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.

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.

 

 

 

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.

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.

 

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 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

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.

 

 

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.

 

 

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.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

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*

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.)

 

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.

 

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!

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~

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.

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.

Your government is bad and you should feel bad

Today I was sitting in the park enjoying a relaxing day when a guy comes and starts smoking his cigarette near me while blowing the smoke in my direction of course.

It’s not the first time, and it’s not because I’m in Asia. Of course in Asia, everything gets intensified because there are more people, but I’ve been having that problem pretty much all my life everywhere.

Same happens when I ride my bicycle every day, you get all the motorbikes and cars in front of you blowing you their toxic fumes, and even though I try to be health conscious and live a healthy life, I have to breathe waste, because yeah, people have to drive cars, right? And people have to smoke in the park, right?

So, I leave the park, start walking, and again thinking who’s fault is it that I have to breath toxic gases every day. Is it the guy who smokes or drives the car? No, because they don’t think for themselves, they are a no more than a product of their environment.

The guy would have probably been smoking a grasshopper, it had been properly advertised and introduced into his environment, as for the guy who was driving a fossil fuel powered car, he would be definitely driving a solar or electric car if it was readily and conveniently available to him.

Is it the people who had educated them or lead them to think that making the air dirty and causing cancer to others and to themselves was the right thing to do? Was the person who sold them the car or tobacco? Was the one who produced it and allowed for its promotion and distribution? Yes of course they were but only to some degree, as for most of them, they are, same as the final consumer, just a product of poorly designed, poorly managed system.

A system where if I feed the poor it’s good, but if I ask why the poor have no food and how can we change that, they will call me a communist, or an anarchist, or n extremist, or tell me I’m against the government, well, of course, I’m against the government and so should you.

So should you if you care about any other person besides yourself, or if you care about the animals or the environment. because your government knows it’s idiotic that the world still runs on fossil fuel while we have so many other clean energy sources, It’s not like we have one or two, we have more than 10, hydrogen, solar, tidal, wave, nuclear fusion, hydroelectric, wind, geothermal, radiant energy, biomass, etc. and your government knows it, yet they don’t implement them.

I remember once while hitchhiking in Finland some 5 years ago, got picked up by a driver who was driving a water powered car, he had been working on it for 20 years and showed me the whole mechanism and how it worked.

It was very strange for me as I had never seen anything like that, so I asked him, of course, why doesn’t he share it with the world, so he told me the story about how they took his friend that had helped him develop it, and how all the people who develop renewable energy powered cars seem to just mysteriously vanish from the face of the earth. He told me stories of some famous Russians and North Americans who had been taken together with their inventions.

Of course, I didn’t believe him, so when I got home I googled everything and it seemed he was right, everyone who tried to share it had disappeared.

Back to the park though, I keep walking and what do I see? The same thing i see every day, lots of office buildings, and construction sites (where they are always building new office buildings), the area is called Nangang. The city, Taipei.

Have you ever wanted to sit in an office for 10 hours a day? No? Me neither, but that seems to be the Taiwanese dream right now, a business related job. If you have that job you are considered to be a successful person here.

Basically, most of the times, sitting in front of a computer, sending a few emails, making a few phone calls and doing some paperwork, and that is, in fact, the idea that Taiwanese have of a successful person.

It’s just a trend of course, and it changes every decade, before it was engineering, before that it was medicine and in 10 years it will be something different.

These people say they like money and they do it for the money, yet most of the times they barely make enough to survive. They don’t really have much money but in their mind is all money money money.

Of course I tried to tell these people to ride a bicycle instead of car, to stop smoking, that money doesn’t make people happy and that success is measured by how we interact and thrive within our environment,  instead of being measured by how we trash things up or by how much time we spend in an office causing  some trouble to others.

And what do I get for that? They look at me like I’m a lunatic and belong in a mental asylum or like I come from mars and speak the tongue of my people. Others will say “you just don’t understand the real world” or “that’s how the world works”.

“That’s just how the world works” it is, after all, just a phrase assholes use to justify doing awful things,  but what to say to these people who think they live in the “real world”? Well, it’s my world too, I also live in the real world and I’m tired of you and your government polluting the air I breathe, the water I drink and poisoning the food I eat.

Air and water are like the very basic thing you should be trying to protect, if not for you at least for your descendants. Instead of that, you are a thrashing machine. As soon as you wake up you make sure during the day you can cause as much pain and trouble to me and to your environment as possible.

First in your car when you go to work making my air dirty, then at work creating some sort of bureaucracy or paperwork to make my life more difficult while making sure you contribute to the waste of resources and the destruction of my planet in as many ways as you can.

Well, you know what people from Nangang? I’m sick and tired of you, and your office buildings and your cars,  and your construction workers building more offices and your factories building more cars.

And even though nobody living in Nangang is reading this right now, and that person smoking in the park was probably not even aware he was polluting my air, this post will remain here, on the internet, as a silent protest from a person who always feels like he has no voice in this profoundly sick community.

One that, for the record, I feel very ashamed of belonging to.

Ready to die 2

I’m still trying to wrap my head around the concept of death.

I learned that life is fragile, and unless you’re a very basic form of life, for most of us advanced organism with many cells and organs, there’s only one.

So we gotta make the most of it, right? Or does it even matter?

Life is so fragile that if a bus hits me while I’m crossing the street I will die and everything I did all these years will not matter at all.

Whether I build a space station or stay at home masturbating every day for 20 years will make no difference whatsoever, because I will close my eyes and will never open them again, pretty mind blowing right?

Now that’s not a valid excuse to stay at home masturbating I know if everyone thought like that we wouldn’t get anywhere, but it’s hard to know that all the things you’ve accumulated all these years will be gone.

I’m not talking about material things of course, but about knowledge and experience, all the things you’ve done and thing’s you’ve learned, the people you’ve met, gone just like that, the bus hits you and that’s it.

Maybe the bus doesn’t hit you, maybe it’s just a bicycle, it hits your chest and a rib punctures your heart, and you get some internal bleeding, or you step on something and break your neck. Our bodies are so fragile, that every day we could die in a million different ways.

In Japan some people go to die at the Aokigahara forest, many others jump in front of the train, some jump from the window at work or at school.

Up to 30.000 Wapanese kill themselves every year, that’s one every 15 minutes.

Around 15.000 a year in South Korea, so like 1 every half an hour.

And that’s just 2 countries.

Sociologists and psychologists say the causes of suicide are usually stress, competition, social pressure and emotional isolation, but I wonder is it really that, or those people realized it didn’t really matter whether they lived or died.

That either now or in a few years or when they are old, but they will have to die, there’s no way around it. So they chose to do it sooner than later.

In the animal kingdom, there are only a few insects that can willingly take their own lives for no apparent reason. Most of them try to adapt to their environment, to the food they find, to the weather, to some stimuli.

But not us, some humans, especially east-asian humans will jump from the building, just like that.

That reminds me of once I did bungee jumping in China, I was so scared, and they had to push me.

How can some people do it without getting pushed I can’t understand?

 

Who am I?

Bruno: Almost 28 and still don’t know who am I.

Friend: I know who you are.

Bruno: Tell me.

Friend: You’re that guy who posts all the tentacle porn in 4chan.

Bruno: You mean hentai?

Friend: And you’re the one who’s afraid of relationships, afraid of the police, afraid of governments and afraid of showing your feelings.

Bruno: You sure about that?

Friend: Yes, and you’re that guy who goes to Mc Donalds and steals their toilet paper. Always looks for money on the street and have somehow found a way to refill your tiny bottle of shampoo at the supermarket.

Bruno: Sounds like I’m having a rough time.

Friend: Well you haven’t had a stable source of income since 2006 because you have some kind of issue with authority that for some reason doesn’t allow you to follow orders from people or doing stuff you don’t want to do.

Bruno: No source of income means I’m poor?

Friend: Actually you’re rich.

Bruno: How come?

Friend: You’re very rich, but your wealth cannot be found in any bank account. It comes in different ways. It’s inside you. You’re rich because you’re smart, frugality has brought resourcefulness along,  you learned to read people, you have many talents, you can speak many languages, you’re young, you’re free and handsome, and healthy, you have an exciting life ahead of you, and overall you’re rich because you have so many people who care about you, you have family and friends in like what, 30 countries? And they all worry about you. You’re rich and would be foolish to think otherwise.

Bruno: It sounds like I’m very rich indeed.

Friend: We are all rich in many ways. But some of us haven’t yet learned to appreciate what we have, so sometimes we just need someone to remind us who we are, someone to remind us how rich we are.

Bruno: Thank you for reminding me today my friend.

Friend: My job here is done.

 

About the dalai lama

Friend: What do you think about the dalai lama?

Bruno: Very compassionate person, we should all learn from him.

Friend: And what do you think about the fact that he’s the spiritual leader of the buddhist religion.

Bruno: Well, Buddhism is supposed to be the more peaceful religion, so I guess it’s a great thing he’s the leader.

Friend: Actually the reason why it’s said that Buddhism is a peaceful religion is that they compare it with the other mainstream religions. 

Bruno: So by more peaceful they mean less violent?

Friend: Yes, buddhist dead toll comes at around 40.000, mostly thanks to Burma, while other religions “casualties” can be estimated somewhere along  the 800.000.000

Bruno: What’s the point?

Friend: That you are saying he’s a compassionate person, while he actually supports religions. 

Bruno: He wouldn’t hurt a fly, just gives good advice to people, tells them to be kind to each other, and try to understand each other.

