Urgent!

I’ve been struggling with a sense of urgency towards the very craftmanship of my writing. I guess it’s penmanship? Anyway… so I want to get better at writing, but there’s a few avenues that I’d like to tackle, blogging with a better voice writing fiction with a better voice and also getting better at writing poetry/raps. But it feels like I’m tackling too many giants at once. Someone once said that it’s better to triple down on one thing instead of being half way pregnant in 12 different things. (I think it was Gary Vaynerchuk who said this.) I feel this is very true for the sake of faster progression in one craft.

Though at least one thing is clear, everything I’m interested in progressing has to do with writing, just three very different forms of writing. I love being able to bounce back and forth through the three mediums, however, it seems kind of distracting, as if I’m not getting very far in each medium because my attention or focus is divided. Which is kind of starting to drum up self doubt. What’s funny is, I’m starting to be ok with how I’m progressing. I think the main key to progress within one self is ultimately to fall in love with the process. I think a common pitfall for most people with building mastery in a craft is they probably tend to be a little too hard on themselves, and spend too much worrying about whether it will take them somewhere in the end.

I think the most important part is enjoying the growth as you go along and approaching it like a child. Where the sense of growth is more intuitive and less about whether your progression is impressing enough to outside perceptions. Letting your self breathe and express without worrying if what your doing has worth to other persons or entities. This approach is freeing in a way. Though, I would like to say that, while this method or whatever you wanna call it, is freeing it also doesn’t mean that one should expect growth without persistence, however it is just an opinion formulated by personal experience.

Yo I almost sound intelligent! Woop. Happy Friday y’all. Do what you love, love what you do. I finally get that expression!

Time waits for no one

Here it is, that blinking cursor taunting and tantalizing the writer inside me at the same time. Like a clock on the wall with its hand running along perpetually chasing the end of the battery life in the middle of the night not allowing you to sleep. Cept the blinking cursor can either be a curse or your best friend once the letters start moving that blinking line falling in sync with the loud ticking noise that only grows louder as each second passes stealing any chance of sleep you thought you were about to get. I replaced the wall clock to a silent ticker. Something about that incessant ticking just really bothers me some nights. Somehow though there’s still a ticking clock outside in the back patio. That isn’t my patio because I’m just a person residing in someone else’s house. An unwanted guest of unconditional love. An onyx goat who’s lost and needs to find the obsidian sheep and the rest of the herd.

I think back to sitting at a left turn light, wanting my car’s blinker to match directly on beat as the car in front of me’s blinker. It never works no matter how many times I spontaneously and haphazardly spawn that random thought in my head while at a left turn light.

Can you tell I haven’t the slightest clue what to write about?

I hung out with some good friends of mine this past July 4th, and while I had an ok time, I don’t know what it was… something was missing, you know that feeling when your leaving somewhere and you feel like you’ve left something behind but you don’t even know what?

Maybe that’s not even an accurate analogy. The feeling I’m feeling is at the moment hard to describe. Maybe it’s not even hard to describe but I’m using that as an excuse to string myself along for the ride. Including you, reader. Almost like a mild form of depression or something.

A lot of broken promises to myself. A lot of procrastination leading to boredom, leading to unfulfilled dreams and passions that’s collected dust and cobwebs over the past couple months. A lot of unnecessary over thinking.

Personas

Most of my life, I’ve always seen myself in other personas. I’ve always come up with a nickname to escape my personal identity. I never liked that person. I associated too much pain in that person. I always wanted to escape reality as much as I could. Whether it was through video games, rave names, dj names, aol instant messenger, Instagram handles, whatever have you, and in a sense I still do. It’s completely ingrained into me. Mostly out of a space of fear initially right, because for some or maybe even a fair portion of us, we just want to be someone else or something else.

Because, why should I have to own the name that wasn’t even mine to choose, why should I, like the name my parents chose for me, when they weren’t even present for my childhood or most of it, anyway? Even today right now, though already I’ve accepted my name, and it took a whole 3 decades to do so, I still don’t really use my given name. But that’s besides the point, maybe some of you agree?

Personas have been a powerful thing for me, it was a form of medium for vision. For character building. Before I became a DJ I already said in my mind I was, I even went as far as printing out business cards that said I was a DJ on it and passing them out even though I had no idea how to DJ. But it totally manifested into reality in my life.

