The best advice I have ever received

“There are 200 countries out there”

Is by far the best advice I have never received but wished I had. Well, actually I have received it later in life, but from myself. I wish it was it has been given to me by a family member, a friend or by an old Chinese wizard living in a remote location, but that wasn’t the case because the best advice comes from within. Because no one knows us better than we know ourselves.

Countless times when I was young, I felt like dying, I felt that my life had no purpose and everything was negative. Life was hard, people were cruel and I couldn’t see a way out of it. That was the time when I needed someone to come to me and tell me:

“So what? There are 200 countries out there, just start over elsewhere. And if that elsewhere doesn’t work just try again and keep trying until you make it. There are no 10 or 20, there are 200. That’s a really big number, the possibilities are endless, be realistic and understand you are not confined to the place where you were born, you are relatively free to live and travel anywhere you want.”

Realistically speaking there’s absolutely nothing that could prevent me to fly out of this country tonight and start a new life somewhere else tomorrow. The only constraints are of course those we make ourselves up. Excuses to keep feeling sorry for ourselves instead of taking action.

Near-death experiences

I shouldn’t be alive. I should have died a long time ago but somehow I didn’t. I just continued to exist while letting parts of me on the way here. My body continued functioning, a witness of the lost parts, like an insect which has lost some of its legs but still which continues to crawl with the hopes that nobody will notice he’s missing some parts of him (or her). The following is a list of some of my near-death experiences, the ones I can remember. In order to protect people’s privacy, I will refer to them only using their initials. I have no idea what is anyone supposed to do with this information after reading it, but I guess you’re already here so you might as well keep reading:

1. On the roofs.The first near-death experiences I can recall are when I was 11 years old in Argentina, F. and I used to climb to the rooftops of some really tall buildings and walking on the ledges for some reason. And many times we almost fell, but sometimes we also didn’t fall and that was the first time my timeline started branching out from the times I did fall off.
2. Under the bus.I was 13, in Argentina, I was on the bus, on a stormy afternoon and about to get down. Wearing flip-flops and carrying a big backpack with heavy school books. I pressed the button to let the driver know I wanted to get off, he opened the door and I slipped down the stairs, which were wet because of the heavy rain and ended up directly under the bus’s double wheels. Luckily a woman on the bus had seen me slip and shouted to the driver to stop, which he did, saving my life and giving me the scare of a lifetime. It was the second time my timelines split, leaving my death self behind and my former self somehow incomplete.
3. Off the balcony.
   16 years old, at home, alone. Everyone in my life was a bully, Things were bad. I sat on the edge of our 8th-floor window and was about to jump and end it all when someone knocked on the door. I got down and opened the door, didn’t jump.

4. Under the gun.17 years old, Rosario, Argentina. While I was riding a bicycle with D., a guy hits him on his head, we fall off the bike and he points at us with his gun and robs us. In this timeline he didn’t shoot, so we are still alive but in a different timeline we are dead.

5. Hitchhiking.While hitchhiking alone somewhere in Germany, in the year 2007, I knew a car wanted to run me over because its driver didn’t like hitchhikers. It charged towards me and I somehow managed to jump to the side and avoid it. As it drove away, it sounded its horn maniacally in the same way people used to shoot their revolvers while riding away on their horses in the wild wild west.

6. Cliffhanger.In Pakistan, the year was 2008, with K. we were on a hiking trail along a mountain that had a missing part and for some reason we decided to try and grab our way to the other side, leaving me hanging from 1000 meters high without any equipment.

7. Bike.
   In Malaysia, 2013 maybe, with S. I was riding my motorbike on the highway and carrying about 5 liters of extra petrol because we were going to an isolated area when a car blocks my way and forces me to drive on a patch of spilled sand on the highway. I lose control, we fell off the bike, roll on the pavement, and witness the gas tank rolling next to me and a truck almost running me over. The tank didn’t explode and the truck didn’t stop to see if we were ok.

8. Blades.
   2016, somewhere in either Santa Fe province in Argentina, walking with Bong Gu by the side of the highway. A sort of tractor with some very sharp blades to mow the land of cut the grass drives full speed and passes me by just a few centimeters away from my legs. The driver didn’t even bother to warn me he was coming with his blades.

9. A close call.
   Also in Argentina, somewhere in La Pampa during the same walking trip. The night was falling and we hid behind some bushes by the side of the road. A vehicle drives by and spots us while we were searching for the perfect place. Half an hour later, when it was almost pitch dark, the car comes back and they come hunting for us with flashlights. We remain hidden and motionless, hearing them talking about what they would do to us if they found us. It was my call, I could have made a run for it when I had the chance or remain hidden and pray they don’t find us. I made the right call, and we are still alive.

10. 2017. With N. In Peru, a crazy guy was probably about to kill me but then something happened and he didn’t. Later that same year I fell off a cliff and landed on a cactus, and the next year, 2018, I was attacked by 100 bees and passed out and almost died, and this year I was almost dragged by the current in Bahia de Caraquez and pulled all my strength for a final desperation move where I ran as fast as I could against the current and somehow managed to make it back with my last breath. The End.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Confessions

I got this, I’m 34. I got this, I’ve gamed the game, I’ve cracked the code. I got this, I’m 34. I know what it’s like being an adult and I think I can now understand what life is all about, but still… I drink every day, because life’s too scary otherwise.

I want to give up, every single day I feel like I can’t take it anymore. I know I will die eventually, and that scares me more than it should. It scares me more than I dare to admit to myself.

2 years ago I decided I didn’t want to work anymore, and the last 18 months I’ve spent about 12 hours a day working hard every day creating ways to generate 10 different sources of passive income so that 2019 is the last year I need to work. I’ve spent 12 hours a day for 18 months learning new things, trying new methods, techniques, improving myself, and still, every night when I go to bed I imagine myself getting a heart attack or a seizure of some kind and ceasing to exist.  I imagine everything I’ve worked so hard for going to waste and I realized the countless hours I spent working have been for nothing because I haven’t enjoyed a single one of them. I want to read and write books every day, I don’t want to do the stupid amazon affiliate websites, or the stupid clickbank offers, or manage the FB groups, or send the Fiverr orders, or set up the proxies and bots, and the fb ads and write bullshit posts on some crapy PBN all so that I can rank some random s***, and that’s all stupid, and at the same time it’s the only way I can somehow build a future for myself in the one I can be financially independent.

And once I’m financially independent then I still have to deal with all the underlying mental problems I’ve been carrying with me for a good 20 years already. I’m a teacher pretending to be an author pretending to be a graphic designer pretending to be a marketing expert pretending to be a translator pretending to be an advertiser pretending to be a salesman pretending to be a hacker pretending to be a teacher, but then I look at myself in the mirror and I see nothing and no one, I just see someone who would die soon and become dust just like everyone else. I see a guy who had faked it till he made it, and once he made it he faked it even more because faking it had become a lifestyle in and of itself. I had realized everything is fake and everyone is fake and life makes no sense and there’s no meaning to it all, it’s all just random, pointless rubbish, at least 80% of the things I spend my time on every day are stupid and meaningless. 

And everything’s a game that makes no sense and people are crazy and the world is a scary place and I look at myself in the mirror and I tell myself “you’ve got this, you can do this” when I’m actually scared to death of the world around me. And I listen to k-pop every day because it’s the only thing helping me balance the horrors I’ve seen throughout my life. And what it truly means to be aware of oneself.

In my 20’s I thought it’s all about experiences, I have to do and see as many things as I can before it’s too late, it’s all about traveling and learning. And now in my 30’s I think, it’s not about experiences anymore, its all about doing whatever I need to do to get me through the day, it’s all about surviving today and somehow avoiding getting crushed by the enormous existential weight of being alive.

And I know that someone I know is crying right now, and someone loves me and someone hates me, and someone very far away is singing a very cute and lovely song. And I know my dog is dreaming of me and I know millions of animals are slaughtered every second because people are cruel and horrible, and I know I don’t want to live on this planet anymore and I’m ashamed of belonging to the human race, and this is me, and these are my confessions. I’m writing this in a small fishing village in Ecuador and you’re reading this in a country very far away from Ecuador but you still somehow manage to relate to some of the things you read here and maybe even feel a bit sorry for the author of this post.

And deep inside me I know I’m the real thing and I know I shouldn’t be forced to play the “fake it” game, but I am, and I look stupid playing it and I know it. And I also know that’s just the name of the game my generation has been forced to play, we are all “influencers” and we are all begging for attention and fighting each other for a piece of the pie. The thing is, the pie is not big enough for everyone, so it’s a cutthroat business for those of us who make money online. The pie is too small and people have very sharp knives and it’s not even a pie, it’s a cake, and the cake it’s a lie.

And I’d like to order a big cappuccino and sit in front of you at a coffee shop downtown on a Tuesday afternoon. And I’d like you to tell me that I’ve made it, that this is it, that I can relax now because it won’t get any better than this. And I’ll secretly smile, take a deep breath, look at my hands to make sure I’m not dreaming, then look at you deep in the eyes and take a sip of the drink I was carrying in my jacket’s inside pocket instead of the cappuccino, because life is still too scary otherwise.

Why I ditched veganism

A short essay about why I ditched veganism:

I was vegan from 2005 till 2014, then I ditched it and these are the 5 reasons why.

1st reason: Stress: Yes, stress is the silent killer and people are awesome at giving stress or causing some problems and inconveniences to others. No, it’s not hard to find protein, what’s hard is to find the patience to deal with the million assholes who ask you where do you find protein. The difficult part of being vegan is not finding vegan food, is having to defend yourself from all the people who attack you for being vegan, or get defensive whenever they hear the word vegan, and they feel they have to defend their food choices, while actually I never actually gave a damn about what other people ate, I was vegan because I wanted to, because I had chosen to, and never cared what others ate. But still, people felt the need to attack me because I ate something different than them.

And yes, I was healthy, I didn’t feel sick not even once in 9 years, and I never needed to go to the doctor because of being vegan, I had to go to the doctor because I was living a reckless life and having heaps of accidents but not because of being vegan.

And people are insecure and they need validation, they need you  to validate their life choices and food choices, they won’t accept the fact that you have chosen to eat something different than them, they will want to talk about it, A LOT, and ask you  many questions and judge you and attack you for no good reason besides the fact that you have chosen to eat something different than them.

2nd reason: Freeganism: Yes, veganism is the solution to all the world’s problems, except that no, it totally isn’t, freeganism is! Because even if we were all vegan, our society is still structured so that, for whatever reason, we will waste 50% of the food that is produced, be it vegan or not vegan, that food will still be thrown away if it reaches its expiration date, if the packaging gets damaged during its transport, because someone didn’t finish their meal or whatever other crazy reason. 

Freeganism means eating or using whatever has already been discarded by society and that’s the real solution to all our problems. Because vegan food that is made especially for you to eat, takes heaps of resources to produce, pack and transport and that would all be saved if you ate whatever had already been discarded by society, whether it was an animal product or not. You won’t be raising the demand by eating from the bin, because it had been already thrown away anyway, so no one would be able to buy it anyway.

3rd reason: Star Trek: This is one is a strange reason, but one I feel deeply identified with. By understanding and acknowledging the fact that other animals also feel pain when they are killed, you actually belong to the 1% of people who are empathetic enough to understand that there are other sentient beings on this planet, besides themselves and that animals are not a commodity, but they are sentient beings who are scared and want to live, and don’t want to be chopped into little pieces and sold just for your pleasure.

So, the fact that I was able to understand that, it actually made me feel as if I were beyond my time, as a Star Trek character, following their prime directive:

As the right of each sentient species to live in accordance with its normal cultural evolution is considered sacred, no Starfleet personnel may interfere with the normal and healthy development of alien life and culture. Such interference includes introducing superior knowledge, strength, or technology to a world whose society is incapable of handling such advantages wisely. Starfleet personnel may not violate this Prime Directive, even to save their lives and/or their ship, unless they are acting to right an earlier violation or an accidental contamination of said culture. This directive takes precedence over any and all other considerations, and carries with it the highest moral obligation.

And it made me adopt their prime directive as a philosophy for life. A philosophy to avoid getting crazy dealing with all the people who want to judge you for having chosen something different than them or for being way ahead of your time from at least an ethical point of view. And yes, I know society is like this and we shouldn’t question it, and yes I know, traditions, customs, politics, religions, economy, everyone says you should eat meat because they have their own agendas and they all benefit from you eating meat. You will get cancer and get sick more often so the doctors or insurance companies will make more money. A single hamburger is the equivalent water consumption to leaving the shower running for 2 months, so some water company will benefit from you eating meat and all the grains that are fed to cows are enough to feed the entire African continent, and I am sure many rich people benefit from poor people dying or staying poor. And I’m sure many poor people benefit from other poor people dying because they save themselves the hassle of having to think for themselves or having to questions the system. Being obedient is easy, while going against the stream means you need to face those who have chosen to be obedient to avoid having to think. Because thinking means having to accept the fact that we are going to die a meaningless life and that we are no more than insignificant specs of dust in the vast cosmic ocean. So doing, thinking, saying and eating what is socially accepted will relieve me of the pain and stress of having to confront and be confronted by every single obedient sheep everytime I go to a freakign restaurant or get invited for dinner somewhere. 

Reason 4: Other vegans. If you are vegan you not only have to be against the meat eaters but also against other vegans, who are always trying to make you feel bad.

Meat eaters try to make you feel bad for not eating meat and vegans will try to make you feel bad for not being as vegan as they are. And they are snobby and usually well off, and I’m poor and usually homeless, and they don’t understand that when you don’t have money to buy special vegan food you need to eat whatever people give you or you can forage. But still they will try to make you feel guilty for agreeing with them only 99% instead of 100% and that all ads up until one day you find that you have ran out of patience to defend your life choices in front of both meat and non-meat eaters.

And it doesn’t stop there, some vegans will also attack you if you don’t read books from vegan authors, you don’t watch vegan movies or documentaries, or stupid things like that, and they won understand I found this pair of leather boots were a gift from someone who didn’t use them anymore, and didn’t pay for them so I’m not increasing the demand for it, the rabbit was already dead by the side of the road and I didn’t contribute in any way to it’s suffering or dead.

Reason 5: Powerlessness, I truly don’t believe the actions of a single individual can make a change in the big picture. And I believe life is too short for having to spend time arguing with people, and the universe is too big for any of our arguments or choices to matter. 

I know I will die soon, that’s why I chose to spend my last years on this planet doing only the things I like, which are: reading, writing and exercising. And they certainly don’t include having to defend myself at every meal. 

And yes, I do eat meat sometimes, especially when invited to eat at someone’s place, I just don’t buy it or pay for it, and yes it stills grosses me out, and I still think it’s disgusting, and I would never eat it if there was another choice.

And yes, I do eat cheese or ice cream sometimes, and yes I think it’s disgusting and I imagine the pain the cows have to go through while being impregnated and having their babies taken away and killed in front of them but I still do it because I know I’m a terrible human being.

And yes, I do eat the road kill sometimes because I don’t want it to go to waste, I skin it and take the guts out and cook it, and I do eat the meat from the bin that the supermarkets have thrown away, and yes, I do eat the leftovers from the restaurants’ tables and I do whatever I can to avoid the need of having something produced only for me to eat it or use it.

And no, I don’t have all the answers, and no, I don’t know if I do the right thing, and no, I don’t know anything better so far. And no, I’m not a politician or a billionaire and my life choices will have no effect whatsoever in the big picture, and no I don’t feel guilty for being morally superior and not doing anything about with it.

And yes, I still don’t get sick and haven’t been to a doctor in 15 years and I still can run a full 42k marathon without breaking a sweat and no, it doesn’t have anything to do with my diet, it’s because I run and train everyday, and yes I can still do 50 pushups in a row, that’s 49 more pull-ups then everyone else I know, and no it’s not because I favor soy burgers over beef burgers, it’s because I train hard every day.

And yes, I do still care for the animals and the environment, just not as much as I cared about it in my 20’s when I felt I could be the change I wanted to see in the world and I felt that my choices could make a difference.

Persona

Besides being the name of best video game franchise ever, the persona, for Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, was the social face the individual presented to the world—”a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and on the other to conceal the true nature of the individual.”

This will be a very a very personal post, in the one I will attempt in the form of a list, to deconstruct my mind and uncover what lies beyond the surface to maybe discover who I really am. With the help of Mr. Carl Jung and information from some INTP forums, I have compiled a list of personal traits, habits and thought processes that I (maybe mistakenly) associate and identify myself with, so that then, maybe, I can understand why I wear those masks and what hides behind them. I need to learn what does it mean to be me, why am I me and what makes me me.

• I can be best friends with someone for over a decade and still not feel any kind of emotional connection because I shun emotions and feelings.
• I know a lot about many things and have a wide range of interests, that makes people connect with me in many ways but I very rarely connect with them because I understand not all people need the same things, some need to connect with others and some don’t. I don’t. Even though others try hard and convince me that I do because we are all the same, I still can’t be convinced and I believe the reason they say that is to avoid having to think about life deeply because that would imply admitting that they will die and cease to exist together with all those emotional connections they made.
• I can’t be bothered to proofread before submitting something because I don’t care about the details as long as I am able to communicate the main point. I also never read the instructions because I think we learn by doing, not by reading how to do.
• I have hundreds of websites bookmarked to read later and I know I will never get down to it because something new is always more interesting and every time I get a new computer I create new bookmarks that are then lost in space whenever I lose access to that computer or phone, and so it has been more than 14 years of it, bookmarking things and then losing access to them.
• Most of the ideas I have, never get to see the light of day because I’m too scared of failure and the projects I do start are either abandoned out of boredom when I manage to solve the tricky part or find something more interesting, or they are self-sabotaged because I am not only afraid of failure, but also of succeeding, like a dog chasing a car, he just wants to chase it but he doesn’t know what would he do if he got to catch it.
• I like something in theory but I’m disappointed by the reality of it. Because everything sounds better in my head. I want to be with you because I like the idea of being with you, but I don’t really want to be with you because that would involve an emotional commitment as well as monetary and time-wise that I can’t afford to undertake.
• I have a list of things I have to do every day and they never get done, and things keep getting added up to it until there’s no more space because the day has very few hours, and I have a list of books to read that will never  be read because they are too long and life is too short.
• I am a theorist and I know I could solve all the problems in the world, but just in theory. Because of my lifestyle, I got the chance of living and traveling in many countries and got to see how different countries solved different social, economic and environmental issues, so it would take me only a few weeks to compile a manual called “How to solve all the problems in the world” and publish it and promote it myself and I have actually already planned the whole book in my head, it will have 100 chapters because 100 is a neat round number, with chapter 1 being called for example ‘transportation’ and documenting which countries have good transportation systems, and how they do it and which ones have a terrible one and why. Chapter 2 could be called ‘housing’, 3 ‘education’, 4 ‘energy’, 5 ‘health’ and so on. But I can’t be bothered doing that because the thought of writing the book, in theory, is more appealing than the practice of writing it, so why should I do it if I can already imagine what it would be like? And also everything sounds better in my head, but when I try to put something into words disaster strikes, and another reason I don’t write it is because I somehow think things are good enough because there are no rivers of blood flowing outside my house then things are not too bad yet. And then there’s the fact that I think faster than I type, so by the time I finish a paragraph I already forgot about what the next one was supposed to be about and there is also the fact that I have a lot of confidence and no confidence at all, all at the same time, so that my confidence and lack of confidence conflict while writing something, just like they do right now.
• Small talk not only bores me but it’s actually insulting. For me it means people don’t value my time, because anyone who knows me, knows I have a full-time job as a teacher, and I’m also writing and editing every day, and I’m still running 100 instagram accounts, and doing SEO and still need to find time to meditate and read and exercise and look after my dog and there’s always a million things on my to-do list so anyone who has the need to make small talk they are actually taking away some of the precious time I have so little of, and forcing me to spend it in something I don’t enjoy and don’t get any benefit from, which is making small talk.

 

And now that the list is finished, here’s a fact: “We tend to exaggerate our good qualities and project who we want to be rather than who we are onto our answers” and now there’s another fact: “I tend to question everything and I don’t even believe a thought I think, because I suspect myself of being secretly biased towards something”. So what should I do with the above information? Take it at face value or keep digging and digging trying to come closer to the truth only to realize later that there’s no truth. I think therefore I am, and I question my thoughts because I think and I don’t trust them, because I know how fragile and malleable human minds are, including mine.

And the next point is that I believe that the reason I question myself is to feel special, to feel different, because I believe most people don’t really stop to question their thoughts or actions, they just wake up and go about their habits every day until they die. So in that sense, if I question it means I’m different, and that would be ok if I were to stop there instead of questioning the reason why I question myself. And if that wasn’t enough, I can’t avoid questioning the reason why I question questioning myself, only to find that it wasn’t so that I could feel special and different but it was so that I could try to find a meaning to it all. To my thoughts, to my life, to the universe, thinking that maybe if I keep digging deeper and deeper I will find the answers I’m looking for. Except that there are no answers, not for me and not for anyone. I have created the questions and then got puzzled because there were no answers to the questions I had invented, which were not real in the first place, because what we call reality is probably an illusion, and if it isn’t then at least my thoughts and ideas are most probably an illusion and in the remote case they aren’t they are still meaningless. The fact that they are real doesn’t guarantee they have any meaning or value, they are just thoughts and ideas, theories and conjectures, that creep in uninvited.

To go a bit deeper, and now assuming that my thoughts are somehow real, I must go on and admit that whatever I think, do and say is a consequence of what we call causality and conditioning. We are all conditioned by our environment, by our thoughts, by our upbringing, by our level of awareness, by our education, by our experiences, by the way in that we see the world, by the way we see ourselves and by some other variables. And once I start to understand how conditioning really works, I can see past this “everything’s either an illusion or meaningless” mentality and I can understand who I really am and why I am trying to understand myself. Only to realize there never was such a thing as ‘myself’ to begin with. And there never was an answer to who I am or why am I the way I am, because there never was an ‘I’ to begin with.

It’s the idea of the non-self. There is nothing inside us besides those things that are a product of causes and conditions. And that’s as far as I’m willing to go, today at least.

 

 

 

 

 

My 5 dark thoughts

 

Thought number 1 and also my unpopular opinion is that it’s not fair that football players earn millions while there are people starving on the street right now. It’s something sad, not something to be celebrated. Is something to be angry about. I understand the government needs to distract people somehow so that they don’t complain about the fact that the society is being poorly managed and the resources poorly administrated, I also understand that football is a way to support capitalism and everything that it represents, as it moves billions and helps maintan the status quo, I understand we need to be entertained and distracted, because we are stupid and gullible, but still I can’t wrap my head around the fact that our society idolizes football players with all their violent behaviour, theatrical diving, faking, exaggerating and always trying to get an unfair advantage over the other players, while the real heroes like the teachers, doctors, scientist and people who actually contribute in some way to society are underpaid, overworked and overlooked. And even though I grew up in Argentina, I am probably the only Argentinian person who thinks there is something very wrong with Mr. Messi earning 3 million Euros a month while people in Buenos Aires, Rosario, Cordoba, Salta, Jujuy, Misiones, and many parts of Argentina are living in the street and have no food to eat.

Thought number 2 comes due to the fact that I will cross the Ecuador/Colombian border tomorrow and the fear of the unknown creeps in. Because going to a new country for the first time is always scary, especially in South America where many people have guns and are crazy. And I know I’m also crazy and I grew up in the murder capital of Argentina (Rosario). I always get the feeling everyone around me is not living in the moment but they act out of habit. And whenever I think of the unknown I ask myself, what is life? why are we living? is life worth living? am I different or the same as everyone else? Fear leads me to question myself and my life, and that’s scary.

Thought number 3 comes from seeing the people wait in line for 8 to 10 hours to get a stamp when they cross the Colombian border into Ecuador or vice-versa, with babies, and lots of bags. I can’t help but think that the whole process should be automated with machines on the border or it should be done online in 5 minutes, but of course, it’s also my unpopular opinion to think we should use technology to make people’s life easier and not otherwise.

Thought number 4 appears everytime someone asks me for money, especially on the street or when we are having a meal at a restaurant. At least every day someone will ask me for money here in Colombia and they look at you deep in the eyes and you say no 10 times and they keep pushing and pushing, they don’t give up easily, and I try to be polite and say I don’t have, but the truth is that I hate them for making me feel that way, because the only reason they ask me is because I am a foreigner and they think foreigners have money but the truth is I have like 500 dollars in my bank account and then that’s it. Everyone else around me has way more money than me, they have cars, houses, savings, families who support them, etc. I have met thousands of people during my trips but no one as poor as me. And I know I shouldn’t hate them for judging a book by its cover, but it’s not only that, I hate them for asking other people for money, because I think the government is the one who should be looking after people and I don’t think people should be ok with the fact that the government is not providing them with food and shelter and health care and education, I think they should be angry and start a revolution. There are hundreds of people living in the streets of Bogota and none of them are mad at the government for it, they are robbing and killing civilians instead. They think it’s better to rob and kill other poor people instead of taking it with the ones who are responsible for their misery, they will get on the busses with guns and knives and rob the passengers of the bus who are also poor people who are just going to work, going to work for pennies, because people here earn 1usd an hour and still they have to deal with the homeless coming into the bus with knives to kill them, and all because the government is not doing their job properly, and instead of complaining people will watch football or some silly thing and I’m very mad about it.

Thought number 5 is a compilation of the previous thoughts plus the fact that our life is no different than that of an animal of a plant in the sense that our lives are short and we are doing the best we can to thrive in our environment. So it probably doesn’t matter if people are smart or stupid, if they watch football or read a book, if they are rich or poor, if they kill or get killed, that’s life, that’s nature. It’s all the same in the end because we will all die a meaningless death. And that leads me to think it’s also ok for the government not to do their job properly, it’s ok that they pollute the air and the oceans, it’s ok that they torture, abuse and slaughter 56 billion farm animals every year for food when they know we could all be much happier and healthier eating vegetarian food, and I think it’s ok that in the US alone there are 5 empty houses for every homeless person, so every homeless could have 5 houses. People are exploited and abused everywhere I look because life is no more than a collection of systems designed to exploit one group of people or another. And even though they had the intellect and the means and resources to solve all the problems of the world a while ago, they probably also know that they will die in the end no matter what they do. If they are homeless living in the street or if they are the ones responsible for the misfortune of others, in the end, it won’t matter, so there’s no point doing anything or worrying about anything. And that’s what keeps me going, the fact that my existence is meaningless and that there’s nothing I could do change anything.

 

 

 

My personal road to entrepreneurship

In the last post, I talked about the details of how I got my books published, in this one I will talk about the road that took me there.

My first “business venture” was in Berlin in the year 2007. It was really difficult to get a job there without speaking perfect German, so a friend and I set to collect empty bottles from the parks and what not, it was something like 20 cents for every bottle we returned to the shop, so it was enough to get by, then with another friend we set to collect and recycle abandoned bikes, when they were rideable again, we would sell them for about 20 euros a piece, not great, but enough to get by on.

After that, I took some farm jobs and teaching jobs for a few years, so there was not much risk involved, then I moved to Taiwan and started selling bicycles again, fixing them and reselling them on craigslist. Then I somehow got addicted to online poker and ended up losing a lot of money in pokerstars and partypoker. Ok, not a lot of money, but more than I was able to afford at that time. Most days I broke even, but that actually meant I had wasted 10 hours a day playing for nothing. So that was kind of my third failed attempt at entrepreneurship. By that time I still didn’t know how to succeed but I knew why I wanted to succeed and why I wanted to work for myself, it had nothing to do with capitalism, being a wage slave or having more time, money or freedom. I wanted to work independently because I had found that personal relationships were a source of conflict an I wasn’t capable of dealing with conflict in the way other people are. Really, I couldn’t even answer some simple questions like ‘how are you?’, if someone asked me that I just wanted to know in which sense did they mean it, so that I could give them a concrete answer. If someone complimented me I thought they had some ulterior motives and if someone wanted to become closer to me, I rejected them because I couldn’t deal with the burden of having to deal with someone else’s emotions.

Then some years passed and I got hired by a school in China and then got neglected by them, like, once I moved into a new city because they said they had a school there, it ended up being that the school didn’t have enough students or classes, but they had already given me the working visa and I had already found an apartment in that city, so I was supposed to stay there (oh, btw the city was Anning).

Because I was already there, had a place to live and didn’t need to worry about the visa for a while, my only option was private teaching, so I printed some business cards and went all around the city handing them over, it all ended well and I was able to make ends meet working just 3 or 4 hours a week.

A year later, I flew from Kunming to Argentina and started our walking trip with Bong Gu, in the one I sold some pictures of our trip just to make some pocket money. Then we arrived in  EL Calafate and tried to start my own school, and then failed, all the students would cancel at the last minute, I would often get stood up, and many took the classes but in the end didn’t want to pay for them, they just said they would pay tomorrow but tomorrow never came. So then I ended up getting a job at a hotel so that I could have a stable income.

After that, we came from Argentina to Colombia overland, passing through Bolivia and Peru and trying to write every day while we were traveling. That’s how I finished my books and published them, and didn’t make any money out of them but that was ok, because I had never intended to in the first place, it was just something I needed to do for myself. I had the need to tell my story.

While I was writing my books, I got a job as a freelance ghost-writer for a company in Medellin, which name I’ve forgotten, and that was one of the most stressful jobs I had in my life, not because of the job, the writing was ok, but because they used this really horrible time-tracking software called hubstaff that records every activity you do on the computer and takes screenshots of it, records mouse and keyboard activity, so lets say you stopped typing for a minute and were thinking about what to write or about how to phrase something you had on your mind or about what would be the best way to rewrite something, the software didn’t know you were thinking about work, it thought you were lazing around, so you can imagine how that ended for me. Not that I was doing anything wrong in the computer, it was just the feeling of being watched and judged, the pressure to know someone didn’t trust me, like when you leave a shop or a supermarket and you have to walk through the metal detectors, you usually feel threatened and judged even though you didn’t steal anything, or maybe you did, but you know what I mean.

After that, I got a job as an interpreter at a local trade fair for a week, for an Indian company. The money was pretty bad because I got hired by a translation company instead of being hired directly by the client, so the company took 80% and gave the translators 20%. The job was sweet though, so when it ended, I went to the website of the company who organized the fair and checked all the companies that would be coming to Bogota on the next few months and emailed all of them to offer my services. None of them replied, so that was another failure for me.

After that, I started teaching English online to Chinese kids through a company called Waijiaoiyi but it was pretty terrible, the bureaucracy was exhaustive, the pay was bad and the teachers were treated poorly. That’s where I learned online teaching is great, as long as you find your own students and don’t need to depend on any company. So that’s how I started spamming craiglist, Rype and wyzant for a few weeks until I got some regular students, 6 of them which have already been my students for 5 months.

But still, I knew if I ever wanted to achieve financial freedom, teaching was not the way to go, so during the next few months (and up till now) I invested every cent I made teaching online into figuring out ways to generate passive income.

Because I had already used Fiverr as a buyer for the design and editing of my books, I decided to give it a chance as a seller, so I created some gigs and published them, thinking I could make some easy money, in the end, no one bought my gigs so I didn’t make any money, but it was worth a shot. 

My next idea was to try and promote my books on my own, so I first started by creating different ads in canva and running them on FB, IG and google ads, it was all waste of money and I didn’t sell any books but I did learn a lot, so then I tried to combined all the knowledge I had on poker plus the one I had on FB ads and try to resell poker books and I also failed, but I was ready for my next adventure: dropshipping.

I watched every youtube video on the subject for a few weeks and bought many courses (courses which I then also tried to resell , and failed, and got banned on reddit in the process). I learned about dropshipping every day, 10 hours a day and then I opened my own shoppify store selling travel gear, which I can’t link to because I also failed at that and closed it a month later.

So it had been 8 months in Colombia trying and testing ideas but none of them really worked, that’s when I discovered a website called black hat world. 

There I found lots of opportunities for people like me, who don’t really like going outside and socializing but still need to make a living somehow. Lots of opportunities for people who don’t have a permanent place of residency so they need a job that they can do from anywhere. I started reading on and on in forums trying to find something I could be good at and finally decided to settle for Instagram CPA marketing, because I had already been using the platform for a few years and was confortable enough to try and escalate on it. 

While trying to grow my own IG account I had many times tried to contact members to collaborate, make friends or exchange shoutouts, and that’s when I noticed 99% of those messages went unread and I later learned at least half of all IG accounts are automated that’s why no one had read my messages, they were botting and had many accounts on autopilot. I had always been good with computers, so I thought I could do that too.

I didn’t want to spend much money to start because I didn’t know if I could pull it off, so at first I decided to try using a free bot called instapy and I failed, every day I got some different error that I didn’t know how to fix so I then decided to pay for a bot, and after countless hours trying to find the best bot, I found that the best one is called Jarvee, but it’s also the most expensive one, so I couldn’t really afford it and I ended up settling for Instadub which is the second best, it has the best customer service, and it’s also the cheapest one, because they charge a one time fee instead of a monthly one, and as I was planning to be in this for the long term that would make a huge difference. Then I needed some proxies to run my accounts on, I settled for proxymillion because their proxies were 3 times cheaper than the rest while still getting the job done, and then I needed a private server to run my bot and accounts on, after analyzing all the options I chose turnkey because they are 4 times cheaper than all the others and I am very poor, so it was really not much of a choice actually, I just chose all the cheapest companies.

Then I needed some accounts to run my CPA offers on, for that I found a private seller on BHW, he is from Russia, because all account sellers are from Russia. I bought 150 aged accounts from him, aged means at least a few years old, because the new ones get banned quickly. 

The next step was to set my CPA link, so I signed up for Max Bounty cpagrip, instazood ,IMonetizeIt  Peerfly   and ogads , because people in BHW said they are the best, so I started creating my content lockers and referral offers using their sites, I then bought some landing pages from a private seller in the forum and learnt how to make my own ones in blogger and wix. 

I used getsmscode to verify the accounts with phone numbers and mail.ru to verify their emails, and then I realized the accounts got banned quickly when I added the CPA link, so I decided to just grow accounts and try to sell them when they are above 10k followers or try and sell shoutouts, because it wasn’t worth the risk of buying them, setting them up, adding pictures, bio, photo, creating the offer and the LP for the CPA only to get the account banned as soon as I added the link to it.

Growing IG accounts is like growing little plants, every day some will get sick, or some insect or animal will come to eat them, someone will try to steal them or IG will kill them because it didn’t like something about them.

I had many of those ‘what am I doing in my life’ kind of moments while completing Russian captcha, the Chinese phone verifications and trying to keep up to date with all the changes IG makes to prevent people from doing something they don’t like.

Up to now, and after everything I’ve tried, I am still barely making it, just making enough to cover my expenses and surviving the day, but, to wrap this all up, what I learned from it all, was to embrace failure, every time I start something new, I start it thinking that I will fail, yes, maybe that’s why I end up failing, but that’s also how I manage not to get disappointed or depressed or feeling as a failure every time one of my projects fails, I was secretly expecting it to fail, because maybe I don’t consider myself worthy of success or maybe I started the projects out of curiosity but didn’t have the patience and dedication to see them through, or maybe the reason I fail is because I was meant to fail, so that I will learn the skills I need to embark on a new project after this one, only to abandon it out of boredom once I have figured out the tricky part and it becomes a darg.

And something else I learned is to not be afraid of investing in myself, I understand life is a game, society is another game and everything related to money and economy is just a game inside a game, inside another game we humans play to avoid facing the scary reality of knowing we are going to die and all of our memories and experiences will disappear. 

 

 

 

UPDATE: July 2018, I opened an Instagram services reselling website, for some reason.

About my books

First Book: 

 

Second Book:

 

 

About Ria:

She’s who I wish I were.

 

About Gwen:

She’s who I really am.

 

About Bruno and Bong Gu:

It all really happened.

 

 

About death:

There’s this recurrent, almost lingering theme that death is around us all, always. That’s how I always feel. Existence is scary. Even though I still manage to wake up every morning and pull myself together, being alive is terrifying and writing is a way to deal with it.

 

About ayahuasca: 

It all really happened.

 

About writing: 

Everything was written while on the road, sometimes I rented rooms for a few weeks, sometimes it was hotels, sometimes couchsurfer’s houses, buses, eateries and a few week-long boat rides in the Amazonas. 

 

About formatting: 

I tried scrivener and johto but neither worked very well for me, then I tried e-calibre and found it much easier and neat.

 

About book covers:

I chose my favorite scenes and send them to a professional artist from Fiverr together with an exact description of the characters and what I had in mind. The artist did a great job both times and then I sent them to someone else from Fiverr to give it color and then I added the book title and my name on Paint and used an online service to add pixels to it so that it would meet 1400 pixel criteria to be accepted into most publishing websites.

 

About promotions:

I used Canva and facebook ads for everything.

 

About finances:

I’m still a few hundred dollars down and didn’t even manage to break even but it was totally worth it and I would do it all over again anytime.

 

About motivation: 

I have never had a problem finding motivation because writing is my hobby, not my job, so I write when I want to and because I want to.

 

About music:

Some music I listen to while writing action scenes.

Some music I listen to while writing relaxing scenes.

Some music I listen to while writing dialogues.

Some music I listen to while writing about traveling.

 

About social media:

I’m only active on instagram, I seldom use facebook, have no twitter, and rely heavily on pinterest for inspiration and information.

 

About my lifestyle:

I teach English and Spanish online through Skype and that’s what pays for all the bills, living and travel expenses. In my free time, I dance, drink beer, eat pizza, play video games, read, and write at home.

 

 

To get to know myself better

1. What are my strengths? Imaginative, resourceful, smart.
2. What are my short-term goals? Build sources of passive income.
3. Long-term goals? Find peace of mind.
4. Who matters most to me? Bong Gu.
5. What do I like to do for fun? Writing fantasy stories.
6. What new activities am I interested in or willing to try? Skydiving.
7. What am I worried about? Wasting my time.
8. If I could have one wish, it would be: To have more time, or not being aware that my time to live is limited. 
9. Where do I feel safest? On the internet.
10. What is my proudest accomplishment? Traveling on foot with my dog.
11. What is my biggest failure? I did my best.
12. Am I a night owl or an early bird? I wake up early and go to bed early.
13. What do I like about my job? What do I dislike? I am an unemployed person.
14. What does my inner critic tell me? That whatever I do it will always be second best to what I could have done.
15. What do I do to show myself self-compassion and self-care? I understand that even if I made some mistakes, I was doing the best I could based on the resources, the circumstances and the information that was available to me at the time.
16. Am I an introvert or an extrovert? Am I energized being around others or being by myself? Need to be alone to recharge.
17. What am I passionate about? Finding answers and solutions to problems.
18. What is my happiest memory? I was floating in the ocean on the coast of Kerala, India. The sky above me was clear and there was nothing or no one else in the water or the beach. Time appeared to freeze as I found myself alone in the universe.
19. What do my dreams tell me? Nothing, they’re just dreams.
20. What is my favorite book? 1Q84
21. Band? The brilliant green.
22. Food? Falafel.
23. Color? Pink
24. Animal? Ants.
25. What am I grateful for? My mind and freedom.
26. When I’m feeling down I like to: Think everything will pass, even this.
27. I know I’m stressed when I: Start walking in circles around the room in an attempt to rationalize the situation and understand it so that I can calm myself down.
28. What activity in your life lights you up with joy? Playing with dog
29. If a relationship or job makes you unhappy, do you choose to stay or leave? I don’t choose to leave, because staying was never an option.
30. How does your being here in the universe change humanity for the better? It doesn’t really.
31. How comfortable are you with your own mortality? Pretty uncomfortable.
32. What is your highest core value? Freedom.
33. To your best knowledge, how do other people perceive you? Like someone whose train has long gone and there’s no way to return. 
34. How would you like others to perceive you? Like someone who is kind and lives a simple life.
35. Who is your greatest role model? Carl Sagan.
36. Who is a person that you don’t like yet you spend time with? I live a solitary life.
37. What is something that is true for you no matter what? I will die.
38. How do you feel about your parents? They are ok.
39. How is your relationship with money? Tumultuous.
40. How do you feel about growing old someday? Scared. 
41. What role has formal education played in your life and how do you feel about it? No role, I don’t really think about it.
42. Do you believe your destiny is pre-determined or in your hands to shape however you wish? In my hands.
43. What do you believe is the meaning of your life? There is no meaning.

YouTube Channels I like

Training positive:

‘Training Positive’ is the name of a dog training Youtube channel like no other you have seen before. What makes this channel so special is not the accuracy of the information provided but the way it is delivered. The vlogger, tab289 engages it’s audience in a fun, concise, straight to the point fashion like few others in this business can. That, added to the practicality of the information provided make ‘Training Positive’ one of the bests, if not THE best dog training channel on Youtube, but the most engaging aspect of this channel and probably what has earned him more than 200.000 followers and a whopping 23.000.000 views at the time of writing, is the clear, authentic bond between his pet and him. It’s real, it’s magical, it’s something only dog owners can relate to and can guarantee a tear or two are shed while you thought you were just going to watch a video to help you train your dog.

