Post by The Gangsta on Feb 2, 2017 23:08:44 GMT -5
Ante Whitner RP
"Franchise Player"
“I retreated and lay down happy to have found a shelter, however miserable, from the inclemency of the season, and still more from the barbarity of man.”
A beautiful line, ripped straight out of Mary Shelley’s classic Frankenstein novel. Tragedy, grief, and death all plagued Shelley’s life from the moment she was born in the household of a historic feminist. The aspects of life we drown ourselves over fueled Shelley’s fire, her ambition to think deeper into the meaning of our existence. Existentialist thought, essentially.
The binge on existentialist text and theory has overwhelmed me since my victory at SuperBrawl. Why? Because we associate the innate desires we humans have for precious and wealthy material with our success and our ambitious motivations, the root of my downfall nearly two years ago. And looking into this downfall could help me change for the reign that lies ahead of me.
Each existentialist source, from Romantic poetry to Victorian literature, expresses this quality in one way or another. Rather than relying on myself to search in their intrinsic motifs, I’ve relied on the text themselves and the insight they can provide on who I am and how I could change, for the better at least. Inadvertently, I found the line from Shelley’s Frankenstein and I related it to who I am.
Running for all my life, scouring for nothing but shelter. Seeing time pass by in the flimsy flower petals of yesterday and through the crumpled up newspapers of tomorrow, forever searching for today. With an invisible fear only driving me forward, I find content and happiness in the small confines of a newly found sh*tty New York apartment.
But, what happens when we all run for long distances over long durations of time? Fatigue, aches, and swelling, not from the activity itself, but from the limits that inhibit us as humans. There is only so far one can go before collapsing and dying alone on some distant concrete sidewalk. This fatigue is what makes me miserable; running from all the transgressors and people who have wronged me my entire life.
I’ve run from the alcoholic terrors of fatherhood, the inescapable grasps of a hypocritical friend, and most importantly, the downfall of my very own existence. The “inclemency of the season” has been a life-long roller coaster, instead where every loop or hill could potentially lead to the end. The destruction and barbarity of my peers has driven me on this endless course of pain and suffering, where running is the only option.
Now, engrossed in the pearlescent gaze of a black briefcase, I ask myself the make-or-break question: why keep running? Why keep running from the barbaric nature of humanity? Why not find the present day and try my best in it?
My answer to all three of those questions: Stopping is even more painful. Our instinctual fear of death is inevitable, but the pondering and thinking about the ways we could die never stop. We ask ourselves which way of dying seems the most morbid or violent, yet we never stumble upon the fact that our very lives conclude after that moment.
Stopping and taking a water break from all this running leaves you even more vulnerable, which came in the form of my National Title loss. When you think the exercise you have gotten is enough, you’re brain-dead and delusional, perfect timing for a predator lurking around the corner. The pain and suffering you’ve been running from suddenly swallows you whole.
All of the acid trips and popped pills can’t even explain that. My own sanity and my own self-awareness can however. I’ve learned what it means to live in the moment of becoming the champion, I’ve learned what cooperation could set an example for. Like Shelley, we are endlessly running and learning the natures of our existences through experience and witnessing change. Stopping is no option, unless we desire to wallow in our puddles of maroon.
I’ve learned, I’ve seen, and I’ve been running. Michael Kyzer, Josh Dean, David Brennan, Drakz, Joe Bishop, Philip Schneider, and even Samael Ahriman can never stop me. Knock me down and I’m ready, willing, and able to get up on my own two feet.
I may not be the ugly creature Frankenstein created, but I am the very essence of his fictitious spirit of learning through experience and learning what humanity truly means.
I can be called a rolling freight train, a jet-liner airplane, and an incredible Hulk. But, I am still Ante Whitner, as much as I always have been.
I’ve been running since day one and not a single soul will ever stop me. Ever.
