PJ Kearse and Emma Hahn

[00:08] PJ KEARSE KEARSE: What's going on? My name is PJ Kearse I'm 36 years old. It's September 14, 2024. We in my home city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And I'm here with Emma Hahn my co partner in this interview.

[00:24] EMMA HAHN HAHN: My name is.

[00:25] PJ KEARSE KEARSE: Okay, cool.

[00:26] EMMA HAHN HAHN: Hell, yeah. My name is Emma Hahn Han. I am 23. Today's date is September 14, 2024. We are in Philadelphia, my college city. Love Philly. And I'm here with my new friend, PJ Kearse

[00:39] PJ KEARSE KEARSE: Let's go.

[00:41] EMMA HAHN HAHN: So, PJ Kearse what legacy do you hope to leave for future generations?

[00:47] PJ KEARSE KEARSE: That's a good question. Legacy. I want to leave a legacy of commitment to your dreams. Like, I'm one of those people who kind of. I say I got it from the mud. I wasn't given much, not even many instructions on how to make it in life. And I know, like, as black people, it's a lot of people at a point of despair. At one point in time, it was hard for me to come home. I left for grad school a while ago. I was gone for almost eight years. And every time I visited, it was pretty much for a funeral. And then this. The city just kind of looks so devastated. Every time I came back, it just looked like death. It looked like death. It looked like depression. But it's. Once you get to the point where you recognize the world you live in is when you create. Like, your own personal world is when you create. Your eyes and your heart and your mind just open to endless opportunities, and just. You start walking in your authority, walking in your power, walking in the energy that you want to create for yourself in your future. I want people to know that that's possible. Be committed to the person you want to become. Being committed to the world you want to live in because it's possible.

[02:00] EMMA HAHN HAHN: Yeah.

[02:01] PJ KEARSE KEARSE: I think that we kind of lost sight as a people. There's a lot of people who lost sight of themselves, and they lost sight of the world they want to see. We've been overturned by buying the things that we need. That's kind of what they talked about inside. We think you need to buy something and be happy. You think you need to go somewhere to be happy. But that sense of joy and peace is internal.

[02:23] EMMA HAHN HAHN: Yeah.

[02:23] PJ KEARSE KEARSE: And once you committed to what it is you think looks like joy and peace for you, you can have it every day.

[02:31] EMMA HAHN HAHN: Yeah.

[02:32] PJ KEARSE KEARSE: Anywhere you are. Anywhere you are. Health is wealth. My body moves the way that I want it to, and it doesn't cause me pain. This is going to be a good day for me. I can get up and I can clean my street, and I can be happy and proud about my home. This is joy for me. It really don't take much, but we in a consumer society, and I want people to recognize you can be committed to the world you want to live in. And I hope to leave that legacy and the people around me and whoever might come through me.

[03:01] EMMA HAHN HAHN: Yeah. Can I ask you, do you look at philly differently now?

[03:04] PJ KEARSE KEARSE: I do, yeah. The only reason I was able to come back. Cause I went to grad school in North Carolina. I got my masters in social work. I'm a social worker. Oh, awesome. And I'm a licensed clinical social worker. I stayed for a little bit longer, and I wasn't, and like I said, it looked like them, but only when I recognized my journey was complete for that stage in my life was I even able to see opportunities to come back. Now it was opportunities. It was life. It was family, it was friends. It was excitement. It was untapped. Honestly, I don't know if you ever seen kind of like those memes or listened to those people talk like, you know, you in the wrong place when they don't appreciate your worth or your value or something like that. That's what I lived in for almost eight years. And it was hard. Yeah, it was hard being. Not being seen or heard or understood or valued. But I had to work through that to recognize my own worth and value so that I can show up differently in the spaces that I wanted to be in the.

[04:10] EMMA HAHN HAHN: Yeah.

[04:11] PJ KEARSE KEARSE: So I started walking with that authority and that power and that energy.

[04:15] EMMA HAHN HAHN: Yeah. Well, PJ Kearse thank you so much for having this conversation with me today.

[04:20] PJ KEARSE KEARSE: No, it's been sweet. Thank you for having me.

[04:22] EMMA HAHN HAHN: Yeah.