Tag: storytelling

The Wanderer, Part 18

Leave a Comment / art, philosophy, storytelling, Wanderer Series

This story can be read alone, or as the 18th section of the wanderer story.

You can read the first story here: The Wanderer, Part 1

or the latest story here: The Wanderer, Part 17

Tas woke up slowly, rolling to his side to nurse his aching stomach. He slept soundly, but his body was stiff as a board. He began to slowly stretch to wake his muscles and joints and eventually headed to the shower room. It was hard to walk.

Tas took his time washing, running cold water over his face and clearing his eyes. He looked down at his hands and began to feel like they were falling away, as if an immeasurable distance was separating them and he was completely overwhelmed. He shut his eyes, remembering to think on his breath like Shu taught him. Eventually, the feeling of falling subsided and he looked down to a floor that wasn’t moving. With a sigh and a big breath in, he returned to his chamber, dressed, and walked outside to join the morning ceremony.

For the first time Tas was late and walked by himself down the solitary halls filled with small amounts of sunlight that trickled through the stone walls. He was just trying to make it up the stairs when a pain in his stomach stopped him, taking his breath away. Tas wouldn’t give up, he only had to make it up another four flights; it wasn’t that far. He never remembered the walk being tiring at all, but toward the end of the second flight of stairs he began to shake a bit and he knew that he would have to stop and wait.

His breathing was shallow and he felt weak. But he wasn’t kneeling over anymore so he was happy. But he would have to wait to regain his strength.

He made his way slowly up the last flights of stairs and walked into the main courtyard, fully in bloom and radiating green and all other sorts of colors. Tas sat far from the balcony by himself, resting.

Once the ceremony was finished, Yao came up to Tas and walked with him to Fei. Fei looked at Tas, weakened and tired. He sighed and gave Yao a look that Tas couldn’t even begin to understand. He looked frustrated and sad and angry all at the same time.

“You look tired Tas, are you sick as well?”

“No, not sick. Just very tired. Like I walked up a mountain yesterday.”

“We will begin your training now.” Yao said swiftly, taking over the conversation and leading Tas towards Fei’s chambers. “Master Fei, we will be requiring your chamber for the day, we will be finished at 5, when Tas will go with master Paj and continue to study astrology and walking.” Tas sighed when he head it all; a full day of work, today? He was so tired. Tas entered the room ready to pass out.

“Your first task, which will continue throughout the day is to fight your fatigue.” Yao raised his eyebrows at Tas, who weakly lifted his head. He was still out of breath from entering the room. Yao slapped him, hard.

Tas felt blood rushing to his face, it hurt, but he also alive again in a way that he hadn’t before. Yao’s gaze was hard.

“You must get used to fighting. I want to see anger!”

He slapped Tas again, but this time Tas blocked it. He found his energy returning as his anger towards Yao increased.

Now Yao attacked Tas and pushed him towards the floor, wrestling the young boy with ease. Tas struggled, found his arms becoming stronger again, as well as his legs when he push Yao back with a shove. He crouched down low, ready to take the old man’s weight and throw it back at him.

Suddenly, the old man stopped and sat, then motioned for Tas to do the same. Cautiously, he sat, ready to regain his feet if he needed to. But Yao looked very calm and began to speak again.

“The lingering shadow in you will be strongest after you wake. You have to stay active in the day and… use your anger to fight it. Or else it will take you, as it had you in its grasp before.

Now today will be a long day, because if you are allowed to sleep, Melkar will be able to enter your dream and take control. As he did two nights ago. You must stay awake during the day and sleep only at night. Paj will also assist you in shielding your mind against Melkar, but understand that he is powerful. He may find ways around the rules that govern the normal use of this type of magic, if you want to call it that. He is old and wise, and despite his sinister inclinations, is very learned.

But you should not fear him, Tas.” He looked into the boys eyes, his own were full of light and life, Tas couldn’t help but be mesmerized. “Fear has no place for you, understand? If you feel fear, take a deep breath in and remember your mother. You are fighting for her sake.”

