Prosperity Down

Lately, there are more and more stories saying that the standard of living for Americans are dropping and that our generation will have less than the previous generation for the first time in history. For me, I find it scary as hell to know that we as a society has apexed awhile back and now we are on a downward trend. I can see this happening through the eyes of my friends and family, the struggles and hardships that they have to endure to just make a living.

I truly wondering how this country is going to look like in a few years. There is rampant poverty and a disappearing middle class that awaits us in the near future. When this happens, there is going to be a cascading affect that forces more companies to layoff and exasperating the problem even further. I mean if people don't buy stuff from stores, companies can't keep their doors open and close eventually.

There is a lot of doom and gloom in this blog post, I admit to that, but there is something eerie about losing our existing standard of living forever. I am a believer that we will see a decline in our country and we will lose our first world status in the next decade. I just don't believe in the crazy fantasy that we will be okay and things will stay rosy and fine forever. I know many people that never give a moments pause to consider that we are in a slow decline. It is those people that will be completely caught off guard and suffer the worst.

I think that we must be at all times vigilant of what is going around in our local and global worlds. I am safe guarding myself by learning new skills and disciplines when I already have a primary job. This is not merely just a means to make more money, but it is also a way that I can be versatile and switch what I need to do at moments notice.

More than ever in history, no job is safe from being obsolete. I am downright terrified that we are mechanizing and computerizing everything at such a fast pace. That will displace millions of workers that used to have a relatively stable job in a good market. Those people that get laid off will be angry and frustrated that they can't get a similar job or another job with multiple years of schooling. So what do angry people do with a lot of time and backs against the wall do? Well, nothing good.

I can't predict the future but I do know that I must do everything that I can to keep my head above the water when the tide rises.

Part-Time Craziness

So what more can I do? Well for starters, I can get a second part time job on the side to work off that extra nagging feeling of a bit lazy for those weekends that I am not doing anything. I am going to see how much work I can take on before I start to feel overwhelmed. I think one of the reasons that I feel okay taking on another job, is because all the new stuff that I am doing, don't really feel like work. It is more like a side hobby that I just happen to get some extra money on the side.

The mysterious new job, is working for my coworkers wedding photographers' business. I will be working their extra add-on photobooth along with any other additional tasks that they require. It is essentially hanging around lots of weddings and taking pictures while enjoying the party. Not bad for a normal Saturday. I think there is also, some van driving involved. All in all, I think that initially there is not to many downsides, maybe a sunburn or two on the longest days.

Sadly, due to the finite amount of time in a day, I am not sure how I can sustain all of my activities simultaneously. I have to just try and squeeze whatever time I can to try and blog whenever I can and work on my side non-profit slowly. I don't want to give up on doing any of the things that I set out to do, but I have to admit that there has to priorities in my life. So maybe instead of putting on the side burner I can blog about it, by putting in mini-summaries at the end of each blog. That way I can keep track on a day by day basis of what I am doing.

Summary:

Non-Profit Business (1m2 homeless shelter): Contacted a city planner and is in the process of setting up a face to face to discuss potential limitations from CA law. Hopefully, I can pick his brain about how I can start this without being stopped by police or regulations

Tutoring: I need to expand my hours and number of students. I have to work on increasing trust with clients and gain experience, likely a long term goal.

E-Book: I wrote effectively 2 pages of this book. I think it will be one of the hardest thing that I will do. Motivation and writing about past experiences will be difficult to maintain.

Blogging: I have begun to slip. I haven't been trying to keep my "blog once per day," for a while. I have to get back to blogging once per day without losing quality of posts.

Singing: I have been cutting class and not paying attention during class. Motivation waning.

Hiking/Biking/RockClimbing/Badminton/Gym: Well, I went once to the gym and badminton.
 

Lost in the Sea of Conversations

Part of growth unleashed, is to overcome challenges in life that sometimes can seem insurmountable. I mean to truly work on being a better overall individual person, one has to overcome barriers that can prevent growth such as, comfort, fear, and uncertainty. I have been on a journey to meet as many people as I can in the south bay area for the last couple of weeks or so. And I have to say that it is difficult to maintain momentum and energy levels.

