Holidays, End of 2025

Good evening, ladies and gents. I haven't written in a long time so I decided to take some time tonight to jot down some of my thoughts, ideas, activities on everything up to this moment in time-let's say the Holidays and the End of 2025. 

First, I'm glad 2025 is coming to a close. It's been rough for me, and more importantly, for America, and the world, as President Trump is pretty much taking an axe to The Constitution, the Government, and Our Way of Life [in terms of affordability and health insurance/jobs]. I had a bad year, came out of a twelve-year job unemployed for some months, and luckily I was able to land something in the same year because for a while I wasn't sure where I was going to get a job, cash, or even a good hot meal that wasn't ramen with hot dogs. 

And here's the thing, there are many more Americans that were dealt much worse than what I went through. Yeah, I lost my job and had no income for a while, but there are others with families who lost their homes, their jobs, their cars, had to live in shelters or their cars [or warehouses], and are still unable to get into a job. Also, consider the number of people who lost their homes in the Palisades Fire [here in CA]. So yeah, it hasn't been a cakewalk for pretty much every American citizen this year. I know for me personally, this has been the hardest year of my existence out here in California. 

I know for myself personally, I've had to go into hibernation mode and not really go out to too many places or spend too much cash. I only really go to restaurants when I'm spending cash. I haven't been out to the bar or a concert for a year straight. It's a bit like covid 2.0. My new job is okay but they only have limited hours but the volume of work is vast and unwieldy for anyone working there. The work itself isn't hard but the volume is difficult to deal with. This job has drastically changed from the summer up to now, vast changes that have made the work much harder, but I've been hammering through with it, because I know that there aren't really too many other jobs available at this time, and maybe not for months, if not years, especially with this current Administration.

As a result, going into 2026, it doesn't exactly feel great, for me personally, and for all of us Americans. I spent the entire year trying to catch up in terms of my finances and now I'm just barely catching up. And like I said, I think its worse for other Americans with more assets who have families, cars, houses, rent, upkeep, etc. The holidays didn't feel festive this year. My family didn't do gifts at all this year but that's not why it wasn't festive. It wasn't festive because everything has become  much more difficult and we notice it much more often nowadays, everything is out of control in terms of affordability, and things like health insurance might be impossible to get without getting it at a good company job. Like I said, its good to say goodbye to 2025, it was a bad year for our country, for us as Americans, and the word affordability is not a hoax. 

Second, I've been trying to wholly inrich my personal life with lots of literature because otherwise, what's a boy to do? I've been reading a lot and listening to a lot of music-mostly jazz livestreams from a nyc jazz club and a bit of classical like Mozart arias and Bach. I tend to think that without the reading and music my life wouldn't be quite so fun and engrossing. I read 49 books this year, the last book being Charles Dickens, a title called Hard Times, about people living in a lumber mill town. It's dark and gritty but doesn't quite have the strong influential characteristic Dickens voice of say A Tale of Two Cities or David Copperfield, yet it was great. This is an important part. Even when I was at my darkest points this year with little cash, I was still reading, still listening to music, still practicing music, still going to the library. I think that's what kept me resilient, even after going through one of the harder darker chapters of my life out here in California. At one point when it seemed like I wasn't going to find work, I thought about leaving California and moving back to the Midwest, where I'm originally from. But theoretically, it would be difficult to find a job there too, as its a much smaller pool with a lot less resources. You can't really win in terms of the job market right now. And what's crazy is that lots of people I know personally are struggling with work-getting fired, getting laid off, not able to get unemployment, struggling to find another job, forced to work a job that they're overqualified for just to pay rent, etc. The struggle is real right now folks. 

Third, here's a Christmas Eve story for you. I was working my new thrift shop job on Christmas Eve and there was this homeless lady yelling in the front patio area to the side of the front door of our place. A guy was riding his bike past her and she ran and threw him off the bike. He may or may not have been hurt, I didn't really see the full impact of the fall from the cashier stand. 

But he jumped on the homeless women, and beat the crap out of her with his fists pretty hard. He got in maybe 6-7 hard swings on her face, even pushing her down on top of a car while swinging at her. A man from inside my work ran outside and got between them to break up the brawl. The homeless lady sort of came to her senses after that. But Jesus Almighty, what possessed her to tackle a man off his bike? 

