Photo: Stacy Lanyon
It all started with my mom
who said, “Mesiah you’re in New York. You gotta go down there. You gotta check
it out,” but I had just gotten a job, and I was in school, and I was so busy.
Then I was like, “I gotta go.” I went down there with a really dear friend of mine who later became my tentmate because once we got there, we didn’t leave. My dad came with us the first day. I was like, “Alright
dad, I’ll see you later. I’m staying over at my friend’s house,” and I just slept
under a tree with nothing but a jacket.
I went on October 8th. I got there at night after a long day of interning, and it was bumpin’. It was crackin’. It was like a party. There was food, and everyone had these huge smiles on their face. You could just see everyone getting to know each other. I went straight to the dance circle near the drum circle and danced for like five hours until my whole body was wet. It was perfect. It was hot outside even though it was cold.
It’s important to take a stand for the things you believe in with other people who value their beliefs to that level. It’s important to communicate and to share and to grow as a group. When you’re with a large group of people and you go through days of disagreements and days of extreme agreements, you learn a lot. You learn a lot about yourself, and you learn a lot about everyone. It’s really interesting to be an individual but be so interconnected with every single other person on earth. It’s important to realize that every day and keep it in mind because it takes you far, just thinking, “I’m moving with every star, every planet, every person, every animal, every tree.” We’re all growing at the same time.
A lot of people in the world right now aren’t self-motivated or self-inspired. People all like, “I can’t do anything for myself. I need all of these things to make me happy," and in reality, all of those things are so not the things that make you happy. I just think that the world is really detached from the earth. We need a change of priorities. A lot of people are about some item instead of about their heart, and it’s kind of sad. Then, at the same time, it’s really powerful because there are a whole bunch of kids that are super about their hearts and everyday live from their heart. I have a lot of faith in the youth. I think that the world doesn’t know what’s coming because these little kids are going to do something that they’ve never seen done before. It’s important for people to start thinking about what really matters.
I spend a lot of time with my siblings, especially in recent months, just sharing some of the things I’m learning with them, just hearing their thoughts, and it’s a lot easier to explain things that I learn to kids than it is to some adults that have a really closed mind. Some older people I try and talk to are like, “No, that’s not the way it is.” These kids are like, “Duh, that’s totally it.” Every time I talk to my ten-year-old brother about something, he’s like, “I just don’t understand how anyone is letting that just be.” He’s like, “I don’t understand. Jails don’t make any sense. Why do you send people somewhere and leave them all locked up together? No progress. Just sitting.” I’m like, “Yeah, exactly, you know.” He talks about it, and I know that he processes it in his brain in a different way.
It’s important for people to realize that it’s not okay to live in a tunnel. You have to have what I like to call subway vision. In New York, you can get all over the city on different trains. You don’t just take the same train everywhere. You take different trains. You have to keep your mind like that, with several tunnels, different trains that go to all of these different places, and they all meet at certain areas. You have to think of the world like that. I think that the kids are going to start using subway vision, super connected and open, willing to not say no so quickly, instead saying “I’m open to exploring that tunnel with you. I’ve never been down it.” There’s too much fear in the world right now. Everyone is a stranger.
I went on October 8th. I got there at night after a long day of interning, and it was bumpin’. It was crackin’. It was like a party. There was food, and everyone had these huge smiles on their face. You could just see everyone getting to know each other. I went straight to the dance circle near the drum circle and danced for like five hours until my whole body was wet. It was perfect. It was hot outside even though it was cold.
It’s important to take a stand for the things you believe in with other people who value their beliefs to that level. It’s important to communicate and to share and to grow as a group. When you’re with a large group of people and you go through days of disagreements and days of extreme agreements, you learn a lot. You learn a lot about yourself, and you learn a lot about everyone. It’s really interesting to be an individual but be so interconnected with every single other person on earth. It’s important to realize that every day and keep it in mind because it takes you far, just thinking, “I’m moving with every star, every planet, every person, every animal, every tree.” We’re all growing at the same time.
A lot of people in the world right now aren’t self-motivated or self-inspired. People all like, “I can’t do anything for myself. I need all of these things to make me happy," and in reality, all of those things are so not the things that make you happy. I just think that the world is really detached from the earth. We need a change of priorities. A lot of people are about some item instead of about their heart, and it’s kind of sad. Then, at the same time, it’s really powerful because there are a whole bunch of kids that are super about their hearts and everyday live from their heart. I have a lot of faith in the youth. I think that the world doesn’t know what’s coming because these little kids are going to do something that they’ve never seen done before. It’s important for people to start thinking about what really matters.
I spend a lot of time with my siblings, especially in recent months, just sharing some of the things I’m learning with them, just hearing their thoughts, and it’s a lot easier to explain things that I learn to kids than it is to some adults that have a really closed mind. Some older people I try and talk to are like, “No, that’s not the way it is.” These kids are like, “Duh, that’s totally it.” Every time I talk to my ten-year-old brother about something, he’s like, “I just don’t understand how anyone is letting that just be.” He’s like, “I don’t understand. Jails don’t make any sense. Why do you send people somewhere and leave them all locked up together? No progress. Just sitting.” I’m like, “Yeah, exactly, you know.” He talks about it, and I know that he processes it in his brain in a different way.
It’s important for people to realize that it’s not okay to live in a tunnel. You have to have what I like to call subway vision. In New York, you can get all over the city on different trains. You don’t just take the same train everywhere. You take different trains. You have to keep your mind like that, with several tunnels, different trains that go to all of these different places, and they all meet at certain areas. You have to think of the world like that. I think that the kids are going to start using subway vision, super connected and open, willing to not say no so quickly, instead saying “I’m open to exploring that tunnel with you. I’ve never been down it.” There’s too much fear in the world right now. Everyone is a stranger.
I know that the world will become more unified, and people will realize that their kid is every kid, where we don’t live in the United States or another nation. We live on a planet together. It takes less than one day to get anywhere. Everyone is really close. People need to stop pretending that it’s so far. I see a world where people can hold hands all the way around.
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/