Whether you are a dog owner or not, Tab 289 and his German Shepherd Seleia are a must watch for anyone who enjoys sweet, well structured and didactic videos representing everything dog training should be about. In his own words: “Dog training is about knowing them and connecting with them on their level.” Discipline, understanding, friendship, creativity, and kindness are just some of attributes sure to make you fall in love with them both.

Primitive Technology:

‘I haven’t felt this much harmony in ages’, that was my first thought after watching some of the videos on Youtube channel ‘Primitive Technology’. This groundbreaking channel followed by no less than five and a half million people at the time of writing features basically a guy building stuff from scratch in the Australia’s outback.

Of the five and a half million followers, ‘Primitive Technology’ has earned every one of them by featuring a unique format with the one you will not only learn how to build a tiled roof hut from scratch but you will also abandon the city dwellings to immerse yourself in a world of pristine beauty and raw natural splendor accompanied only by the sounds of the birds, insects, rustling leaves and water streams flowing nearby, that’s the real magic of this channel, 65 videos and not a single word spoken in any of them.

It really can’t get more hands-on than that. Primitive technology leaves aside the ego trip most vloggers get themselves caught on this days to take you on a journey of peacefulness and solitude only he knows how. Allowing you to enjoy the calming, soothing effect of a walk in nature from the comfort of your home and with the click of a button. A rare, harmonious experience that shouldn’t be missed if you’re looking for something real to energize your day with.

Best friends stick together

During my trips I’ve seen countless stray dogs abandoned by their owners by the side of the road or the outskirts of towns and I was enraged every time I heard the excuses people used to justify abandoning their pets:

 

– That they have to move or go traveling and it’s difficult to travel with a dog.

 

– That they don’t have space.

 

– That they don’t have time.

– They have behaviorar problems.

– Moving to a place that doesn’t allow pets.

– It’s too big now.

– It’s too expensive.

 

– I call bullshit on all of them. So what if it’s difficult? We don’t stop doing something just because it’s difficult. ‘Difficult’ is how we grow, it’s how we learn things. Life is difficult, relationships are difficult, everything is difficult if we so choose it to be or if we choose to see it that way.

 

So yes, whether it’s difficult or not you’re right, but you don’t just abandon a living being that adores you and would give their lives for you because it’s ‘difficult’.

 

– So what if you don’t have space? You just make space or look for a space. You know your dog doesn’t need a lot of space, Bong Gu and I have been homeless for about two years now. We slept outdoors for the most part of 2016 and we never thought it was difficult. It was an experience that’s for sure. Maybe it was difficult but we didn’t notice because we were too busy having the time of our lives.

 

– So what if you don’t have time? You just make time! I’ve had about 10 jobs since adopting my job and she came with me to each one of them. I know it’s difficult but we find a way because we have to and we want to and it’s well worth the effort.

 

 

– They have behavioral problems? So what? Teach them, train them, understand them. Learn to bond and connect with them on their level, educate yourself so you can educate them. It’s difficult? So what? Just do it anyway.

 

 – Your new place doesn’t allow pets? Well, Just look for a place that DOES allow pets. You wouldn’t abandon your child because your new place doesn’t allow children. 

The way Bong Gu and I go about finding a place to live/eat/sleep/shop etc. Is the following, we go anywhere and ask:

“Can I come in with a little dog?” (To a restaurant/shop)

“Can I stay here with a little dog?” (To a hotel)

“Can you take me with a little dog?” (To the bus/boat/train/taxi/car driver)

So what if they say no? There’s always another restaurant next door, another hotel a block away and another car/bus coming after it.

– So what if it gets big? Animals grow, it just means it will be able to protect you more. It means there is more of him or her to hug and cuddle, it means more love for you.

– It’s expensive? I don’t think so, dogs can eat rice, carrots, potatoes, pumpkin, any kind of meat, and lots of inexpensive grains, tuberculous, beans, fruits, and veggies. Your dog doesn’t really care what it eats, they are adaptable like that, and they’d rather eat little but stay with you than eat a lot but missing you badly.

There were times when all Bong Gu and I had to eat were rice, lentils, and bananas but we made it through. It wasn’t much more expensive to cook for just me than it was to cook for the two of us.

 If it’s difficult we find a way and we do it anyway.

 

 

My experiences with ayahuasca

 

Introduction: I tried ayahuasca 3 times so far, oh wait, what is ayahuasca? it’s a hallucinogenic plant from South America, ok done, yes I tried it 3 times one at a formal-ish ceremony in Iquitos and twice on my own, in my room, with the lights off and music I enjoy, once in Leticia and then in Bogota, Colombia. This post is about the things I learned, how they changed me and how the changed my perspective on myself and the world.

My experiences with ayahuasca are supposed to convey feelings more than facts, for facts you can refer to the previous post where I went over the logistics, finance, and practicalities involved in taking part in an ayahuasca ceremony in Iquitos, Peru. This time is all about how I felt and what I discovered while under the influence. If I wanted to convey facts I could have just made a list.
This is an extremely self-centered post but that’s ok because the name of the blog is ‘Bruno’s public diary’, so this is the kind of things people were expecting to read anyway.

I didn’t have the chance to experience any of the crazy hallucinations you read about online when working with the plant, what I achieved was a sort of spiritual state in the one I was able to see the world for what it is, leaving aside all the judging involved with being a human who has been biased and influenced by a million variables throughout his life.

Myself: Ayahuasca learned me, sorry taught me many things about myself and opened the door to understanding and accepting myself better. I know I’m good, young, free, handsome, smart, healthy and so on I also know that superficial qualities are totally unimportant to me because what I really want is someone to tell me they like how I think, that they understand me and that what I say makes sense, and that I’m not crazy but it’s the world around me that is. And that they understand all the ways I attempt to fix stuff but the world is not ready for them yet so I better focus on fixing my own life instead. I said that to myself because I won’t find someone to tell me all the things I need because people can’t read my mind.
I know I’m lazy and disorganized but I also know I’m brilliant and could accomplish great things if I only put a little effort into it. I understand I just need to find my thing, something I am interested in so that I will feel it’s worth the effort and time to work on it.
I understood how to nurture my strengths and work on my shortcomings and I will put them in writing to understand them better and also because putting my thoughts in writing is one of my strengths.
Creativity, flexibility and out of the box thinking are the 3 key strengths I recognize in myself, others are introspection, respon…oh wait, no that’s not what it’s about it’s all about self-development!

Yes, that’s what I had been doing the last few years, trying to improve myself, and gotten quite far with it. I already got rid of the greed and cravings, I live a simple life, have only two pairs of clothes and a simple vegetarian food and I don’t crave for experiences anymore, wherever I am is good enough. I got rid of the ego and the envy and do the best I can with my life without worrying about what others may think or say. I got rid of the resentment, I get along with everyone and hold grudges against no one. I have no enemies or anyone I dislike and no one that dislikes me in my life. I accepted the fact that I will die, I accepted myself like I am. I don’t criticize people or try to control them or seek validation from them. Yes, I’ve come a long way from where I started and even though there’s still a long way to go, this is good enough for now.

 

 

People: Ayahuasca taught me that people are good, everywhere, ok maybe not everywhere but everywhere we’ve been to so far. We’ve been traveling in South America for about 18 months now and nothing bad ever happened to us, We didn’t get robbed, kidnapped, murdered or anything. People always think South America is oh so dangerous, but for us, it wasn’t. And yes every traveler was right Colombia is, in fact, the best country so far. People are lovely and everything else.
As for my personal relationships, I’ve got about 5 people who really care about me, and a few hundred more people that even though we don’t keep in touch I know they are there for me, there somewhere in the world.
I know people love me and care about me and I know we are connected because that’s what ayahuasca does, it helps you understand that the others are you and you are them because we are all connected in one way or another and that’s beautiful.

The world: Some bad things happen in the world, I understand that much and can’t pretend I don’t. But I also understand each one of us lives in our own world and we choose to focus on what we want or what we need to focus on. Some focus on the good and some of the bad, some do good and some do bad. Myself included, I live in my own world, my own personal reality that I have built just for myself. Yes I know there are probably wars somewhere in the world, but I’ve never been to one, I know there are corrupt, incompetent politicians but I’m not a part of that world either, I’m 32 and never voted in my life, not even once, because I don’t want to choose the less incompetent one, if I ever find myself in a position to make a change like lets say if I could vote for someone like Bernie Sanders I would, but until then it’s better to keep me out of that world. I know there are religions and people believe many crazy things and sometimes they fight because of their beliefs but that’s also not a world I’m part of, and I know there is a country next to Colombia called Venezuela where people are starving and killing each other but for the moment I don’t have a chance to positively influence the situation, maybe someday I will be a billionaire or politician or a public figure with the power to influence events around me but until that happens the best I can do is not carrying the weight of the world problems on my back and stop feeling like I have a responsibility to be good and do good and save the world, because I really don’t, people will die anyway and I will die anyway, life is just a ride, there are wars because people go to wars not because I’m not there to stop them from going to wars, they are not my responsibility so they can continue to kill each other or do whatever they need to do to be happy or not to be happy and I will do the same because we all choose our own life and our own actions, thoughts, and reality.

Money: Yes, I’m poor and that’s ok because it helps me focus on what’s important. If I were blinded by greed I wouldn’t be able to understand myself and the universe because I would be too busy. By having just my bare needs covered I can use my time to focus on what’s important to me. Ayahuasca taught me it’s ok not to have money, it taught me everything’s ok no matter what. As long as we’re alive everything’s ok. What’s the worse thing that could happen without money, being homeless? Bong Gu and I are no strangers to that, in 2016 alone we slept at least half of the nights outdoors, we have a bivy sac, a camping mat, a sleeping bag, we know how to find food. We don’t need money really, all we need is each other.

Writing: Yes, I’m a writer and that’s scary. And it’s ok that it’s scary, being scared makes you grow. It means getting out of your comfort zone, it means being vulnerable, it means putting yourself out there for everyone to know what’s inside you. It’s also ok that I have 10 unfinished books that would probably never be finished because anything I do or write is only second best to what I could have done and that’s part of having an INTP personality.
I know I start many projects and then abandon them when I get bored because I solved the tricky part and that’s also what it means being an INTP, it means getting bored, second-guessing yourself and then deleting the whole thing and starting again because it’s not as good as it could have been. But on the positive side, I know that an average work I produce is already above average for other people’s standards and a ‘good enough’ work of fiction is better than what most people could produce because an INTP standards when it comes to creativity are the highest of all. Of course, my books are boring for me because I’ve read them a thousand times already and went over every bit of it thinking how could it be improved and it never seems to be good enough. That’s what it means being an INTP writer, feeling insecure about our work more than any other personality type does, it means producing mediocre work that others consider very good and producing good enough work that others would consider brilliant but they will be always second best to what they could have been had we found a way of not to getting bored and put our everything into them like if it was a new project we just started.

Life: What is life about? It’s about Doing what you want or what you have to do but mostly life is about freedom. It’s about laying in the grass alongside my dog watching the clouds pass by. It’s about going to an airport, bus or train station and buying the next ticket anywhere because that’s what it needs to be done. It’s about pouring your thoughts into your public diary, unedited, raw, uncensored so that everyone can read them, it’s about not being afraid of what others would think of you. It’s about drinking in the morning to boost creativity and productivity. It’s about cocktails in the park or on the beach. It’s about meeting people you know you will never meet again and you won’t even remember their names tomorrow. It’s about packing your things and leaving without thinking it twice. It’s about taking a bus to the outskirts of town and hitchhiking anywhere without a deadline or destination in mind, it’s about sleeping outdoors to keep it real. It’s about early morning, adrenaline rush, sleepless nights, serotonin, oxytocin, it’s all about feeling good, it’s all about chemicals in the end. Life Is about having a good time, life is not about paying bills until you die, there is more than that. Life is not about worrying it should be a vacation, not a struggle, it should be about doing what you love and what makes you happy. Or maybe that’s not what life is about, but that’s what is about for me.

 

What has happened in Peru

 

 

Some of you know me, some of you don’t. For those who do: HI! 😉 . For those who don’t: welcome to my diary. A way to record some experiences I had. Not interesting, fun or memorable experiences, just experiences.
Long story short, I used to live in Asia and last year I came to South America to travel with my dog without any time restrictions. 2016 was spent mostly in Argentina, and a bit of Chile. This year was spent in Bolivia and Peru. Bolivia was ok but nothing worth writing about, most of it was weird and awkward. Peru is a different story. What follows, is about my experiences during the last three months in Peru. Everything you’ll read below really happened.

Index
Part 1 – Preconceptions
Part 2 – Crossing borders
Part 3 – Cusco
Part 4 – Machu Pichu
Part 5 – Lima
Part 6 – Paracas
Part 7 – Choquequirao
Part 8 – Iquitos
Part 9 – Ayahuasca
Part 10 – Conclusion

 

Part 1 – Preconceptions

 

 

Honestly speaking, I didn’t know much about Peru before coming here. What I knew was from the couch surfers I hosted in Argentina, many of them had come from Peru, all of them had loved it.
I knew about Machu Pichu and I knew it was the most touristy place in South America. I also knew what they said about it being really cheap and nice but not as nice as Colombia and not as cheap as Bolivia.
I had heard there are pickpockets and some tourists get kidnapped sometimes, like express kidnapped. I knew about Ayahuasca and that the Incas lived here before but they are not here anymore because something happened to them

.
I also knew it was a big country with many things to do and see, and that a few weeks or months would not be enough. I thought it was a country worth spending a few years in.
I knew people are generally poor but friendly. I knew they are Catholic, just like everywhere else in South America but probably a bit more.

And I knew it would probably be a nice place for me to settle down.

 

Part 2 – Crossing borders

I was wary of crossing the Bolivia-Peru border in Copacabana for several reasons. The first one was that I knew it’s the main border foreigners use while traveling in between those two countries, and I, of course, didn’t want to face the hordes of tourists, touts and everything that comes along with crossing the most popular border. But options were thin on the ground at the time, it was either that or face the 32 plus hours bus ride from La Paz to Riveralta and then another 30 to Rurenabaque.
In the end, it was nothing like I expected it to be. There were almost no foreigners and no one bothered us anywhere. It was the first of many misconceptions I had about Peru.
The second reason I was wary of using that border was that it would be the first time I would cross a border illegally. Why do I need to cross illegally? Because I’m poor, and the paperwork required to take a dog from one country to the next had taken a toll on me.
It’s about 50 USD, for every country we visit. I had paid before to go to Argentina, Chile and Bolivia, after that I decided that as we keep going north, is not realistic, neither time-wise, effort-wise or money wise, to do every paper again for every country we visit, as countries in South Amerca don’t recognize certificates from neighbors and we are planning to stay in South and Central America for a few more years, where countries are very small, especially around the Caribean.
Traveling with a dog is difficult enough on its own without counting the paperwork. All the logistics involved are difficult enough to handle. Accommodation is harder to come by, food and vet costs add up quickly and discrimination is fierce, as there are still too many people out there that don’t like dogs and don’t understand that someone can travel with one.
For example, many one hotel staff or landlords can’t conceive the fact that the dog sleeps in my room next to my bed, not on the street or in a yard somewhere. A restaurant owner is not happy with the fact that a dog comes with me to eat and I order an extra plate for her and put the food in a plastic bag which she eats under the table while I eat mine, or that I take the meat out of my plate to give it to her. Or a bus driver may not be happy with me taking a black ball of fur under my seat. All that builds up inside me as well and the rejection, stress, and lack of empathy people sometimes show, can add up pretty quickly to the many obstacles a regular traveler has to overcome with or without a dog.
There were no immigration officers anywhere to be seen between the borders, it seems most people who cross don’t get any stamp or paper and those who want to get one can enter some small office somewhere if they find it. So Bong Gu and I crossed illegally for the first time but no the last one.

 

Part 3 – Cusco

Again I was worried about going to Cusco thinking I would be just another foreigner or tourist there, hence losing my individuality. I was mistaken again, Cusco is a huge city and the foreigners stay only in a few areas.
Something I was sure of, was that Cusco wasn’t a place to spend a few days at, There were too many things to do and to see. Even a few weeks would probably not be enough, but they could be a good start.
I obviously can’t afford to stay in a hotel for a few weeks, neither I want to stay with Couchsurfers and having to socialize every day and do stuff together, so the way we approached the housing situation, was the same way we had approached it in the past. We got a hotel room for the night, left our backpack there and started walking around the city looking for signs posted on the walls that said they rent a room. That technique had never failed us before, so it should work even better here that we can speak their language.
Check out from the hotel was at 12, so we left at 7 with the hopes of coming back before noon after we had found a room to rent, to pick up our stuff and move to our new place.
The hotel was already in a residential area which was where the bus from Puno had dropped us off. We checked our GPS and started walking away from the city center which is where cheap rooms usually are.

By 9 am we had found about six signs saying they had rooms for us. By ten our list was reduced to two, one of them was small but furnished, at a ran down family-house with access to the kitchen, the only downside was that you had to go through their living room and interact with the family every time you needed to get in or out of the house.
The second one was s fourth floor empty room at a hotel a few hours away from downtown Cusco, there was nothing on it, not even a bed, instead of walls there were windows, without curtains, making it incredibly bright during the day and brighter than it should be during the night because of the street lights. The good thing about this one was that it had its own independent entrance so we wouldn’t need to wake everyone up when leaving the room early in the morning.
Both rooms were priced equally, at about a hundred dollars a month, that was something I was comfortable paying, as it was the same I was paying in China for the last few years before coming down to South America. They both accepted dogs and had no problem in renting me a room for just two weeks to start with.

We chose the room in the hotel because of the independence it offered and because it had wifi, which the other one didn’t. By eleven thirty we were back in time to get our bag and check out from the place we’d stayed the night before.
After that, we took a few days to relax and went to explore the sacred valley around Cusco by ourselves. With its many valleys and grasslands, it was probably the nicest thing we’ve seen during our time in Peru.When that was done with, we took a few more days off to relax and went off to Machu Pichu.

 

Part 4 – Machu Pichu

Machu Pichu is a tourist trap, that much is clear. And I’m not really a tourist, that much is also clear. I wouldn’t go to see stuff like the Eiffel Tower or The Great Wall.

Did I want to see Machu Pichu? Maybe, I wasn’t crazy about it, like some foreigners, who dream their whole life with coming to Peru just to visit Machu Pichu. For me it was more like a dilemma, It could be nice to see it but I definitely don’t want to feel like a tourist.

That leads me to the next question: Can I afford to visit Machu Pichu? No, not really.

If I factor in accommodation, transportation, and entrance fees, Machu Pichu could have cost at least two or three hundred dollars. To be honest, my budget is about a hundred dollars a week for everything, that’s something I, realistically speaking, feel comfortable spending. Some people spend more, some spend less, I don’t consider myself a frugal traveler or anything like that. I eat well, sleep comfortably and take good care of my dog, and that’s how much money it takes to do it. I’m saying that to make the fact that spending the budget of a few weeks in just one day it was not really an option.
If I wanted to use money as an excuse for not visiting Machu Pichu, it would have been very easy to just skip it all together and keep moving on to a cheaper place, but the truth is, in this kind of situations, money is not an issue, it never was, and it will probably never be. If I really wanted to go I would have found a way to go without spending any money like I’ve always done it before.

To be honest, once again I’ve used computers to make fake tickets to at least few dozen places in the past and I’ve snuck into a few dozen much more dangerous and difficult places than this one. If I really wanted to do it, Machu Pichu would be child’s play, mostly because of the fact that one doesn’t get arrested, fined or killed for entering Machu Pichu without a ticket, worst case scenario we get kicked out, we re-group, come up with a new plan and try it again the next day, no big deal.
If I had had the money to pay for everything, which I didn’t, and even if I wanted to pay which I also didn’t, there’s probably no way I would be allowed there with my dog and leaving her somewhere alone is out of the question, so for someone like me, sneaking in is usually the only viable option.
With money out of the way, the next question is: Do I actually feel like putting the time and effort needed to visit Machu Pichu without spending any money on transportation, accommodation or entrance fees? Maybe. I mean, yes, probably. Do I have something better to do? Absolutely not. Do I want a good story to tell? Sure.

Would it stroke my ego or make me feel special for doing something out of the ordinary or that most people couldn’t/wouldn’t do? Not, not really, I’m over that, I’m not in my twenties anymore and I don’t need to prove anything to myself or anyone, I’m 32 now, if I do something now is because I want to, not because I feel I have to.

All that being said, I feel like I could definitely enjoy the challenge and it sounds kind of fun. An exciting thing to do and something that fits my personality for political reasons I don’t feel like going into just now, but they involve the exorbitant amounts of money the Peruvian government makes from Machu Pichu, the salaries and the conditions people working there receive and how contributing to it would be no different than contributing to slave labor or buying clothes from a sweatshop.

Also someday I will be old and blind and I want to sit in the dark and remember the good old days when I still had the energy and motivation to do this kind of things. It would be a nice memory to have.
Everything’s been done before. Yes, even sneaking into Machu Pichu. That’s why the first step to our plan was to research information online about those who had done it before us. ‘I’m standing on the shoulders of giants’, not literally though.
Google and Youtube showed me there were at least five people who had done it and documented it online. What they all had in common? Many things probably, but what I noticed they had in common was that they all made it sound super hard.

Starting with swimming across a river after midnight and then trekking through the jungle in the dark until you reach the ruins for sunrise.

“No way!” I said out loud. “There’s no way I’m swimming across a river at night, with a dog and my backpack.” The kids sitting next to me in the internet cafe gave me that look Bong Gu gives me when she thinks I’m talking to her but I’m actually talking to myself.
Bong Gu can swim if she has no other option but it’s not something she enjoys doing, and I’m definitely not risking her getting hypothermia or pneumonia for swimming in a cold river at 2 in the morning and for no good reason at all. Also, there’s absolutely no way we’re going for a hike in the jungle at that time unless we absolutely have to. We’ve done it before, and it wasn’t fun.

If we’re going to do this we’re doing it our way, and our way is in the daytime, with daylight and without dying. Bong Gu and I sleep during the night and take care of stuff during the day, that’s how it’s always been. Nothing good ever happens to us after dark.

I took what I needed to take from the experiences of the people online and discarded the rest. I took notes on the different ways to make it across the river, the road to take once in the jungle and the different ways to avoid the tripwires on the way to the site and the guards patrolling the area. But without seeing the place for myself there was not really much else to do.
I was surprised not a single person online mentioned making a fake ticket to get in and walking through the main entrance. None of them had dogs either but they still chose to go full commando through the jungle. If I’m doing this my way I need a fake ticket and all the papers Bong Gu needs to ‘legally’ enter places like this one.
It is a fact that I do not own a computer or any photo editing software. What I do have is one sol fifty and that is what it costs to use a computer for one hour in one of the very many internet cafes all around Cusco. And something else I have is some experience with this kind of stuff.
I first googled ‘ticket to Machu Pichu’ and searched for all the available images of tickets. Some of them were from many years ago, so I also had to check what were the actual prices for Machu Pichu and Huayna Pichu (the mountain inside Machu Pichu) on this time and date. As they raise the prices every few months because they are aware that people would pay anything to get into the ruins. While I was doing all that, ‘lilypichu’ came to mind, she’s an internet celebrity and the name Machu Pichu just happens to remind me of her.
When I found and downloaded a good high-resolution image of a ticket someone had posted online, and I had the actual prices for the month of June 2017 all that was left to do was replacing my name, age, nationality and passport number with the ones in the pictures and changing the date and prices to match the ones I needed. Piece of cake, except that I don’t really like cake, so eating a whole piece of cake is actually pretty hard for me, piece of spinach tart I’d rather say. One hour later it was done. For one sol fifty, I had a ticket equal if not better in quality to the original one costing 162 soles.
To get there it was a 32km walk along the rail tracks from a place called KM 82 to Aguas Calientes. After everything we walked with Bong Gu in China and Argentina and everything we walked every day this was a breeze and except for the four times we almost got reduced to a red pond of blood by the incoming trains that made almost no sound as they drove by, it was really fun.

Yes, there was another way to get there through a place called ‘Hidroelectrica’. One that required walking just two hours instead of ten, but that was the place the backpackers wrote about online and once again my ego tricked me into not doing what backpackers do and doing things the hardest way instead.

After walking, we camped somewhere just to keep things real and headed towards the most popular place in Peru in the morning. “Are you going to Machu Pichu or to the museum?” The officer at the bridge asked me. It turned out there was some kind of museum on the way from the bridge to the entrance of Machu Pichu and those who were just going there didn’t need an entrance ticket to Machu Pichu itself if they only wanted to visit the museum.

“To the museum.” I instinctively said. Meanwhile Bong Gu walked next to me unnoticed and unaware she was supposed to go in unnoticed.
“It’s on your left at the end of the bridge.” He said, extending his right arm to signal left, just in case I had forgotten where left was.

“Gracias.” I told him, heart pounding. Realizing what was going on, I walked as slowly as I could. The museum was on the left, Machu Pichu was on the right, I needed to go right but I knew the guard would be keeping an eye on me to make sure I turn left.
I take out my phone and start pretending to take a selfie like tourists do, but actually I’m checking on the guard, waiting for an opening to make my move. I keep walking as slow as possible, waiting, thinking, sweating.
A few tourists pass me on the road, a bus approaches from the right side. This is my chance, and the only one I will have. I duck behind the truck and take cover behind a tree that will hide me while I ascend a small hill. Afraid of looking back, I remember the last time we did something like this, it was just a few days ago while avoiding the dozen or so ticket controls across the sacred valley.
I made it past the bridge, the famous bridge I had read so many times about, the same bridge everyone online had avoided by swimming across in the evening instead of walking through it. The same bridge where an Argentinian guy had gone missing a few weeks before while avoiding the guard boot, probably dragged downstream by a strong current.

The sound of an oncoming bus on the road behind me forces me to crouch behind some bushes to remain hidden by the side of the road. The bus stops. I hold my breath and stay still. “You said you were going to the museum.” The guard said. He had probably used his binoculars to see me going into the mountain and then taken that bus to catch up with me.
“Yes,” I said, for a lack of a better answer. Still somehow surprised by the fact he doesn’t seem to notice the dog standing by my side. Or maybe he just doesn’t care. Technically speaking, I didn’t read anywhere there was a no dogs policy in the ruins. I just assumed there would be because there usually is.

“Can I see your ticket?” That was the questions I was dreading all along. I calmly take out the ticket I had made myself and hand it to him. He examines it for a few seconds and says: “Can I see your passport?” I showed him my passport and had a mini heart attack while he checked that the name on it was the same as the one on the ticket.

“Keep going this way up for about half an hour and you will reach the entrance of the ruins.” He said, handing me back my passport, ticket and walking away from me.

That was it. I had made it. Not yet to the ruins but farther than most. I couldn’t help but grin proudly when I was sure he was gone. My ticket had worked, a ticket I hadn’t even planned to use in the first place, I had made it just in case I needed it. And he didn’t say anything about Bong Gu either. Maybe dogs are allowed into the park after all.
‘Walk up the hill until you cross the road 6 times.’ The internet guide said about how to find the secret entrance through the jungle and avoiding the checkpoints. I did as it said, always looking out for incoming buses and tourists.
As I walked, an image of comedy legend Mr. Bean came to mind, if he was in my shoes, he would be showing the ticket to every tourist on his way so they’d knew he had a ticket.

When we reached the entrance to the jungle path, we double checked to make sure no one was coming and entered the jungle. For Bong Gu this was just a normal day. This is what we usually did every day. She had no idea this time it was different, and we were going to a place we were not actually supposed to go. She had no idea about the ticket forging, the security guards or all the stress I was going through by having to play Metal Gear in what is probably the most sought after tourist attraction in the world.
Once in the jungle path, our senses heightened, we were alert, careful, perceiving every detail in our environment. Suddenly Machu Pichu wasn’t important anymore, we had made it far enough already, we had walked 30 km, slept out and fooled the entrance guard. That was more than enough for me, whether we make it not is unimportant, whatever happens after now it’s just a bonus.
We avoid the trip wire, sneak through a hole in a fence and jump up and down the terraces until we can see the herd of sheep-like tourists following their tour guide. We were in. Pretending we had gone to take a leak, we take out out phone and take some pictures of the place, hiding our fear of being caught, keeping an eye out for the park rangers and trying to blend into our environment as much as it was possible for a black dog and a boy that just came out of the dense jungle.

While enjoying the view from the top of the ruins, we also enjoyed our little secret, knowing everyone around us has no idea what we went through to be here. We scratched Machu Pichu off our bucket list (even though it wasn’t even on it to begin with) and exited the ruins through the main entrance together with the thousands of tourists on their way out.
Part 5 – Lima

 

After some weeks in Cusco, we went to Lima for about a week to see our uncle that was casually visiting the city at the time. Lima was surprisingly appealing, and this was yet another time where I was wrong in thinking I knew Lima without having ever been there.

As I hadn’t heard anything good about Lima in the past, I just assumed it would suck. Things you hear about Lima as a foreigner are that you will get robbed and the taxi drivers or people in the street will kidnap you and they will extort money out of you. Nothing like that happened to us, not in Lima, not in the three months we spent in Peru, not in the sixteen months spent in South America so far. We never felt threaten or under any kind of danger.
Lima was great, it was relatively cheap, food was great, people were friendly and welcoming, we got to couch surf a few times, for the first time since Salta and had great experiences, as usual, nothing worth mentioning though.

 

Part 6 – Paracas

After Lima we needed a break so we went to some cities in the south: Pisco, Ica, Chincha, they were all terrible. the air and noise pollution were scary. People were a little scary but not so much, even the worse places in Peru are better than the best ones in Bolivia, so coming from Bolivia almost anywhere is nice.

After those cities, we went a small beach town called Paracas, where we decided to stay. We did the same way as in Cusco, first we got a hotel for the night and first in the morning, we went to look for a more permanent place.

All the rooms were more or less the same. We settled for one that as nice and clean, had privacy and it cost the same I was used to paying elsewhere, a hundred dollars a month, so we paid for a month and spent the next 30 days relaxing on the beach and writing stories about cats that get into some sort of troubles.

 

Part 7 – Choquequirao

After Paracas, we decided we couldn’t leave Peru without visiting Choquequirao, so we went there and I wrote about it in the previous post so I’m not gonna write everything again.

 

Part 8 – Iquitos

To get to Iquitos from Choquequirao took us about ten days, changing boats about 6 times, starting at Ivochote, and going through Camisea, Nuevo Mundo, Sepahua, Atalaya, Pucallpa and finally Iquitos.
The boats were filthy, loud and super expensive but that’s what I get for going off the beaten track, later I found out that the reason foreigners didn’t take that route it was because it costs about four times more than going straight to Pucallpa or Yurimaguas by bus and then catching the ‘Henry’ boat to Iquitos from there.
The reasons I wanted to do the trip by boat instead of buses were because I knew it would be easier with a dog and because I had romanticized the experience of crossing the Amazonas by boat. I thought that is what South America is all about and that’s what I came here for.

In the end it really sucked, really expensive, loud, dirty, hot, full of mosquitoes, slow and we didn’t see any animals in the wild. It sucked but it was also all part of the traveling experience, so it was ok that it sucked because traveling sucks sometimes and that’s just the way it is, I can’t expect everything to be nice all the time, life doesn’t work that way.
Iquitos was really nice though. Again all my preconceptions were wrong, people online describe Iquitos as hell on earth, a crime-ridden slum where everyone’s out to get you. It wasn’t like that at all though and even in the slum area of Belen, it felt much safer than anywhere in Argentina. In the end the only ones out to get us where the mosquitoes, and a couple stray dogs.

 

Part 9 – Ayahuasca

If you check online, ayahuasca retreats in Iquitos got for about a thousand dollars a pop, I could pay like five, or maybe ten. I guess I could say I’m good at finding something that is lost, or something that is cheap, that’s actually one of the few things I’m good at, so if someone can find ayahuasca for five dollars that’s me.
The easiest way to go about this kind of things is usually through Couchsurfing. Couchsurfers know what’s going on. I checked the Couchsurfers in Iquitos and about half of them were ayahuasca shamans or had ayahuasca for sale at a fraction of the price of what it costs anywhere else. So I just wrote to the only one who didn’t have bad references and stayed with him.

The thing about ayahuasca though is that most people won’t give you the ‘medicine’ just like that, instead they will put on a whole show or ‘ceremony’ as they call it, during the one they spit on you and force you to smoke or at the very least blow smoke all over you, they touch you and they sing for at least four hours so that you won’t feel ripped off by paying hundreds of dollars for a few hours of a show in a country where the average person makes about 10 dollars a day.
Now, if you don’t know me, I’m the person that can’t even make a phone call because it’s too awkward. How can I let some stranger spit on me? I don’t want loud music and having to talk to others, I just want to stay in a closed room and hallucinate by myself, in silence, without having to interact with people in any way, and just letting my mind go wherever it wants to go, or wherever I need it to go.

Choquequirao and Ayahuasca were pretty much what Peru was all about for me. No, not Machu Pichu, truth is that I’d choose visions and hallucinations over tourist attractions any day. So when the five dollars ayahuasca ceremony my host prepared for his surfers came my way, I just swallowed my pride and let them spit and blow smoke all over me, only to have the chance of trying this unique experience (weird) people from all over the world come to Peru for.
In the end I didn’t have any visions, I just got sick, like very sick, with vomit and diarrhea, dehydration, nausea, dizziness and everything you are probably familiar with if you’ve ever had a hangover.
The fight or flight reflex was triggered on me every few seconds during the ceremony due to the deafening volume of the music, the air pollution and the fact of being in a dark room with strangers doing strange things, so I couldn’t really concentrate on the visions as I was too busy trying to no die from the excruciating stomach pain. Trying not to faint, trying not to vomit to keep the ‘medicine’ inside for as long as I could so as to reap off the benefits of it.
There may be some benefits to ayahuasca besides the visions, but the side effects are just too unbearable for me that I doubt I’ll be trying it again, in the same way, I wouldn’t be getting drunk again anytime soon because I dislike vomiting and feeling generally unwell.
My body reacted to ayahuasca in the same way it reacts to alcohol or any poison, by trying to get rid of it as soon as possible. The ‘shamans’ explain that as the ‘medicine’ wanting to clean your body and get rid of the toxins in it through vomit and diarrhea but the fact remains that the body thinks its a poisonous substance and can’t keep it inside for long.
For some people, if you’re a heroin addict, for example, I can see what benefits could have to treat your body this way, but for me I don’t think I have anything to clean my body from, I’ve never smoked, seldom drink, I don’t eat meat and I never eat processed food, I exercise often, eat my fruits and veggies and have a stress free lifestyle, I was just doing it for the visions and to try to get more inspiration for writing.
Everyone’s body is different and everyone reacts to it in a different way. My experience was not a good one but I would still recommend people to try it because life is short and the hallucinations will most probably be well worth the side effects.

It is for that that I may give it another chance someday, just not anytime soon.
After that, we took the ferry from Iquitos to Santa Rosa, swap sim cards with some random foreigners on the street and crossed the border into Colombia.

 

Part 10 – Conclusion

 

 

The time spent in Peru was overall a great time. Far better than the one spent in Argentina, Chile or Bolivia.

What’s the worst thing about Peru? By far Cumbia Peruana. It’s the music people listen to all the time everywhere. And it sucks, and some bus rides and boat rides last for a few days and you have to listen to the same music all day and all night long, because there’s no break from it, every restaurant, shop, on the street everywhere, there’s no escape. Sometimes you vomit because of it and you just want to die. The good thing is that every once in a while it will be mixed in with some cumbia or reggaeton, usually it isn’t though.

Alcohol prices are high, a beer costs about twice as much as a decent meal and a bottle of wine equals the price of four meals. It’s not really expensive, just expensive compared to everything else.
It’s not possible to extend your tourist visa in Peru, so if you decided you want to stay longer than three months you have to either leave and come back or overstay and never come back, both are not good options I guess.
What’re the best things about Peru? People are nice, there are many things to do and it’s really affordable. I don’t think I’ve ever spent more than 3 dollars on a meal or more than 10 in a hotel. Then there’s also the variety of landscapes, weather, food, and culture. Of the three months, we spent here, one was in the mountains and valleys of the Cusco area, another one on the beaches and desert of the Pisco, Ica and Chincha areas and the third on in the Amazonian jungle with tropical weather. There’s something for everyone in Peru, ok not for everyone, but for many and there was definitely something for me here.

 

 

50 things you need to know about Choquequirao

 

1. There are three roads to get there, Cachora, Huanipaca and Yanama. Cachora is the most popular one and the items below are writen from my experience on the trek.

 

 

 

2. About budget, the whole 4 days trek can be done for about 100 soles, if you’re camping, avoiding the ticket control and carrying your own gear. You will be spending about 30 soles for the bus from Cusco to Ramal and back, 10 from Ramal to San Pedro and back, 5 for every night spent at a camping ground, making a total of 20 for four nights and around 40 to 50 soles for five days of food at the campgrounds, assuming you will be having two meals a day each meal costs around 8 soles, it all totals around 100, say 200 if you choose to stay in private rooms instead of camping or 300 if you will be paying the ticket and having a few beers. And say 2000 soles if you want to do it through a travel agency because well, it’s a travel agency.

 

 

3. The pros to doing it with a guide is that they cook and set up the camp for you, that way you can have your hands free to swat mosquitoes, and sometimes they even tell you a bit about the history of the place. The cons are that you need to talk and listen to them, and to the other people in your group (socializing takes energy and effort), that you need to give them money and you follow their schedule and rules (you can’t venture into the jungle to look for a treasure if you feel like it).

 

4. Its safe, everywhere. There are no thieves or pickpockets, no one will scam you or rip you off, everyone is nice, but many tourists fall off the cliff and die. The road is really narrow, and at some points, you need to stand at the edge of the cliff to wait for all the horses to pass you by, some horses and mules are exhausted and they push you over and then you fall, and you die.

5. To get to Ramal de Cachora you take the bus to Abancay from “Cusco Terminal Terrestre”, it takes around 3 hours.

6. The ‘Terminal Terrestre’ in Cusco is located in front of a gigantic market called “El Molino” where there are about 6 outdoor gear shops where you can buy all your camping equipment at extremely cheap prices before getting on the bus to Abancay, most shops open after 10am.

7. The buses to Abancay leave every 2 or 3 hours and cost 15 soles, 10 if you bargain or 20 if they see you looking hopeless. Anyway, don’t pay more than 20.

8. You need to get off the bus at a town called “Ramal de Cachora.” So you check your GPS (mapsme works well in South America.) and tell the driver a few kilometers before to drop you off. If you fell asleep on the bus and missed your stop, you can get off at Abancay and take a bus back to Ramal.

9. From “Ramal de Cachora” you can take a minivan for 5 soles, a taxi for 50 or walk a few hours to “San Pedro de Cachora.”

10. Mercedes, a woman in town has the friendliest and cheapest accommodation in the city at only 15 soles for a private room, if you stay in a hostel expect to pay 40 for a shared one. Her house has no sign but it’s the one with the Peruvian flag on the roof half block downhill from the main square on the way to the mirador. Just tell her the boy with the black dog sent you.

11. If you arrive in Cachora before 4 pm there’s a great street market where you can buy fruits and vegetables at 1 sol a kilo, an enormous plate of food for 5 soles or any supplies you may need for your trip at ridiculously cheap prices.

12. The road from San Pedro de Cachora to Choquequirao is intense, if you just can’t be bothered you can hire a horse (caballo), a mule (mula) or a porter (arriero) for about 40 soles a day, it’s the same price for the locals, they’re not ripping you off.

13. From Cachora to the starting point of the trek (mirador) you can take a mini van or car for 5 soles or walk three hours. Notice that if you choose to walk every car that passes you will bless you with a thick cloud of road dust as a way to welcome you to Choquequirao. And if you choose to take a car they leave town starting at around 9 am every day.

14. The shop where the cars drop you off (near mirador) has amazing food in very generous portions for 5 soles a plate drinks included, this is the cheapest it will get, from then on it’s either 8 or 10 soles a plate.

15. The heat is brutal, unless you’re a fire elemental, or you get really lucky to have some clouds that day.

16. You better take a mask because every horse that passes you on the way will leave the road full of dust, so will every hiker and every gust of wind.

17. The road is never flat, it’s either heart-exploding steep or a knee-destroying down hill slope.

18. It’s a really nice walk, except because of the heat, and the dust, and the rocks, and the mosquitoes, and the flies and the horse dung.

19. Its possible to do it at night while its still cool, and if you’re afraid of missing the view there’s not really much to see besides a river valley, not different from the one you can see from the top of any mountain elsewhere.

20. Dogs are allowed everywhere, camps, ruins, shops, you name it, I mean just in case you didn’t notice her in the pictures, for Bong Gu and I, everything went as smoothly as it could have.