I don't condone the man's behavior but you have to admit, if some random lady threw you off your bike, and you were injured, you would probably want to take a few punches to her face, like he did. It was a pretty crazy incident. My co-worker called the cops but they didn't show up. The lady chilled outside for a long time and came inside the store, and just looked around for a bit, bought some clothing, and left. 

I tell this story online as a warning to people who work in stores and retail. At my place I was the only one there after a bit so there's not much I could do. Sometimes when you're dealing with these types of issues you don't want to get involved, especially if you're alone, but sometimes you're going to have to develop psychological tactics in order to deal with this sort of stuff. So when the lady came in I acknowledged her and made her feel welcome but also made her aware that I was there kind of watching. So yeah, that was my Christmas Eve...lol. 

Lastly, I think more and more, I'm beginning to realize that most of the content online in terms of social media, news media, even information from real friends on social media and irl, most information from people you know from your past, now, online, or irl [in real life], I'm beginning to notice that a lot of it is negative based doomer-maxxing sort of content/information. For example, yesterday, I was at the library reading the news and after maybe an hour of reading it, I just felt sick to my stomach, like it was just such awful information to absorb and take in, albeit it may have been important information like about how we were going to rain this week and stuff, although that was one of the less disturbing news even though it sometimes brings mudslides and floods. 

For example, just think about the people you know, knew, work with now/past, family, friends, co-workers, management, a lot of them are telling you some really bad stuff. For example, this might not be the best example, but I remember there were a few girls I was sort of infatuated with even though they didn't really have such nice or great personalities, but I just liked them, and I noticed in a lot of long conversations irl or online, they would often say some messed up stuff to me about myself, my personality, or how I'm too-this or too-that or that's why people don't like me, some kind of messed up doomer-maxxing type stuff. 

This was like a few girls I was in talking stages with. And then I thought maybe I'm the problem? Until I realized that wasn't actually the case, that in actuality everyone's different, and everyone's capable of being an asshole, even when you think they're a pretty girl and should have a nice perky personality. It took me a bit to really understand that. Even girls can be assholes too. I usually prefer to talk to girls and women. Hard lesson on that one, lol. 

Another example of this kind of bad stuff you hear from others is from your management at work. Hardly ever does the Manager or Boss tell you you're doing good, keep it up, and keep bringing the A-Game. Instead, you hear them nagging you, saying you're not doing this, you're not doing that, etc. They're telling you to do it their way and they're changing it all the time and then they're getting mad that you're not getting it, even though they keep changing everything. Another example is family. Family will always be there to tell you you aren't doing enough, you're not good enough, you should do this or you should do that, and then when you try something new they'll tell you, 'you can't be that.' 

In conclusion, I guess the reasons why I'm going into this sort doomer-maxxing type stuff topic is because I notice that this current paradigm of human history is mostly just that. As we go into 2026, you'll begin to realize that genuine people who are good, happy, and have the capacity for happiness have become fewer and fewer in number and you don't really see them in the big crowds or the club or the bar anymore. Maybe you'll only see them online in a post here and there. 

I feel like something has changed. And maybe its not, maybe its not even them, but perhaps just our society as a whole has sort of gone down the drain? You don't wanna go around blaming people even if they are unhappy saps or a-holes or lack a good personality, but after a certain while, if you're one of the good ones, then you're going to have to realize that you and them won't be compatible for long. 

This is a hard lesson for the die-hard good people out there, you know if you know. That girl you liked that called you out numerous times, yeah she's a rotten apple lol. That co-worker that you get along with but who complains to you 24/7, yeah you probably aren't good with that person in the long run. That management that ratted you out and got you fired, yeah there's a special place in hell for that guy. LOL, you get the picture. In a Matrix where everyone is doomer-maaxing/scrolling and complaining about every element of their life, be the child who has his own. 

If you don't hear back from me soon, happy new year! 

November Thoughts

Good day early morning readers. 

Here I'd like to jot down some ideas that I've been thinking about lately or within the last time of writing. First, is it just me or has American society become and/or has always been like a pay-to-play subscription? Hear me out. You have to pay for rent to live in a place if you don't own it, you have to pay for food, you have to pay to go to work if you drive there in your car or even take the bus, you have to pay to go out to bars/clubs if you want easy cheap entertainment, and if you're a homebody you will most likely spend money on streaming services, movies, and/or video game computers and/or systems. So where exactly is America, home of the Brave, right now?

