Dear my younger self (Jonathan Bain),
Hey Jon, it’s your future self. We’re now 21 years old, attending Rutgers Newark, our dream school (honestly it’s not all that). Obviously we know we were born in Manhattan, NY, but grew up in Freehold, NJ majority of our lives. I moved in with mom again so now we’ve lived in Cliffwood for the past 5 or so years. The years go by so fast I'm surprised I’m already 21.
I know you’re very excited to go off and study forensics, but surprise, we ended up pursuing Video Production. I know it's crazy. Yeah, Yeah I know the money isn't the same but we’ve been doing pretty well for ourselves. To top off the cake, we also ended up minoring in marketing, crazy right?! But we love the work we do. Right now you're mostly taking photos, but soon you’ll start making films, music videos, and even work with different artists you’d never imagine meeting. You’ll even be one of the main videographers known throughout Rutgers to recap events and even the Freshman orientation video for 2019. Crazy I know.
This path we’re on wasn’t easy to find. I know growing up was hard for us. Freehold isn’t the most diverse clearly. Just a sea of white faces. We never really had any black role models besides what we saw on TV. Gangsters, Athletes, or singers. Besides that there wasn’t much of a career path for a black kid in this white world. We didn’t really have many black friends either. They all said “you talk white”, “you act white”, shit like that, I know you know what I mean. To black for the white kids, to white for the black kids. It was hard.
Didn’t really have much of a good family history growing up. Parents got divorced when we were young. Too young to know why but old enough to know what was going on. We lived with dad most of our lives, very rocky relationship at first, but the older we’ve gotten just know he means the best, you just don’t know it yet. Living with mom is always great. Sometimes she’ll have some rough days but you’ll always be there for her. Growing up in two very different households both financially and spiritually is very humbling. You’ll grow to see that money doesn’t keep people around, love does. This helps us when we’re older. You’ll use your money for the betterment of yourself and the people around you. Just keep that mindset. Things only keep getting better.
Oh and heads up, you're going to get denied from Rutgers NB and it’ll be the best thing that’ll ever happen to you. And dont make that stupid face you know you slacked in highschool. But seriously it's ok. At rutgers Newark you’ll meet some of the most amazing people that’ll help you grow even more along the way. You’ll meet people of all different backgrounds who don’t judge you by the way you speak or carry yourself. You’ll join the radio station at school and meet amazing unique people all on different walks of life who’ll help you grow you more. As a freshman you’ll even get the chance to work with Redbull, even intern at Metlife Stadium, could you believe that? Go G MEN!!
So who are you? You’re a filmmaker. A story teller. A black boy from the suburbs who went to Newark to find more of himself. To find that his identity is more than just the color of his skin. You’ll make the name Bain Vision, and that’s how everyone will know you. You’re a growing entrepreneur, an innovator, a black man.
Oh also, crazy shit is going down. Remember when we thought we were big shit surviving 2012? Yeah well guess what, things got worse. There’s this new pandemic going around called the coronavirus. I don't know, some wild flu like sickness. Can’t wait to tell our future kid we’re apocalypse survivors lol. But we’ll be ok.
So what’s our future hold? Well I don't even know the answer to that one. Currently working on just graduating and getting the f*** out of here. Hopefully from what we learn here at Rutgers I can start a video marketing company and help make commercials and promotional ads for companies. From the money from that I’m also working on creating my own media company that’ll work in all different fields of film at all different stages whether pre production, production, or post. Maybe even own some locations for others to rent for shoots. Who knows. But we’re young and have our whole future ahead of us. As long as corona doesn’t get me first lol.
Your future self
Jon Bain
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