das Erntedankfest 2022

Hello loyal blogspot readers, 

How are you? It's been a minute. Things have been up, down, topsy, turvy. Here I'd like to jot down some notes on what life has been like this Thanksgiving week. 

First, I've been working nonstop since the summer. I've requested a week off for a vacation week every month since September and I've been denied every time. C'est la vie. On top of that, I only had Tuesday off this week so I'm working hardcore. 

Here's an empathetic experience for you. I was listening to classical music on my last ten minute break tonight and this cute girl I work with came in and talked on her phone for like two minutes, probably with her boyfriend. Then she just sat there and cried. It was super awkward. I didn't know what to say so I didn't say anything. But I was listening to a great classical piece without headphones so she heard it, and it seemed to soothe her, especially the last major chord ending the piece. Quite an experience. Did I mention she's cute?

Second, although my job is grueling, it is pretty easy. So although I get mad when I'm there sometimes, in reality, I can't complain too much. Pushing carts in the cold is harder work and I've done that too. I stand there and take cash and throw things in the bag. It helps to have a personality but the job doesn't require you to have any kind of personality whatsoever, so if you don't really want to talk, you can just say the bare minimum. 

Third, this holiday season has been especially rough on the low level employees and the customers. The only way you can really enjoy this holiday season and have a lot of fun is if you're some kind of superman or superwoman. Most people that come to my line have nothing but complaints about this, that, the other, or prices of most things. I could care less. Nobody seems to be happy and you know what, that's not going to change. You know why? Because they simply lack the capacity for happiness. 

Fourth, what is the capacity for happiness? The capacity for happiness is the ability to find happiness within yourself, in and outside of your own makeup and psyche, and being able to see it and fulfill it within others. When you are happy, you are smiling, even if not physically, your spirit will be shining bright, and when others see that, theirs will be too, ad infinitum. 

But again, not to be rude, but most people can never be completely happy because most people simply lack the capacity for happiness. Nobody in the universe, not even God, or Christ Himself, can make you happy. You have to make the leap on your own for your own good. Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die. It easier to smoke pot or get drunk or do hard drugs. 

Lastly, I've been talking about this idea for years on this blog. Here's a blog from 2020 even entitled Capacity for Happiness, you can read it here. When everything is going well, it doesn't really matter if your happy or sad or in the middle or whatever. But it's times like these, where the world seems to be falling off the hidden cliffs of the abyss, staring back at you, that's when you need to have practiced and gained the capacity for happiness, training within it and without it, your entire life, ad infinitum.

image ai generated 

Covid in the Workplace

Good evening ladies and gents, a happy dawn to you. 

Here I'd like to talk about what's been going on so far at this point in the pandemic. Okay, so we've been at this pandemic for nearly three years now. A lot has changed at my job, I've had to readjust mightily and heavily and I faired pretty damn well, I might add. 

But let us get to the heart of the matter. There are currently fifteen recorded covid-19 cases at my store, and that's only going back from the first of the year, AND that's not including cases that are probably there right now but haven't been reported. 

The new store director has been commissioned by the company to order everybody to be vaccinated by the 24th of the month with an electronic verification online. This doesn't include booster shots, the only requirement is at least the one shot vaccine of any vaccine from 2021. Things are finally moving, but wait, why wasn't this set in place by the company in year one?

I know for a fact that a lot of my coworkers/management weren't vaccinated, yet I've had to work with them all this time, myself being put at more risk. While I do find it comforting that everyone will at least have to prove they've been vaccinated once, it still bothers the hell out of me that this wasn't a requirement on year one. One step forward, two steps back. It's a lot like getting a gunshot wound and putting a band aid on it. 

With so many call outs from colds/flu and covid-19, the store is being run with much less staff and most departments doing earlier closing hours. Social distancing is nearly impossible in our narrow aisles and small front end. Tons of people come in without wearing masks all the time. The unmasked are a nuisance and get aggressive, sometimes physically aggressive and taunt other customers. Some things never change. 

