Discovery In Interest: The Path To Greatness

By Zamien Williams

ENG 101-02

Ziggy. I’ve been called that name since the day I was aware of my surroundings. My

mother, uncle, aunties, and grandmother took the knowledge that they know and instilled it in me

so that I would be great. They taught me from right and wrong, the best way to go about

situations and how to survive in this cold world we call life. There is one lesson they forgot to

teach me though. They didn’t teach me how to find myself…

Growing up you could say I was the kind of kid that was normal for my environment. It

was my mother and brother and I, and when I was in 5th grade she took our family out of

run-down poor old Wilson to give us a better life and greater opportunities in Raleigh. She spent

her whole life up in Wilson and what she experienced was the same old pattern from the

common folk from day to day. People with our complexion just smoking, drinking, and just

wasting their lives away. Wilson is so small that not only is it hard to find a job out there but

there's literally nothing to do all day except eat good food and make babies all day. My mother

didn’t want her sons to fall into that same trap of repetition so she took one of the biggest risks a

person could take, and moved to a city where she knew few people and had no support system

whatsoever. If you could compare Raleigh to Wilson it’s like comparing a computer to a

notebook when it comes to note-taking. I see Raleigh as the land of opportunity, as it has things

to do, people to meet, jobs where you can work, and it’s generally safe on certain sides of town.

My ma took what little money she made from working in Wilson and managed to move us to a
hotel that was a few blocks away from Carroll Middle School. As I get older I start to understand

and greatly respect her for the time she sacrificed so that my brother and I could prosper.

However things would change for us for the better and the worst when she found a two bedroom

apartment to live in in the greenroad neighborhood that’s located on the north side of Raleigh

where capital boulevard is at.

I was a curious and impressionable child growing up but my two hobbies that I loved

and put a lot of effort and attention into was basketball and gaming. Due to those two hobbies I

could connect with different sets of people whether it’d be at school or in my neighborhood. The

thing was though I still didn’t find myself and who I liked to hang around, so my friend groups

were divided into categories with the cool kids/athletes/troublemakers and the stereotypical

nerds/dorks/geeks. At first I was hanging out with the nerds because they related more with my

interest but overtime as I got older and got more explorative with my interest I started to separate

from that crowd. I never dropped my old habits and to this day I continue to make friends based

on gaming, anime, etc but because of my look and the vibe I give off I am perceived as not

having anything of those interests in mind. With age comes drama and I started getting bullied

hanging out with the cool kids. I fought a lot when I was younger and whether I won or lost I

established myself as someone who could and would defend themselves against physical and

verbal abuse. I understand that if I would have hung around my original crowd I wouldn’t have

had to worry about any of that but the influence of that crowd would follow me home because all

the cool kids and those particular people lived in the same neighborhood with me. I would see

them daily at the basketball court or the public library so at the time I just believed that these are

the people I should hang out with even if I don’t share the same interest with them. Overtime
throughout my teenage to early adult years I’d get into arguments with my mother because it’s

hard to raise an emotional and rebellious hormonal boy (she obviously wasn’t a boy herself)

when your trying to take care of the bills and make sure both of your sons are properly clothed

and fed. She had too many things to worry about and slightly overlooked the development of

who I am and how I stand out individually compared to my peers and such. I didn’t think about

the idea of finding myself due to my morals being shaped by my family and my personality

being shaped by the people around me and also being influenced by the early stages of social

media. All I knew was that I'm Ziggy, and even though I have an extroverted personality I didn’t

need to worry about who I am as a person because I got other things to worry about such as

having a job, making sure I graduate, and getting my license etc. The normalcy that I was used to

changed when I first came to greensboro.

The year is 2022. I’m 19 years old, with tattoos all on my body, some of them have

meanings and some of them don’t. My mother did her best to keep me away from gang activities

but because of the friends I hung out with it still had a pseudo influence on me. Naturally I’m not

a troublemaker but I ended up getting into situations like fights at football games or ended up

doing stupid stuff that I normally would avoid. Nobody knows this about me unless you’ve

known me for a very long time but I like to hide that I’m intelligent because it makes life easier.

That’s a trait that I’ll continue to hide until the day I die. However when I got to Greensboro that

wasn’t the case. Being born to both extremely smart parents (I can’t really tell you how much

knowledge I have about my father’s smarts I just know from word of mouth) their traits of book

smarts was passed on to me, so school and anything that has to do with gaining knowledge

comes easy to me. It’s hard to hide how smart you are when college is steady providing
enlightenment about how the world works, poking and stimulating your brain and allowing your

creativity to flourish. Not only am I embracing this new wave of change, I start to realize that my

personality and original character traits are also changing too. I feel safe in Greensboro so I’m

allowed to drop my guard around strangers, I don’t feel the need to act dominant towards other

men, everybody is friendly so that allows my extroverted personality to thrive and prosper. I also

realize that I’m gaining new interest as well. For example I was never into clothes and fashion

due to my mother not having the money to buy any new or nice ones (my brother and I wore

hand-me-downs all of our childhood) but a lot of my friends are into fashion and now I like to

browse thrift stores and look at clothes. I think when I am up here I am truly finding myself; I am

discovering who Zamien Williams truly is.