21. There is no way to charge your phone on the trail.

22. There’s no internet anywhere after Cachora.

23. There’s no electricity at night, they use solar panels during the day.

 

 

24. It’s totally possible to do the treck without any camping gear as there are two campsites that have rooms for rent, the first one is Chiquisca, 19 KM from the start of the trail, it’s fairly easy to make it there on the first day, the second one is Maranpata at KM28, you can make it there the second night, explore choquequirao on the third day (it’s huge) and spend the night in Marampata, in the morning of the fourth day you hike back down to Chiquisca and sleep there or continue onwards to town.

25. The first day you will be going downhill all day, it’s recommended (by me) to do it in zigzag to lessen the damage to your knees.

26. The second day you will be going uphill.

27. Water along the trek comes from streams and it’s mostly safe to drink, but like with any source of water in the countryside there’s always the chance of explosive diarrhea if you’re not used to it and you don’t purify it, so drink at your own risk.

28. Beer goes for about 15 soles a litter at any of the camping sites, alternatively the local drink of choice is some sort of fermented corn drink called chicha. It looks like milk and you will see the guides and porters drink it by the gallons.

29. All the people you meet on the way will ask you where do you come from and where are you going. So you better learn the names of the camping sites or wear your headphones so you don’t need to listen to them.

30. Don’t get lost.

31. Take toilet paper.

32. Take sunblock.

33. Take insect repellent.

34. There is a cave some 10 minutes away from Maranpata where there are said to be human remains of some people that were buried there before the time of the Incas and there is an entity called “El Abuelo” that’s supposed to look after them and it causes some sort of harm to those who venture inside it. Yes, you read that right.

35. Every village has it’s own sorcerer/healer/shaman called “Apu” that takes care of healing some people that were harmed by “El Abuelo”. Apu is not a real person but a magical being that sometimes materializes in the form of a short person with wings. (!)

36. It’s totally possible to avoid the ticket control. There is just one person watching the whole city of Choquequirao and he works from 7 am to 5 pm, get in before or after that time and there’s no one. Alternatively just walk around it, everybody’s super relaxed and even if they catch you they probably won’t mind you “lost” your ticket. Sometimes there may be someone in the official campsite but with so many tents there its very possible that he won’t notice you, they didn’t ask me for a ticket when I went there. And its also a possibility to camp in the ruins and enjoy the protection of the ghosts of the fallen Inca children.

37. If you want to pay for the ticket it costs 60 soles and 30 for students but you can just tell the guy to give you the student ticket for 30 and give 10 to him as a bribe as the way to save 20 soles. They are chilled like that.

38. The official campsite in the ruins is free.

39. That music in the campsite though.

40. If you are camping at the official al site its possible to ask the cook of the group tours to cook an extra plate for you for a small fee.

41. Some tour guides don’t care, they take up to the main plaza and then leave you there to “explore” by yourself.

42. If you’re going there to look for treasures or the lost gold of the Incas, consider that the jungle is dense and there are no trails, remember to take a machete, thick clothes, insect repellent and some digging equipment. Also consider that there’s a legend that says that every night of August every year, the gold of the Incas glows in the dark at exactly 12 AM.

 

43. When you finish you have the option to stay and live forever near the ruins and become a mountain dweller or you can also continue on to Yamana. From Choquequirao, take the hiking trail going up the hill from the main plaza to “Abra Choquequirao”, then walk down the mountain until the “Maizal” and you will reach the main road in about a day and a half, there you can take a bus or car to go to a different place.

44. If you want to continue to Machu Pichu, the app Mapsme has the route for the trek on it but it would take you like a week so you better take food or be ready to forage and catch your own food on the way there. Also, there’s a chance you get lost and turn into a lama.

 

45. Alternatively just walk back to Cachora, take the minivan to Ramal and flag a bus going back to Cusco or onwards to Lima. If you want to go north get off at Abancay and take a bus north. Notice that to go back to Ramal from San Pedro you need to ride in the trunk of the car for some reason.

46. If you want to sell your camping gear you can do it at any of the shops that rent gear in Cachora.

47. If you seriously want to go there in search of gold and treasures be aware that people who are probably better equipped and have more knowledge of the area than you have been searching for treasures there for the last few decades. There are active sites and archaeologists working on them, and the locals at Maranpata say the gringos took the gold 10 years ago and that they helped them load them into their helicopters.

 

48. If you’re going there expecting to discover a yet unknown, lost Inca city, be aware that hundreds of tourists will pass you on the way there and there are always at least a dozen tourists on the site.

49. If you’re going there for the landscapes and sights, I would recommend you to take a taxi from Cusco to Tambomachay instead and make your way back along the valley through grasslands and gorges while checking out all the ruins on the way (picture below).

50. In other words, take Choquequirao for what it is, a tough but super cheap hike that will end up in some amazing ruins.
And if you have any questions drop me a line on brunomaiorana@mylastvacation.com or wechat/instagram: mylastvacation

 

 

 

From Buenos Aires to Bolivia

It took us almost eight hours to reach the Argentinian border in Quiaca to cross to Bolivia. We hadn’t had neither a meal nor a good sleep the night before so the long bus ride felt even longer. the city of Salta was pretty terrible, but the other small ones were really nice, Bajo Pampa, Humauaca, and Quiaca. they all had this cute small friendly town atmosphere. we walked towards the bridge that connects the two countries, happy that it would all be finally over.
We had been caught up by a strike in Buenos Aires that delayed us a few days, that means by the time I arrived at the border the papers I had spent so much time and money to make so that we can cross borders with a dog were already expired. but it was kind of worth it, I hadn’t been to buenons aires in a good 12 years and I was happy to walk on the streets I had walked years before, remembering the things that happened there and imagining things that didn’t happen but it would have been cool if they had.
It was kind of shocking to see the contrast between the rich and the poor, I dont think I had ever seen so many homeless people sleeping in the street in any other Argentinian city. it felt a bit like being in India, with all the rubbish on the streets and the dogs eating from it, nevertheless the city was bright, baffling, bursting and beaming with beautiful buildings and begging bums, or maybe it wasn’t maybe I just wanted to use some words that start with a B, either way, I’m glad I went there and took bong gu on a walk around the Palermo park. while we were enjoying the sun and the lake I thought I could probably see myself living here in the future, for like a year top.
We always hear that Buenos Aires is the most dangerous place in Argentina and we have to be careful. not once did I feel in danger though, but it may have helped that I know martial arts, I speak the language, can talk my way out of virtually any situation and I have a kick-ass dog dressed as a police dog always by my side. it also helped to see all these tall blonde tourists looking lost with their cameras and lonely planet books in hand. if somebody were to get robbed it would for sure be them before me.
Back to Bolivia now. to our surprise we found the border was not a real border, people were crossing the footbridge back and forth and there was no one to check on any kind of paperwork for anyone. some were crossing with animals as well. either way, I had already spent more than a hundred dollars on this papers so I looked for some office to show them to someone.
The government officials couldn’t have cared less whether I walked into Bolivia with a dog or an elephant. it was all the same for them. they pointed me to an office called SENASAQ that’s supposed to be like the SENASA in Argentina where they check this kind of papers.
The office looked like it had been closed for years, there was a lock pad securing it from the outside and even spider webs clinging to the window. I ask around to see if someone knows when it would open but people didn’t even know there was an office there. finally, after asking about 10 people someone tells me they will open again Monday. it was Saturday afternoon.
From my first interactions with Bolivian people, I found what other travelers told me about them to be true. they are apathetic and don’t care about you at all. that all sounded great to me, as I really didn’t want to talk to them anyway. I had come here to write a book not to make friends.
Their avoidance of eye contact and monosyllabic answers felt like a breeze of fresh air coming from a place where everyone needs to share and socialize like all the time. it was awesome, people ignored me completely, I might as well have been in laos.
I had also heard a lot about how Bolivia is the cheapest and safest country in South America, so I figured it would be a perfect place for a writer to focus on his work without having to worry about money or people or getting robbed.
When you go to a country for the first time it’s always nice to take a few days to relax in the border town to learn a bit about the local language and how to use their money. So after exchanging money, I walked straight on the main street all the while thinking I would check into the first hotel I find and spend at least half an hour in the toilet.
The name was the ‘center hotel’ because it was located in the city center I assume, so bonus points for creativity. as I walk in, there was a young girl sitting at the front desk, she was staring at the computer screen and didn’t even acknowledged I was there. I greet her and ask her if I can stay here with a little dog. she says yes and hands me a key. just yes, nothing else. it was that easy. in Argentina if I ever wanted to go somewhere with a dog it would have involved at least 10 minutes of negotiations and getting shouted at, after drowning them in paperwork and explaining that there are rules they should follow or I could call the police on them, they would sometimes let me in. here it was just a yes, saving myself a ton worth of stress. and again I would have probably gotten away with bringing an elephant into the room, ok maybe not an elephant but a monkey for sure. Or a decently sized alpaca.
For the looks of it, I’m guessing this was the best hotel in the city, the price 90 bolivianos or about 13 dollars. people told me a hotel would usually cost about 20, so for this price I was expecting the Bolivian equivalent of the Hilton Hotel.
I was wrong, it had running water for only a few hours a day, it had no electricity, not because it was a bad hotel there just wasn’t electricity anywhere in the city, and that was fine, I still have a power bank I can use for the time being. I didn’t really have high expectations in Bolivia anyway but I was somehow expecting electricity.

I had been warned that Bolivian food was the worst food in the region, but I didn’t care either as long as it was cheap. I had plenty of good food in Argentina, so a few months on fresh fruits mainly, would probably not be so bad for me.
Bong Gu is alright, she doesn’t care if it’s Bolivia, or Argentina or China, as long as we are together everything will be fine. or maybe she’s fed up and will run away to become a Bolivian mountain dog or something.
Uyuni, it seems to be the place where everyone wants to go in Bolivia. Do I really want to go there? not really. but I might as well as its very near and we have to be somewhere anyway, so we might as well be in Uyuni. Nothing bad could come out of it. Probably.

Questions for writers

These are some of the questions I would like to ask a fellow writer if I ever met one.

• Why do we doubt ourselves?
• What’s your favorite place to write?
• Do you write down sitting down? If yes, do you ever think about how sitting for many hours a day considerable shorten our lives?
• Do you let people read your unfinished works?
• Would you trade your life in the real world to live inside one of your stories?
• What do you think it’s the best drug to use to improve creativity and lower your inhibitions?
• Do you write about things that are missing in your life to compensate in some way?
• Why people on the internet complain about writer’s block? If they enjoy what they do, why they need to find an excuse for not doing it?
• Is there a book you read and you wish you were the one who wrote it?
• What’s your favorite time of the day to write?
• How does it affect your work writing because you have to instead of because you want to? Ex. your editor asks you to, or you need the money.
• What role does your ego play in your writing and your life? Do you think it’s still possible to write something worth reading if you’re depressed or have low self-esteem?
• Do you ever dress up for writing as you would do to go to a red carpet event so that you would feel more confident?
• Do you ever feel like no one will ever be able to understand you the way other writers do?
• What’s the most important thing a story should have?
• What’s the most important attribute a writer should have?
• What do you do to unwind after writing for many straight hours?

Greetings from Vancouver

Hey, it’s me.

We finally made it to Vancouver somehow, and it’s great to be here. Not really so different from Australia though, but the city in itself is much friendlier than I expected.

I had read online that it was difficult to make friends here but it wasn’t the case for us. It probably helps that we were not looking for people to have deep personal relationships with. We just want people to hang out and have a good time so we don’t have to drink at home alone every day.

Bong Gu seems to like it here as well, there are plenty of parks and she got used to being on a leash. At the beginning, I didn’t know she should be on a leash so she just walked by my side as usual. Sometimes she likes to go on her own, she’s independent like that, but people thought she was lost and worried about her. They are not used to seeing dogs roaming around.

We’ve crossed about fifteen countries in the last two years but I’m not sure she actually knows we are in a different country. All the people and dogs here, seem the same for her as the ones elsewhere. She just goes with the flow, minding her own business and happy to be able to spend her life alongside her master (me).

The good news is that I’m seeing someone. After being single for about three years I finally met someone special. The bad news is that she’s a fictional character. Can’t have it all right?

Her name is Gwen, she’s a product of my imagination and one of the 108 characters from a book I’m working on. She’s not based on anyone I’ve met in real life, but it’s someone who somehow forced her way into my life and I ended up even making a website just for her.

It’s actually ok to date a fictional character. I wouldn’t say it’s great, but it’s ok. It’s not the ideal relationship one could have but I’m open-minded enough to conceive the possibility that they are different kinds of love out there, and they are all different.

I’m not sure we are actually dating, but it feels that way. I write about her every day and think about her most of the time. Even though it’s not a real relationship, strictly speaking, it sure feels like one, and it requires about the same amount of time and effort that a real relationship would.

I’d say as long as we are both happy with it, everything’s ok. Bong Gu loves her as well because she’s not real and that means she doesn’t have to physically share me with someone else. She just sits next to me while I write about her, not a clue of what’s actually going on in my mind.

I’m still drinking every day and I came to terms with it. It’s the only way to keep some of the personality disorders in check, and it sure is cheaper than some other drugs.

We all have issues, and we all do what we need to do to get us through the day. Some people smoke, some exercise, some travel. I drink, read and write to pass the time until midnight.

We take it one day at a time. At midnight we can finally go to sleep and that means we have survived one more day. After we survived enough days we can finally die and be free of everything. I often find myself looking at the clock and counting the minutes until I can finally go to sleep and this day will be over.

I know I can’t die now, because of Bong Gu, I  need to look after her, make sure she’s happy and healthy. If something ever happened to her then I will have to reassess my life and decide if it’s really worth it to live every day just barely making it through.

It’s part of being alive, and part of being human. I know that much. We all have to deal with it in our own way.

I finished one of the books I told you about last time, not the one I really care about, the other one. The one I care about it’s about halfway there, but if I didn’t care about it so much it would have probably been finished last year.

They are all written because I need to do so, same as this letter.

Everything in my life is actually done because I need to do it, and at times I feel like I’ve somehow lost control of my decisions and I’m doing things this way because I don’t know anything else.

I often feel that reality is not really real, and I’ve stopped seeing time as linear long time ago. It seems like it was ten minutes ago that I was riding a bicycle in Osaka, swimming in the beach in Kerala and climbing mountains in China.

Everything seems to happen at the same time and that is sometimes too intensely terrifying that I feel like I can’t take it. If I drink and meditate every day I can somehow continue on living pretending time is linear. Pretending my past experiences are gone and my future ones are unknown and it’s not all happening at the same time all the time.

And that again is just part of being human and having this huge burden of understanding our own existence, consciousness, the universe, time and reality.

Or pretend we understand it.

Or fool ourselves into pretending we understand it.

Either way, don’t worry too much, Bong Gu still has about ten more years and I will most definitely be completely blind in ten years from now so we’ll just deal with that when the time comes.

There’s no need to worry about the future now. The present is scary enough as it is already.

I hope you’re doing well yourself and there’s always a chance we will meet again someday. I mean as long as we’re alive there’s always a chance.

Take it easy and thank you for reading.

Bruno.

Dear mom

Dear mom,

By the time you read this I will be on a plane to Australia.

I know it will come as a surprise, and I must say sorry for telling you I went to a friends place. It was a lie. I had packed my bag last night and hid it and I had been planning this for the last few months.

I know you love me very much, that’s why I need to be honest with you. This last year of school has been a very difficult one for me. To the point I had oftentimes contemplated suicide.

I hid it very well and only cried at night when I was alone. But it came a time when I couldn’t hide it anymore so I started looking for ways to escape.

I checked the internet and found a support group for people my age who were feeling the same way. I also found many of them had found ways to escape the suffocating realities of Japanese society.

Some had gone to the US, some to England, New Zealand or Australia. Australia seemed to be the easiest one. So I contacted an organization that helps Japanese young people find suitable employers in Australia.

Don’t worry about me. I was able to save around 3000 USD working part-time at the bakery for the last 6 months. It was enough for the ticket and the first few weeks before I find a job. Many young Japanese work on the farms and it seems there are a lot of jobs there for me to choose from.

I hope you can understand me.

It is something I need to do.

I will write you emails every chance I have and I will call you also.

Love you,

Yukari

Free writing

Just dumping thoughts now, nothing serious.

First, I will be 33 this year, can’t believe I made it this far. If someone were to ask me what happened after Berlin in 2007 I wouldn’t be able to give them a precise answer.

Many things happened and I don’t remember most of them. What happened before Berlin I remember it more much best better, what? It seems the reason we live and travel is not to be happy or to help others. We live to travel until we forget all the places we’ve been to and all the people we’ve met. We travel until all the experiences and people get mixed up in our heads and we have trouble even knowing where we wake up in the morning. Lived so many lives that when we wake up every day we have trouble remembering who and where we are and what is it that we are still getting up in the morning for. What is this thing we call life?

Second, I have probably sabotaged every single meaningful relationship I’ve ever had. Friends, girlfriends, family, all of them equally. I ruined them all, didn’t leave one relationship unharmed. Why? I’m still trying to figure it out, a possible reason is that I am too selfish and just don’t care about anyone but myself. It would sound better if I wrote I destroyed them because I was afraid of getting hurt, and not letting others get close to me was my way of protecting myself. That does sound good and everyone can relate to it that but it’s also a lie. The truth is that I have been dead inside for years and there’s no way another person could hurt my feelings even if they wanted to because I have no feelings and no interest in other human  beings or whatever they may do or say or feel because I can barely manage to live with myself every day with the huge burden of being here now and the existential weight of being alive and conscious. Just too conscious of myself and everything around me that it’s hard to live with it.

Third, my grandpa recently died and I don’t know how to feel about it. That was one of the reasons I came to Argentina because I knew he would die and I wanted to see him before. Then I realized I had changed a lot in those 10 years since I had seen him last but he hadn’t changed a bit. He was still the same, so were everyone else I met after such a long time. And the reasons we weren’t able to get along so well this time were the same reasons we weren’t able to get along so well 10 years ago.

Now he died and I have lots of unanswered questions. Some of them were asked but never got a reply. Some I didn’t have the chance to ask and some are better left unasked.

He doesn’t exist anymore so there’s really not much I can ask him now but it sure does help writing about him. He was a very peculiar person, to say the least. Not a typical grandfather.

He had a dark side I had the chance to witness it a few times. I guess we all have one, but most of us try to hide it somehow. My dark side is masked somewhere in between unedited short stories, unpublished blog posts, empty wine bottles, unsent emails, and Korean pop songs. His dark side though, was all over the place, in his backyard, in the kitchen, in the living room, there was no hiding from it and only those who were very close to him were able to see it. It would withdraw at times just to come out when it couldn’t hide itself anymore. Like a spider that lives in a hole and comes out only when it’s hungry, to catch it’s prey and then take it back to her lair.

Talking about some topics with him was like putting your hand down the spider’s hole, you know you are probably gonna get bitten but sometimes you do it anyway because you haven’t seen the spider in a while and you want to know if it’s still there. The topics we were not able to talk about were endless and the ones we were able to talk about were limited to: money, work, plans for the future, money, social relationships, money, politics, and society.

I’m not sure if I miss him but I am sure I would have liked our relationship to have been better and that we had both work harder to get through our differences. I guess for me it was just too obvious he preferred his other grandchildren and I was probably jealous or bitter about it. I felt like a bastard child there and went all Jon Snow trying to find my way in a world as far from him as I could.

Fourth, about life and work in El Calafate, I’ve managed to stay at the same job for over 4 months now, hating it every day and taking life one day at a time, like an alcoholic. Just doing what I have to do to get me through the day.

The job is tedious, guests are annoying. Colleagues are ok though. But working for the minimum wage feels a bit like volunteering. Like woofing, you get just enough to get yourself fed and housed. It will get you through the day but there are no chances here to save money in case you want to travel or move abroad.

Nature is nice though, and most of the times I  get to enjoy life and by enjoying life I mean staying at home writing, reading, and thinking. Sometimes I think a book and a dog is all I need, some others I think I should start traveling again soon. Once you’ve traveled it becomes clear you won’t be able to stay in the same place for long anymore. So we will probably find ourselves hitting the road again within the next couple of months. Not because we want to just because that’s the way it has to be.

I could say that I have been crushed by the Argentinian economy, my salary being 4 times less than in Australia but with the same living costs or the salary being the same on as in China but the living costs being 4 times higher here. And thinking about last year, traveling in Argentina may have been one of the worst mistakes I’ve made in my life. And come to think about it again, my whole life is just one big mistake and this was just another chapter of the book.

Good thing is that I learned my lesson and my dog seems happy about traveling together. I’m not quite sure she actually knows we are in a different country now. Of course, she doesn’t know about countries but I wonder if she knows we are a good 20.000 km away from where she grew up. I wonder if she misses the other cities we’ve lived in before, or if she remembers all the people she’s met before, and an ocean away from here. I often find comfort in thinking her thoughts are just as messy as mine. Or that we are here together now and that’s all that matters to her, and all that should matter for me as well.

Letters I would like to receive

Bruno, hi! This is Ria (a character from one of your books), remember me? Surprise! Haha, oh geez so much pressure being at the top of the list, it’s like people will think I’m the most important one, but hey I’m just a fictional character so I don’t need to worry about it.

So how have you been? I sent two letters back in autumn you must not have gotten them, oh wait, did I just quote Eminem, like seriously what is wrong with me? It’s like I have too many ideas and they all get thrown together into this imaginary blender inside my mind and you never know what will come out of it. Or like no, not really, you usually know more or less what will come out of it, that was just me trying to be a cute little special snowflake who things she’s special for having too many ideas, just like everyone else out there. Ok, not everyone but most people reading this DO probably think they think too much.

So how’s your personality disorder treating you this day? Oh, I almost forgot why I was writing you for, I finally found a treasure! Yes, after all these years. Mom would be so proud of me, right? I will send you some pictures of it next time, I promise. Well, gotta go, I’m almost at the bridge now, oh geez did I do it again?

Love, Ria.

 

 

 

---

Mr. Maiorana.

My name is Daniel Williams, I am a customer service representative of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and I am writing you regarding the feedback we recently received from you.

Regarding the extension of your card expiry dates, I am glad to inform you I have personally discussed it with my supervisor. He understood your situation and is willing to extend the expiration date of the card from 3 years to 5 years, in the same way, the banks in other countries do it.

At the Commonwealth Bank, we understand each of our customer’s special circumstances, that is why we appreciate your feedback and are glad to inform you we have transferred AUD 25.000 into your account as a sign of gratitude for helping us improve your banking experience.

Yours, sincerely.

Daniel Williams.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

 

 

 

---

Mr. Bruno.

We are the main governments, the Illuminati, the banks, the corporations or whatever you want to call us. The name is unimportant, you know who we are and we know who you are.

We make use of rules, regulations, dogma and technology to control every aspect of people’s lives, including yours. We control what you eat, what you think, wear, say and do.

We have a message to transmit to you today, it’s about blame.

Blaming others for your misery is like having an itch on your butt and scratching your head.

Have a nice day.

 

 

 

---

Fan mail

 

 

 

 

---

Hey, it’s me again, well it’s you, yes you from the future. I forgot to tell you something important the other day, that’s why I came back, it’s about chickens. And eggs.

I know you like analogies and I know you like chickens so now we have both, imagine your life like a chicken barn, there are some eggs but there are also a lot of chicken droppings. Some people pick some up the droppings, some pick up the eggs, there’s plenty of both for everyone.

It’s up to you which one to pick up.

Take it easy.

 

 

 

---

Hello. It’s me.

I know we haven’t talked for a long time and you are probably asking why did I decide to write now? I have tried to write you so many times before but couldn’t find the right words or was too afraid. All I want to say is that I am very sorry for everything. But I am glad everything ended up well for you in the end. Or I hope it did. I really do.

Take care of yourself. And take care of Bong Gu.

 

 

 

---

From Bongu

 

 

 

 

---

Bruno. This is Japan. Hi. Yes. Japan. The country. We write to tell you we understand how you feel. The sorrow. The pain. The isolation. The emptiness. You’ve felt it when you came here. We know it. That’s why you chose not to come back. But you must come back someday. To die. Japan is the place to die. Because we are already dead. We know you. We understand you. We know how you feel. We are one. We are everything. And we are nothing. Come to Japan.

 

 

 

---

Hey, it’s me from the future again. I have to tell you that existence is meaningless.

Take it easy.

---

10 tips to help you get a couchsurfing host

As something of a veteran on couchsurfing.com . I ‘d like to share some tips that helped me find hosts in the past. The basic tips (fill out your profile, write a good request, etc) you can find them on the CouchSurfing website, these one are a bit more advanced.

1.  Most active hosts usually know what’s going on tonight or tomorrow, so asking them if you can stay with them tonight instead of next month is a sure way to get a host, or at least a reply.
2. Hosts need to know when will you arrive, so If you are unsure of your arrival date because you are traveling on foot, bicycle, hitchhiking, etc it’s better to tell them an exact date and then change it later if you need to.
3. To avoid awkwardness always ask for 2 nights, no more. Later if you get along well you can ask them to stay one more night, or they may offer you to. Asking for just 2 nights is perfect because of the low-risk commitment it offers the prospect host. If you are annoying, messy, smelly, cheap, snore too loud or something like that they will probably be able to tolerate you for 2 nights, but they don’t want to get stuck with you for longer just because they had already agreed to. If you need to stay let’s say 6 days in a place consider finding 3 hosts for 2 days each instead of asking one person so host you for 6 say.
4. If the host hasn’t logged in for a month or longer feel free to send them a copied message otherwise you need to write something personal, assuming you have the time and internet for it.
5. Ordering by newest users will also greatly increase your chances of getting hosted, they have low expectations and probably won’t even mind you sending them your template.
6. On the other end, there are people who write some kind of keyword or a password on their profile that you have to mention on your request. They are people who have probably hosted a lot before and have a huge ego because of that. Their profile reads like a novel and there’s probably no way they would understand your plans have changed, or you have 10% battery left, or  15 minutes of internet left and a million things to do besides reading the story of their lives. If you do have the necessary time and energy to write them make sure you compliment them a lot and follow their rules and guidelines to increase your chances.
7. Be aware that people living in big cities get a lot of couch requests every day from  European backpackers in their 20’s, so what makes you different? Looking for a couch it’s a bit like looking for a job, if you say the exact same thing as everyone else you will get rejected, you need to stand out. Unless you are sending requests to an unpopular non-touristy destination, then you can just say the same as everyone.
8.  Let your host know that you travel with your own sleeping bag and mat, even if it’s a tiny one, this tells the host you are flexible, independent, can sleep anywhere and won’t makes their blankets dirty.
9. Avoid cliches and phrases like “I like traveling, music and movies, I’m friendly, open-minded, I like meeting new people and experiencing new cultures, etc”. Everyone likes traveling, everyone considers themselves to be friendly and open-minded, also open-minded people don’t feel the need to tell others that they are open-minded. Make sure your host knows you are not a robot, tell them something about your dreams, about your allergies, weaknesses, quirks, something really different or strange about you.  Tell them something they  have never heard before. He probably already knows you like traveling.
10.  Mention something special you could share with them or do together, for example, some years ago I used to travel with a frisbee and would mention in my request that I would like to play with them. And I’ve met people traveling with a football, a chess set, some card games, a hair cutting set, a musical instrument, a special food or drink you brought from abroad, or things like that.

Also don’t forget to always bring a gift, souvenir or cook something for your host, it’s just the right thing to do.

And welcome to surf my couch in El Calafate.

Bruno.

 

 

About life in EL Calafate

It’s been a bit more than 2 months since we are in a city called El Calafate, in the southern part of Argentinian Patagonia. We reached here by hitchhiking after getting tired of walking for 6 months across Argentina. It was time to settle down.

The city has nothing going on, at all. There is no calendar of events or activities, people don’t get together or organize anything. It’s dead cold in winter, can reach minus 30 on some nights and during summer it’s full of tourists that come for a day to visit the Perito Moreno glacier and then they leave.

There is something about it though, a certain charm that few people can appreciate it. It’s has something to do with role-playing games. El Calafate makes for the typical city a hero must pass through during the game. Every game has a city like this one.

Staying for more than a few days in this city means you become a non-playing character, get absorbed by the city and become a part of it. To aid and contribute in some way or another to the quest of the hero that is obliged to pass through here.

In my case, I took the role of the receptionist at a local Inn, so when travelers come looking for a place to sleep I arrange the room for them, answer their questions and do the kind of repetitive small talk non-player characters usually do.

If I talk to the travelers outside the Inn, I tell them the story of how I used to be a teacher before I retire. I tell them about my dog, my life and things about the city that they may find interesting.

The reason to make this post was not to tell about the city but to get into the habit of writing in short paragraphs, and experimenting with what makes a post easy to read and understand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For 2011’s Bruno

This letter is just for you. Bruno from 2011. That’s when you first decided to start writing right?

Well, there are some things you wish you had known back then, but you didn’t and no one told them to you, so I might as well say them now before it’s too late:

• You love writing in short sentences and listing items, so let’s do it that way.
• Writing is your dream, that much is clear, so you have to fight for your dreams, that much is clear as well.
• Writing is an art more than it is a science, so you have to be born with the talent, that’s where you have some kind of advantage. You love writing and that is the most important thing. For you it doesn’t feel like work, writing is what you do after work to unwind.
• Now that you know you were born for it all that is left is focus and dedication, picking up the habit to write is easy, just like any other habit, you do it every day at the same time for a while, after a few weeks it becomes a habit so you don’t think about it too much and just do it.
• This one is somehow important: DO NOT SECOND GUESS YOURSELF. Your writing isn’t perfect, well guess what, it never will be, nothing is perfect, but it’s good enough. No one really expects much from you anyway so just keep doing what you do because you love it, that is the best reason to do something. Maybe someone doesn’t like your writing, so what? You didn’t choose to be a writer because you wanted to please other people, you do it because it makes you feel good and because there are some things inside you that need to get out and this is the way for them to do it. Writing is the way to freedom in some way.
• So again, write because it makes you happy, not to please others. You will never be able to please others anyway, people, in general, are unpleasable, not that the word exists but you know what I mean.
• Through writing, you will learn a lot about yourself and that’s what’s all about in the end.
• Schubert is good music to write with, cafe del mar is good as well, sometimes kings of convenience will do, depending on the mood. Otherwise just google ‘music to write’, keep yourself inspired, keep learning, keep discovering new stuff, stay alive, stay present in the moment.
• If you ever feel like you’ve hit a wall just google ‘writing exercises’ or something like that to keep the blood flowing.
• Read as much as you write, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Asimov, Lem, Lovecraft, Murakami,  Kafka, just read whatever you can get your hands on to get more inspiration and experience.
• Tired of writing? Go pet the dog, do some housework, go for a 1okm run, edit some old writing, better yet edit someone else’s work, or translate them, you speak a bunch of languages, put them to use, grab a drink, sit in the park, walk the dog, stay alive, stay inspired.

But why?

The last post was six months ago, what happened since?

 

I left China and came to South America.

 

But why?

 

That’s what everyone ask me always and in the same way that the Japanese say we have 3 faces, one we show to acquaintances, another one for friends and family and the real one that we never show to anyone, the answer to this that I give to people who are not so close to  me is that I wanted to see my family because I hadn’t seen them for a long time. Even though there is some truth to it, its meant to be an answer that’s easy to digest, understand and relate to by anyone. So, that became the template to the one we can add some details according to what we feel our listener needs to hear at that given moment.
The second answer, for people who are a bit closer to me is that I was looking for something different than what I had had for a long time, for new experiences. That’s why I needed to start a walking trip, because it’s something I had never done before. Some kind of a challenge, and also because I was too comfortable in Asia so needed to get out of my comfort zone, and while a little bit harder to swallow, it’s still easily understood by most people who somehow knew me already.
And the third answer that no one knows but me (and now you, whoever you are) is more complicated to understand and to explain, we can say that it definitely didn’t have much to do with family or adventures, work or opportunities nor any kind of superficial experiences or reasons, the true answer lies in the field of existentialism. And it’s hard to reply honestly to the question of why we moved to another continent without going into the subject of free will first and why we do anything at all in this life.

There are a million different variables affecting each decision we take, and we could probably fill up a few volumes of an encyclopedia explaining just a handful of those variables, but there’s no way people who ask you such a simple question like why did you come here could be able to grasp the whole reality behind the reason why we do things. So we use some super simple way so they can understand, and simplify matters so that we can fulfill our secret desire to be understood and accepted by others. Because we are afraid of being rejected if we tell them that there are millions of factors into play that affect our decisions.

 

So that is your exhaustive answer, it can never be simple with you, there always has to be something more, a way to make things more difficult than they already are, and to prove how intellectually superior you feel to those who chose to live their lives more simply without getting crushed every day by the existential weight of being alive and having to deal with this so-called consciousness thing or questioning life.

Now I feel like you are projecting and that’s how you see yourself so you put it on me, so as to explain how you feel.

But why would I do that?

As some sort of therapy , or exercise, or as a way to try to escape the fact that you are aware that this life and this universe as we know it is either a computer simulation, some kind of illusion or that everything is real, which means existence is meaningless, you are just an accident, you will die and cease to exist. And good luck going to sleep tonight.

I wasn’t planning to sleep anyway, and I know about all that already and have made peace with the fact that either everything’s an illusion or everything’s is real and meaningless. Either way, there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it, so why worrying?

It’s not worrying it’s… Well, how to explain it? Here are some photos of us coming on the plane from China to Argentina.

 

 

Understanding negative thoughts

If I check the facebook news feed To see what my friends are up to I often feel angry, disappointed or frustrated with what I see or read.

People share Some negative stuff or comment, What they ate, many things that are not real and have no positive Influence or Relevance In our lives (Deadpool, Batman, celebrities), vanity/ego Related stuff, Or something that they like and they want you to like as well so that they can Get Reassurance from others.

This Is just an example but Negative emotions can arise every day, at any time and for many reasons, How can we take Advantage of This and use these negative emotions To improve ourselves and strengthen our spiritual practice:

1) Understanding that it’s Perfectly normal that these negative emotions Arise. Good thoughts and bad thoughts Come and go all the time Inside our minds. That is the nature of human mind and there is no Reason to feel guilty Or punish ourselves for having negative thoughts. So feel free to feel Sad, angry, stressed or frustrated. Otherwise, you will end up feeling stressed about being stressed, and then feeling stressed about being stressed about being stressed, and so on. It’s better to feel stressed just once, understanding that this too will pass and embracing the freedom that Comes with that understanding.

2) Understanding The suffering we cause to ourselves and to others When we try to control stuff. I cannot control my thoughts, Facebook or my friends But I can control my attitude towards them.

3) Understanding the real reason why they post those stuff and I post this stuff is because of causes and effects, We are all conditioned By many different Variables and none of us is in Full control of our actions or our thoughts.

4) Understanding we are all in different stages in our lives, Some people are looking to be entertained or numbing their minds with Art or technology, Some are seeking Sensual pleasures, Some are seeking physical experiences, others look to acquire Material wealth while Others seek Intelectual materialism, and some are looking for peace, happiness, and contentment within their own minds. It’s okay that we are all in different paths and I shouldn’t expect others To be on the same path as me. If our paths cross along the way that’s great if they don’t that’s also great.

5) Understanding that suffering comes from expecting From life something it cannot give us. If I expect to be Inspired by Facebook I’m gonna get disappointed, if expected to have Only happy and peaceful thoughts I’m gonna get disappointed when negative thoughts come and that will lead to suffering.

6) Understanding that it’s okay for me to get frustrated or annoyed, I’m not perfect and I don’t need to be, as long as I try To understand the thought processes that go behind Suffering and freedom That’s already a small step towards the right direction. We will get there eventually When we stop worrying about getting there. when we set peace, happiness, and understanding as a long-term goal instead of a Short-term achievement every small step counts. And even if we don’t get there What matters is that we gave it our very best.

 

Labels

The more labels we try to put on ourselves and on others, the more obstacles we are placing On our way to freedom, peace, and understanding.

For example, even though I’ve been teaching for several years, I don’t consider myself a teacher, I’m just a person who works as a teacher. But I had many other jobs before teaching and will have many different ones in the future. If I were to say “I am a teacher” instead of “I work as a teacher”, that would mean I can only work as a teacher, and I would be closing the doors to many other things I would like or would need to do in the future.

Even though I don’t usually eat meat and try to avoid dairy products, I don’t consider myself a vegan or a vegetarian, because there are some situations where you just can’t choose or you don’t have any money and you eat whatever people give you. In some other situation is better to eat the meat than to see it go to waste. And if I see the chickens running free and happy, I wouldn’t think twice about eating their eggs. In most cases, it would be much more beneficial for the animals and the environment if I just eat whatever has been already discarded by society (dumpster diving) than having all these specially made vegan products produced and transported just for me to eat them. But if I were a vegan or a vegetarian, I would have to respect my ethical code even though my instincts and common sense tell me otherwise And I would be closing the door to the fact that ethics are not as black and white as vegans see them.

Even though I don’t believe in any gods or the paranormal in general, I can not call myself an atheist Because that would mean closing the door to a lot of amazing stuff. For example, about 80% of Buddhist teachings Are practical things that I can apply in my daily life to be happier, improve my life and the lives of others. The other 20% are the outdated stuff, How does karma work? MAGIC! how does reincarnation works? MAGIC! So there’s no way I could close the door to that 80% of amazing stuff I really need just because earlier in life I had decided to label myself as an atheist.

And even Christianity has a lot of amazing stuff if you really Get into IT, Like art, poetry, philosophy But IT all gets obfuscated By the dark side of Christianity, The bigotry, the racism, the pedophilia, the corruption, etc. During my trips I have been hosted and helped by so many Christians, especially in Australia, in Korea and in the Philippines, But if I said I am an atheist that would automatically put me against them And I would be closing the door to A lot of great experiences from the ones I could really benefit from.

By the same token, there are no criminals in prison. There are just people who committed crimes. There are no murders or thieves there are people who have murdered and people who have stolen.
There are people who made mistakes. There are people who were desperate, People who did what they could under the circumstances and people who felt prey of a corrupt system based on scarcity, competition, and inequality, But if we choose to label them as criminals we’re closing the doors to forgiveness and understanding.

There are no crazy people. There are people who have mental problems, and if we decide to label them as schizophrenic, paranoid or bipolar we are closing the doors To the healing process That can arise from focusing on the sane part of that person Instead of the sick one.

By not labeling ourselves and others We are allowing a deeper thought process to take place, In the one, we can sincerely understand and accept each other, Understand ourselves and accepting that responsibility That comes along with understanding.

The responsibility of dealing more kindly with one another.

Best friends

I stopped fighting my inner demons, we’re on the same side now…

The used tell me there is something wrong with me, now they say I’m Good enough.

They used to say I shouldn’t do/say this, now they say “ok, let’s see what happens”.

They used to be very noisy when I was trying to sleep or meditate, Now they keep quiet and help me concentrate on the task at hand.

They used to say I can’t do it, now they say you HAVE to do it.

They used to tell me to worry about something that has happened before or will maybe happen in the future, now they remind me to be here right now.

They used to tell me I should be doing or thinking something, now they’re happy to just be here with me.

The used to say it’s not good to be alone, now they say they are my best friends and I’ll never be alone again.

 

About conditioning and causalities

When someone abuses us or are mean to us it’s not because they are bad people or we did something wrong, it’s because of the conditions and the circumstances around them that lead them to behave that way.

We are all conditioned by our environment, by our thoughts, by our upbringing, by our level of awareness, by our education, by our experiences, by the way in that we see the world, by the way, we see ourselves and by some other variables.

If we understand this we can see it’s not actually their fault but there are always many factors in play.

If we are still stuck with the fault-finding mind, we could rearrange the facts to fit our personal views, for example, we could use their upbringing as an excuse to blame their parents, friends or teachers, we could blame the government by saying they shouldn’t allow people to behave that way, we could blame their environment or society as a whole and say they acted that way because of social conditioning and that way we could blame tv, advertisements, the economy, the media, the politicians or anything we don’t like for all the problems in our lives and in the world.

But Once we start to understand how conditioning really works we can see past this fault-finding mentality and we can understand why people are and act in certain ways that create suffering and inconveniences to people around them.

And it’s much easier to understand and forgive them if they offended us in some way and understand and forgive ourselves as well for some mistakes we may have made in the past.

If we want to take it a step further we could use also try to understand the idea of the non-self, that there is nothing inside us besides those things that are a product of causes and conditions.

And going even further we could detach from the self and the fault-finding mind, train ourselves and reflect on this in a way that through understanding we can apply these ideas to create a powerful positive effect that will improve our lives and the lives of those around us.

Thank you for reading.

How to have a succesful relationship

If you have ever been in a relationship you know the drill, everything’s great at the beginning for a while then one of you stops trying and everything crumbles in a way that you don’t even realize what’s happening until it’s too late.

