"Imagine that you are standing in the center of a clock. Every hour is a value/priority to which your center/core chooses to point."

There are New Year’s Day resolutions. And then there are daily epiphanies.

You cannot get time back twice. Yet investments in time are long-lasting. 

There ARE enough seconds in the minute, minutes in the hour, hours in the day, days in the week, weeks in the month, and months in the year. You can consciously calculate them. Steady and strategic win the balancing act race.

After viewing a gratitude collage that I created, someone asked me, “What are the keys to living a balanced life?” When I looked at the pictures in my collage, I realized that each picture represented a core value. And God’s omnipotence centered all of those values. 

Imagine that you are standing in the center of a clock. Every hour is a value/priority to which your center/core chooses to point. Each value feeds and motivates another value. Some values even overlap and complement each other. 

Author Kyna Powell's Butterfly Clock

Visualize the Clock

The Center. Commit to your faith. Establish a spiritual relationship with God. Allow your moral conscience compass to guide you. Deter negative energy and give/receive positive vibes. Treat others with love, dignity, honesty, and respect. Pray. Meditate. Read the Word. Be willing to learn, let go, and evolve. Speak words that heal instead of hurt. Listen. Repent. Forgive. Restore. Encourage. Sacrifice. Obey boundaries. Set standards. Devote yourself to discipline. Walk what you talk. Bear and share fruit. 

Hour 1. Stewardship. Balance and manage your priorities. Deny your pleasures so that your priorities can afford you better ones. Create and adhere to schedules and budgets. Set milestones. If remembering dates is not your forte, create a calendar and update it cyclically. Avoid over-committing to anything; else, you will rob one or more of your responsibilities of the attention they deserve. Consider others’ time in conjunction with yours when you are working on common goals. Set accountability boundaries; you cannot reprimand what you enable. Let solutions motivate you instead of problems overcome you. Make a to-do list and pace yourself with completing the list instead of waiting until the last minute to overwhelm yourself with completing all of its items. Your juggling act will turn into task mastery.

Hour 2. Self-care. Know when and to what and whom you say, "Yes" and "No." Do what you can. You will run yourself ragged trying to do what you can’t. Know the difference between being utilized and used; be kind without being blind. Respect yourself. Be aware of your surroundings and protect yourself.  Consistently schedule "me" time to be alone with your thoughts, relax, and participate in activities that fulfill you. Be good to yourself so that you can be a blessing to others.

Hour 3. Family.   Build upon the foundation that you are a team, unit, and a blood line or name. Nurture each other. Be present and supportive, but also expect the same in return. Eat meals, pray, and communicate together. Participate in team-building activities such as chores or sports. If you have a spouse or children, do not lose yourself in those relationships. You are also valuable, important, and have the right to dream and live as an individual. Do not neglect your kids for your spouse or vice versa; if you do, one of the relationships will suffer.  

Hour 4. Friends. Build positive and healthy platonic relationships. Continue being a friend and having friends once you become a spouse and/or parent. How you interact with and learn with/from others helps you become a better person, partner, and parent. Get to know people of different ages, races, and cultures. By doing this, you emerge from the conventional box and learn the world and diverse ways of living and thinking. Perspectives and perceptions are reality. Stay in touch! Do not wait for someone to plan an official reunion. You may not live on the same blocks, attend the same schools, or work in the same departments any more. But you can still commit to spending quality time together. Plan outings or innings with your home boys and home girls. Show up! Don’t become a habitual cancellation artist. Go to movies, restaurants, and sporting or arts events. Form teams to support causes in which you believe. Take girls’ trips and guys’ retreats. Check on each other; everyone is not always OK! Support each other’s families, dreams, and businesses. Be happy for each other’s successes and supportive during challenges; you are each other’s cheerleaders. Be swift to communicate and heal; do not let misunderstandings fester.  Solid friendships are forever, if nurtured.

"Plan outings or innings with your home boys and home girls. Show up! Don’t become a habitual cancellation artist"

Hour 5. Work. Find purpose in your profession. Know your business’ mission and vision and how your time, skills, and talent contribute to them. Continuously update your resume so that you keep track of personal skillsets and accomplishments. Never stop learning and growing. Create an individual development plan.  Be a mentor; find ways to utilize your skill set to help build others. Seek out experienced coaches to provide you with strategies to meet your goals.  

