.

I see so much of myself in it now, and as I see the clips of hatred and destruction, see why I fight so hard against it. (You'll want to stop the ipod player before playing the video if you're on MySpace).


For the past few years I've gone to bed with an image of a warrior standing at the foot of a mountain, looking down at the villagers in their houses, safe and protected. The battle has been worth it, but expensive. He's too tired to even hold his sword up anymore. He hangs onto the handle while the tip of the blade rests on the ground.

The night rain comes and as he lifts his face to the sky the blood washes off of his body and down the sword. If it's been a good day, he hasn't suffered any wounds to his heart, and there's no internal bleeding.

He looks back at the village, and can hear the happy laughter of families. He is happy for them, but knows family isn't meant for him. Everything he loves has been taken away.....and he is alone, and won't allow anyone else to come in. Life will just take that away too.

This is his fate, and as cruel as it is, he drags himself to his cave where he knows in a few hours he'll rise to do battle again. He is the warrior standing alone.

I only share it now having the courage to admit my deepest fears and weaknesses, and because it is beginning to change. I'm not feeling so alone in the world anymore, so different and strange....and beginning to trust again....choosing to start hoping that what I love won't continue to be taken away...choosing to believe that some people mean the wonderful things they say....using it to give me strength and energy to go on.

I broke my yardstick again yesterday in class. Last year I broke three different ones and was told this year I was only allowed to have one. I broke my one-and-only earlier this year after being told very clearly I would lose my job if I went to a home where abuse was going on.

Yesterday, after 6 months of incredible growth, some of us were still being defeated by the temptation to take short cuts, be dishonest about work being done, and our best efforts not allowing us to overcome what was stopping us.

When something is holding us back, we stop holding back....and instead explode! We refuse to allow what's defeating us by BECOMING MORE. Not someday, not tomorrow. TODAY! RIGHT NOW!

As a teacher you have a very small amount of time to make a real difference and create great growth in any single student.

If you're a teacher determined to do it with every student sent through your door....it is ridiculously impossible.

We all do foolish things. I might as well be a fool about something this important, and be the biggest fool I know about it.

And when we find ourselves defeated, we find that something inside of us that will cause up to rise up and defeat what's defeating us.

All I know is I said something about EVERYONE not succeeding not being acceptable, and bellowing out, "I HAND YOU MY SPIRIT! TAKE IT! IT IS FIRE! BURN YOUR DEMONS TO THE GROUND!

And then hearing a "CRACK" as the yardstick splintered against my thigh.

We can't take our possessions with us to the grave. Sometimes we forget we all possess great energy, great strength and great love.

All of it should be given away to this world while we're here in it.

Give it all away.

I got a message from someone telling me their heart smiled from something I had written. I responded with:

As your heart smiles my heart is touched. As my heart is touched I realize why I give so much. Life is precious. Each breath. Each Day. We live to give. To give it all away.

And when that last day comes for us, we will smile, because our hearts were touched.

And when you give your heart to someone and they go away, they take a part of you, and your heart with them.

Shaquan has been gone since January 8th, and it's just been too sad for me to even mention it. I actually brought my guitar in for him, after observing how he had closed his eyes in music class and was moving his hands to the music.

I didn't know how I would use it to teach him, but I knew it was a way to reach him.

And after years of failure, he began to succeed, at the "A+" level. He actually brought tears to my eyes.

When I asked him how he did it, he said he had remembered something I had tried with him earlier in the year, and tried one more time studying that way at home.

He had tried one more time. He believed he could succeed, in spite of massive failure, one more time.

He had become a fighter. He had become ALIVE!

And when I asked him what he wanted as a reward....I'm having a hard time writing this.....the stupid Seal song, "If I Could" is playing on my ipod thing.....

.....He said he wanted me. He wanted me as his teacher as his reward

..........He already had me as a teacher. And just the day before his amazing accomplishment he had given up, and I threw down the biggest challenge of his life, making him cry in frustration.

Yet he still appreciated me so much, and wasn't taking me for granted or using me. And now he was...is...making me cry.

He called me the other day to say hello.

Children are beautiful. I think when we return to being children; good, honest, real....we become better and more beautiful as adults.

The last thing I said to him was that wherever he was going, he was no longer in school to "get good grades". He had now become someone taking charge of his own life. I was still his teacher and I wanted him to look at every assignment as a chance to face every fear, every doubt and think deeper than ever to think through every problem until he solved it.

This would make him very valuable in the world he would graduate into, and in charge of his own destiny. He was to use school to change his life, and make sure his children didn't have to move from a home they had found. His mother had tried and failed. His father had failed him.

Failure is part of life. So is overcoming it. He, Shaquan, was not going to continue the cycle. He was going to change his world and those in it.

The other guy in the picture, Chad, is another incredible story-in-the-making. He actually got hit by a car riding to school on his bike one day, and STILL wanted to come to school, and did!

Do you and I DO the things we say we WANT to do....Especially after being knocked to the ground by life?!?

He has been given more days to do what he says he wants to do...and IS doing them.

Every day more of his genius is unlocked, and I'm telling you....it IS genius.

The things he could do with his intelligence....the things he WILL do.

The things we all could do with ours...the things we WILL do.

Not alone...but standing, and maybe even dancing.....together