Then you feel terrible, some time goes by, you think about what you did wrong and tell yourself you won’t be making the same mistakes again in your next relationship.

Next relationship comes and sure thing you end up making the same mistake and so on.

To get out of this loop we need to do 3 things, the first one is to stop being control freaks.

We try to control our relationship, control our partner and control ourselves. And that just leads us to suffer and getting disappointed.

Once you stop trying to control everything you can move on to the next step.

Which is learning to love yourself as you are, appreciate all the good things you do and say every day. And then love your partner in the same way.

And The third one is to stop expecting so much from ourselves, our partner and our relationship, lower your expectations or better yet have no expectations at all and you’ll never be disappointed.

We expect our partners to be perfect, get disappointed when we find out they are not, and then we want to break up

We expect our relationships to be always harmonious, fun and successful, and then get disappointed to find no relationship is perfect

But It doesn’t matter if you succeeded or not in your relationship, in the long run, it matters that you succeded in trying and that you gave it your very best.

It’s not always going to work out the way you want it to, people change, circumstances change.
But you had a great time, loved and learned a lot from each other, and that’s much more important than any mistake you or they may have made.

Thank you for reading.

 

Doing nothing

People often ask you what are you doing. Or they want you to do something. I don’t mean like work but yeah, they also always want you to work, a lot. They want you to be like a hamster Running in it’s his wheel.

There is an art about doing Nothing and not feeling guilty about it. Because people usually want to make you feel guilty if you do nothing.

To the point where we are not human beings anymore, We’re human doers, Human goers, human thinkers.
We’re always doing something, going somewhere, thinking about something.

Why not just being for a change? And if people ask you what are you doing You can say you’re just watching the trees grow, And you can’t move because if you move you may miss it.

We feel like we don’t own our life anymore, Other people own it, We do, think and say things just because other people want us to. Or because we think they do.

But how many people you know that just want you to be happy? don’t want you to be someone, Have something, do something.
I do. So that’s at least one person.

That’s why My dream is to be a pilgrim, a wanderer, a vagrant, and just walk, Not trying to be Someone or something, Getting rid of the self, getting rid of the me, the I and the mine. And just being.

You know, just walking and enjoying freedom, Not having to worry about where will you sleep tonight, or What will you eat, What other people think of you Or what you think of yourself.

Being the sole owner of my life and thoughts.
I have worked, thought and done enough in my life, so now It’s time for peace.

Walking all around South America With my dog, You know left looks nice so we can go left, If right looks better we go right, Or we could just stay here, they’re all good options.

Just walking and enjoying the view, Not having to get anywhere or accomplish anything anymore.

And if people ask us where are we going we can say we’re just walking.

Mc Fly says Latin America is very dangerous, But I think it’s ok, we have to die sometime anyway, we better die happy, doing something we like.

Whatever the consequences are we have to do what we have to do, So that we have no regrets in our death bed, Because In the end, it doesn’t really matter if we live or die what’s important is that we are proud of how we lived.

 

 

Hi, I also wrote this

Whether you like it or not The minute you set foot in china you automatically Become an A-list celebrity.
Everyone will be staring always Because that’s Just how it is.

That means every time You’re in public You have to smile to everyone, They want to shake your hand, they want to take pictures with you, and asking the same questions over and over again

It’s a surreal experience really, Could be fun for a few weeks But it’s definITely Not fun to live like that, You see them pointing at you, you hear them whispering, and it’s super creepy when they follow you home and stalk you

They always look at you very deep in the eyes, its an extremely personal interaction

And that led me to hide my eyes under a cap Or sunglasses For a very long time because I was afraid of that extreme intimacy You have to offer to everyone Every day and everywhere you go.

And I have asked myself what would be the most compassionate way to behave towards myself and towards them In this kind of situations

It is an extremely shallow interaction, In the one, they are only interested in you because of your image And that leads me to ask myself if I’m just a monkey Or clown that is here to amuse people so they can take pictures with me
Or do I have anything else to offer the world besides my image?

They don’t speak any English because of course they don’t, So there’s no chance of any meaningful interaction And they are not aware that the same questions they want to ask me I have answered them at least a few dozen times this week

What I learned from all of this Is that The way I react to this kind of Situations has a very high effect on my spiritual practice

To be completely honest people in China are just super annoying and gross And they go out the way to make you feel uncomfortable, They smoke in the elevator, stare at you all the time, They spit and relieve themselves everywhere, They are super loud, and all of that actually helps me To be a better person.

I am not the one disturbed by the noise, I am the one disturbing the noise. I am not the one being disturbed by the smoke, I am the one disturbing the smoke

That’s just the way China is, it has always been like that and it will always be like that, and There is nothing I can do about it, but it’s the way I react to it that makes the whole difference

I could either get annoyed by those things and be unhappy Or I could understand that that’s just the way life is, And I could go with the flow, have a laugh and have a good time with them, I know they’re all nice people deep inside, Sure they’re not perfect, they have their quirks, but there are good enough

It’s when we try to control things that We create suffering, We try to control ourselves, to control others, To control China, To control the situation

China is not perfect, no place is.
Our planet is not perfect, People are not perfect, I am not perfect, and life is not perfect, There will always be problems and inconveniences everywhere we look

It’s my choice to Focus on the good or on the bad things I see Every day. Yes Chinese people still smoke in the hospitals and that annoys me, But they also do a million nice things for me.

Some of them wake up at four in the morning to start making the fillings for the Mushroom steamed buns I will eat for breakfast, An old lady works the whole night cleaning the park where I will go for a run, Another old man stands the whole day in a crowded polluted and noisy street selling bananas that I will buy, And the list goes on and on. And I am extremely grateful to all of them

We suffer when we expect from life something it cannot give us.

Dogs bark, Babies cry, and Chinese are terribly Loud, dirty and obnoxious, but kind deep inside and That is the intrinsic nature of things

Dogs bark, babies cry and bruce posts some cheap philosophical reflexions Disguised in what it could have appeared to be just another rant about China, But in the end, it wasn’t, In the end, it was nice
Thank you for reading

Hi, I wrote this

When I was In South America I thought that If I move to Europe everything would be better.

After spending a few years in Europe I was still feeling empty inside so I thought well, maybe If I move to Asia everything will be better there.

Few years in Asia went by and nothing had really changed So I thought ok, once I go to Australia THEN I could find peace and happiness.

After a year in Australia, I realized I wasn’t happy there either, so I needed to go back to asia where there were still a few countries I hadn’t been to And could start a new and exciting Life somewhere.

After a few more years in asia I was somehow still not happy, So decided I have to move to New Zealand, THERE I will find financial and emotional stability.

And I did! I had finally found what I’d been looking for, Oh wait… no, i didn’t, New Zealand sucked ass for me, I lost all the money I had and came back to Asia because it’s always easier to find a job here.

It’s been three years since NZ, And even though this story is an oversimplification and a million adventures went on in between, I’m guessing you understand What I’m trying to say

Now I live in a tiny one bedroom apartment In a backward Chinese city, I sleep on the floor next to my dog and use my jumper as a pillow. I have no job, not much money, no career nor any material stuff.

What I do have though, is a message to transmit, And the means to convey it in a way everyone can understand it. We don’t need big words To express big emotions.

I know what you’re thinking right now, Peace and happiness come from within And they don’t depend on the place where you are, the things you have or the experiences you had.

And you would be right to think that way of course. But Most people reading this already know, that more means less, we can only be happy once we stop craving Things and experiences and all that hippie stuff. But There is much more to it all.

Throughout the years I Had read many books On how to be happy and peaceful and had tried Different meditation styles or retreats, like Tibetan or Theravada Buddhism, vipassana, And they all worked well for a while and gave me a temporary boost that could last for a few days or a few weeks. And after that, i started feeling miserable again Because i was trying to force all this knowledge, understanding and techniques When i just Wasn’t ready for it yet.

I was trying to force myself to be peaceful and happy In the same way that people on facebook try to impose Their views and interests on others.

Instead of allowing myself to just be, I kept getting stressed and upset at myself for not being good enough. For not being kind enough. for not being peaceful enough. For not being happy enough. And guess what, that just created more suffering.

How can I be happy if i think there is something wrong with me? If I think I’m too fat or too slim, or I’m not smart enough, Or not experienced enough or Haven’t traveled enough, or i think I’m not peaceful enough, Or I feel lonely, or I want to make myself feel bad for some mistakes I made in the past.

And I would end up blaming myself for all the problems in this world as well. The animals are still suffering because maybe I’m not vegan enough, The environment suffers because I’m not freegan enough And i waste too many resources, The people suffer because i don’t Go to enough protests to stop the governments from making people suffer and people around me suffer because I’m not kind enough to them.

And guess what, taking all the blame didn’t help either. All these years I WAS good enough and I WAS doing my best. I just couldn’t see it because of a lack of understanding. Lack of wisdom to be more accurate.

When we want to feel bad We will find a way, and when we want to feel like we are the victims Of an unfair world or system We will find a way to Accommodate the facts To fit our own conjectures and views.

How can I be happy if I don’t love and accept myself? If I don’t appreciate all the good things I do and keep on Focusing on the bad ones.

Now, I am not claiming to be enlightened or having all the answers, I just want to share my experiences in hope that someone will find them useful.

I don’t need any prize or praise, That’s why I like this blog That we can set it up to no advertisements So as not to inconvenience the readers.

And if I were to die tomorrow you will know exactly what I was thinking and feeling.

At the same time, i got to a point in my life Where I stopped thinking ‘maybe i shouldn’t say that’, Instead i’d think ‘okay let’s see what happens’.

And is this commitment to honesty and truth the one that allows me to be writing this right now.
It allows me to be honest with myself, to understand what I really think and feel and why, and being able to share it with the world.

I am a simple person that maybe in his arrogance Truly believes he has found a meaning to it all.

It has found Its purpose in life, To serve, to be happy and to help others Find happiness By sharing with them The means, and thought processes I Found useful myself.

I am, after all, a scientist at heart, don’t believe in any new age of magic kind of stuff.
What i do believe in is truth, understanding And the idea that only you are in charge of your thoughts emotions and feelings.
And whatever it is you think it’s preventing you from being happy It could be seen with a different light if you so choose to.

It is said that overthinking is the Major cause of unhappiness and depression, In this case the opposite can be said as well.
Overthinking can be the way to see things more deeply And understanding you have everything you need to be happy. And every reason for it as well.

A good starting point Could be to be kind towards your body.
I used to be the person Who would sit Down for two hours In the same position trying to Meditate, Until my back And my legs would hurt.
Without knowing it, I was being aggressive to my body. Trying to find peace through violence.

That’s Just one of the many mistakes I made and intend to share with you all So that maybe Together, we can come one step closer to being (and feeling) better.
Thank you for reading.

Bruce

Excuses

List of excuse people use:For smoking and giving second-hand smoke to non-smokers:

– All my friends smoke
– I’ve been smoking since I was xxx years
– It’s my only pleasure in life / It’s my only vice
– I may stop in the future but right now I need it
– It helps me relax
– Chinese government needs my tax money
– It’s just a bad habit
– It’s my life, I do what I want

To stay in a destructive or abusive relationship:

– I am hoping he will change in the future
– He’s just having a bad day
– We’ve been through so much together
– I still love him
– He’s good to the children
– I don’t want to be alone

To not going traveling or doing what you really want to do:

– I’m too young / too old
– I don’t have enough money
– I won’t be able to find a job in another country
– I can’t speak their language
– It’s too cold / hot there
– I will miss my family / my family will miss me
– People will think I am not a productive member of society

To eat or cause some harm to the animals:

– They taste so good
– I need protein
– They are just animals
– I have been eating meat all my life
– We are omnivores, look at our teeth
– It’s the way society works

To do terrible things, such as politicians, police, soldiers, business people or corporations causing harm or inconvenience to people or the environment.

– That’s the way the world works
– That’s human nature
– I like the taste of fresh blood
– I’m just doing what I’m told
– That’s how our economy works

 

 

How to leave for good

Ok, so you decided you had enough of this place and need to move on with your life. Life is about learning and you have already learned all you needed to learn from this place, there’s nothing else for you here and it’s time to leave for good.

You may come back or you may not, the good thing about burning your bridges is that it allows space for new things, opportunities and experiences to come into your life, a blank page waiting to be written because the old ones ate each other up somehow. But that’s not for everyone, some need the security of knowing they can always come back here in the future if they need to.

In my case though, I prefer to think the countries where I used to live have been taken over by the Russians, my old workplace has been shut down due to upper management incompetence and my ex-girlfriend died in a tornado.

If someone knows about me and about my lifestyle, 2 questions I get asked often are “How to do it?” and “what’s the hardest part?” I am hoping this post will be an answer to both of them, how to do it?  Just keep reading, the hardest part is leaving of course, after that everything always works itself out.

This attempt of an instructional is actually a guide I’d like to use as a way to motivate myself to do what I need to do. It could maybe inspire others, or not, but I am writing it so I can read it in the future when I need to leave a country again and don’t know where to start. Or have doubts about whether this is the right thing to do or I am making a mistake I will regret forever.

I will be listing a thing to do every day that will take you closer to your goal, but you could also replace days by hours if you want to or have to leave in a rush.

First week (or first 7 hours):

Day 1: Book a one way ticket, any ticket, to anywhere, doesn’t matter if it’s for next week or for next month, if it’s a 10 dollars Ryan Air/Air Asia ticket or a 2 dollars subway ticket from your place to the airport, what counts is to have a physical proof that your dream is slowly coming true, and the more of them you have the harder it will be to chicken out.

Day 2: Tell everyone you are leaving and you have a ticket already. This will give you pressure and motivation to do what you need to do. Don’t make a big deal out of it though, if you do, everyone will make an even bigger deal out of it and give you lots of drama, just drop it somewhere in the middle of a random conversation or as a facebook post, something casual like “Anyone In Antarctica next month?”

Day 3: Make a list of all the places you have always dreamed of going to, and why. Be honest with yourself, no one else will know and you can burn the list tomorrow.

Examples:     Brazil – football – big butts – beaches

                  Colombia – learn Spanish – Shakira – cocaine

                  New Zealand – sheep – the lord of the rings – sheep

                  Japan – ninjas – sushi – tentacles

Day 4: Choose one place and google all the stuff you are interested in, let’s say I chose Odesa in Ukraine, I could start by googling something like:

                                       “jobs in Odessa”

                                       “Ukraine visas for xxx citizens”

                                       “Apartments for rent in Odessa”

                                       “Best pizza in Odessa”

                                       “free Russian lessons in Odesa”

                                       “best creampie in Odesa”

                                       “Pokemon cosplay group Odesa”

                                       “two girls one cup official fan club Odesa weekly meetings”

Or anything else you may be interested in, and remember, new experiences are always welcome.

Day 5: Sign up for some website that will make your life easier in the country, like Couchsurfing, meetup.

Day 6: Make a plan B in case you don’t find what you were looking for in Odesa; example:

-train station in Russian is said: xxx

-the train station is here: xxx

-train/bus from Odesa to Bucharest costs xxx money, it leaves at xxx every day.

-address of homeless shelter in Bucharest: xxx

Day 7: ???

Now that we made it to the end of the first week of planning, we’ll head straight to the second one in the one we will be taking care of stuff that needs to be taken care of before we leave.

Days 8, 9, 10: Getting rid of stuff you won’t be needing anymore, anything you can’t take with you must go, give them away, sell them, exchange them for sexual favors, use alchemy to turn them into gold or just plain dump them in the trash.

Day 11, 12:  Packing.

Day 13: Hide your stash somewhere only you can find it in the future. A good stash could be for example a clean change of clothes and some money, just in case there’s some emergency and you need to go back to that city you’ll always have something to start with from zero. And don’t forget to add some stuff to confuse archeologists from the future, something like random symbols with a strange drawing, a random key, and coordinates for some random point in the middle of the ocean.

Day 14: Saying sayounara

Just in case I die

I am not planning to die anytime soon, but the truth is I can die at any time and for any reason, that’s part of human life, so let’s say I die today and you were the last person to see me before I died.

It may be that you are my Couchsurfing guest or host and found this entry in this blog through a link on my profile, check it in confusion not knowing what to do after seeing me getting 7 warning shots from behind because police thought I was black or Latino or Muslim.

So you may wonder what to do now, with my stuff, with my body, with my dog.

Money never came my way, so I don’t really have any material stuff, or savings or properties or anything in my name, I just have what I’m wearing and what’s in my bag, and you may do whatever with them, it won’t make any difference after I’m gone.

I don’t really have any friends or girlfriend, I haven’t seen my family in many years and most people don’t really like me all that much, some they tolerate me, some know who I am, I have failed to communicate or to keep in touch with the thousands of people I met along my journeys, and my father may as well be the only person in this world that replies my messages and tries to keep in touch with me somehow, so he could be the only person you need to inform of my passing, so that he can get some kind of closure. He changes his email, phone number and address every second week so I can don’t really know how to contact him.

I request all my usable organs to be donated to someone who needs them, or to science in case no one needs them, and the rest to be buried or given back to the earth for plants and animals to feed on them as I have fed on plants and animals throughout my life.

My dog is the most important thing in my life, so you have to look after her, otherwise, I will come back as a ghost to haunt you and make sure you always click an ad instead of the download button.

Here is what you need to know about her:

Name: Kim Bongu, but you can call just call her Bongu

Age: About 19 months old at the time of writing

Weight: 14.5 kg

Breed: Tugou, which in English would be something like “Chinese farmer’s dog”

Diet: 75% of her diet has to be protein, any meat, baked, grilled or boiled tofu, boiled carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, eggs. She can eat any dog food dry or wet. And the other 25% is carbs and fats, she can eat white rice, and bread, loves sweet potato, papaya, pumpkin, bananas, dragon fruit, cheese, yogurt.

Others: I did a lot of research and worked very hard to train her to the best behavior a dog can possibly have, now it’s up to you to maintain them and not letting her develop any bad habits.

– She will never relieve herself inside your house or anyone’s house for that matter, or a restaurant or hotel or anywhere indoors. Hang a little bell from the doorknob and she will ring it with her nose or paw when she really needs to go out, otherwise, she will wait until you take her out, assuming you will take her out at least twice a day in the morning and evening.

– When you take her out to use the toilet she will go by herself far from you and return after 5 or 10 minutes when she finishes her business and stays next to you.

– Make sure she has water and food available at all times.

– We never use a leash, she will never go to the street, near cars and will always stay within your sight, if walking in a super crowded street she will walk next to you or right behind you so she can see you, never in front, still no need for a leash, but if you need to go somewhere where they don’t allow dogs you can use a leash to tie her up to some tree or somewhere and she will stay there looking forward to your return.

– If in an elevator or waiting in line to pay for something she will stay between your legs, so she won’t bother others or get in the way.

– If you talk to someone on the street or buying something she will take it as a sign of friendliness meaning that person is friendly and she can say hello or approach them confidently.

– She knows her place and knows what she is allowed and isn’t allowed to do. She is not allowed to bark, bite, jump or bother any person. She is allowed to say hello to people, dogs say hello by approaching and sniffing someone they like. If she doesn’t like a person or dog she would just ignore them.

– She needs to be called only once and she will come. Always. Once is enough.

– She is kind, friendly, sociable and good-natured, she would never bother, hurt or cause some inconvenience to any person or other animals.

– She knows she has to sit and wait patiently while you prepare her food, and she has to sit in front of the door before we leave and when we come back home to wait patiently until you open the door for her.

– If you say “right” she will walk on your right, “left” means she has to walk on your left, that’s useful in crowded streets while running together or riding a bike, or if you think she’s on the way.

– If you want to use a leash that is also ok and she will be happy to walk next to you and won’t pull on it because she knows she is not in charge, she is below you on the hierarchy ladder, dogs are pack animals and need a leader to follow and look up to. They need guidance and discipline otherwise something bad could happen.

– You can’t hit her, never. Nor any kind of punishment like withdrawing her food or water or locking her in a small room by herself. Dog’s make mistakes and have off days same as humans, but if you say NO! just once she knows she did wrong and will correct her behavior, nothing else is needed. She learns new things through positive reinforcement, not through fear or punishment.

– “Come” is the most important command because it could save her life and she knows it, you only need to say it once and she will come blindly no matter what’s happening around.

– If you get into a car, “come” means she has to come into the car with you when we drive the scooter “come” means she has to sit between your legs.

– “Jump” while on the scooter means she has to get off and will obey it even if you haven’t yet stopped, so careful with that.

– She can go through the hula hoop if you say “jump” and can jump over fences and some obstacles not higher than 1 meter.

– We use a clicker and she knows the sound of it means she did something good, also you can click it if you want her to come or get her attention.

– “Good girl” means she did well.

– If she rubs herself against something means there is a dead animal buried there

– She can run next to your bicycle, skateboard or scooter if you think she needs exercise and can also run next to you if you go for a run.

– She can run a marathon (42km) without breaking a sweat and walk or hike 10 or 12 hours a day next to you if she has to because she’s good like that.

– Knows other basic commands like “sit, go, lay down, run, paw, the other paw, spin around, wait”

– She has never and will never bite any person or animal if she feels threatened she will hide in between your legs and if it’s a sudden unexpected threat, like a bomb, she may run away scared but will come back to you soon.

– She is not neutered

– Se is microchipped and her passport and vaccinations certificates are inside a small blue bag somewhere in my house.

So yes, I died, that’s life. People die, that’s what they do.

There’s no need for suffering, suffering comes from expecting something that life can’t give you.
Were you expecting me to live forever? Life can’t give you that, and the faster you understand that fact the easier it will be for everyone when the time comes.

I had spent a great deal of time, a while back ago to understand the fact that I was going to die sooner or later and coming to terms with it, so will my dog, and everyone I know, everyone I’ve ever met and there’s nothing I can do about it, the wiser thing to do is to accept it and move on, after all, I am still in charge of my thoughts, my emotions and my level of awareness and understanding can be as high or as low as I choose them to be.
If there’s something that is causing me suffering I can choose to deal with it and no one is in charge of my state of mind but myself.

And what’s next? Nothing, there’s no afterlife or reincarnation, there’s just peace and nothingness, and that’s alright, a bit scary but still alright.

And what is the meaning of my death? To give meaning to yours, to remind you life is fragile, you have only one and you have to live it to the fullest and do everything you always wanted to before it’s too late.

And what to do if you feel sad because I died? Understand that the reason you feel bad is no other than social conditioning, you are a product of your environment, and if you had been brought up in a society that celebrates dead or at least accepts it and understands it, you would be feeling otherwise right now.
Understand that you and only you are responsible for your emotions and you can choose, or learn to be happy and stay positive under any circumstance. You can choose to understand life and death. So yeah, some people will say you are a cold-hearted insensitive bastard, and it’s ok to put on a show in front of them so you won’t get ostracized and looked down on, what’s important is that in your mind you know the truth, and that you are at peace with it. However hard it may be, it’s what needs to be done.

And you will miss me sometimes? Well, you can be at ease knowing I had a happy life, I followed my dreams and did what I wanted to, I had the chance of loving and being loved in return, I experienced true unconditional love, I did what I thought it was the right thing to do and lived a meaningful life. I did my best to challenge the norm, break the stereotypes, to inspire and bring joy to many, had some really amazing life experiences and died peacefully and happily, what else could one ask for?

And what’s the meaning of life? To understand, to be happy, to be in peace, to share peace and love with others. To feel that unity, that sense of belonging and connectedness, to the universe, to nature, and to every living thing. To feel alive, understanding comes attached to that feeling, and detachment comes attached to understanding. To love and accept yourself, to love others unconditionally, right now for who they are, with no strings attached, accepting them and letting them go, letting them be free and letting them die.

And then letting go of yourself and die as well.

With a peaceful mind.

And a smile.

I love you.

Please look after my dog.

Bruno

 

 

In the future I can see myself…

…building a shelter for the night and ending up staying there a few weeks because I feel sorry to abandon it after it was so hard to build.

…deciding I am not good enough, don’t want to write anymore and giving my laptop away.

…deciding I need to start writing again and getting a new laptop.

…traveling during summer with nothing but a toothbrush, tooth floss, passport and a spare pair of underwear, washing them every day in public toilets or streams and letting them dry in the sun for a while before keeping walking.

…getting arrested for:
refusing to pay a bribe
missing the immigration office or checkpoint and not getting a stamp they wanted me to get
being in the wrong place at the wrong time
disrespecting an officer of the law
having a protein or creatine powder confused by cocaine
saying something I shouldn’t about China or North Korea on the internet
being a foreigner
not registering my visa within few days of my arrival, as required by China, Russia, and some countries ending in “stan”. they can’t accept someone can be just traveling.
faking documents
disrespecting their government, their religions
working on a tourist visa

…going to live in the Amazonian rain forest, or what’s left of it and becoming a hunter/gatherer.

…going back to the city to find an internet cafe to look up how to be a hunter/gatherer.

…using my ninja skills to climb a wall and sneak into a supermarket at night because I was too hungry and couldn’t find anything to eat in the forest.

…losing my mind after not talking to anyone for a few months.

…losing my mind after coming back to the city and talking to too many people.

…becoming an eco-terrorist.

…being wrongfully accused of being an Eco-terrorist by someone reading this post.

…going to some villages near the china-north Korean border and helping the people who escape from North Korea to make it to the South Korean mission in Bangkok by hiking through the mountains in Laos or Vietnam.

…getting kidnapped and sent to North Korea.

…being tortured in a North Korean labor camp.

…escaping from North Korea.

…learning to appreciate life, freedom, love and putting my past as a tortured slave behind.

…feeling guilty about the way I abandoned all the other North Korean prisoners and putting together a suicide squad whose only mission is to rescue the other prisoners.

…devising 8 different plans to escape with all the prisoners:
digging a tunnel
by hot air balloon
wearing masks and fake IDs to pass as Chinese citizens
building a boat and sailing around North Korea until we make it to South Korea,
submarine Mexican cartel’s style
a device that would allow us to breathe underwater and swimming to South Korea
trekking through the mountains
1) find a foreigner 2) explain him the situation 3) get him to give you his passport, he can get a new one at some embassy 4) put North Korean person’s picture on it 5) ???  6) profit

…succeeding in escaping despite having all the odds against us

…feeling like I got help from someone…

…suddenly getting shot, bleeding out and dying happily because I stood for what was right and did my best to help those who needed me the most

…coming back from the future to help my past self to rescue some North Korean prisoners

…shooting my past self and seeing him bleed to death so I can close the loop and avoid paradoxes

…taking his place and making sure everyone’s safe

…using my technology from the future to rescue all the people in North Korea from their oppressors

…regretting having killed my past self 25 years ago and going back in time to stop myself from doing it

20 Things I wish someone had told me when I just arrived in China

1) When someone says “Hmmm…” that means they don’t agree with you but they can’t tell you because they need to avoid conflict at all cost.

2) People will compliment you on weird stuff you didn’t choose, accomplished or had anything to do with, such as your height, eye color, eyelashes length, etc.

3) There is no such a thing as a social smoker, someone who smokes when he’s with friends or at a party just for fun. Here you are either a chain smoker or you don’t smoke at all, there’s no middle point. Same goes for drinking, they won’t allow you to have just a few drinks, you either get wasted or you don’t drink at all. Your choice.

4) People will talk to you a lot, and very loudly, but they are friendly, that’s how they are used to talk.

5) If you cook something for someone and it has no chili they won’t like it and they will say “Hmmm…”

6) There is no such a thing as house parties and is taboo to invite someone to your house. Not because they are afraid of you, but because if they go to your house they won’t be spending money and here spending money or buying many things is not seen as wasteful or arrogant, it’s an attribute everyone considers positive, so if you  meet someone you can’t meet them at a park either, because it’s free, must meet them at a restaurant, cafe, or place where you will be spending money

7) Can’t share cups or bottles with someone.

8) Can’t say anything good or bad about the government or the bad things that happen in China, if you say something bad they will say “Hmmm…”  and if you say something good it will inspire distrust.

9) Can’t give your clothes to others, even if it’s new and very expensive and you just wore it once, it’s taboo.

10) “I will call the police” is not a valid threat because everyone knows police are useless and they won’t help anyone who is in trouble, they can only give you more trouble.

11) Everyone will stare at you, as if they were watching TV.

12) Saying you’re Muslim is always an effective way to explain why you don’t drink/smoke/eat meat.

13) There’s no such a thing as friendship between boys and girls and many people say they want to be your friends but what they mean to say is that they want to practice their English or take you somewhere as the token white guy.

14) The local’s idea of a fun night out can be either: going to a restaurant and to a bar afterward or going to a restaurant and to KTV after it, there’s no third option.

15) You must live outside the big cities, big cities are a mess.

16) Police can stop you on the streets and ask you for your passport, and they can shout at you and push you if you can’t speak Chinese.

17) Money and paying the bill is a very big deal, even if it’s just 20 cents people must fight for it, and the winner gets to pay, throwing money at the waitress or cashier is an acceptable way to pay first.

18) The military can pull you over if you in a bus, a car or a train, they can question you, ask for papers and they all have shotguns and assault rifles.

19) Only requirements for working in a hotel in China: Not speaking any English.
Only requirements for working as an English teacher in China: Speaking a little bit of English.
Only requirements for working for the government: Knowing someone who works there.
Only requirements for working as a policeman or in the army: Being a terrible person.
Only requirements for working in a restaurant: Using chili and MSG in every dish.

20) It’s very easy to find a job, and it’s just as easy to not get paid for it.

 

dog with red backpack

 

 

It all comes together

The continental drifts, the great dying and other mass extinctions, the climate changes, evolution, it all leads you to this very moment in life, you are here because million other beings were brave, tough and lucky to pass on their genes to you.We could say then that now is your time to shine, and there’s nothing to stop you from doing it, there are no predators, no ice age coming anytime soon, we can fight off starvation and diseases, and there’s no meteorite going to hit our planet in the near future.

I concede most governments are doing their best to give us a hard time, last year alone they spend 175 billion in war, so they can kill the humans that they don’t like. They put checkpoints and people with guns here and there to scare you. They make rules, laws, and policies to take away your freedom in as many ways as they can, they pollute the air and the rivers, cut down the trees and kill the animals, they try to make you a slave of their system through low wages and social control, they make sure you are not able to save or earn enough money to live a happy life, and in the case that you decide that money doesn’t bring happiness, they use social pressure to make sure you stay in the path they want you to follow so they can control your life.

But once you can bypass the governments, it’s just you and the earth, there are still plenty of places unexplored out there, unexplored to you at least, and you can choose.

You can choose if you want to be alone or with others, you can choose what to eat and when, what to do and what not to do, what to think and how to live your life away from that pressure you once had.

That pressure to keep the government and people around you happy, because you knew if you didn’t do what they wanted you to they wouldn’t have let you be happy or at peace with yourself.

Truth is though, that while the 99% of people are fighting for you to stay in the system there’s still that 1% like myself that are fighting to get you out of the system, with the hope that someday, if enough people start refusing to cooperate with a system based on slavery and income inequality, it will just collapse by itself or become obsolete.

Lies, lies, shameless lies, everything people say to you is pure lies, they lie because they are afraid you will do something they are not brave enough to do. They are afraid that you will prove them wrong. They are afraid of you not reinforcing their ideas and beliefs. they just want reassurance, so they want you to agree with them and do what they do.

But maybe so do I, either way I still need to share a valuable piece of knowledge, it doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do in your life, if you work or not, if you have a family or not, if you are rich or poor, it’s all the same, true freedom comes from understanding and accepting your destiny, accepting death.

if you are happy or sad, sleep on the street or in a house, have many friends or none, it’s all irrelevant, because once you accept that life is short, you will die and your consciousness will be lost forever, with all your memories and experiences, you will start caring less about what others think, do or say, because they are at a different wavelength.

What do you want to do today? Want to go tell your neighbor that you love him/her? That is fine. Want to quit your job and go living on the mountain eating insects you find under the rocks? That is fine. Or maybe drink a bottle of whiskey and jump of a building with a parachute blasting the opening theme of one punch man on your headphones, that is fine and is probably the best thing you could do today, or don’t, both are good options as long as you understand and are in peace with the fact that you will die either way.

 

 

How to answer awkward questions and comments from Chinese people

Question: “Have you eaten?”

Right answer: “Yes, you?

Wrong answer: “No, not yet”

Very wrong answer: ” No, unlike the Chinese, we don’t need to eat at a specific time of the day, we can just eat when we are hungry”

Comment: ” Let’s go out to play”

Right answer: “Play? You mean hang out? Sure, let’s do it”

Wrong answer: “What do you mean by “play”?”

Very wrong answer: “Sure, what do you want to play? Football? Basketball?”

Comment: “My English is not good”

Right answer: “Don’t worry, I can understand what you say”

Wrong answer: “Try singing more English songs in KTV?”

Very wrong answer: “Well, you only learned English for like what? 15, 20 years?”

Question: “Don’t you miss your family?”

Right answer: “Yes, of course, I call them every day and I go to see them twice a year”

Wrong answer: ” I haven’t talked to them in a couple of years, I’m not sure what they’re up to”

Very wrong answer: “No”

Comment: ” Eat more! Eat more! Drink more! Drink more! Ganbei! Bottoms up!”

Right answer: “Ok, ok, thank you!”

Wrong answer: “I can’t, I’m full”

Very wrong answer: “No”

Comment: “We are friends now, ok?”

Right answer: “Yes, of course”

Wrong answer: “Means I’m in the friendzone already?”

Very wrong answer: “Oh, come on, we met like 5 minutes ago, why do you guys all have to be so needy?”

Question: “Why are you here? why aren’t you in Beijing or Shanghai?”

Right answer: “I’m going to Beijing tomorrow and to Shanghai right after that”

Wrong answer: “Here is nice, you know that’s the way life is, some people are here some people are there, we can’t all be in Beijing or Shanghai all the time”

Very wrong answer: “Why would I want to go to one of the most polluted and dirtiest cities in the world, where everyone one wants to cheat me because I look different while there are like a million nicer places to be in China”

Comment: “You can do this, you can do that, you can buy this, you can buy that, you can go here, you can go there”

Right answer: “That’s great, I’ll do it”

Wrong answer: “Ok, I’ll think about it”

Very wrong answer:  “You know in English you can’t just go around telling people what they can or can not do, they usually already know and don’t need your permission, for example there’s no need to say “you can stay in a hotel” or “you can take a taxi” because we are actually already aware of the existence of hotels and taxis, we just can’t afford them”

Question: “Do you have a girlfriend?”

Right answer: “Yes”

Wrong answer: “No”

Very wrong answer: “well, hmm… how to explain… do you know what hentai is?”

 

 

About understanding

Just some thoughts. 

We celebrate life and death, and accept death not as the end of life but as a part of it, a cycle where energy transforms itself but never dies, or not? No, we don’t, we are so attached to our consciousness that we fear death, death means change, so we fear change and we do the same things every day to avoid this fear of the unknown.

We treasure life in all its forms, and we try to preserve it as much as we can, or not? No, we don’t, 99% of people don’t really care much about the lives of the animals or the plants, and only some people care about other human lives, as long as they are close to them.

We know life is fairly rare in the universe, and consciousness even more so,  so we treasure it as such and we live every day as if it was the last one, enjoying every second. Or maybe we don’t, 99% of people are always on autopilot and don’t think much about what they do or why.

We are aware that every atom in our body comes from a star that exploded, we are made of stardust, we are the cosmos itself and we long to return to it, that’s why we go camping every night, far from the light pollution of the city, to feel like we belong to the cosmos, or not? No, we don’t. 99% of people sleep in their houses where they can’t even see the milky way and they stare at some little screen to keep themselves entertained and their minds numbed.

So how about that one percent? Can I be the one percent?

it is possible, in theory at least, if we learned to see things for what they really are.

Most of the times we just get confused, our thoughts and feelings misguided by a false reality we have constructed by adding together our upbringing, our values, and ideas, things our society says are this way, the little information we have at this moment and some assumption we decided to make at any given moment for any given reason.

An assumption that is not made by using reason, logic or pattern recognition but by some illogically ridiculous ways, such as taking the word of an authority figure o accepting the easiest to digest or more comfortable idea we are able to assimilate and understand at this given moment and closing the doors to anything that we don’t fully understand, is different, it makes us feel uncomfortable or contradicts our beliefs in one way or another.

Humans are capable of some amazing things and some terrible things as well.

Which side would you choose? If you didn’t have all the necessary information available to you at that time is is possible to find some way to justify doing terrible things.

I wrote a short time ago that my main goal should be to be kind, compassionate, peaceful and happy, but I must strive for understanding instead.

When there is understanding everything else will just come into place. Once you understand what is happiness, how you can achieve it, why you are not happy, why you need to be happy and the benefits it will have in your life, you can easily take steps to achieve it, because once you understand the whys then there wont be another viable option for you to take.

Happiness, peace, compassion, and understanding will be the only way to go and there won’t be any other logical course or action/thought.

Science helps us to think a bit more deeply about things.

And there really seems to be no way around it, for me at least.

Understanding leads to awareness.

Understanding will lead to peace and happiness and love, unconditional love for everything and everyone.

Some say “no waifu, no laifu”.

But I would rather say “no understandingu, no laifu”

Understanding is everything.

Or maybe it isn’t, we’ll see.

 

 

Greetings from Chile

 

 

Hey guys, this is Bruce, sorry I haven’t been able to contact anyone in a while, many things have happened.

 

It’s October 2016 now and we are 6 months into our South American trip, I decided to take Bong Gu on a trip of a lifetime, from Tierra del Fuego to Alaska, on foot.

 

Why to Alaska? What’s there? Nothing really, and the trip is purely for volunteering, self-indulging ourselves and accomplish a lifetime dream, you know as we get older we start questioning ourselves and what are we doing with our lives. I want to be the person that can tell my grandchildren, if I ever have them, that I did something interesting and memorable with my life, that when I was young I walked from Argentina to Alaska, with my dog. And if they ask why, I will explain it was just the right thing for me to do at the time, and sometimes we just have to do what we have to do and there’s no way around it. As simple as that.

 

We are now about to cross the Atacama desert, and taking it relatively slowly, some days we walk 30 km, some 40 and some we don’t walk at all.

 

No major problems so far, the only nuisance is condensation at night, but my bivy is holding up relatively well, now for those of you who don’t know, a bivy sac is kind of like a tent but is also kind of like a sleeping bag, or like a cocoon where you sleep at night watching the stars without having to worry about insects, police, rain, cold, snow, people discovering your tent and murdering you in your sleep, or stuff like that.

it’s really the only option when you want to experience nature to its fullest and still be able to have a good night sleep. I tried to get Bong Gu inside it with me but it was just too cramped and tight for her, so now I have a small piece of cardboard for her that I put next to me for insulation and a poncho to wrap around her during cold nights, she uses my bag as a pillow and comes closer to me for safety and warm, and we both sleep better knowing we are there for each other.

 

The first few weeks were tough for her, so we took it slow, we would walk 2 or 3 days and then take a day off, now after a few months we can walk at least 25km every day and then she gets a huge dinner and a good 10 to 12 hour sleep. I make sure she sleeps at least 10 hours a day and she seems comfortable with that arrangement so far.

 

99% of people are just super friendly, they want to talk to me, a lot, and ask heaps of questions, we often get invited for meals and staying in their houses, I don’t think we have ever rejected a meal so far, I give Bong Gu the meat and eat myself the rest of the stuff we are given, and sometimes I also eat some meat when there just isn’t anything else. And we usually accept invitations to sleep indoors, even though sometimes I really don’t feel like socializing and answering the same questions over and over again, I still accept, mostly because of the chance to take a shower.

 

We have seen and done some amazing things, met some amazing people and every day that goes by, I am more and more convinced that this is the right way to live my life and I made the right choices through up my life, most of the times.

 

Many people tell me that I am so brave or that they wish they could do what I’m doing, I don’t think I am in a position to give anyone advice on how to live their lives, so I just nod and listen to them. I can teach English to them and their kids, I can tell them some funny stories about my trip and the people I met on the way, I can let them play with Bong Gu, and listen to them, I can do the dishes or cook some meal for them, help them clean around the house as a way to say thank you for putting me up for the night, but I’m not gonna go around telling people to give up their lives, quit their jobs, abandon all their friends and families and go travel or go for their dreams.

On occasions though, I would tell someone who really wants to do that, so I am happy to share with them what I learned on the way and give them some advice about how to find work, food, shelter in different countries, or how to live without money or making money when you can’t speak the language, don’t have any special skills and don’t have a working visa.

But I don’t tell them that I am ashamed of living in a world where people are punished for working or trying to make a living honestly and I think people should be allowed to work and travel anywhere they wished to, without the need of visas or passports. That I can’t tell anyone because it’s too difficult for them to understand. What I can do is tell them how to get all this visas and passports, how to make fake police clearances, university degrees, invitation letter, health certificates, hotel and plane reservations, how to tell immigration officers  what they want to hear and how to trick the system into letting you live your life in a peaceful, non-wasteful and honorable way without getting arrested or punished in the process.