I would say not in good place. Think about everyone you have ever interacted with on a personal level, how are they really doing? Would they be mad to hear that you're doing better than them? In this sort of climate, it's hard to even define what a better life would even be. For me a better life would be playing music in bars, making money off it, and not working a day job. Or perhaps becoming a day writer and somehow writing novels that somehow sell millions of copies. Or even running a small record shop in China or Japan, being the only black guy in a small area. Or, this would ironically be the easiest one, to marry a wealthy girl and still pursue all these other things with her. 

But it seems most people I know or have interacted with on a personal basis are not doing good. Neither am I really. I'm living but I'm not thriving. At this middle age of life, I should be doing a lot more and thriving. Oftentimes, we know what we should be doing but we keep getting distracted in life by various things, people, work, family, and friends that we forget the reasons why we are living and what we should be doing and we're not pursuing our true goals. It's like going to a job, it's good because it provides you money in order to pay rent and buy food but overall, a job isn't going to make you reach your goals faster, in fact, its going to be a hindrance to it. For me, working jobs has slowed down my growth and lowered my ability to be creative and think outside the box. Working, ironically, has become a hindrance to me.

It seems the more people you know now and the more people you knew in the past, the more you know about people, their lives, and their goals, and how and if they go about achieving it. Some people inspire you and you can grow with their help, but only for a little while. Other people are sinking more and more into the abyss, even girls you really like. It's hard to figure out where you stand and everyday is a struggle in order to figure out who you truly are. 

It's hard to figure out if anyone is even real or authentic anymore these days, online especially, but even people you know personally and see day to day, a lot of them are living a lie. I've had a few strange off occurrences that make me truly believe than even some of the people around you who you think are really good people are actually working towards and/or trying to hurt you, defame you, or ruin you behind your back. This is kind of dark but last year I was laid off from my job and when I called the work union about it I told them my situation and they told me that so-and-so, a female manager I worked for six years before this incident, had called them and said something to them about my case, even though she wasn't there, and there's no telling what she might have said, it could've been really negative, thus encouraging them to get rid of me. I only say that because when I asked what she said about me, they said some negative things about it. 

There's a darkside to the soft underbelly of Los Angeles. Like sometimes, people from your past, like past jobs or old friends and acquaintances will want to keep tabs on you but not for good reason. They'll ask you questions about what you're doing, what job you're doing now, and that you should be doing this and that instead, and this and that. And you're just wondering, why does this person want to know all this stuff about me? And it makes you wonder who they're reporting the information to. There's this funny black youtuber I've watched and as he says, "We are trying living in the worst times of history, people showing their horns, its like you're truly alone."

I've seen the darkside of the Los Angeles valley over my entire tenure out here, although technically I'm just visiting from the Midwest. I will probably leave when the time is right. But back to the darkside. I was a part of a small friends group where the leader of the pack, my friend, was sort of going off the rails. He lost his girlfriend, was about to lose his apartment, and pack everything up to leave to go live in a different city, kind of far away. He was doing coke and lsd and weed/beer and just in general very scatterbrained, paranoid, and crazy. I mentioned this to other friends of the group and they told him and he instantly came at me hard and said we can't be friends anymore. This is a guy I was friends with for like ten years. All the guys in the group were friends for at least ten years and when he broke the friendship with me, he must've told them to stop talking to me too, because after that none of them ever responded to my messages and calls, except for one guy in the group. Looking back on it, I think I did a good job warning the other guys that he was on a crazy binge and that they should be weary. If I was a spiritual person, I would say that he was a sort of demon, or possessed. Ironically, I was sort of glad to be rid of him, because being around someone like that isn't fun because they're always only seeing the negativity of life and making you see through their demon-infused lenses. 

