I’m thrilled to present to you “The Cultural Deviants Coffee Club”.
I’m a person of the Arts and Humanities, and I happen to believe there are many breadcrumbs to a deeper understanding of the world, which have been left by some of the greatest minds in diverse disciplines like film, and literature, arts, and music.
It’s a delight for me to analyze and interpret the beautiful legacy of great artists, I also happen to believe that if you’re a non-conformist, a person who’s thinking outside of propaganda and cultural mainstream, you’re probably interested in finding like-minded individuals.
My aim is to achieve both things and share them with you, and through this start building a community, an actual “Club” where creativity, connections, projects, and great ideas can spawn in freedom, detached from bullshit impositions around us.
So I say: Let’s do this!
TCDCC will start streaming next week and it will also be recorded and uploaded to my YouTube channel. So here’s the gist:
Live Streaming on Twitch Thursdays at 9 pm CT here
Live Streaming on YouTube Saturdays at 9 pm CT here
Subscribe to my Twitch and YouTube channels and enable notifications so you don’t miss it!
I’m thrilled to present to you “The Cultural Deviants Coffee Club”.
I’m a person of the Arts and Humanities, and I happen to believe there are many breadcrumbs to a deeper understanding of the world, which have been left by some of the greatest minds in diverse disciplines like film, and literature, arts, and music.
It’s a delight for me to analyze and interpret the beautiful legacy of great artists, I also happen to believe that if you’re a non-conformist, a person who’s thinking outside of propaganda and cultural mainstream, you’re probably interested in finding like-minded individuals.
My aim is to achieve both things and share them with you, and through this start building a community, an actual “Club” where creativity, connections, projects, and great ideas can spawn in freedom, detached from bullshit impositions around us.
So I say: Let’s do this!
TCDCC will start streaming next week and it will also be recorded and uploaded to my YouTube channel. So here’s the gist:
Live Streaming on Twitch Thursdays at 9 pm CT here
Live Streaming on YouTube Saturdays at 9 pm CT here
Subscribe to my Twitch and YouTube channels and enable notifications so you don’t miss it!
“Four Seasons in One Head” by Giuseppe Arcimboldo. (c. 1590)
Psychologist: “No, the still-life-portrait doesn’t exist, it can’t harm you”
The still-life-portrait.
Folks this is the first time I come across Giuseppe Arcimboldo, and I couldn’t let the opportunity pass; this still-life portrait is something like I’ve never seen before, and the date (1590) makes this even more interesting to me. Arcimboldo was a mannerist, and like many other talented painters of his time, his clientele was in the courts, he was the court painter for three Holy Roman Emperors and like others in his time also painted many religious pieces.
But his eccentricity is more appreciated in the compositions he made with fruits, animals, and other landscapes and natural elements in human shapes, they had a grotesque intention even when his technique is rather polished and sophisticated, with mannerist style.
This one, in particular, seems to be a metaphor for a person aging and hence, having evidence of being through all seasons of life. Or maybe it’s just a mockery since it seems the courts found these to be rather amusing curiosities.
“It’s better to burn out than to fade away” – Neil Young
This is personal
This is a post about me, this is a public declaration of a decision that will change my life forever, I know it because I’ve taken a similar one in the past, and it did.
Let me tell you a story.
I got married young, very young. I didn’t know what the fuck to do with adult life suddenly falling upon me like a fucking iron dome, no way out. It wasn’t marriage that was the issue, as a matter of fact, this was no issue at all, my life was already a lot better than it was years before. The issue was, that I had to become a full adult as an “emergency procedure”, there was a sequence of decisions that were all about breaking free and having a very slight chance to actually build a life of my own, and the promise of these decisions came with a high cost.
It was tough. I was broken, really broken not like nowadays that everyone with a hint of anxiety says “we’re all broken” to get sympathy, fuck it. Seriously.
Do you know what it is to be tied to a hospital bed and left screaming until you simply can’t fight anymore?
Do you know what it is to see everything you prepared and worked for years be destroyed in a matter of days?
Have you had an experience where something out of your control rips your life apart and effectively takes away every dream and hope you had sinking you into chaos?
Have you felt a hospital is more of a home to you than your actual home?
Have you been institutionally abused, harmed, tied to a bed, or threatened with getting electroshocks to your brain?