Yao words resonated deeply, Tas felt as though the old man were showing him the truth of things; lives of people like his mother were surely the ones at stake here.

“What is Melkar? I don’t understand how he can be so powerful. And what does he want?”

“Melkar is a demon of sorts. His original body died and a very long time ago and he has taken another in its stead.” As Yao talked, Tas could see lines of disgust forming on his brow.

“So he was once human, but now he is… something else?”

“Yes, now he is part of the shadow. It fuels him as much as it enslaves him to its limits. That’s why he seeks its growth you see, because he grows with it.”

“Tas, he is powerful, but nothing that you need to fear. You are balanced between light and dark, so we must simply focus on the light within you to counter the excess of shadow.” Yao spoke as if it were simple, but Tas really had no idea what he was talking about.

“So I must become more light?”

“Yes,” Yao said happily. “So we will learn martial arts, do conditioning training, hill training, weapons training, and proper running, rolling, dodging, and throwing.” Tas had never seen a bigger smile on the old man; it was like he had just finished harvest and realized the final load was double what it was normally.

“Now, we will start with hill training.” Yao said gleefully. Tas was slowly becoming utterly terrified.

They walked outside into a cool morning breeze and began to run towards the hillier parts of the monastery’s grounds, finding areas that were particularly vertical and pushing Tas’ body to its limits. They began to practice sparring and Tas fell time and time again. Then they did sprints, with rolling training in between the sprints. Then they moved on to weapons where Tas learned about bow staffs and bows. He was completely exhausted by the time he returned to the monastery before the sun set, ready to eat, then spend the night with Paj, studying ways to clear his mind and shield it from intrusion.

He was completely spent and exhausted by the time he returned to the monastery, but he felt so alive. Like his body was used in the best possible ways and his strength was completely gone. He ate his rice vigorously, asking for a second portion and fighting the fatigue in his body and mind. Gritting his teeth to stand, he walked towards the stairs, prepared for his nightly lesson with Paj and resolved to become stronger.

The Wanderer, Part 18 Read More »

The Wanderer, Part 8

3 Comments / Daoism, detachment, philosophy, storytelling, Uncategorized, Wanderer Series, Writing

Please read the first parts of the story here:
The Wanderer, Part 1
The Wanderer, Part 2
The Wanderer, Part 3
The Wanderer, Part 4
The Wanderer, Part 5
The Wanderer, Part 6
The Wanderer, Part 7

Tas rolled over; his pain returned in full force. His head was throbbing and his mind was lost. He opened his eyes sometimes, but would shut them immediately because of the throbbing pain shooting from the side of his head. In the depths of his agony, he could see the smile of the man with the razor teeth grinning in between bursts of pain from his spine and head. His body was useless.

For two-days, he simply sat and recovered in a small hut, the village women brought him food and water and they arranged for a few new cloths for him to wear. Occasionally, they would bring him a coconut and it seemed to make everything feel a bit better.

He didn’t leave the small space that was allotted to him; he didn’t think he could even if he wanted to. The pain in his head was overwhelming.

Tas was happy to eat and drink his fill after a few days of nearly starving in the jungle. The women brought him bowls of rice and noodles and vegetables and some fruit to match. But their tea was absolutely intoxicating, Tas must have had 6 full cups throughout the day. He also had a bowl of soup each night for dinner, which was a delightful mix of squash and lentils. He slept on a soft fur that one of the women had given to him and as he recovered, he couldn’t help but feel very lucky to be where he was.

On the third day he woke with his spine still in pain, but his head felt better. It was still a bit hard to breath because his ribs were bruised, but he could stand without too much pain. There was still a dull throbbing, but he soon found himself stretching his spine. It was painful at first, but as he warmed his body slightly, the tension faded. He was still very sore, but he was ready to be out and about.

He walked out of his little hut and immediately was surrounded by people. The villagers acted like they had never seen an outsider before and their eyes were on him everywhere he walked. He was pulled this way and that by a small crowd of children, until one of the women shoo’ed them away. Her body was tattooed, but her face was relatively free from ornamentation.