With all this covid in the workplace, I'm more weary than ever about catching the virus. It's not really myself that I'm worried about because I have good health and am still young, it's more my stepfather. In terms of the climactic moment of this plague, and my own personal plague journal here, I would say we've hit the climax in terms of covid disrupting my place of employment with high numbers of cases, and counting. 

It's like a movie. I almost still can't believe it. Two years and counting. Welcome to the plague years. The best years of my life. 

Black Metal October

I figured I'd write a what's up, vlog-style post, considering I haven't written anything lately. 

The Holidays are here, and as a result, I've been working a lot at the retail gig. I'm doing a lot more daytime shifts, which are pretty tiring. However, a job's a job and everybody has to play his part, as they say. The hard-working proletariat never dies. But sometimes he gets stomped on. But that's subject for another discourse: The Dialectics of the Modern Proletariat, to be continued...

I've been reading nonstop, pretty hardcore actually. I read Colin Greenland's science fiction space opera Take Back Plenty, and then, on the recommendation from a friend I read Robert M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. In between I read Wittgenstein's The Preliminary for the Philosophical Investigations, which includes his Brown and Blue books, notebooks for his friends and students in philosophy. Quite a stellar reading list if I may say so myself. I haven't written about any of these because in a way I'm still gathering my thoughts on them and in addition, I'm continuing to read so much more every day that it's hard to keep up, to put my thoughts on previous readings on paper, or in this case computer writing format. Now I'm reading Susan Sontag's Against Interpretation and Other Essays. After that, I plan on reading The Outsiders by Colin Wilson. Wow. "Gotta get down to it." 

I've also been chilling with my friends a lot too. We play a lot of Smash Ultimate. I don't really do any solo computer gaming anymore at this point. I've sort of given up on it because I don't get the same level of joy, excitement, or motivation to improve at video games anymore. The thrill is gone. Video games are important only in a superficial instant gratification sense, once you get past that, you realize that there's so much more Quality, gravitas, emotional content in music and literature. I could actually predict a time when video games become uninteresting and kids actually begin to lose interest, and start playing instruments and reading books. A utopian pipedream.

I'm also working more seriously on losing weight. My plan is to eat less. So far its been working. The great thing is that I'm a lot more alert and on the ball when I'm not overfed. It will probably take at least three months to see real results but already I know that I'm a lot quicker to the draw, especially at work. Who knows, maybe I can go from fat Buddha to skinny Buddha in this fashion? To sit under the Bodhi tree and only eating what is required and nothing more.

I haven't been playing as much guitar but I will probably play a bit tonight. I haven't played the keyboard in a while either but again, I'll play a bit tonight. The hardest thing about music is keeping up the practice. There's so many other goals and pursuits, its easy to put it off one day, then two, then three, etc. For me I notice that if I'm not constitently listening to music all the time then I won't practice guitar or keyboard either. Reading in silence becomes my music, and it is not a bad music either! 

I'm going to end with a nod to Halloween. Back in 2017 I wrote a black metal song entitled Spirits of the Dead, with my then current band. Check out the song on YouTube here. Yes, that is me on guitar and vocals LOL. Oh, to be a young metalhead. Also, its notable that I wrote the song on a gloomy rainy morning in Octobert 2017. I played the song at least ten times at open mics with Martin Arevalo, on drums. One time we got a very good lead guitarist to play lead for the song while I did rythmn and vocals, it's a killer recording.

Spirits of the dead!

Summer's [almost] gone

Summer's [almost] gone. We are in the midst of autumn. My favorite season of the four seasons, Vivaldi style. Obviously, I enjoy Fall because of my father and my own birthday, which just past on September 25th. But there are other reasons why I love Fall. 

Fall is the season of change. New beginnings. The same old humdrum routine feels different somehow even though I've already been here before, maybe even a thousand times, metaphorically speaking, of course. I'm working in a similar job that I've always worked at during Fall. The same old things remind me of old memories and experiences even though everything is slightly different. Variations on deja vu, if you will. 