I'll leave you with another weary tale. I was at work at this clothing shop gig and this guy called out to me in the storeroom that somebody had taken down the clothes off a manakin [it might've been him]. The guy manakin has like a little junk pouch, so I had to put some pants on it to cover it up. The guy took a picture of the naked manakin and he said, "I'm going to send this to corporate." I said, "Okay," calling his bluff. Then I took some pants and put it on the manakin and he took another picture of me doing that and said "look at this picture, I'll use it to blackmail you," I called his bluff again and just said, "Okay," nonchalantly. Then he proceeded to tell me about how he wanted an item off a manakin and an employee told them they couldn't have it until the manager takes it down at the end of the month. And how he had to go through hoops and make a lot of phone calls to get the clothing off the manakin. Okay, so you get where I'm going with this story. This is a possibly psychotic individual, maybe he's even under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol, because usually people don't get to this level of pettiness without being altered by substances. 

Why am I writing about all this? It's mostly a cautionary tale. Not everything is a coincidence. And believe it or not, there are people who are out to get you. I'm not afraid to leave my stoop or anything but I do realize that most of the people in my inner circle that I was actively engaging with and talking to, hanging out with, and meeting with at bars/clubs were in fact bad actors. They might not have been straight up demons [demons are mostly people who don't know you personally] but they had bad intentions, and being around them so often dimmed my light. Not that I'm a saint either, but generally I have a much better more positive attitude than everybody I've ever met. It's nothing special, it's innate. 

Lastly, I guess I write this to say, yeah, we're in dark times. Remain in light. 

October Thoughts

 

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I had a day off from work today and decided to jot down/share some ideas. 

First, ever notice that time is moving way too fast? I spent some time in between jobs and it was like a blur. Now I'm in a new job and every workday just zooms by. I feel like, especially as I get older, that time is increasingly escaping me. Even now, I'm writing this at two in the morning on a weekday day off from work. I usually don't get to stay up this late anymore and its been more difficult to get into the mode for writing asI prefer to do writing late at night. 

There's been a time loop thing ever since covid. Ever since covid time just seems to fly by. I'm struggling to keep up with all my old hobbies and work seems to get even more in the way nowadays with changing shifts from closing nights to opening mornings the next day[s] after. As the Grateful Dead ask in a song, "Where does the time go?" 

Second, I've seen better days, like the song by Smashmouth. "Missed the bus, but I'm in no hurry." It's been harder to stay consistently happy all the time because it seems like everything is turning, "We're turning again," -Zappa. The truth of the matter is that I'm actually doing very well and have most of what I need but there's always that sense that something's missing, or that I'm missing out on stuff.

For example, I like my new job but overall, its somewhat more stressful than what I was doing previously. Also, it's less pay, more responsibility, more stuff and details, and more intimate work setting with co-workers. Not exactly fan favorites of a work environment, especially when you're not running the place yourself as manager. But I'd rather be optimistic about things that aren't going well in this moment. I do realize that I'm doing well, have decent health, and a roof over my head. Sometimes you have to be grateful for what you have even if it could be better. For example, even when I wasn't working for a little while, I wasn't really struggling as much as other people I know, even when those people were employed working at their jobs, they were still doing worse than I was. "Back in the USSR, you don't know how lucky you are, boy." 

Third, I realize that I've kind of been procrastinating and squandering a lot of time. I've been way too involved in online video gaming. However, I've also been reading a lot too. Just before writing this now, I finished reading Leon Battista Alberti On Painting, an amazing historical document written during the Florentine art era. It is an eye-opening read, albeit very intellectual, but difficult to understand because of the historical translation from Latin and Italian into something a modern English reader could understand. Yes, it's readable, but not all of it flows easily into a modern english meaning. Prolix, and way too intellectual in describing art, however, Alberti was almost more of a humanist learner than a painter, and was better at doing architecture. 

Another book I read before that was Herzog by Saul Bellow. It won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction and the Prix International. This was a great book as it describes the downward spiral of a very Jewish intellectual professor as his wife and kids leave him to shack up with his psychiatrist, ouch. Herzog goes somewhat crazy, manic, and at one point puts his father's old loaded gun into his pocket and goes to visit his ex-wife and pick up the kid. He doesn't do anything with it, but he gets caught with it and booked by the cops. The book even ends on a manic note when he's back at his estate in a remote area, and he hires this nanny to clean up his house, and he's just watching her clean. I had a Jewish best friend that reminds me of Herzog. He had everything he could have wanted at one point and it all just went away and he went into a manic episode. Never saw him again after that. This book was very realistic. 