Hour 6. Health. Nurture quality in the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual quad. Inch toward your wellness until it becomes a natural, overall habit by which you measure your health. Eat clean, but reward yourself with cheat treat meals. Drink plenty of water to stay hydrated and alert. Give your body adequate sleep/rest. Listen to calming music before you go to sleep and allow the peaceful sounds to usher you into slumber. Schedule and commit to physicals, check-ups, and therapy.  Set realistic weight maintenance or loss goals. Make the gym, yoga, dance, or boxing studio, track, pool, or field your happy hour.  Balance cardiovascular and resistance training.  Energize and relax your mind simultaneously. Take mental health days. Open the windows or take walks/runs to get fresh air. Sketch, draw, or paint. Play, sing, produce, or write music. Dance in the rain and bask in the sunlight. Meditate. Enhance the ambiance with aromatherapy. Invest in regular massage appointments. Focus on your breathing. Take in nature and scenic routes. Smile. Journal your thoughts and experiences. Scrapbook snapshots, accomplishments, memories, and keepsakes. Hand-write letters. De-clutter and organize. Adopt an attitude of gratitude; if you are neglectful to be thankful, you are either 1) suffering from a sense of self-entitlement or 2) just way too busy. Feed your faith through spiritual relationship, learning, and lifestyle.

Hour 7. Love.  Seek your complement once you are a complete individual. Wait for the right one instead of rushing for the wrong one. Be friends first; that is the primary test of productive partnership. Compatibility, chemistry, communication, and charity are keys to successful companionship. Share core values in an equally-yoked bond. Reach common ground with your views on managing money and raising children. Avoid putting your partner on worshipped pedestals; you are human equals. Avoid obsession and set healthy boundaries with healthy personal space. A true teammate will consistently strive to build and win with you. A devoted best friend will stand by you in celebratory and challenging times. A true “boo” will respect, honor, and communicate with you. Pick up your interest in one another and put down your cell phones when you are spending quality time together. Give and expect respect. Listen to understand instead of to defend. Bond with your similarities and grow through your differences. Reciprocate and consistently treat each other, not just on Valentine’s Day or birthdays. Coach, clean, cook, exercise, learn, and study together. Pull your weight, with each partner giving 100 percent. Support each other’s aspirations and dreams.

Hour 8. Education. Keep your brain fresh and young with continuous learning. Earn a degree or certificate. Learn a new skill, language, trade, or technical program. Travel to an unfamiliar place to learn about a different culture. If your mind is overflowing with thoughts, start a blog, podcast, class, or empowerment group to teach and learn from others through idea exchange.

Hour 9. Goals.  Set deadlines for your dreams. Plan them accordingly.  The person you face in the mirror is your greatest competition. Avoid comparing yourself to others and their dreams. Set a new goal every month, semester, and year to keep yourself motivated. Reward yourself once you meet your goal.

Hour 10. Hobbies.  Pinpoint and nurture your passion – that which makes you feel alive, happy, and fulfilled. Whatever it is, continuously schedule it into your routine. What you do not have - become or help. Nurture. Adopt. Volunteer at a hospital, nursery, shelter, school, community center, or mentoring program. If you cannot physically play anymore, coach the sport you know and love. When you master your passion, teach it to someone else. Pass your skillset to the next generation of passionate pastime lovers.

Hour 11. Vacations. Celebrate life. Get in the car or on a plane, train, or boat to a destination that is not part of your daily routine. Indulge in hobbies and excursions. Travel to a peaceful place that allows you and an intimate group to rejuvenate. Each birthday, do something special to commemorate the life God has given you. Relax and sleep late without an alarm clock’s interruption. Open your heart to receive intangible blessings. Eat creative cuisine and savor sweets. But most important, acknowledge and give God thanks for your life and those who are a part of your life. Spend valuable time with loved ones and open your heart and calendar to allow them to celebrate you and vice versa.  Take note of who remembers you. Embrace aging as yet another opportunity to celebrate existence. Keep track of your experiences more than your age.

