Alone at the sea, the air is salty and clean evil muttering has ceased and silent angels guard the scene
It makes me think, and recall old dreams of childhood and sorrow, not that they’re a different thing. But that wound is also relieved
By the playful battle of the rocks against the waves. Old friends, children of the centuries who never cease to pretend being unseen
Oh if I would become a rock, become the ocean’s own that I won’t see love turned bitter and men become what they abhor
For it is all laid down in patterns, seems to me, a cosmic joke. Not that it’s all gloom and wrong, but it’s all doomed to end, and everyone is doomed to mourn.
But not the waves, they won’t, nor will the rocks notice when all you care about , is gone.
Their game goes on, and on, and on, a mighty battle, just for fun. Pretending being unseen by the yearning eyes of those
who would be waves and rocks but instead, are a wonderful dream between dawn and dusk
Patterns
Alone at the sea, the air is salty and clean evil muttering has ceased and silent angels guard the scene
It makes me think, and recall old dreams of childhood and sorrow, not that they’re a different thing. But that wound is also relieved
By the playful battle of the rocks against the waves. Old friends, children of the centuries who never cease to pretend being unseen
Oh if I would become a rock, become the ocean’s own that I won’t see love turned bitter and men become what they abhor
For it is all laid down in patterns, seems to me, a cosmic joke. Not that it’s all gloom and wrong, but it’s all doomed to end, and everyone is doomed to mourn.
But not the waves, they won’t, nor will the rocks notice when all you care about , is gone.
Their game goes on, and on, and on, a mighty battle, just for fun. Pretending being unseen by the yearning eyes of those
who would be waves and rocks but instead, are a wonderful dream between dawn and dusk
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!
“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.
I’m back! Yeah, I haven’t been writing every night, but I do as much as I can folks, these last weeks have been quite a turmoil in my life, but I’m way too experienced in storms to fail to realize that they always hide great opportunities!
So in case, you’re wondering, today’s “night picture” is just an homage to the band of my teenage years: Iron Maiden; I just came back from the gym and I always take my music with me cause 90% of the time, the music they play at the gym sucks, so I started playing one of those custom Spotify mixes and it just reminded me of the good old times. So this record, in particular, isn’t one of the all-time favorites for most people, but I really like it nonetheless, call it nostalgia; by the way, I read in the news that Bruce Dickinson wants the band to appoint a new singer when he’s no longer able to keep performing well, what a vision! This is the kind of thing I would dream of as a kid, to audition for Iron Maiden! But yeah, Bruce is basically irreplaceable and I’m a baritone 😦 so not in my wildest dreams; maybe later I’ll write some music of my own, it’s a wish that has been blocked for years, but when there’s a will there’s a way!
So I’m working very hard to quit smoking; yeah I hadn’t written about that cause it’s a super sensitive topic for me; for those who don’t smoke it’s just stupid and for me, who smoke it’s stupid to poison myself gradually with that shit, but also I have huge anxiety that’s very hard to deal with and it’s what pushes me to addictions. I’ve told you before about my losing weight, that’s going well so far but then again, I’m not a fan of dying young if I can avoid it so smoking is what’s next. Wish me luck fellows, I’ve tried quitting too many times, but I will keep fighting until it’s over.
It’s time to let this go 😦
I’ve published the second post in the “Fight Club in 3-D” series, you can read it here, go ahead, give it a go and let me know what you think.
I’ll go grab a bite, and possibly do some more work a bit later, so bye for now!
Hi! I hope you had a great day, I’m afraid this will be a rather short entry as I’m super tired, and it’s been one of those days that aren’t nice or pleasant in any form, and still, you feel there’s been a lot of growth and important things, so allow me to mention them:
I started writing a novel: Yes, yes I know, I know I should be super thrilled and ecstatic (and deep inside I am!). This is a project I’ve attempted once or twice before and never managed to finish but this is a different time in my life and I will finish it.
But… my novel is quite scary: He, he that’s the heavy part and part of why I’m so tired. I won’t provide a lot of spoilers because I’d love it if you read it once it’s published, but it’s a very dark thriller about a rather disturbed individual who has an “animal” alter ego and beings hunting people and doing very nasty things to them. Of course, the bottom of the matter is a lot deeper than that, but I’m describing why I got so tired; it’s tough to imagine these violent things and it’s even tougher to understand you’re able to create such pictures out of your own will and even through the manipulation and amplification of some of your own emotions. If I’m to be super honest, it all started with writing a poem, but it came out so vicious and dark that I felt it needed to be inserted into a larger, violent plot.
So is this about being a new writer?: Well, yes in part. Everything is new to me as a writer (and I mean writer after my office job ends, of course), so feeling drawn into the actions of your character, giving them macabre dialogues and deranged scenarios starts affecting you after a while (is this only me? I’m interested in hearing from other authors who’ve written about killers, horror, etc). And I guess the other part is, that I’ve always been dark in my artistic taste (exceptions certainly exist, I enjoy a Vivaldi concert and a beautiful Japanese print or an impressionist painting of a sunny garden); and as I’m getting older, I’m getting bolder. I feel there’s no time to lose, no holding back on energy, and no insecurity; so if I’m to write something gruesome I won’t soften it to be “reasonable” or “tolerable”: it’s going to be raw and hard to endure.
Life after COVID and traveling to work: It’s not as bad as it sounds, the only reason I’ve been traveling to the office is that we had two directors visiting my country, but neither I nor my colleagues have the intention to start commuting to the office frequently, and thankfully it’s largely up to us. That said, every trip to the office is long, tiring and I’m just not used to it any longer. Also, soccer is big here, and people today were all over the streets celebrating classification to the World Cup, which I couldn’t give more fucks about, and it annoys me how it changes the whole pattern of traffic and forced me to make long detours. Fuck soccer!