Lastly, I've been trying to stay focused. I've been reading a lot and listening to a lot of jazz music. I do think I need to lay off the video games for a while to make more time for more creative arts, writing, and music. For example, I'm still interested in AI but have yet to make much progress in AI art or video, mostly because I haven't been devoting too much time to it and I feel like AI has been eclipsed by the commercial state of American advertising through media on the internet, TV, smartphones, and in real life. 

We're so programmed to just buy and consume to make up for our lack of happiness, why would anyone think using AI would make them happy? In a way I would say AI has already been eclipsed by consumerism, even the overconsumption of say right-wing and left-wing news that taken a toll on our society. I do think we as a people, as The Culture, need to become more self-aware of things we're buying and the media we are consuming. 

I know that sounds like a intellectual outsider sort of rant but I think there's something to it there. Like for example, when I mentioned earlier that I've been playing too many videogames, I think the first step is being aware that you're spending too much time on that sort of media consumption, and then going forward you can adjust your plans to do other things and not give all your attention to it. In addition, I mentioned that time seems to be speeding away from me, well, in a way, yes it is. I'm getting older and my health is getting worse here and there. I will use that as motivation to do more of what I really want to do, and spend less time overconsuming digital content. These are basic ideas but not always discussed. Watch this space. 

The owl of Minerva appears at dusk. 

The Downward Spiral of the Times

Hello world. Here I'd like to write an improvisatory speel about the downward spiral of the times we're currently living in, in 2025. 

    First off, this isn't just hard times, this is weird. The amount of division within our society is so bad its almost like civil war in wherever you go, whatever you do, say, or think. That's a bit excessive but just look upon how the Trump administration has handled Charlie Kirk's death. Instead of simply saying prayers for the guy and saying he was cool for right-wingers, they've decided to make the man a martyr for their cause-the right wing agenda. Them doing so has sowed more division and discord, more than even the shooter simply shooting the guy. In fact, right now most people could care less about the shooter and why he did it and they're more focused on the fallout, including the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel for simply mentioning that the shooter maybe was MAGA. 

    Moving on, you'll find that the division doesn't simply stop at politics or the fallout of Charlie Kirk's death. You'll find that you maybe won't be able to get along with certain family members, friends, coworkers, managers, maybe even some stranger will look at you in public with the evil eye for no apparent reason. Now, I'm not saying that everyone hates your guts, but maybe if you're noticing that you're getting more dislike and hate from others around you, you need to realize that sometimes its not you, it's them, it's a symptom of the times that we're currently living in. 

    Next, maybe you've played the good guy so long that you know that there's no way anyone can really truly hate you, well, in this current climate of discord, you'll find that no matter how good of a person you are, you will receive hate from certain individuals around you and even from strangers. I would say you have to trust no one in this particular society and times. In a way you have to even be critical of yourself in certain moments and situations, not just others. You need to be extra critical of the people closest to you, and especially critical of people that know or knew you in the past, and even more critical of strangers, especially in public.  

    In addition, I'm a person consuming a lot of media. I'm on YouTube, video games, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, NyTimes, LAtimes, washington post, MSNBC, and a lot of the media people are consuming may not be good for you. In fact, a lot of media out there is downright brain rot. I don't want to be too critical of the news here as I think more young people need to watch/read the news, but I've noticed that a lot of the left wing news media has turned more to the right, which is a bit alarming. Especially since the Kirk incident. 

    Lastly, people that disagree with you, call you out and condemn you in super harsh ways for lightly expressing your opinions are probably the most dangerous to you. We all have a right to share our thoughts and express our opinions and if somebody doesn't like what you have to write/say, then there's plenty of other media for them to go to. But in today's age, you'll find that you personally won't really be able to fully express yourself anymore. Part of it is the fact that simply saying what you truly think or believe is dangerous, and the other part of it is that people that don't like it will hurt/harm you for doing so, if they are so inclined. 

    In conclusion, I would go so far as to say that most people out there [including friends/family/people that used to/know you now/meet in the future] will end up screwing you over and backstabbing you if you aren't watching closely and take a step away from them. Trust me, this happened to me with countless friends, family, managers/jobs, my old work union, and even newer current people in my life. I hate to say it but it's going to get worse. Try to find some peace. Peace is the way. 

