“Worlds are shaped in the air as he writes” – Human + A.I Collab
Not that there’s only one.
When you embrace your loneliness, soon you start to realize the treasures it has to offer.
Loneliness is not a natural state for a human; the strength of the human species is highly social if it isn’t because of the capacity to work towards a common goal, communicate experiences and learn from each other’s ideas, nature would have swallowed us whole many moons ago.
I mean, think about the concept of “culture”, man it’s so deep. You see interesting, complex behaviors in other species, even social behaviors like role division and hierarchies in bee hives, prioritization, and leadership in wolf packs, and many others could be quoted. But you don’t talk about the “culture” of kangaroos, do you?
And culture is one of those huge forces that shape our perception, and for an entity that’s self-aware perception is a huge topic. How do we assign meaning to events, actions, and people? What are our parameters to embrace or reject? What choices lead to more constructive outcomes, what choices put me and my “herd” at risk? How does the community react to deviancy?
And so, our wiring is set in a way that we seek consciously or not, acceptance from our community because out of a community we’re taking big risks. That’s why I said loneliness is not a natural state for a person; I dare say that there are degrees of loneliness that can be viewed as deviations and as such, they provoke a punitive attitude from others.
And that’s when I start seeing value.
Culture is either spontaneous, or it is intentionally shaped. And I do believe it’s both, but intending to influence culture intentionally is tricky. It’s also within the reach of the silent observers, and people who choose to live separated from it. There’s a degree of herd behavior available to all of us when we dissolve into a larger whole of like-minded individuals, and it’s so natural and possibly unconscious that it may hinder us from seeing clearly, and critically what occurs within such a group.
“Herd Behaviour” A.I Interpretation
So what’s the perk?
Oh, many.
So, the freedom of choosing a position in every aspect I consider important is one of such perks. Postures typically come in bundles (wrapped in ideology and dogma), and if you’re looking to be embraced by a specific community, you have to buy the whole bundle, as is.
But this is not the one I wanted to talk about, I actually made a full detour of what I intended to write about.
The biggest perk I’m obtaining from my loneliness is the ability to create my own realities, my own characters, my own conflicts, and worlds, shape them, explore them, and resolve their very mysteries.
Yes, this post is about writing stories.
I find myself being healed from my chronic dissatisfaction with the mundane, by shaping the extraordinary; I find my boredness of dealing with dull people resolved by speaking to characters that have an actual story to tell and the guts to live their own lives; I find my apathy disrupted by the expectation of that long-awaited revenge, or that wild night of surrendering to the charms of darkness.
When you write, it’s not always about the outcome, heck, I’m not sure if my worlds are that much tailored to my mindset that they may be deemed inaccessible, or pretentious by my audience. I don’t know man, I care about people sincerely, but the temptation of just traveling those dimensions on my own terms beats my desire for selling books. Maybe that enjoyment gets passed on to my audience, I certainly hope so.
You know what’s fun? Being lonely also helps me enjoy a lot more my time with other people, with people I love, care about, or simply like. I genuinely feel like I want to make the most out of those conversations, of that valuable part of their life another human is actually deciding to share with me.
I know, I always have to write in paradoxes, but the fact that I enjoy loneliness doesn’t mean I don’t resent it sometimes. I feel like I need to find that sweet spot because I do miss being with friends and just enjoying others, even meeting new people. I just don’t want to lose access to my worlds, my ideas, and my reflections because it’s so much easier to just adopt external culture and behaviors.
Is it possible to enjoy a good balance between the two things? Can I be a not-so-lonely loner?
First of all, I’ve been absolutely neglecting this blog lately, probably because in the longer term I feel blogging a lot doesn’t align with my main goals and I have so little time and energy to dedicate to them that I’d probably want to really think how I manage my time.
But then, the things that I’m working on are so long-term, and so freaking mind-blowing that I feel even lonelier and more alienated than ever. And that’s saying a fucking lot because I’m probably one of the most isolated individuals you’ll read, I’m not kidding. So I know these things, these projects that live in my head are a real thing, a beautiful thing but then everything that surrounds me and what you’d call my reality screams: “Bullshit! You’ve got nothing!”. Fucking voices of discouragement, subconscious playing tricks on me.
So, you know, sorry for being so honest here, but the truth is I need to communicate something until I’m there, at that point where I will be communicating at a different level. So whoever you are who happens to find this little blog somehow and read it, please know that you’re important to me, you’re helping me pursue impossibilities that are worth every minute and every slight chance of becoming possibilities.