Friend: He uses Buddhism to justify poor people’s suffering, saying it’s because of their “karma”, because of their past lives, and tells them their future lives may be different. How can you even consider supporting someone who talks about reincarnation and future lives? That’s like supporting a scammer who feeds on people’s hopes and fears, who misleads them to believe in the supernatural in order to gain control over them and keeping them from revolting against their oppressors, that’s almost as bad as his child rapists friends from the Vatican. He shakes hands with the pope while being aware of his crimes against humanity, he shakes hands with Obama and other politicians that cause wars and kill millions of people, he meets up with the Chinese government despite all they did to his people in Tibet.

Bruno: It’s because he knows! He knows that love and forgiveness are the only way, he forgives and understands the Chinese, the pope, and all the fascist governments and politicians. It’s not nearly as bad the Vatican, he just wants the best for everyone, he meets with politicians and world leaders and tries to talk them into stopping the wars, he talks about world peace, disarmament of governments and embracing the human race as a whole. I concede, he makes some supernatural claims every once in a while, but that’s just because of his upbringing, because he was born in Tibet in the 1930’s, if he had been born in Europe he would be Christian instead, if he had been born in Iran he would be Muslim, it’s just geography, and it’s not like he had any other options like we have now. Of course he believes silly things, he’s just human, like the rest of us, he’s not perfect and doesn’t have all the answer, and he makes mistakes and assumes things that are not true, but his overall mission is the one that counts, he wants to unify the human race as a whole and make this world a better and more peaceful place for everyone.

Friend: So you are saying the end justifies the means.

Bruno: I’m just saying he does the right thing for the wrong reasons.

Friend: Like mother Teresa?

Bruno: Exactly, she believed a bunch of nonsense, but at the end of the day she was doing the right thing, and that’s what counts.

Friend: But you know she only helped all those poor people so they would convert to her faith.

Bruno: Who cares? As long as she helps them.

Friend: As long as she’s doing the right thing, it doesn’t really matter why is she doing it?

Bruno: Exactly, the opposite happens with lets say Mandela or Che Guevara, instead of doing the right thing for the wrong reason, they were doing the wrong things for the right reason.

Friend: Yeah I’ve heard Che Guevara was a racist homophobe, but what’s the wrong thing he did?

Bruno: Well his main objective was good, but in the process, he caused like so much bloodshed.

Friend: And you don’t justify killing for a cause?

Bruno: Of course not, there’s no valid excuse for violence, for hurting someone or taking someone’s life. And “killing for a cause” is still killing, the cause is just an excuse. 

Friend: No eye for an eye?

Bruno: Not in my world.

Friend: But it’s not just your world, we share it and some people still want to kill and punish each other.

Bruno: I know, but they should stop, the idea of punishment is just retarded and only causes more violence.

Friend: So you say, are things really that black and white though?

Bruno: Yes, they are.

Friend: And, are you always right about everything?

Bruno: Of course, if I were wrong I would know it.

Friend: Like Sheldon, haha.

Whatever 15

Friend: Want to play a game?

Bruno: Always.

Friend: This game is called “greed”.

Bruno: Is it like monopoly?

Friend: Something like that.

Bruno: How to play?

Friend: First you have to start something.

Bruno: Something like what?

Friend: You know, the usual: work, study, travel.

Bruno: Right, the only 3 things a person can do in this life.

Friend: Exactly, doesn’t really matter though, you could start putting together some jigsaw puzzles for all I care, just start doing something.

Bruno: Then what?

Friend: Then you have to let the greed take over your mind, or your soul if that’s what you believe in. If you have chosen to go for material greed, just keep working and working. If you have chosen to go for intellectual greed just keep studying and studying, go for a degree, then masters, Ph.D., whatever, just make sure you are never happy with what you have, and always try to get more and more. If you chose the travel route, keep going to more and more countries, make it an addiction and never content yourself with the places you’ve already been to, seek new experiences, new adventures and try to always go somewhere new. And needless to say, if you went for the puzzles, just keep buying more and more and collecting them, frame them, never be happy with the ones you already have.

Bruno: Sounds fun! And when do I win?

Friend: That’s the fun part, you will never win, the game keeps going on and on until you die. Because it’s not possible to collect all the things, acquire all the knowledge , visit all the places or finish all the jigsaw puzzles.

Bruno: Can’t catch them all? So why playing in the first place?

Friend: Because it’s the hip game to play and all the cool kids are playing it!

Bruno: Sounds  a bit lame though, sure you wanna play?

Friend: Yeah, It’ll be fun, I’ll go get some puzzles.

Bruno: Whatever then, lets play.

Pink

I read that before 1930 pink was considered a color for boys and blue for girls, and basically, they just changed it after the war.


And after some research, it seems that no one ever really got to any consensus as to what color should represent each gender, because well, you know, they are just colors. 


To be fair there was some research done on monkeys to see which one each gender chose, there were some polls among Caucasians, but in the end, it seemed the decision was purely arbitrary.






I usually like to wear pink, so that creates some misunderstandings sometimes.


Many times I encounter the alpha male or macho kind of guy, and they asked me “why do you wear pink, are you gay?” and sometimes I tell them that I’m confident enough about my sexuality to be able to wear any color I want. Sometimes I tell them, dude, it’s just a color, what’s the big deal? Sometimes, I would tell them that no one told me pink was for girls, and I ask them why is pink for girls or how is it somehow related to girls, or when did this happen or where, of course they wouldn’t know the answer.


But the real reason, of course, is not that I feel confident about my sexuality, I’m not confident about anything in this life.


The real reason is that I just want to piss them off, it’s like an automatic self-defense mechanism, my brain had chose pink as a way to repel people who would think that pink should be worn by girls only, or people who think that somewhere along the way, pink stopped being just a color in order to become a symbol for femininity or something gay people would like.

I’m lucky though that people who think pink is for gays are usually right wing bigoted religious retards, and you don’t find as many of them here, not as many as in the west at least.


But many times I would say, yes, I’m gay, just to piss them off even more, because I kind of really hate homophobes. 

And guess what, all my gay friends don’t really like pink at all!






I understand that color-gender association is no more than a consequence of human evolution and the course its organized society has taken. Which is as usual totally random and at the same time not random at all if you are willing to indefinitely trace back the butterfly effect.


And even though it sounds retarded that pink is for girls and blue is for boys I also understand that the reason why I worry about that is that I have too much free time.


Free time not just to think about the colors, but to bother writing about them, which leads me again the main question: what am I doing with my life?

Playing games

Today I was just here at home surfing the web, when suddenly…


…nothing…


that’s right nothing happened, nothing at all, because I live a sad and boring life, and while my friends are all out at some party, I just stay at home playing some old video games.


Complaining about the government, feeling sorry for myself, thinking about what else to do in order to survive, what else can I do so I don’t cease to exist, trying to please other people, trying to live with myself, trying not to think too much.


What to do today. Probably just play some game. But that’s not very productive. And probably you will feel guilty for wasting your day. Unless it’s raining of course. Unless you over think it.


Because if you start thinking about how you are just one insignificant person among billions on this planet, and your planet is just a fraction of the size of your sun, your sun is just one among trillions of stars and your solar system is nor more than a pixel among countless other galaxies in the universe, when you start thinking that, it’s actually quite easy to rationalize staying at home playing video games the whole day.

About the afterlife

A long time ago, our ancestors were having a hard time understanding the concept of death, and they couldn’t believe this was it, there had to be something else.


So they made up some pretty amazing stories which, whatever your personal opinion is on this subject, you have to admit, were amazingly creative and intricate.


Like the famous Valhalla from the vikings, the Japanese that believed we take some stairs somewhere, the Aztecs that believe we go to someplace with cute animals or to another star, if we make some sacrifice, of course.


Or the materialistic Chinese who believe you can burn some paper when you die and it will become money in the afterlife.

The Australian aborigines believed you take a boat somewhere, the Celtics said you will go to a place with dance and music, the Ashanti people in Africa who believed that when we die we still have to farm and tend the animals

The eskimos who believes when we die we just go to the moon, ancient Greeks who said you go to see hades, and hundreds of others stories from hundreds others ancient civilizations, and those ones are only the ones we know, because they developed some writing system and we could somehow figure out what they were trying to say.


And then there’s the idea of paradise, limbo, purgatory, the astral plane, some believe you just stay on this planet as a ghost, some say there are other dimensions, where you will live as a ghost or soul, and most recently, the nirvana idea, the reincarnation into some animal or different person, and the heaven or hell, but I’m sure you know that one already.


But actually, whatever is it you have been told to believe, depending on when and where were we born.


Deep inside, you know this is it, you know you’re gonna die, you know there’s just one life, this is the one, and you should make the most of it.