For you, Joshua Dean, you haven’t been running; you're a family man. If anything, you're running for your family, loving and caring for them like the admirable and respectable father you truly are. You have heart, you have sympathy, and you've always had them.
The two of those concepts are brand new to me, as if you’re teaching a foreign student to speak English for the first time. It is unfamiliar, challenging, and frustrating when the man standing right in front of you is beyond familiar with it because of his natural good will. I never had a good will nor a bad one.
I was always some crayon, distant in the giant crayon box, the one color no one ever wanted. I was broken, the wrapping peeling off, and the color was fading away. But, broken crayons still draw. Broken crayons can still create masterpieces, a la my SuperBrawl victory.
You’re not a broken crayon Josh, you know that. You’re whole, you’re complete, looking for the last puzzle piece to create your perfect life. I’ve been wanting a perfect life since I could ever desire for anything. It’s been on my Christmas wishlist and my birthday wishlist as long as I can remember, written in a broken crayon I dared not to exclude.
I’m not someone who is loved, Josh. I’m an idea, a concept, a state of mind. A blood diamond in the rough, a single strand of hay in a needle stack. In time, I hope god forbid someone will recognize that, especially a man like you.
You know where to find me, as this is another hotly contested bout between us. We’ve fought no holds barred, for an opportunity, and now we find ourselves here again, fighting for an opportunity. We’re opportunists, franchise men. This match is more of who is the franchise than who will amass the most points in a flimsy tournament.
I am focused on solely you, not the title nor the other opponents ahead of me. You’re Josh Dean, the Franchise. I’m Ante Whitner, the Franchise. There can only be one franchise, you know that. I could brag and call myself a champion already all I want.
But, like my friend Ben had said before, “You can light a cig, strum a guitar, and call yourself Kurt Cobain, but you can’t take a briefcase and call yourself a champion”. It is something earned in due time, something only a concept could explain. I am that concept, I am that state of mind.
I am that Franchise.
See the world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wildflower, Josh. Hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour. Become a God to them and prove who's the real Franchise.
I’ll see you St. Louis, my friend.
"Franchise Player"
“I retreated and lay down happy to have found a shelter, however miserable, from the inclemency of the season, and still more from the barbarity of man.”
A beautiful line, ripped straight out of Mary Shelley’s classic Frankenstein novel. Tragedy, grief, and death all plagued Shelley’s life from the moment she was born in the household of a historic feminist. The aspects of life we drown ourselves over fueled Shelley’s fire, her ambition to think deeper into the meaning of our existence. Existentialist thought, essentially.
The binge on existentialist text and theory has overwhelmed me since my victory at SuperBrawl. Why? Because we associate the innate desires we humans have for precious and wealthy material with our success and our ambitious motivations, the root of my downfall nearly two years ago. And looking into this downfall could help me change for the reign that lies ahead of me.
Each existentialist source, from Romantic poetry to Victorian literature, expresses this quality in one way or another. Rather than relying on myself to search in their intrinsic motifs, I’ve relied on the text themselves and the insight they can provide on who I am and how I could change, for the better at least. Inadvertently, I found the line from Shelley’s Frankenstein and I related it to who I am.
Running for all my life, scouring for nothing but shelter. Seeing time pass by in the flimsy flower petals of yesterday and through the crumpled up newspapers of tomorrow, forever searching for today. With an invisible fear only driving me forward, I find content and happiness in the small confines of a newly found sh*tty New York apartment.
But, what happens when we all run for long distances over long durations of time? Fatigue, aches, and swelling, not from the activity itself, but from the limits that inhibit us as humans. There is only so far one can go before collapsing and dying alone on some distant concrete sidewalk. This fatigue is what makes me miserable; running from all the transgressors and people who have wronged me my entire life.
I’ve run from the alcoholic terrors of fatherhood, the inescapable grasps of a hypocritical friend, and most importantly, the downfall of my very own existence. The “inclemency of the season” has been a life-long roller coaster, instead where every loop or hill could potentially lead to the end. The destruction and barbarity of my peers has driven me on this endless course of pain and suffering, where running is the only option.