She took him by the arm to an older man; on his head was a crown of feathers and carved wood and his face was painted to look very important, red bolts of lightning on his cheeks and vertical lines of white on his forehead. His eyes didn’t leave Tas as the boy approached. He seemed to look at him like the old wandering man did, piercing through his skin to something deeper. Only this man had spear surrounding his chair, long knives and arrows laced the background menacingly.

The old man looked at Tas for a moment, then called him closer. The woman pushed Tas so that the older man could examine him. He spent several long minutes examining Tas’ skin, then his head, then his ribs and spine. He looked at Tas in the eyes and seemed to have decided something. He called out in a loud voice to the entire villages and they roared and applauded as one in response. Tas wasn’t sure what was happening, but the entire village seemed to come alive at the old man’s words. The men began to organize to leave, grabbing weapons and painting each other with face paint. The women began to prepare food, Tas began to hear them chatter and heard sizzling in the background and could smell their fires being lit. In 20 seconds, the entire village had roared to life.

The woman took Tas back to his tent, where he remembered his throbbing head again. The pain had come back, though not as strong as the day before. He spent the rest of the day resting and listening to the village prepare, but had no idea what for.

When the shadows of the afternoon became longer, Tas was yelled at to come outside by the woman who was tending to him. He couldn’t quite figure out what they were saying at first, but once he had left his hut, three women grabbed him and pulled him towards a fire that was roaring in the center of the village. The men had returned with various game, a few chickens, but most notably a boar that was being skinned by the vicious man who had struck Tas. He felt his blood boil as he watched the man tearing through the boar’s flesh with his knife.

The women led him to a seat beside the old man, then began to feed him. All kinds of drinks and different vegetables were placed before him and he couldn’t help but devour them. He had never eaten so well as the past few days, but this was different. He felt like a king with servants that were continually arranging his food for him to eat, bringing new dishes until he couldn’t eat anymore. Once he was done, he realized that the entire village was waiting for him to finish.

Something was very wrong here, Tas thought to himself. The words from the villainous man days before rung in his ears ‘no friends here’. He couldn’t help but feel that this was not in his honor, but for something else entirely, but he had no idea what.

After everyone had finished eating, the sun began to set. The men began to pull out pipes and pass them between each other, before passing them to the women and even some of the older children. Tas had smelled tobacco before, but this was different, a skunkier smell. He felt a bit disoriented after a while and could tell that the smoke was strong. The villager’s eyes turned a dark red as they digested and smoked. Finally, Tas was offered a pipe, but after one pull found himself coughing uncontrollably. He felt a strange peace begin to settle over him and he almost felt as he had with the old man in the last days in the desert. He thought back grimly at the old man’s final prank.

The men began to scuffle about and soon a big wooden bowl that was cured for fire was brought into the center of the fire. The old man rose from his chair to the silence of the village and began to put ingredients into the bowl, some that Tas could see, some that he couldn’t. He could make out various roots and leaves and other plants of various sizes and shapes. He added some dark green and black liquid into the mix and set it over the fire.

A few minutes later, when the sun was just setting down on the horizon, Tas was led to the bowl. He was given a ladle and told to drink and he did. It was a nasty taste, but they gave him a bit of fruit afterwards. The old man drank longly from the bowl, as if relishing the taste, which Tas found unbelievable. It tasted like a mix of cow dung and overcooked vegetables.

Once the old man was done, the other men in the tribe took smaller portions of the strange liquid then the remains were passed to the women and finally, a few of the eldest children.

Tas returned to his seat and after a time, began to feel very weird. He started to see lights that couldn’t be there and the whole world seemed to come more alive. He couldn’t stop staring at the stars and the setting sun and felt his entire being start to melt away. The entire world melted away and all he could feel was the nothingness inside of himself, a void that grew larger and larger until it was overwhelming and he felt a burst of light come forth from his chest and illuminate the entire village. He saw his mother and sisters dancing at their own village fire and felt an intense longing, time seemed to pass so slowly. He opened his eyes to look at the stars again and found himself floating amongst them, a light inside of him was burning bright. He felt as if the stars were his brothers, though he had forgotten them. His vision became more and more in control and suddenly, he re-realized where he was. The old man was right beside him and he seemed to be inoculated, looking up at the sky with closed eyes.