I think the hardest thing to do when meeting a lot of people in a short amount of time is the ability to maintain a conversation without repeating yourself a hundred times over. I almost wish that there was a huge sign on shirt that says what I do and where I came from, as that is the question that I get all the time. I mean it is great to talk about what you do and where you come from but the overall experiences is almost exactly the same, I have a pre-canned response for that question now, which to my amazement never seems to impress people but confuses them. For example, try to explain what a space environments engineer does without sounding egotistical or going over people's heads. What I am saying is that it is hard to relate them to my career.

I mean do people even care what I do? I really doubt it, they just what something to talk about that seems like a normal conversational topic. Ugh, I wonder if it is easier to just dodge the question and talk about something else entirely. I think for people to have a legitimate conversation with one another they would have to talk about something that matters (deep conversations) or conversely, talk about something that is entirely crazy and extravengent. The danger zone is the safe conversation in the middle, where you get stuck in endless small talk hell.

I want work at being really good at conversations, I mean have the ability to impress anybody within a minute of talking to them. The best way to do that is matching conversational wit with the best of the best. I think I have to be more aggressive with people in my conversation topics, maybe break some rules and normal conventions. Being a bit taboo might be the key for me to bring some uniqueness into an otherwise dull conversation that I know might not go anywhere.

Skylon

I wish that we can travel to space as quickly and easily as we do on planes. There are so many opportunities to commercialize space and yet we don't dedicate the resources and the manpower to make it happen. I think that we must have a significant push to try and get people and governments to understand the need for developing spaceflight. The ramifications if we don't might be disastrous.

The spacecraft above is from Reaction Engines, British aerospace company that is trying to get a vehicle from ground to low earth orbit in one shot, without stages. This is revolutionary due to the ability to take off like a plane and travel to space and back with as little mass as possible. The need for a huge liquid oxygen tank is gone, which is the biggest mass (oxidizer) penalty that every launch vehicle has to over come.

The engine acts like a jet engine in the atmosphere and then uses a heat exchanger to cool down the air as it goes faster and faster. When it reaches the limits of oxygen in our atmosphere, it changes to rocket mode and blasts off the rest of the way. Truly, amazing stuff! For a better description, I'd highly recommend a browse through their website.

Seeing stuff like this really gets me excited about the possibility of space travel. It give me great hope that one day people will travel among the stars. I want to follow in the great pioneers of people who had crazy dreams and stuck to it when no one believed in them.

Mars, here I come!

What can One person do?

So I want to help people. How do I go about and doing that? Well, one thing that I feel very passionately about is wealth inequality, specifically how to help the poorest in this country. It goes without saying that there are many people in this country that cannot call a place their home. Many are homeless on the street due to various circumstances beyond their control. There is a huge problem with providing affordable housing for all those that need it. So I want to help them by starting a non-profit organization and build small (1m^2) houses for those that need it the most.

It is a crazy idea, but I think it might just work. I have contacted architect Van Bo Le-Mentzel in Germany, that first designed this house and he has been really supportive of my initial efforts to help the homeless in San Francisco. He is trying to get the word out to people that, this new kind of dwelling is great for the minimalist as well as people that just need a simple shelter for the night. Currently, the plans are completely open source and everyone can build these houses, all Van asks is that he is kept in the loop on what you do with the house, by sending him pictures.

I've always wanted to help people but I didn't know through what medium I wanted to do this in. Providing shelter for people is one of the important things that we can do for those who are in need. What I have learned so far is that many homeless people do not like to live in homeless shelters due to pride or lack of personal autonomy. My plan is to give those people that cannot reach a shelter or don't want one, their own personal "house." This way they can retain their autonomy as well as provide them a mobile home that doubles as storage container and protection from the elements.

I don't know how hard it is to start a non-profit. I imagine that it will take a lot of time and energy before I get to help people on a massive scale. I can only try to do this in tiny steps until I can achieve something great in the end. I want to do this a sort of great contribution to humanity that can help the disadvantaged in our cities and community. I can only hope that when the time comes, all those who are reading this can support me in some small way.