Have you watched every person you know move on with their life and plans, while your youth is draining like the blood of a dying man in an alley, with no hope to be helped, no one who can stop the hemorrhage?
Have you ever felt death was a gentler fate than dealing with who you are or have become?
If you have, because I’m sure I’m not alone in tragedy, then I send you a sincere hug and I tell you: this will pass, but you need to hold on to hope, focus on that and find a way out, things will get in place eventually.
If you haven’t, then I hope you never have to walk those paths, I don’t envy or resent people who’ve had a better or easier life, I believe this world needs all the happiness it can get, and I sincerely hope you’re making the best out of it.
I lost the five most important years of my young adult life, my college years, not in college as I have prepared for, getting the best grades, getting admitted to the college, and the program I dreamt of and planning everything carefully. I spent those years in between hospitals, doctors, depression and despair. It didn’t come to me because of a bad decision, it simply happened and it couldn’t be helped.
Back to where I began: adult life. At 23 I was just recovering from the darkest period of my life when I decided to make it on my own and marry. Not only was I broken mentally, emotionally, physically, and with no structure whatsoever in life but also, I was financially broke and absolutely ignorant of how things work. So I came out of a personal tragedy five years long, to an absolutely brutal struggle with my own decision of becoming independent and the poverty that came with it; when I say poverty I mean it.
Then, a life-changing decision
While I took a crappy call center job, I came across network technologies; I heard it from lots of people this was a hot trend to get into and people were being paid lots of money. I needed no more explanation.
You see, I was a failed law student because of tragedy, but that was in the past now. At this point, I was able to have a job (that was a huge achievement believe it or not given my circumstances at the time), I was just married to the best girl I’ve ever met and we were both enduring great pain. It didn’t matter that “it wasn’t my passion”, it didn’t matter that “I felt life was unfair to me”, nothing of that mattered. What mattered was that there was a very slight chance of turning the tide for us, and I took it.
There was only one shot at turning the tide, and I took it
It wasn’t easy, I was never a systems person, I have always been a culture and humanities person. But I’m thankful to God I had the opportunity, and the vision to believe I could thrive in this; I couldn’t afford lessons so I had to learn this by myself.
I had no computer, I stayed late at my job to use their computer and then took the bus home; my health was still in terrible shape, and doing my job plus studying was simply taking me to the limit. When I finally was able to buy a cheap Toshiba Satellite laptop, I was living in a tiny, cheap apartment full of noise and shady people, one of whom actually came to threaten me with a gun if I kept asking them to lower the music a notch. These are the conditions in which I completed my first I.T certification, after paying it with a credit card because it was impossible for me to afford the exam, and then failing my first attempt.
It didn’t matter, now I was in a different community, a different market with unbelievable opportunities and I laid my life on the line to be part of it. Many more years of study, a lot of tough on-the-job learning, and countless hours of side freelance gigs to increase my learning and development, finally took me to a proven position of seniority and the ability to pretty much choose my jobs, after a decade.
I let myself go and also my previous aspirations in order to be able to attain opportunities for me and my family. It’s taken me a lot of time to understand that there are years of my life I simply lost and they’re not coming back, nor the experiences I was eager to live during those years. But I got something different and amazing, certainly far better than what my original career was going to give me as far as life quality and opportunity.
I was blessed, and I consider myself blessed. The decision to jump into the void finally proved to be the right one.
But…
But this is not what I want in life, it’s certainly a beautiful stop on my path to it, but it’s not it.
I told you before, I’m a man of culture and humanities, not a man of technology. I’m a thinker and a writer, and it’s amazing that I got to build a strong career as an engineer given the fact that I’ve never had fulfillment doing this.
Man, you build a life for more than one decade of continuous, hardcore sacrifice, sleepless nights, all sorts of jobs, you earn certifications, study the coolest and craziest cutting-edge stuff, build a business and succeed, then fail, rise again, build connections, travel the world with your shiny career… all of this after being poor and having nothing at all! And then come to realize this will always get you a good income, but will never fulfill you, will never replace what you know you want, what you know you are. It’s hard to know what to do.
I’ll tell you what I did: I wrote.
I wrote, all my fears, pains, dreams, hopes, feelings, light, and darkness. I wrote it all, and I keep writing…
A New Beginning
This takes me to 07-01-2022 at 1:52 AM, the time of writing this post.