Now, engrossed in the pearlescent gaze of a black briefcase, I ask myself the make-or-break question: why keep running? Why keep running from the barbaric nature of humanity? Why not find the present day and try my best in it?
My answer to all three of those questions: Stopping is even more painful. Our instinctual fear of death is inevitable, but the pondering and thinking about the ways we could die never stop. We ask ourselves which way of dying seems the most morbid or violent, yet we never stumble upon the fact that our very lives conclude after that moment.
Stopping and taking a water break from all this running leaves you even more vulnerable, which came in the form of my National Title loss. When you think the exercise you have gotten is enough, you’re brain-dead and delusional, perfect timing for a predator lurking around the corner. The pain and suffering you’ve been running from suddenly swallows you whole.
All of the acid trips and popped pills can’t even explain that. My own sanity and my own self-awareness can however. I’ve learned what it means to live in the moment of becoming the champion, I’ve learned what cooperation could set an example for. Like Shelley, we are endlessly running and learning the natures of our existences through experience and witnessing change. Stopping is no option, unless we desire to wallow in our puddles of maroon.
I’ve learned, I’ve seen, and I’ve been running. Michael Kyzer, Josh Dean, David Brennan, Drakz, Joe Bishop, Philip Schneider, and even Samael Ahriman can never stop me. Knock me down and I’m ready, willing, and able to get up on my own two feet.
I may not be the ugly creature Frankenstein created, but I am the very essence of his fictitious spirit of learning through experience and learning what humanity truly means.
I can be called a rolling freight train, a jet-liner airplane, and an incredible Hulk. But, I am still Ante Whitner, as much as I always have been.
I’ve been running since day one and not a single soul will ever stop me. Ever.
For you, Joshua Dean, you haven’t been running; you're a family man. If anything, you're running for your family, loving and caring for them like the admirable and respectable father you truly are. You have heart, you have sympathy, and you've always had them.
The two of those concepts are brand new to me, as if you’re teaching a foreign student to speak English for the first time. It is unfamiliar, challenging, and frustrating when the man standing right in front of you is beyond familiar with it because of his natural good will. I never had a good will nor a bad one.
I was always some crayon, distant in the giant crayon box, the one color no one ever wanted. I was broken, the wrapping peeling off, and the color was fading away. But, broken crayons still draw. Broken crayons can still create masterpieces, a la my SuperBrawl victory.
You’re not a broken crayon Josh, you know that. You’re whole, you’re complete, looking for the last puzzle piece to create your perfect life. I’ve been wanting a perfect life since I could ever desire for anything. It’s been on my Christmas wishlist and my birthday wishlist as long as I can remember, written in a broken crayon I dared not to exclude.
I’m not someone who is loved, Josh. I’m an idea, a concept, a state of mind. A blood diamond in the rough, a single strand of hay in a needle stack. In time, I hope god forbid someone will recognize that, especially a man like you.
You know where to find me, as this is another hotly contested bout between us. We’ve fought no holds barred, for an opportunity, and now we find ourselves here again, fighting for an opportunity. We’re opportunists, franchise men. This match is more of who is the franchise than who will amass the most points in a flimsy tournament.
I am focused on solely you, not the title nor the other opponents ahead of me. You’re Josh Dean, the Franchise. I’m Ante Whitner, the Franchise. There can only be one franchise, you know that. I could brag and call myself a champion already all I want.
But, like my friend Ben had said before, “You can light a cig, strum a guitar, and call yourself Kurt Cobain, but you can’t take a briefcase and call yourself a champion”. It is something earned in due time, something only a concept could explain. I am that concept, I am that state of mind.
I am that Franchise.
See the world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wildflower, Josh. Hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour. Become a God to them and prove who's the real Franchise.
I’ll see you St. Louis, my friend.