So you can figure me out

 

Where I Am Now

Singapore, don’t know why though, no idea till when either, waiting for a sign, haha

Doing What?         Been Couchsurfing for a few weeks now and spending time with people

My Wish Today

I find myself quite happy today, it’s been raining quite a lot, but no deep thoughts have come, just a positive wish of enjoying the day, surviving the night and hoping that everything goes well this week, will worry about the rest later, well I wish I had a gaming laptop, so I could play Diablo and Skyrim, but not having one is also good, because it gets me closer to my final goal in life

My Final Goal in Life

– I want to get rid of everything, all the material things I possess, and I’m attached to, keep just one pair of clothes, no backpack, no gadgets, no money, just my passport and toothbrush (in my pocket) 
– After that I want to get rid of all the bad thoughts sometimes occupy my mind, like greed, anxiety, lust, envy, jealousy, possessiveness, hate,.want to replace apathy with empathy and anxiety with serenity.
– After that, I want to get rid of my irrational worries, want to stop worrying about the future, about the money, about the politics, want to be the best I can be and make the most of what’s left of my life

My Fears

A bit anxious about the future but not so much, much less than before. I still have that stigma of what would people around me would think or what they expect me to do, I try not to care, but I still care a little, a little afraid of running out of money also, but not as much as a few years back, I’m getting used to being alone also, that’s good, so not afraid of that anymore, and I think I’ve become more independent the last few months, just a little though.

Favorite Words Today

I saw it on a csers profile who took it from grey’s anatomy:

Maybe we are not supposed to be happy 
Maybe gratitude has nothing to do with joy 
Maybe being grateful is recognizing 
What you have for what it is
 
Appreciate small victories 
Admiring the struggle it takes simply to be human 
Maybe we’re thankful for the familiar things we know 
And maybe we’re thankful for things we’ll never know 
At the end of the day, 
The fact that we have the courage to still be standing 
Is reason enough to celebrate

Favorite Music Today

stroke 9, Tim Minchin, Clazziquai project, Yiruma

Place I Want Go

Taiwan and Russia, maybe 1 year each, also I want to go to Argentina and make my way north overland to Canada visiting all the countries in between, spending at least a few months on each (except Venezuela)

Dream

Also, every day is different, today I want to become a writer, open a small bookshop and become a clerk there, like the comedy black books, I wish I could write something interesting, a science fiction story, or alternate history. instead, I keep writing silly things like this.

Thing I’m into Lately

Chess, unfortunately there’s no one to play with, so I just play against the computer or some strangers online. trying to understand the higgs bosom field, game of thrones, the mentalist and persona 4 the anime, not as good as the games of course, but still good. Thanks for reading!

 

Making love

Today I was going through some old playlists just to see what was on them, and suddenly…

…I started crying! And I thought, oh god why.

That was very strange because I very seldom cry, and I wasn’t even having a bad day, it was quite good actually.

And I wasn’t even paying attention to the lyrics I was doing something else.

So I checked the song, and it was a song I hadn’t heard since 2006 “making love” by Utada Hikaru.

And I remembered, how that song always used to make me cry every time I heard it.

So there was an inbuilt mechanism in my subconscious that was automatically triggered by that song

I thought I was stronger than that

but I couldn’t resist

the song had used painful memories

and it was super effective!

 

A fire inside

Remember when we were young and there was a fire inside us? All that passion, all those feelings, where are they now?

I still remember, back in 2006, when I finally decided to leave my comfort zone and moved away from Barcelona. The excitement I felt, that fire inside that makes you pump more blood, breath more oxygen, and makes you want to fly.

All the expectations, the anxiety and the fear that represented going to a new country I hadn’t been before.

Savoring a new language, breathing all those new smells, every feeling was new.

In 2006 and 2007 I was like, eat all the food! Do all the crazy things! Visit every country! Learn all the languages! Do all the jobs! Meet all the people!



I got excited while counting and keeping track of how many countries had I been to, how many jobs had I had in all the different countries, I was even amazed by all the different coins and bills from the different countries, pretending to collect them all, or collecting stamps or little souvenirs.



And every time I met someone all we talked about was our travels and were had we been and where to go next.



Even the food tasted better the first few weeks in a new country. all those new flavors and spices, all those new feelings, the thrill of the hunt, the fight for survival, the magic of getting lost in a country you don’t know, where you don’t know anyone, where you don’t speak the language, where nobody knows you.

But now, now is all like meh.. I have lost that fire and don’t know where to find it anymore.



Traveling, or surviving or getting lost in a strange place became an everyday routine, so it lost all its magic.



Like anything, when you do it for a long time it just becomes monotonous, it becomes boring.



Why do we always seek new experiences?



Where does that greed come from? That greed of always wanting more and more, more experiences, more knowledge,  more stuff, more friends, more everything.



Why can’t we just content ourselves with what we have here?



And what happens when the things that kept us going, don’t work for us anymore. 




When everything becomes bland, when everything looks the same.




When there’s nothing to do but to exist, survive and reminisce about the past.

I can take it

Once, a short time after arriving in Australia, I found myself sleeping in an abandoned car I had found by the side of the road for a few days, not because I didn’t have money, but because I didn’t have money and couldn’t find any better place.


It was not so far from the city, the only catch was that I had to cross the highway to get there, which is, as most hitchhikers know, one of the scariest feelings ever.


It was not as bad as most abandoned cars though, there were a few empty bottles here and there but no one had yet urinated or defecated on it, so it didn’t smell as bad as other abandoned cars I had slept in before.


People who slept in the open know that the worst times are usually between 3 and 5 am, why worse? Because the temperature drops drastically.


So if you’re sleeping in an old car, construction site, park, beach, tent or anywhere outdoors, you’re probably gonna have a bad time at around 3, because the cold just wakes you up, unless you’re in a tropical country of course, in which case you’re gonna wake up because of the mosquitoes.


Hopefully, you’ll have something to keep yourself busy during those hours between 3 and 5 am, something like an mp3 player, a book, a musical instrument, or anything to distract you, anything so that you don’t need to think, you don’t need to think about when did it get this bad.
Where have you failed in life.
What went wrong that.


Unless you are the optimistic type, in which case you can just keep yourself busy nourishing your already oversized ego, you can instead just think of when did it get this good. 
What you owe this great success in life to.
When have you become so independent that you can choose to sleep anywhere.
When have you become so resourceful that you can find places to sleep and food anywhere.
When have you become so reckless that you are not afraid of the police, the thieves, the wild animals, the weather or the lack of supplies?
When did you become so confident that you don’t care what most people would say?

When did you just stop caring?




Unfortunately, I’m not all that positive yet, but someday, hopefully, someday Instead of waking up all freezing and scared saying “oh god why?”, I will wake up like a boss at 3 am and say “Fuck yeah! Bring on the cold, because I-can-take-it”.

 

The meaning of life

me: how have you been?

Ale: good, and you?
 
me: not bad
any news?



Ale: not really
 
me: did you find the meaning of life?



Ale: yes



me: 42?



Ale: nop
it has the meaning each one of us wants to give it
if you want to suffer, no matter what happens, you will feel suffering
if you want to learn, no matter what happens, you are going to learn
if you want to enjoy, no matter what happens, you are going to enjoy
that is it!



me: tell me more



Ale: there is always a way out of this life at least
that is death
what happens there, I have an idea
without the body, everything is an experience
neither good nor bad
when we have a body then we start qualifying



me: i dont get it



Ale: you qualify an experience
as good or bad
but things happen
they are not good or bad
something good, with the perspective of time might not be as good as you thought
and vice versa
 
Ale: and then, depending on the person you are now, you will tend to judge or see or focus on the “bad stuff” or the “good stuff”
there is plenty of both
but you decide if you want to focus on the bad stuff, you will likely suffer
suffer yourself, suffer on behalf of other, nature, society
whatever you choose
and this is for the people who are more or less aware
the rest of the people are simple
like ants



me: they are just there



Ale: yes
eating, shitting, working, having sex
whatever
they would not even begin to question
Then you question
and you find all the bad stuff first
(that is the normal way, I would say)
(normal = common)



me: got it



Ale: then you get fed up with the crap…and might change lens to look at the world

me: makes sense



me: so, now that you found the meaning of life, what’s left to do?
live it and enjoy it?
 
Ale: that is what I chose
and learn



me: learn what?



Ale: everything I can
or feel like

 me: cool, talk to you later then

 

Japan

At the time of writing, I found myself on the top of a small hill on the Japanese island of Tsushima.

Even though it’s a not such a high hill, from it you can see pretty much the whole island. I can see the only school on the island with some children playing football, I can see the ships coming and going, probably on the way to Korea, some other hills and a few roads with almost no cars and no traffic.

It’s a very quiet island indeed, I’ve only seen a handful of people in the last few hours.

And I remember it was in 2010, the last time I was in Japan, since then I had forgotten all those conflicting feelings and what being in Japan represents for me.

All my life I’ve felt lonely, that’s nothing special I guess, everyone feels lonely, but for me Japan represents my true nature, the one I can’t escape from, the one buried deep in my mind and the one that makes me understand, that it’s just me, there’s no one else.

Before I came to Japan for the first time, I had spent the last 10 years preparing for that moment and had probably spent more time into Japanese stuff, manga, anime, video games, music, books, etc, that I had spent at school or with friends. So in my mid 20’s I knew more about Japanese culture, art, and history that I knew about any other country.

All my life I felt like Japan was calling me, it was drawing me, but for some reason I didnt make it there until recently, mostly because I was afraid. I was afraid that it would be expensive, that I wont be able to find a job, I thought maybe my japanese wasn’t good enough, afraid of the discrimination foreigners face here but mostly I was afraid of what I could find here, something I knew it existed, I knew it was here waiting for me, but I didn’t quite understand yet.

I was afraid of my true nature and to understand that it was the end, that that was it, Japan was the end of my journey, the place where everything would make sense for me.

All together I spent only 6 months in Japan, but it sure felt like 6 years. And pretty much every day during those 6 months, the country reminded me in countless ways, that
I’m on my own.