When I was a child, I used to create monsters, stories, and worlds of my own; my first short stories, I wrote just because I felt like at 6 or 7 years old. My first poems at around 9 years old, and as a teenager, I always carried a notebook for thoughts, songs, and poems, and I ended up destroying it always because I felt it wasn’t enough and because the contents hurt me more than they would help me.
It’s been extremely hard to find myself, but this is me, a writer.
I believe even if tragedy hadn’t struck me and I had carried on with my plans, sooner or later I would have realized law was not going to fulfill me the way writing and creating does.
This is me, I’m an artist.
It’s hard to find it out at 35, but it would be a lot harder to never find out and live with a deep pain I can’t understand.
My English sucks, I really need to work on it, I’m totally rusted, I have never studied creative writing seriously and I know no one else close to me who is a writer, who could give me a hint.
But I found out I have a slight chance to be fulfilled at what I do, even more, to leave a mark on other people. And I will take it.
I will keep working in technology because my career is a miracle and a blessing and because I have to fund my dreams and provide a platform for my family. But once again, I will study at night, and spend late nights writing, reading, and editing, not because I need the money like the first time, but because I need to be me.
The first serious poem I wrote as an adult, “Binary“, is my story and my promise to that broken teenager who died in darkness, that he will live again and become what he should have been, and do what he’s meant to do.
“Huyendo de la crítica (Escaping Criticism)” by Pere Borrell del Caso. 1874.
Hello, I hope you’re having a great Thursday so far!
Today’s art piece is quite out of the ordinary, I feel. Most scenes portrayed in paintings I post are as observed by an omnipresent narrator, the artist, who’s opening a window to another reality, scene, event, emotion, or concept they wanted to share with us.
But in this case, the art has come to life and it’s approaching us directly! I loved this piece because of its creativity and also the human aspect it shows. I don’t know if the person here (seems like a boy to me), represents Pere himself or not; but he surely represents a very understandable fear an artist should overcome which is obtaining bad criticism of his work. I wouldn’t find any other reason why this character would have that look on his face and it’s attempting to flee its frame than fearing bad criticism unless we’re talking about someone who’s very shy and would also be upset by a good critique 🙂 . It’s entirely possible.
In either case, I love the sincerity in this painting and the “out-of-the-box” thinking of the artist, or should I say “out-of-the-frame”?
Why the fuck is it that people think it’s cool to assemble classical playlists and associate them with ordinary activities?
Beethoven For Studying
Working Day with Vivaldi
Mozart for BBQ (What the ACTUAL FUCK?)
Dude, these people were locked down in their studies for weeks to present a complete set of works just to be enjoyed, to actually get the fuck out of ordinary life concerns and enter the realm of the sublime, what’s the difference between Mozart for Babies and for BBQs? xD
Alright, that’s it, I needed to say it.
On an unrelated topic, I just killed this ugly motherfucker in DMC (Devil May Cry) video game, and it felt so good! I really needed to hurt something today, something evil (at least virtually). Extra points for being gross.
It’s been a horrible day folks, I can’t lie. Some days it’s too tough to be me and that’s it; when the highlight of your day is gutting out imaginary entities from Hell, then there’s something really fucked up with you. But it’s just a day, a week, a month… I no longer know; some days I feel all of my projects were thought and started by someone else, someone who’s bright and capable and who could actually bring these things to realization. And some days like today, I feel like I’m the empty, untalented version of that guy who’s ready to sabotage everything he’s working for, and it’s just about to crumble apart.
The thing is, I’m both.
I’m a sort of Jekyll and Hyde dual monster, who’s just not hurting anyone (hopefully) and so I get to keep existing somehow in a world completely incompatible with the creature I am.
Yeah, this is just probably me being a drama bitch tonight. Oh well…
The thing is, with all of the above, I still believe in the enormous potential that lies dormant in me, and in you who are reading this as well, no matter how dark, this too shall pass.
The first title that was given to this piece was “Love and Pain” which can clearly be related to what we see here, however, the final title is “Vampire”, giving a bit of a surprising twist, as I don’t quite see the all the supernatural elements I would expect from such a motif.