I use this now in my current days I create a title for myself, I call myself a writer but what do I really know about writing? Perhaps slim to none, but as I call myself that, I begin to see it and I begin to believe it, and as I’m going through the process it starts to become solidified into the essence of my being. It starts to flower into my intuition and creative space. I start to manifest the creative people working in the same sphere. There’s probably books written about this method, and explained in great detail.

I’m not learned in the mechanics of how or why creating a persona works for me, but through actual experience this has been true for me. Maybe this could work for you as well? Who do you see yourself as?

Dissonance

Where does one find inspiration to write? Is it in the books that we read? Is it meeting a homeless person on the street and caring enough to even say hi, how you doing, getting to know them, giving them more than 1$, giving them a full meal and having a heart felt conversation?

Does one find inspiration from the dissonance that happens in a persons life and then write about that? Do you have a fight or an argument with someone and then write down all your frustrations and anger and release all the thoughts of fear onto a medium? Is when you sit there and try hard to write something that has a bit a prose, digging deep into the thesaurus or dictionary, and referencing favorite authors to dig deeper into the creative writing space using parts of your brain you don’t normally use to get through the mundane workings of “normal” everyday life?

Finding your voice is definitely an every changing puzzle. Its like once you complete certain little puzzles, the puzzle gets bigger and more convoluted. There is always room for improvement especially when your first starting out it seems. “A friend once told me, your never gonna be at where you want to be, but you gotta remind yourself, you aren’t where you used to be. So give yourself credit once in a while.” I actually agree with this, and I feel it is an important process, even though it may feel like conceited or coming from a space of ego, but it really isn’t in my opinion, its more like congratulating yourself because you made it this far. Its more like a private victory that you share with your self because your going through the motions. Its more like you got up, you faced your anxiety, your fear, your loneliness, your depression, your whatever the fuck it is, call it the EGO, call it the FEAR BASED BEING that has shaped you for the past how many ever years. BUT hey! Your here, your reading this, your writing, your acting, your singing, your gaming, or doing whatever it is thats allowing you to grow. OR maybe you’re not. BUT your still alive, which means you STILL have a chance, you still can cut those old circles of friends off that isn’t growing you, and if you don’t have many friends, well you CAN, face your fears and get out of that comfort zone and go learn how, (or you can friend me, I’m always looking for new growth buddies lol.) you CAN quit that nasty cigarette habit, by replacing it with some new habits.

Thing is, I don’t even know what I’m doing with this blog, and probably neither will all of humanity when they first start things. BUT I do feel a pull, and eventually you’ll get that one person that acknowledges what you’re doing, and gives you dabs. Like for example, I totally randomly found this person named Anh’s blog and it HELLA inspired me to write because her prose was so on point yanno? So I left a comment and I started following her. And you know what, SHE READ SOME OF MY POSTS, and sent me a COMMENT, a RESPONSE, and I was ABSOLUTELY baffled. I couldn’t even believe what I was reading, it was an actual comment from an actual person with real feelings and a voice and she stepped out of her zone to say something about. My writing. I mean WHAT?

Anyway, I guess just keep pushing, in a nut shell, is what I’m trying to say. I think its a lot easier for me to just say fuck it and post whatever it is thats on my mind on this blogging site, because in all reality only like 2 people I know in real life, know about this blog. I feel like I can just be myself here. Where as in real life my ego feels like it needs to protect who I was in the past so these people around me don’t judge me. I’m slowly getting over that way of thinking, because to be honest, someone once told me while I was locked up, “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”

I just googled that quote and apparently its from Dr. Seuss lol. Have a blessed day y’all.

Progression

So I’ve been doing this thing lately, I learned it from a podcast I was listening to. I’ve set three alarms on my phone and labeled the alarms as actual affirmations and little reminders to be creative throughout the day. I have one set at 7 pm PST, it says, write a blog post, write a poem. Of course I should probably adjust this timing maybe? I don’t always follow through with it. As of late though I have been able to come through, I think probably twice.