Wouldn’t say I found what I was looking for here, but I sure found what i was meant to find, the last piece of the puzzle that would help put everything together, so that I can move on.

Japan taught me that solitude doesn’t mean not having love, friends or family around you, it’s something deeper. You can feel it in the air, on the trees, on people’s faces, on the buildings, it’s everywhere, you can’t escape it and everyone there knows it.

It’s not a coincidence that Japan has by far higher suicide rates than any other country.

It’s not about the stress in the working life or the pressure and competition everyone’s exposed to, it’s not about having to support your family and live up to whatever crazy expectations they have, it’s not about people being shy or afraid relationships.



Death is in the air and you can feel it the second you set foot in Japan.

And even though, while being in Japan I’m in touch with my true self, my true nature. I understand why I exist this universe, I can understand and accept my destiny, I’m actually quite happy to know, that I’ll be out of here soon. 

Nothing

I have recently come to terms with the fact that its ok to answer “nothing” to the question “what do you do”.



Most of my life everyone around me said: “Bruno, you have to do something, you have to be someone, you have to do this and that, you have to be this and that.”


You are what you do, they said. Our jobs make us proud, gives us honor, makes us decent people, if you don’t have a job you are a bad person and nobody will respect you, they said. 


If you don’t work you will not have money, and you’ll have a hard life, they said.


But they forgot to mention the pain and the sadness I would feel riding the subway on the way home while coming back from work at 9.30 pm and seeing everyone’s sad faces. You can ride for hours and not see a single smiley person. 


They didn’t tell me how miserable I would feel while walking the same streets every day at the same time, how monotonous my life will become.


Nobody mentioned the stress I would feel, how sick it would make me, and how hard it would be to fall asleep at night, thinking of all the stressful things that happened during the day, and thinking what’s waiting for me tomorrow.


And of course, they also forgot to tell me about that feeling in the morning, when I know I hadn’t had enough sleep, but I still have to get up and go somewhere I don’t want to go and do something I don’t want to do. 


And about all those times when I wish I were dead, no one told me about that either.


I wish someone had said to me when I was young “you don’t need to do anything or be anything, just relax and stop taking life so damn serious!”.


I wish someone had explained to me how stress works, wish they had explained to me what chemicals come out of sports or meditation. And wish someone had told me it was ok to do nothing, that life is too short to spend it fulfilling other people’s expectations.




So now that I learned all of that by myself, I can confidently answer “nothing” when people say “what do you do?”.


Of course it’s not true, I don’t do nothing, I go to Korean class 6 times a week now, do some part-time acting and teaching, hiking and taek won do, volunteering, reading, writing, play football, travel often, meet people, go out almost every day and do a bunch of stuff more.




And everyone does lots of things, but the reason to answer “nothing” is just not saying what they want to hear, they want to hear “I study” or “I work” or better yet, “I work AND study” so they can feel like you are an obedient member of society contributing to it daily. Therefore paying, what in their minds are, your dues for being alive.


In order live on this planet and not being rejected by the members of its society, you need to either study or work.




What we see here is that the herd doesn’t need a shepherd anymore, and anyone who dares to threaten their beliefs, will be immediately left behind to survive on their own.


They have created a system that auto protects itself, by isolating and excluding any individual who doesn’t want to do what the others are doing. Anyone who doesn’t want to work or study will be left out of the herd.




Bruno: But life is too short to just study or work, don’t you think so?


You: No.

 

Germany

While in Germany I learned many valuable things, I learned that there’s not only one solution to a problem, there are infinite. I learned to think outside the box, I learned to be resourceful, I learned to ask for help if I needed it. I learned to give and receive. I learned it’s ok not to work or study. It’s ok to be different. It’s ok to be yourself.


And I learned something about myself that would help me understand my thoughts and manage my life a bit better. Regarding time perspective. I realized that my perception of time was totally different from others. This is no news, we all perceive time in a slightly different way. But in my case, it was a bit more than that. 



I realized that one minute for me was like one hour for everyone else, one hour for me it’s like one day in everyone else perspective. One day was like one week and the way I perceive a week in my life was similar to the way other people perceive one month in theirs. 


And finally, I understood that it was ok, to be that way.


That makes communication difficult sometimes, because if someone asks me, on a Thursday, “what are you doing on the weekend?” I would think they are crazy because, from my point of view, the weekend was still lightyears away, so most times I would say that I didn’t even know what I’m doing today.


And when they ask me what are you doing next week or next month I always think that I could die today or tomorrow, so somewhere along the way, I had lost the ability to plan ahead. I had lost that pressure that most people have to get things done or sorted out.


Was that good or bad? I found a few years later it was good because it was allowing me to live in the moment, enjoy the day while ridding myself of the responsibilities that come along when you try to control or influence the future. 


Most people I met found it a bit difficult to understand that I didn’t have any plan, no life goals, no job, no money, no career prospects, and nothing to accomplish whatsoever, I didn’t know how long would I stay in Germany, I didn’t know where I was going after, I didn’t know if I would ever go back to Argentina, hell, I didn’t even know what was going on on the weekend! 


Yet, I was hosting many Couchsurfers from different countries, getting to spend time with them, I was meeting new people every day, got to hitchhike the way around more than 20 countries, got to learn German somehow, and got to meet people that would be my friends for life. Was having a great time, right here, right now so I couldn’t care less about not being able to answer those questions like “what do you do?” or “how long will you stay in Germany?” I was like: who cares? I’m having a great time now! This is real, this is life.



I was lacking something though, it was all too easy and after some years, life in Europe had become somehow predictable.


Germany didn’t feel like home anymore, I had been roaming around different parts of europe for some months and I had lost myself somewhere along the way. Felt like there was something missing in my life, didn’t really know what it was, but knew where to look for it. In Asia.


So on September 15th, 2008, found myself on a plane towards Islamabad, but that’s for next time. 

start a revolution

Bruno: What do you mean, you feel lonely? You’re like the strongest and most independent person I know.


Friend: Everyone feels lonely sometimes.


Bruno: But you have many people who care about you.


Friend: Do I?


Bruno: Well… No, not really, but people know you, they know who you are.


Friend: You care, right?


Bruno: Yes, I do but at least you’re still free.


Friend: Yes, I’m free in the sense that I can only afford things that are free.


Bruno: Best things in life are for free.


Friend: That’s what poor people say.


Bruno: Alright, I know what will make you feel better.


Friend: What?


Bruno:  


Friend: potato?


Bruno: Yes, potato.


Friend: How.. How’s that’ suppose to make me feel better?


Bruno: I just thought..


Friend: A potato..


Bruno: It’s the thought that count.


Friend: well, thanks, I guess..


Bruno: I don’t know what else to do.


Friend: How about making me a sandwich?


Bruno: Alright, what do you want on it?


Friend: How about some tomato and lettuce, some pickles and a bit of hummus. And maybe some carrot juice to drink, no make it kiwi juice, ok carrot, carrot and kiwi juice, could you do that for me?


Bruno: I’ll do my best, but you know we don’t have any of those things, right? How about some instant noodles with some bread from last week and some tap water to drink?


Friend: Damn! Are we still poor?


Bruno: Last time I checked.


Friend: Ok, where’s that potato?


Bruno: Yeah.. actually it wasn’t yours, I took it from your flatmate’s shelf.


Friend: Damn! Damn you Korean government, Y U NO PROVIDE FREE FOOD, HEALTH AND EDUCATION?


Korean government: Because fuck you, that’s why.


Friend: Damn you!


Bruno: Sorry bro, you’re on you’re own.


Friend: I guess I am on my own.


Bruno: And getting angry won’t make it go away.


Friend: I know, but what else can I do?


Bruno: Start a revolution, take back the power, take over the government, give power to the people and provide free home, food, health and education for everyone, that’s always been your dream, right?


Friend: But everyone around me seems oblivious to everything around them and oblivious that I’m aware they are oblivious to everything around them.


Bruno: They are just too busy trying to keep themselves busy by trying to look busy so you don’t notice how busy they are, trying to look busy.


Friend: Wait, I’m confused.


Bruno: Yeah, I don’t know what I just said.


Friend: Do you think there are others like us out there?


Bruno: No.


Friend: Only on the internet?


Bruno: Yes, that’s a start, right?


Friend: Right?


Bruno: Right?


Friend: Right.

Bruno: Right.


Friend: Left.



Bruno: Left?



Friend: Left?



Bruno: Right.



Friend: Left.



Bruno: Left.



Friend: Right.



Bruno: Left.



Friend: Right.



Bruno: Left.

Friend: Left.



Bruno: Left.



Friend: Right.



Bruno: Left.



Friend: Right.



Bruno: Left.


Friend: Wtf dude it’s 3 am, go to sleep.



Bruno: Right.

Astral projection

Last days I’ve been reading a book called “Season of the witch”. Found it on a shelf at home, and started reading it, despite the silly title, because I had nothing better to do. After 1 hour I stopped reading it and started living it.

Few chapters a day, I got very much into the psyche of the protagonist, and the time spent away from the book, it was actually time spent thinking about what the characters would be doing or thinking.

There’s a missing person, a boy died or disappeared, and then a remote viewer goes into the astral plane, somehow into the past to find out what happened to the boy.

So after reading that I wanted to do it too of course. I relax my body, empty my mind and imagine myself in a different place and time.

And it works, kind of. But I still don’t know if it’s all in my mind or I’m actually in another dimension.

If there even exists another dimension, I think my skepticism is so big that it prevents me from experiencing some amazing stuff.

whatever 5

Friend 2: So, what’s the plan for today?