However you choose to view it, it’s a beautiful piece, she seems to be comforting him and he seems lost in her embrace; not only her arms, but her hair surrounds him, intense red hair and above them, a large shadow covering them which I believe adds a bit of the ominous vampiric element; there’s something else behind this beauty, there’s a hidden motive behind the romantic scene.
Part of why I chose to publish this one today, is because I happen to be reading Dracula by Bram Stoker currently, and just last night I was horrified by the scene where the vampire ladies start harassing Jonathan Harker.
But even if you remove the supernatural element, there are complex relationships where the attachment is a source of comfort and pain, they may not suck your blood out literally but could quite take the life out of your soul. Beware of those, my friends!
(Don’t judge me, I’m excited about gothic literature rn xD)
Good evening, I’m listening to an instrumental version of “Lacrimosa” from Mozart’s Requiem in D Minor, and I’m very moved by it. Today’s been a challenging day when it comes to organizing ideas and managing emotions that are linked to voluntarily seeking opposite ideas to your own; probably I will write more about it later, but it’s a tough experiment, one thing is to listen to a diversity of people, but a completely different one is to seek the ones you know you don’t like, and listening to them with respect. I’m telling you, emotions are a bitch and they can easily betray you if you don’t find a way to intentionally exercise control over them.
The bright part, is you actually find that even in those people your subconscious labels as “enemies”, “dangerous”, or “threatening” you will often find valuable things if you’re willing and open to it. I’m undergoing these voluntary experiments because I’m very interested in developing my own thought with a lot more emphasis lately, and being narrow-minded directly opposes the idea to become a thinker. By the way I published the second part of “Thinking Things Thinkers Thing” and I believe it’s quite a heavy read and one where I put a lot of effort in being upfront and clear, but as a side effect it may be a bit shocking. But hey, comfort never took anyone to a new place.
Now I’m listening to some Phonk music; man I got addicted to it, I’ll probably have to write about it in my “Music Crisis” section since I’m listening so much of it lately. So the origins of this genre are a little diffuse and it seems it’s the blend of DJs mainly from Eastern Europe with old Memphis rap tapes; the music’s mostly dark and kinda violent, so yeah of course I’d find it appealing.
I’ve been making an effort to comment on the communities of writers I subscribed to (actually to one of them, to begin somewhere); I really want to commit to exploring and building these relationships with other authors, it’s not natural in me, so that’s also emotionally tiring.
My kid (7 y/o) was accepted in a much better school than the one he’s at, he applied for admission tests a couple weeks back to third grade and we received today the news that he’s been accepted. It’s gonna cost me a kidney and I recently lost my second job, but both my wife and I are willing to make it work, it’s a good problem to have. 🙂
Hello, I’m picking this up after quite a few days from the first publication, and I’ve been wondering what exactly I’d like to communicate in this article, if don’t give it a scope it may extend forever because the very nature of its subject is infinite; so I believe the first part of this post introduces quite well my concern about the activity of thinking, and how important it is that we engage in creating new ideas and concepts intentionally.
The motivation behind writing about this is really simple: I’d like to be the person who starts conversations, who asks questions, and proposes topics that will stimulate others to think. Now, this might actually sound easier than it is; if you read my last article, you will find that my point of view is that most people believe they’re thinking, while they’re really just reacting, and there’s a world of difference between the two.
A lot of what we do on a daily basis is the product of learning, a blend of experience and knowledge, both imposed on us by the official education programs and also chosen willingly according to our circumstances and interests. I don’t believe that choosing between “A” or “B” by digging into our memory or past experience is equal to thinking, countless experiments on conditioning show rats also do this, and you haven’t seen a rat write a book or create a new non-fossil fuel, just to provide a bit of a hyperbolic contrast.
The Age of Data
What, you thought your thoughts were yours somehow? Think again, but this time for real.
I said at the end of my previous article that I believe conditions for humans are way better in this day and age in general than in those of past centuries, but somehow that doesn’t seem to reflect in the average individual’s potential. This is something that haunts me as I’m a strong believer and promoter of the liberation of human potential; but the thing is, what makes the individual stronger, tends to make the externally-imposed organization unreliable and unpredictable. This is to say, individuals concerned with developing their capabilities consistently are a threat to Status Quo; if you just think about how we’re currently organized as a system, people who spend the most part of their lives working, sleeping, and consuming data in a monitor for fun/entertainment are a sort of “gloomy ideal” of a human being, as they keep the machine in motion.