So anyway, I think in the last blog post I was talking about my friend whom I went with to this so called “Mountain of Truth”, anyway it was here that I found my passion for writing, but I hadn’t even known it yet at the time. To be honest, now that I really think about it, my writing stemmed from when I was a child. My mother, wasn’t actually what you would call the run if the mill mother. That in itself is a whole entire other blog post, maybe a few. Anyway, the earliest memory of me really getting into writing was probably when I was an 8th grader, and my mother at the time was going out with this guy who worked at the casino where she was working at. So they were hookin up or whatever, but I didn’t know that at the time.

I come home from 7th grade spring break and she tells me to pack my bags, and that we were going to Vegas. So I pack some clothes and left all my things. We never came back to California.

Story for another blog post.

So fast forward, I’m in Michigan, living in an apartment with my mom and her bf or whatever the fuck title he held at the time. And well I didn’t have friends, and we didn’t have much money let alone afford a tv, eventually they got one and working cable even. But before that I had nothing but a notebook and a pen, and comic books that I borrowed from the library that was a 3 mile walk away. I would walk there every day just to log onto the internet for an hour and then read comic books because back then I wasn’t into actual books. Shame because nowadays its harder to find more free time to read a good book.

Its like Jim Kwik says, “…its no longer self-help, its shelf-help.” Lol so lately I’ve been trying to get my friends to read more and its not working. I guess they gotta want it for themselves bad enough to make that change.

For the sake of mastery.

Ever get intimidated by just the thought of writing something just for the sake of writing? I most certainly do. Especially when it’s for an online medium right? Because wow people might read this! Actual people? I dunno maybe. And then I struggle with the fact that people may not even read it.

Then my ego steps in and pretty soon you don’t write anything at all! Because my Ego says, “yo your writing can’t compare to all these people who’ve been doing it for years.” “Yo no one’s gonna read your entries, you won’t even matter to the billions of people who are already following those who inspire them.”

Eh I guess that used to my old mindset, not that I don’t revisit that same old mindset every once in a while. It’s just been so ingrained into my way of thinking, I think I’m still in the process of unlearning old ways of thinking and building on a new process of how I tackle daily life.

My ego gets fed though because I add these little tags to my wordpress post and random strangers who are building blogs or want to generate more traffic to their sites give me a sense of… well people digging the stuff that I’ve been writing about. It gives me a sense of validation in this world. My ego is fed just enough for me to keep posting.

But these days I tend to just not care about that aspect too much anymore, I just want to post consistently so that I can grow my self as a writer. Then maybe eventually I can post something worthwhile? At least to myself right, because every writer who spends a lengthy amount of time coming up with words to paint a picture on a page is probably proud of their own progress at some point. At some point you go, ” Wait wow, did I just write that? I actually sound a bit intelligent.” So your ego strokes your brains dopamine or seratonin or whatever happens that triggers some kind of pleasure zone in your brain, and your like dude let me re-read that again, and again, and again.

You start to want to share this with anyone who will even listen or read your most private most vulnerable thoughts, in high hopes you will get some sort of feed back, that in some way your writings, your musings, will inspire someone, or provoke some kind of feelings out of them.

I actually didn’t fully realize that there could be a passion in writing for me. It wasn’t until one of my good friends was going through a really tough battle with heroin and reached out to me, that for the first time writing became a viable passion for me.

My good friend was on a kick from one of the worst substances to get addicted to, and he came to me for help. I really didn’t know what to do, but I know I really wanted to help him out of the situation, so in a desperate attempt to help him out I hit up a friend of mine who was from the Bay Area and drove out to Concord near San Francisco, he offered us a spot to chill for a couple weeks!

We drove north to his house up in Hoopa Valley 5 hours north of San Francisco, my friend and I named that place the mountain of truth. There we ate packets of ramen noodles and baked potatoes for 2 weeks and created. After that day I also got into writing… I’ll finish this in another post.

Muse

The inner muse is hard to describe, it’s a growing process much like planting a seed inside your heart and mind and watering it with consistent thoughts of creative growth. Probably the most important part of that process is actualizing it on a medium where you can get your creative process recorded.

Perhaps that is actually what I intend for this “blog” of mine. To enter a space where I can feel comfortable sharing my inner most thoughts and at the same time increasing the depth of which I can write to fully express deeper sentiments. To find my voice in this busy world I suppose.