Bruno: Try to figure out what’s the meaning of life.

Friend 2: Again with that? There’s no meaning to figure out, I told you.

Bruno: So why do we exist? 

Friend 2: For no reason. We just do.

Bruno: I read that the meaning of life was to be happy, and to avoid suffering. And then I read somewhere else it was to prepare for the moment we die.

Friend 2: I’d rather try to be happy than prepare to die.

Bruno: So, why have we reached such a high level of consciousness and awareness if we are not to have a purpose in this life?

Friend 2: Exactly, humans have achieved a self-awareness state in the one they can speculate and try to find the meaning of life. But the fact that you think there’s a meaning of life doesn’t mean there is one. The fact that you look for something doesn’t mean it’s there.

Bruno: So there’s no point in searching for it?

Friend 2: Not really. Probably the meaning of your life is the same meaning of the life of let’s say a plant or a bird, to interrelate and interact with your environment and with other living creatures in the most self-preserving way possible, assuring the continuity of your species and the preservation your habitat.

 

Bruno: No soul, no afterlife, no reincarnation, no supernatural beings?

Friend 2: Probably not, sorry. Only in your imagination and only as long as your brain is alive to create those stuff in your mind if your brain stops functioning, so will the thoughts you had about the meaning of life. 

Bruno: Ok, so it’s all in my mind. How about the power of mind over matter. If it exists in my mind I can create it in the physical world as well, right?

Friend 2: No, not yet at least, but if you learn to make sure you go tell James Randi, he’ll give you a million dollars and you won’t need to work again.

Bruno: 1.000.000 will generate an interest profit of around 4.000 a month. Maybe I should start working on my psychic abilities.

Friend 2: Yeah, good luck with that! 

Bruno: Whatever…

  

You’re gonna hate yourself for it

And there I was, floating invisibly above them, contemplating my younger self, who was giggling shyly while the girl sitting next to him was awkwardly waiting for him to make a move on her.

She said her aunt was away and invited him over. She took him to her room, sat on the bed next to him and he just sat there trying to make small talk. It’s not like it was his first time, it’s not like he was seeing anyone else, it’s not like he didn’t see the signs, and they had known each other for a few months so it’s not like he wanted to get to know her more.

So why didn’t he make a move on her?

Back in his mind, he thought she was just too pretty and he wasn’t good enough for her. You know that moment when a girl is just so cute, that you think she’s way out of your league so you auto-friendzone yourself from the start.

It’s been many years now, but if I were there I would slap myself and say “dude! snap out of it, she’s just a normal girl, she’s your age and she likes you. She’s not perfect, nobody is, and she’s just as nervous as you are. She’s not gonna make a move, that would make her look cheap, but she invited you over and gave you all the signs you need to feel confident you won’t get rejected. The time is now, there’s not gonna be a second chance, if you don’t do anything, you’re gonna regret it, and on the 3rd of February of 2012 at 12.52 am, you’re gonna hate yourself for it”.

Where are you from?

Friend 2: So.. where are YOU from? 

Bruno: I belong to no country.

Friend 2: How come?

Bruno: I’m not really into countries.

Friend 2: So you’re a global citizen.

Bruno: Exactly.

Friend 2: You’re living the dream, I wish I could be a global citizen as well.

Bruno: You can.

Friend 2: How?

Bruno: Live everywhere, be everywhere. Don’t vote, don’t associate or identify yourself with any country or government.

Friend 2: That’s it?

Bruno: Sure, it’s up to you.


Friend 2: My family and friends will be disappointed though.

Bruno: And you have dark hair.

Friend 2: What?

Bruno: No, I thought we were stating facts that were irrelevant.

Friend 2: It’s not irrelevant, I still care what people think about me.

Bruno: Why would you?

Friend 2: Because I’m not confident enough, I need reassurance and I need to be accepted. 

Bruno: Why wouldn’t they accept you?

Friend 2: Because they love their country very much, so if I tell them I don’t like it, they’ll think I’m not one of them anymore.

Bruno: But you realize, the only reason why they like their countries is that they’ve been told that’s what they should do, and nationalism is just another tool for social control, like religion or advertisement. Since childhood, they will make them sing the national anthem, make them swear loyalty to it, and teach them the history of their country making it look like they are the heroes and everyone else is an enemy. During the world cup or sports events, they have to “support the team” same goes during the wars. People don’t like to think for themselves so they just accept and do anything they are told, so they can fit in.

Friend 2: I want to fit in too.

Bruno: Why would you?

Friend 2: So I don’t need to defend my ideas and I can relax more.

Bruno: Good point.

Friend 2: If you disagree with everyone always, you are always standing in a defensive position. 

Bruno: True.

Friend 2: And you don’t have the ultimate truth. It’s also possible for a person to be compassionate and still feel like they belong to a country, like Dalai Lama, he is the most compassionate person and still feels proud to be Tibetan, while at the same time embracing all the people of the world as his equals.

Bruno: True. So it really doesn’t matter if you have a country or not, what matters is that we are compassionate towards each other. Right?

Friend 2: Right, I’d still like to live everywhere and be a world citizen though.

Bruno: But you don’t need to.

Friend 2: I don’t need to.

Bruno: I need to.

Friend 2: You don’t need to.

Bruno: I don’t need to.

Things I feel guilty about

• Taking an airplane, because I know how much pollution it generates.
• Not reading more.
• Eating Nutella, because I know it’s not vegan and some animals had to suffer for me to have it.
• I feel guilty if I take more than a few minutes in the shower because I feel that I waste water, even though probably the water gets somehow recycled and serves the crops or some other purpose.
• Forgetting to take my own bag if I go to the market.
• If I don’t eat at least a few fruits every day or don’t take my vitamins.
• If I don’t give money to the homeless on the street, or don’t give them clothes if I’m wearing too many.
• Flushing after peeing, or using the washing machine when it’s not full of clothes, I feel like I waste water also, and think that somewhere, someone has now water to drink.
• If I spent more than 5 dollars on a meal. Because I know a modest meal is enough for me, and so many people don’t have any money, so I shouldn’t waste mine. If I can have a nice warm meal with 3 dollars there’s no reason to spend more than that.
• If I buy anything that I don’t really need.
• If I forget to say thank you to the bus driver before getting off.
• Watching a fictional movie instead of a documentary, because I feel like I don’t learn anything (I probably do learn some things though).
• Living in Seoul, because I know the air here is very bad and it’s hurting me more than I’m aware of.
• Feeling guilty about feeling guilty.

After 8 PM

Jenny said something very important to me once, she said: “everyone’s nicer to each other after 8 PM”.

If you want to ask someone for a favor or have a serious conversation it’s always better to do it after 8 PM.

But on the other hand, we’re also more emotional and vulnerable, so definitely not a good time for breaking bad news.

And if it’s after 8 PM and if it’s raining even better.

Rain starts: Switch to deep thoughts mode.

So it’s a good time to start asking yourself: What’s the meaning of life? Why do I exist? Are we alone in the universe?

If anyone is ever to find the answer to any of those questions you can be sure it will be on a cold rainy day, sometime after 8 PM.

8 PM: Walking on the beach. Nothing to worry about. Just you, the starts, the moon, the wind, and the sea.

That’s it. No need to worry about the meaning of life. This is it, this is the meaning of life.

Look around. Lay on the sand. Gaze at the stars. Feel the breeze. Swim in the ocean. Take a deep breath. Feel in harmony. Connect with the universe. Feel alive.

And be nice to everyone, because it’s 8 PM already.

 

Poligamy

I met a girl once. And was really really into her, thought of her all the time, tried to see her often, wrote her every day, brought her a gift every time i met her and tried to make every moment we spent together a special one.

Would have done anything for her.

She made me want to be a better person, she inspired me. And every time I was with her I couldn’t help but smile and being nice to everyone.

She made me feel so confident about myself and about what we had, that I told her I didn’t want a relationship based on possessiveness or jealousy, so if she wanted to see other guys I was cool with it.

And that I was with her because I wanted to be with her, without any conditions and without expecting anything from her, In my mind that was the theory for a successful relationship. Being with someone despite the world, accepting them how they are. Instead of being with someone only if… they have sex just with you, only if… they care about you or if… they do this and do that and they are exactly the way you want them to be.

But actually (i realized so very late that) when I said that to her I was unconsciously expecting her to say something like “I don’t need anyone else, I’m happy with you” but of course she didn’t say that she started seeing someone else on the side instead.

And then she told me and said “you said you wouldn’t mind” and I was like f***k, she’s right! I was the one who said it was ok in the first place. But I only said it because I thought she wouldn’t do it and I wanted to look so open minded and self-confident. She wasn’t cheating or doing anything wrong and I had absolutely no reason to get mad at her.

But still, I reacted like I was in a Kevin Smith’s movie, dumped her and never saw her again.

The days after that were just hell, crying, insomnia and my stomach was sick, like that song from The Killers. I’m sure most of you’ve been there before and know that feeling.

So that was when I realized I wasn’t ready for an open relationship yet, I thought I was but wasn’t mature enough yet, not even close.

And I thought f***k, I spend so much time trying to be in control of my emotions, so much time trying to get rid of all the negative feelings, like greed, hatred, anger, jealousy. So much time trying to think and act in the most logical and rational way possible.

This shouldn’t be happening to me, not to me (I thought) I’m stronger than this, I’m better than this.