I remember lots of things from Wisconsin and my last visit to Chicago two years ago. The leaves in the midwestern streets, thousands of them, littered all over, sometimes burnt in firepits, but most of the time just swept into the streets, for cars to pass them by, and shuffled into the air. The variations of colours on the leaves vary from bright, dark oranges, to reds, to browns, to dirty black. The crisp cold California air that comes in October and November. Skateboarding home from school in 70-degree temperatures to the Wisco house. 

The more I remember the more I think and ruminate on all of it. It's a work of beauty, majesterial. I'm older, different, but still slightly the same, the song remains the same. 

In terms of business its the beginning of the holiday season, which means sales, sales, sales. I've learned to control my spending habits and not waste money frivolously so I'm already much more prepared for the holidays than I was any other year of my life. The big difference here is that I'm not a consumer anymore. I just buy clothes and food. I don't need any more guitars or video games. I don't need much of anything. There comes a time when a man realizes that he should only buy what he needs. A 21st-century schizoid man has what he doesn't need.

Work reminds me of other past work experiences. Different people remind me of other people I've worked with. The young girls always remind me of other girls. The guys too. California retail is a blessing because I used to have a much harder time getting to and working at places in Wisconsin. But there's definitely an air of "I've been here a thousand times before," every time that I clock into work, every time I talk to a co-worker, every time I talk to a customer, the feeling that never goes away, during the Fall.

Perhaps this is just the worldhood of the world. Either way, summer's gone. C'est la vie. 

An ode to my twenties

I just turned thirty years old on September 25, 2019. It's been a great life, full of peace, and love, and happiness, as Hendrix used to say. I feel like all the time spent in my twenties went to good use. I've really come into my own as a person, a man, a brother, a son, an employee, a friend. Thirty is the beginning of the next phase of life where I'll strive for success. And keep up the good stuff. However, I can't overlook the great soul searching that took thirty years. 

First of all, living in California under the tutelage of my stepfather has changed me a lot as a person. For the better. I started reading a lot of books and it turned out that I love reading. As a result of reading a lot, I've turned to writing a lot as well. As a matter of fact, I've been writing this blog for the last six years, how long I've been living out here in Cali. Not only did I take up the reading habit but I've also learned to look inwards towards myself, and become more soft-spoken, and develop an interior life away from my friends, work, and family, leading me to become more confident and more assertive.

My attitude about life has improved a lot. Work doesn't seem like a chore anymore. Rather, it is an interactive experience where I get to interact with the being, worldhood, of the world, something I picked up from Heidegger, from his philosophical opus, Being and Time. I've developed a zenlike attitude in most things. "There is neither praise nor blamed attached." 

Dad: This is all psychological but the older you get, the faster time goes. This goes without being said. It's a feeling, a dasein, if you will, [also from Heidegger, dasein, is related to "being there", "presence"] The feeling somehow kicked into overdrive over the last two days of being thirty. I've come to maturity. Not within the last two days. But over the last ten years. The sense of knowing that you don't have time to do everything you want to do in your day. Therefore, you eliminate all the unnecessary activities in your day, and you only do the things that really matter to you. For me, this would include guitar playing, keyboard playing, jamming with my saxophone playing friend, reading, writing, working, and the occasional hangout. I've figured out that I have no time for gaming really. It's just unrealistic to fit gaming into 24 hours when there are so many other more important, worthy pursuits, such as music, reading, and writing. 

My advice for youngsters: Find what you love and focus on that. Eliminate all frivolous activity. Chill with friends and make as many friends as possible. But in the end, you might find out that your friends need you more than you need them. Find solace in solitude and seek/contemplate/ruminate on silence and inner being. Read what interests you to get you into reading, then start reading everything you can: including the Western canon, philosophy, fiction, nonfiction, history, music, art, etc. Learn as much as you can. Be more patient than everyone you know. Make every interaction a good experience. On all of your bad days remember that there is still peace and love in the universe no matter how bad you have it.

An ode to my twenties. 

Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most

It's been a while since I wrote something like this. Psychology, self-help, vlog-style, that kind of thing. Spring is here in 2019, life is moving by fast. In California, there's only really spring and summer. The weather doesn't change much except in summer when it gets super hot. This makes for a continuous summer year round. This is why people like living here. However, it makes time move by uber fast. The last six years were a blur. So it goes.  