Why Ryan’s Picture?
In case you didn’t know, Ryan Karazija, the frontman of Low Roar passed away a few days back. And if you’ve read me before you probably know I’m a big fan of his music.
Ryan’s music was very personal and very deep in most cases; I connected with it immediately because I could feel his struggle, I could feel his uncertainty, and his hope, and I could feel how he knew his music was precious but unknown. Of course, that wasn’t the case the entire time but at the beginning, it was.
He died too young, but he was able to see outstanding achievements in his musical career, I hope he felt very satisfied with the outcome of his efforts and his love for music. I hate when people who’ve touched my soul leave this planet, I know such is the nature of life but it still saddens me and makes me feel lonelier for these strangers have been friends with my heart even if they will never know it. A few years back when Chris Cornell died I felt it very deeply as well.
But Ryan wrote this song “I’ll keep coming”; oh man, I’m almost crying just thinking about it, it’s such a beautiful sample of the human spirit and its struggle to transcend and overcome chaos. This song is an anthem for me and I chose it to be the soundtrack of this moment in my life where I’m so full of hope, and so much closer to my dreams but also surrounded by such anonymity and uncertainty.
Some progress
Well, I’ve made progress in my two books so for both of them the first draft of the respective first chapters is almost finished; seems super slow but it’s a big step for me and I’m sure I’ll become more fluent with time.
When it comes to the series “In the Wings of a Raven”, I’m writing my first piece on Kurt Cobain and it’s been quite a lot of research mainly because I want to be fair in my writing about people who are not here with us to tell us their thoughts any longer; for me, it’s risky, not cause I’m afraid of opinions but because I’m deeply respectful of human life and human dignity.
It’d be easy to write about Kurt and center it all on the more visible aspects of his public persona, while he was actually a very complex, talented, and sensitive individual who had too much on his mind until it became unbearable for him. I’m not done with the research nd I’ve started writing the story, I will post it here once it’s finished and you’ll tell me what you think about it.
By the way, below is an AI interpretation of Kurt dreaming of escaping from a dungeon, how do you feel about it?
“Bubbly-Mirror-Starry Soda – Part 1” This is Human + A. I collab artwork and I own the rights to it.
Man life is so exciting, so much exciting oh my God!
Partly, because I never expected to say this, like ever.
Partly because it’s just so full of beauty and things worth discovering.
No naiveness here folks, I know the other part of it, oh boy do I know the dungeons and the pits of this world, and even other hostile worlds. But that’s an even stronger reason to be excited and love the beautiful parts of it.
Let me begin this article by saying: 18 subscribers to my blog, oh my God! And the only one is family, lol, cause I’ve made sure not to tell my relatives to cause this is a side of me I don’t want to share with most of them. So that means 17 complete strangers read something I wrote one day and thought “well maybe this guy’s worth reading again later”. And you know what? I take it back, you’re not strangers, you’re a beautiful, growing jjosuminded community and I thank you from all my heart for being here with me.
OK, so WTF’s up with the soda?
Yeah, yeah I was about to get to that, but gosh you’re so intense sometimes!
So, I’m in the last couple of days from my vacations for this year, then the weekend, and then a full week being on call 24/7 for cybersecurity incidents (man, the contrasts in this life). But I’m making the most of my vacations and part of it is reorganizing my artistic projects, and in general, assigning a lot more weight to my artistic life and coming up with strategies to accomplish this while keeping a roof over our heads.
As you probably know from previous articles, my biggest efforts in this second half of my life are focused on being able to get to a point where I can dedicate most of my time to arts and culture, which means eventually leaving my day job and it begins with literature but encompasses more than that.
It’s turned out to be quite the rabbit hole fellows, quite the fucking rabbit hole indeed! But it’s been fun, in fairness.
“The Jjosuminded Rabbit Hole” This is Human + A. I collab artwork and I own the rights to it.
The toughest thing is the balance between publishing continuously and building my community, and then writing in the way I want to write. So for those of you who are writers (I venture saying a big part of you are), you may find this familiar:
I start writing a poem. I was dark, waaay to dark, scary dark… so I think to myself “fuck, this has to be a poem attributed to a character, no way my conscious mind will accept this to come from me”
Okay cool, so what kind of world/ story does this belong to crime thriller. Okay, crime thriller it is, I begin writing a story.