And don’t get me wrong, tour my blog and see that I’m a consumer of such goodies myself, I love playing games, I use my cell phone to search for art, I read other bloggers from time to time, and so on. If there’s the capability of accessing this wealth of information and having a good time with your digital gadgets, why not?
But let me ask you something: is this a part of your life that you enjoy daily, or is this basically your entire life?
If the honest answer is the second one and it causes you discomfort, I want to say it without any type of judgment, I want you to keep reading this section of my blog, I want you to be on my team because you’ve been held captive and you have enough guts to acknowledge it and seek freedom. See, people are meant for so much more; even if you’re consuming this content, this is raw, difficult-to-digest stuff; this is not meant to be viral, what I write is for people who are looking for more from this life than just cheap crap served to the masses by media, like feeding pigs. I’m not talking about funny memes and nice stuff that makes us laugh, those are part of keeping things human, keeping sanity, I’m talking about toxic ideology, propaganda, and artificial needs imposed on us.
I’m not mad at consumers, I’m mad at very smart and arrogant people who feel they get to idiotize a whole generation and get away with it, and this is something I aim to fight.
A Historic Tension for Compliance
Manipulation can’t be avoided, but it can be weakened and exposed.
I gave up the idea of making these couple of articles a perfect “manifesto” of my own posture concerning society because there are too many black holes, and knowledge gaps and simply because I believe shaping our own worldview is a constant effort that requires openness to change and, of course, to admit your own ignorance and mistakes.
But that doesn’t subtract from the effort, as a matter of fact, I believe it dignifies it. You see, I will not comply with the twisted “new-internet-ethics” of “cancellation” and people who think they have the right to crucify you by finding that little post, tweet, interview, etc in which you said “x” and “y” and that makes you worthy of punishment. This is immature bullshit, and I believe is just another emanation of a society that’s descending more and more rapidly into a collection of angry mobs and mindless collectives. Individuals change, we all change, individuals think, individuals learn things, experience new things, and then based on that, they add to their understanding of things around them. Do not submit yourself to that type of bullshit.
What does it all have to do with thinking? Why so emotional, man?
Because everything that I am antagonizes the modern-day deception and massification of “thought”. And this is not new, manipulation of masses is probably as old as the first civilizations that attained some sort of “modern central government”, I mean think about it, how do you achieve real population control? How do you take over 5000 individuals (thinking about a hypothetical, very small, ancient society), manage to put them to work on the same objective, and embrace a set of beliefs? You really need to work on it, need to work on a set of ideas that by observation of the culture surrounding you, you understand can potentially provide a common framework that’s relatively easy to adopt by a large number of people. It doesn’t matter not that all of them are on board, once the largest part is brought to compliance, most of the non-convinced ones will simply follow because taking their stance now is going against the flow, and that doesn’t typically end up well; in previous ages, those “deviants” from generally accepted culture ended up as outcasts of some type if they were not strong to cause trouble, and executed if they were actually capable to bring others along with them against the prevailing order.
Welcome to “Humanity Organized to Accomplish Civilization – 101”. It’s been, of course, a lot better in some stages of history than in others; the more authoritarian the leaders and the more compliant the masses, the worse it gets. It’s not the same to be, for example, a hippie in the U.S 70’s rebelling against war in Vietnam as being a Cathar in medieval France; two types of rebels with significantly disparate amounts of risk both in quantity and quality.
And, this is where I’m trying to get at: I’m old enough to understand certain things won’t really change, and work with them (this is the type of thing that make you lose followers, f.y.i):
Percentually, there are a lot more compliant, than non-compliant people in any human system that’s relatively stable. This should be obvious.
A lot of these compliant people are not very smart, while fewer others are.
The non-smart ones, behave most of the time as animals would: stimuli – response. They won’t even entertain thoughts that question their reality, the adequateness of the system or set of principles they live by, etc. This is your core mass.
The smarter ones may have their doubts, and their moments of questioning, but by all means, they also have a desire to function within society and end up adopting culture out of necessity and sometimes out of fear.
