Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse Virus pt. 10

It's 2021/11/9 evening. Covid is still running strong after nearly a year and a half of divisive health guidelines from doctors and politicians, and misinformed idiot citizens who don't want to be vaccinated. Our government is run by two parties, one of which denies climate change and has rallied the Trump demagogue to vote Republican, no mask, no vaccines. Jobs are hard to come by, good pay and benefits have gone up in an era where its a struggle to get people back on track on a working career in their respective fields. Climate change and global warning is a hot boiling point issue but the worlds powers can't seem to get it together. A billionaire nerd plays with the idea of ending world hunger. 

Is this what I thought being an adult would be like when I grew up? Is this some sort dystopian fiction novel? No, but indeed there are some similarities. Here I want to get into more of the nitty gritty on life during the pandemic, working in a grocery store, and how I've been dealing with the pandemic on those terms. 

Life during the pandemic has been an easy transition for me. I wake up early in the morning, I go to work, I come home, I have recreation time for reading, guitar, and friends, and I rinse and repeat. It's quite the good life, as I pretty much get to do whatever I want, provided I make sure to get to work on time in the mornings. Evenings are always free to do whatever. 

Work has been more intense than home life. Working on the job has its stress but the added traffic of extra customers since the pandemic has given most of the staff more than they can handle. We have limited employees at any one given time and on top of that, there's high turnover, and it's been difficult to get new hires to stay and/or keep hiring more new employees. It really is a conundrum getting people, anyone, to work these grocery store retail jobs these days. The peoples who usually stay are young people who live with their parents, young people who go to college, and middle aged people who have been in retail their whole lives. In short, we don't have enough help and can't keep the help we do get.  

My personal role at the store has become more streamlined and my job itself has become a lot easier. So in that sense I can't really complain too much.

How have I been dealing with the pandemic? I read a lot of books, I listen to a lot of music, I play a lot of guitar, writing more blogs now and then, and I text and hangout with friends occasionally. To be honest, it's an amazing life and I'm really lucky I get to do these great things I love to do. My job surprisingly gives me a lot of freedom in my recreation hours to truly become inspired, come alive, and be myself. That won't happen in the world or retail. You have to make the time to build and develop an interior life outside of the working hours on the job.

Weather it's through my guitar playing, reading, or writing, I can truly say that I'm never really bored. There's always something new to learn, something new to explore, new avenues to travel along. This gift of curiosity has led me to learn jazz guitar, listen to the classical music canon, and read the western canon.  

In a time when people are really struggling I'm thriving, for now, praise be to God. When I look back at this time in the future, I can say that I had a great life during covid. Amen! 

Also check out my covid plague journal! http://ofigueroamusic.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html

The Art of the Perfect Day

Lately, I've been writing a lot of long-winded rants about the ways of the world, making it out to seem a lot more wicked than it might potentially be. While the world is still trying to kill all of us with the threat of COVID looming over us like the sword of Damocles, embodying the very nature of pure fear and danger. It's been rough. But I think I've finally hit that sweet spot where I'm not going to bitch about how bad COVID is, and cry about how I can't hang out at Starbucks or hang out with girls at the bar. 

Consider the alternative. Positive energy, good vibes, hippie energy, essentially. This is where the Beatles come in for me. With the godlike good vibes of the Beatles, there are no limits to what you can, imagine. 

Consider how difficult it would be for you to have a perfect day. Well, I had a perfect day today. Nothing got to me and it was just lovely. I want to live every day in a positive way like this. It's like a superpower. But it isn't easy. Nothing you can do if you want to sing the blues but you know it don't easy. Every day is a constant uphill battle. But you can't let the fuckers get you down. 

Here are some tips and tricks that help me practice The Art of the Perfect Day.    

1) Read books, not articles. 