"Set deadlines for your dreams. Plan them accordingly.  The person you face in the mirror is your greatest competition. Avoid comparing yourself to others and their dreams."

Hour 12. Giving Back. Allow your legacy to live on through what you pour into others and how seeds bear fruit. Support a cause in whose positive mission you believe. For those who nurture(d) or educate(d) you – visit, prepare meals, or treat them to gratitude or “just because” dates. Pass the torch via mentoring or teaching a skill or character lifestyle. Share your epiphanies. 
Harmonizing priorities is the key to living a balanced life. Priorities correlate to core values. Make each second, minute, hour, day, month, year, and moment – count on your life clock. Point your purpose toward living productively and passionately.

"Pray tell, is this a Vice news article with my ugly mug plastered all over the cover photo!?” Yes, somehow my image was used for a Vice article about the band 'The Misfits.'"

Chappelle, The Misfits & Judo

Two thousand and four was a momentous time for sketch comedy. Anyone old enough at that time with even a slight pulse or sense of humor knew the Chappelle Show must be on their weekly viewing schedule. There was one sketch that still makes me chuckle; “Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories.” In particular it was Charlie’s tale of Prince challenging him to a game of basketball that stands out in my mind. The reason for it coming to mind these days is not because of Charlie Murphy’s hilarious retelling of the story, or seeing Dave Chappelle run basketball plays in the iconic purple Prince outfit; instead it reminds me how far journalistic standards have sunk in a relatively short amount of time.

When Chappelle was interviewed on the Tonight Show about the Prince sketch in 2014 a real-life Prince single was presented to Dave entitled “Breakfast Can Wait,” which was a not so subtle reference to the Chappelle Show sketch. As for the cover image on the single...indeed, it was of Dave Chappelle dressed as Prince serving pancakes from the original sketch.

As Chappelle aptly states in the interview: “that’s a Prince judo move right there,” because Prince used the momentum of Chappelle’s humor against himself.
Using inspiration from Prince I would like to pull a Judo move of my own. I also want to stress these are my personal opinions, because nowadays what used to be referred to as an Op-Ed piece has turned into solid facts.

In the fall of 2018, a friend sent a text. It wasn’t the usual random, disturbing GIF (pronounced GIF not JIF), or plans for happy hour. No, this was something different. This time it was a link. Upon clicking the link an image was displayed that gave me a jolt of bewilderment, and I thought, “pray tell, is this a Vice news article with my ugly mug plastered all over the cover photo!?” Yes, somehow my image was used for a Vice article about the band “The Misfits.”

Author Dave Arnold is an unsuspecting model in a Vice article that used an image of him from the internet

I’m the blonde guy with the stupid grin on his face.

Up until the point of seeing that article I had spent a lifetime happily anonymous, minus my minimalistic presence on social media. I never imagined that an innocent picture with the member of a quasi-famous band would appear over a decade later in a major news outlet’s article. Nobody is safe from the watchful eye of the internet. Like Herpes, our electronic past lies in wait to haunt our present. Granted this was a benign photo of me and some friends posing with Jerry Only of the Misfits, and it by no means skyrocketed me into the spotlight, but it rubbed me the wrong way.

In my anger and annoyance, I looked up the referenced link of the photo only to find a Flickr account a friend had created over a decade ago. The photo had sat dormant for years, until the time was ripe for a desperate enough columnist to pluck it from the ether and insert it into their article. Nothing could be done to challenge the unauthorized use of my personage; the Flickr legal jargon stated the photo fell under the free use terms of their agreement. That’s legalese for “sorry but we reserve the right to treat you like a sock puppet because you glanced over the terms of use and agreed to its stipulations sheerly out of exhaustion from the length of the document.”

The Sinking of Journalistic Practices

The most egregious problem is not the unauthorized use of my image, rather the complete lack of effort used to blend together an article with a random internet image, and chum it off the side of main stream media’s click bait vessel. Besides, the picture doesn’t even go with the entire conceit of the article; that being a Misfits fan will cost loads of money because it requires buying a lot of the bands merchandise. Nobody in the picture is wearing any Misfits paraphernalia, except for the band member Jerry Only. If anything, the picture should be used in an article about the embarrassment of wearing a Redskins shirt in public.