I say I am a writer, and a budding one at that, but most days I am conflicted on my prose and literary concepts? I always feel like my writing isn’t up to par enough with the writers around me, and that in itself is just a self limiting belief. Truly just getting out of the comfort zone and putting words on a page every day would be enough to form and sculpt my writing skills I guess.

Wiped out

So today is a long awaited day off! Time to be a bit lazy I guess. I’ve been super active physically and I think I’ve reached my limit! My body went kaput today. Luckily it was my day off because I literally way overslept.

I feel like a straight bum. I got invited to a Spanish themed event tonight in Pasadena. I think I will go. With the intention of listening to great music and to meet at least 5 people and start a conversation.

I want to hone my people skills! Though it sorta becomes a chore after a while. What’s really cool though is you never know who you might meet without opening yourself up. Like for example, I was at a bar in San Diego county, my friend Brandon invited me to go with him when I went down to Carlsbad to visit him a while back.

And if I hadn’t went to that bar, I would have never met someone who I totally vibed with! Out of the whole bar I bet we were the only ones who could talk in depth about anime!

Here’s the thing though, at first I totally got rejected! I walked up to a group of women and tried to start a conversation, and they were being totally, what’s the word? Stuck up? No… something along the lines of giving me the cold shoulder. I think I said something like “yo that’s a sick hat” or something and the leader of the pack came up and shooed me away saying they were having a ladies night or something.

So I said “ok obviously not interested in a conversation!” I turned to leave and before I left they shoved one of their lady friends in front of me and we started chatting away. We’re still friends today, albeit we don’t speak much often. But it brings me back to my point, you never know who you might meet! Gotta put yourself out there I guess.

Sometimes though I get struck with this feeling of dread almost, like I’ll go out with the intention of meeting people, but my inner self talk convinces me that I should just leave, like last night! I went to this event called Open House, and it’s a dance studio that’s open to dancers to come and practice dancing. Everyone was so open and super cool, it should have been a perfect environment to meet some amazing people. But I got intimidated and left a bit early. No idea.

Transpiration

Is transpiration a word? I guess so it wasn’t autocorrected. Lol.

So recently I’ve been trying this new affirmation method out. I learned it from an interview that Tom Billeau? I never know how to spell his name lol, he’s the dude who started impact theory. Very good show if y’all ain’t seen it yet. Highly recommend if your looking for some inspiring conversations with high performing minds and humans of today. Anyway so Tom interviews this dude named Brendon Bruchard and one of the things he mentioned to do was to set 3 repeating alarms, one at 10 am, one at 3pm, and one at like 7pm… well iono if that’s the exact times but those are the times that I set my repeating alarms at.

So when you set these alarms, you can label them! So I labeled my 10 am one, “be creative, be gracious, show gratitude” and my 3 pm one, “keep pushing forward, love yourself, treat your body like a temple” and then I have my 7pm alarm saying ” write a poem, write a blog entry”, these will change inevitably, but I suppose it’s a start. So I’m sitting here at Starbucks reading a booklet called the self publishing blueprint and my 7pm alarm goes off, so here I am actually following through with the alarm! I’ve had these set for the past four days or so, but I haven’t written a blog post or poetry in all four of those days!

Oops, I was always either in the car driving or doing something where I couldn’t just sit still and write a lengthy blog post or ponder on words to paint on a page for a poem. Recently I went to an open mic called Recess in LA, (and I got a phone call from a friend so I completely lost my train of thought.) Recess is dope though, I always meet some inspiring people every time I roll through. Dopest poets and artists man I swear. I met this guy named Ford and we swapped info, now he sends me a poem everyday and it’s mad inspiring.

Oh I remembered what I was gonna say, so I met Ford and a woman named Emily? Was it Emily? Her poet name is emdashery, but they told me that I should write without stressing on rhyming the words so much, so I guess I will try that today. (What have I got to lose?)

Have you guys ever struggled with overcoming something in your lives? Maybe it was spending too much time on Netflix watching those awesome shows, maybe it was eating junk food, smoking cigarettes/vapes, gambling, or just doing too much of something? Well I’ve been working on overcoming what seems to me, my last real vice. I can’t say that it’s hard, because to be honest it’s as easy as a snap of a finger, you just decide to do something else, develop a good habit and create a whole routine of good habits that just take over all the bad habits we’ve engrained into ourselves over years of previous programming.