I've been focusing on playing a lot of guitar, shedding [jazz musician slang for improving my chops], working, and playing with my friend Jason, an excellent alto saxophonist. I've also been reading a lot of books. And by a lot, I mean a lot. Sometimes I can finish a book in two or three days if I marathon the book. Other times I take it slow. I've even been working out too, trying to shed some pounds. Somebody could come along and say, "Why are you wasting time reading books and playing music? If you go to college you could end up making more money in the future." 

That's always fair. The one thing that they don't realize is that everything you do could and will help you at some point. You just don't know when or how. This is why you have to believe. Believe in your own willpower, karma, God, yourself, whatever. When you stop believing in yourself you start to underestimate yourself. All those books and music have helped me to develop an interior life away from my family, friends, and work associates. I have my own world to seek refuge in. Video games do this as well but not nearly as well because video games are tainted by online experiences with people who may and will abuse the multiplayer experience [if said game is multiplayer]. 

Where does that leave me? Well, there are good days and there are bad days. Hopefully, there are more good days than bad days. I think every millennial is in crisis in a way right now, rich or not. The problem is that wages are stagnant, rent is increasing, and companies just don't need as many people as before. People just aren't needed as much these days. More and more things are becoming automated. It's cheaper for companies to have a small workforce with a high turnover. 

I've been in the retail trade for ten years now. I started working at Sentry's food store in Wisconsin back when I was eighteen and I've been working ever since in mostly grocery stores. There's not much of a future in the grocery business but it's still the best job I've ever had and I'm still making enough to get by most of the time. Where do I go from here?

For millennials in general I think there's a much bigger issue than my own personal one. The legislative and executive branches of government are at war with each other. There's no leadership, on either side. Nancy Pelosi and Biden represent the old school Democrat but the fresh younger Democrats say its time for a change that doesn't include them. The Republicans are complete idiots, perhaps even evil. They'll say anything as long as they stay in power. There's no winning really. And will there ever be? Starless and Bible Black, as that King Crimson record was called.

Not only that but a lot of millennials don't even seem to care. They prefer to drift off into a life of entertainment and leisure. Can you blame them? Their entire world is crashing and burning around them, and all they care to talk about is End Game and Game of Thrones. It's no wonder America is in decline. No future indeed as Johnny Rotten sang in the Sex Pistols. 

I could go back to college, rack up 40k of debt and get a better job and career in 4 years. But will that really make me happy? I'd rather keep playing the guitar, reading books, running, and see where life takes me. It's risky not going to college but I'm not really the college type. I'm a hipster jazz and rock guitarist. Guitar players don't need to go to college. Just ask Jimmy Page or Jimi Hendrix. 

Spring can really hang you up the most. It's such a beautiful seasonal change. But when things aren't going that great, and don't appear to be improving anytime soon, things get pretty bleak. Like a black metal record. Except I actually enjoy that. Times like these call for fortitude. You gotta believe in whatever it is that you believe in and push through, into the beyond, rather than into the void. Don't underestimate yourself. Everything you do has an aftereffect, aftershocks of karma, zen, and transcendence. 

I was feeling kind of blue before I wrote this but then I realized that writing really helps me to overcome my negative thoughts and emotions. This is why I'm such an active writer, writing nonstop for seven years now. I've been working on a memoir about my life which is currently 75 pages long. I look forward to continuing to work on it and finishing it sometime in the immediate future. If you think you had a bad day, a bad year, a bad decade, don't worry, you're not alone. We're all in this together, in this one universe. 

[title inspired by saxophonist Melissa Aldana https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsD0H9MCQ1U]

Divison of Labor

Hey, more feel good psychological and vlog-esque writing for you all. Here I'd like to go into how I started living a more positive life, and positive outlook, specifically using a 'division of labor'. How I divide my time during the day has impacted me in more ways that I would've otherwise expected. I don't follow a schedule or anything but in a sense all of my time is spent on specific things. 