"I never imagined that an innocent picture with the member of a quasi-famous band would appear over a decade later in a major news outlet’s article."

I hope to do a better job of mashing a column together from borrowed pieces of the internet than Vice did. I used to enjoy Vice, because it seemed to be the only news organization producing substantive news about the world. For example, they had the only journalist reporting behind ISIS territory when that situation was in full swing in 2014. They allowed journalists to practice real journalism by going out into the world to investigate salient issues, and then report those stories relatively unfiltered. Those stories are now lost in Vice’s pursuit to compete with the other major networks and fractured viewership of the internet. Today Vice seems more like CNN for stoners rather than an edgy, hard hitting upstart to the news world, but I’m digressing. The point of this article is not to pick apart a poorly written Vice column. I already knew journalism was in trouble before I read the Vice article, it merely reaffirmed my belief.
It is now the year 2020 and journalistic standards continue to sink, largely due to a massive lack of objectivity inherent to the modern business of news. Reporting standards for most major news organizations now consists of low quality, biased and sensationalistic content that is hastily cobbled together in the pursuit of clicks and views. Worse yet is the unabashed corporate propaganda being passed off as news. If there is any doubt this is true, please read William Arkin’s leaked resignation letter to NBC from 2019. 

Arkin is a renowned journalist with decades of experience, particularly in the national security sector. In his resignation letter he aptly points out that news media cannot keep up with the world, largely because of a national security apparatus that ballooned out of control alongside the rise of social media. Arkin wrote, “I feel like I’ve failed to convey this larger truth about the hopelessness of our way of doing things, especially disheartened to watch NBC and much of the rest of the news media somehow become a defender of Washington and the system.” Journalists are supposed to guide us to the truth and sniff out corruption and bias, but what happens when we can no longer turn to the news for the truth or trust its intentions?

Even coma patients in the last three years know how incessant the term “fake news” was and continues to be used. We all know that president Trump has blamed the media for organizing witch hunts, or concocting information to fit their narrative against him, while he has equally perpetrated the same offenses. The clash between Trump and the media has played out in a childish tit for tat name-calling game that resulted in a flood of erroneous or meaningless news, while real stories go unreported, but this type of reporting has become standard across the board. Real information is now lost in a sea of twenty-four-hour television hucksters, pervasive online click bait, and erroneous stories emerging from the depths of the internet with no known provenance. 

It's become a carnival side-show, where greasy yes men emerge from corporate shadows to deliver political agendas poorly disguised as objective reasoning, and fringe onlookers attempt to convince everyone the game is flat or that pizza is really a gate. All the while the average person is left exhausted to the point of either accepting the carney’s little ruse or giving up and walking away. The result is a fractured landscape where individuals find their corner of the internet or television and stay there.

What is Driving the Madness and Where is it Going?

There is no one simple cause, but a major factor for the exponential degradation of journalism is an economic one spurred on by the spread of “free” information through the internet. The democratization of information at the click of a button is one of the human race’s greatest achievements, but also had the unintended consequence of shuttering most businesses that could be made digital and couldn’t compete with the low-low cost of free, journalism included.

"The clash between Trump and the media has played out in a childish tit for tat name-calling game that resulted in a flood of erroneous or meaningless news, while real stories go unreported."

The moral hazard created by the internet’s open accessibility is that we are collectively filling cyberspace with so much nonsense, such as low-quality news articles, that we now require the assistance of artificial intelligence to sift through the endless stream of data. For instance, if someone is getting their news exclusively from Google news searches, they are allowing Google’s algorithms to decide what they read. The same is true for Facebook, or any other social media platform one chooses to preoccupy their time. In hindsight it seems inevitable that large corporations will continue to take control over the flow of information, because unbiased journalism was always in danger from large corporate entities.