Suddenly, seemingly in response to Tas’ gaze, the old man looked over at Tas and yelled loudly, so the entire village erupted. He took Tas by the arm and then slapped him to the floor. Pain flared in Tas, though it seemed to be distant in a way. He could still see the old man in perfect detail, his skin seemed to hang like a bag around his body and it swirled and magnified as he stared. He was brought to his feet again, and was bound to a tall pole. Tas finally knew that this was a tribe of the sort that were in children’s stories in his village. He knew immediately that these men planned to eat him. As if in response to his thoughts, the grim man who had injured him before came to the fire, licking his lips. Tas began to struggle, but it was too late.

They brought him to the fire and he knew it was over. He thought back to the old man and wondered how he could have gotten so lost. He walked slowly with the men surrounding him until they dropped him with a yell, close to the fire. Tas fell on his face, but could hear the cries of the villagers, screaming. Hell itself seemed to break loose from the lips of the women..

Tas tried to roll over, but couldn’t and found a rock to untie his hands from the pole. As he finally was able to look up, he saw a flash of darkness moving against the fire, seeming to dance with its flames. He finally broke the bindings of his hands and used them to raise his head to see what was happening.

A group of villagers were backed up against one of the larger huts, one shorter looking man with a large spear threatened them. Tas would have found this comical in any other situation, but the villagers seemed terrified. He smelt burning flesh and turned to the fire to see the body of a headless man singing in the flames. He looked on the floor to see more bodies, at least a dozen men, most of the them dead. The rest would be within minutes because of their wounds. Gashes, cuts, and blood decorated their bodies, giving signs of the battle that was continuing now.

The fire just barely illuminated the short attacker, who seemed to fly through the villagers while tearing through their flesh. The cries of the villagers grew less and less until only a dark silence remained. The fire was growing softer and Tas was still having visions of his family, of the old man, and of the stars and the life around him. But this was interrupted by his thoughts of the attacker that he watched flow like a swan with his movement. Who was this godly man who could kill a dozen ferocious villagers at once?

As if on cue, the attacker approached Tas and to Tas’ surprise, gently untied his feet from the pole and sat him up to look at him. When Tas could finally see the man’s face, he gasped.

It was the old man from the desert. He seemed to know that Tas was out of his mind and left him for the time being, but Tas sputtered and tried to speak to no avail. He was amongst the stars now, feeling the eternal energies of the cosmos flowing through him as a stream through a valley. He wondered if the old man was a hallucination and if perhaps he was dead. What a curious thing, life. Tas thought to himself.

He came back down for a moment to see the old man again, whose gaze hadn’t left Tas’ face. He helped Tas to his feet and brought him to a nice place to sleep. Tas cried the whole way, not knowing if he was alive or dead, but knew that this man, who had saved his life and viciously slaughtered 20 men in the process was a part of god. He felt it as strongly as he had ever felt anything in his life. As the visions began to fade, so Tas faded into sleep, the world forgotten and blackness overtook him.

The Wanderer, Part 8 Read More »

My Way of Doing “Art”

Leave a Comment / art, blogging, philosophy, Writing

I am finding myself looking for more and more ways to express myself. I quit my job at a big data firm a little over a year ago and decided to start teaching yoga; I think this was my first step into a much larger world of self-expression and performance based art. I’m not say that teaching a yoga class is a performance, but it is definitely entertainment to some degree. Even this blog is a type of performance, though I am not sure where it will go.

I have a lot of influences that I feel compelled to explain, to better understand where I am coming from when I create things.