Typical day before work by myself
I would wake up late but early enough to have about 4 or 5 hours before my work shift. I usually start by playing a few rounds of Overwatch, but I've also been known to play Chess lately. 

Then after that I read the news typically. It could be a short reading session or it could last over an hour, it really depends on my mood. Then I like to walk to the library and read out of a physical book for a while, just right before my work shift. Being at the library is better than being at home because at home the computer is a distraction from reading a physical book. That would be a great typical day by myself. 

Typical day before work with friends 
With my friends we always like to get something to eat. It could be cheap junkfood like TacoBell, I'm partial to the Taco Supreme 3 taco meal lately. Then we play video games, mostly Marvel vs Capcom 2 right now, an old 2D fighting game from the 90s, Sega Dreamcast days. Then we jam on instruments. We have ukulele, bass, and acoustic guitar. The other guys aren't quite there musically but I still enjoy teaching them things, they can improve. 

Typical day off
This isn't too much different from anything else really. I usually start on the computer gaming until I get tired of it, then read the news, and perhaps I'll hang out with friends before they go to work, or after they finish a shift. Sometimes I go to the bar with friends. I try to go to the open mic music nights at the local bar.

Typical night hours after 1 am shifts 
My time after a 1 am retail shift is very valuable to me. This is where I get a lot of reading done, again news, and whatever I want to read on my Kindle, which right now has been Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, hence the 'Division of Labor' blog post title. In a sense doing all of these things every day is a job, although I'm having fun. 

Not only do I write blog posts (and should be writing more short stories soon) at night but its also my prime slot for guitar, only acoustic guitar this late. Right now I'm learning how to play Berio's Sequenza for guitar. Because I have limited time to practice its important for me to play everyday, even if its only 25-45 minutes a day. 

But why?    
A division of time into the things I do and a sort of outline of my plans is good for me. Its like an improvised schedule, it can change at any time but at the same time its sort of like my bread and butter. Doing this division of labor has given me a more positive outlook because I have broken down all my goals and have been actively going for it. The goals are very simple-relax, read, music, work, repeat.  Losing weight is also big on my list.

Imagine a guitar player who only practiced once a week. And then picture a guitarist who plays everyday 15 minutes. The once a week guy plays 4 hours once a week. The guy who plays everyday 15 minutes would still be the better guitar player overall even after six months of playing. I've put that kind of approach to my everyday life. Do the things you love and relax, everyday.

Unleashing Your Inner Zen

This is part of an ongoing series that I've been writing, which has been more part personal vlog-style and part inspirational thinking. Here I'd like to discuss how I've changed my mindset, and become a more jovial person, at least for now. 

The beginning starts with my attitude coming back from vacation and going back to my retail job, where I sometimes work over 40 hour weeks. My friends that work there are always stick-in-the-muds about working there, meaning that even though they have cushy top positions there (and low like myself), they still feel like the job is letting them down, and that perhaps they would be happy doing something else, etc. 

For a while I got trapped in that line of thinking. These people aren't happy so I should be unhappy too, right? Wrong. It all starts with my boss asking me to come in early on my late night shifts. At first I was saying no and using my time to just relax-game, read, guitar, my usual activities. But then I started saying yes, all the time. 

Wait a minute. You're probably thinking you'd rather relax and have fun than go in early to work retail. Or maybe you think you'd rather have free time over money? Once I started saying yes I realized that I actually didn't mind going in early, and that I'm getting paid more money, so that's a plus. The other upside is that management likes me and (hopefully) has my back in times of trouble. 

Now to the jovial part. Work can be stressful but once you 'get over it', you realize that your life is actually quite amazing, and good things even happen to you, even at work. I got over my job, which means that I'm willing to help out in any way I can, even if I don't need the extra cash. I'm happy to help, and be a team player. Its no skin off my back and I don't attach any negative energy to my occupation. Its a blissful realization, inner zen unleashed.  