Watch this space. 

Meet the new Boss, Same as the old Boss

Good evening, how are you? I wanted to do a bit of blogging, some improv, and just see what turns out. It's September 20th, 2025, about a week after the Charlie Kirk incident, which has captivated the media and the internet nonstop ever since. First, I'll start with my thoughts on the matter. 

Charlie Kirk wasn't my cup of tea. I put him in the same vein as Ben Shapiro, Nick Fuentes, and Candace Owens, so I see him as right-wing agitator. However, that doesn't mean that I think he should've been gunned down and although I'm kind of a hard leftist progressive [if you know anything about this blog and my life as a worker], I don't think people should be celebrating his death. In fact, I think the fact that people are celebrating his death is a little bit sickening. This is where we are in 2025 September 20th. 

Which brings me to my next point. The fact that the Trump administration flew his body back via Airforce 1, and the Right-Wingers [although its mostly the far right that are sprouting revenge and violence] have made him a martyr in their crusade against the so called woke liberal left. When you see your right-wing friends saying Kirk was a good man, a great man, and that he was peaceful, you know that they're only saying that because that's what they've been told to believe because the man was quite frankly, an asshole of a right-wing persuasion. On the opposite side on the left, you see the celebratory theme of Kirk's death as a sort of meme of pop culture, which they've been told to believe in. 

That being said, it doesn't take a genius of political ideology to tell you that these two different parties are just followers, believing in whatever the 'leader,' is telling them to believe in. Which makes you wonder, is anyone truly thinking for themselves anymore in 2025? We got people hooked in ChatGPT, taking pictures of them in their outfits and asking GPT if it goes hard? The people who do think for themselves are getting drowned out, belittled, and disgraced by the people who are just followers of whatever ideology they've been told to follow. Which begs the question, can anyone truly be an outsider in 2025? Maybe not. 

Moving on from politics, you find today that the Culture has been transformed into a video culture. Meaning that most people are followers following the trends and can't resist it. I remember working at the market and most of the employees there would always be on their phones watching TikTok on the sales floor and even on their break, phone in one hand, and food in the other. For women and girls it's TikTok and videos nonstop, for men it's endless video games and YouTube. If you say you prefer books, you are seen as an outsider by these groups. 

That being said, I don't think that will ever change. What we're witnessing now is the decline and fall of the American experiment, which lasted roughly 300 years. We consume so much stuff and media, its like a fat guy eating 20 hamburgers, it's become disgusting. Nowadays I sometimes find myself getting lost in the male video gaming meme culture and after a few weeks I catch myself and realize that I have to resign from it for a few months to recuperate. The consumption of mass media in this culture has a strong effect on the human mind. 

Now, I'm not saying you have to read books all the time. But perhaps it wouldn't hurt to read a book every now and then? And if you can't stand books, maybe do some kind of learning via the internet instead of endless TikTok or doomscrolling? This current American culture has become some kind of monster [metallica reference], its got to the point where everything and everyone has become fake and useless [now trending.] 

Sometimes you might watch a TikTok or a YouTube video and it seems real and lifelike, but you find out later on that its AI voice generated video with real images, or that everything the person said or did in the video is all fake, not one tiny bit of it is honest or real in any way. This is where we are in 2025. From a young person's standpoint, it's almost frightening because young people are impressionable and a lot of them are going to believe a lot of what's online despite being told a lot of it is all fake. Now, I think the biggest skill for a young person to have is to be skeptical of everything and everyone around them, especially those closest to them. 

I worked at a grocery store in SoCal for a long time. In that time I probably worked with over 300 employees. And I was cool with almost all of them, cool as in I got along with them and we worked well together. But most of those people were fake and were always trying to do the bare minimum amount of work. This includes management and store directors as well. They were all, for the most part, not very good people, fake people, not hard-working people. They weren't evil people, but for the most part they were fake and useless. Most people don't tell it like how it really was and is, but I'm keeping it real and I might get flagged for this but most of them were bad people. Pretty much everyone at the market including managers, codirectors, and store directors were all not good people, very fake, and didn't do much work. I had one manager for 12 years, a Persian guy, who hardly did any work pretty much the entire 12 years, and hid in the back 4 hours a night. These people might be a good laugh to have a beer with, but they were not very good people. 