Crime thriller story becomes so, so potentially good that it’s no longer an excuse to publish the orphaned poem, no, this really touches some fiber and some philosophical concepts I’m quite interested in. Scary moment: the idea becomes a novel (I did announce it a couple months back in this blog).
OK a lot of education and serious research beings in how to write novels, I buy a ton of new books and start taking notes and analyzing, I write some of it (paradoxically not what I’ve been doing the most). But OK, novel incoming.
Well, what do I write to keep my audience engaged? I mean, the novel can very well take a couple years, especially being psychologically complex and being my first novel, so…
“OK, OK, I know, I know… I have this idea I’ve been entertaining for more than a decade which is a fantasy/sci-fi medieval saga what better time to do it than right now! Not only that, paired up with my new obsession with Human + A. I digital artwork collabs I’ll get to publish an amazing story with groundbreaking community-oriented publishing, and blah, blah, blah… (see image below of concept art on this saga).
So as it turns out, the saga does require a lot of research on Central Europe in the Middle Ages, famous characters of that century, occultism and alchemy, and some “relatively accessible quantum mechanics”. Well shit, so much for releasing episodes weekly, at least until world and character building are crystal clear and it’s gonna take some time. So novel #2 is incoming, but still nothing for short-term publishing.
“Okay, it is my literary ignorance and laymanship (I know it’s not an actual word) that’s biting my ass, the solution is simple: short stories!” Indeed, this is the approach I’m currently taking but hear me out: I start brainstorming and come up with four killer ideas for episodical short stories related to a single theme, I ask my wife which one she likes the most and she picks one that’s about teenagers as a psychiatric institution, I start working on character development (world building it’s easy for me, cause I was a teenager in a psychiatric institution, lol) and bam! Guess what? It becomes to complex, intertwined, and emotionally engaging for me to keep it a series of episodical short stories, it deserves to be a big volume of its own. “Oh shit, not again”, yup, incoming Novel #3. (See concept art at the end of this list).
Right, so I thought: “The second idea out of those four, that one has to be the one, that’s perfect for short, well-written stories and give the people a taste of my writing while I work in the terrifying amount of 3 novels for a beginner author, yeah that should keep my sanity”. And indeed, this week I began with both the research and the structuring of it. What do you think? Am I alone here? Too fucking crazy still or just an ordinary writer’s journey. I’d love to hear your thoughts, you beautiful reader who can actually consume a full article I write.
Concept Art for the novels mentioned, just to get you excited 😉
“Keith’s epiphany: a perspective on choice and deviance” – From crime-horror-thriller novel This is Human + A. I collab artwork and I own the rights to it. “Old Roland Practicing His Speech on the Eve of the Italian Ambush” – From medieval/sci-fi saga This is Human + A. I collab artwork and I own the rights to it. “Dusk at St. Michael’s psychiatric wing, teenagers pavilion” – From the mental institution novel. This is Human + A. I collab artwork and I own the rights to it.
Josué… seriously, what’s up with the S.O.D.A!?
OK, ok here it is:
“Soda Textures #1” This is Human + A. I collab artwork and I own the rights to it.
Are you ready? (drumroll…)
Bubbly-Mirror-Starry Soda is the short-story series I told you about that was second on my short story list (OK, it was first but I decided to be a gentleman and please my wife with her choice, then it became a novel, oh well…)
The whole concept is related to the subconscious mind; see I’ve been reading, viewing, and listening to a lot of content about Carl Jung, and his breed of psychoanalysis, also some Freud but I’m in the earlier stages there. I’m absolutely fascinated by how behavioral patterns appear in the conscious life and decisions that are actually hidden and triggered by events, perceptions, and characteristics we have no clue about.
Moreover, one of the most direct ways of accessing these hidden treasures and horrors (both maybe?) is true dreams. Dreams are a window to a version of oneself that’s able to act out of the cultural, moral, and social restrictions that shape the conscious mind of an individual.
Bubbly-Mirror-Starry Soda aims to show this, with a degree of artistic license, through a series of short stories that will poke your mind and get you thinking about the depths of human consciousness and the contrast between the carefully constructed self and the denied self.
Now, what’s special about BMSS?
Answer: Bubbly-Mirror-Starry Soda is the version for fans, hence I can guarantee you will read much more personal and less filtered stuff in this version of the series exclusively here on jjosuminded.com, I’m not lying folks this is a token of gratitude from me to you because I love all of you 17 friends and all the others that I don’t have a record of in WordPress but are also here.