I had about a month lead up into this from my vacation in October. I don't think I would've realized it if I didn't start dividing my time into organized sections-music, guitar, reading, hanging out with friends. I've been using my time more wisely. It even affects my eating habits. I realized in order to lose weight I have to stop eating late at night, so once I started doing that, I started losing weight again. 

The mindset problem is very difficult to overcome. Most people don't. A lot of people are whiners and complainers their whole lives even though they have everything handed to them on a silver plate. I'm a lucky guy, I have musical talent, a job, and intellectual curiosity that leads me to a lot of interesting books. Most guys would be lucky if they just had a job. So maybe your crappy attitude makes you think things suck when actually you just have to change your outlook to realize how great life really is. 

Perhaps I should become a zen monk?

Focus Pocus

Ahoy shipmates, and welcome aboard. I haven't written anything new lately mostly because I haven't read any new novels or anything, in fact I've been in a funk, unable to focus, until tonight. I've got my mojo back, and even the inspiration to work harder on classical guitar, which I just started working on recently, as in the end of the summer. 

I thought I'd write a bit about it (the funk) for fun. I was really distracted after the Chicago trip, maybe even a little depressed. For a while I was gaming nonstop in between 1AM retail job shifts. It was bad, I had to ease up on the gaming to get a gripe on reality, get back to my reading, and focus more on my guitar playing. 

I was a little down because the drummer I've worked with for the past year or so, we both decided to go our separate ways and no longer jam together. It was kind of sad but it was probably for the best because we're at different skill levels musically. I hope everything works out for him and his new death metal band. 

Anyways, its super easy to get distracted. For a while I couldn't even read the news because I would be thinking about something else. It was like I had ADD or something. Where's the adderal when you need it (lol)? The news and politics didn't help either. The 15 pipe bombs, the synagogue shooting, the Borderline bar massacre, and the Fires going on right in California all made me pretty sad. Even things like that affect my mood sometimes. 

I don't know if there's a trick to staying focus or disciplined. I certainly haven't figured it out. I think for myself I need somebody to push me, not just myself. Its like when I lost a lot of weight. I only lost it because I disciplined myself super hard and didn't eat anything late at night.

On musical terms though now that I'm just doing solo guitar stuff I realized I have to practice more and harder, especially if I'm going to play solo guitar pieces. 

I'm still looking for musicians to play with online but so far haven't found anybody. I'm looking to find horn players, maybe we could get a trio going without drums, play small events, parties, etc. Play straight ahead jazz..or maybe find some freak out free jazz avant garde types, although I highly doubt I would find musicians like that here in the Valley.

With Martin, my former drummer out of the picture I'm not playing death metal anymore, I'm focusing more on serious music-jazz, blues, and classical. The real stuff. 

I'll keep the blog updated as much as I can. I should've finished another novel by now but California has so many distractions-the Bio-Mass beckons. I also want to write more short stories as well. Gotta keep perfecting my art if its ever going to take off. 

I'll be in touch. 

Post Chicago Blues

I came back from Chicago a few days ago. I was only gone five days but it was the best five days I've had in a year, since I was there in 2017. Coming back home, being here a couple days, I'm really feeling that post Chicago blues. Let me explain. 

1) Food
The food in Chicago is way better than the food out here in LA, or in my case, the Valley. Chicago seems to have less chains, the food is cheaper, and the food just tastes way better. I'm actually pretty depressed about this because I've realized all the places I eat at here with my friends are either fast food, or way overpriced decent food. Its a lose-lose! 

2) Music venues
LA has its share of great music venues, that's true. However, they are all overpriced in comparison to the gigs I went to in Chicago. The jazz gig cost me $12. The blues gig only $7. Not only would a bar in LA charge that much (probably more actually) but they would also have a one or two drink minimum. At both clubs/bars I went to in Chicago none of them had drink minimums. Music events are better over there. Not only that but I think for the kind of music that I like and play, Chicago would be a much better city. Jazz, classical, modern classical, etc.