In conclusion, what's the solution? Well, I think you have to really learn to be skeptical of everyone and everything. As one of my managers said, "This is California, trust no one." As paranoid as that sounded to me he was right. I think today in 2025 you have to even be skeptical of little old ladies asking you questions on the street. Listen to your elders but don't take what they say to heart, because the future of the world is you, not them. The workforce people are all fake and they're probably going to do you in the first moment you say no to them or don't make the quota. Learn to build your own interior world. The world has become more and more fake. Everyone you knew in your past or from previous jobs probably treated you badly behind your back and you didn't realize it because if you're like me, you're a good spirit, even amongst demons. You tend to overlook that sharp eye of evil within your managers and coworkers. Yeah, it's in the eyes. 

As random and improvisatory as this long blog was, everything in it is connected. Brought to you via the government and workforce. Godspeed. Watch this space.  

"I couldn't say where she's comin' from, but I just met a woman named Dinah Mo Hum." 

New Horizons, Incoming Labor Day Weekend

 

Hello world. How are you doing? It seems like the world has changed so much since even the last post early this month about the novel Three Body Problem. I was reading a lot of novels nonstop. In fact, this year, since January, I've read 25 novels. In addition, I've started using ChatGPT consistently. I try not to  use it as a crutch for writing and/or actual ideas I have but rather as a sort of backup/double check on certain things. 

For example, today my friend came over and was having an issue connecting his laptop to the internet web browser, and I asked it a few questions about possible fixes and troubleshooting. I also use it for questions about novels and albums of particular jazz artists and Zappa albums. It's gotten to the point where I'm using it more than google, which is downright fascinating but I'm aware that I'm becoming attached to it a bit too much. For example, I wouldn't want to use ChatGPT to write this blog post. That would be a bridge too far. 

Moving on, what I'm mainly posting about today is more about a change of seasons. I moved on from my retail grocery job of twelve years and am now working at a thrift shop. It's not a glamorous job but it is a big change and there is room for advancement into management in the future. Pay is what the market will bear but the hours are reasonable and usually I get home around 9 pm. That is a huge plus for me because at the grocery job I was working till 1 am nearly every night for twelve years. So there's some good change here. 

In addition, the place is small, only has a few employees [but will be hiring more soon], and you answer to one main manager, and another bigger manager above him. My coworkers are very nice and they've done their best to train me my first two weeks so far. There's still certain things I need to go over and really get down better but overall I really like the work. There's a cashiering element to the job but it's not as intense as grocery store cashiering. There's a daily nightly report that gets emailed to the bigger manager that I have to learn to write faster and get down better. But overall, it's a job, with opportunities for advancement, and because it's not a glamorous job, I think there's safety there. 

Also, I think I lucked out with this job because right now the job market is cooked, as Gen Z says. There was a report in the nytimes about how this past month, in New York there was only 1,000 jobs added, which is insane, because I think there are more people in New York than in LA, so we're probably not doing too well with adding and filling jobs in LA either. 

Moving on, I got laid off from my grocery store job back in January, around the beginning of that month. Keep in mind that I didn't quit or want to leave. They sort of forced me out, a sort of forced being laid off. So I've been unemployed for seven months. It was a rough period. I would say it was second worst time of my entire life. I went through a lot of severe depression and had constant nightmares. For about three of those months I could barely get out of bed.

My daily routine consisted of getting up as early as I could, cleaning up, looking/applying to jobs online, going to places in person and handing out my resume and asking if they're hiring [which most managers didn't really appreciate], and getting tons of rejection emails. Out of about 65 jobs, [15-20 of them being the same job applied to more than once over a period of a couple months], I got four job interviews, went to three of them, and got the fourth one at this thrift store. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to stay in retail grocery because that's my primary job experience but it just didn't work out. In fact, the first three interviews were all at grocery stores, and I think I would've been a bit happier at a grocery store but again, it didn't work out. So this is the next step going forwards. 

Lastly, as the job market, economy, government, immigration system, and healthcare system collapse all around me, all I have to say is that as bad as those seven months being unemployed were, it actual wasn't as bad as it could've been. I had some savings to buy food and live on. I've spent a lot of money on that and want to replenish some of my savings with this new job. But more importantly than saving money or having money, I think right now just having a job is more important than ever. 