We have to start this conversation in my childhood, because there are some core personality traits about me that you should understand. I almost perfectly fit the symptom categorization of someone with Attention Deficit Disorder; that is to say that I have a brain where my neurons keep my brain focused on background information rather than the stimuli that can keep a brain focused on an object. This is coupled with the ability to intensely focus on objects for smaller periods of time, that neurologists call hyper-focusing. Its like a muscle, you learn how to use it more and more as you get older, as long as you are aware of it. For a long time I was seeking the greatest stimulation for my mind, interactive media was a huge part of my life. But then I found yoga and detachment from my entire life and shifted towards a new dimension of my personality, a second language and seemingly predestined experiences in Europe.

I don’t think saying you have a destiny is selfish, even though it is definitely something that is focused on the ego. Having a purpose is the single greatest conundrum of all life; there is no justifiable or provable reason for existence. We explain all kinds of theory around what the possibilities are; indeed, mythology achieved this as we matured into societies and civilization, but this is still completely unknown to us. Even Descartes famous “proof” is nothing more than self-referring circular logic and there is no way to say that this is not one dream, inside of another. But in this vast sea of unknown, we have a beacon of hope, the brightest lights that exist in the known universe; we have consciousness.

Still unexplained, still undefined, consciousness is ever eluding; though modern neuroscientists have made extraordinary strides to define cognition, dysfunction, neurology, and the function of specific neurons in the brain. But the field of psychology is still young and barely 100 years old.

This story starts with my neurological make-up, as the biggest contributor to my art is my brain, and why I am different.

Be forewarned that this is a multi-article series that will be completed over time, but I have previewed the articles for you below.

Please check back soon for the completed articles:

ADD

When I was young, I did a lot of stupid shit. Like pouring water buckets onto other kids heads, or pushing kids off slides, or kicking my sister. I was a pretty wild kid, with a lot of energy and my mom would take me to the park a lot to run around and scream. This translated nicely when it came to sports, but in school, it was no-good. My first grade teacher was the first to say, he is disruptive but he seems to be learning the information just fine himself, he’s distracting the other children. Cue the dramatic music and thus begins my relationship with drugs, particularly amphetamine analogues, and this would continue into my 20s. But I was better at school. I even won student of the month. One time, in first grade. I don’t think I was a very good student, as far as the teachers were concerned though, I had great relationships with most of my younger teachers, but as I grew older I grew more disagreeable with my teachers.

Thinking Differently

I can’t remember when my interest with psychology started, but it was probably around 2nd or 3rd grade. I wasn’t yet aware of anything abnormal as far as my own prescription went because my parents were very good about assimilating my mindset to what I had to take. I took a lot of acupuncture herbs and feared those far more than Ritalin. But sports were how I learned to focus my attention, soccer was great at first, but I became passionate about basketball, in a big way. I was big compared to other kids when I was younger (wider, not thinner.) so I played a lot of contact sports, eventually leading to football and rugby. But my interest in video games would always compete with my love of sports, but eventually it led me to get a job in technology. I’ve always been good with computers, they just make sense to me.

Catholic Schools

I have a very unique relationship with Jesus and god, developed from being a part of the church when I was very young. I used to go every week, especially when I was younger and can remember the whole thing. Maybe it was going to Jesuit school for 8 years, but logically, the divinity of Christ doesn’t make sense to me, personally. I prefer to think of him like an ancient scientist, similar to Socrates, who unlocked ways to cure various ailments and psychology illnesses in the ancient world. There are a lot of useful symbols in the bible that are improperly analyzed due to being taken literally, or not worked on in Ancient Greek; in order to really understand the bible’s meaning, you have to understand the ancient greek that the bible was written in. Apart from that, I really believe that everyone should read the dead sea scrolls; it offers a very different and provocative view of Jesus, less of a god and more of a man. After all, god has to have been invented by humans, at least the recognition of the idea. This doesn’t mean it isn’t real, but that it is our adaptation, even the definition is inherently human, but the feeling of god is truly indescribable.

