94 Dreaming simultaneously “picks up the past and recalls it as heaven” while fantasizing about “the bigger picture.” ATO, the young rapper from Leeds, captures the friction of what it means to be in a period in between; what it means to be young; a twenty something. ATO would perhaps reject this description. Not the geographical placement but the classification of adolescence. “Young” is subjective. To someone nearing a century of life, I can’t imagine how young twenty something must sound. “Young people have so much to learn about life” I’ve heard more than a few times. They’re right. There’s an endless well of knowledge to be acquired during our time. But the well isn’t finite and there isn’t a specific timeline
ATO’s got ample content to show his growth so far.
I’ve got to stop being selfish, helping other left me helpless…That’s young me…with questions that you can’t answer…I chose the darkest path
To emancipate my own feelings
Clouding the vision
Distorting the meaning”
Who’s to say his experiences aren’t as meaningful as those of an older generation? Being young doesn’t mean the lessons haven’t started rolling in.
In this time of our lives, the future looks simultaneously open and tied to a past that seems far behind. We’re tiptoeing on a tight rope, doing our best to keep looking up and out. Doing our best to not be devoured the size of our ambitions and those who say we can’t do it all. We’re perhaps in the middle, where hard work has yet to bear fruit and there’s not enough distance between us and old habits to feel we’re free from how we used to be. How we used to be pops us occasionally and we work to change, to make something of ourselves, but reaping the benefit of that work is a far away reward. So, dreaming is where we find ourselves most of the time. Dreaming is both what keeps us grounded and keeps us feeling high, keeps us feeling like we could reach the sky.
I’ll sleep on it
Dream bigger
New frame of mind
The bigger picture
Fingers travel scriptures
‘Till we capsize
I’ma keep running
We sinning
Pushed back to the beginning
The past speaking to me like a family 20 minute visit”
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