beyond beautiful: the fully sick rapper’s “life in a day”

A month or two ago I posted an interview with Christiaan, the Fully Sick Rapper who’d been quarantined in hospital with TB for 106 days. He’s just emailed me this link and, if  I were you, I’d watch it. Even if you haven’t had to face your own sadness in a mirror, or wondered where to find strength, or been sick in a scary way. But if you have, be prepared for little tears of human connection.

The video was made on day 180 of his stay in hospital, three days before he was told he could finally go home. When he made this, he had no idea when or if he was going home. It’s raw. I like that we finally seem him smiling.

He was invited to make the video for a youtube project – Life in a Day – that will see director Kevin Macdonald and producer Ridley Scott create a documentary capturing one day in the life of thousands around the world – July 24, 2010. Go to  Life in a Day to get involved. It was only announced two hours ago. Pretty rad.

Christiaan is an impressive man. And I’m glad he’s back in the “real world”.

He writes this:

My videos before this one have all been comedic… (but) this particular project made me think about what it would be like to show people what a real day in my life involves. Yes, I have fun, and I dress up funny, and try to make myself and others laugh, but that wears off very quickly, and in the times when I’m not dancing around in front of the camera, there is a lot of very quiet, very lonely, me time. I believe that I used this time as best I could for self-reflection and personal development, and I feel as if I have come out the other side of this time in hospital having grown a lot as a man, but it hasn’t been easy, and there has been times throughout my stay that I have looked at myself in the mirror and thought that I couldn’t handle it any more.

Amen to that!

Here’s some of the lyrics I related to…

Some days I am proud of the man in my reflection.
I see a man who is full of life, and full of passion,
a man that makes light of this heavy situation,
and one who lights the darkness to search for inspiration.

His head held high, not being a slave to this condition,
not allowing it to affect him, he’s occupied by distraction,
he’ll never be a victim of a microscopic faction,
who’s microscopic actions, cause these massive global repercussions.

Every little action in our lives, will result in a reaction,
Sometimes an addition will result in a subtraction,
The addition of strength right now, is a protection mechanism,
to subtract from his fear, and turn it into optimism.

..and the tiniest of ripples can become a tidal wave,
The softest of whispers can take him away.
But when the flights of fantasy finally wear off,
he finds himself back in this room where he left off….

….I can choose to be a victim, cursed from the beginning,
or can face up to fear, and do all my own forgiving,
for all the risks I have taken, and the mistakes that I have made,
and for the errors of our brothers and sisters of yesterday.