 

As I told my grandkids, we have to do what we have to do, and sometimes what we have to do requires us breaking a bunch of rules and laws in the process, that is alright, as long as you don’t get caught and as long as you live by and respect your own moral standards.

 

A both, good and simple moral code to live by would be the following 4 rules:

1)    All life is sacred: must protect those who are at disadvantage or can’t speak up for themselves, such as women, children, the poor, the animals. Can’t eat the animals unless there is no other choice, can’t cause any kind of harm to any person or animal, not physically, psychologically or verbally, not even in self-defense, violence is never an option.

2)    Can’t cause some problem or inconvenience others.

3)    Must try to minimize our footprint on the environment as much as possible

4)    Must help other if you’re able to.

 

What do I miss about China? The language for sure, you know when you leave a country, it takes a while to stop thinking in that country’s language and start using a new one. It takes at least a few months just to feel comfortable using a different language than the one you’ve been using for the last few years. And I kind of miss not having to worry about money, getting a good meal for 1 or 2 dollars, as here in Argentina everything costs like 10 times more and is not really worth it.

 

What I miss the least is definitely the smokers in the elevator in my building, that’s definitely the number one thing I hate about China, all the other things I kind of tolerated them or ended up getting used to them.

 

What’s the best about being 24 hours a day on the go?  the first few months you feel alive and enjoy every second, but after a while you get saturated and enter in a state of constant culture shock, can’t even enjoy the beauty anymore, and you fall into the routine of walking, finding food, finding a place to hide for sleeping, then walking again and so on.

 

Is it tiring? For sure, but you get used to it as well after a few months, at the beginning I was thinking every day about getting a bicycle, a motorbike or starting hitchhiking and took some effort to talk myself into not doing it and convince myself this is the way to go, especially because I have already traveled a lot by other means but this is something new, something unforgettable. We must keep walking no matter what, it’s just what we need to do right now.

 

With so much time to think, we can’t avoid thinking about the future, after Alaska what? We are not control-freaks that need to have our whole life planned otherwise we would feel scared or insecure, whatever has to happen will happen, and new experiences are always welcome. But it doesn’t hurt to dream when you have plenty of free time and nothing to worry about. finding a job and settling down? Yes maybe, someday, in Russia for sure, but can’t let the dreams about the future spoil me today’s adventure, today’s a precious day.

That should be all for today, I’ll keep you guys posted and well, you know, be happy and stuff.

 

Bruce & Bong Gu

 

 

 

About teaching

When I was in school, I was a rather shy student so wouldn’t say anything in class unless I was being asked to. Even though I knew the answers, I was afraid to speak out and tried to go unnoticed, so while working as a teacher I always try to get the shy students to speak up first and give equal chances to speak to all the students. This is just one of the many things I learned teaching, and I’d like to emphasize the phrase “working as a teacher” because I don’t think I am a teacher. And I don’t think we are what we do. It is true, I am teaching and I work as a teacher, but I have also worked as a tree pruner before, does that mean I am a tree pruner? Technically yes, but just in the literal sense of the word not in the deepest way.

By acknowledging that this world is built around people who are good at  just one thing and can do only one job their whole life, it appears unnatural for a person who has chosen to do a variety of jobs to entitle themselves with a job title in order to inflate their egos and walk further away from the selfless kind nature that is what many of us are aiming to acquire in the long run.

So, yes maybe I made some mistake and did or said something selfish today, but that doesn’t remove the long-term objective from sight, which is to be happy, kind, selfless and peaceful. The objective is always there, and even though we approach it at a slower pace than we wished to, every small step counts, same as with dog training.

We went out to train the dog today and maybe it didn’t go so well, maybe she got distracted, maybe she was tired, maybe something else happened and she didn’t learn, it doesn’t matter the objective is still in sight and we will try again tomorrow.

We went out training today and she only understood the trick once and failed 20 times, that is already a small step towards our objective and it has to be recognized, and she deserves a prize for it, true we didn’t accomplish as much as I wanted us to, but she did it once and she tried to do it the other 19 times. An effort is rewarded even if you fail. We will get it right tomorrow,  or next week, or next month, the trying part is what’s counts.

With being kind is the same. Ok, today I was not so polite or kind to someone because I was having an off day or anything, it doesn’t matter, what counts is that when you came home you acknowledged your mistake and you are taking steps to make it right, that on itself is a small step in the right direction.

Ok, today you didn’t do much you just stayed at home the whole day but at night you went out to the shop said something nice to the cashier and bought some hot drinks for the security guards who work outside in the cold, it took you just 5 minutes and the other 23 hours and 55 minutes you did nothing, well those 5 minutes count as well.

Today we meditated for 5 minutes, we wrote some kind words in an email to someone for another 5 minutes and we made a list of some things we need to improve for another 5 minutes. Those 15 minutes you spent today trying to be better are very small steps towards the main objective, even though the rest of the day was spent in selfish stuff.

it’s true, we still have a long way to go but the objective is clear and that’s what counts.

Anyway, I was going to talk about some of the things I learned working as a teacher.

I mentioned how we teach a dog using a technique called “positive reinforcement” it means acknowledging and rewarding good behavior and ignoring bad ones. It works great with kids as well because they love the attention and praise and they’ll try harder to get it next time. Can’t overdo it though, if you use it too much it would just lose it’s value, like those people who need to call their dogs many times before they come or listen to them because they have been overdoing it from the start.
Alternating the rewards also works great for both dogs and people alike. For dogs, first a snack or small treat, next time an ear scratch, next time a “good girl” and next time a big pet. For kids now a high five, then a “good job” then they get to keep the flashcard or toy animal or anything it is we are teaching at the moment, then a sticker and next time a “great” with a smile.

Next item this is a teaching style called TPR, total physical response, means doing something with our bodies, instead of just sitting on the desk with a book, telling a story while we act the words works really well. Anything from games and songs and dances, it all contributes to keeping the kids engaged and attentive. This works well for about 90% of the kids the other 10% are the shy ones that would rather sit quietly and learn from the book, to get this kind of students engaged we bring them closer to us and pay special attention that they are getting involved or at least trying to and give extra praise for keeping up with the class.

Next item, I always remember that we learned through cooperation not through competition, so using the positive reinforcement technique to encourage good behavior, I would be sure to notice when a student helps another or they work together towards a common goal. I would praise them and then tell the parents later how good they were and how they helped each other, it also goes a long way if you tell the parents how good they were while the student is there.

Next, fighting against the public school concept that we all learn the same way, even if I work for a public school still must adapt to every particular student even if there are 60 in one class, like it’s often the case. I still must recognize that not all the students learn the same way or at the same rhythm, some learn better by speaking up, other from the book, some by drawing, or writing, some learn better by themselves, some in groups, some learn better in the morning, some at night, some learn faster and some slower, some will learn just by listening to you,so we must adapt our methods to each one of them in a specific way.

Next one, acknowledging and accounting for individual student’s personal situations, some may be tired, maybe having some problems at home, or just having an off day like your dog. We are not all feeling great and happy and ready to learn all the time Some of them come to school after enduring 8 or 10 hours in public school, with teachers shouting at them or other students bullying them, and we have to understand them  because we don’t know what they have been through outside the classroom.

Next one, they learn a lot just by looking at you and interacting with you, they will even learn from the way you walk, you speak and handle yourself in every situation, so if you emit positive energy and confidence in your every behavior they will learn from that as well, same as your dog

Always be kind to them in every situation, even if they are rude to you. Reply with kindness and they will feel remorse or regret because they are used to other teachers and family to shout at them and punish them in some way if they do something wrong.

And last but not least what I consider to be the most important thing not just for teaching, but now we are talking about teaching so yes for teaching, would be to be there in the moment. Some teacher may use their phones in class or just go about the lessons automatically because they already did it many times before, but it goes a long way to be aware of the present moment. Making eye contact, making sure that if you are talking to a student or a parent or another teacher they are the most important person in the world for you at that moment. In addressing the class make sure they know you like them and you want to help them and you are there for them and that you will do your best for them to learn what they have to learn. Being honest to them, making sure they are learning well, making sure they are happy and healthy, and showing them you actually care for them will do wonders both for the students, their parents and for yourself in the long run.

Thanks for reading.

 

 

 

Finding thoughts 3

If I have to meet someone I would set up the appointment for either 9 am or 2 pm, that way there are little chances that it will drag on and I then I get invited for lunch or for dinner, because it’s too difficult to explain to people that I can’t eat meat or chili, and I don’t like noodles because they use meat stock to cook it in, and it’s uncomfortable to eat with the smokers, and I haven’t found a single restaurant in this city where people don’t shout or spit or smoke while they eat.

I wrote about 20 emails to people the last few months and none of them got a reply, not even from my mother, it means literally not even my mother likes me? Or people hate me because I am arrogant or I think I know too much, or maybe no one hates me but I hate myself.

Is it possible to tell the difference between being really happy or really comfortable in our lives? And if we can’t tell then the difference does the difference matters at all? Sometimes, I find myself opening the window in my bathroom while I shower and wishing I was having a waterfall shower instead. I miss the feeling of waking up and not knowing where I am. I go to the same places every day and wish I was going to a really far away place instead. Is it the travel bug? Or the need of always wanting new experiences? Or is it that life is only worth living when you get to feel alive every day, and you only get to feel alive every day while you’re traveling?
How about the other pleasures of life, like having kids and seeing them grow up, and losing their first teeth, and the first day of school and all those small things they must do that are special, many firsts ones. That must be nice too, nice and are hard to imagine if you haven’t experienced them before, but most  people have traveled in some way so it’s easier to get hitched to something you know than to something you have never experienced.

If I meet someone on the street and say hi, after that I feel like my job here is done, so I can go back home and won’t feel guilty for not having social interactions. Even a 2 seconds “hi” would alleviate the guilt…
In our society and through our upbringing we are taught that we are social creatures and a person who stays at home the whole day and doesn’t talk to other people is not a good person. And we see ourselves through the eyes of others and think we are what they think of us, or our real image is how we are perceived by others.

I talked to someone from Spain and they complain they have no job and there’s no money, but as Europeans, they can easily go to work in any other european country like Switzerland or Norway, but they say they don’t want or can’t learn a new language, so they want the comfort of their home, while being able to complain about it, but not doing anything to improve their situation, but isn’t that the same I do here, and everyone else does everywhere? The difference is probably that they have an option, many others don’t.

 

 

Finding thoughts 2

I had it with the chili, a bit is ok but they put too much in everything, and if I ask the food without it they bring it with chili and they say they forgot because they are used to using chili, and sometimes they say it tastes better with chilli that’s why they put even though I asked them not to.

So, how many sexual partners have you had? Have you ever been asked that? How to respond? The fact that they are asking that question in the first place proves they won’t be able to handle the truth. But how many is too many? People who ask that are also young and they don’t consider you are older than them, we still live in an age where sex is rather taboo and no one is open to love you unconditionally, they love you if… if you do what they want and are the way they want you to be. If they love you, they must consider your past and judge you for it and consider your prospects for the future and what they can get from you in the future. Probably only your dog will love you unconditionally.

About my best friend, his name is Daniel and lives in Argentina, he tells me about the terrible things that happen there, and when I read about Argentina it looks like a much more terrible place than China. Their currency is worth 14 times less than it was last time I was there, insecurity an crime is always on the rise, government and police are still useless and corrupted, no life opportunities, they are prisoners like the North Koreans, the currency can’t be converted into foreign currencies like in Myanmar, even in China I can just go to the bank and buy dollars or euros. I know they have internet and freedom of speech but if I were to move to Argentina I’d have to trade my safety for the internet, would I be able to do that? Probably not, I’d rather not have internet but feel safe at home and on the streets. I’d rather breathe the cigarette smoke and not getting shot or stabbed on the street. Anyway even though I haven’t seen him in 12 years he is still my best friend and I love him unconditionally, so there’s that.

Uruguay sounds like a decent place. Brazil, Venezuela, and Colombia sound pretty terrible. Chile, Peru, and Paraguay sound ok, not great but ok. One of the things I learned traveling is that people are nice everywhere, yes even in China people are super nice, super rude yes but super nice as well, and the same guy who smokes in the bus will later invite you to his home and cook for you. People are very welcoming especially in the small villages, and even in the big cities there are also nice people, it happened to me that I was trying to take a bus, but they wanted to charge me 10 times the normal price for being a foreigners and some random person comes and pays for your ticket because they saw you needed help, things like that happen all the time, but cheating is also a big part of Chinese culture, not cheating to foreigners but cheating people who come from a different Chinese city or province and don’t know the local dialect. Foreigners have it easy actually because many people see that you are helpless and try to help you as well. Actually, China is great for foreigners and if it wasn’t for all the people smoking, it would be better than most Asian countries. Ok, the smoking and the censorship. Ok and the government and the police, police are usually pretty mean to foreigners, but the rest of the people are nice. Ok and the spitting, what’s up with all the spitting? I still don’t get it. Why they need to make those gargling noises before spitting. Ok, I don’t really mind the noise, but in very crowded areas there’s a big chance they will spit on you, or your dog if your dog is black and happens to walk next to them when they spit. They don’t do it on purpose, of course, they are nice people, but they are just too many and spit too much, so as the law of big numbers goes, statistically speaking, they will eventually end up spitting on you and your dog. And the shouting, why they need to talk so loud, I don’t get it, but they are still nice though, just very very different and special.

And for all the bad things there are in Argentina, the food is still the best I’ve ever tried and that reminds me, I will soon write an entry about the best food I tried in every country I’ve been to, or maybe I won’t, we’ll see.

 

 

Finding thoughts 1

I went through 17 pairs of shoes during the last 2 years because some of them break after a few days of using them or the sole becomes very thin and hurts your heels.

Dog is very thing and everyone on the street feels the need to point it out, not one but 5 or 6 times each person, they all want to make me feel bad about it but no one knows I love my dog more than anything and I would do anything for her. I give her the most expensive food and she can eat as much as she wants, I buy meat and rice just for her and mix it with pumpkin, koguma and egg, but we run together every day and she spends a lot of energy, also some dogs have a fast metabolism same as humans, also, also, also…

I have been listening to the same songs for almost 15 years now, The Brilliant Green.

I haven’t spoken to a native English speaker or a person who is fluent in English for about a year now, last year there were a few Couchsurfers who came to my city and that was the last time. I actually miss feeling like I belong somewhere, being able to express myself in meaningful ways and being able to tell jokes.

I have a phone number but no one knows it and I haven’t talked to anyone on the phone for about 6 months.

Every day I think of the trip I must undertake next year, my Chinese visa will expire in may so I must be gone by April. It has to be a walking trip, it has to be to promote peace and kindness, there are many poor schools and villages in Latin-America where they would be happy to have me, I know hundreds of songs and games to teach English to children and many of them have probably never seen a foreigner before, specialy one with a dog, especially one who came on foot, or one who can stay a few days and teach in his school for free.

I speak japanese to myself and have imaginary conversations in the ones I encourage myself to leave the house and talk to people and I give myself points for it, points for wearing jeans instead of sweatpants, points for seating and eating in the restaurant instead of ordering take away, points for talking to someone or trying to make conversation with some staff, points for exercising, points for dancing, points for going to other city, trying a new restaurant, points for writing in this blog.

I have to remind myself regularly how lucky I am to be alive, that all life is precious, even the life of the people who smoke in the elevator in my building, even the ones who smoke with babies, even the ones who don’t give way for people to cross the street, even the ones who cheated me money. I must not hate them. I must understand it’s a different culture, with different rules and laws, or lack of, every human life is precious and must be cherished and I have also probably done some bad things when I didn’t know better, the people I met here are just like myself from the past and they need love and kindness and understanding, because those are the things that made me change in the first place.

How to reach a deeper level of understanding and self awareness, as that seems to be the right thing to do right now, first must remind myself of being aware of the present moment and my environment. Most people out there are on autopilot and they want to bring you down with them, to their comfort zone, they will ask you questions that make them feel safe “Where are you from?  How long have you been here? What’s your job?” must take them out of their comfort zone by replying with a song of some sorts, as if we were in a musical, with dance number and everything must try to get them to sing and dance because that would break them out of their safety zone and then they can be free and happy and, and, and,

If the person can speak English challenge their questions with a rhetorical or philosophically confusing answer, example: What’s your job? My job is to maintain the cosmic balance between the order of things and the order of places, without altering the natural flow of time and consciousness of all life on this planet.

I teach my dog about half an hour every day, we learn 10 minutes then rest 50 minutes we rest and so on, she is learning to relieve herself on command. Now there is a bell on the door and she must ring it when she needs to go out, there is a hula hoop she must go through to get a treat. I teach her in the same way I teach humans by rewarding achievements and ignoring bad behavior, no punishment of any kind is needed because only good behavior is acknowledged and rewarded. Some may agree that bad behavior must be corrected but dogs and children crave attention so when they see their behavior is ignored they won’t usually repeat it.

Police are people too.

I read 7 Murakami Haruki books in the last year, got so used to his writing and his style that now I’m afraid of reading other authors because I think they just won’t be as good or I won’t be able to get used to a new style.

Not being able to use Facebook in China is actually a blessing and a relief of some sort, when I went there using a VPN I got so saturated with information that felt like my brain was overheating. I know all my friends and family are there and they want to contact me and I am happy for that but Facebook requires a strong deal of mental endurance and patience and time and effort, it’s not for everyone.

A simple frugal life leads to happiness but just how simple is simple and where is the line between a socially and environmentally responsible person and homeless extremist?

Is that Spanish on your shirt?

Another idea for the trip in Latin America, as I can speak their language well is traveling with a sign that says something like “I can listen to you” there are so many people who just need someone who can listen to them, not offer any advice, just listen. We all have something to tell and what better way to feel better than to tell it to someone you know you will never see again in your life and he doesn’t know you at all and has no intention of judging you.

And then write a book about it all, first from my perspective and then from my dog’s point of view, write about all the things people told you when you said you could listen to them.

If you can’t control your emotional state then you must be addicted to it, and yes that applies even to happiness and peace of mind if you are not aware of the reason why you’re feeling this way you shouldn’t be feeling this way at all. If you are aware that you are addicted to this state of mind and still choose to maintain it you can do it but only after some quick reality checks.

Among the many things you must learn from your dog is to enjoy every moment as if it was the first time and the last one, you know you go every day to the dog park and she is as thrilled as she was on the first day, how can that be possible? How can she be so excited if we come here every day? It’s because there are still some new smells and sights to be found and she is generally happy to be alive and well.

Humans are different, we only appreciate something new the first time. New is always better, after that it becomes dull, but we can, with some training be as excited as the dogs for something we do every day. It’s your mind, you can control your emotions and feel however you want to feel, even convince yourself that this dull place you go to every day is exciting af, but deep inside you know you are just kidding yourself and the real thing comes from the first experiences only, or maybe it doesn’t, who knows.

Ok, what if, just what if, someone has been hired to run a background check on me and then they find this blog and they read it for days to end and get inspired by my writing and begin to deeply understand me and they decide to turn against the people who hired them.

Trust your gut feeling and never ignore your instincts.

And don’t ask me how I know this stuff.

 

 

 

From Bong Gu

There are so many things I need to tell you.

But even though I can’t speak your language, I still try to tell you in my own way.

I know you don’t eat meat, and you don’t like white rice much but you still buy the meat and the rice for me because you know I need it, and I know when we go to a restaurant you ask them to cook something special for me, and you have to explain to them how to cook it, and explain I can’t eat chili, and you always take a plastic bag to give them so they can put my food into and they won’t need to use their own bowls. Thank you for that…

I know you are tired sometimes, but you still go out because you know I  need to run and use the toilet, thank you for that also…

You know I don’t like staying home alone, so you always take me to your office, to meet people, to eat, for shopping, for exercise, trips out of town, and I really like that…

You put my bed next to your yours because you know I like sleeping next to you, if we sleep in a hotel you put a towel next to your bed, if it’s not your house you ask someone to put something soft for me to sleep on, if we have to sleep in the forest you soften the soil and find some leaves for me, if we sleep in the tent we can share the sleeping bag, if we ride the bike you put a cushion for me to sit on, that is very sweet of you…

If we go on long trips, you take extra water and some food you know I like to eat, thank you…

You know I get frightened easily, but instead of shouting or getting angry, you sit on the floor next to me and comfort me and tell me it’s ok, you are there for me when I need you the most, and that is important for me.

When I am very happy or excited I can get dirty and sometimes I jump in the pond or the mud just for fun, you understand me and give me a shower when we get home, I love you for that.

You don’t use a leash because you know it makes me feel uncomfortable and you trust that I won’t stray or get into trouble and I will walk by your side, thank you.

And I really appreciate that you adopted me when I was a puppy and for that, I will stay with you forever.

Thank you.

 

Whatever 19

 

What do you think about China?

Well that depends

Depends on what?

On the motive behind the question, if you’re just being polite and making small talk I should follow suit and reply that it’s a really nice place, great food, great people. But if you really want to know what I think about China, I actually have a list of all the things that are wrong and how to fix each and one of them.

I like the second options better, and I would definitely like to give it a read, and then I could maybe translate it to Chinese and post it in some forums, it could catch someones attention before being taken down and we may get the ball rolling for improving things all over the country.

You know, I just me someone who thinks he can help me improve the situation in this country

And ignoring the prime directive?

Can’t be remembering all those rules.

But it’s the only rule you should be remembering.

I thought there were like 30 something.

But it’s the most important one: “As the right of each sentient species to live in accordance with its normal cultural evolution is considered sacred, no cute puppies may interfere with the normal and healthy development of alien life and culture. Such interference includes introducing superior knowledge, strength, or technology to a world whose society is incapable of handling such advantages wisely. Cute puppies may not violate this Prime Directive, even to save their lives and/or their ship, unless they are acting to right an earlier violation or an accidental contamination of said culture. This directive takes precedence over any and all other considerations, and carries with it the highest moral obligation.”

I will do what I have to do.

People who say that are usually the first ones to die.

 

What about this?

General Order 20

Cute puppies may employ whatever means necessary to prevent the possession, transportation, sale, or commercial exchange of sentient beings being held against their wishes within the boundaries of Federation space.

Well, what about this?

General Order 14

Cute puppies may intervene in local planetary affairs to restore general order and to secure the lives and property of Federation citizens only upon receiving a direct order to do so from a civilian official with the title of governor or higher.

But no one asked you to interfere…

But no one asked me not to interfere.

But the rules say you shouldn’t interfere, there’s nothing to think about here, you just mind your own business and let the other humans destroy themselves, destroy all the other life forms in this planet, and then destroy the planet itself.

But this planet has been here for billions of years, how could they destroy it, I mean even if they wanted to, there’s no way they could.

Whatever.

 

On the China situation 2

 

Tell me about those good things?

Best thing is that there are no violent crimes, almost anywhere in China you can go out at 3 in the morning and feel completely safe, now how many countries can you say that about?

11

Which ones?

Well, there is Canada, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, finland, and Iceland.

Ok, well played, but you get my point?

Yes, it takes a load off your shoulders not having to worry about safety, or guns, or being mugged.

Yes, even though they have plenty of ways to scam you and take your money, no one will come at you with a gun or a knife

Why is that, do you know?

The real criminals are the police and the politicians as usual, they have the monopoly on crimes, but i think it comes more to a cultural thing, if you scam or cheat someone that is a somehow socially accepted and expected thing, but if you commit a violent crime you will lose face and embarrass your whole family and get heavily punished by the law.

How is the penal system there by the way?

It’s actually pretty good for asian standards, unique I would say, they don’t punish sex offenders, swindlers or petty crimes, they don’t punish any corruption-related acts because most people are corrupted here and bribing is just how business is conducted here, they don’t punish any kind of fraud, what they do punish is violent crimes, and blasphemy against the government, but they usually don’t forge evidence like in south america, nor do they usually imprison innocent people and force them to confess to something they didn’t do like in japan. All the people here they know what they can and can’t do, can’t say bad things about the government and can’t commit violent crimes and that’s it, everything else is alright. How many countries in south america and asia they just hold on to the thieves or murderer for a few hours and just let them go?

32, but why not africa?

Africa is a lost cause already.

isn’t that racist?

Maybe but I have to be honest, even if I’m wrong, and you know I am always willing to change my stance when new evidence arrives. I think they are too long gone with murder and rape and genocide, i feel like they don’t know the value of human life, or the millions of years of evolution behind their lives, or the miracle of consciousnesses.

What’s next voting for trump? and what is consciousness anyway?

It feels like Trump is an honest person, he is a terrible person as well and he knows it, but he doesn’t pretend to be a nice guy who wants the best for his country.

So it’s better to have an honest terrible person than a good person who often has to lie to protect the interests of big corporations?

I’d say so yes.

What if there is a war?

If there’s a war he will probably admit there is a war because he is a terrible person and a terrible politician, but obama or hillary they would just blame the circumstances or blame other country or say they are not directly responsible for the conflict.

But before you said there are wars because people go to wars now you think it’s the politician’s fault?

Well, it should be the politician’s job to solve conflicts without using force, when there is a war that means the politicians have failed to do their job properly, maybe they think their job of talking to each other is too difficult so they just gave up and send the army.

Ok, then how about foreign relationships in china, are the politicians doing a good job there?

A terrible job, I don’t really understand why china needs so many enemies and why they want to make trouble for all their neighbors. They always find some excuse, like the border, or some tiny forgotten island, but why they do that I can’t really wrap my head around.

Maybe they just enjoy going to that drama place.

Maybe or maybe there’s something else, there is a reason why not just china but most countries just can’t all be happy together, and the reason is not a religious one or economical one, and I don’t have it so clear myself yet, but i suspect it has something to do with not being happy with how we are or what we have. I know there is no such a thing as human nature, but there is sometimes a predisposition to wanting something different. Like people who have been in a relationship or doing a job for a long time tend to feel suffocated and lose that spark that brings joy to life, that spark that sometimes you can see in travelers, that spark that makes you feel alive, that makes you being there in the moment and enjoying it.

As you said it is not an easy concept to grasp, but if only as a theory, it does make some sort of sense that the politicians enjoy conflict because it makes them feel alive that’s why they create all these problems to each other and to the people from their countries.

Either that or they are just terrible people

Either that or they are doing the best they can with the knowledge they have, their skills and abilities, the resources at their disposal, and the situation at hand.

Yes, could be either of them.

 

 

On the china situation

On the china situation

Can you tell me some stuff about china? I’ve never been there and it’s hard to imagine what life must be like there.

Sure, so what would you like to know?

Well, I know you want to talk about politics, so I’d like to take you out of your comfort zone and talk about art instead, and agriculture, and technology, and fashion.

Fashion, really? So we are to write about Chinese fashion.

That’s right, can you?

Ok, let me try, they copy stuff from Korea, sometimes japan or America, and… that’s it. The End.

How about the suits?

Oh right, yes, they wear suits for farming, construction work and all kinds of manual labor, I guess you could call that fashion trend.

How about in summer?

Especially on hot summer days, they all suit up to dig a ditch or collect the rubbish.

Could it be a case of dress for the job you want kind of thing?

Could be

What other fashion trends have you noticed over there

In the way some western guys roll up their sleeves, the trend here is to roll up the lower part of your shirt, so instead of your forearms is your belly that’s showing.

Maybe they want to amaze the femeninas with their manhood.

Do you think it works? Should I try it?

Yes please, and take lots of pictures.

Something else that caught my eye was that sometimes they wear their jacket like a cape, and sometimes only in one arm is in while the other sleeve hangs loosely on the side.

Interesting, unique I would say, so how about organizing a Chinese themed fashion show?

I don’t see that ending well.

How about the electronic stuff there?

Throughout the years I had many good and bad experiences with electronics here, for example, I bought a PSP in 2009 and it’s still working alright, I bought a shaving machine and it just exploded the first time I plugged it in, there are lots of awesome stuff but lots of rubbish as well.

There are many rules you need to follow when buying electronics in China, the first one being that if the brand is very well known like Sony or IBM then the product is probably fake and you will be paying a lot for rubbish. Your best bet would be to buy a small Chinese brand that maybe is not so big so they have no reason to make knock-offs of it.

The second rule will be: anything you buy on the street will be half price online. Third rule, your Chinese friend know better what to buy and where. The fourth rule, if it looks too good to be true is not necessarily too good to be true.

For example?

Well, some things may look dirty cheap when seen with foreign eyes but they aren’t actually,

For example, I have bought some new formal shoes or suits for about 2usd at some big supermarkets.

I thought we were talking about electronics, but well that explains the fancy farmers. What else?

I bought a second-hand E-Bike for about 130usd. Can’t take trips out of town but it does take me to work every day. In Taiwan, it would have cost me at least 10 times more.

Western Governments say the batteries are expensive to produce, is that true? Or what is the truth behind solar/electric powered vehicles?

But you said you didn’t want to talk about the government.

Oops.

Ok, western governments can’t do what they want, even when they know it’s the right thing to do, they must do what big corporations want for whatever that reason may be, so oil producing companies put pressure on governments for delaying the development of electric powered vehicles, how they do that? By charging huge taxes to companies who want to develop clean energy or creating patents on the batteries so no company can afford to develop it. The Chinese government in the other hand doesn’t depend on big corporations to manage the economy and take their decisions for them, because they ARE the big corporations, all of them combined, as Marx would put it, they own the means of production. So they can do as they please, and even though they do many many terrible things this isn’t one of them.

Broken clock?

Exactly, even a broken clock will be right twice a day, so a few years ago they banned oil powered motorbikes from all the major cities, now I know what you will say “laws in China are not really laws, they are just suggestions”

I wasn’t gonna say that.

Fortunately, though, this is one of the few laws that are actually heavily enforced.

But most of the electricity we use comes from burning coal anyway so isn’t it the same in the end.

Yes but they have taken steps to greatly reduce noise pollution in all the big cities, in the most populated country in the world, that’s got to count for something and they minimally reduced air pollution, because most air pollution is still caused by cars, buses, planes, the meat industry and factories. I am always the first one to criticize them when they do something wrong so I must be fair and point out the good they do as well, on the rare occasion that may happen.

Well, I am happy to hear you criticize the government because that means you have freedom of speech, oh wait…

Very funny, now I want to know what is the general sentiment of the people outside China if you’ve never been here, how do you imagine it’d be like?

True I’ve never been to China but I’ve been to India so that’d be my point of reference for a densely populated place, I guess I imagine China as total chaos and anarchy, rubbish everywhere, noisy, crowded, or maybe a strange mixture of India and Japan, with the Japanese ant-like fast-paced kind of lifestyle plus the chaos of India. I imagine everyone shouting at me at the same time and everyone trying to cheat me, how far am I off?

It could definitely be like that, but then you travel a few hours outside the city and there’s no one there and people are nice.

If there’s no one there how can they be nice?

First, there’s no one, then someone comes and they are nice.

What if no one comes?

Then no one is nice, but because there’s no one there not because people are not nice in general.

What if a dog comes?

Then we can pet the dog or play with him.

Or her.

Or her.

What if you get bitten?

I thought life was too short for “what ifs”.

What happened to your south American trip?

Next year for sure.

But you say the same every year.

I know, but this time for real.

If you don’t come I’ll go and get you and drag you all the way down here, and drag your dog.

You don’t know where I live, no one knows but me.

So if you die tomorrow no one will find your body or cry for you.

That’s right, it will go unnoticed.

Actually, I know where you live.

Where?

In China.

But which city?

In chun chan chin.

That doesn’t sound like a Chinese city, they always use 2 words, you used 3.

Chan pan wan?

No, that’s also 3

Pin ton tun?

No, and that sounds Vietnamese.

Kung fu chu chu?

That’s 4, getting worse.

How about your impression of living there.

Well, it’s not like living in Thailand, Japan, Korea, where there are foreigners everywhere and people have already had decades to assimilate the idea that there are other countries out there and sometimes people from there make it this way.

China has opened up his doors relatively recently, so people outside the big cities have probably never seen a foreigner in real life so you would be the first one, and guess what, they will be surprised so they will stare at you, a lot.

Isn’t that scary?

It is somehow, most people are friendly though so they smile or say hi,

Others look very scary and they want to check you out, you know like a white guy going into a black neighborhood, they check your clothes from head to toe to see what you’re wearing, then look at you deep in the eyes to see what you will do next. This doesn’t mean they are dangerous, it’s just their way to deal with something they have never seen before, and they will easily crack a smile if you approach and talk to them in a friendly way.

Biggest culture shock so far?

What came as a shock to me at the beginning was the huge difference between individual rights and collective rights, individual rights always come first, as opposed to in the west where you need to “respect other people” and stuff like that.

For example?

How many examples do you want?

Can you do 7?

I can do 12.

7 is enough for now.

Ok. 1) Someone making noise late at night, we can’t complain because his individual right to make noise always comes before his neighbors’ rights to sleep.

2) Someone smoking in the elevator/bus/train, we can’t complain because his individual right to smoke anywhere comes before other people’s rights to breath.

3) Someone cheating your money, we can’t complain because his right to cheat you comes before your right to not get cheated.

4) if you want to cross the street you have to run in between the cars, they can’t stop because their individual right of getting where they go very fast comes before your right to cross the street safely.

5) Someone takes a dump in your doorway, can’t complain because his right of taking a dump in your doorways comes before your right of not having someone taking a dump in your doorway.

6) Someone shouting at you or at others, can’t complain because that’s his right.

7) if you have a job and the boss doesn’t want to pay his employees, that’s his right.

Sound like a pretty terrible place to live.

Well yes, I  mean I live in a 20^th floor so every day when I come in and out my choices are either taking the elevator with the smokers or taking the stairs that stink like urine because people use them as toilets.

Those are not good options.

But there are some good things as well.

Tell me next time?

Ok.

 

 

Mundane thoughts

Some people say that eating is one of the biggest pleasures in life, but not for us.

We don’t eat?

We don’t eat what other people say it tastes good, we eat what is good for us.

I know many people will say we are missing out a lot because they have been conditioned to believe this kind of food tastes good and this other one tastes bad. We had to opposed preconceived notions regarding the taste of the food so we can be able to understand the reasoning besides thinking this food tastes good or not. If you have been brought up thinking this food tastes good and everyone around you agrees then guess what, it will taste good for you.
Same as when we were learning about the religions.
And the biggest pleasure doesn’t come from going against the system, nor does it comes from eating what is good for us, it comes from being in control of your emotions and being able to make decisions based on logical  information and being flexible enough to be able to change your choices when new information presents itself.

But it could also be a logical reason to eat something because it makes you happy, it may even have more benefits than eating it because it’s good for us.
By, for example reducing the stress that means opposing other people’s food choices.

I concede a simple minded person would feel some degree of stress by having to oppose the norm. But we actually enjoy it.

I know we do, and I think there lies the problem, we enjoy it to a point that is not about the food anymore, is about sending a message. The message being that we can’t be easily tamed. That we are different and need attention because of that. That we want people to notice us and love us because we are lonely and desperate to be loved and accepted.
So we build the walls of indifference around us, walls that only a selected few will be able to penetrate.

Penetrate 🙂

Truth be told we are probably not special. We are the same as everyone else.

But with somewhat heightened senses that are able to perceive things most people miss, right?

Some people, such as you, are able to express their views better in writing, while some others are better at speaking, more eloquent, other can’t do either, but they feel the same way. And we are all the same deep down, we all feel lonely and want to be loved and accepted. Some are better at hiding it than others.

And some can accept it instead of hiding it, right?

What if, hypothetically speaking, some people aren’t hiding it. It may be that they are surrounded by people that make them feel loved or it may be that after many years of being alone they have come to an understanding of their own nature and they have realized they were never lonely in the first place. Or what if they have understood they were lonely and accepted it and learned to be happy in that solitude. What if what they thought it was loneliness was actually a bliss reached at by being relieved of the stress and anxiety that come along with dealing with other people and social situations.

Some people don’t see social situations as a source of stress, but as a stress reliever, when there are people around that means they are not lonely anymore.
Those people don’t need to worry about social anxiety because they are not afraid of not being accepted.

I always thought it was the other way around, insecure people need to be surrounded by others and be accepted, confident people need not worry about what others would think so they can play by their own rules and do what they want.

As a cold reader would put it “you enjoy being with friends but also need some time for yourself” that could easily define the vast majority of people, the 90% maybe, and the other 10 could be that half of them can’t stand being alone while the other half can’t stand being with people.
People who can’t stand being alone may be that they have never in their life been alone, so being with others is all they know, as it happens in India, there was never the choice to be alone, to begin with.
And the opposite is true for people who can’t be with others, it may be they have been alone for too long to adapt to communal life. Or it may be, as I suspect it to be your case, that people around you are just too different.

Or that may be just another attempt to make myself feel special and different so I can justify being alone, you said we are all the same deep down, we all want to be loved and accepted.

There was a theory about extraterrestrial life that explained why we haven’t yet made contact. It was called the ‘ant’ theory. We are the ants and aliens are us, no matter how hard we try to communicate with them, we are at a completely different evolutionary stage for communication to be possible.
The same applies to us, we can try again and again to communicate with other people but there’s no way they would understand, because they live in their own very different world, like the ants or the Chinese.

The Chinese? Can we say that here? Well, I guess no one reads this anyway…

It’s ok, I’ve been living in China for a few years, so I’m allowed to make fun of them, it says so in my visa.

I don’t think it does. And… I don’t think you should keep telling people about how the government harvests organs from the falung gong people

I do what I have to do. I say what I have to say.

Do you want to get sent to a labor camp? Because that’s how you get sent to a labor camp.

So be it, I’ll do my time and when I get out I’ll tell everyone, so they can feel sorry for me and pay attention to me.

Do you know how wrong that sounds?

And by wrong, you mean blatantly honest?

You mentioned a long time how you admired Carl Sagan, so why not adopt some of his tact and grace when it came to expressing his ideas. He knew he was intellectually superior to his opponents in any debate, and could shot them down at will if he had wanted to, but he always chose not to. He always chose to be the better man.

Plot twist: Carl Sagan was a robot pretending to be a human.

Plot twist: Carl Sagan was an alien pretending to be a robot pretending to be a human.

Plot twist: Carl Sagan was god.

Mindblown…

Ok, how about this? Carl Sagan was god, god is not real, is a product of our imagination, thereby Carl Sagan was not real.

How could he be real if your eyes are not real?

What?

I mean, how could the Chinese have invaded Tibet if they were too busy defending themselves from the Japanese?

What?

I mean, what if light does behave both as a particle and as a wave depending on whether it’s being observed or not.

Light can choose?

Yes, light can choose, and so can you.

I can choose to behave as a particle or as a wave?

No, but you can choose bulbasaur as your starting pokemon.

That’s it?

Yes, that’s it.

I thought you were going to say something philosophical.

And when I was 12 I thought I would be a paleontologist when I grew up but guess what.

What?

Nothing, I just like saying ‘guess what’.

You didn’t become a paleontologist?

The PSP game monster hunter may be the closest I got to it, but it’s ok because you know what?

What?

Nothing I just like saying ‘you know what?’

It’s alright mate.

I’m not your mate buddy.

I’m not your buddy bro.

“I’m not your bro pal” he replied to himself as he snorted the last line of cocaine from his work desk just before calling it a day.

Plot twist: It was flour.

Hey there buddy 3

 

Be Skeptical. If you go to a job interview and the interviewer keeps reminding you how good this job is, then is not a good job.

What if I miss getting a really good job because the interviewer was just being honest?

You won’t, if your government constantly reminds you how free you are that means you are not free, because in a true free society no one needs to tell you that you are free, if China was a free country they would just call themselves China, instead of people’s republic of China, and North Korea would be called North Korea instead of democratic people’s republic of North korea, Congo would be just congo instead of democratic republic of the congo and..

ok, I got it.

If your parents remind you often how lucky you are because of so and so, it means you are not lucky and they just want to make you feel guilty so you will bend to their will.
If a girl says you don’t need to use a condom that means you do need to use a condom because…

Got it.

If something sounds too good to be true, it is too good to be true. Most scams prey on people’s greed and their desire to get something for nothing.

Why can’t I just trust everyone and take their words for it, I don’t want to worry about people cheating on me, being an adult sucks.

I know, it’s like being dead but you’re still here.

I wouldn’t ever trust the governments anyway.

There will be some revolutions in the future, Ukraine, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Thailand,  etc, but they usually just want to patch up the system, instead of fixing it or building one that works for everyone, so it’s not worth joining, there was one in Iceland that got good results though, but the others were all quite violent and we shall never engage in any kind of violent activities, no matter what, there is no excuse for violence, ever.
The reason there are wars is that people keep going to wars. 

I see. So how to handle a violent situation?

Best we can do is stand there and make sarcastic comments.

Got it. But how can I get a girl?

I thought we covered that already, you need to get stronger, that will make you confident.