E-Book Writing

I have been flirting with the idea of writing a book for a while now. I think that with the inclusion of technology, it is easier than ever to write a book and now it is my turn to give it a try. There are a lot of reasons for why I want to do this, but I think the main reason is because I want to create something that I can be proud of that is different from the things that I do. Other reasons are for a creative outlet, improve my writing abilities, and make some money.

The only trouble I have is, what will be the topic of my e-book? That is a hard question considering the huge amount of topics that I could write about, fiction, non-fiction, and biography. It has to be something that I could sustain passion about for at least the length of the book I am going to write. Most likely it will be something that I know a bit about, but it also can be something that I have a faint interest in as well.

I think that the key will be to outline as much as I can about what will go into the book and then let my mind chew on it for a couple of days or weeks. Hopefully, my mind can fill in the blanks and the story will write itself. The other thing that I have to worry about is the content quality, unlike my blog posts, I will have to do a lot of revising and editing which isn't something that I have a lot of experience in.

More and more I am finding out that there is very little difficultly to start writing a book, there just need to be an idea and a will to write it down until completion. Now whether or not it will be successful or good is a whole other topic. But my first book will be good practice if I want to write more books in the future.

Sometimes, I don't know where my motivation to do crazy things comes from, it could be from a news article, a book, or something that I see on television, but I do know that once it enters my mind it is hard for me to let it go. I have to see if I can do it and conquer whatever I set my sights on. It might not be finished but I do give a damn good go at it before I change my mind and do something else.

Overreaching Ambition

I talked about being ambitious in life but new studies suggest that it might not be a good thing for personal relationships. Long story short, it says that ambitious people meet their goals in life but that does not necessarily translate into personal success. It is an interesting study that I think does have some influence in my life, considering how much work I have to do in the future to meet my end goals.

I think that balance is the key to living a good life, but sometimes there is too much work to be done to try to live that kind of life. I know that I still need to accomplish much more to feel content with my successes. It can be described as something of a itch that you just need to scratch and no amount of ignoring it can do it good. There are many things that I still want to do while I am young and still able to learn things quickly. I feel I have limited time before my brain plasticity starts to wear down.

All of this is well and good but what does that mean for me? I think that means that I am probably going to spend most of my time learning and working on projects that mean the most to me, such as this blog. It does also leave very little time for spending time and building up my network of friends up in SF as well as keeping in touch with people in LA. I would have to say that I suck at keeping in touch with my old friends. I think that over time the distance and the slow changing of somebody will make it difficult to remain connected, albeit the occasional chat on facebook.

I wonder if I will drive forward so much so that people will disappear in my life if I am not surrounded by them day to day. It seems that ambitious people one way or another move on eventually to seek greater rewards, opportunities, or fame. There is a trading of career verses relationships that ultimately is at the core of this problem. Where should I dedicate more time to in the long run? Will it be the right choice for me?

I don't know what the answer to those questions are, but one thing I know for certain is that I am headed down the path of advancing my career and I have already seen some friendships deteriorate and disappear in less than a year. It might be a necessary evil or it might be what drives me to unhappiness with my life. I suspect that I will have some clue that is left during my daily posts, so that one day I can look back and say "Ah Ha! that was the moment, I decided to be ambitious"

Fragility of Life

What happened in Boston yesterday was a tragedy that cannot be forgotten, like the twin towers before it, yet again the fragility of life is show to us on a horrible stage. I hope that the perpetrators of this crime are brought to justice quickly. 

What the bombings showed us was that at any moment our lives can change in an instant. People have this idea that we will all live to a ripe old again and die peacefully in our sleep. Some will, but more likely than not, we cannot chose when or where our demise will occur. 

Life has such a special meaning and must be cherished and celebrated constantly. I see many people that go throughout their lives living a hollow existence and I ask what is the point? They are the ones who are not happy with their current state but refuses to change anything about it, while suffering quietly. Some might even have convinced themselves that they can't do it out of fear or risk to their image. All of these people are living a life less than they dreamed of as a little kid. 