Polygamy makes sense! for a number of reasons, I know that in theory, so I thought I could handle the practice. Because it was the logical thing to do.

She hadn’t done anything wrong, she only did something that made her feel good, having sex with someone else, getting pleasure, being happy. Sex makes us happy. Affection makes us happy. To all of us. No one can deny that.

So I should have been happy that she was happy and she was doing something that was good for her and should have kept enjoying the good times we were having together, that was the logical thing to do.

But I couldn’t and I had a dilemma, I’d been betrayed by my own beliefs and wasn’t able to walk the talk.

And well… In the end, that girl taught me I was actually much weaker than I thought and not so liberal and open-minded as I wish I was.

I usually act cold, like I don’t need anything or anyone like I don’t care about anything.

But actually, I do.

I do care, I just haven’t learned how to show it yet.

Dinosaurs

Every time look at the horizon on the deserts of Australia, or when I see the vast tropical jungles in SE Asia. I can’t help but see all the dinosaurs roaming around freely like they were still here.

Diplodocus eating from those huge palm trees, plesiosaurus swimming in the sea, the pterosaurs surveying the skies and how our planet was, 160.000.000 years ago.

160.000.000 it’s such a large number that I still can’t really feel comfortable thinking about it.

I can imagine the Aztecs, Egyptians, or Sumerians 2.000 or 10.000 years ago and making a huuuge effort i could imagine the neanderthal, man of java or even the Australopithecus 3.000.000 years ago.

I will live maybe 60 more years, so most times I can’t really wrap my head around the concept that some creatures existed in this same place I’m standing right now but 160.000.000 years ago. It’s just too long ago!

But some other times, I can see them, as if they were still here with us at the same time.

Maybe the only reason why I still see them roaming wildly is because they are not here anymore, so I miss them.

Probably if they were still around I wouldn’t pay much attention to them.

I know it’s the cycle of life and they had to die, but I wish they hadn’t, and I wish they were still here with me now…

About Couchsurfing 2

One more thing I learned thanks to Couchsurfing was to feel good about giving and receiving.

As I mentioned in a previous post, most people I know are on Couchsurfing, so are most of my best friends.

It didn’t happen from one day to the other, took many years and this is how it started:

Before I joined CS, I always felt ashamed of receiving without giving something in exchange, and I thought the pay it forward concept was not realistic in the materialistic society I was living in.

But while living in Germany, I had the chance to learn how to give, by hosting so many Couchsurfers at my place, I wasn’t getting anything in exchange, and that’s what made me feel good.

When I had to work to get money it felt wrong, like when I used money to buy stuff, I killed the intimacy and the connection between people. If you have money to pay rent, to buy food and buy stuff, you don’t really need anybody or at least that’s how I felt sometimes, because I could just buy anything and had no need for people’s gifts.

But now I know I need the gifts, not because I’m poor but because they make me happy.

One year after that when I started traveling and staying at people’s places I learned how to receive, and yes, at the beginning it felt awkward that they let me stay for free and decided to spend their time with me.

But then I thought, that I also let many people stay with me before and will keep doing it in the future, and I thought how good I felt for doing so.

I understood, that being a guest was also a way to make the host happy.

Because it feels good to give, so in turn, i learned to feel good when receiving also, not because I was getting something for free, but because I was giving someone the chance to feel good and do something nice for me.

Now it’s not awkward anymore and the more I receive, the better I feel, and the more I want to give also.

If I have the chance to pick up the tab I can *finally!* feel happy about it and if I have the chance of helping someone I can do it without giving a rat’s ass about what they could do for me or how could they pay me back.

It also helped me feel at home wherever I am. That way you will never feel homesick because you are at home already.

I realized that this is home, right here, this is real and this is the place to be.

There’s nowhere else than here and now, gotta enjoy it, or at least try to, which is already a lot!

 

The bus is late

I took a bus from Penang to KL today, and when I bought the ticket I asked “what time will it arrive in KL, they said, “maybe 7 pm”.
 

Then I thought “why, why did I ask that?” It was the force of habit because it’s not like I have anything else to do today. So there’s actually no substantial difference if it arrives at 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10 PM instead. the fact that I had no problems or deadlines was enough for me to look for something to worry about, like what time will the bus arrive.

I’ve been in Asia long enough to know that 7pm can either mean 8pm, 9pm, 10pm, and so on, depending on the country.

And actually, I’m grateful to know that’s the way things work around here, people teach me patience every day, they are my teachers every day. 

They teach me to relax, to let things flow, understand that I don’t have control and things just happen the way they happen. 

Especially in India. Where you can sometimes be up to a few days waiting for a train that’s delayed and people just relax, eat, sleep and play cards at the station waiting for the train that may or may not come, someday.

They don’t riot, they don’t fill out a complaint or ask to talk to the manager, they just wait.

 Some years ago when I arrived in Asia for the first time and didn’t yet understand how things work so I would get stressed, get pissed and complain that the bus or train was late.

But I’m a totally different person now, mostly thanks to the experiences in India and SE Asia. If the bus is late or doesn’t come I would think “whatever, there must be another one, in one hour, or tomorrow, or next week, it doesn’t really make any difference” 

I can be more like the Indians laughing and sharing food while waiting, they understood It’s about the trip, not about the destination, and now, so do I.

 

Saying Thank You

It’s hard to describe with words what I felt this morning at the clinic when one of my patients after I finished patching him up, stood up, put his hand on my shoulder, looked at me in the eyes and said: “thanks for looking after me, and the other patients out there, you guys are doing a great job”.

He said that even though, I knew he was in pain and had been bleeding out in the waiting room for almost 3 hours while waiting for his turn.
He knew we were doing the best we can, I saw it in his eyes and I appreciate that.

Got the same feeling, sometimes while teaching, after the class some students will say “thank you for your lesson, it was great”, they knew I had spent long hours preparing it and I looked up the material I knew it would be interesting to them.

Or in Australia, while driving the bus, it actually meant a lot to me that the passengers went that extra mile (not literally), before getting off, and said “thank you driver”, it made me feel proud of being their driver.

And while I’m cooking at the stall, once a customer said to me “that was a great meal, thanks a lot for that”
he was just being polite, but for me, it meant a lot more than that.

A sincere gratefulness can go a long way into making someone’s day a joyful one.

So don’t forget to do your best at being polite and giving your best compliment to those that take care of you or make your life easier.

Also to those ones who don’t, especially to those ones who don’t, so you can learn forgiveness and understanding also.
so, thank you so much for reading this and let’s practice being grateful to everyone today!

 

Kind of people I would like to hang out with

 

 

Would accept: Someone who is not texting, calling or checking their cellphones every 5 minutes.

Ideally: someone who doesn’t have a cellphone.

 

Would accept: someone who doesn’t smoke in front of me or in public spaces.

Ideally: someone who doesn’t smoke at all.

 

Would accept: someone who doesn’t get easily offended by delicate subjects or differences of opinions.

Ideally: someone who never gets offended by anything.

Would accept: someone who prefers cheap places to hang out. (street food stalls, video game arcades,)

 

Ideally: someone who prefers free places to hang out. (library, park, someone’s place)

Would accept: someone who’s not in a rush, have no curfew and can spare a few days to hang out.

 

Ideally: someone who has no deadline whatsoever and can spare a few months to hang out.

Note: even though I really like being by myself, I must admit that the best times I’ve had were hanging out with the same people non-stop for a few weeks or months.

 

Would accept: someone who I can play board games or video games with.

 

Ideally: someone I can play RPG’s with.

Would accept: someone who doesn’t watch TV.

 

Ideally: someone who doesn’t own a TV.

Would accept: Someone who I can talk to about science and politics.

 

Ideally: someone who will listen to me for hours mumbles about science or ranting on politics.

Would accept: Someone quiet, who’s comfortable with silence.

Ideally: someone that will understand me without using words.

 

 

Would accept: Someone that says what they think and not what other people expect them to say.
Ideally: someone who can criticize me without being afraid of hurting my feelings or offending me.

Relaxation

I usually have problems relaxing, same as most people. I think we all have problems and if we don’t, we just make some up.

Most people’s problems revolve around their jobs, careers, school, studies, money, friends, family, house, the future and the past.

Mines are a bit different, I worry about things that are happening at this same moment in a different place that I consider unfair. I worry about what to do in the future, the meaning of life and my existence. I get puzzled by the universe, global problems, the animals, the environment, overpopulation, lack of food, water and energy, my health, politics, the revolution and much other stuff, I, for some reason, feel like I have to take care of.

And those issues prevent me from relaxing and enjoying the moment.

So, there’s an exercise I like to practice sometimes, it consists of laying in bed for like an hour or more, stretching like a cat, tossing and turning, staring at the ceiling and remind myself that:

– I don’t need to take care of that stuff and if I don’t someone else will.

– I’m still young, handsome, smart and healthy.

– No one really cares much about me, If I just lay in bed the whole day no one would even notice or if I lay in bed the whole year probably no one would care either.

– If I die today it will take at least a few weeks before someone finds out (that’s how important I am).

– I’m still free, to choose the life I want, free to think, say and do whatever I want, go wherever, whenever, or just using that freedom to stay in bed stretching like the cat.

– I don’t need to account myself for anything I do. I don’t need to go to work tomorrow, nor next week nor next year and I don’t need to accomplish or achieve anything anymore.

– I’m not Jack Bauer and there are no terrorist attacks to prevent. Just stretching is ok.

– I’ve done enough already so now it’s time for me to relax!