But I need more advice, something that doesn’t take years to master, something I can use tomorrow.

Tomorrow at the Pokemon tournament?  

Yes.

…

…

Ok, how about the 3 seconds rule? Or was it 5 seconds?

You mean where we eat what we just dropped?

Yes, but in this case is girls instead of food. After making eye contact you approach within a few seconds to avoid awkwardness or coming up as creepy.
Remember girls want someone strong, independent, spontaneous and confident, someone, who doesn’t doubt himself and that is the image you project when you approach within the first few seconds of making eye contact. Otherwise, they’ll be able to smell your fear.

Got it, what else?

They also want someone who doesn’t need them. Someone who doesn’t want them, so if you ignore them and don’t look so desperate they will just come to you. 
There’s a reason why they usually come when you already have a girlfriend, is because they can feel, sense, or to put it more accurately, perceive that you don’t need them. And that’s what makes you attractive in their eyes.
I know it doesn’t make much sense but it doesn’t have to, that’s girl’s logic and the sooner you understand it the better off you will be and the less pain you’ll go through, you don’t need to understand it, you need to accept it, is that clear?

Yes, what else?

Ok, everything I said about girls so far works for 90% of them the other 10% are the ones worth keeping, The ones who don’t need to be seduced or lured into a sense of security because they don’t care that you don’t know what to say. They are the ones who will love you for who you are and how you are, no matter what, the ones who will follow you everywhere you go and will always want to be with you and understand you. 
The ones who will appreciate you fully and feel lucky to be with you.
The ones who will not cheat on you but if they do they wouldn’t say something like ‘I was drunk’ or ‘it just happened’ they will tell you the truth instead, which probably is that they were just curious, lonely, horny or they just wanted to try something new, which is somehow understandable.

Are those valid excuses to cheat on someone betray their trust or destroying your relationship? 

Of course, they are not, but they are more honest than ‘it just happened’, they can bring some kind of closure, and by being honest they can open the door to friendship or at least a level of mutual understanding.

I understand, what else?


Now we need to talk about vegans, I know you are vegan now, but you’re making a mistake. 
I’ve been vegan for like 10 years and I regret the mistakes I’ve made, like not knowing how many grams of protein, carbs, and fats I should take every day, not knowing how many calories are in the food I eat, nor how much I require depending on my level of physical activity.
I know because of our traveling lifestyle is often impossible to boil the broccoli we need to eat after exercise, afford and carry all the nuts, make shakes with fruits and nuts and soy milk, being vegan takes time, effort, planning, and dedication at least during the first few years and you haven’t put much into it. 
A balanced diet is all about numbers, no more and no less, if you get that wrong nothing else matters, there are plenty of websites that will tell you how many calories the food you eat has, and after a few years you won’t need to worry about numbers anymore, you will just know it. 
Free range eggs are ok also, as long as you are sure where they come from there should be nothing wrong with eating them. There are plenty of soy protein powder shakes to drink after your last rep but I’d rather you boil the broccoli, cauliflower, eggs and beans, and nuts, heaps of nuts.

Ok, what else?

Now comes the hard part, talking to people about veganism. there are some kinds of people who just want to bash or make fun of vegans, just because they are different or think differently than them, so they deserve no respect, just walk away from them, don’t engage.
Whether you like them or not, vegans are people who have decided to take measures and alter their daily lives to lessen the impact on the environment and the suffering of other species and that is something that deserves respect, from any point of view.
The reason why most people hate vegans is because they come across as pretentious, obnoxious, extremists and arrogant. 
The empathy they show towards the animals is not showed towards other humans, and they will even shun most vegetarians and even other fellow vegans because they eat honey or because they agree with them 99% instead of 100%.
They don’t understand our point number 1, about remembering the monkeys, most people eat meat because that’s just the way things are and the way they have always been if they had been raised in an environment where people don’t eat meat they wouldn’t be eaten meat now.
But most vegans will see them as criminals for not changing or even acknowledging the impact their diets have on the environment and every animal and human’s lives. 
To sum it up, avoid other vegans, and avoid people who don’t respect vegans.

So just avoid everyone?

Yes, because none of them are willing to view or accept other people’s views.
All those specially produced vegan products also take a huge toll on the environment, global warming, water pollution, co2 emissions, extinction, and loss of natural habitat of many species. There is one solution is called freeganism, is when you try to use and eat things that have been discarded by society, which is quite easy in developed countries but somehow troublesome in underdeveloped countries, It’s what we will be trying to aim for.

Ok, I will ignore them, what else.

Don’t need to ignore, but learn how to dodge their bullets, if a vegan or a non-vegan asks you why don’t you eat meat just say you don’t like it. 

Same as with the religions?

Yes, if somebody asks you if you believe in god, just say you are not sure. Because if they were mature enough to accept your real answer they wouldn’t be asking that question in the first place. 
If you say you don’t believe in god they will ask you very aggressively ‘so what do you believe in?’ because in their minds we all have to believe in something and it has to be something that has been pre-scripted by someone else and that other people believe in as well.
You can’t just go around life happily smelling the flowers and not believing in anything, that would be a crime in their minds.
And the same goes for people who ask you ‘what do you do?’ People who ask you that question is because they will only accept an answer they have heard before and they can relate to, something that will make them feel safe with themselves and grant them the knowledge that you are also a productive member of society that contributes to it as much as they do. But they know nothing about the real world or alternative ways of living, they just want validation, reassurance and you’re gonna try to give it to them.
‘What do you do?’ is not the same as asking ‘what’s your job?’ 
People who ask the first question they assume there is only one thing a person can do during their whole lives, people who ask the second one can understand some people often change jobs or do different things or they may unemployed, underemployed or volunteering their time, or building a robot, or on a long life holiday, they may be fed up with the system and searching for something else, they may be writing a novel or playing videogames the whole day but those are things they can’t understand because they can’t relate to them.
So you can be honest with people who ask you ‘what’s your job?’. People who ask you ‘what do you do?’ must be dealt in the same way as the vegans, vegan haters, and religious people. The truth is too much for them to handle so just lie to them, tell them what they want to hear, it doesn’t matter, you could be a rock star for all they know.


1. Remember the monkeys.  2. There are 200 other countries.  3 Train your Nose  4. Tell family you love them.  5. Talk to yourself 6. Get stronger. 7. Do what’s right.  8. Sign up to Couchsurfing. 9. Keep playing video games 10. Penis is ok. 11. Make the most of my life. 12. Avoid religions. 13. Avoid talking about diets. What else?

give me two years

What? Ok

 

Hey there buddy 2

 

Ok, You know I often wonder if I play too many video games and they may be lowering my self-awareness, because I spend more time in the virtual world than in the real one. 

That’s a good question, and looking back at all the hours I’ve spent playing video games when I was your age I can honestly say I regret nothing. Gaming is about memories that will last forever and you had a smile on you while you were playing, you were having a good time and that’s what counts in the long run.

Aside from the social isolation, nothing bad came out of it, I actually treasure all the time spent controlling Squall, Tidus, Yitan, Yuna, and Cloud, those are just a few names I know, but you were having a great time while escaping reality, you learned English, acquired more hand to eye coordination that you will ever know what to do with, playing action video games trains you to make the right decisions faster without loss of accuracy, so you are actually increasing your self-awareness by developing a heightened sensitivity to what is going on around you. You will eventually grow tired of them though, so don’t worry too much, keep playing, unless someone comes from the future and tells you otherwise.

That’s another thing I need you to remember when you think you are making a mistake but no one comes from the future to stop you, chances are it wasn’t even a mistake in the first place, but a well-needed step on a series of events that will lead you to this very moment.

Is that clear? Any other questions?

Well, yes, many actually, you know there are a few cute girls at my school, but how do I know which one I really really like?

To be honest you don’t. Because you don’t know any of those girls well enough, you have idealized them, and are judging them by the way you feel when you are around them. 

You know, we often just want something because we can’t have it, or worse yet, we want something because we don’t have it, and that’s wrong. 

Sometimes if something is too easy we lose interest, because there’s no challenge, sometimes we need to feel like we’ve earned it, we can’t just accept happiness if it’s given to us, and that’s also a mistake, doesn’t matter how you get it, happiness is still happiness, so I want you to stay with a girl that holds your hand and walks with you on the street, remember, being loved is the reason you’re here now, don’t be paranoid and don’t ever think that she is cheating on you, you’re only hurting yourself and ruining your relationships, you need to be more confident. But back to your question, if you ever feel like you need to choose between more than one girl, I gotta tell you it really all comes down to the last person you think of at night before going to sleep.

That’s good advice, got it 

 

Next item on the agenda is that your penis is just fine.

What? Where did that come from?

 

Men who worry about their penis’s size, shape, etc do so because of some psychological conditions such as depression, social incompetence, awkwardness, anxiety, low self esteem, or a combination of all of them, or because they measure up to the unrealistic standard set up by the only guys they have ever seen naked, the ones in porn. I’m just gonna leave that here and swiftly move on to a less embarrassing topic

 

Got it: 1. Remember the monkeys.  2. There are 200 other countries.  3 Train your Nose  4. Tell family you love them.  5. Talk to yourself 6. Get stronger. 7. Do what’s right.  8. Sign up to Couchsurfing. 9. Keep playing video games 10. The penis is ok.

Next topic is happiness.

That’s what I need, teach me, master.

95% of people don’t need to worry about happiness, they just wake up every day, go about their habits and then they die, like the monkeys. But once in a while, once a year or every couple of years you will meet a person and you will know that person is really happy.
I wouldn’t ruin the surprise by telling you their names but when you meet them you will feel it, it doesn’t mean they smile a lot or they are very friendly, there’s more to happiness than that. And they will be your teachers, not me, so just stick to them and you’ll do fine. 

But oftentimes you will find yourself in situations that make you wonder if you really ARE happy. 
Sometimes it seems like life is good and everything is finally coming together. You have good friends, a sweet girlfriend, no financial issues, a fun job, good health and everything an average simple minded person could ask for. And there lies the problem, you are not an average person and it takes more than a little thought to figure out if you are really happy or just really comfortable.

To get the answer you need to refer back to point number 5, talk to yourself, only you know and only you can hear the screams inside you when you are trapped in a meaningless existence, craving and longing for some adventure, for something real, to experience life outside this walls you have built around you. 
That’s when you know it’s time to move on. And you do move on, you don’t invent excuses to stay in a miserable life, you move on and you do so with a smile and without looking back. 

That’s too deep for me right now.

Abandoning security and comfort to seek something that will make you feel alive or happier, how is that deep? 

Yes, I don’t get it. Why can’t I just learn to be happy with what I have? How can I be happy If I always seek change and new experiences?

You got it wrong, I didn’t say you have to ALWAYS seek change and new experiences, I said sometimes you will feel trapped and you will just crave them, it doesn’t mean you are looking for them, it means it’s what you need to do in order not to fall into a conformist materialistic, or otherwise meaningless way of life. 
It’s important to find a balance between stability and adventure, so I usually work one year, hang out with the same people and have a stable life and the year after that one I’d use it to travel, do something I haven’t done before, hang out with different people or by myself, go to places I haven’t been before and feel alive again until sooner or later, all these experiences start accumulating and being too much for our mind to process, that’s when I start craving for stability again, a warm bed, a hot shower, a group of friends, a source of income, a stable relationship, etc. 
So we find happiness through balance not by becoming an adventure junkie or a salaryman, but by knowing what’s the right thing for you to do at this specific time in your life and having the courage to act upon it instead of making up excuses like most people do, they’d say I don’t have money, or I’m too young, or too old, or what will my family or friend would think? They are just really comfortable with not taking risks, doing what is expected of them and not challenging the norm, because it takes more effort. 
But being comfortable doesn’t mean being happy. 
You are allowed to adopt this conformist attitude for a few month only, never more than a year, because there is only one life (despite what very gullible people will tell you) and it’s very short so you have to make the most of it. And to make the most of it you need to learn the difference between happiness and conformity and you need to know how to wake yourself up when going into autopilot and start doing things just because they are easy, you got used to them or because other people are doing them. got it?

There is only one life? how can you be so sure? The absence of evidence is not an evidence of absence.

Well in some especially farfetched cases it is, and this is one of those cases.

How about the religions? Many of them think there is not just one life.

In that case is better not to argue with them, and that brings us to our next lesson, you see there will be times when you will lose the argument even before starting a discussion because the reasons why you are right are too complex for your opponent to understand. People who believe in religions fall into this category, it doesn’t mean you don’t know how to explain it well or simple enough for them to understand, it means that they will not listen to your argument or try to understand it because they have already made up their minds a long time ago, they have been convinced that they are the ones who are right and everyone who opposes them is wrong, regardless of the argument they bring along with them. 
So best thing to do in this case would be to change the subject or just walking away politely, remember the monkeys and remember they are a product of their environment and the reason they believe in this or that religions is because they have been born in this or that part of the world at this or that period of time. 
But if possible I would ask you to ignore religious people altogether, always. 
If someone tells you they believe in god that represents a total lack of self-awareness, they will avoid any attempt at critical thinking, this are the kind of people that would defend the government and the status quo, the kind of people that would go to war and justify criminal or violent acts by saying ‘it’s an act of god’, ‘it’s human nature’, ‘it’s a complicated situation’ or ‘that’s how the world works’.
For example, if there is a child starving on the street, they will find some way to justify it so they don’t need to admit that the government has failed to administer and distribute our planet’s resources in a fair way. They are the enemies of change and progress so they will be easily offended by any idea that implies that things need to change.


That’s crude.


I know and it may sound arrogant, so no one should know the reasons why you ignore them, only you.
If they get pushy just smile and change the subject, or do anything in your power to avoid talking about religion.
It doesn’t mean they are bad and you are good, no one is intrinsically good or bad, things change and people change, that’s why in the long run you will make a few religious friends, and you will be helped by many religious people during your travels. And they will try to convert you, so just remember, be polite always, smile, and remember the monkeys.


got it: 1. Remember the monkeys.  2. There are 200 other countries.  3 Train your Nose  4. Tell family you love them.  5. Talk to yourself 6. Get stronger. 7. Do what’s right.  8. Sign up to Couchsurfing. 9. Keep playing video games 10. The penis is ok. 11. Make the most of my life. 12. Avoid religions. 
Is that it?

We’re almost halfway there.

Ok, what’s next?

hey there buddy

Hey there buddy!

???

How was your birthday?

Sorry?

Today was your 17^th birthday, right?

Who are you?

You don’t recognize me? Take a wild guess.

I don’t know, but I’m scared.

You shouldn’t be, I’m you, from the future.

Oh.

Oh, that’s it?

Yes.

You don’t believe me? Ask me something only you know.

I didn’t say I don’t believe you.

Oh.

I believe you.

So… a stranger suddenly appears in your room, he tells you he’s the future version of yourself and you believe him?

Yes, why wouldn’t I?

Well, I guess you’re right, why wouldn’t you? I forgot that when I was your age I used to believe all kinds of random stuff so this would have been a somehow acceptable scenario at the time.

Why are you here?

I don’t know, why are you here?

I live here, this is my room.

Right, yes, I remember now, I came to give you some advice.

What kind of advice?

Life advise of course.

Do I ever get to kiss a girl?

You do actually.

Just one?

More than one.

How does it feel?

You’ll find out.

When?

Soon enough.

How soon?

In about a year.

I can die in peace now.

If you die I die too.

It’s just an expression, but wait, why are we speaking English?

I don’t know that’s just the way it is.

So I speak English in the future?

Not just English you get to learn many languages.

So life does get better for me after all?

Not just better, like much much better, like over 9000 times better.

Over 9000… I can see that, as I even get to travel backward in time apparently.

Actually, you don’t, sorry about that, this is just a dream, and that’s why we speak English, our dreams are always in English.

I see, so how old are you now?

I’m 30. I mean you are 30. We are 30.

So, I get to kiss a girl, learn many languages and I even get to live until 30??? That’s just amazing, what else, do I get to live in Japan?

You do, and not just in Japan.

Where else?

That’s for you to find out, but one of the reasons I’m here is to tell you to hang in there, I know life’s a hell right now; I know things at school and at home are not as good as they could be, to put it mildly. I know you’ve been contemplating suicide. I know you worry about many things, including what other people think of you. And I want you to know that’s normal at your age, and I want you to know it will all be over soon, all those people that, for whatever reason make your life a living hell, will all be gone for good, not gone from this world, just gone from your life. And remember your life is not perfect, but you have everything you need to be happy and to be a good person.

I see…

I know some people at school make fun of you because your nose is too big can’t fit in, or because of your taste in music, hell I even remember someone making fun of you because your last name ends with an A, how crazy was that? And this brings us to the first important thing I need you to learn “remember the monkeys”.

Ok, I got it.

You’re not gonna ask what monkeys?

No, should I?

Yes.

Ok, what monkeys?

Now listen carefully: A group of scientists placed five monkeys in a cage, and in the middle, a ladder with bananas on top.

Every time a monkey went up the ladder, the scientists soaked the rest of the monkeys with cold water.

After a while, every time a monkey would start up the ladder, the others would pull it down and beat it up.

After a time, no monkey would dare try climbing the ladder, no matter how great the temptation.

The scientists then decided to replace one of the monkeys. The first thing this new monkey did was start to climb the ladder. Immediately, the others pulled him down and beat him up.

After several beatings, the new monkey learned never to go up the ladder, even though there was no evident reason not to, aside from the beatings.

The second monkey was substituted and the same occurred. The first monkey participated in the beating of the second monkey. A third monkey was changed and the same was repeated. The fourth monkey was changed, resulting in the same, before the fifth was finally replaced as well.

What was left was a group of five monkeys that – without ever having received a cold shower – continued to beat up any monkey who attempted to climb the ladder.

If it was possible to ask the monkeys why they beat up on all those who attempted to climb the ladder, their most likely answer would be “I don’t know. It’s just how things are done around here.”

Now if you ever wondered why you are bullied, just remember the monkeys.

Is that story even true?

Of course, everything on the internet is true.

Ok, got it, is that all?

No, we’re just getting started, grab a pen; there is some important stuff you’ll need to get right.

The second thing I need to teach you is that there are 200 other countries out there, so don’t sweat it, there will be times in your life when you will be fed up of everything, maybe you hate your job, maybe your girlfriend broke up with you, maybe you killed someone, doesn’t matter, in times like this you need to remember there are other 200 countries out there, so just leave and start again. And there will be times when everything’s perfect in your life but you still have to move to another country for change’s sake. That’s also ok because life is a journey and you need to keep moving forward, so remember this in the good times and the bad ones.

Kill someone?

Yes, it may happen, you never know.

Ok, 1. Remember the monkeys 2. There are 200 other countries, what else?

The third one is that there are a few things I need you to start nurturing, the first one is your sense of smell.

As you may already know, your sense of smell is slightly more developed than others, but I need you to start training it now, you’ll learn why later. Right now your nose is more sensitive than others but you can’t recognize the scents. One way to train yourself in nose work goes like this, you need a friend to help you, you will leave the room and he will hide something with a particular smell under a box or cup, and then you have to choose which box contains the object, after a few months, and as you progress and your sense of smells develops, he will hide it anywhere in the room or in the house, and you’ll have to find it blindfolded relying only on your smell.

So I’m like a dog in the future?

Yes, except that you’re not, you’re still human. But you can’t tell anyone about it, if your friend asks why you need to learn nose work, just tell him it sounds fun or that you need it for some cold reading experiment or anything like that. You can only tell your past self, providing you get to travel in time somehow.

But I would need to travel in space first because the earth is not in the same place in space now as it was in the past or it will be in the future.

Time and space are linked together, so yes. It’s just hypothetical anyway.

But if I talk to my past self wouldn’t that cause some kind of paradox? Like altering my present self and eventually preventing me to go back to the past to talk to my past self?

No, it would only change your present self, so the future self is the present version of yourself that has been influenced by your future self but has no memory of the meeting, thus closing the loop.

We must be really fun at parties, right?

How long have you been waiting to say that?

It just came to mind after you mentioned the nose work.

We don’t attend parties. 

Why is that?

Because there are people there. 

Right…

Do you have any other questions?

 

Yes, like 6.

Ok, you get to ask one now.

When was the last time you talked to your mother?

I don’t know a couple of weeks, a couple of months ago, couldn’t say for sure. Why is that?

I don’t know, just wondering,

Is that a soft spot there? I thought we didn’t have one.

Ok, so now that we’re on it, I’ve got bad news, your relationship with your family is not the best one and you’re partial to blame for it, but don’t worry, there’s still time to fix it, you only need to do 2 things, the first one keep in touch with them, not like every day, but an email or a phone call every few weeks is not really all that hard, isn’t it? And the second one tells them that you love them, that’s all it takes. You may have different opinions but they all love you (in their own ways) and they want the best for you. And if you can master the courage to do so, also tell people on the street that you love them, not in a creepy way, or in a gay way, learn to say it in an honest way, like you mean it, and like if it was the most normal thing in the world, like if you were asking for the time or for directions. You know you are all connected, biologically, chemically, atomically, and loving everyone is just the right thing to do. Telling them so just happens to be something of an added bonus.

Ok, 1. Remember the monkeys.  2. There are 200 other countries.  3 Nose work  4. Tell family you love them. What else?

When was the last time you talked to yourself?

I don’t know, right now?

Yes, and that’s what you have to remember, talking to yourself is your key to sanity.

You mean “sanity”

Yes, sanity, and understanding, that’s how you get to deload, deload means to let all those things out that you can’t tell anyone else. And anyway you have no friends or anyone to tell them to, so you have to learn to talk and listen to yourself and that’s how you will find the solution to your problems, you will always advice yourself to make the best possible rational decision based on the information available. Most of the times that decision will go against the norm but still, you must always trust your gut feeling and never ever ignore your instincts.

And the reason you know it’s the right decision is that you use a technical way to reach it, not a social one, or a moral one, or a political, religious or economic one, always a technical one. And the way to find it is always talking to yourself, because you know better and in this case knowing better just means you have more information available than what lies on the surface. And by talking to yourself you are able to dig deeper and deeper into your subconscious mind until you find the right answer reached by the right decision-making process.

There are many ways to talk to yourself, you can use two different voices, you can make a recording and reply to it, you can write down a conversation with two or more people taking part in it, and each one of them can have different points of views, and refute each other. The one I recommend though is using two different voices and replying to yourself, just remember to always do it in public places, like the subway or the bus, because knowing that people are listening to you gives you more pressure to come up with a good argument, or at least a funny one, ideally both.

That’s too much; I’m trying to fly under the radar in case you haven’t noticed. I don’t want people looking at me and knowing what I think.

I know it’s hard, but it’s just the way it has to be. This doesn’t mean you won’t be making mistakes, of course, you will, some of them on purpose, and that’s good, that’s how you learn, sometimes you will make a mistake because it was the right thing to do at that time, and making a mistake fully aware it’s a mistake and why you are making it will actually raise your self-awareness, which is a superb feat to have in and of itself. And you will, through travel and experience, acquire a level of understanding and self-awareness that are not easily matched, and one day in the distant future, you will be put some of it in words, and write a blog staging hours worth of lengthy monologues for all of your fans to enjoy.

Do I have a lot of fans?

You have 4, and they are all Russians.

Russians? That’s interesting.

So..?

Oh, right, 1. Remember the monkeys.  2. There are 200 other countries.  3 Nose work  4. Tell family you love them.  5. Talk to yourself

Good job, now to the hard part, boy-girl relationships

So I’m not gay?

Absolutely not, well not yet at least

Not that there’s anything wrong with it, I was just wondering

Of course, you were, hey I haven’t seen Seinfeld in years that was a good show!

We can watch it now if you want

Now is not the right time, I have to tell you the real reason you haven’t been with a girl yet is that there is a ghost who is in love with you and she is using her supernatural powers to keep girls away from you.

 

For real?

No, I’ll tell you the real reason, so please listen carefully and don’t take this the wrong way, you are needy, weak, emotional and clingy, to put in one word: pathetic. That’s why girls don’t like you.

“don’t take this the wrong way…”

Not for me, I think you’re cool, I mean that’s how girls see you and that’s why you haven’t even come close to any physical contact with any real girl, so I need you to get stronger, both physically and emotionally, they both go together so don’t worry just yet.

I’ve been going to the gym and I read the book “the game”, I’m trying.

I know you’re trying but you’re doing it all wrong, I know you’ve been going to the gym, but you overtrain and that’s counterproductive, I know you go there every day, sometimes you stay there like 5 hours, and take too many classes, yoga, take won do, capoeira, boxing, judo, kung fu, ninjutsu, kendo, dancing, taichi, and you do it as a way to avoid reality by keeping yourself really busy so you don’t need to think about your life. So I’ll need you to chose just one class and stick with it.

Kung fu it is then

Good choice and the same goes for weightlifting, you are doing it all wrong, you spend like 2 hours a day with machines, no free weight, too much isolation and no compound exercises, too much cardio, you tear up your muscles, you eat poorly, you make all the mistakes a person can possibly make at the gym, and you’ll never get stronger that way. You just get weaker and tired.

I know, and I really try, but there’s just too much contradictory information out there and everyone says I have to do something different. If only someone could come from the future and tell me what really works and how to do it.

Today’s your lucky day then, look, I know you like exercise but too much is counterproductive, stick with kung fu, one or 2 hours a week on your non-lifting days, you can lift only 3 and sometimes 4 days a week, each time you will train only one muscle group and then you will let it rest for a week at least, so max 4 times a week to the gym for 45 minutes each max. if you want to get stronger you need to lift some heavy weight, there’s no way around it, and to lift some heavy weight you need to be at your best, which you won’t be if you tire yourself to death running a half marathon before lifting. You’re already underweight so cut the cardio altogether, or limit it to half an hour a week. Keep your warm-up sessions to 5 minutes uphill cycling or some light weight sets.

You need a routine that is simple, and easy to stick to, and you need to focus on compound lifts only, forget the isolation at least for now.

Write this down: day 1: legs, focusing on the squat, day 2: chest and triceps, focusing on the bench press, day 3: back and biceps, focusing on the deadlift, day 4: shoulders and abs, focusing on the military press.

At least a day break between workouts and when I say focusing I mean that’s your priority exercise, so you have to do it at the beginning of your work out when you’ve got plenty of energy to go around with, another reason why progressive overload doesn’t work for you, give it all you’ve got in the first few sets and slope downward from there.

You will be doing 3 to 4 sets of 6 to 8 rep with 80% of your max 1 rep weight and you will take at least 3 minutes break in between sent, I know now 3 minutes sounds like a lot and it will look like you do less than everyone else in the gym, but you shouldn’t care about that, I wish someone had told me this a few years ago, many people will give you many kinds of advice, but they are not you and they don’t know what works for you, they know what works for them, and they don’t spend half the time you do reading medical studies and trials to see what works and what doesn’t, so just ignore them politely and do what you have to do.

Forget about running and yoga, there will be time to get faster and flexible once you get stronger, getting stronger should be the priority now. Once you can bench press and squat at least your own weight, then you can maybe start thinking about yoga or Pilates. 

Why are you so into this stuff?

To be honest I am not, I just I needed to explain it right to you so you can do it now and I don’t need to do it myself later.

I don’t think that’s how it works, but alright.

It was worth a try anyway, the reason you have to be stronger is so that you can have more confidence and can talk to girls, remember the age old question “why girls prefer douchebags?” is because they have confidence and that’s a turn on, good news is you don’t need to be a douche to be confident, strong people are also confident, the reason I mention girls is because you are 17 and curious of how it would be to hold a girls hand, well you know what, if you are strong, you won’t care what others think of you, especially girls, and you won’t care about rejection, girls will feel that and they will be attracted to you because they sense your confidence, as simple as that.

And that confidence will expand to every part of your life and help you deal with troublesome or uncomfortable situations, like if you need to go to a job interview, climb a mountain or tell someone what you really think.

There will be times when you will need to be strong and forget about the monkeys, the monkeys are only when something bad is done to you, but when someone else’s safety is on the line then you will need to interfere, the most common thing is to find man hitting woman on the street or woman hitting children or people hitting animals, or bullies making fun or being mean to someone, or students beating a weaker student.

Those are the times where being strong and confident will come more in handy.

Like a vigilante?

Not like a vigilante, like a person who does the right thing at the right time, there is no excuse for hitting a woman, a child or an animal, so you have to interfere because it’s just the right thing to do, like when you see a hungry homeless you have to invite him home and give him some food and shower and clean clothes, it’s just the right thing to do, if you are driving and there’s a hitchhiker or someone who need help or need a lift you stop and give them a lift, it’s not too hard and nothing to think twice about, if there’s stray or hurt animal you adopt him or find someone who can take care of him, you don’t leave him to die on the street. That’s now who you are.

That doesn’t mean you are a hero and there’s nothing to brag about, those are all extreme examples of situations when there’s just one course of action for you to take. You have to get used to doing what’s right and the sooner the better.

I invite the homeless to my home in the future?

Not just the homeless, you invite everyone home because you trust everyone and that has gotten you to where you are. You had hosted hundreds of travelers from many countries, which reminds me that there is a website you will need to sign up to, it’s called Couchsurfing, and it’s the website that will change your life for good and open you an infinite amount of doors

Ok, 1. Remember the monkeys.  2. There are 200 other countries.  3 Train your Nose  4. Tell family you love them.  5. Talk to yourself 6. Get stronger. 7. Do what’s right.  8. Sign up to Couchsurfing.   Can I ask a question?

Sure, let me just grab a drink

Ok…

Yes, what’s the question? *sips a martini*

People from couchsurfing 3

Part 3:

1 – Rough travelers            2 -Backpackers           3 -Tourists             4 -Random             5-Guilty ones             6 -Confused ones

18_ Luggage.
1_ either small luggage, because it’s troublesome to carry many things over long distances, or very big one because they carry a tent, sleeping bag, mat, food, water, broccoli.
2_ massive
3_ more than they need
4_ a bag of potatoes
5_ slightly less than groups 2 or 3
6_ same as group 2

19_ Social behavior
1_ loners
2_ social butterflies
3_ outgoing, socially competent, but sometimes they find it hard to trust strangers
4_  imagine Waldo, (where’s waldo) with Kramer (Seinfeld) personality
5_ same as 3
6_ same as 2

20_ Preferred Activities
1_ surviving, parks, free stuff
2_ beer, taking pictures, sightseeing, facebook, second-hand markets, beach, bars
3_ pictures, sightseeing, restaurants, museums
4_ dancing Macarena
5_ worrying
6_ same as 2

20_ notes on specific nationalities

21_ Other notes
s:
they all live in their own world within their own borders, we all do, and well, there was supposed to be more to it but I got tired of writing so much so this will have to do it.

oh, and all the groups come together in Thailand, for some reason.

 

 

People from couchsurfing 2

part 2

 

1 – Rough travelers            2 -Backpackers           3 -Tourists             4 -Random             5-Guilty ones             6 -Confused ones

11_ Percentages
1_ 5%
2_ 60%
3_ 25%
4_ 2%
5_ 5%
6_ 3%

 

12_ Couch requests timing
1_ as their means of transport are not reliable their requests are usually for the same day or a few days in advanced.

2_ they usually know when they will arrive so they will send you a request anything from a few days to a month in advanced
3_ they know exactly when will they arrive, how and where from, they will send you a request anything from a month to a year in advanced, this are very short holidays for them so it has to be well researched and planned and accommodation has to be taken care of well in advance.
4_ Any
5_ few weeks to few months in advanced
6_ few weeks in advanced

13_ Couch request quality
1_ usually copy and paste, because they have a hard time finding internet and no time to plan, often no computer, but when they have time they will surprise you with a very personal request
2_ usually copy and paste but changing the names and maybe referencing something on your profile
3_ very well written and personalized requests, and they usually want you to know they are not on Couchsurfing to save money but to meet and interact with the locals
4_ the kind that makes you think ‘what did I just read?’
5_personalized telling you about their jobs, major in uni, work experience and why are they traveling, more like a CV than a couch request, they want you to know they are decent people, not tramps.
6_same as group 2

14_ Behavior as guests
1_usually respectful and considerate, they often clean up the house, do dishes and make sure they don’t intrude or invade your personal space, on the downside they are probably hungry and smelly because they may have been a few days without a shower or warm meal, they may on occasion overstay their welcome.
2_ Usually good guests, sometimes they buy some groceries and cook a meal for you, or buy you a few beers
3_ very respectful and always make sure they are not crossing any boundaries, they bring some nice gifts or wine sometimes
4_ you’d be surprised
5_ Couchsurfing is usually a one-time thing for them so they may not seem very comfortable at times.
6_ same as  group 5

It should be noted that all the groups get along very well when they are sharing a host or at the meetings, they know they are different in many ways but are their similarities that brought them together in their paths, and they share the same Couchsurfing spirit.

15_ Numbers and gender
1_ most of the times it’s a boy alone, occasionally 2 boys or a couple
2_ boy or girl alone, couples, groups of 2+ friends
3_ man or woman alone or couples
4_ boy alone
5_ boy or girl alone
6_ same as 5

16_ Employment
1_ they’d do anything
2_ they would sometimes take some jobs if they are for a short time and doesn’t interfere with their plans too much
3_ they wouldn’t take a job unless it has been previously arranged and organized in their home country and it’s related to their field or major.
4_ again, you’d be surprised
5_ same as 3
6_ they don’t usually take jobs abroad

17_ Notes on some details and relationships between groups
1_ they sometimes would like to be more like group 4, some they try to hard and you see they are faking it and others can sometimes become 4s because of unexpected circumstances, like the loss of their passport or immigration policies. a seasoned 1 can become a 6 when it’s dragged along into something he doesn’t want to do or has done hundreds of times before. some 1s they think they are 4 but they are just 1s
2_ they would oftentimes envy 1s, dislike 3s and are somehow indifferent or unaware of other groups.  some 2s think they are 1s but they are not.
3_ they envy 2s and would like to travel like they do, they think 2s are very brave, if only they had done that when they were their age. they dislike 1s and look at them as homeless souls who have strayed away from the herd. they are often very similar to 5s in many ways but not always. some 3s think they are 2s or they would try to hang out with them, for example, they may go to the backpackers’ hotel but stay in a single room instead of a dorm, eat a good meal somewhere else and have a beer with the backpackers afterward.
4_ any relationship applies
5_ admire 1s and 2s, if only they had that freedom.
6_ they like 2s and think they belong to the same group

End of part 2 of 3

 

 

People from couchsurfing 1

We will reference groups of people using numbers from here on, group 1, group 2, etc

1 – Rough travelers            2 -Backpackers           3 -Tourists             4 -Random             5-Guilty ones             6 -Confused ones

Table of contents:

1_ Brief description
2_ Examples
3_ Nationalities
4_ Transportation
5_ Duration
6_ Budget
7_ Accommodation
8_ Age range
9_ Clothes
10_ Diet
11_ Percentages
12_ Couch requests
13_ Behavior as guests
14_ Numbers
15_ Employment
16_ Social behavior
17_ Activities
18_ Notes

1_ Description:
1_ People who travel in a difficult or very low budget, sometimes because they have very little money and sometimes for the thrill of it or because it’s more fun/interesting/challenging.ult or very low budget, sometimes because they have very little money and sometimes for the thrill of it or because it’s more fun/interesting/challenging.
2_ Young travelers who travel with an over-sized backpack, hence called backpackers
3_ Mid age travelers who enjoy a more up class and comfortable holiday
4_ “That guy”
5_ People who, either because of their environment or upbringing, feel some kind of remorse for being traveling instead of working/studying in their home country. (They will usually justify their trip with the excuse of being working on a book, doing some kind of research, working on their thesis or something their families and friends back home would approve of.)
6_ People who are traveling because of unforeseen circumstances, or are not sure why they have to travel.

2_Examples:
1_  Dimitri, who crossed Africa overland by bicycle just for the heck of it
2_ Jennifer, who took a few months off in between uni and work to backpack around Europe for a few months or doing a year-long working holiday in Australia.
3_ Tom, who has 1-week holiday a year, last week he went to Paris and this year he’s going to Bangkok.
4_ Arthur is traveling because he had a dream, in his dream someone told him he should walk barefoot along Karakoram highway with a shovel, and his metal detector looking for precious stones, or Florian who came by unicycle from the Gobi desert birdwatching along the way and he wants to show you his bird sketches (which are pretty bad).
5_ Richard went to Germany for a month to “test the waters” and see if it would be a good place for him to settle down in the future.
6_ Yaniv just finished high school and his parents said he has to take a year off and see the world before he goes off to the military service…

3_ Nationalities
1_ Mostly Russians and European
2_ Any, ok maybe not Russians.
3_ North Americans, Europeans, Middle Eastern, Indian, Australians.
4_ Europeans, especially eastern Europeans.
5_ Mostly North Americans, occasionally Japan, Korea, Singapore, HK.
6_ Mostly Israelis.

4_ Transportation
1_ Mostly hitchhiking and cycling, they may walk occasionally but it’s not natural to them, it’s more like “hey look at me, I’m walking from one country to another”
2_ Low budget airlines, buses, trains, they may hitchhike sometimes but it’s not natural for them, it’s more like “hey look at me, I’m hitchhiking, I’m so brave”
3_ Airplanes, taxis, they may use public transport occasionally but it’s not natural to them, it’s more like “hey look at me, I’m taking the bus in a foreign country, I’m so brave”
4_ Usually walking and very seldom some unusual transport like horse, skateboard, tuc-tuc, rickshaw, and sometimes they travel with their pets, somehow.
5_ Airplane, bus, train.
6_ Taxi, bus, train, flights.

5_ Duration
1_ 6 months +
2_ Anything from 1 month to 1 year.
3_ Anything from 2 days to one month
4_ 3 months +
5_ Anything from 2 weeks to 6 months.
6_ 2 months to 1 year.

6_ Budget (in USD)
1_ Anything from 0 to 2.000.
2_ Anything from 1.000 to 10.000
3_ 10.000+
4_ Could be anything, really.
5_ 3.000+
6_ 2.000+

7_ Accommodation: (as I have encountered all of them through Couchsurfing, either by hosting them, being hosted, sharing hosts or at a public gathering, it’s implicit they all use Couchsurfing in some way or another. I’m sure they are people who don’t use Couchsurfing on their travels, diplomats or something, but this article is not about them, now these are other forms of accommodation they use besides Couchsurfing.

1_ Usually tent, outdoor sleeping, knocking on people’s doors, churches, temples or some form of squatting.
2_ backpacker hotels, obviously, I know some people call them hostels or guest houses but I don’t think there’s any difference.
3_ hotels
4_ as they are usually in unusual places at unusual times they often get invited into people’s houses and sleep there, but randomness is their forte, so they could be building a shelter out of recycled materials they found laying around, or you could find them in a cave as well, or inside the rubbish bin, anywhere.
5_ hotels, backpacker hotels.
6_ backpacker hotels.

8_ Age range
1_ 18-35
2_ 18-30
3_ 30+
4_ 20+
5_18-40
6_18-25

9_ Clothes
1_ Discarded clothes, rags
2_ second-hand clothes.
3_ the north face, Columbia things
4_ either very sloppy or very well dressed
5_ better than most
6_ same as group 2

10_ Diet
1_ dumpster diving, gathering, foraging, leftovers, canned beans and spaghetti
2_ discounted/reduce things from the big supermarkets, beer, fast food
3_ restaurants
4_ squirrels
5_ restaurants, fast food
6_ same as 5

end of part 1 (out of 3)

 

 

Intro to people from couchsurfing

I got that other list you ask me about.

The list of sexual partners?

Eh, no, hm… the list of travelers I’ve met over the years.

I wasn’t serious that day, we had a lot to drink and I was just brainstorming, please don’t tell me you made a list with tens of thousands of names.

I figured that wouldn’t be possible, but… I also found that most people I’ve met had suspiciously similar characteristics, and based on these similarities it was possible to group them all up into 5 major categories. This is the analysis of all the information I’ve gathered during a 10-year long research, which started when I joined www.couchsurfing.org in early 2007.

That would be 9 years.

I know, but 10 years sounds more impressive.

I don’t like the way this is going, are you going to manipulate the information you’ve “gathered” to make it sound impressive?

I won’t, you’re right, only cold hard facts from now on.

Good, so let me get this straight, you’re somehow going to divide the tens of thousands of people you’ve met during your travels into 5 categories.

That’s right, all the faces, names, personalities, and backgrounds of everyone I’ve met the last 10 years into…

9 years.

Right, into 5 groups, and a systematically detailed description of each and one of them.

Sounds like your generalizations will get many people offended again today.

haters gonna hate?

Yeah, sorry, we don’t use that one anymore either.

ffffffuuuu…

Nor that one.

It’s like we are from different planets.

Meh.

That one we can still use?

Oops, let’s stay focused here, you were saying…

So much pressure!

Yeah, there’s like this tension in the air now.

You blew it, so you’ll  have to wait until tomorrow to read more.

Oh, come on don’t be so childish.

See you tomorrow.

