Novocain Numb by Keith Kareem Williams

Novocain Numb


By Keith Kareem Williams

Disclaimer: When I first decided to create this blog, I made up my mind to keep it as honest as I do with interviews. I promised to always give you me, the real me, at all times, no matter how I came across. Nothing has changed.


“I'm all on her 'til she loves me and I'm up in here ‘til she comes. But I won’t let her break my heart & my excuse is that I'm numb…because I'm only gettin' colder...somebody should have told her”.... – Keith Kareem Williams ©



Do I still believe in love? Of course I do. I just don’t believe in flighty, temporary infatuations. I can do without those. I don’t believe in that “meet me today and love me tomorrow” love. I’ve seen enough of that and to tell you the truth, I grow weary of that lie. Feel free to disagree but the real eternity type of “you and me” just takes real time to me. Now that THAT’S out of the way, I’ll continue.

“Power” is something people enjoy having, even over things they don’t want. They desire it because 99% of the times, there’s another aspect of their life or situation that they WISH they had control over but don’t. A typical example would be that boss that beasts on the entire office every day but is powerless at home. Sometimes it’s in the form of that pretty girl who had that boyfriend that treated her like garbage so now it’s her against every guy that likes her. Then, there’s the womanizing guy who befriends them, fucks them and then forgets them because he had his heart broken once. All examples of people trying to abuse power in areas where they once felt powerless. This is because they might not have ever faced the real emotions of what they went through. If they have and still choose to behave that way, then kudos to them. (They’re officially super-villains LOL)

People always advise that you should “control your emotions” which just seems silly, foolish and an exercise in futility to me. Emotions are what they are because they’re beautifully uncontrollable. If we could control them, each and every one of us would be happy at all times. Who would truly desire sadness, anger or even grief? If we could, who wouldn’t find everything funny and laugh all day? If we could, wouldn’t we all control the shame and awkwardness that jealousy brings? No, ladies and gentlemen, we CANNOT control emotions but we CAN control how we behave after we experience them.

I’m not anywhere near being an old man but, I’m not as young as I used to be either. I’ve made my share of “young-man mistakes” and fortunately for me, most of them weren’t too costly. During my time here, (See how I’m writing as if I were from Mars for real? LOL) I’ve seen a lot. I’ve seen ugly truths as well as beautiful lies. As far as people go, I’ve held on way too long to some of the wrong ones while I misjudged and lost my grip on some of the potentially right ones. I accept it. As it says in my Twitter profile, “I’m the most unrealistic realist alive.” I’ve been asked what that means because it seems like a contradiction within a contradiction. Let me explain…

I still manage to dream of things that are highly improbably, unlikely and very close to being fantasy. (Check the blog for the daily “Impossible Things” updates if you don’t believe me.) The problem is that I also know that there is no denying reality. What’s real is often very different from what we wished or hoped that it would be. Yes, a painful truth but I accept it. However, even with that knowledge, I still dare to dream. It puts me in bad predicaments and weird situations that wouldn’t make sense to most people. Believe me when I say that I’ve known heartache, pain and loss that might have killed other people. The beautiful thing is that I survived it. I’m over it, I’m free of it and most importantly, it’s impossible for me to go through it again. I believe in people now, just as much as I’ve always believed in them. I won’t change that because of anyone. Why should I hold onto woes that other people inflicted? Wouldn’t that sort of mean that they still held power over the direction of my life? No thanks. I’m good. I’ve lost too many friends to death for me NOT to know what life is worth.

Of course, at some point, or maybe MANY different points, for the rest of my life, there will definitely be disappointments. I don’t have control over that because I don’t have control over what OTHER people do. Even if I could have control over others, I wouldn’t want it. Love is probably the most complicated emotion while being the most simple. It drives so many of our other feelings that it’s almost like the source of our souls. And, lucky me, it’s the emotion I struggle with the most. It makes no sense at all but then it makes all the sense in the world when it’s right. My heart is usually at odds with my mind and somewhere in-between I have to maintain control of my sex drive. LOL For me, it is way too complicated and I’ve given up on ever understanding it. Instead, I let it rock when the feeling takes me and let whatever happens happen. When I need a break from it, I’ve evolved with age and developed a defense mechanism. When it becomes too much of a strain, it’s like there’s a natural Novocain that runs through my veins and makes me numb until it all makes sense again. That’s the best I can do to get through.