Not long ago, the word hustler tended to have a negative connotation attached to it. The first definition I recall assigning to the word myself was a person who conned, swindled, or schemed others out of valuables or assets. Those are the images the word subconsciously brought to mind when I was young, anyway.

The 1961 classic film ‘The Hustler’ starring Paul Newman may have played a part in how we as a society perceived and defined who and what a hustler was. Newman plays a small-time pool shark who uses his talent to target unsuspecting strangers out of money…

I just reread the last thing I published and wondered at what point, I thought the world or anyone in it would find it even remotely unique or intriguing?

I literally didn’t make it through the entire re-read — and I wrote it. I lived through it. My reality created it. The same reality I wake up to each and every God-Forsaken, pandemic-dampened day.

So forgive me for not wanting to once again glance it all over, via a mediocre piece of writing. One I literally have no recollection of writing, nonetheless.

But you see, this piece of writing is…

I don’t want a girlfriend or wife. I want a partner in crime. A Bonnie to my Clyde. Someone who calls me out on my bullshit in private and defends my social chicanery in public. She’d appreciate I use phrases like social chicanery and would read my writing but not force me to talk about it. She’d know real writers have no interest in talking about their writing.

I want a woman who I love so much it scares me. One who never forces me to question if the feeling is mutual. …

Writing has always been one of few things that comes naturally to me and with complete confidence. I was doing it long before I was ever paid for it and would continue to even if I never made another red cent for doing so.

From an early age, any schoolwork or projects of mine involving writing stuck out to teachers and other adults in my life. I never really put much stock in their compliments, I just kind of thought they were being nice.

Then our entire graduating class from grade school was forced to write graduation speeches, three of…

Let me start this off by saying the Medium publication I’ll be referring to throughout this story — Journal of Journeys — is not one you’ll find in Medium’s top 10 most popular or followed pubs.

In fact, it may never be and we’re okay with that.

Because when I had the idea for a publication where some of Medium’s lesser-known writers could have their work highlighted and hopefully help their words find the readership they deserve, and I brought that idea to Brian Kurian — I don’t know if we ever truly thought the publication would find the success…

I’ll admit, it’s a warm and fuzzy thought. Which makes it suck to have to be the one to come and pour cold water all over it so publicly — but some things are simply a matter of duty. If I don’t do it, nobody will. Especially not here.

I’ll start with me. Do you know where I would be in life if I unconditionally did the best I could, one hundred percent of the time? There’s no telling.

I wish I did the best I could, even most of the time — but the cold hard truth is I…

I am 33 and most mornings I wake up feeling at least twice as old. It feels as though I have lived and died multiple times and yet I still manage to wake to a bleak reality every day.

Like an unfunny, less ironic version of the movie Groundhogs Day but without Bill Murray. There’s just me, my past I seem stuck in and a future I don’t quite believe in.

Every day is the same. One is as torturously bland as the next and the thought of hurling myself off the nearest highway overpass just in order to feel…

Imagine a platform that preaches equality and inclusivity, being biased, judgemental, and exclusionary. One where they rope you in by dangling a carrot on a string in front of you, but you’re never quite able to reach out and grab it. Yet that very same platform has the audacity to send you emails every month informing you of all those who brought home a bag of carrots in that 30 day period — but all you were given was a bag of dirt.

You don’t have to imagine ladies and gentleman, because you are here. Welcome to Medium, where the…