You’re gonna make me beg?

Au revoir.

 

 

List of countries

Oh, sorry i forgot t tell you, we don’t use fighting anymore

Why not?

I don’t know, people just stop using some words and phrases over time so that new ones can take their place.

Can I still use ftw.

I don’t think so, they wouldn’t know what you mean.

Kind of like quoting Monty Phyton?

Yeah, something like that, wait, how long have you been off the internet?

I don’t know, a few years, I remember when I was using it last time people were making fun of Justin Biever a lot, I didn’t know who he was, but his name kept popping up, so I looked up a song and it was somehow catchy ‘one less lonely girl’ do you know it?

I don’t think I do, and I don’t think they are making fun of him anymore. I think he may be an adult now.

Can I say call me maybe?

I’m not sure.

Oh yeah, I got that list you asked for the other day.

Which one?

List of countries you’ve been to.

Oh yeah.

I realized it wouldn’t be possible to check out the passports because I had to take out too many stamps over the years to make space for new ones, and threw them away. That’s how I managed to run out pages last year for the first time, and also it’d be kind of a show off to list every single country, the exact number it’s something people should keep to themselves, something private, kind of like the number of sexual partners they had.

Well, actually saying you won’t do something because you’d be showing off, sounds like an even worse way of showing off, but anyway you’ve got a point and it’s somehow interesting so keep going.

So I figured the easiest way would it be to list the countries I spent more than 6 months at or in (I’m not sure which one to use, at or in?)

Yeah, that makes sense, no one cares about a place you just spent a few weeks at (or is it in?), many people travel for a few days or weeks.

Exactly, well anyway, I figured I should make one every 10 years, it may probably also help people have some kind of chronological guide into all the previous posts, so here’s the list:

2005-buenos aires
2006-barcelona
2007-berlin
2008-india
2009- thailand-china
2010-china-japan
2011-australia-korea
2012-korea-taiwan
2013-new zealand
2014-china
2015-china-present

Nice, and now what?

Nothing I don’t know, oh wait, yes I know, now, here is the list for the next 10 years, it’s probably not going to go this way at all but if someone were to ask me to make a plan for the next 10 years from now, a plan I should stick up to no matter what, this one would be it.

2015-china
2016- travel in south america
2017-travel in central america
2018-canada
2019-italy
2020-iran
2021 travel in africa
2022-russia
2023-pacific islands
2024-japan
2025-korea

You are 30 now in 2015, so it seems like a good plan to make the list every 10 years that’s every decade of Bruno’s age.

Bruce’s age.

Right, Bruce’s age, so if you go to all those places in the next 10 years what about your dog?

That’s the reason I’m still in China because I love her too much and can’t leave her here by herself, I know if I ever leave China and have to say goodbye to her it will be the hardest thing I’d ever done.

I guess you’ll have to stay in China then.

That’s the only way.

Here’s when you point to the unfairness of Chinese political system and society, how all the countries are terrible because they don’t let you travel with your dog and China also doesn’t let you stay here forever so sooner or later you will have to say goodbye to her, you’re just postponing the inevitable.

My freedoms have been taken away a while ago by governments and their immigration policies, but I’m still better off than most people, I have a job and a salary at the end of the month, I have a nice cozy room with a bed to sleep at night, hot shower, plenty of food, people who understand me and accept me how I am and a dog who loves me unconditionally, what else could I ask for?

You could ask for internet.

I have internet.

Yes, you have a few Chinese websites that you have somehow manage how to operate but how about facebook, google, gmail, youtube, 4chan, cracked, you don’t miss them?

Of course I do, but they also took too much of my time. This holiday I climbed the mountain a few times, I went hiking, I played football with my students, I walked around the lake a few more times, I got to catch up with many people, I wrote here, I got to clean and look after all the turtles, hamsters and rabbits I have, spent time with dog I went out with my CS guests and had many beers with them and I still had some time left to play some games and read. If I had had internet I may not have done many of those things, so if I had to choose between Facebook or checking emails and my dog, I’d choose dog every single time. I know I have given up on all the people I have ever met in my life. Without gmail or facebook there’s no way to get in touch with them, but the dog’s still worth it, I’ll just meet new people in the future.

That’s actually very sweet, a side of you I hadn’t seen before and I didn’t know you had.

I didn’t know I had it either, anyway, looks like that’s it for today.

Yeah, it was fun, let’s do it more often.

Sure thing.

 

 

Writing our thoughts

I have an idea!

Oh, hi!

I have an idea.

You can write here again?

You should ask “what kind of idea?”

I thought you had lost the password for this blog and for your cutepuppybrunogmail account, how come you can write again?

same as before I can’t access it or read what I wrote, can only email it from my Chinese email for it to be auto-posted.

Oh yeah, I remember, well, how have you been?

I have an idea.

Ok ok, what kind of idea?

What if I were to write down every single thought I have, for one week and just leave it here for posterity.

Every single one? you don’t have like… a job, or something?

I have 10 days off for Chinese new year.

What? You are still in China? Why?

Because that’s just how it is, so how about my idea?

And you want to spend your only holidays writing silly things that no one will read?

Yes, what do you think about it?

I’m both thrilled and terrified by the prospects of reading every one of your raw ideas.

Should I go for it?

Absolutely not, look, I know you’ve got plenty of good ideas, but the world is just not ready for them yet, to put it mildly.

Good ideas? No no, it’s not about good or bad, it would be more like some sort of an experiment.

Like pressing random buttons just to see what happens?

Exactly.

I say don’t do it, remember a few years ago you wrote something and some people took it literally and wrote a long response explaining many things.

Vaguely.

What I mean by ‘the world is not ready for it’ is that your lack of tact and sensitivity gets many people offended. I’ve known you for a very long time. I know you hate all the smokers because your mother has wronged you. I know you hate the governments and I understand why. I know you have many crude dark thoughts, and I know other people don’t understand you the way I do, so when they read something negative about something they like, they will take it as a personal attack on them. I know you don’t mean it that way, but people will hate you still. I know deep inside, you want to kill all the smokers, you want to go to the zoo and release all the animals, you want to tell people they are wrong and you want to tell them why, and you want them to know you are smarter than them. I know you don’t understand that each one of them lives in their own world with their own views and opinions, or lack of them, and in their worlds, they also think they are smarter than you, but they are polite enough not to let you know because they know you may feel bad. If you write every obscure thought you have without thinking twice or editing you’re going to make many people feel bad.

What if I were to write happy thoughts only?

How would you pull that off, you find the glitch in everything and you try to fix everything and everyone.

I’ll think only happy thoughts then.

You can’t control that, seeing the flaws in you it’s both your blessing and your curse.

Well, I guess it wasn’t such a good idea after all.

Try to write about life in China. Most people don’t know what that’s like, or about some other place you’ve been to. You’ve been to many places and did some amazing things, you had many jobs, it could be interesting reading about, or about the girlfriends you had.

I wrote about all those things already.

But not in great fantastic detail.

The other day I taught the word fantastic in my class and one student said ‘fantastic baby’.

And….

That’s it, I thought it was funny.

How is that funny?

Because of the song.

Which song?

‘Fantastic baby’, big bang, it’s a silly song, very famous some years ago and she remembered the word from that song.

If you were to write down every thought it would be very hard to read.

Or… it could be a literary masterpiece.

Probably not, you would just get people be very very confused.

Yeah, I guess you’re right. I’ll have to come up with something better than that.

I know you can do it.

Fighting!

Don’t say that.

 

Ok.

Chaotic good

Do you remember firefly?

No, what’s that?

An old sci-fi show.

What was it about?

It’s like cowboys but in space.

2 genres I’d rather skip on.

Well, just watch it.

But…

Just watch it, you know that’s how I always imagined your life to be like.

Like a cowboy in space?

Well, maybe not really cowboys, more like renegades, smugglers, thieves, they have to do odd jobs always in different planets, like retrieving some goods or robbing a train, and you also have to do many odd jobs in different countries, and many people want to kill them, same as you, and they are hunted down by the government just like you are, they have to live on the ship, they get into lots of troubles, but oftentimes they get to score some big rewards. And even though they have the proper documentation, the alliance (USA + Chinese government) will try to give them some trouble anyway, just because they can. And overall, the characters are usually just surviving in a hostile environment, but somehow, and against all odds, they always thrive, same as you do.

So same as Cowboy Beebop?

Well, yeah, but… Just watch it, you’ll thank me later.

I might give it a go, but if my life is already like that, as you say, then the show would be quite boring. I’d rather be watching something radically different, to get my head out of the mundane routines of daily life.

Good point, but you may get some new ideas.

Actually, I haven’t broken any law for many many years.

You know that’s not true, but you confuse the phrase “breaking the law” with “doing something wrong” you have very high morality issues, maybe too high, you can’t hurt animals, you can’t consciously do things that will damage the environment or some ecosystems, you can’t hurt people, you can’t use filthy language, you can’t steal, you have to take sides with the disadvantaged ones and if you see an unfair situation you can’t ignore it because you think those who ignore it are accomplices in the unfairness, so that gets you into a variety or troubles and awkward situations, you have to do the right thing, even though it makes other people feel bad or uncomfortable, you need to stand by your beliefs, and do what’s right even though it means breaking the law in the process.

Oh.

And if we start sailing deep into the seas of your past and take a trip to explore the complex machinery of your mind, we will discover, or rather come to a turning point in your life when, as a teenager, you were asked to choose and alignment when creating your first AD&D character, you chose ‘chaotic good’ and that just stuck with you for the rest of your life, turning you into a fan boy of your fictitious persona, because of the way she/he behaved in the game. So instead of molding it according to your personality, as most players do, you based your real life on a character from a game you played 15 years ago.

Oh…

That’s right, ‘oh….’

‘Chaotic good’ let me look it up..

…

…

Here:

A Chaotic Good character favors change for a greater good, disdains bureaucratic organizations that get in the way of social improvement, and places a high value on personal freedom, not only for oneself, but for others as well. They always intend to do the right thing, but their methods are generally disorganized and often out of sync with the rest of society. They may create conflict in a team if they feel they are being pushed around, and often view extensive organization and planning as pointless, preferring to improvise.

Am I right?

Maybe, but i don’t think it’s that black and white though, we are a product of a million different variables, experiences we had and information we gathered throughout our life, you can’t blame one single life choice for all the events to come in someone’s life forever and ever.

That’s why I said it was a turning point, because that’s what turning points are, and a call you made years ago can still dictate your view of the world and society as a whole.

I’m not totally convinced, but it’s definitely an interesting idea, well worth exploring.

I think we have made some progress today.

Are we out of time?

Unfortunately yes, but it was an interesting session, looking forward to our next one

Alright.

10 minutes go

1,2,3, go!

What happened? Go where?

You have 10 minutes. 10 minutes before the internet finishes.

Finishes? What do you mean? No more internet forever?

No, just for today.

Because we have to leave in 10 minutes?

9 minutes now, go go go.

Alright, what do I do?

Just write anything that comes to mind.

Is this a test?

Yes, so you better type faster.

I don’t know, ask me something.

Is the government still evil?

You have no idea.

8 minutes.

I just write some random thoughts?

Yes, because all roads lead to Rome.

Except when they don’t.

Except when they do.

Are you still sleeping?

Yes, my consciousness is off. I’m not aware of the present, I’m a robot.

7 minutes.

Whatever, if the times runs out I’ll just continue tomorrow.

That’s not how it works.

Why not? I make the rules around here.

You have too many memories and ideas, and unfortunately, we still haven’t found a way to dump them all into a computer, so you have to type them manually.

Ok, I’ll try.

And you have to do it within the next 6 minutes.

I see… Give me a minute….

5 left

Well.. it’s my birthday today.

Really? I thought it was yesterday.

Really? I thought you had forgotten

How could I?

When in Rome…

What is it with you and Rome today?

I don’t know.

So you are 30 now.

That’s right.

4 minutes.

Oh.

Any other news?

Yes, but they will reach you gradually.

Is China still a shithole?

Last time I checked.

Do you still feel sorry for yourself?

Oftentimes, but not without first acknowledging how lame that actually is.

I guess you have come to realize that there are a dozen plausible ways in the ones you could be obliterated from this world, so you must enjoy the moment because it could be your last.

3 minutes?

That’s right.

Can’t wait for this to end.

Well, we could end it right now if you wanted to.

And what should we do the remaining 2 and a half minutes?

Not fapping, I hope…

Oh, I forgot to tell you, we’re not using that word anymore.

Why not?

We just don’t.

Who are we?

Alright, just me.

What’s the name of your city?

Gejiu, but it’s not technically MY city just yet, I just happen to be here for the indefinite future.

Same thing.

Not at all.

1 minute left.

Nice.

Any final thoughts?

Yes, when I woke up today, my head was a mess.

Alright, until next time then.

Yes.

 

 

 

Life in China

So, what’s the general sentiment at the heart of life in China?

It would be hard to say, hard to choose just feeling to represent such a vast nation’s real motivations, and it’s hard to criticize it, with the limit perspective of being generally just an outsider. We, as foreigners have heard or read most of the hardships the Chinese population has been put through, but we haven’t experienced them ourselves.

How about just one idea, of your view as an outsider, on the Chinese populace as a whole?

 

Well, it seems a great majority of people here have completely lost their goals and motivation, they just live to consume and then they die.

Is that any different from any other country though?

Probably not, probably people are the same everywhere and it doesn’t seem to be one enlightened nation where everyone’s well and happy, even financially prosperous countries seem to face lots of social problems like alcoholism and depression.

So everyone everywhere just lives to make money, then spend that money and then die? How about the artists, or the homeless, protesters, dreamers, visionaries?

I don’t know, but I have to go now.

Ok, bye.

 

 

 

No waifu no laifu

Are you still into that anarchist thing?

Which one?

You know, that one with a weird german name.

Zeitgeist?

That one.

Well, many things have changed since we used to go to the zeitgeist meetings from our Australian chapter. I have I given up on the hopes of being part of a system based on the efficient use of resources and sustainable development instead of a money-based economic system. The answer would be no, I haven’t given up, I just happen to live in a communist country where people actually thinks it’s ok to be gunned down if they complain about their government.

You know they don’t get killed right away right? They get tortured and their organs are removed while they are still alive to sell them to the highest bidder.

I know that 60.000 falung gong people, Tibetans, Muslims, etc all killed because of their organs because Chinese government wants more and more money, they can’t get enough of it. Western countries criticize China all the time because of their human right abuse records but they fail to see that the Chinese government does it just for the money, because they have been brought up to believe money is their god. I don’t think I’m an anarchist for following the zeitgeist movement, nor am I an anarchist for believing our socioeconomic system is structurally corrupt and in need of replacement. I really truly believe in the function of a government that looks after people, it’s just that the ones we currently have are more into harvesting organs and thrashing down everything than into taking care of their people.

And because of a vague understanding of how childish it is to hate the governments and how immature am I in some of my political views, I actually admire the venus project people for being mature enough for not needing to place blame on any individual or group of individuals. They know politicians are merely a product of a socioeconomic system in need of change and they planned every single step of the transition process. While some of us are just complaining and looking for someone to take the blame for our problems, they are actually solving them, all of them.

And are you still into conspiracy theories?

That would depend on your definition of a conspiracy theorist.

If you think a conspiracy theorist is someone who believes our politicians are reptiles, they hide aliens and secret messages all around then no, I’m not a conspiracy theorist. If you think a conspiracy theorist is someone who believes rich, powerful people meet behind closed doors to talk about ways to stay rich or get more power then the answer would be yes. And in my eyes, any idea or “conspiracy” would be automatically dismissed as false once the paranormal has been introduced to it. Either the paranormal or the complicity of more than a few dozen people. So yes, it’s very probable that 10 or 20 people got together and planned to assassinate some politician or blow up some building so they would have an excuse to invade a country to take over their drugs or oil industries. But no, you wouldn’t get thousands of scientists to agree on a wrong concept, the more people need to be involved for it to work, the higher the chances of the conspiracy not working.

Ok, so you believe only in conspiracies that don’t have supernatural points to it, that have less than a few dozen people on it and that involves the government doing something bad to the people because you hate the governments and you love the people, especially the underprivileged ones, right?

Well, when you say it like that…

In other words, you would accept a conspiracy theory to be true only if it helps you prove your point that governments are evil. If it doesn’t do good to your agenda, you would dismiss it. Or if they include something you don’t want to believe in, like the paranormal.

It’s not that I don’t want to believe…

Now that we are somehow in the realm of the unexplained, I heard you have been keeping a dream journal this year, is that right?

Out of curiosity mostly.

Because you read that article about lucid dreams, and you decided to do what they say and see if it’s true?

Yes, but just out of curiosity, there’s not much research done about it, and I have to dream anyway every night, so an inquisitive mind would try experimenting with it. Keeping a journal, doing reality checks to make sure I’m awake, if it doesn’t work at least it may help with my overall awareness of my place in this vast cosmic ocean.

Either that or you want to learn it so you can gang bang some Russian midgets or something.

What? No…

Bang some aliens?

That’s just sick!

Bang some character from an anime or video game?

That would be quite cool actually

Spot on!

No no, I mean that just sounds better than aliens or midgets but it doesn’t mean I would like to do it. I wouldn’t want my readers to think I’m weird or creepy, right?

It’s a bit late for that, they know you are weird and creepy because they have been reading you for a few years.

But I wouldn’t want to make it worse.

You just did.

I don’t get it, why do we have to bang something in the first place? Where did that come from?

I don’t know, we are sexual beings?

Are we? Or we chose to be so? Or we believe we are so? Are all animals sexual beings because they have sex or reproduce? How about plants? Or bacteria?

Bacteria are asexual beings, they just replicate themselves, so no, single cell asexual microbes are definitely not sexual beings.

How about plants? Are they sexual beings?

I guess plants can reproduce either sexually or asexually so whether they are sexual beings or not would depend on the kind of plant, but you’re not going to redirect the conversation so easily, I want to know which video game character would be the lucky one.

From the top of my head and assuming we live in a hypothetically futuristic utopian world, where banging video game characters is both socially accepted and encouraged, and if I absolutely ought to choose one so I won’t get banished from home or shunned by other members of this futuristic society, I’d say Aya Brea from Parasite Eve.

Really? I would have guessed some Final Fantasy character, maybe Selphie or Yuffie.

This conversation really took an unexpected turn. But I gues that if Aya would be somehow unavailable my second choice would probably be Athena from KOF.

How about a third one?

Maybe Ayame from Tenchu?

That’s cool, that’s cool, not creepy at all.

A little creepy.

It’s all hypothetical remember?

Of course.

See you next time?

That’s right.

 

News from China

Are you usually overworked there?

It depends some weeks are worse than others, this week we have summer camp at our school, so we have lessons from 9 to 1 then we have to go to some outing, and then few more lessons in the evening.

Do you have some assistants to help you?

I have a few and they are the good ones.

What do you mean by “the good ones”?

Well you know after few years of teaching I’ve had many kinds of assistants, so:

The good ones are the ones that don’t make your job more difficult, they help you control the student and prepare some activities or materials for them.

The bad assistants come in different shapes actually, some they get very low pay so they don’t care about the students or the classes. Some they think they are the teachers, so instead of helping you they want to teach the classes for you, some resent the foreign teacher for some reasons, they think they steal their jobs or they get higher salaries than them or are not qualified enough, or they don’t know the students language or culture, so it can be hard working with them.

Sounds a bit like the doctors/nurses relationship, they should be working together but end up inconveniencing each other.

I guess you could say that.

And I want to ask, why aren’t you vegan anymore?

I don’t know actually. Even though it’s been a few years since I abandoned it, I still have ambiguous feelings, or… how to say it? How to explain? Ambivalent ideas? Conflicting opinions.

It’s hard to put an idea into words while knowing that your decision and your actions could either save or condemn billions of animal lives plus human ones because of the ramifications of either decision.

The basic idea behind my decision to abandon veganism was that freeganism would save way more animal lives in the long run.

Veganism is a well-known word nowadays; it refers to people who are against animal cruelty or exploitation so they try not to contribute to it.

Freegans, on the other hand, eat, wear and use things they find for free, mostly because they have been discarded by other people. So living from the scraps of society means a massive reduction of your impact on the environment and the animal suffering of course.

Vegan products are usually more expensive and hard to come by, but ultimately it may have been the extremist zeal vegans usually display, judging you if you only agree with them 99 instead of 100%.

So yeah, I would wear leather boots or jackets that had been thrown away or given to me by someone who doesn’t need them anymore because it’s just the right thing to do and I would eat the road kill or meat I found on the bin because it has been already discarded.

And what do you think about superfoods?

­

I actually discovered them this year, well I knew they existed, but never had the chance to try them out. Because I had no money or didn’t know how to find them, but at Chinese local markets and Taobao I was able to find goji berries, maca, azai berries, bee pollen, royal jelly, spirulina, basil seeds, and many others. So this year I’ve been trying them and have been working alright for me.

Are you still counting calories and such?

I do actually, just don’t know exactly why, either because of OCD or because of trying to apply the results of every scientific study I read about. I have to consume an exact amount of fats, proteins, and carbs according to the necessities of that day. An exact amount of BCAA before and after exercise, and to the mg accurate quantities of vitamins and minerals, no less than what I need and no more than what my body can absorb to avoid wasting some.

Isn’t that too much? What happens if you miss some or you consume more or less of something?

Probably nothing, just me getting paranoid.

But what’s the point? Most people just eat whatever they want and stay healthy anyway.

But you know I’m not most people, I do what I want and I try to want what is good for me. If I can choose, then why not choosing something that’s good?

How about alcohol?

A few glasses of wine or beer once or twice a week has been proven to be much better than no alcohol at all.

Have you played any good games lately?

Toradora portable for the last few months, can’t seem to get over it somehow.

Watched any good movies or shows?

Oh! Computer broke early this year, and somehow it felt like I would be wasting a lot of time on it if I decided to get another one, so I just left it at that.

Read any good books?

Just 2 on the last few months, les misserables and the 3 musketeers, both amazing, last week I started reading david copperfield but didn’t quite get into it yet.

And how about that motorbike trip.

Yes, maybe next time we can talk more about it.

I heard you have a dog now.

That’s right.

Cute?

As cute as it gets, it’s been an amazing experience seeing her growing up from a puppy, we go for a run around the lake and she waits for me while I exercise.

Is it a nice lake?

Well, it’s nice for Chinese standards, but that’s not saying much really.

Why do you hate China so much?

Just the smokers, it’s too much.

People smoke a lot?

Well official statistics say 75% of Chinese man smoke, but for people living in china we know it’s closer to 92%, they smoke always and everywhere, every single eatery, or café, supermarket, internet bar, hospitals, busses, taxis, cinemas, elevators, even at the school I work at people smoke all the time, of course it’s not my first time to work or live in a hostile environment and I know it’s part of Chinese culture, and I understand it’s not peoples fault, I know government promotes and often enforces the smoking of processed tobacco in public places particularly when children are around and especially government run institutions, like schools hospitals, and police officers. I know doctors, teachers and policemen’s can’t choose not to smoke because they will get fired, I know 20% of Chinese government income comes from tobacco, so I understand all the social and economic ramifications of smoking in China, but it’s really just too much. For them, it’s normal because they don’t know better, but for us it’s still hard to put up with, no matter how long have you been in China, you never quite get used to it.

It seems like you know a lot about smoking in China.

Yes, I also know there are like 4000 chemicals released into the air every time they light out one of those things they smoke, and few hundred of those are carcinogenic and some are even radioactive and I have to breathe them every day because “it’s Chinese culture”.

Well, it’s their country, they can do as they please, you are an intruder, can’t complain.

But I’m a guest here, I should be treated with the respect I deserve.

What makes you think you deserve any kind of respect from anyone?

I don’t know, maybe you are right, I don’t deserve anything good from them. If the current Chinese government killed 45 million for no apparent reason during the great leap forward I should actually be thankful they haven’t killed me yet.

Are you trying to deviate from the subject to make a point? Straw man argument?

I have failed in my crusade to find allies to join me against the smokers and the Chinese government, so my last hope is going off topic or self-pity.

That’s pathetic, why so much negativity? What’s the point of it? There must be a bright side to it all, I know you can find it, and I know you know how to be happy, you know how to be in control of your emotions, you can turn them all around with your love, with your smile, your passion and your rational and critical mind, but you are just using this media as an escape route to let some steam off and write down things you can’t tell anyone because you can’t use Facebook anymore and you are the only foreigner in your city, so you feel lonely. And even though isolating and alienating yourself is actually one of your specialties, some of your readers don’t want to hear your rants, they just want to see Bruce’s “dere” side.

Did you just call me Bruce?

Yeah, that’s your name while in China right?

Oh, right, but I got so used to it that I may use it in other countries as well.

Haha, alright, Bruce! So when do we get to see it?

See what?

Your “dere”side”?

Dere as in…

Oh, you know, as in that tsundere thing.

Tsundere? but you are not in Japan anymore, how come you remember that otaku word.

Maybe some things just stay with us.

Hmmm, but otakus… :s

It’s just a word man! Don’t read too much into it.

Man??? Now you are trying to sound cool to make it up for your hikikomori ways?

Yeah man! Sup man, hos it goin dude!?

닥쳐!

Haha

Read you again soon?

Yes 🙂

 

Can write again

You can write here again?

 

I’m not sure actually…

What do you mean?

Well, blogger is still blocked in China, same as google, gmail, facebook, youtube, etc, but when I went to HK I set up the posting preferences from this blog so I can post by email now, so came back to China, opened a Chinese email account and now maybe I can post again by sending an email to a specific blogger address.

But you can’t check if they get published or not.

Right, and I cant use my gmail account until I leave this… country…

And how is your Chinese email account.

cutepuppy4u@163.com 

Sup with you and puppies?

They are just cute so I want them in my email.

Or is it that think YOU are cute?

Well, I may be or may not be a narcissist, and we may possibly debate that some other time, what’s important now is that I don’t know if this post will get published or not, so I feel like I’m a castaway on an island and throw this message on a bottle, for someone to find it on the future, it may get lost, it may drift away or it may be picked up by a famous journalist who will publish it for the world to read it.

Thus making your narcissist ass famous at last.

That’s unimportant, once again, as I will never get to hear about that fame because of being stranded.

You must have many stories to tell.

Some.

If I remember right this is not your first year in China, so how come this didn’t affect you before?

The first year I was in China it was 2009, and it was a different world back then, we had a lot of VPNs and proxy websites, secure tunnel, hidemyass, it was slow but still possible to get on facebook and such, now they have blocked them all, even proxy and VPN mobile app.  Also before there was not much control over the foreigners living here, we could get long-term stay visas easily and pretty much do anything we wanted to, during the years I’ve been away there have been several witch hunts that led to foreigners being prosecuted and hunted like mutants.

And how does that affects your daily life?

Well I reckon is not as bad as North Korea or Somalia yet, but soldiers stop us if we take a bus to another city, they will target only foreigners and do routine inspections on them, they usually let us go eventually, and the visas have become a procedure so complicated that makes Russian visa look like an underdog on a troublesome to get visa contest.

Sounds like everything’s back to normal then, you hate the government and the government hates you. Except that now instead of living in a democratic country where you have freedom of speech, of movement and expression like Korea, Taiwan, Australia, etc, you live in a tyrannic totalitarian dictatorship where government is actually doing way worse things than what you accuse them to, thus giving you a fair reason to complain without people accusing you of being a conspiracy theorist.

I’m actually at the heart of the conspiracy now.

Last time you wrote about your adventures was while you were in new Zealand, what happened after that?

Too many things and I wish I could write a book just about the adventures in New Zealand, but then there was Australia once again and motorbike trip from Malaysia to China, and now, once again in China with a stable life and a stable job.

Why China? Why again?

Because despite China being a shithole, oh sorry, despite China being not such a nice place to live due to the current political, environmental and social circumstances. It’s still a place where foreigners can just show up and find a decent paid job from one day to the other, there are hundreds of cities and they all have hundreds of jobs. So one can always come to China to save money for a few months and then using that money to live a relaxed comfortable life in a peaceful nearby country (Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, etc).

So you will start posting here again now? I’ve got like… so many questions for you…

When I’m not overworked yes, and there’s still that Chinese email address you can write me to.

The puppy one?

That’s right.

I shall be hearing from you soon then.

Soon enough

Good luck.

 

Thoughts on general life advice that was given to me at an earlier time and place

But you know, actually, I agree with Gustavo that everyone should work at some farm for at least a month every year so that later when they come back to the city they don’t take for granted the food they eat every day.

And my grandfather also was right about something. He always told me I should learn a trade, like carpentry, plumbery or something so that I can always find work in any country, he said I should eat lots of fruits and should learn how to play an instrument. Unfortunately, I only listened to the part about the fruits.

My uncle said I should master the English language at a young age, it’s the basics of the basics. And he was right of course, but when he said I was just teenager so didn’t care much.

Because I could speak English, I had access to all the information available on any subject, plus communication with people from everywhere, plus better job and life opportunities.

Mother said I should finish highschool and that was the only thing she asked me, she said it would help me find a job in the future. That one was wrong, but I can understand her because she did it with the best intentions. So far, I’ve had more than 60 jobs and not even once they asked me for any high school papers, but anyway I lost them many years ago.

Actually, mother said many many things, as I grew up with her, she was by far the most influential behavioral example I could observe while growing up, all the patterns both positive and negative, that worked and didn’t work for her, so I would make sure not to make the same mistakes again.

Or… make them consciously, and knowing why I made them.

Once I know why I make a mistake then I am presented with 4 options:

1- Accept it and face the consequences (I have a hang over because I drank a lot last night, because life is too scary otherwise.)

2- Disguise the fact that I made a mistake by justifying it or rationalizing it so it wont look like a mistake at all (I have a hang over because social conventions dictate that’s the optimal way to socialize with your peers, either at school or at work, it’s perfectly normal to drink till you drop and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.)

3- Ignoring it (I didn’t drink last night).

4- Accepting it and learning from it (I drank too much last night as a way of coping either with some repressed emotions or with the fact I’m not so happy with my life or the circumstances around me. From now on I’ll deal with my problems instead of looking for ways to temporarily escape them while numbing my senses and harming my body at the same time.)

 

whatever 18

What do you do for a living?

I’m a french maid.

Really? I don’t believe you, you look like middle eastern or something.

Can be a french maid still.

I don’t think so, do you even French?

No, but I maid.

Do you even gee?

Gee gee gee gee?

I knew someone like that.

A girl I hope.

Yes, a girl, she was lovely and I often wondered, how many people get to feel something like this? I know many people date a lot but they never get to feel this.
Whenever I walk with her, every guy envies me and when I tell them how I feel about her, they envy me even more. I dont need to look at any other girl because I have the best one already.

You’re like… so romantic…

Have you ever felt like that before?

I don’t think so, well maybe I did but she didn’t feel the same way, so I had to just let it go and hope the feeling comes back again someday in the future.

Was she a nurse?

Hey, how did you know?

I think you mentioned her before, when we were talking about the hospital.

Oh, that was a different story.

About the hospital that gave you cancer I remember.

Yes, because there were people smoking everywhere.

You mean at the entrance of the hospital?

Yes and that gave me cancer.

Just that?

Not just that.. hospital food was so bad and didn’t account for any of the daily recommended doses of anything, and instead of having treadmills or exercise machines, they had couches for people to sit, despite the hundreds of papers written and research done on the subject. They all found sitting was the worse you can do to your body, and still, the hospital really wants you to take a seat, and use sitting toilets even though they know it’s very difficult to do No.2 in that position, and…

Ok, ok, I get it, I get it, you’re a system buster, and you don’t like the hospitals and you don’t like anything.

I liked that nurse.

I know that’s not true. you just like yourself.

Whatever.

WHile hitchhiking in NZ

While hitchhiking, I got picked up by this guy, he was 82 and told me the story of his life.

He had been working as a sailor and got to go to many countries in Asia and South America. He was thrilled to meet people from distant lands. Lived by himself in a very remote area of New Zealand. Only 20 people lived in his town, so he was feeling a bit lonely.

He invited me to stay at his place for a few days and offered me some cookies and coffee. Was so glad to have someone to talk to, someone to keep him company. After some time, thinking about that good experience, I remembered another experience I had with the elderly.

It was about 3 or 4 years ago when I was in Perth. I had just finished some meditation at the budhist temple and on the way back, accidentally stepped in someone’s front garden.

A very old guy came out and started shouting “GET OUT OF MY PROPERTY!!” in a hostile tone. This leaves me to wonder how will I be when I’m 82.

Will I be a greedy person who is afraid of strangers or will I be a friendly guy who picks them up and invites them in to have some cookies?

If I’m the first one, I have to say sorry to you all.

You have to understand I’m this way because I’ve been hurt before and that made me afraid of people, especially people who have less than me, because I’m afraid they will take the things I worked so hard to achieve, ok maybe not so hard, but I worked for them.

I’m afraid they will take my precious.

And if I’m the second guy, I should say welcome to my house, this is my address: “—” and you’re all always welcome.

I’ve been helped by tons of people throughout my life, been given money, food, and shelter in countless countries. Been taken care of when I was sick, been kept company when I was lonely and given me a jacket when I was cold.

My experiences taught me I’m not alone. We have to be kind to each other and now it’s MY time to pay it back. Because it’s just the right thing to do.

 

 

The now cup

The now cup is a coffee cup, a mug that has the word “now” written on it, we use it to remind us to live in the present. Every time someone forgets what’s important and start worrying about silly things, I would make a cup of coffee or tea and the cup would remind them it’s now, not yesterday, not tomorrow. There’s just this, and this is what matters.

 

The one hour training program

The one-hour maintenance program consists of 4 parts of 15 minutes each.

15 minutes cardio, run or whatever to warm up and keep your heart healthy.

15 min strength work, pull ups, push ups, squats, etc.

15 min stretching, holding every stretch for at least 20 seconds.

And finally, 15 minutes meditation to calm down.

Why not try it for a few days and see how it works for you?

 

 

About kachu tenshin amaguriken

火中天津甘栗拳 was a technique in Ranma 1/2 that Ranma used to pick up some hot chestnuts out of a very hot place, he had to do it very fast otherwise he would burn his/her hands.

I learned that special move as a teenager after watching Ranma doing it and practicing it a bit, never really thought it would come in handy though.

Until this year in New Zealand, I had 2 jobs where I actually had to use to kachu tenshin amaguriken. The first one was at a farm picking kiwis, we were paid per bin, so the more kiwis we picked the more money we got in the long run. I just went berserk sometimes and picked them like a monkey.

Another job was at a chocolate factory where I had to place chocolate bars as fast as possible on a machine that would pack them up. In this case, I didn’t get paid per amount of chocolate, the thing was that they kept coming and coming all day so if I missed one chocolate, it would get accumulated and had to be put twice as fast afterwards, and after a few hours of laying chocolates it could get a bit tedious. But it was thanks to Ranma that I got the confidence to do those repetitive mechanic jobs.

Thanks Ranma and thank you Takahashi Rumiko for drawing Ranma so he could teach me.

 

 

Sitting is death

All recent scientific research shows that sitting in a chair daily for long periods of time is the single worse thing you could do to yourself. Maybe even worse than smoking. That’s why during the last 2 years I decided to spend as little time sitting as possible.
My only excuse for sitting is recovery time, when too tired after strenuous exercise.

First problem I faced was the internet, as most of you I spend too much time in front of the computer, writing stuff like this. This was easily solved by starting to use my
laptop while standing. Would just find a shelf to put it, or pile up a bunch of books or stuff for it to be higher up.

This helped my stretches also, as many times feeling tired after standing for a few hours my body would naturally adopt a leg split position. Not that I’m addicted to the painkillers my brain releases while stretching. It has nothing to do with that.

My second problem was people of course, as they would just not understand that sitting is bad for you and they would keep saying “why don’t you have a seat?” or “get yourself comfortable” because they think sitting is comfortable and standing is not. And so many people just didn’t understand and thought I was being rude. Others saw me as an idealistic and that was cool 🙂

We have to literally stand for what we believe in, even if it means going against the stream.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About K-pop

Why do you do the things you do?

Like what?

Like everything, most things you do, they are things most people wouldn’t even dream them possible.

I’m not most people.

I know but there has to be more to it.

Alright, it took me a while to figure it out but I think it’s because I’m constantly high.

High on what?

On k-pop of course.

How’s that even possible?

You can get high on anything, whatever makes you tick right?

I guess, but k-pop, really?

When something makes you click you don’t care what it is and don’t care about anything else. In my case, I often think the only reason I’m in New Zealand is so that I can save money to support myself in Korea while auditioning till I get a part on a drama or become part of a boys band, kind of like those people who move to California with the expectation of getting discovered and making it big in Hollywood.

You know what, that kind of makes sense actually. I can see you as part of a Korean boy-band, except because well you know, you’re not Korean.

That’s like saying I can’t be a samurai because I’m not a 12th century Japanese noble male in his 30’s.

Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.

But becoming a Korean pop star is my purpose in life, that’s why I live, you know?

But you’re not Korean!!!

So?

You can’t be Korean if you’re not Korean, duh.

I can try though.

Yeah but that’s just crazy.

And that’s why you love me right?

Guess so.

 

About veterans

???????: That’s pretty rude, my father was a veteran you know.

Bruno: Yeah soldiers are the worst shit.

Veteran’s son: They sacrifice their lives for you, for your freedom and you say they are shit?

Bruno: Worse shit ever, they don’t sacrifice anything for anyone, they go to wars and kill people. They think they are the good guys, but guess what, so do their so-called “enemies”. Your father was a piece of shit and so are you for supporting the army in any way.

Common friend: Wars are a problem, and soldiers are a part of it.

Bruno: No, they are not part of the problem, they are the problem, paid assassins, mercenaries who kill people for money like your father.

Veteran’s son: My father was a hero, the piece of shit is you.

Bruno: Yeah? Why? Because I don’t kill people? 

Veteran’s son:  Wars happen, but my father fought for peace.

Common friend: You know what they say…

Bruno: Yeah, fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity, and wars don’t just happen, they happen for a reason, and you know what’s that reason? Your father is that reason. The reason there are still wars is not the oil or the politicians, or the economic interests, or the borders or the religion. There are wars because soldiers go to war. People go to war, you know the politicians or presidents wouldn’t go to war themselves, wouldn’t risk getting killed.

Veteran’s son: You are pissing me off, I’m gonna break your neck.  


Bruno: Alright good man, come on punch me. You’re just gonna prove how retarded you are. Can’t have a serious discussion, can’t win an argument so have to resort to violence.That’s very mature.

Veteran’s son: I’m gonna kill you.

Bruno: Go ahead. You are no better than those soldiers. You kill because you lose an argument. So come on go ahead and prove everyone how intellectually inferior you are. Show me your big muscles, big boy. Grrrrr. Guess what, your father was a piece of shit and so are you for thinking violence solves anything.

Veteran’s son: …

 

About putting yourself out there

Why don’t you like Japan anymore?

Because people I’ve met there have no empathy and are oblivious to everything around them, makes me think it’s exactly the opposite I’m looking for.

Is that the reason you don’t watch anime anymore?

Oh, about that, I also don’t watch movies or anything else anymore either. Don’t feel the need to be entertained anymore and value my real life too much to waste it sitting in front a computer screen the whole day. So no more video games either.

Makes perfect sense, and it’s quite surprising actually, as most people I know still feel the need to be “entertained” by games, movies, tv shows, etc

I used to play Monster Hunter a lot, loved the part of gathering ingredients and materials, digging, climbing drilling and just seeing what you find, heading out
there and hoping for the best, plating the seeds and growing lots of food for your cats to make meals for you, yeah you make get eaten up by a dinosaur sometimes but it was totally worth it! so now I would rather go gathering to the forest or to the beach nearby where I am, scavenging and getting lost.
Monster Hunter is based on a prehistoric world but the countries I live in, New Zealand, south-east Asia are actually not so different from those prehistoric worlds.

Used to play lots of final fantasy when I was in Argentina, dreaming of this mysterious new places, being an adventurer, doing every day something new and meeting
new characters every day, that was the life I was dreaming of, and now is the life I have, what else could be better?

When I was at Simon’s place last week they always asked me what was I looking forward to, and I always said nothing, this is it, this is as good as it gets for me.
And developing relationships with those people you meet like in the game Persona, and letting them join you on your travels like in Suikoden, and getting scared while exploring your city at night like in silent hill and going dancing on the streets like in Audition, Bust A Move, Miku Hatsune. In Taipei is very easy to join the street dancers near SYS Memorial Hall, and in Osaka, they get together in Namba.

Possibilities are endless once you get off the couch and leave your place, I realized getting out there has countless benefits.
Once you are out of your house you get adventures x10, out of your city is another x10 and out of your country is another x10, that’s x1000 more adventure chances
just for leaving your confort zone, just for being out there, now if you’re actually looking for adventures you get even more bonuses, you get a x20 if you start talking to strangers everywhere, a +5 if you’re wearing something cool, a x10 if you sign up for random jobs or courses, another +7 if you carry an animal companion with you, another +30 if you learn to use Couchsurfing, meetup and other websites for getting together with people.