 

Issues with big groups

Damn! why is it so hard for me to fit in a group?

The only times I ever had a group of friends that I can remember, it was in Argentina, 2 other guys and me, yeah, that’s a group. Because its more than 2 people, and we seldom talked, we just played video games.

After that I made a few good friends but never had a group to hang out with, I really tried though.

I’ve been to many countries and in most of them, I tried to fit in with countless different groups of people, including punks, squatters, heavy metal fans, RPG groups, vegans, vegetarians, hardcore fans, sXe’s, surfers, hippies, Buddhists, are khrisnas, skeptics, office workers, homeless, English teachers, rock climbers, students, scientists, backpackers, engineers, and sometimes even unemployed bums like myself.

And failed miserably every single time, never got to hang out with the same group for more than a few weeks.

It seems my personality re-shapes itself to become the opposite of what the group is. In a pointless act of rebellion.

So the reason why I couldn’t fit in any group is that every time I am on one, I become everything the group hates.

Even though I totally agree with the group ideas, I would somehow find a way to challenge them in an obnoxious arrogant way that makes me an asshole in front of the group, for some reason.

Why I do that? I have no idea!!!

I do have a few theories though. One of them is that I like being the center of attention and if I think the same as everyone else in the group I would go unnoticed.

Another theory is that I can’t keep up with social pressure, and most groups of friends expect you to act on a certain way, dress, think, talk on a certain way, go to places and keep in touch. And for me is just too much pressure the idea of “having” to do something because its the norm and everyone else does it.

Another theory is that maybe I just don’t like groups, and I feel more confortable by myself or with just one person by my side. Usually, someone weak, that I can control and influence and will never outsmart me or put me down, so I keep being the brightest star and feeding my selfish ego.

That’s how manipulative I am. Or maybe not. Maybe I haven’t yet found a group of friends that’s adequate for me.

I don’t actually quite understand why I do that, yet keep pushing people away from me. And when they try to keep in touch I’d just ignore them or act coldly.

I was hanging out with backpackers a few days ago and they were using words like “chillaxed” and “explore” and carrying a big backpack on their back and a smaller one on their chest, lonely planet guide books, cameras, and stopping to take pictures every 5 minutes. For some reason that made me uneasy and made me feel like I didnt belong with them, because they were very different from me.

But actually they are just nice and positive guys, trying to have a good time, same as me, I have no rational reason whatsoever to dislike them. and they are usually kind to me.

I tend to focus on the differences I have with others instead of the similarities, but even if they had been clones of me, and think exactly like me. I would have surely found a reason to dislike them.

So, that’s one more thing for me to work on, trying to appreciate the similarities i have with people, try to join a big group, and stay on it.

 

Ideas 2: Justice

 

Some months ago, I set up as a top priority in my life to learn to be objective and always consider the big picture,  instead of my personal choices or preferences.

The bigger picture being, the long-term conservation, survival and well being of every person on this planet, the planet itself and other living beings on it.

And for that, I had some choices to make, decisions to take.

1: understanding: myself, other people, their motives, and objectives.

2: detachment, let go of things and people that weight me down or put obstacles in my way. Especially those people who say “no, that won’t happen/can’t be done”

Sacrifices I needed to make, needed to sacrifice my customs, traditions, beliefs, and stop focusing on my own short-term benefit and (try to) start caring about others as well, or at least being conscious when I don’t and thinking why.

JUSTICE

I often state that there are no bad people in this world, we are all good-natured and the reason why some people kill, rape, steal and are corrupted is because of the environment around them and the ideas that have been forced into them. (this automatically takes all the guilt away from the individual and places it in an abstract environment, thus making it harder to find someone to blame for and making it easier to find a solution to those problems) [1]

Adding that the penal and legal system are obsolete, and the eye for an eye concept of revenge or justice are outdated. The only reason why we keep supporting them is that some people profit from them.

Why do I state that? Because crimes keep happening.

And I am of the idea that when there’s a problem, the solution is fixing the problem so it doesn’t happen again, and not just patching it up and seeing how long it can last.

And punishing a single individual or group of individuals is patching up the system and perpetuating the problem, instead of solving it.

So by not providing the people with the basic needs (food, housing, health) and providing them instead with factors that deters their mental and physical well being  (stress, drugs, pressure, competition) the government has forced them to commit crimes, and then found a way of forcing them into the most violent environment possible (prisons) to make sure the stay violent and commit crimes again when they get out, while at the same time making sure that other people keep committing the same crimes after them.

So when I talk about “justice” and laws with some people, the usually propose this scenario to me:

“what if someone tortures you, rapes and kills your family and friends and people you care about, wouldn’t you want some kind of revenge, justice, compensation, or them to be punished by the law?”

My quick answer is always: “of course not, because that wouldn’t solve anything, nor make me feel better, yes It may inflate my ego for a few days but I can do that in other ways (kissing the mirror, adding some cute hearts on my pictures, writing a blog), what’s done is done, now we have to make sure it doesn’t happen again!”

I don’t mean the same person doesn’t commit any more crimes, but that no other person commits any crimes.

More than 90% of crimes are related to property, solve the scarcity and inequality problems, take private property out of the equation, give people what they need and what they want and they won’t have to steal it. Then we get the violent crimes (rape, murder) which can be easily solved as well. We weren’t born yesterday, we have a history of thousands of years to learn from and we’ve spent centuries studying society and human behavior, we have thousands of sociologists, psychologists, psychiatrists and we have the resources needed to change things.

And then I need to make sure I actually believe what I say.

On the pro side: the system is not working, because crimes keep happening, so we gotta do something for them not to happen again.

On the con side: I was also raised to believe in “justice” that if someone does something bad they have to be punished. So if you want to swim against the current, you’re gonna have to learn to swim faster or better than the other fishes, otherwise, you’ll just get dragged along by the current.

How to swim a bit faster and get the advantage?

By proposing something better, no one likes when someone comes along saying “this is wrong, this is not working” while at the same time not offering any solution.

By matching data and evidence and always providing evidence of what you are saying.

By trying to see the bigger picture and understanding that what’s good for you now may not be good for the majority in the long run.

By educating yourself, read, learn, experiment, test things out, and make sure you know what you’re talking about and more importantly, that you know how to explain it in a simple way that everyone can understand and relate to.

By being concise and placing yourself at the same level or even lower than the people you talk to/write to (I’m haven’t mastered that one yet) make them see you are same as them in the sense that you want to best possible outcome with the fewer negative consequences as possible.

By being a skeptic, always asking *why* and demanding proof of what is being said or proposed.

By working together. Competition doesn’t bring prosperity, cooperation does.

By being kind and compassionate, compassion is the key, the key to understanding each other and to succeed in finding common ground.

I myself fail on many of those points often, and I’m not nearly compassionate enough, but I do sincerely want to make things better and believe we can all reach a consensus on the one to stand together.

 

[1] http://www.thisiszen.com/2010/07/09/parable-of-the-poisoned-arrow/

conspiracy

I read this today:

“We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much. We have multiplied our possessions but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We’ve learned how to make a living but not a life. We’ve added years to life, not life to years. ” George Carlin

and then among the comments there was one that got me thinking, here it goes:

“clever but part of me thinks it was written by the bankers to calm the masses from a revolution and the likes of the occupy wall st protesters into putting up with higher taxes and lower wages, just my 2 cents”

so 2 thoughts came to mind after I read that, first, how some people think everything’s a conspiracy and everyone’s always out to get you. 

and the second thought was, what if it were true?

 

Emma and Carl Sagan

 

Some time ago, I had a life-changing experience while in Japan, in this case, it was not about an event, but about a person.

Sometimes I meet some people and they mention that they learned many things from or I inspired them somehow, well this time it was my turn to get inspired.

Her name was Emma Crawford, and little did she know, how much she would shape my ideas and influence the processes required to interpret the upcoming events in my life.

 

• 

 

 

She was a zoologist and somehow we ended up talking about evolution, and I mentioned how sometimes I felt like it was just too much coincidence, the way humans evolved. Especially the complexity of our brains and our DNA, I felt like it happened just too fast, 200.000 years wasn’t enough for such a complexity, and the chances of being at the exact distance from the sun for liquid water to exist and life to have evolved and billion coincidences after that led me to become part of the only species that can analyze themselves like I’m doing now. It’s just too mind-boggling.

Evolution is a fact, not really something you can deny, it just happens, like gravity, but many times I felt like I wasn’t getting all the answers I needed from evolutionary biology and there was a missing piece somewhere

And the concept of a god was just too farfetched, couldn’t subscribe to that one either.

So if you don’t buy the answers from the religions nor the ones from science, what’s left?

New age, aliens and metaphysics, and I did fall into that for a while, but there was still something missing.

 

In my ignorance, I was just trying to give my empty life some meaning so I wouldn’t feel so miserable and insignificant knowing I was just part of a natural process instead of a greater plan.

And little did I know that my anthropocentrically self-centered ideas were just some normal consequences of being able to process information at such a high levels.

Back to Emma now, she explained things in the easiest way possible, and she was always confident because she knew that things were that way for a reason and I didn’t have any way to prove my point that there were just too many coincidences out there.

 

Nop, not a valid proof

 

 So she showed me a documentary that would shape my understanding of life and the way I approached things from that moment. It was the episode 2 of the Cosmos series, about artificial selection, by Carl Sagan.[1]

Sagan was able to communicate things the way I wanted to and his objectiveness and neutrality were the ones I wanted to have for my own, but I didn’t know how to acquire them.