A lot of people wake up in the morning and they read the news and then follow it up with either more news articles or other articles about various subjects they're interested in. While I think reading the news is essential, I don't think you should solely only read the news, nor solely read articles. If you do, you're reading potential is sorely wasted. In fact, I would say that reading the news isn't even reading, it's just politics and keeping up to date. The sheer intellectual stimulation you get from reading a great book or even a mediocre book that interests you is so powerful that there's almost no other source like it aside from maybe something like LSD. Again, no limits to what you can, imagine. 

2) Talk to people, really talk and understand.

When you talk to people, are you really listening? Are you giving them your full attention and respect? One of the things in life that is hard to get in this day and age is a good, sentimental education. With this, you will learn to treat people with dignity and respect. You will learn to treat the janitor with the same respect as the CEO. People that don't understand this don't make it far in life; their wives leave them and take the kids, they lose their top pay CEO positions, they even fail their careers and end up unemployed or worse. You don't learn this from college and sometimes even parents don't understand or know how to teach this. It comes with wisdom, age, and experience. 

3) Relax, don't try to control everything.

Take a chill pill and mellow out sometimes. Remember that you can't control everything, especially people, their actions, and their thoughts. I've worked with a lot of managers who stress out to the point of exhaustion. This is very common. This is a big no-no in life and it holds them back, as well as making them stand out like a sore thumb. While you can't be a complete hippie freak and let your freak flag fly high all the time, you should at least know how to play it cool, so cool that nobody sees you freaking out under pressure, no matter how much pressure it is. Take your time. Do things at a reasonable pace. Don't make mistakes. But if you do, don't freak out about it, just fix it, but again, be reasonable about it. If it's a serious mistake, admit to your faults, and move on. 

4) Get a little help from your friends.

Use all your friends and family to your advantage. They're there to be there for you. Feel free to lean on them in times of trouble. Likewise, always help them whenever they need you. With a little help from your friends, you can really get by.   

5) Realize that things are getting better all the time. Sometimes you have to learn to see the sunny side of the street. People really hate being around negative people all the time. It's a fact that they are the worst. Likewise, people who are always overly positive can be annoying. But consider the fact that the overly positive person is much more likable than the negative person. The positive person has a better personality and probably has an easier time getting through their day, and consequently, through much practice in good mindsets, even has a better life.

One day doesn't change all the other days. But's it good practice. Life's a bitch, and then you die. Better make the best of it and enjoy it to the fullest. 

"The teachers that taught me weren't cool, holding me down, turning me round, filling me up with your rules. I've got to admit it's getting better, a little better all the time." 

What are you reading?

I've been doing a lot of reading. I figured I'd write about what I've been reading partly to keep track of it all and also to share my interests with the readers.

First of all, I've been reading a lot of online news and local (physical copies) papers. I've been reading the Guardian, LaTimes, NyTimes, Wired, and LaWeekly. These are all good publications with such a vast array of literary styles. I've been keeping up on net neutrality through Wired and getting my politics from online websites. By the time I see the news later at night or at work I already know everything they're going to say-to a point. Sometimes they have different agendas but for the most part they are telling the same stories.

Then there's all my library books.

Yesterday I checked out Charles Mingus' autobiography. I'm fifty pages in and its quite the novel, very detailed, dark, romantic, sad, and its just the beginning.

That same day I also checked out a book called How Computers Work. That one is very technical so we'll have to see if I even make it that far in that one. I've picked up an interest in computers because of a book on art and aesthetic called Multimedia From Wagner to Virtual Reality. That book contains a forward by William Gibson (one of my favorite writers) and tons of essays by artists, musicians, and computer engineers on art and technology. It has a lot of computer history in it and from there I became more interested in computers.

Then there's Eifelheim by Michael Flynn. This book is about a priest in medieval Germany who converts aliens. The book is so prolix and unrewarding that it is super hard to read. This is the second time I've had it from the library and I'm determined to finish it, more as an accomplishment than because its actually good. Its very dense.

Lastly, we have Kindred by Octavia Butler. Butler's work can be sort of complicated too but in a rewarding sense that Flynn lacks. The book is about a black woman who gets sent back in time to the antebellum South to the time of her great-great-great relatives and stuff. Needless to say its pretty dark.