I was/am still this way from time to time. But I have been actively trying to break out of this shell of social & cultural constraints. I want to live a full life while doing and taking as much risk as I can. I want to be able to tell legendary stories about myself when I am no longer able to take risks. I want a life full of meaning and understanding. 

Life is a precious thing and it can be taken away in an instant. The only safe guard is to live a full life and go out swinging, that's how I want to be remembered. Prayers for the people in Boston.

Change of Heart

Sometimes all we need to do in life is to have a change of heart. People do it all the time, they change their mind about something or someone and that's it for them. I have mixed feelings about making a decision like that without significant time to explore whether or not it is the right decisions or not, but ultimately I think that it can be seen as a sign of strength.

We all make decisions throughout life, it defines who we are. We are the summation of all our choices. Some are simple and some are exceedingly complex, but one thing it certain if we hesitate and delay a decision we risk, losing out on our ability to choose and get stuck with what we have. There were plenty of times in my life that I didn't want to make a decision because I was afraid of either the consequences or dealing what others thought of my choice.

The thing is, when you wait and think through all of the possible solutions or outcomes, you get paralyzed with "what if?" and you end up doing nothing or worst others make the decision for you. For me that represents a loss of control, when others start to dictate my life.

My relationships have been the epitome of this problem. I have always tried to think through and explore all of the possibilities when I am with someone but, unlike most things logic doesn't work. Emotions are inherently illogical and therefore literally impossible to predict. Many a times, I got burned because I made a decision based on logic and not my heart.

See the thing is, that most women test their guy by throwing rapid fire questions at them expecting an immediate answer to reaffirm their love for her, if they don't answer fast enough it is a sign of indecision and therefore lack of firm commitment. That is where I still stumble... As an engineer, I am trained to look before I leap, it is not a sign of lack of commitment, it's just a school of thought. I mean I have to think through my answers because I want to give the most honest response. Which admittedly kills attraction, because it is so realistic.

Love is almost like a blind faith that you just have to trust with everything you have. How many people can say they do that? I imagine not many, because how sure are we of anything in life besides death and taxes?

I think that sometimes logic must take a step back and we must trust the moment and make a decision to take a risk. I was always a bit slow to show my love for the people that were in my life, I hesitated when they asked me and never gave a strong confident answer. I lacked conviction. But the thing is that I can't gain conviction through thinking or dwelling about it, it must come from a leap of faith.

I realized that neither person in a relationship really knows how it is going to end up, but one person must commit to it for it to have a chance. Very rarely both people commits at same time, usually one then the other, but if no one takes the plunge and commits then no one does. I vow never to make that mistake again, I must take the lead. If I don't, then I lose more than life's version of musical chairs, I might lose the ability to truly commit to another person. All it takes is a change of heart...

American Idol

Back when American Idol was first on television, I told myself that I want to try and get on that show. It was a crazy dream that the freshmen in me during high school wanted to do in order to get my name out there. I never auditioned partly due to the auditions being else where in the country and I would have to travel there alone. Still there is apart of me that would like to be part of that process to see if I have the chops to hang with the best singers.

I think realistically I have much to improve before I ever set foot in something resembling an singing audition. There are problems with sustaining my voice and bringing subtlety into my songs. What I do have is raw power and energy in my voice that I can use for big songs that need me to belt it out. But I think that I would need to dedicate a lot more time and hire a voice coach before I can get to competition level.

I do wonder sometimes if I pursued singing more and really developed my voice, could I be successful at it? For me, I always think about the road not traveled and what I might have lost out on had I done it. Although, most likely there would be no way that I would have tried to do something really risky like that without a solid career backup plan. It just wouldn't be financially smart to do that without a big safety cushion, but I do admire the people that go for their dream without fear.

All in all, I think I am okay with not being the next American Idol, although the glamor and the glitz of performing on stage with millions of people watching is definitely something that I want to do one day. I believe that I am one of those people that works best in front of an audience, when the pressure is high and intense. Maybe, I will find another venue to showcase my talent to others in the future.

Sing a song my friends...

Ignorance is bliss?