Video games

I still want to craft a light saber, Star Wars games were my favorite when I was younger, but my gaming history culminates with World of Warcraft. Think the whole 9 yards, raids, dungeons, guilds, even organizing raids and guilds at certain points, though I was never committed enough to really give 100% of my free time to the game, thankfully. But it is amazing how social games have become and I am waiting for the next big hit by playing Tales of Vesperia (an incredibly good xbox360 game, like a new age final fantasy or Zelda. I am also playing Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved, which is an eye orgasm it’s so beautiful, and Starcraft II, in very small dosages. But I want to get the next-gen systems just to play some of the higher production value games, such as Destiny or Titanfall, but I just love seeing the technology evolve. My story really starts with my first computer…

Drawing, reading, remote control vehicles, warhammer 40K, karate, and sports

Reading has always been a passion of mine, but I didn’t like classical literature until I learned French. In my formative school years, I used to get really bored and would draw curves and lines and eventually got somewhat okay at drawing, though I think I like chewing the pen caps more than making pictures. It was more of an excess energy kind of thing, where I couldn’t sit still so I would get engrossed into some random drawing, I think that still, whatever I am doing, I have to be engrossed in it. So I’ve had lots of side projects that I have loved, like making a model airplane from balsa wood and plastic sheeting with an engine I mounted and inserted myself. It was pretty epic, until the wind tossed it and threw it down onto the concrete to die in its first flight.

Weed and high school

I grew up in California, I have ADD, I’ve been doing drugs since I was six, and I really like to smoke a joint here and there. You can judge me all you want, but if you drink at all then I suggest you don’t. The whole idea of anything being a “drug” is silly to me, honestly, because we are chemicals. It is the foundation for all of matter in the universe and marijuana is a damn plant that you can smoke and it doesn’t cause lung cancer! I also tend to feel more at peace, relaxed, and generally happy when I am high. People have been using substances for performance enhancement since history. That has to mean something. After years of adderoll and ritalin, it calms me down now.

Art History

I have a favorite teacher, out of anyone I’ve ever met, and the dude is crazy; both cool and smart. He is really the first person that taught me how to “see” to how to begin to take the pieces apart of something abstract and put it back together with meaning. This is what I believe true art is: reconstruction of an idea through the creation of an experience in the mind of a perceiver. The best experiences are the ones that you are in control of; something that art is just beginning to understand. I started off as a freshman in the Ancient Civilizations class and learned about the Olmec culture, Aztecs, Mayans, and some of the coolest ancient architecture (art was mostly architecture back in the day, at least that’s what we still have) in the world. But this was just beginning to learn to understand Matisse, Duchamp, and the most influential artists of history. It only increased in velocity as I graduated from high school and moved to Spokane to my first major depression, then Paris with my first love and visiting Monet’s Gardens together in the spring.

Yoga Experiences

I stepped into my first studio when I was 20, with my mom. It was an immediate attraction; the challenge and difficulty were perfect. I had done cross-fit with Dan Bunz a few times and had worked really hard at basketball and was a successful rugby player, but I had never felt anything like what these yoga poses were doing to me. I felt, invincible, so strong and I’m sure that I was. That first summer I spent most days in the hot rooms of East Wind Auburn and East Wind Roseville. Scott and Ryan were incredible teachers, so physical and mindful in their teaching practices. I was given some gifts to continue my practice while I travelled, a mat from my mom and a copy of the Baghava Gita, some meditations, and one recorded class from Rusty Wells and one recorded class from Bryan Kest. Those things together, changed my life while I was in Paris. I delved into the past to find why the West had developed to become what it is and fell in love with a harsh, cold, and beautifully ancient city perfect for a 20-year-old American (I got to drink all the time and my b-day wasn’t even that big of a deal!)

Paris, Amsterdam, and death in Poland

Some powerful experiences in my life occurred in Poland, Paris, and the year I spent in Europe. My best friend is from Nandy, which is just outside of Paris, and he is really the reason why I got into French, so I learn to communicate with my friend. It became a minor in college and then I decided to switch my major from business to French so that I could spent both semesters of my junior year in Paris, instead of just the first one. This ended up being an extremely powerful life-altering decision, as I met my first love at the beginning of the second semester, I think that it was even the night that I returned to Paris from returning home for Winter break. Let’s just say that it’s really hard for me to believe in coincidences at this point, because my first girl was perfect for me at that time and I think we were exactly what each other needed, especially after I got back from Poland. I needed to believe in love again. Needless to say the relationship continued, but this vastly altered my previously formed friendships with people from all over the globe (Algeria, Morocco, England, Columbia, Martinique, China, India, Germany, Spain, really there was more diversity there than I have ever experienced and it was astonishingly refreshing. I couldn’t spend as much time playing video games with my Columbia friend, then smoking a smidgen of hash and going out to drink that night.