This is a lot easier said than done at first. But once you have an awesome routine, (routine is key by the way) you no longer feel “bored” because your steadily progressing toward a better version of yourself. You know one thing that’s been a huge puzzle for me is helping those who come to me with issues going on in their life. My friends will call me with some drama and seek an ear.

But I think I’ve been getting a bit impatient and I stop listening emphatically, and start coming up with solutions right away for them. It’s just kind of baffling for me especially when it’s the same friend with the same puzzle, yet even when we have long drawn out conversations about solutions and processes that might solve the issue at hand, your friend doesn’t do anything about it. Then a week or two weeks later they call or you guys hang out, and they have the same old puzzle.

I think it was Einstein who said “insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.” Relevant af. I think I over reacted on a conversation because I got fed up with the same drama being brought to me. I just have faith that maybe I could be the voice of reason and help them out of the funk that they are currently going through. You know what I mean? But my ego jumped to an irritated state and I got so tired of the same record playing that I confronted my friend with some ultimatums, and maybe I shouldn’t have been so upfront and blunt by asking them to really take a good long look at themselves, that working on themselves is the only solution ! Somewhere along those lines.

Oh well, guess I just gotta let it go. I think I read somewhere that your circle has to decrease in size and increase in value.

I feel like my words have little to no merit because I don’t have immediate results. But as I continue on the path to the best version of myself, I will sculpt these results and once I can come back to my friends who may or may not be doing the same old things, maybe once I have the results I can convince them then. Who knows? Is it even worth it? I believe most people on this planet deserve a better self awareness and progression in creativity.

T.D. Jakes said this once “We were CREATED, by the CREATOR, to be CREATIVE.” When I heard this on his podcast, I really had to rewind it like 5 times lol. I wholeheartedly believe in this.

So I’m gonna try to write a free verse poem without rhyming .

I will name this poem:

“Tiné”

Every time I get bored, I think of you.

My body craves you after a few hours go by,

So many memories we’ve spent together

Only for you to end up in the trash.

And only for me to end up feeling trashed.

The first moments are always joyous.

Leaving me feeling light headed and in a temporary state of bliss

Your kiss is always fleeting and always leaving me wanting more as the days go by

Every time I see someone else embraced with your certain death

My brain goes wild and soon I start to reminisce.

Even as I write this poem I think of you.

My body lights up with an anxious and ambivalent feeling.

It’s a dirty feeling I hate it but I love it.

First Stumbling Block

Today I’m sitting at Dot’s Cafe. Absolutely clueless on what I’m doing with this blog by the way. I’m sure maybe a lot of people have felt the same way as me while starting to find and really build whatever it is that their passionate about. For me, its a lot of things. Currently though I guess there are more pressing matters at hand, like surfing the world of downtown Pasadena for a JOB (just over broke) to keep my bills paid (x__x). I was previously employed at Huy Fong Foods Inc, and for those who don’t know what that is, its the company that makes that popular hot sauce named Sriracha. You know that red bottle with the bright green cap.

Yeah, so funny thing, I was sitting at a Starbucks and I forgot what I was doing, probably doing social media related stuff, or reading a book or something and I got a call from this guy named John whom I had met at my job when I was working at Mcdonald’s. So, John offered me a job as a sales representative at this Hyundai Dealership! I was super excited and totally accepted on the spot, anyway right after I got off the phone with him, literally 10 seconds later I get a call from the Temp Agency in charge of my assignment and I was told that my assignment was over. SOOOOO here I am sitting at this coffee shop without a job and a new job offer. Bank account at like 200$ which was already accounted for because my car payment is 200$ every 2 weeks… so basically 0$. (luckily I had a last check which was 279$ so it put me up for a bit, but currently I’m back down to 67$ LOL)

So things didn’t work out with the Hyundai dealership, turns out I wasn’t fit for the team. Oh well, John was kind of flakey anyway… which I’m actually kind of glad I didn’t end up with him for a boss, even though he may have been an amazing friend. Doing my best to align my actions with my words, doesn’t exactly mean the world will align as well probably? Though I do believe that you attract more of who you are and what you think into your life, so its just as well that I didn’t get that job. I then just went with my instinct and drove to downtown Pasadena and went job hunting for the rest of the day and walked into a bunch of upscale restaurants. Sushi Roku actually asked me to come back for an interview right on the spot! The only restaurant that did ask for me to come back for an interview that day. AND!!! I would have never found this awesome spot named Dots Cafe.