I hope you will love it, but you know what? Since we’re getting intimate and friendly now, let me ask you for two things:
I’m not a native English speaker. If you would like to help me on my path to becoming a better writer and would like to go full “grammar nazi” on me, I’ll actually welcome it. Likewise, if you’re a writer and you notice flaws you find concerning (even if it’s not something idiomatic), I’d like to hear from you.
As a clarification: I know what a proofreader is, and I know what an editor is. I intend to invest and risk my own buck when the time comes, to have pros do their job analyzing mine so I’m not trying to take advantage of you. It’s just special to me, to have my community send feedback because then you get to be more involved in my success story.
Would you also share my work if you really, really like it? But only if you really like it enough to share it with people who are close to you.
A final disclaimer: you see how I said Bubbly-Mirror-Starry Soda is a version of this project that’s exclusive for jjosuminded.com community? Yeah, that’s because there’s another version, and it’s more oriented to be commercialized, you know part of being able to become a full-time artist is to be able to pay bills with my art. But I’m not getting greedy, and I’m releasing the first 10 stories here first, then I’ll look for some PR and marketing and will try to find a way to commercialize it (if you have any ideas, I’ve so far only thought of “novella” or trying to sell the rights for T.V, etc), possibly making it a book of short stories and self-publishing it, although I might knock at some editorial doors.
This other version is also gonna be quite something, I believe. It plays with the same concept of the subconscious, but it has a more macabre angle to it, I’ll let you figure it out for yourselves as I publish the first 10 stories here. The commercial angle comes from the fact that the stories will deal with a deceased famous person in history or pop culture, so I’ll also let you figure that one out 😉
The series is called “In The Wings of a Raven”, and here’s the concept art for it:
“In the Wings of A Raven” This is Human + A. I collab artwork and I own the rights to it.
Well, that about does it, I’m going to turn 36 in exactly 6 hours, and I’m very enthusiastic to begin another year of my life surrounded by these beautiful projects and characters. Thanks for reading me, lots of good stuff in the oven for you, please buy my books when I publish them, I promise you’ll have a good time and it will change my story forever, for the better.
I will start pasting my LinkTree to every post from here onwards, I’d like to be available for you, read your messages and be able to reply to you personally, and the best way to do it is through my social media so feel free to reach out to me if you’re liking my work.
This fine gentleman is such a delightful company tonight
I have a headache, like a pretty bad one and I hate it. Feeling ill lowers my motivation a lot, and I hate the feeling of losing time; when I’m ill it’s difficult to be creative and thankfully, I was still able to bring a laptop to bed and work on my writing for a fair amount of time.
I took two pills a while back, but I’m starting to feel relief after a while of listening to Liszt; maybe it’s the combined effect of both things. Music can be a real emotional burden for me, especially when I yearn for something new that touches my soul and I can’t find it, but more often than not, it’s just magic, a true spice to the dullness of the mundane life and even in my current situation, a real medicine for my pain.
I’m planning an episodic series about patients in a mental institution and I’ve been writing down the whole concept tonight, I seriously believe it’s gonna kick ass and I will publish it here first, then probably in Medium and I’m thinking Wattpad as well.
When it comes to how I organize my projects and thinking, I’ve had to find the freedom of being myself while also aiming to be more disciplined; it’s a thin line and a delicate balance that requires a lot of effort from me. I’ve already started writing a novel, another series on fantasy and now I’m developing this idea. But they’re very different projects in their scope and intention:
The novel is a psychological thriller that explores the nature of deviance and the idea of evil, from a systemic, cultural and philosophical point of view. It’s meant to be violent but also sophisticated and thought-provoking. It may take me a very long time to write it and have it ready, it will also be my first experience in formally publishing a book and so, it’s a rather complex project that I want to take my time to carefully complete.
The second project is a fantasy series that retells a lot of historical events from the perspective of a rather peculiar character. It’s a mockery to human stupidity and herd mentality while also an apology of the dissident, beautiful freaks of different ages. In doing this, it eventually starts becoming a cultural commentary of our time. This one I will release in episodes, and rather than aiming for a book or book series, I plan to make this story a social media experiment.
The third project, the one I’ve been focused on tonight, is an exercise in episodic story-telling and short story, but with a very challenging twist for me: it’s meant to be a “dramedy”, so a drama that deals with very painful and serious topics but it’s presented with a degree of dark humor. There are two special things about this latest project:
I will be able to talk about a very personal and relevant topic which is mental health; if you’ve read my previous articles, then you know I take this very seriously and I’m very supportive of people going through such hardship.
