Category: Featured Writers

Tupac’s ‘Thug Life Is Dead’ Jailhouse Letter On Sale For $225K

  
Tupac Shakur declared “Thug Life” was dead to him in an emotional letter that included a road map for his “homiez” to make it out of the hood — and according to TMZ, that letter is now for sale.

Tupac’s 5 page correspondence to a Death Row employee was written in 1995 while he was in jail for rape. The letter includes some deep thoughts about being ready to let someone else rep the thug life — which he famously tatted on his torso.

He wrote, “U must play the game, not let the game play u. A regular Playa plays women, a Boss Playa plays life. A Boss Playa is a thinker, a leader, a builder, a moneymaker, a souljah, a teacher and most of all, a Man! ” 

Tupac also said, “I want all my homiez to know there is another level.”

The letter is being sold by a memorabilia site called Moments in Time, the $225,000 price is fixed. 

Source | TMZ 

FEATURED POST: Depression Is Not Beautiful

  

Written by marjramos– I get sucked under the waves of varying ferocity with no sense of direction. I don’t want help and I refuse to get better. Every waking day, it occurs to me that I don’t want to leave. My damaged body fights a long battle against my mind, both telling me different things. 

My friends and family see the problem, but I don’t. I look at the endless empty boxes of takeout, or I clean up after purging, or bandage bleeding wounds, but I see this as normal – I’ve never known anything else. It eludes from the change I desire to have; I’m doing fine on my own, ain’t I?

I hit a solid wall when I try to get a clear understanding of anything, so I stop trying. I am reminded daily of my flaws, reciting them to myself under my breath, hiding the words with half-hearted laughs. I’m nothing but a piece of crap and my life is a big joke. My skin is sliced open. Razor blades are bloody. There are band aids in the trash by the sink of the cold, lonely bathroom.

I must take a step back and inspect the damage. I sift through what remains of my life, never seeing the broken shards of the sanity I once had and not knowing I need to put them back together to form what it had been once before. Deep down, I know, there will always be lines to remind me of the fractures where I shakily repaired myself, so why bother?

I am forced to get some help and I am grateful for this. No longer do I hide away, make excuses, and cover my scars with long sleeves. I feel connected to the outside world for the first time in a very long time and it is an extremely liberating feeling.

I laugh, I cry, I make memories, and I finally enjoy life. I am no longer alone, hopeless, scared, or misunderstood. Every encounter is a small touch of warmth that never leaves, only burns brighter and brighter until I shine with a light I’ve never known. I want to cry, but out of happiness instead of sadness.

In a moment of clarity, I realize how alike I am to a flower. I grow in beauty, wither in sickness, and am carried by the seeds I left behind. This is my life. 

This post was originally featured on Thought Catalog 

 

FEATURED POST: Paris Is Not The Only Country We Should Be Mourning For

  
What happened in Paris makes me sick to my stomach. It is terrifying, disturbing, unsettling. It is inhumane treatment of others as well as inhuman, not in character for a rational, feeling, thinking, compassionate human beings. This is not normal and absolutely 100% deserves all of our attention. 

Paris deserves all of the news coverage, social media posts. Facebook profile pictures in the colors of the French flag, prayers and thoughts being sent out from all over the globe. I am not by any means trying to take away from the legitimacy of what happened and how everyone is affected by it. So many lost loved ones or experienced something that they never felt they would in the safety of the western world.

For many children, this will be their 9/11. It will go down in history as one of the most tragic terror attacks to hit a nation, especially a western nation. I do not write this to disagree with any of that. This tragedy breaks my heart as it does yours. But that is just the thing—what I said before, a western nation was hit and the world is ablaze with reactions. But what about Beirut, which suffered two suicide bombings in a Shiite neighborhood that killed over 40 and injured over 230 people. And what about Baghdad? Where over the past day there was a roadside bomb that killed and injured over 20 people and a suicide bombing at a Shiite funeral that killed at least 21 and injured 46.

Oh but these are against Muslims, you say—the same people that everyone lumps together with ISIS in the “safety” of our western bubble. Yet ISIS took responsibility for these attacks just as they did for Paris. Just as they did for the Russian passenger plane that went down, killing the over 200 passengers aboard. Muslims are not ISIS. Islam is not extremism. They are attacking “their own people,” who in no way resemble them, just as they are attacking us, the privileged, westerners who see their entire religion as the enemy.

And ISIS is the enemy. They lack human compassion, what they stand for is outright objectively wrong. Of course it is. So why do we not mourn in the same way for all whom they attack? And what about Israel? And yes, I know, this is where you dismiss me and say “She’s probably just another Jewish girl from a middle-class American family, living in Israel, of course she cares about Israel and this whole article is just to get us to take pity on their situation.”

Well, that’s not true. Yes I’m Jewish. Yes I live in Israel. Yes it sickens me and terrifies me every time there is a stabbing, a car ramming, or a Molotov cocktail that injures another of my fellow Israelis.

But it also sickens me when Israeli forces kill innocent Palestinians because their own ”government,” Hamas, has no compassion for human life and sees its people only as shields. I am not writing this so you take pity on either side in this conflict; they both deserve our sympathy and compassion, for the conflict is a beast that discriminates against no one. And I’m not writing this to make you feel bad about not sympathizing with every single tragedy throughout the world. There are too many to count.

What about Beirut, which suffered two suicide bombings in a Shiite neighborhood that killed over 40 and injured over 230 people. And what about Baghdad? Where over the past day there was a roadside bomb that killed and injured over 20 people and a suicide bombing at a Shiite funeral that killed at least 21 and injured 46.

I’m writing this because I am genuinely perplexed and am trying to make sense of it all.

But it makes no sense. This is senseless violence and hate. And in a way, our reactions are senseless too. So many of you have been to Paris, you know the culture, the sites, you posted pictures today from your trips to the Eifel tower saying how sad it is that this beautiful place is going through this.

But many of you do not know Israel. You do not know Beirut or Baghdad. You do not know Kenya, where a university was attacked in April and 147 were killed, but most of you probably did not even hear about it. I hadn’t heard about it until I sat down to write this.

You write what you know. You express what you feel. You react to what the media shows you. I can’t decide what makes me more angry- the overwhelming response and support to the Paris attacks not being shown to all these other tragedies, or the people who say to stop using it as an excuse to shine light on these other tragedies because if one does this they are taking away from this particular tragedy.

Read the rest of ‘Paris Is Not The Only City We Should Be Mourning For‘ by Jesse Perry on Thought Catalog.