Sometimes I wonder if ignorance is really bliss. Throughout my life people have always told me that you must get an education and learn as much as you can in this world. Education, they say is the path to enlightenment. But lately I've been questioning if I really want to know more about the world. 

I have been reading and watching documentaries about what is going on in this world. Topics have range from financial disasters to understanding human motivation and and other topics in between. The take away from all this has been that we are all stuck in a culture and society that is fundamentally broken. The overall message has been that we need to change dramatically if we are to live with some semblance of freedom and happiness. 

It is always my choice if I want to believe them or ignore them, but what I can't ignore is that I am starting to see how it really effects our daily lives and how much better it could be. One example is the banking system in America is so tailored to the elite of this country that it is almost impossible for the average working person to benefit from all the tax breaks and loopholes that the rich have. Or another example is the systemic consumerism in our culture that has people buying as much as they can even when they don't need it. 

I have learned much about what is going on in this world, but I fear that it is only a fraction of what is truly happening now. Sometimes I get pessimistic about the future and what it will bring. It seems that if we were to fix some of the world's pressing problems we should have started decades ago. Instead, problems are mostly ignored. There is a part of me that wishes that I didn't know so much, but if we all close our eyes and ears, one day there won't be a world left at all.

Universal Questions

Have you ever thought about what lies beyond our universe? I know. By definition that the universe is everything, but for me every now and then I wonder if there are defined boundaries outside of our bubble. There can be many possible answers but unfortunately none of it can be validated right now.

I have always been fascinated by what I couldn't see but imagine. Since there are so many theories on what the tiniest of our worlds are, I wanted to think about and postulate about what could be on the outside of the universe. 

I have always thought that the universe is like a bubble. From the beginning of the big bang it has expanded into the universe that is today. But what is the bubble expanding into and how can 3d space continue to grow near exponentially over 14 billion years? I have a hard time understanding a physical entity without limitations, in this case it is the universe. 

The only thing that I can come up with is that this reality is one of several dimensions that we are unable to fully comprehend. Just like how the jump from 2d to 3d is more complicated, i think that from 3d to 4d and beyond is insanely complex with the only way we would be understand it is through mathematics. 

I believe that we are creatures that are inhabit one of many dimensions blissfully unaware of more complex structures and worlds beyond our own. It is kind of like an amoeba with its limited scope trying to comprehend a human. The universe is a vastly interesting place with a lot more questions than potential answers and I hope to learn them all one day. 

Or maybe its all someone's dream...

Change Unleashed

The one constant in life is change. No matter what we do given enough time change always occurs whether we like it or not. In the past couple of years I have gone through more changes than I can keep track of. I'm a much different person than I was, I know this people either tell me or people that I used to have things in common with I don't anymore. 

Long ago, I was afraid of change and uncertainty in life, I wanted things to be defined and constant. Like a good engineer, I had to have things in my control so I can make sense of it. But I found out that the more I tried to keep things constant the more miserable I got. I tried too hard to hold on to things that I needed to let go. 

People in my life that I wanted to stay the same didn't and it drove me crazy. There were many relationships that I wanted to save and try again but in the end it just caused me endless heartache. I finally realized recently that it is easier if we all try to accept change and move forward with other aspects of your life. 

Whether its in relationships, careers, or life the ability to change is one of the keys to happiness. The faster that we can get over things that cause us discomfort the shorter out recovery period afterwards is. Although in some cases it is easier said than done. For my own sanity, I think I will focus on personal growth as much as possible, because without it, I wouldn't have understood the importance of being able to change.

I sang it "My Way"

Here I go again, I sing "My Way," a song sang by Frank Sinatra. Enjoy!

Sustainability

I have always wanted to live a sustainable lifestyle. I think it comes from my want or need to be able to live a simply and healthy in an otherwise polluted and chemically driven society. Also, it helps that I am destroying the Earth slightly slower than others in the process. But it is not only about using less and becoming a more morally conscientious individual, it also simplifies the many decisions that we have to make by limiting our choices.

There are a couple of goals that I want to set to make myself more eco-friendly. I am setting these goals as a way of holding myself accountable and also creating a blue print for others to start living a sustainable lifestyle. I think these are more of stepping stones rather than big leaps, really it is pretty hard for me to start collecting rain water for showers and using compost toilets overnight.