The effort of socializing: You probably have an idea about my personality by now, but yeah, social skills are not my most developed skills, just to use a euphemism. But it’s weird, it’s not like I’m completely shut down, as a matter of fact, people often find me charismatic; the thing is, I use this only when I have no option; typically, if I have an option will be by myself. But I’m a big guy now, I understand how important people are in my life and how important it is for me to build relationships; it’s easy to be resentful and blame others when later I dislike their attitude towards me, but then again I never really made an effort to show interest. I don’t want to act like this any longer, it’s a struggle. So I decided to go out for a couple beers after work with some of my colleagues, and every time I started feeling weird and paralyzed, I just came up with a conversation topic, just small talk. The result was impressive, people really seem to appreciate these little things, that seem silly but actually show you have an interest in sharing with them; I really liked it. But, it was also very demanding because it’s not natural for me.
OK, that’s why I’m tired but had a day full of growth and good things that felt like shit most of the time, but that the future Josué will appreciate.
It’s Sunday evening again, and it’s been a quiet one. Quiet Sundays are my favorite.
It’s been a difficult week, I believe I’ve mentioned before that I have been working two jobs as part of a plan to save money and eventually be able to dedicate more to my writing and to build business, so that I can spend more time in culture and arts; and well to tell you the truth I was fired from one of them.
So that sucks quite a bit, and for a person like me what sucks the worst, is that I was given excuses as to why this decision was made rather than, at least an honest explanation. The truth is the whole department had issues in the last two months and a scapegoat was needed. And that would be me, lol.
So that was unsettling first, but then I also realized that I actually appreciate having the time for myself; that’s the thing with adult life isn’t it? That fine balance between time, money and energy. So I decided to make the most of what happened this week and use this time in the best way possible while I get a chance to make more money again and resume my savings.
On a happier topic, I got time today to read a lot, and I started 1984 which is a book that was gifted to me last week and I was very eager to start reading. I also spent some time reading poetry and I’m becoming a fan of Lord Byron’s.
OK I think this is good for today, I have added an email address with the domain of this website so you can write to me if you feel like. Thanks so much for reading me and have a great week ahead.
Well, today is not that late but I’m sleepy and tired so it’s better to write now!
Today I took my family to “The Van Gogh Immersive Experience”, we’ve been waiting for this event for months and it was a beautiful moment within a not-so-nice week, LOL so definitely worth it!
My kid was ecstatic! It was fun, he told me “dad I’m feeling mythological right now!” It was so funny, he’s 7 and he really likes the universe so while learning the names of planets and constellations he came to learn about Greek mythology. I’m pretty sure he meant “dad, this unreal” but yeah -I got it, little chap!
Also, I posted today about my Music Crisis which is a recurring (and annoying) situation that pushes me to discover new music (so it actually has a good outcome). And I’m excited because this is the beginning to start writing my music reviews.
You know? It might not sound like much, but having this little website and writing on a daily basis really makes my life much better; I’ve been suppressing this part of me for years but I’ve never stopped to dream about writing regularly. Now I’m doing it! I’m really living one of my dreams right now and that’s a big thing 🙂 .
I want to thank you, sincerely, for reading me. I added a Contact page today, and look, I work in technology but I don’t have any experience with websites and it was such a pain to find out what to do!!! Believe it or not, I actually changed my theme back to this black theme just because I ruined things so badly that I had to get back to something relatively known to fix it from there. But I made it!
My preferred way of getting in touch is via Instagram, I post art every day, and content which you will find complements this site quite well so I’d really like you to follow me there, pretty please! I answer messages and if you’re also building an audience and ask me, I’ll be glad to follow you back, as long as you’re a human and not a bot.
So today’s post is going to be mainly about fatherhood, so for you who don’t like kids, see you tomorrow, LOL. I don’t judge, I hate kids but my own xD
But seriously, today was awfully tiring, a very tough work day with a lot of time-sensitive deliverables, an angry boss, and not a lot of motivation. Now my wife and I had an appointment to visit a new school for my kid since he’s really having a bad time in the current one, getting bored and not being challenged enough; man that place made me want to go back to school! It has it all; all sorts of clubs, sports spaces, a large pool, cool technology, and the works.
Of course, painfully expensive as fuck, obviously.
But not outside our possibilities, I’m very careful not to step into financial distress willingly, still committing to almost double the current fee makes you really consider it. And there’s where I found my motivation for this shitty day and more to come, honestly. I’ve never been like a super fatherly guy, actually, I struggle with this because of my own childhood and father figure issues related to it; but today, I felt what I do really does count, for this kid it could mean a huge difference in his life opportunities. We chose to take the challenge next year.
It’s funny though, I oppose the idea of fatherhood being a constant denial of one’s own goals and projects in favor of a kid or kids; to me, that’s a fucking pathetic excuse (exceptions exist) to stop growing personally and have a “morally acceptable” excuse for it: change my mind. So this is not what it means to me, I remember when he was born I took a really scary step in my life, I quit a perfectly stable and well-paid cybersecurity job and started my consultancy business, and left for Africa for several months without knowing anything at all about what was coming for me. Doing this took me places in my life I never thought I would reach, so knowing I’m someone’s example actually has made me bold, and way more interested in unleashing my full potential, rather than the opposite.
OK, so that’s that; also Father’s Day is coming and I got a very nice present from my kid (my wife really, I’m sure you get it) and it’s… (drums please…) 1984 by George Orwell!
I was really looking forward to engaging in this read, I read “Animal Farm” earlier this year and well, I do like dystopian stories because they prepare me psychologically for the future, LMAO xD [actually crying inside].
jjosuminded 