(Environment & Experiences)

Chris spent the majority of his childhood growing up with a single mother in Memphis, Tennessee. He experienced many troubles growing up... which began at home. Because of Chris’s nature to challenge and question life around him, he was often viewed as being defiant and his mother often struggled with how to handle him. Chris’s Mom had a parenting style of a strict Southern Baptist family, where discipline and blind obedience were paramount. Chris wasn’t always easily understood by those around him, and he faced many repercussions from lacking an environment that was incapable of understanding how he operated. His way of thinking and perceiving the world typically made him an outcast, and he experienced many difficulties in school as well.

As Chris grew older, life only became more challenging. At 15 years old, he was diagnosed as Bipolar and Manic Depressive, and was prescribed a variety of medications. When he was 16 years old, and a junior in high school, his Mom kicked him out of her house. Chris spent the last year and a half of High School bouncing around to friend’s places, and borrowing cars to maintain transportation. High school was a little more fluid, though lonely, for Chris. He was an honest person who had an opinion about most things, and was extremely passionate about them. People did not always respond well to his honesty, and he found it very difficult to maintain relationships.

After his High School Graduation, Chris accepted a scholarship for football at Texas Tech. He was smitten by the idea of being able to engage with others on an intellectual level, as opposed to the experiences he had in high school. It was during this time in his life that he began to gain an understanding of what getting treated like a Black Man in this society was like. With his intimidating presence and a personality that stood out in a crowd…

Chris experienced many trials and tribulations during his college experience in Texas. He bounced around from job to job, place to place, and college to college. He faced many moments of intentional obstructions, blatant racism, and constantly losing relationships and jobs due to people’s misconceptions of who he was. He eventually graduated from Texas A&M, Kingsville, without getting the opportunity to advance his football career that was guaranteed to bring him to success.

All of Chris experiences, relationships, and revelations of the world have brought him to the Human he is today. With the world around him constantly challenging who he was, Chris began to look deeply within himself to recognize the truth behind people’s reactions to him. He learned that people wanted to categorize him into a box, in which they felt comfortable and then overreact when he didn’t fit the mold of their solidified perception. Chris eventually identified himself as having crystallized intelligence... which is the ability to use learned knowledge and experience to solve problems. He also came to the understanding that he was not Bipolar or Manic Depressive, but instead was reacting accurately to the world around him. As Chris continued to reveal the uniqueness of his character, he began to unravel a world in which he identified with other great souls who once walked this planet, and some who still do. As his understanding of self grew… so did his love of self. Chris is an undeniable example of self love, and is in constant pursuit of the betterment; of self, of all humanity, and the world. He is an authentic Human being walking among us.