This is my most immediate project: I’m used to write blogs posts in a very free style, as well as some of my poetry; but I’ve never published stories before and I feel a terrible urge to do so as soon as possible. So it’s coming, very soon.
I’d like to write a lot more tonight, because there’s so much inside of me, sometimes I feel like my thoughts are a violent ocean contained in a rather frail vessel. And I’m OK with that, I am what I am, and I’ll work with it. I need to sleep so hopefully I’m in better health tomorrow.
That is one of the settings for the novel I’m working on.
I don’t know whether this is the first time you read me or if you have already read me before, but in either case, I’ll tell you, I’m an engineer (as in computer engineer) who’s taking a big gamble in his life by seriously attempting to become an author.
This blog is a stepping stone, and the story I’m working on is another; I hope you keep reading me and buy my book once it’s out and that you love it, because it’s slowly baked but crafted with much care and dedication.
But maybe, like I often do in these “Late Night Journals” I just want to share a piece of my inner world, maybe vent or just confess my feelings and thoughts full of thorns, that root deeply within me, and pluck them out during my confession.
Fuck man, why do I have to get all fucking poetic when I just want to blog xD
Why are poets typically regarded as silly? I see real power in poetry.
OK in any case, it’s been like ages since I don’t post a late-night entry, what’s going on with me? I’ll tell you what, my life is not a line, but a constellation. One day I will expand on this.
But I want to come back and start doing this more frequently, I need it and it allows me to connect with you. You see, I get lost within myself for seasons, I start exploring things that need fixing, or that need attention, or simply engage in another difficult piece of my grand project which I’ve been working on for over 2 years now and I anticipate will continue until I die.
What’s that project you ask? I won’t spoil it by explaining it, it’s a work in progress and you will see it for yourself when it’s ready, I promise.
I’m listening to Low Roar right now, and believe it or not, that’s the happiest music choice I was able to make at this time of this day specifically. I’ve been a bit blue if I’m to be honest, for no specific reason, just out of being depressive.
I’ve told you Low Roar is one of my favs, haven’t I?
I’ve been thinking about aging and death. I’m 35 but I’m also a very dramatic person with very complicated emotions, in about 1 month I’ll be turning 36 so effectively been 1 year into the second half of my life and that’s just freaking terrifying for me. I’m not shy in confessing that I’m afraid of death, and even with that, I consider myself a stoic and I hold “memento mori” as one of the dear principles that help me appreciate life and live more fully.
Paradoxically, this awareness of the subject of death also combines rather toxically with my oscillating depression. I’ve been listening to a podcast on Carl Jung lately, it’s called “Digital Jung” by Jason E. Smith; if you’re in your 30’s or later I’d seriously recommend it to you: https://open.spotify.com/show/7llKTskyo8kDCaLG91IFGK?si=a2a8951156de41b5
This show is worth every minute spent listening to it
So listening about the pursuit of meaning and the more reflexive attitude other people adopt around my age kind of calms me down a notch and reassures me I’m not especially damaged. And some of you will say I’m still young and shouldn’t be this concerned with death but here are two things:
Being afraid of not living fully; that’s a key concern, more than death itself. Looking back and not being able to be satisfied with my ability to make the most of this ride, to do meaningful things, to be a candle in the dark.
Being afraid of actual death: not that I think it hurts or something, I mean, it’s entirely possible that it does depending on how it happens but I’m afraid of letting go, of disappearing, and becoming a memory. I’m afraid of futility because I know life will simply move on, and my importance or impact is very limited, even if I get to be reputable or famous.
So maybe I’m not afraid of death, maybe it’s just the parameters of human existence that anger and hurt me, maybe I’m dealing with pain more than with fear.
Sorry, I told you I was feeling blue.
At any rate, I’m making a huge effort to live through these feelings without resorting to denial. It’s easy to resist the truth, I don’t believe there’s anything easier than to console yourself with a lie.
I also feel like needing alcohol or opiates, or just some powerful distraction. But I’d rather write.
I’d rather double my efforts to actually keep building a life I find meaningful on my own terms, and just throw myself headlong into experiencing it with its struggles and joys, its uncertainties and blessings.
I believe this is not resorting to self-deception, but all the opposite, it’s traveling with eyes wide open. And the old man Josue will regard his 35-year-old version as the architect of a much more acceptable version of death.
“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.
jjosuminded 