I met Diana and Ron here, and didn’t even realize that Diana was one of the managers, anyway as I was starting this blog and making a post on instagram she came up to me and gave me her card and showed interest in hiring me to be a part of her team! I was amazed lol. I would love to work here actually if Sushi Roku’s vision doesn’t align with mine! Or maybe even I can work out a schedule where I work with Dots Cafe in the morning time a few days a week plus this Sushi Roku place! That would be UH MAY ZING!~ I need to memorize better synonyms for that word. SO THUS ENDS THE FIRST BLOG POST. DID I DO OK?

So to close off I’ll leave a piece with ya’ll I wrote this because a friend of mine called me and was in tears, and she was so upset and sad because of the relationship that she was in was debilitating and destroying her spirit. I offered some advice because I asked her at the beginning of the conversation if she just wanted an ear, someone to really listen, or if she wanted advice. She said she wanted some advice and so we talked for a while and the conversation wasn’t really going anywhere anytime soon. So the conversation ended abruptly because she had to go. So my emotions were like flying all the over the place, I had to write a piece. I called this Hadie’s Grip.

Hadies Grip

imprisoned by the vicelock of hadies grip, talking about how sad she is lately pissed, she said he loves her but has a way of being a shady dick, abusive physically and emotionally in this toxic relationship, I told her to pack your things and hastily dip, she said yeah I know but it’s not that easy, I still gotta take care of these kids,

I said what about your family can’t they provide a hive for your tribe instead of looking for a way to be lit? Why does Thoughts of suicide and gettin high be the vibe that allows you to forget? She said her family doesn’t want anything to do with her because she won’t leave the guy that she’s with, and he provides enough money for her to get by but it stresses her out so she gotta be high to resist, meanwhile she’s so mortified by the man that’s supposed to be a source of love he turned the womans thought process into a vile fearful skit, and when her ego speaks it makes the bile within me twitch, because once upon a while she was an amazing beautiful gift, a blip of a once beautiful soul held inside of a self induced crypt,

imprisoned by the vicelock of hadies grip, talking about how sad she is lately pissed, she said he loves her but has a way of being a shady dick, abusive physically and emotionally in this toxic relationship, I told her to pack her things and hastily dip, she said yeah I know but it’s not that easy, I still gotta take care of these kids.

She said she was on the verge of suicide and that she cried evenings by herself with a bottle of wine drinking till she’s sick, she said it’s so hard to get a grip and She’s so lonely she need some kind of fix, I said why don’t do you surround yourself with some more positive shit? Read a book, take a hike, write down some feelings that you got inside and develop some penmanship ? She said “I know I know I know” and continued talking about how shitty her life was and she wish she could just quit, feeling the way she does because she just wanted to work out the kinks in this relationship, and then she hung up and texted me quick, she said he’s back and don’t call or text me back and thank you for taking me away from my trip,

imprisoned by the vicelock of hadies grip, talking about how sad she is lately pissed, she said he loves her but has a way of being a shady dick, abusive physically and emotionally in this toxic relationship, I told her to pack her things and hastily dip, she said yeah I know but it’s not that easy, I still gotta take care of these kids.

There was so much more I wanted to say about the situation like ease up and take it slow, that there was a way to stitch up the soul , that’s broken and cradled by her ego, I wanted to mention all the different ways to build a positive lifestyle through association and growth, through artistry and characters like mr Edgar Allen Poe, that drowning in all them chemicals, is just temporarily filling up all them holes, that chemicals corrode and evaporate and leave you with a bigger hole, allowing only change in the state of your body and mind in intervals. Inhibiting true growth through spiritual pinnacles, like elevating through meditation abolishing perceptions of the cynical, to deviate from the fleeting caress of substances commonly mistaken as a mineral, as death inches closer like a giant tentacle…

Imprisoned by the vice lock of hadies grip, enamored by the song of a crazy script, she wants out but is too far into this hazy trip, she wants out but it’s too much effort to get a friend to baby sit… at least that’s what her ego be on this lately tip,

It’s still a work in progress but kind of how I felt about the conversation. lol thanks for reading.