Goals for a more sustainable lifestyle.

1. Bike to work (Take more public transportation)
2. Vastly reduce my water usage
3. Do some recycling
4. Buy and cook more natural foods, reducing packaging
5. Get rid of all the non-essential stuff, donate or sell

Hmm.. It is harder than it seems to think of stuff without making some more drastic lifestyle changes. But for now I think I have a couple to keep me busy for a while.

Steven's Odyssey

Ever since, I moved to SF I have been on a continuous odyssey of self introspection and realization. I am starting to realize that, I am not the same person I was a year ago. So much has changed and slowly I have come to accept the new life that I am leading. I am a much more stronger and confident person than I thought I would be at this point in time. The experiences that I have been through has opened my eyes to what I left behind and how much things are different from who I was.

Change usually is so gradual that you don't notice it until something significant happens or it an experience is reflected upon. I have come to understand that everyone changes a bit over time and it really is not superficially noticeable. One can almost assume that we don't change much over the day to day, but if we add a couple of years, the similarity between our past and present selves look nothing alike.

I find myself looking at the world with a new clairvoyance, that I had not had before. In the past, I had a lot of trouble figuring out what I needed to do month to month, and once that month was over, I didn't know what my circumstances were. Basically, I was fretting over if I had passed a class or might had to take it over again. That led me to have a very limited outlook towards the future. I just didn't know what was going to happen next, which led me to be depressed during a majority of my time at school. I felt like I had very little control in my life.

After I graduated and started working, I started to feel more and more in control of my life. There was a weight that was lifted from my shoulders. I think the key was being able to do the things I really wanted to do, but never had the time, energy, or money to do so. Now, I am able to do and work on side projects and hobbies that really contribute to a work/life balance. In essence, I am free to explore the world and not get stuck in one aspect of it. This kind of freedom as I call it, is extremely liberating, along with complete control over what I want to do with my time.

My personal journey has been one of understanding myself and who I was/am. In doing so, I have learned that I had a pretty pessimistic view of the world and my place in it. I let my problems become bigger than I was, instead of focusing and dealing with it logically and quickly. I still have issues with this time to time, but now I am more cognizant of that and work to prevent it from happening. It is a continuing journey, I think there will be many more facets of me that I have yet to understand and grasp.

Until then I will continue sailing onward!

A nerdy post

I'd like to think that this blog is an extension of myself and what I think about on a daily basis. It is a bit weird that there are very few posts about how nerdy I can be. As someone would likely think, an engineer should have a lot of science related things on his/her blog and is more likely to talk about it as often as they can. Which leaves me in an interesting place, why isn't this blog more science related?

Well the main answer is that this blog is about personal growth and discovery. There are things that I find very fascinating that I share on this blog like mining asteroids in the future, but by in large I focus my writing on things that I am curious about outside of my field. As someone who makes a living thinking all the time, it is hard to turn that off once I get home, my mind just needs something else to focus on.

My curiosity for multiple subjects have left me unable to process all that information, its more of a jumbled mess that needs organizing, there is just too much to learn on the internet. So one way that has helped me learn about all this growth development has been to slow my thoughts and write it down. My musings on this blog are just my interpretation of what I have learned. I find that I learn best this way, hands on approach to doing things or learn by doing.  

So very little to no nerdiness after three paragraphs, that just won't do. So what is nerdy about me that I can share? Well, I wish Star Trek was back on television and not in this new J.Abrams style, it was better before. When I got an apartment the first thing I thought of was, did it have enough space for a workbench to do little science projects. I often play video games to pass the time and I wish for a 3rd monitor so I can have more immersion in my fantasy world.There is more nerd in me, but I will save that for next time.

Happy Pi day everyone!

Entitlement R US

I believe in hard work. One of the greatest things that I learned from my parents is that with enough hard work you can get anything you want. They always told me that if I worked hard enough that life would be easier. I grew up knowing that working would bring me closer to being financially free. So I did. Worked my ass off in school and focused on both hard and soft skills to bring me closer to my goals. I knew that nobody was going to help me and so I did it myself. So when I meet someone that does not want to work hard and expects the whole world to give them a handout, I naturally have issues with that.