Then we have the deviants (hi I’m Josué, nice to meet you): The deviants are interesting because they end up leading others or being eliminated/neutralized.
A deviant analyzes a lot, and is far more conscious of their identity, individuality, and expectations.
A deviant is also very analytical of the society and culture surrounding them.
They will take actions based on these analyses, as their very nature doesn’t allow them to become a compliant person, at least not for long.
The actions they chose to deal with their nonconformity, will determine the impact and fate of this person in their culture. There are many variants and I will not dare try to explore them all, but let me mention some I believe are interesting:
They’re shunned by those immediately around them, and, not able to withstand it, seek comfort in self-destruction, they blame themselves for not being acceptable.
They engage in a form of resistance, whether that be membership in a countercultural group or militancy in such a movement ranging from expressing themselves through the arts to vandalism or terrorism (using these words as per our mainstream interpretation of them).
They engage in an extremely hard personal crusade to be the one who calls the shots and end up becoming the oppressor. Yes, deviants are the ones that end up subduing people, because that’s where their quest for power takes them. That doesn’t mean everyone in power has these attributes, some have inherited privileges and are educated by their deviant parents to be the continuation of the story, no way around it; and this is as shitty as it gets, I do believe it’s better to be ruled by a natural deviant than by a weak successor who’s really just a weak compliant sheep holding power by inheritance; this is a major flaw and modern leaders should avoid it, it’s far too primitive and eventually clouds the achievements of the deviant who attained power by merit.
Some, get to infiltrate the smart people (mainly deviants, but also smart-compliant people) through the dissemination of their thoughts and become thinkers and thought leaders; many of these have been persecuted, incarcerated, and put to death (we call them “intellectuals”), depending on a mixture of their circumstances, their decisions and I guess, chance. There’s a random element to things, as hard as it is to admit it.
Do you think this is grim and negative? Read Machiavelli.
No matter how charismatic, no matter how loved, no matter the image of justice they may show you, leaders are deviants. Compliant mass follows deviants, and deviants are people capable of taking the hard decisions, sometimes for the greater good but most of the time for their own continuation in power or benefit. I don’t think there’s a way around it, there’s a subtle difference between a psychopath and a natural leader, and some of the worst things in human history happen when both these traits are developed in a single person with a lot of supporters.
Kinda Political, isn’t it?
Achieving a better society depends heavily on deviants, intellectual deviants who understand the dangers of indoctrination.
It is.
But even if you swear you’ll never get yourself into a political discussion or even less, a political occupation this concerns you, and it’s highly related to the amount of thinking you do versus the amount of ideological vomit you spit out given an opportunity to engage in discussion.
See, here comes my positive thinking in the midst of these harsh realities expressed: I do believe even the people in the core mass are capable of choosing well, given the right leader with the right narrative effectively engages them, I believe people can follow a course of action that can bring about a more peaceful, relatively just society. But this depends largely, on whether or not the smart people (deviants first, and pulled by them, the smart-compliant) are willing to step up and develop their role in their own time and culture.
If you feel this sounds like a conclusion, it is, unfortunately. It also means there will be a part 3 of this article, and this time I promise this will be the last one, or at least it will be the last publication of the same title, the topic will always be around this section of the blog, evidently. The last part will deal with what I believe can be done by deviants to help shape a society that’s the most balanced and acceptable for the most people; beware of utopias, it will always be unjust, masses will always be more in number and will be easy to fool, real leaders will always be narcissistic, some will be better narcissists than others and only people who are capable to think outside their own culture can effectively influence that these forces remain in check. Don’t despise the masses, they’re the very object of dispute between thoughtful, positive leaders and psychopathic megalomaniacs.
The implications are huge, whether you care about power dynamics or not, since being a free thinker in a culture that’s extremely homogeneous and effectively indoctrinated can be a living hell.
Hi! I’ve been looking to post more of the colorful, lovely things although you know I love the dark and ghostly, hehe. I think I need some color these days 🙂
This one caught my attention because of certain unique traits:
It comes from a painter who pioneered modernism in Australia
Derived from the above, this is also the first Australian cubist landscape ever painter
This is Australian Art and the artist is a woman who’s innovating at many aspects simultaneously.
And on the subjective side, it’s a joyful piece, makes me want to be there and go for a kayak ride 🙂
Have a great Tuesday!
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