In 1983 Ben Bagdikian wrote “The Media Monopoly,” which rang the alarm on the tightening grip conglomerates had over the flow of mass media. The book was periodically updated to report on the status of mass media until the early 2000s. I remember reading it in the late 90’s and was disheartened to find that when Bagdikian first wrote the book in 1983 around 50 corporations controlled mass media, but by the late 90’s it was down to around 5-7. Since the internet was not on the general public’s radar through the 80’s and most of the 90’s mass media back then was consumed the old-fashioned way; through print, television, and radio. Media could easily be controlled by large corporations because of how high the barrier to entry is in owning a piece of one, two, or all three of those mediums. I was preparing for a future where fear mongering would be delivered on television by Mickey Mouse, but the internet exploded in the early 2000s giving me hope for the future. The Internet opened the floodgates of information, but over time it became derailed onto the current path.

I haven’t completely lost faith in journalism because I know there are real journalist in the world with the intent of uncovering truth rather than profit, but as a society we must place value on their work and give it support. Unfortunately, the internet holds the promise of infinite knowledge at the click of a button, but it is also wielded by a vast array of profit seekers, nut-jobs, and propaganda mongers the average person must sift through to find truth. What I hope anyone reading this can do is find objective truth through an open mind and their own critical thinking skills. That is the only defense any individual has against the tyranny of ignorance or the misguidance of propaganda.

"Somehow all that progress seemed to halt immediately with the 2020 Oscars"

The 92nd Academy Awards have come and gone. All the posturing and red carpet arrivals won’t be back in full force until November at the earliest. And with it likely comes the staunch call for better representation among nominees.

This isn’t exactly a new narrative. In 2015, the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag went viral after a year that seemingly ignored quality performances both in front of and behind the camera. That was repeated in 2016 with another slate of all white acting nominees. The 2016 nominations might have been even more problematic as Sylvester Stallone was a Best Supporting Actor nominee for his role in Creed where he was one of the few white actors in an otherwise predominantly black film.

Premiere Of Warner Bros. Pictures' "Creed" - Red Carpet.

Credit Getty Images

Hoping to end the trend, the 2017 nominations and winners were far more diverse. Denzel Washington was a Best Actor nominee. Ruth Negga was a Best Actress nominee while Octavia Spencer and Naomie Harris were Best Supporting Actress nominees for the award Viola Davis won. It was the first time in Oscar history that black actresses had more than a 20% chance of winning the award. Mahershala Ali also won Best Supporting Actor that year.

"It seems odd for the Oscars to trot out so many black performers to honor their peers while failing to acknowledge their work."

Somehow all that progress seemed to halt immediately with the 2020 Oscars where one black performer — Cynthia Erivo was nominated for her starring role in Harriet. Erivo is compelling in the film about Harriet Tubman, but it keeps going back to a familiar trend of too many black actors being hailed by their peers for roles where they’re marginalized either as slaves (Lupita Nyong’o in 12 Years a Slave) or stuck in the civil rights era fighting a losing battle against racism (Ali for Green Book).

(Left to right) Lupita Nyong’o, Mahershala Ali, Cynthia Erivo.

Credit Getty Images

At the show, Chris Rock joked that Erivo was asked by the Academy to hide all the black nominees before his co-presenter, Steve Martin, shouted out Eddie Murphy for his arguable career dramatic best turn in Dolemite Is My Name. Martin did mention some progress has been made as in 1929 there were no black actor nominations, right before Rock adds, “and now, in 2020, we got one”.

It’s the kind of thing that is funny, but it’s become too much of a recurring theme. Rock made similar remarks in 2016 when he was the Oscars host. Weird how little has changed.

ABC's Coverage Of The 92nd Annual Academy Awards - Show

Credit Getty Images

Expecting the Academy to make lasting changes is probably not going to happen as there’s little interest for the Academy to actually watch and consider films like Us, Queen & Slim,Waves or Dolemite Is My Name. So maybe in a show of silent protest, all the black actors and musical guests that are invited could politely decline? It seems odd for the Oscars to trot out so many black performers to honor their peers while failing to acknowledge their work. Maybe a literal #OscarsSoWhite show would force a different line of thinking?

It’s just a thought and something that as Quentin Tarantino phrased it can only happen Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.