There’s no limit to it, really.

About a warrior

Driver: Where ya heading mate?

Me: Heading far towards the horizon, where the forest meets the sea, where the light fades away and only shadows shape the landscape.

Driver: Whatever, jump in.

Me: You have my gratitude and therefore shall be rewarded for your troubles.

Driver: Where are you from?

Me: From the forgotten territories.

Driver: Where’s that?

Me: It’s a different world, full of thieves, dwarfs, magicians, and assassins

Driver: And what brings you to New Zealand?

Me: Nothing but the unrelenting quest of a warrior’s true path.

Driver: Are you a warrior?

Me: A warrior I am indeed.

Driver: Yes you are.

 

Forgot some stuff

 

What did you do today?

Just watched some movies

Movies? Really?

Yes, 2 movies.

Was that it?

Yes, why?

Well, that means you forgot the cardio, forgot to build strength, forgot the meditation, forgot to train your brain with some equations, forgot to improve your creativity, to eat some fruits, forgot to tell your friends you love them, forgot to go for a walk to clear your thoughts, forgot to write on your diary, forgot to visit a new place, forgot to learn a new language, Bruno forgot so many things!

Yeah, I was planning to do those after the movie.

I don’t believe you.

It’s true! look, I even wrote it on my calendar:

8 am: watch the new rurouni kenshin movie

10 am:  watch monoke hime (again)

1 pm: going for a run

2 pm: doing 50 pull-ups (or more)

3 pm: vipassana meditation

4 pm: solve for x

5 pm: paint a free representation of a yet undiscovered world resting inside the mountain (and his inhabitants)

6 pm: tell Taiwanese people you love them

7 pm: eat 10 fruits

8 pm: go for a walk around Lake Matheson or lake mapourika (you get to choose)

10 pm: write the story of a stray puppy in your diary

11 pm: hitching a ride across a transatlantic heading towards eastern island (?)

Sometime after that: learn the islander’s language, maybe.

A glorious day

 

about 30

 

Man, I’m almost 30.

You’re not even 29.

Almost 30 is terrible!

Why?

Well, I’ve been wasting my life. I don’t want to turn 30 and realize I’ve never cycled around South America, never took the Trans-Siberian across Russia, never climbed Kilimanjaro, never saw the northern lights.

That’s crazy, what have you been doing with your life?

I don’t know, time just slept away somehow.

Just like that?

Yeah, I don’t know what happened!

It’s not too late you know.

I know, but still…

There’s still time!

Evolution of hitchhiking

 

Shall we use a sign?

Signs are for beginners, we are pros now!

We don’t need one?

When we started hitchhiking we used signs because we were shy, we didn’t know what to do or where to stand and wanted the sign to do the job for us.

And now?

Now we are pros, we don’t need a sign, or a backpack to look like backpackers, or a map to show our driver where we’re going or a compass, nor we need those books and glasses we used to carry around while hitchhiking to pretend we were harmless students.

So what do we need now?

A drink of course.

You mean an alcoholic drink?

Not necessarily, any drink would do it, sometimes even a fruit or vegetable, carrot, and apple especially because they are not messy to eat.

And how to do it now?

Drink in right hand, left thumb up facing the cars you want to stop.

That’s it?

That’s the magic of it you see, same as at a party, the drink conveys the message that you are very relaxed and they should pick you up because you are awesome.

Or drunk.

Either way.

About Ariel

 

Probably no other moment had a greater impact on my life as those 10 seconds when I was walking around the pedestrian street in Rosario, Argentina and saw a familiar face walking towards me.

It was Ariel Gutierrez, he was listening to some song with his headphones but he wasn’t just singing along, he was shouting the song, so loud everyone was staring and creating an opening for him to walk through as they thought he was just some crazy person screaming on the street.

But I knew him, I knew he wasn’t crazy; he was just special, like me.

And he didn’t care that everyone was looking at him or that they thought him crazy. He kept walking and singing and smiling and doing a little dance.

And I thought that’s the person I want to be, I used to admire him.

I thought I want to be happy and sing without caring what others would think.

I want them to know I’m special too and they should open the way for me because I’m also coming through and don’t care if they think me crazy.

I’m coming through anyway.

Note: Ariel Gutierrez was my best friend for a while, someone I would tell everything and trust with my life, then we fought because of some silliness and never saw each other again. He was probably also the reason I stopped eating meat. And I used to have a crush on his sister, who also had a crush on me, but nothing ever happened because I was 17 and scared of talking to girls, and she was also afraid of talking to guys, so we never talked, just blushed and giggled nervously.

Another day in NZ

 

Someone’s hiding in the dark

 

I’m always hiding in the bushes at night. Hiding from the people and the police because I find it sickening the fact that I live in a society that has to pay for sleeping, and frowns upon those who refuse to do so.

Often wondering if there are others like me out there, people hiding, in the same city, maybe in a nearby bush, people who are also wondering if there are others like them.

Probably there aren’t. Well, there are millions in poor countries like India, but those are people who don’t have a choice, so I don’t really feel as they are the same as me. Because I do have a choice, I do have a bit of money to pay for rent or for a hotel, and even if I didn’t, I know few of hundred people that would let me crash in their couch.

But still I choose to sleep on the street or hide because it’s my nature. Because it’s something I seek instinctively. When I’m just walking around somewhere I always keep an eye out for places to sleep, where I would be concealed from people, protected from the elements and the wildlife, where I can have a good night sleep.

And it’s not about the money anymore, it’s not about saving money it’s about doing what I feel like doing and about being by myself, because most days I don’t feel like socializing and talking to people, most days I just feel like walking around during the day searching or gathering food, and find a shelter for the night.

That’s what feels right, my body wasn’t designed to sit and play league of legends for 14 hours straight, it was designed to look for food and shelter, to survive the cold, the night, the predators (now we call them police), to adapt and thrive in a hostile environment.

It just feels right somehow.

 

About rainbows

These days I saw lots of rainbows in the glacier, because it rains every day, and was thinking what did our ancestors think about rainbows? and northern lights? and earthquakes? And those fireballs in Laos?

They should have been so confused!

I wonder if they were humble enough to admit they hadn’t the vaguest idea what they were, or maybe they just rushed to attribute them to some supernatural source, because hey, they were always high right?

Or maybe they weren’t, I’m not an anthropologist but I suspect they were always eating some hallucinogenic roots or mushrooms or fermenting some strange alcohol, because why else would they invent all this crazy stories and rules, gods, sacrifices, they had to be like really high 24/7, right?

Humans just started recording history accurately around 100 years ago, before that we have some sort of idea what was going on, but there’s lots of guesswork involved, like with the voynich manuscript, we understand there are some drawings of some plant and its parts, some recipes, and the rest is just speculations, hundreds and hundreds of pages of sweet speculation.

 

Whatever 17

 

Why do you always talk to yourself?

Because I’m crazy?

You are peculiar. We agreed not to use the C word, remember?

Ok, then because I’m peculiar.

And why is that?

Because I’m not good with people

And you know why?

Because I’m different somehow?

We are all different in some ways.

But I’m special.

In which way?

In the way that I enjoy conversations with myself more than with other people.

And why is that?

I’m not sure, maybe because I get to ask myself the right questions and challenge them, like a psychologist would.

And maybe also so that you don’t need to put the effort to get to know, interact and understand other people?

Maybe, but this way seems to work alright, so why should I change it?

Because people need you, they need to be in touch, they need to understand you

People know me too well already, they know I say what I want and I do what I want. They understand I’m not so good with people that’s why I talk to myself.

But some people need you to take a break from talking to yourself and talk to them also, they need attention.

They are old enough already, they don’t need me at all.

It’s got nothing to do with age, they need to know you are there for them; they need to know you care.

They know that already, people who read this know more or less where to find me, they know how to contact me and they know if they ever need anything I’ll be there for them. But I can’t keep in touch daily  because I’m always traveling and internet is a luxury in NZ.

They know that, but they think when you do contact them you could try to be nicer to them.

I’ll try to be nicer then.

But not in a condescending way.

I know, I know.

You’re not better than anyone else and you know that.

I know! And I’ve never implied I was, I know I’m a prick sometimes, but I’m trying to change that.

Thank you for your honesty.

I’m glad we understand each other, I need you, you know.

I know, you need me to tell you the truth and broaden your perspective of events and people around you.

And to be there for me.

Alright, you’re not getting emotional, are you?

Never.

At least 50 times a day.

You’re right, who am I kidding. I love you man.

Have a good night.

Whatever

backpacker hotels in new zealand

Why dont you want to stay at the backpackers’ hotel like all the other foreigners in new Zealand?

Because they are lame.

But it’s the norm, young travelers here are expected to stay at the backpackers’ hotel, didn’t you hear?

Actually, I did hear it, and it’s still lame. I’m not gonna pay for sleeping, at least not for sleeping in a filthy crowded place, for that I can just sleep on the street. When one pays for a hotel, one pays for privacy, if you’re not gonna get that why paying in the first place?

As I said, social conventions dictate that they HAVE to stay at the hostel, share the room with many people, and socialize with them, of course.

That’s nonsense, I don’t want to socialize! |What am I supposed to talk about with all these people?

I don’t know, you’ll think of something.

And what if I can’t afford it?

In that case you borrow money from someone and stay there any way.

Crazy, do you even know how expensive those places are?

Yeah, anything between 20 and 35 dollars for a dorm room depending on the city.

Alright let’s say its 30, that’s almost a thousand dollars a month for a dorm room, it’s just too much.

Well, you’re not in Asia anymore.

Regardless of the country, let’s say it costs 25 per night, and they have 15 rooms with 4 beds each, that’s more than 40.000 net profit a month and they don’t pay taxes, they give you no invoice, they don’t pay their employees because they always have someone working for accommodation, they charge you for things that are provided free in any other country, like internet and towels. There’s is not a single hostel or backpackers hotel in New Zealand that provides free internet and that’s like the very basic thing they should provide for travelers, well besides the bed of course.

How do you know so much about this places if you don’t use them?

Alright, alright, I did go to one in Auckland when just arrived in New Zealand, they said it was 32 dollars and then they said it was 5 more per day if I wanted internet.

Yes, they are a bit overpriced, but I think most people who stay there don’t really pay for the bed, but for the experience, they get to meet many people in a very very short amount of time.

Like speed dating.

Exactly like speed dating, you know they are young, they are on holidays and they want to have fun. What is 30 dollars if you can meet 20 people of the opposite sex in a relaxed environment and enjoy the sexy time with some of them?

I see. So they pay to hook up. That means I’ve been doing it wrong all this time.

It’s ok, you didn’t know. You thought they were just paying for a place to stay because they are rich and too good to sleep on the streets.

Well, whatever. I’m not all that into promiscuity anyway.

And you don’t have to, you can also meet that special someone there and you know you can actually find so many free stuff there. Things people left behind, like tents, sleeping bags, laptops, lots of clothes and gadgets.

Who would leave their laptop behind?

They just forget them or get tired of carrying them around so they leave them there.

So if I pay 30 I can get a girl, new clothes, a tent and a laptop?

And more, sometimes people leave behind food and shoes.

Food, girl and laptop? Really?

Really.

But still, 30 dollars, oh man.

You could always sneak in, worse case scenario they kick you out, they’re not gonna call the police, doors are always open and the staff doesn’t know most of the people staying there.

You and me? Sneaking in together?

Yeah, and him.

Him too?

Yes.

Alright, this trio could work!

 

 

 

To be continued…

 

 

 

About Vanuatu and my life

The other day I got picked up in a van that was carrying 10 people from a country called Vanuatu, which I’ve actually never heard of before. I felt like I was back in Asia when they started playing this party music very loud and singing along.

They said that in Vanuatu, they can’t leave someone on the street, so when they see someone hitchhiking they HAVE to pick him up, because of their upbringing they can’t choose not picking him up.

When they see someone without a place to sleep they have to take him in. That reminded me of some other experiences I had in other countries, like getting denied service at some hotels in China for being a foreigner. Being harassed by Japanese and Australian police, being robbed at gunpoint in Argentina and many more. Man! While in Japan, I met so many people that would just only not help you out, but they would actually go way out of their way to make your my life more troublesome.

The night went on and after the ride, they invited me to stay at their place, I found they were living in dorms with 60 people from Vanuatu and in that village, there were 400 of them. I found that they lived in precarious conditions and got exploited by some kiwi landlord and contractor, same as me when I just arrived in NZ. They didn’t have internet or phones, but they were so happy.

Of course, they shared their food and drinks with me. The special drink from Vanuatu is called cava. It’s not alcoholic but they extract it from some kind of root, it makes them very relaxed and calm, like smoking week, they said its like drinking weed.

When I tasted it, it was just terrible, terrible taste, so I asked them why dont they put some sugar on it to make it taste drinkable, they said noooo and they laughed at me, but for me it was just the logical thing to do because that thing tasted so bad, like vodka. I don’t understand how people can drink vodka, tequila, sake, soju by itself, it’s just disgusting.

There are many many Pacific Islanders here in New Zealand, picking fruits and doing farm work, and I remember that before I went to Korea, I had had the chance of visiting many other countries, but after living in Korea for 9 months, I thought Korean people were the nicest people I had met. Then I moved to Taiwan and changed my mind, Taiwanese were by far the best.

Now, if I had to make a chart with the most hospitable people I’ve met it’d be something like this:

1- Pacific Islanders (Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu, Fiji, Cook, etc)
2- Muslims
3- Taiwanese
4- Korean
5- Others

And still many people ask me if I miss Argentina or if I plan to go back there. I always say I don’t know, but what I actually want to say “probably no, or maybe just on holidays” but that’s a very cold answer, people don’t like cold answers even though they are honest. They want a warm, fake answer. A reassuring lie instead of an honest truth.

The thing is, that  I’ve been to just so many other amazing places, places where I felt welcomed. Places where I don’t need to live in fear of thieves, guns, and corrupted police. Places where not everyone’s out to get me. Places where I can go out at night without worrying about coming back alive. I can find a job and don’t need to constantly look over my shoulder to make sure no one is following me to kill me or mug me.

Tourists keep going on and on about how marvelous a place Argentina is, well, of course, it is if you go with foreign money that is worth like 5 times more there and you stay for just a few weeks or a few months, but if you have to live and work there, oh man!

And after I say I don’t know if I’ll ever go back there, they ask me “and what about your family?” The answer I usually give is that they are alright and we manage to keep in touch online, but what I actually  mean to say is that my family will have to understand that their son, nephew, grandson, etc, is happy somewhere else and that is not because of them, is because of me.

Traveling is not just something I do, is part of who I am.

Something I have to do for myself and has nothing to do with anyone else.

And me leaving argentina had nothing to do with them either, it was just something that needed to be done.

The reason I chose to live at the edge of the knife, to jump from the bridge to the cargo train instead of running behind it and hopping on the last wagon. Digging a hole in the ground to sleep and swimming to the other side instead of taking the ferry is that I actually enjoy the thrill of the fight. I enjoy the challenge. The hardships. It makes me feel alive and somehow happy. But hey that sounds just so dramatic, doesn’t it? Sorry about that, here’s a rainbow~

No1

The first Korean song I heard, was probably Valenti or no1 by BOA which was not really Korean, but probably Japanese, because she is Korean but sings in Japanese for some reason.

I heard it by accident because it was part of the song selection of the game pump it up that we were playing every day, and I thought, whoa, what is this fresh sound, so easy to listen, so, just so bubbly and cheerful, there was so much, I didn’t know about the world yet.

Now it’s been, I don’t know 5 or 10 years I dont play pump, but whoa, we had so much fun with boa, novasonic, mozart, djdoc, the songs sounded so crazy, some songs it was just people shouting random words we didn’t even understand, but we still danced and jumped like monkeys.

Probably it wasn’t the game though, or the songs it was just a reason to get together, to do something fun and meet new people, well not really, we met the same people every day but that was cool because we were there and BOA was singing and there was always a crowd around us and we felt like superstars even though we were teenagers and had no idea what we were doing.

About the christian family

As I said yesterday, I will try to post more about daily life stuff.

When I was approached by these people from the Christian religion I talked about int he last post, I was a bit scared, because by stating your religion as soon as you first meet someone you’re establishing a difference between the 2 of you and bringing up a subject that is likely to make the other person feel uncomfortable.

If I were in the US, I’d be afraid that the person talking me about Christianity is a gun freak that has just voted for Bush and hates me for being a foreigner, but in New Zealand religion usually means good news, at least for me.

Families here have at least 10 children, one family had 11, and it really helped to see how happy all these children were, they were all running around, playing and having fun. and the parents seem to really care about them.

When I came home with them, they told me the children were all being home-schooled, and they all learn some trade, electricity, carpentry, etc by the age of 20. That’s when I thought how I wish my parents had cared that much for me, and had taught me a trade when I was young.

A night at burger king

23/6/2013

I have decided to talk a bit less politics and talk more about my daily life, feelings and thoughts. Of course, sometimes I feel down and a bit worthless like most people do, but then I think about it and realize I’m actually really lucky and most people reasonably envy my lifestyle.

It’s unique and strange, but quite interesting also, because I chose to live without using money, or using way less than everyone else, I’m usually in different countries or different cities within a country, try to live in the moment and learn something new every day.

I know what you’re thinking, living without money = freeloader, but actually is not like that, not at all! But more about that later.

Also, I meet many new people every day and learn from them as well

Yesterday it was Saturday, the 22nd, I was stuck without a place to sleep, as usual. Well not as usual, but it does happen a few times a week.

And as I cant pay money for accommodation for reason I will also explain later, my options are usually 4, Couchsurfing, knocking on the door, finding some other place (abandoned building, car, empty room) or sleeping in the bush

Yesterday I got stood up by my CS host after waiting for 5 hours int he cold, so gave up on that one, it was way too cold to sleep on the bush and I knew it would have been quite dangerous as it was literally as cold as it gets in New Zealand. very windy and dry air that making it hard to breathe.

So I found a burger king along the highway, got in and asked them what time do they close, hoping they would stay open all night, and I could have just stayed there and sleep during the day in some park.

They said they close at midnight, and I thought “oh man, I am fucked in the ass” as there was nothing else around, it was 8 pm, so I said well at least I still have 4 hours off the cold.

Sitting on a stool for 2 hours, thinking and dreaming. 3 other guys were sitting at a nearby table, looking at me.

I thought, hey, how nice would it if they invited me to stay at their place, but then I thought ufff, they actually don’t look so friendly and I would have to socialize, and then we would find all the things we don’t have in common. But hey, what the hell, is that or having no sleep. I knew I would have to walk all night long because its hard to knock on people doors after midnight, people are scared and with reason, and that’s providing I could even find their houses in the darkness.

Anyway, the 3 guys left and I switched to imagining a different random scenario.

I imagined there was a big group of about 50 people, mostly teenagers, and a few adults, like 5. I noticed that many of them were heavily over weighted, so I instantly thought they were Australians on a school trip, but hey at a random burger king on the highway, at 11.30 pm, no that’s not possible, its past their bed time.

Reality didn’t care about what I think, 6 of them sat on my table and the adult in charge of them stroke a conversation.

“Hey man, where are you from?” He asked.

“I’m from Argentina.” I quickly replied.

He seemed a bit confused that I was the only person there and had no food on my table, so he asked: “Are you waiting for your food?”

I said: “Well… not really, it’s a bit cold outside so I was just hanging around.” I found that many people laugh when I say a bit cold, because actually is terribly cold.

I was aware of the fact I have this homeless vibe around me, with the beard, greasy hair, tired eyes, wearing lots of clothes and a filthy sleeping bag next to me, so he asked: “Have you got nowhere to stay?”

This is my chance, I thought, and said: “Yeah, I’m just waiting for that to… to come along.” He said I could stay at his mate’s place, one of the guys who was ordering burguers there with them.

That’d be awesome. I thought, but decided to go a bit japanesy about it and politely refuse. I said: “No, don’t worry. I don’t want to cause any trouble.”

“There’s no trouble.” He said. “Come and stay with us.” So I said: ‘”Are you sure?” He said of course and we kept talking, He mentioned they were from a Christian church and on their way home from some inter-churches school event. When he said that I thought ‘oh man, religion? what am I getting myself into’.

Then he said: “I don’t believe in religions, but have you heard of Jesus Christ?” I said: “Yes.” While reminding myself choices were thin on the ground.

Soon after that I found myself in a van surrounded by 10 kids ages 10 to 16, screaming around about who score more goals on the game they had just played. While they were shouting, I started calculating the odds of what had just happened, and came up with a kind of drake equation for it, some of the variables included a number of sports events they participated yearly for the ones they had to leave their city for, the amount of children that played, the amount of nights I find myself sitting in a fast food restaurant in the middle of nowhere before they close, and some of the constants were the number of fast food restaurants along the highway, the number of tables on this one, the number of adults, etc, and then I lost count, but well there were like 15 tables, more than 100 seats there, and just a few adults, chances one of them sitting next to me was easily 100 to 1, and while calculating that, and some kids staring at me, I thought to myself ‘this night took an unexpected turn’.

Now is the morning after. I had a great night sleep in a warm bed with clean sheets, a nice breakfast, a hot shower, and it was the time to face what I was most afraid of since meeting them. They said they were going to church and would you like me to come along, so I politely explained to them I was not really into religion and felt a bit uncomfortable going to church. I thanked them for everything and said I would be on my way and may try to make it to Queenstownn before nightfall.

They said: “Oh its alright, you can stay another night if you want to, you dont need to come to church.”

I said cool and now is almost noon, I’m typing this while they are in church, used the first hour to clean the kitchen and to do all the dished of the dozen children who had breakfast before leaving, so now can sit on the computer without feeling guilty.

True story.

 

The cities where people have no souls

 

“I don’t want to go to Auckland.” People usually say. If I ask them why not, they say people have no souls there, and I’m like “What?”

Just like the Sidney of Australia, it’s just not a nice place to be, or at least that’s what people say.

Everyone hates Sydney, everyone hates Auckland, and those who live there always complain and dream about moving to Wellington or Melbourne, you know the cool places, where all the cool kids go, you know those who smoke weed, wear hoodies and play in a band.

Auckland and Sydney, in the other hand, are where your boring old cousin lives, you know the accountant who works at a bank, watches tv, plans his holidays one year in advance and is always complaining about how he has to wait too long in traffic. The one who hates his life and goes knocking on his neighbor door because their music is too loud. They are trapped in the routine of a mundane 9 to 5 job, secretly jealous of his reckless cousin who lives a relaxed life in Melbourne or Wellington, yet they don’t seem to have to courage to change his life, and would never admit they want to anyway.

For me though, as a foreigner in Australia and New Zealand, I don’t really care much about neither of those cities and if I were a city I’d probably be Perth.

No one really cares much about Perth, its just there. Isolated. Far from everything, not many people get there because it’s just too far and there’s really nothing there.

Perth is like that cousin of yours who moved to other continent decades ago, and no one has heard much about him since.

They know he’s there somewhere, far away, they know he’s alright, minding his own business and without causing much trouble.

They know he is happy living life on his own, in his own world, in his cloud, with his dreams which are totally different from everyone else’s.

He doesn’t want to be an office worker in Sydney but doesn’t care much about those hippies from Melbourne either, he just wants to be left alone.

Not a leader nor a follower. Neither too cool or too boring. Perth is the place to be for those of us who don’t really fit anywhere else.

Perth doesn’t try to look cool, or impress you and doesn’t care about his big brothers.

Perth is just there.

About the bus

 

Let’s take the bus!

Na, I’d rather walk.

Why is that?

I just don’t like the bus.

What, are you too good to use public transport?

No, I’m just too poor to use it. It costs a lot, so as long as I have feet I’ll walk, run or ride the bicycle. If I ever get my legs cut off, I’ll then maybe… take the bus or the train.

But do you know how far is it?

Yes, it takes 4 hours walking from here.

How can you walk so much?

That’s because I don’t see walking as a waste of time like most people do. For me it’s nice. I get time for me. Time to think, it saves me money, I get exercise, I meet people, I find stuff on the way, I discover new parts of the city, what could be better?

With the bus, I have to spend money, which I don’t have and spend so much time sitting, which I don’t like. Sitting is the worse, also as with most other posts, the idea for this post came up while walking alone aimlessly.

Best ideas come when you are walking alone, without music, without distractions, just you and the road.

In the bus there’s always people bothering me, they want to hug me, or take a picture with me.

It’s actually quite tough being famous because sometimes you just don’t want to talk to people and smile and be polite, sometimes you just want to be left alone.

Sometimes you just want to walk, at night, through the park, thinking of rainbow dash, or thinking of a girl you used to know, thinking of what kind of bird it is the one that’s singing that beautiful song you hear in your mind while you’re making spaghetti, that songs that goes something like this “totororototo totorororo

totorororo tororototo tororoto tororoto rotototo tororo tototo”.

That guy

 

What happened to that guy?

Which guy?

You know, “that guy”?

Which one?

You know, that guy who carried a notebook with him on the train, sat across a cute girl and started writing something, when she looked at him, he blushed and shyly looked down, what happened to that guy who was always doing the Naruto hand signs, carrying Pokemon cards everywhere just in case he finds a challenger, that guy who got all the weapons, cards, summons, materias in all the final fantasy games, used to try to transform into super sayan daily and was afraid of talking to strangers, what happened to that guy?

I don’t know he moved on I guess.

oh, alright then.

About pull ups / chin ups

 

Today is a special day, the most special day this year. Today is the day I made it to 25.

25 pull-ups in a row.

That was actually my goal last year but something happened and I made it this year instead.

What’s so special about pull-ups you ask, well nothing really, it’s just my way of feeling better about myself.

As that’s pretty much all I have, not gonna win an Oscar anytime soon, I have no money, no friends, no job, no girlfriend, no house, been sleeping in a tent for over a month now.

I’m technically a failure in every possible way, pull-ups are all I have to feel good about myself. Something I can say I’m good at.

As I’ve never crossed paths with someone who could do 25 pulls ups in a row before, some guys I’ve met could do 10, but that was it.

Everyone you meet is better than you at something, and I want to be better at something also, I want to feel healthy, I want to feel strong, want to feel proud of myself.

Pull-ups are the best because you don’t need to go to the gym, just need to find a tree or some stairs, they are like the squats of the upper body, if you are jogging and stop for pull-ups they will give you that push you need to continue jogging a while longer and if you are cold or lonely and stop for pull-ups you’ll get warm immediately.

Pull-ups are the single best thing for those of us who need to fill their empty and meaningless lives with a false sense of achievement that would help them sleep at night and make it through another day of immeasurable solitude.

From here and from there

 

Where are you from?

I don’t know, from here, I guess. From everywhere.

What do you mean?

Just can’t limit myself to a town or a country or a planet or a solar system, or a galaxy. I’m one with the universe because the atoms in my body originated

in the stars. I’m made of star dust and when I die I’ll go back to the stars. I feel one with every person, with every animal, plant, with every inanimate object, they are me and I am them. Can’t say I’m from here or from there because I’m from everywhere. The countries have been here for very short a time but a part of me has been here for billions of years already. A sense of unity, it’s just beautiful.

Are you high?

Yes.

About Tommy

 

Tommy, is a aJpanese pop/rock/punk singer I used to be obsessed with some years ago.

Kawase Tomoko, used to be the lead singer of the brilliant green, then went solo, got another band, then went back with the brilliant green. She’s not sooo popular, but most people in Japan would know some of her songs.

First time I heard her songs, I thought they sounded so cute, a new sound, like nothing I had heard before.

I got even more into her after watching some of her concerts, mostly because of her stage presence, she looks just too awkward on stage, like she doesn’t know what she’s doing or like she doesn’t want to be there at all

It’s like she doesn’t care about the audience at all and that’s actually quite awesome, considering most Japanese singers always suck up to their audiences

And some rock singers pretend they don’t care but their body language betrays them and you can tell they actually really care

Tommy has a nice voice but always sings like she’s annoyed and doesn’t really want to sing. It’s strange but that’s also what makes her special. I don’t really know why I like her so much, but I’m am glad I do, because she makes me feel stuff I wouldn’t be able to feel otherwise, endorphin, adrenaline, oxytocin, I don’t know, just that rush you feel when you are in love, makes you invincible

May she be the reason I like older woman? Probably not, as she doesn’t really looks her age and appears to be quite childish and immature.

Or maybe I like her because she looks like she’s got even more issues than me.

Or her attitude, she’s always like “ufff” and i’m like “ufff” and wonder why she’s like “ufff”, then she coughs, sighs and yawns on stage, most times she just looks down and I wonder why she does that.

What is it that’s annoying her so much? Why is she so bored on stage?

Why is she singing if she doesn’t want to sin?

I don’t know but maybe apathy is the new sexy?

Probably not

Some day

Someday I will be the one throwing coins into the fountain instead of

being the one picking them up.

Someday I’ll be the one driving people around instead of asking for a lift.

I’ll be the one providing food instead of asking for it.

I’ll be the one who can look after and mentor other people.

I’ll be the one dumping food instead of dumpster diving.

Ok, no, that’s wrong, I shouldn’t throw food away.

How about this:

Someday I’ll be the one growing food instead of scavenging for it.

That’s better.

Someday I’ll be the one stealing the pot from the fish.

Ok that’s also wrong.

Or maybe not so wrong?

Well, I’m not sure

I know the Chinese fish for example, they just want to gamble.

They don’t care about equity, just want the rush of playing.

So it’s actually not so wrong, as you are giving them what they want.

An experience.

And isn’t that what life’s all about anyway, experiences, enjoying the ride, going all in and having fun.

Why do we have to worry about implied odds, rakeback, bankroll, cheap showdown, collision, etc. The fish doesn’t worry about anything, they just play for fun

They have other sources of income so they can afford to go all in with a low hand.

Some day I’ll be a fish.

Just so that it’s out there

If my memory doesn’t fail me I think I was 14 when I learned that second-hand smoke was actually much more harmful than smoking yourself.

Then I realized my mother had smoked inside the house, next to me for as long as I had memory.

She would bring all her friends home and they will all smoke nonstop next to me while I was in developing age to make sure I wouldn’t grow healthy and that I had respiratory and growth problems.

For the record, we are not talking about 1950’s farmers who just don’t know any better, we are talking about educated people in the big city during the 90’s, people who are very aware of the dangers of smoking for themselves and for others, especially for children.

Yet she just didn’t care and spent almost 20 years smoking in front of me at every chance she had, even though she knew I had asthma, and that was the single worst thing she could do to me.

So of course when I was old enough to understand what was going on around me,

I confronted her and asked her to stop. Not just for me but for herself and everyone around her.

What was her answer? Crying and screaming as if I was a criminal for asking her to quit. Saying that’s not so bad and she didn’t drink alcohol, so she had to smoke.

I’ve always wondered, what kind of logic was that? The fact that one doesn’t drink allows you to ruin other people lives, and be a pain for everyone around you?

It keeps showing up in my nightmares sometimes, her long curly hair, shaking nervously and shouting hysterically while holding a cigarette called “derby”.

Then she would cry and get violent, say she didn’t have money, while everyone told her, maybe if you stopped spending it all on that vice of yours, to what she replied “It’s my only pleasure in life.”

Anyway, the years went by, asked her time and time again to quit, she didn’t listen, sometimes said she would but never did.

When I was old enough, started taking the cigarettes away from her, as if she was a child, she would again cry and try to hide them somewhere so that I couldn’t find them.

Crazy, right? Or maybe I’m crazy for thinking smoking is bad.

Or for asking my mother to do something for me.

Or for trying to take care of her.

Or for trying to do the right thing.

Or for trying to change her.

It’s been more than 10 years since then and till now I haven’t had a single friend who was a smoker.

Met a few people here and there, but always avoided them and stayed away from them.

So if you’re a smoker and you’re reading this

I know you guys are just trying to look cool or something.

Maybe your excuse is that you are addicted or that all your friends smoke.

Maybe your excuse is that you have always smoked or that you don’t drink so you have to smoke.

You probably hate non-smokers and don’t care what I think.

But now it’s out there.

I’ve had to take your smoke for almost 20 years.

I’ve said what I think of you people.

Now all that’s left is asking you to stay away from me.

Take your carcinogenic fumes somewhere else.

Because I’ve had enough of them.

And I’ve had enough of you.

About the pimsleur language program

What is pimsleur?

Is the reason why I can speak many languages.

But what is it?

An audio language learning program.

Is it free?

Of course.

How to get it?

First download torrent, go to the pirate bay and type pimsleur + the language you want to learn on the search bar, so if you want to learn Turkish, you want to type: pimsleur turkish, order the results by the number of seeders and open the ones who have more seeders with utorrent.

Is there pimsleur for every language?

Couple dozen

How many languages have you used it for?

So far portuguese, italian, french, german, japanese, korean and chinese.

How many lessons for each language?

There are 90 lessons for each language that would cover all the basics of grammar, sentence structure, vocabulary, some culture notes and if you finish the 90 lessons you can get by on the language you are learning, then you just need to practice and use the vocab you learned.

How good is it compared to other language learning programs?

Pimsleur is a very systematic, very structured method, it gives you tons of very basic vocab and forces you to speak out and make sentences. There’s no slang at all so it’s like learning from a textbook, you will learn to use a very neutral version of the language with a very neutral accent.
After you finish pimsleur I’d strongly recommend you to complement it with the 101series, chinese101, korean101, spanish101, and so on. They are great for learning slang and really useful vocabulary and expression that you wouldn’t find on a textbook, the 101 series are usually ongoing so it never finishes, as there is always new stuff to learn.

And once you’re proficient in the language you are studying I’d recommend you the “in flight” series paired up with some word list, for vocabulary building. to download the 101, in flight, and word list is the same as for pimsleur: torrent, pirate bay, order by seeders, open with torrent.

Are you still using pimsleur these days?

No, because there was a problem with my last mp3 player.

What happened?

Well, it’s a long story actually, I’ve had 4 mp3 players in my life, first it was a red one I got in spain, that one just stopped working by itself, then there was a pink one I got in spain also in 2006, that one worked until 2009 and then also decided to stop working. Then, in china at school, our boss gave us a white one that was also mp4 player, problem was the storage was quite low so couldn’t put much inside, that one got a virus and then the screen cracked while it was in the bag. and the last one that I had been using since 2009 till now was also the best one. It was blue and had a lot of space, like 6gb and it was very light and stylishly small, it was perfect, and I loved it because it had been a gift from Kishi, so I had kept it in my pocket and used it regularly for almost 4 years.
but while in NZ few weeks ago I was reviewing some korean lessons while on the way back through the park and I stumbled upon a fountain.
I always check the fountains at the park because many times they have coins that have either grown by themselves from the bottom of the fountain or have been dropped by some birds who were transporting them somewhere.
So I forgot I had the mp3 player on my jacket pocket instead of the trouser’s pocket, as the one in the jacket is on the sides, so you can put your hands in while you walk, and that makes things fall also. The one in the trousers won’t let anything fall from it. So, what I did, I leaned in to grab the coins and forgot about the mp3 player, so it slipped off my jacket pocket and fell into the water, ruining my week, lost one of my precious possessions just for a few coins.
So stupid.

Who is Kishi?

Oh, very very cute chinese girl and very very sweet. We used to live together in China. she really loved me and treated my like a king.

What happened to her?

Nothing happened to her, she’s still in china.

Do you miss her?

Maybe a bit sometimes, I have ambivalent feelings about it actually. On one hand I know she was just perfect for me, On the other hand, she didn’t really like my lifestyle of traveling and moving around, she wanted to stay in China for some reason. And I couldn’t stay in china any longer, because well, I don’t know how to say this nicely, but It’s a shithole there.
I really loved her and if it had been any other country I’d had probably stayed with her, but not China.

But if you had really loved her you would have stayed with her anywhere, even China.

Have you even been to China?

No, just saying.

I thought we were talking about the pimsleur program.

This is more interesting.

I do think sometimes that I should have stayed there with her, but China… ufff.. it’s the worst country ever. I had eventually got used to the air pollution, and the spitting, and the noise, and the people.
But the smoking is just too much, in the elevator, in the cinema, on the bus, at school, hospital, office, everywhere on the streets and places to eat, every single place, it’s just too much.
I understand they are Chinese and everything, but it’s just too much.

Did you ask her to move to another country with you?

I begged her to, I wanted to take her anywhere, anywhere but china. And she said no, because she likes China and it’s her home.

That’s understandable, most people can’t even consider your lifestyle, they can’t just detach from everything and move somewhere else just because.

It’s not just because it was to be with me.

I know, but why she has to be the one to make the sacrifice of moving abroad and you can’t make the sacrifice of staying there.

That’s why I said, if it had been any other country I would have probably stayed, just not China, and probably not India either.

Have you been to all the countries in the world?

Of course not.

So you will find that there are many places even worse than China and India, in Africa for example. You should open your mind and be more open to different cultures, you should stay in China and make a life there with cute Kishi.

I know you say that because you have never been to China.

But it’s a big country and everywhere is different.

Slightly different, very slightly.

It’s not the same being in Hainan than in Tianjin, they have desserts, mountains, valleys, they have everything there.

It’s still China though.

I know but you said she got you an mp3 player and treated you like a king.

Still China.

China China China, yes, but the girl is more important.

And actually, if I hadn’t left I wouldn’t be writing this right now because the succession of events that lead to me getting a laptop and starting a blog happened BECAUSE I left china.

You don’t know maybe it would have happened anyway.

Maybe not, and you wouldn’t exist, so, me leaving China is actually the reason you exist, so you should be happy I left, and you should be proud of me for keeping moving forward instead of getting stuck in a place I hate.

I just want you to be happy and thought if the girl can make you happy the place shouldn’t mind so much.

Yes… but China… 😦

I know, I know, don’t worry, you don’t need to go back there ever again, ok?

Do you promise? 🙂

I promise.

And what about Kishi?

Well you know Kishi means river bank in Japanese, and in the river, there are many fishes, you will meet a fish that doesn’t need to be in china.

Well, either that or I just get myself a new mp3 player

Now we’re talking!

 

Living in Asia as a vegetarian 1

How to survive in south and far east asia as a vegan/vegetarian:

Japan:  Pretty tough. Fruits and veggies are crazy expensive, only affordable options are udon, katsu-udon but have to fish out some seafood from it, tempura, and foreign restaurants which cost at least twice as much as local ones. The only cheap supermarket is called “super tamade” where they sell lots of pre-cooked vegetarian options, and of course sushi, tempura, salads, at around 100 or 200 yen a tray. Hyaku-en, 100 yen shops are your best friends to find some salads, fruits, drinks, noodles and many other things. It’s pretty much same as a 7/11 but everything costs 100 yen. And as a last resource you can always throw away the inside thing of the onigiri and eat the rest.

Korea: Moderate. While eating out you have like 2 options, kimbab or bibimbab. While ordering kimbap make sure you say something like “ham bek chusaio” so they dont put ham on it. If you’re not vegan there’s always “Pizza school”, they are everywhere and you can get a huge pizza for 5.000 won. Street food is alright, there’s a fish-shaped pastry that has red beans inside and is pretty cheap, often you can find tempura and fried veggies. They have many chigae, which is like a stew or hot pot, sundobu chigae, or kimchi are good but you may have to take out some seafood from it.
Mr pizza could be the best value for money restaurant, they have salad buffet for 6.000 won, so all you can eat of salads, fruits, some cold noodles and other stuff.

China: Fairly easy. Fruits and veggies are dime a dozen and they are everywhere, options are plenty, rice and noodles with vegetables everywhere, beans, vegetable bbq at night. They use almost no dairy while cooking, so very easy for vegans.

Taiwan: Very easy. By far best vegetarian food in east Asia. Vegetarian restaurants everywhere, and most normal restaurants have at least a few vegetarian options. Great variety, affordable and extremely tasty. Even 7/11 are quite cheap and have fresh fruits and salads, noodles, vegetarian fried rice, vegetarian dumplings, fries, nuts, pastries, tofu and many other things.

Malaysia: Delicious Indian food, samosa, curries, roti, paratha, puri, chapati, many dosas, delicious Chinese vegetarian restaurants, delicious Malay food, some fried noodles, rice with veggies, lost of street food and fruits. From Penang, to Melaka, to Sabah, most dishes are delicious + juice bars + fruits everywhere.

Philippines: Probably worst food in SE Asia, there are some fruit markets and western food places, so it’s possible to kind of get by on a vegetarian diet.

Laos: Rice with veggies + fruits.

Singapore: Same as Malaysia, just more pricey.

Indonesia: Not as bad a Philippines, but local cuisine doesn’t have much to offer for vegetarians, there’s is gado gado and that’s pretty much it. You may find some Indian food in Bali if you’re lucky, but in Sumatra, Java or Borneo you’re going to eat your rice with veggies, every day + fruits 🙂