I don't want to be all about doom and gloom but the system is collapsing. It has been for a while but most people are in denial about it and the government/news never say that we're in a bad depression right now. I think its a lot worse than it looks. There was a shooting at a Catholic school yesterday that ended with the loss of two young lives, that shook the nation. I don't think it will get better and I don't think there will be gun reform as a result of this incident. 

In the worst of my moments being unemployed I seriously thought about giving up my groovy lifestyle in California to go back to the Midwest and live with my Mom, and help her out, especially now that she's getting older. With the way things are going for me here, I still might do that in the end. I've found that people I knew and know here in California were nice people at the time and we might have been friends for a while, but not every friendship lasts. I happen to think that the friends I made out here in California are much more narcissistic than my friends from the Midwest. Not only friends but a lot of managers at the retail grocery job were narcissistic as well. It kind of makes you wonder if there's something in the air here in California? 

Watch this space.    

Liu Cixin's Three Body-Problem

 

The Three-Body Problem took the western science fiction world by storm when it was translated from Chinese into English in 2014. Liu Cixin not only wrote an amazing science fiction [and he's the most critically acclaimed Chinese science fiction writer] novel but the novel is also the first eastern novel to earn the prized historic Hugo Award [the best award for science fiction novels], thus becoming a bridge between western and eastern science fiction. 

The Three-Body Problem challenges the western conceptions of science fiction, thus introducing us to different ways of seeing science fiction writing, and showing us how very different the idea of Chinese science fiction can be. Science fiction from different cultures are all very different. British science fiction, French, Polish, German, Russian, and American science fiction are all different, well, Chinese science fiction might even surprise us even more than all of those, simply because we, as westerners have never read any Chinese science fiction. 

Keep in mind that I'm an avid science fiction reader, having read all the golden age science fiction short stories [starting with the 1950s stuff], and all the important sf writers of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. And The Three Body Problem is much different from all of that. This book is great because it is different, it introduces us to a new cultural genre. The Three-Body Problem is just the first part of Cixin's series, there are two other books in this series after, The Dark Forest, and Death's End. 

The story begins with the Chinese Cultural Revolution and follows with protagonist Wang Miao's investigation in a list of suicides. There's this mysterious video game where you have to wear a haptic suit and its virtual reality. The game is connected to an alien civilization facing extinction. The story takes place throughout different points in space and time that keeps the readers engaged to the end. The characters in the game have to dehydrate their bodies in order to survive these great periods of draught and darkness, a unique feature of the game. 

There are a lot of hard science elements. Liu Cixin is an engineer, uses complex astrophysics in an accessible way for the modern average reader, in order to dive deep into the philosophical nature of man's place in the universe. The novel explores how first contact with aliens would go, alongside the ethical dilemmas if Earth was destroyed by the aliens or other humans. 

The story opens with the turbulent violent era of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, which is much different from the western American Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. However, because of the history of America's Revolution in the 1960s, we can see/compare/contrast that with the Chinese Cultural Revolution and learn something from it. There's a deep Chinese cultural connection to this novel that transcends most Americanisms in American science fiction. Liu Cixin loves China, and its easy to see that even from the first page's violence of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, which, by the way, gets you hooked right in from the get-go. We can learn from the way Cixin uses the Chinese Revolution as a way to explore deeper elements of science fiction in an emotional way. 

The book is very strong from the get-go. It keeps your curiosity high and the element of the virtual reality video game is sort of like an anime, another eastern import. The only weakness I can see here is that the English translation may or may not be as strong as how the book really is in Chinese. A lot of people have critiqued the translation and said that it feels wooden, but I think this is how Cixin actually writes and sounds. He wouldn't have wanted a wooden translation put out into the west, and The Three-Body Problem would not have earned a Hugo Award if the translation was off. 

However, I do think that because some of the elements of science fiction aren't your traditional hard American/western science fiction elements, I do think some people will simply not like it. But it's their loss, as the book shows you how different and how great Chinese science fiction can be. While Western science fiction often frames humanity as exceptional and destined for the stars, The Three Body Problem humbles us with cosmic indifference, suggesting we may be merely insignificant players in a universe governed by forces beyond our comprehension or control.