Love and my first girlfriend

My first relationship was really the death of my idealism for love and marriage. I honestly though I would only love one person, ever, for my entire life. I don’t think that love works that way for me, its more of a spectrum, where I have varying degrees of respect and factors of attraction that aim at a happy medium of stimulation and stillness. To be honest, you can love someone and know that it can’t work for you and that what happened to me. It’s hard to explain feeling like that, but while I was in Boston, for those two years, I became really unhappy. It wasn’t just my girlfriend, but my first time being in a cubicle, stuck, at the bottom of the company, a nobody that didn’t make very much at all. It felt like the brakes had been strapped on me for the first time in my life and I retreated deep into video games, my yoga practice was forgotten for the first time in a year. But I was happy, for a time.

End College and Work

Its funny, it took moving across the world for me to finally start doing my work and pushing myself in school. I got to France ready to know it all and found myself embarrassingly bad at French for having studied it for seven years. Over the first four months especially, I worked every day translating with my dictionary and would go to my best friend’s house to practice speaking and listen to their fluent conversations that would catapult me to extremely high levels of understanding of the familiar and spoken aspects of the language. This is how I got my first real job in Boston, I was bilingual and technologically savvy so I was hired to do French customer support for their expanding international data division.

Quitting Work

I left work as a product manager, the product owner of an engineering team with five member that absolutely sprinted across finish lines and was extremely fun to work with. I think I am difficult to manage, though I do try really hard, but sometimes its just in my nature to rebel against authority, especially when I have none. I am not too sure I can work for someone else, my passion leads me to put everything I am into what I am doing, this is not so good for a work/life balance, so I looked for better ways to balance myself through teaching yoga, which has been an incredibly great experience both grounding and enlightening.

Getting into writing, then painting, then music

At the same time I teach yoga, I am learning to express myself in new ways. This blog is definitely one of those, but I really don’t like to limit my mediums. I am so glad that I started doing this every few days a year ago, it is very personally fulfilling and I would recommend getting your own blog if you like writing, for yourself. So I write, mostly, though right now I can’t stop making music so I am mostly doing that. I also paint, as you might have seen from my latest completed painting and work towards Matisse, Van Gogh, and Impressionistic surrealism. I love to write and actually have a world that I am waiting to write more about, until I become a bit better at writing conflict. I don’t believe that focusing on just one medium is something I can accomplish, though I do spend the majority of my focus on yoga then do this stuff on the side, as temporary projects mostly that I work on sporadically.

Music

Music is different for me, I am not even looking to create rhythm or beat at this point, but to work with specific frequencies and to learn to control the Ableton Live software. But I am finding myself absolutely in love with making the music and adjusting waveforms and learning more about the software and am spending multiple hours every day working on new music. I am not sure, but if I continue to spend this much time on production and sound design, it will probably be what I develop the most alongside my yoga, next to continuing to write. Painting is not something that I feel compelled to do often, but music is something I naturally do every day anyways, and I have an enormous appetite for music, most particularly electronic music. My time at the clubs in Paris paid off and I listened to the Human After All album the entire time I was in the Paris subway, it was pretty awesome. But I am looking now to start making dance music as opposed to experimental ambient music and hopefully I will have something good soon! I bought an APC20 for $50 from Guitar Center so I am looking forward to Monday when it arrives. Oh, and my album on kickstarter failed to get funded, I guess that’s what I get for not spamming my facebook friends with it. I believe in Karma in a big way, so I am just going to keep spending time that makes me feel awesome working hard to make something cool.

My Way of Doing “Art” Read More »

storytelling