"You know, people assume I like violence. That I breathe it. That I wake up every morning with blood in my mouth and a smile on my face ‘cause it means I get to do it all over again. I will not lie; violence… it sticks to me. Like oil. It’s in me.

But don’t confuse fluency for endorsement.

I’ve thrown punches, broken bones, put rounds in people I used to talk to over lunch. You think that made things better? It didn’t fix the world. It didn’t fix me. It just kept the wheel spinning.

Violence, real violence, isn’t like it is in movies. There’s no glory in it. No fangs and fire and slow-motion badass lines. It’s messy. Loud. Quiet. Then loud again. And once you start relying on it, you forget how to use anything else. It becomes your default answer to every insult, every threat, every little challenge. You stop solving problems, you start ending them. Permanently. And that’s when you lose who you are. Or maybe find out you were never anybody to begin with. I’m not saying don’t fight. I’m saying don’t start with it. Don’t want it. Don’t chase it. Because once you step over that line, there ain’t no guarantee you’re coming back.

I’m a man who used violence like a scalpel and a sledgehammer. And I’m telling you- it’s not worth it unless you’re already staring down the barrel and there’s no other option left. It’s a last resort. Always. Because when it becomes the first, you stop being a person… and start being something else entirely.

And I don’t wish that on nobody." -Sears Iverson