3) Weather 
The weather in Chicago is cold, that's for sure. However, sometimes the cold is good. The always summer weather of LA gets tiring, and you lose a certain movement of the Earth here in the Valley. Like every year is the same, every day is the same, every hour is the same, its a sort of labored continuity, driven by the fact that everyday is completely identical. This almost made me lose my grounding when I first moved here, when I didn't write or play music, instead I became absorbed into the 'bio-mass' of California culture-video games, technology, movies, rock and roll, night life, and a retail job.

4) People 
People in LA are fake. Like really, really, really fake. Not only that but they can be real stuck-up assholes, guys and gals, I've met them personally on musically levels or when I help out customers at work. The thing about Chicago is that its hard to be fake and a cunt. Everyone can spot you out a mile away and call you out on your bullshit. In LA everyone preens themselves as an artist, musician, businessman, manger, etc but when it comes to their actual jobs its often not what we expect (usually lame, boring, or they don't get enough respect, etc), or they turn out to have a shitty personality. Not saying everyone in LA is like this but a lot of them are. Hell, even my brother's academic roommates were nicer, more intelligent, and interesting than most of the college students I've come to meet in LA. There's something about the Midwest, the people are a lot more wholesome, and they'll take time out of their day to help you or speak with you. Midwestern hospitality! 

5) Cost of living
The cost of living in Chicago is much cheaper than LA. You can rent a room for as low as $500. Sure it won't be a palace and you might have to share with roommates but it beats the $1500 one room apartment price here in the Valley. At one point I was thinking about moving out of my dad's place but it ended up not working out because it was still too expensive between three people. I think my cost would've been something like $800, which is too much. 

6) Scenic Historical City
We spent two or three days downtown Chicago just checking places out. You can spend a lot of time just walking down the streets and enjoying the scenic historical city. Its one of the most well known cities in the world, and for good reason.

7) Trains and buses 
The trains and buses in Chicago are great. Sure, the buses might be extremely full at times, and the trains too in the morning commute, but they are reliable, so reliable in fact that you don't even need a car. This is perfect for me because I don't drive and don't own a car. The trains are fast, even the buses are fast. Its great. 

Jotting all this down is a little depressing because I see all that I'm missing now that I'm back in the Valley. However, the good news is that I'm planning on moving to Chicago in about a year or so, when I can go back to visit, and find a place. In the meantime I'm going to continue with creative pursuits and working, as well as further my education in the classics and philosophy. In the end it will be very sad because I'll be leaving behind my vast network that I've created here since 2013. I have a lot of very good friends and although my job is a lowly retail job, it has also helped me to make friends, musical associates, and afford to buy things. It will be sad when I leave but I will also be glad in a way, to start a new life in the windy city. 

My decision to quit gaming

So I finally took a big boy leap and decided to quit gaming for good. It was a difficult decision. I tried to quit many times before (like cancelling and re-subbing to WoW a lot, and playing Overwatch every season) but I always ended up crawling back, turning on my computer in the morning, and booting up some games. Now I know I'm quitting for good. 

You see, I realized that for me gaming is just a distraction. A distraction from reality, a fantasy where I can escape. The longer I gamed, the longer I was able to live out the fantasy and not worry about work, politics, my music dream, and intellectual curiosity. Coincidentally the day I realized this the World Health Organization announced that addictive video gaming is actually a mental disorder. That's just sad that American males have become so lame. 

Then there's the things I've been ignoring. There's my weight, I'm still way too pudgy. I need to get out and exercise more and be away from the computer. There's my music dream. I want to be a famous guitar player one day and playing games isn't going to do that for me. There's my education and intellectual curiosity. I have to become a smarter man, worthy of my own aspirations and be able to talk to a room of intelligent people. I don't want to only talk to gamers my whole life, who would rather play games and talk gamer bro-lingo instead of reading a book. 

Now you're probably thinking who's not to say that I can't be a gamer and do all of this stuff? I would simply answer that yes that is possible but not for me. I have to quit cold turkey and move on to a better chapter, verse, sonnet, if you will. 

I do acknowledge that gaming is fun and that its been a fun ride but I'm moving onto greener pastures.  

Now that the illuminated veil has been lifted I feel at peace. I went through the dark portal and finally left Azeroth.