Even though I want to believe there’s something out there, something magical or mysterious:

I had to force myself to understand how my mind works and why I believed those things, understanding that my mind is fragile, susceptible and very very prompt to hallucinating, and how I used to believe crazy stuff makes me understand why other people also believe crazy stuff, because their minds work same way as mine, so we are all the same in the end, and I am not entitled to judge anyone but myself.

I still can’t really vouch for the scientific community as a whole, because they usually work under funds of universities and governments, which act on the interests of corporations which care only about remaining profitable in order to maintain or increase the cash flow by blocking groundbreaking discoveries that would not bring them a long-term profit.

 

But I do vouch for the scientific method as the best decision-making tool and a way of finding a common ground where we all can act for the same cause and reach a consensus on which course of action to take in every circumstance. and will hopefully brings us closer together in the end.

 

• 

 

 

Meditation

Last Australian winter I found myself walking around in Canberra with Jenny Puisto when we stumbled upon a history museum, walked in and got into a projection room.

There were playing a short movie about the hippie movement in the 60’s or 70’s and Woodstock so there were some young people there and they were talking about love and peace, and the fair distribution of our planet wealth and resources.

So Jenny started laughing and said “look these people were fighting for the exact same things we are fighting now, and this was like 40 years ago, have they achieved anything? No, we have now even much more inequality, 1 % of the population owns 40% of the planet’s wealth, 34,000 children die every single day from poverty and preventable diseases, 50% of the world’s population lives on less than 2 dollars a day[1], so what’s the point of keeping the fight, if things are just getting worse”*

That got me thinking, are we wasting our time here? Is the occupy movement doomed to fail just because previous movements have failed before them? Should we just give up like our parents did? Is there any better thing to do?

And then it came to me, I thought to myself, what do the world peace movements, the hippies, the vegetarians, the Buddhist monks, the new age, the occupy movement all have in common?

MEDITATION

We’ve seen the meditation tents at different occupy movements, that’s what brings us all together!

When you practice meditation you feel happier, in peace and harmony with the universe.

So why don’t we all practice meditation? there are hundreds of benefits and no side effects. [2]

Because we are being kept distracted, so we don’t see things clearly.

We know people think the way they do because of the environment they are in, so if we could start teaching meditation from early ages we would be shaping the new generations into being the change and not just asking for someone else to change things like we are doing.

Unfortunately, the education has also been compromised, and as a way of social control, we are taught what it needs to be learned in order to keep the machine running and to keep the inequality building up, instead of being taught what is good for us and makes us happy and healthy.

And in some countries, even people are being forced by the system to take loans, to pay for this education that will brainwash them for several years and turn them into compliant pieces of a system designed to perpetuate the inequality system.

So what to do, what’s the solution?

Get out of it, stop supporting the system. When enough people stop supporting it, it will collapse by itself.

And maybe try to be a bit kinder to people around you, and give without expecting to receive something back. that usually makes us happy.

But we always forget, I always forget.

so, I’m gonna go out and do it today. will try to be kinder to everyone around me.

 

[1] Note: she didn’t actually quote statistics, I added that to make her sound smart
[2] http://www.ineedmotivation.com/blog/2008/05/100-benefits-of-meditation/

Traveling: part 2

So my students ask how much does it costs to travel abroad and visit many countries, but there’s not really an objective answer to that question.
Any country you go to you can spend a million dollars or spend no money at all, it’s up to you.

And it was interesting to learn how each new generation has different goals than the previous ones. and this generation’s dream seems to be to travel around.

Why is that?  Maybe it’s because traveling raises your awareness level somehow, and that makes you happier, to put it very vaguely.

An aesthetic experience, that forces you to be aware of every minute that passes, of every sensation, and gives you the chance of meeting people and seeing different places every day.

Instead of the usual anesthetic experience of our daily routines, where we turn on the autopilot in order to not being aware of what’s going on around us or inside us, not having any new sensation, not having the chance of meeting new people nor seeing different places every day.

I’ve met people who have only 7 to 14 days holidays a year and they spend the other 351 to 359 days thinking or preparing for those holidays.

So, it seems evident that in the society we live on, our freedoms have been taken away, including the freedom to travel, they’ve done that by limiting the resources we have access to, based on the amount of money we have. We are limited to where we can travel throughout the world based on a number of restrictions, borders, immigration laws and the policy of passports. And last but not least, we are limited on the time we have as we’ve been forced to compete for good and services. And trying to make enough money to cover our costs of living + traveling. Which kind of eats up all our time.

And yet, most people think that’s ok and that’s just the way it is, and we shouldn’t do anything about it, because yeah, that’s how it is, you know.

And yet, most people think they are free while struggling to get as much travel time as possible.

So what to do?

Option 1: stay in the system while making the most of it and try to be happy in it. Learn to love what you do instead of doing what you love, train yourself to enjoy every moment a bit more, maybe do something new every day and try to enjoy it and live it as if you were on a lifetime holiday.

Option 2: Find a way out of the system and play by your own rules, you can use phrases like “I’m between jobs” or “I’m taking a gap year.”

Option 3: create a new system that renders the previous one obsolete, for that you gotta make sure you understand what was flawed in the old one to make sure of not making the same mistakes again!

NEET

Been a good boy lately, did some exercise, inspired a few people, seeded most of my torrents most of the times, but still don’t feel like I’m making any difference.

I learned the words “chigeopi eopseoyo” something like “I’m unemployed” in Korean, to answer people’s questions. And I remember when I was in Japan and learned the acronym NEET (neeto) which stands for “Not in Employment, Education or Training” so I could accurately explain what my status in the society is.


And I got many laughs, because Japanese and Korean always see foreigners as wealthy and successful, or at least brave enough to leave their countries and make a living abroad. So when they hear some foreigner is unemployed and living abroad they think it’s funny! And most times they say “cool, same as me” and we can laugh together about it or just blame the economy.

I found out it works something like this: when you are in your home country, or where you grew up you have all this pressure, from family, friends, governments and the Illuminati, to make a living, be successful or at least do something, when you’re abroad is the opposite. You are expected to be relaxed because you don’t really know what’s going on, you don’t understand the news or the politics and usually can barely manage to get around.

You can do whatever you want and it’s cool because you’re “traveling” and no one really cares much about what you do or don’t do.

Unemployed in your home country = loser
Unemployed abroad = funny!

And yes, sure, you don’t feel like you contribute much to the society, you don’t pay taxes to support all the corrupt politicians, their armies, and nuclear weapons.
You don’t contribute much to the waste of resources for the production of useless goods we don’t need and the destruction of our planet.
You don’t get stressed and give away your life, your time and your health, so that other people above you can get even richer than they are.


But it’s still cool, you get to hang out with other unemployed people, usually at odd times of the day in odd places, you get to read lots of fanfics and you get to write stuff like this so that in 10 years from now you can read it and say: “Bruno, what a waste of talent! What were you thinking? You were so smart, you should have been inventing a time machine or something!!!”

Ideas 1: no-violence

Due to the recent events in the US, protests, police brutality, arrests, pepper spray, etc. I found myself forced to re-analyze my own thoughts, as systematically, and objectively as I’m able to right now to see if I can understand them better.

STEP 1:  Where do I stand now?

As for today, I’m 27 years of age and in my mind*, I can’t just justify engaging in any kind of violence, not physical nor verbal. Can’t justify it under any pretext either (like as a sport/entertainment, on self-defense, punishment, retaliation, etc).

* yeah, I know, there’s no mind (not yet at least), there is the brain, and we sometimes call mind to some functions the brain performs.

STEP 2: Why?

Makes sense, if no one is violent there’s no reason to fight or hate each other and we can just be happy.

STEP 3: Where did I learn about the idea?

Gandhi, Dalai Lama??

STEP 4: How long does it take for an idea (once proved effective) to get implemented in our daily actions and thoughts?

Ok here’s the tricky part, we all know the theory for many good ideas like this one, we know it makes sense and we should implement it. but yet we don’t.

In theory, we know we shouldn’t smoke, drink, gamble, get stressed, be violent, etc, but yet we keep doing it.

We know we should be nice to people, eat healthily, exercise, but we don’t. So what’s wrong with us?

It seems it takes a long time for our brain to assimilate something we haven’t learned in our childhood or contradicts something we have learned as children.

Some ideas can’t be incorporated unless some other idea is already learned. something like updating a software.

in my head at least, this non-violence idea can’t run unless I had previously learned or seen the disasters that violence caused, recognizing the violent patterns in our society (understanding why was I violent) and know or at least imagine that there’s another option, and then make the change. This slow process took me something like 6 years.

STEP 5: How is this related to the violence on the occupy movement?

Well, now traveling back in time and paying a visit to the 15 old me. I would justify and engage in violent actions literally every day.
I would think the penal system. army and police forces are a good thing, and punishment is the only option to “solve crimes”.

And going back a bit further to when I was 12 and younger, I remember fighting with toy guns, army men, playing violent video games and watching violent movies, getting beaten up and bullied at school, at home and living in a stressful, violent city where I had to watch my back constantly.

Had I chosen a different path along the road, I would be the one holding the baton or the pepper spray right now.

We are who we are now not just because of our upbringing, but because of a billion different variables.

I think I got caught up in my own thoughts and couldn’t make the point here, the point was learning to incorporate ideas into our lives and the difficult process of it. I’ll follow up soon.