Humans of Pinole Valley: Alexjavier Adap
“I was always hoping to become a firefighter, or something like that, because one thing I’ve always wanted to do in my life, especially as a future job or something, is to be able to save another person’s life. It’s the only thing I can really think about, saving people directly. I’m a big person, I have big hands. I’m gonna be the first person to bust through that door and save someone. Have you ever heard of the saying, ‘You don’t know you have something until you don’t have it anymore’? When you’re about to lose your life, a lot of things can happen and you’ll start to accept it, panic about it, anything like that. What I want to do is have people experience that, but be saved, so that after that experience they go, ‘oh… I LOVE MY LIFE’. You start appreciating the things around you much more. The thing that really makes me want to help people is the way that I grew up from my own childhood. I was an extremely young child compared to my siblings. They were experiencing the final stages of their childhood, which I experienced at the same time at my young age. I never really got to watch things like ‘Sesame Street,’ I watched stuff that was dark, like ‘Courage the Cowardly Dog.’ That was the kind of mentality I was growing into. I’m not the type of person that goes out often. I just sit there, watch TV, and go ‘huh. This person just said something really inspiring. I want to do that in real life.’ But I can’t because I don’t have superpowers, I’m not the main character of anything. As a person who watches shows, I can compare myself to any side character as ‘you can’t really find anything interesting about me.’ To save someone else’s life is the highest honor I can think of myself because right now I don’t think there’s anything impressive about my own. So, screw it. If I’m not going to do anything about mine, I’m going to get this person to care about theirs. That’s what I want to do in the future.”
Chris Potter • Mar 6, 2020 at 3:42 pm
He does have super powers, he just hasn’t found them yet. He won’t find them sitting in front of the television. He will have to get out and listen to people, find where their names pain is, where their joy is, Then he will start to find where his power is.
Kibby Kleiman • Mar 6, 2020 at 10:43 am
A unique voice captured extremely well. Both the writer and the subject have been honored by this profile. Kudos!