There have been many clamoring that this is the entitlement generation, where all of the Gen Y'ers are all mooches and that we have been completely spoiled by their parents. I tend to agree with that statement on a whole. Of course there are exceptions to each rule and there are a couple of outstanding individuals, but from my experience people from my generation are not as hard working as they could be. I rarely if ever hear some say "I'll just work harder next time," they just drop whatever they are doing and move on to the next thing that excites them.

I think my peers just do not value work for what it truly is and that is to make life meaningful. It is viewed as nothing more than a way to make money to do other "funnier" things. I believe that if we are dedicating our time and energy into something like a degree, it might as well provide both some enjoyment for the career you are going into. I have a twisted view when it comes to working, I like it! I mean I really like what I am doing each day, I feel a great sense of doing something for the greater good of all. I help make satellites that provide TV, radio, and internet to all that pay a fee to their subscribers, how can that be bad? It is certainly better than building weapons and bombs.

The point is, I am frustrated at those who just don't care about the work and just want to coast by. It makes people like me feel invalided because all that hard work that went into getting where I am now, is not being taken seriously by others and that is not okay. It is a tremendous chip on my shoulder to go through life working for everything only to see others get handed things that is undeserving. I've seen it all my life and I am sick of it.

There is no master conclusion or ending theme. It just is.

Life as a dream

 Most of my dreams have been very vivid and detailed as far back as when I was a teen. I could remember certain small details like time on a clock or even whole cities during a flying dream. I think at an early age I started to realize that my dreams were a path or conduit into a world that never existed, if not in my own mind. Dreams I believe, when properly understood can help one understand themselves better.

I have often tried to interpret my dreams by remembering as much about the dream after I had woken up. This proved  difficult and challenging as in a foggy sleep-like state, there were very few times that I wanted to put it down on paper, opting usually to go back to sleep. But when I did remember bits and pieces of the dream, I would look it up online to see what the different meanings were.

I go to this "dream dictionary" and basically type in what I saw and it would tell me what it could mean in my waking life. It compiles the different means from a few sources and tries to put it all in one place. Now obviously it is not an exact science and there are many ways to interpret things in a dream, but in my case, I have found common themes in most of my dreams.  I have had several dreams of flying through the clouds and traveling around high skyscrapers.

In the dream dictionary, it says that flying "signifies a sense of freedom where you had initially felt restricted and limited." I find that quite amazing since moving out of LA and starting a new job has given me a greater sense of freedom in my life. It could be that moving to a new city has had a freeing effect on my mind. That is one way I could interpret what I saw in my dreams. Another would be that given my recent increase in traveling frequency, I could be dreaming that I am the plane passing over cities.

Whatever the reasoning is, I find it interesting to try and decode what occurs when I go to sleep. I really want to figure out what it means to dream and why does it even happen. I can only surmise what others have thought, which is that dreams are a way our subconscious mind tries to communicate with the conscious one. 

Keep dreaming my friends...

Grow Fearless

I want to take risks head on, much like the kid up above. Being fearless is more than just conquering physical challenges, but mental challenges as well. I define fearless as having the ability to stay strong and on course when doubters and criticizers try to tear you down. It is a belief that above all else you stand apart from the rest and follow your own path.

I've had many occasions where I had to defend myself against the onslaught of people that would love to see me fail. They probe, question, and attack me for doing things differently from what "Normal" people do, whatever that means. Sometimes I feel as if people are just plain mean and hate everything that they don't understand. I try to see it from others point of view but it gets difficult when I tell people about what I do and they think that I'm bullsh*ting them. I always get a "yeah right look," when I tell people I sing and blog.

One of the worst thing to go through is when people do not take your passions seriously and dismiss it, whether you do it as a full time job or a side gig. To be fearless is to stare your opposers down and stand firm on your position and not give them a chance to fill you with self-doubt. I won't let others block me on my way to accomplish what I need to in life. I will blaze my own path and be fearless along the way.

Be Fearless.