Only Once

I will not lie to you…

The following post is just a confession. Nothing but a confession. Not a confession you’d expect, but one that would make sense. As long as you continue to read, you will start to understand that what you are about to read and the confession I am about to make, is going to make sense…

It is nothing new.

I you could have guessed this already.

I have told you some of this.

As long as I have been alive I have struggled to be understood, or when I was understood, I struggled to find much acceptance. This is both bad and good. Bad, because it does affect your psyche to be told no. Good, it makes you work hard to better yourself and your arguments. As some things might have sense to you, but if you don’t know how to explain them or express them, it’s going to create problems. And as I have told you, it is a reason, one of many, I started this here blog. It was not just to let out the thoughts and voices I had in my head and get something off my chest. But it was in a way therapy. Therapy I couldn’t afford. So, if you want less people like me to think they’re writers, having mental health professionals at hand for everyone would help. Who knows how many authors and writers less would we have today if we actually cared for mental health care for all…

But, all this writing is also a symptom of this world. We create a violent world which pushes us inward. Thus our apprehension when it comes to honesty and honestly presenting ourselves outwards to people. And in a world of weirdos, pushing people to try to stick to the norm, is quite confusing. So as I write this, I feel an urge to be as weird as possible, but while this is not my confession, I do think this world creating such restrains when it comes to anything we do, that doesn’t harm someone, is bad. Maybe a reason why I do what I do when it comes to writing and trying to stick out of the norm, when there is barely any norm, no matter what category someone will invent to put any art into its little box. And this bad can be seen in formulaic content, low hanging fruit that can be easily consumed and the leisurely walk to the bottom as season 3 of MILF Manor hits Netflix. We do not accept each other, we can’t accept ourselves, yet we celebrate the outstanding.

So it all feel arbitrary to me. We have no real values to what we do, when we do it, why we decide to do it. Yet, at the same time we pretend we have some moral authority and standard over art. My art is bad because my art isn’t how art should be. Your art is better because it sells more than me. But are those really things that matter? Even if we talk about impact in history, there are authors that were best sellers during their life times and are all but forgotten. At the same time there are so many authors simply forgotten that made no impact. You can not tell, nor will you ever be able to tell in your lifetime the impact you have, in a hundred years, or in our forever history. So why should I look more than just once at what I write here? Why should I do more than what I have been doing? I have brewed these thoughts to hell and back. I did not just open my laptop and start writing this only to the pleasure or displeasure of someone. I have edited these feelings to the point of nauseum. And while structurally, yes, I could do better. What does it matter? If you can’t tell this apart from Rebel Moon or anything written with AI that has 4.5 stars on Amazon, what’s the point?

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Wear My Memories

When they said your body will remember everything you’ve done, they weren’t lying…

I’ve been dealing with anxiety this whole year, from panic attacks, to social anxiety, to many other problems and complications that come with such a mess. Yet one of the things I have learned, and you will learn too, if you are ever to venture into learning about anxiety, is that it affects your body. To what degree depends on you. You are the anxiety, you are the response to everything that is happening around you. You are whatever you want to be, including an anxiety riddled mess that can spiral into mania, depression, self-sabotage, and much more. But, I am not saying that as a blame, not on me, not on you, yet that remains the truth. We are out anxieties, we are our insecurities, we are our pain, our sorrows, our failures and our victories. How we deal with them is the problem. No one is teaching us from a young age what the right way to deal with them is. And that’s because we’ve come from broken people and we’ve developed into broken people. And we will create broken people, as we continue. And you can see that we are broken people in the way the world is, and looks. The world reflects our inner worth, yes, there is beauty, but there’s just as much broken ugliness that we don’t know how to deal with and we lash out. So when we’re all broken glass, when we’re all trying to fix ourselves up. And the world is the same, we can’t help but feel anxious, afraid, lonely, one against the world. When in reality, it’s the world against itself, it’s me against myself, it’s only me against someone else if you make it so. And then you create more broken pieces.

But, I’ve been healing. That is a fact. I know that I get scared if something hurts, I say it scared me. Because that’s what it did. I know when I get too fired up that I’m not anxious, I’m passionate, I’m way too into something that I care about, because that’s passion, right? I know that when something hurts, it’s because I’ve been sitting like a shrimp and not moving enough. I am getting better at figuring myself out. But what I also started to do is something I forgot to do, yet I used to do a lot. Talk to myself. I used to go to school six thirty in the morning because that’s when my parents had to go to work and they just couldn’t leave a child alone. And I used to talk to myself in the darkness. I used to be so comfortable with myself, and I love to dig deep and figure myself out. Yet I forgot how to do that. And once that happened, a lot of things started to take roots. I wish it was all good, but it wasn’t. Because when you don’t have someone to talk to, when you have no one to save you, there is only you, yourself and that’s it. And I forgot myself, I forgot to save myself. I fought to learn how to save others, how to make the world a better place, because if I did something, maybe then they would be nicer to me. But I was wrong. There is no saving others, if you can’t save yourself. Much like there isn’t loving others, if you can’t love yourself honestly. And let me tell you, since then, there has been one revelation after the next.

So, I’ve been healing, getting better, talking to myself. And when you get better, your body starts to ache. As years of anxiety, panic, flight or fight keeps your adrenaline pumping, your cortisol pumping, your teeth clenched, your shoulders up, your muscles tight. So when you let go, things start to feel numb, tingly, unreal, like something is wrong. But getting here wasn’t easy. It’s been a year since I’ve had that big first panic attack in years. And since then, I’ve had a rough summer, yet a nice autumn. With more happy days, with less anxious days. But with revelations, about emotional abuse, and how much of it I’ve been receiving. About the ways I’ve been traumatized, by who I’ve been traumatized. Some of those people I used to call close friends, now we do not talk anymore. Some of those are family, and they still won’t understand what they are doing wrong. Because they haven’t realized that it is wrong, what they are doing. Because when you’re surrounded by broken pieces, you never realize you need to get whole, you think you need to get sharper to cut better. But I’ve been getting better at dealing with all that.

So when your body feels tight, when your jaw is clenched, when you keep clenching your fists, tightening your abs, STOP. Listen to your body. You are making it carry something heavy that is not yours to wear on your back. That trauma they’ve brought onto you is not yours to hold onto. That pressure they’ve put on you to satisfy their needs and standards is not yours to bear. That toxicity, is not your fault. Their insecurities are not your fault, nor are they your responsibility. So when you wear your memories, be careful, once upon a twilight, take a peek, take a gander. You never know what you have been wearing upon your shoulders. What you weight you have been taking on. Look around, see who has been putting that weight on your shoulders. Who has been putting pressure and whose insecurities are you shouldering. Because you might have some dead weight around on your back and around your neck. As most pieces can have access and the tools needed to save themselves, but we do not nor can we not make that in their stead. They need to used the help, if given or available. Otherwise they will drag you to their level and they will put their whole weight on you.

But, I’ve been healing, I’ve been getting better. I do not know how much more trauma I have in me to deal with. But, with times, I guess I’ll find out. I’ve been through too much not to share this with the world. As it was the world that placed these things on me, and it is to the world that I am giving them back. The only things I wish to keep on my back, is a long jacket, which I can wear, of all my good memories, friends, family and successes. I have punished myself plenty for my past mistakes, you can read about them as I am literally an open book, been so for the past fifteen years. I came to peace with my mistakes and took an ownership over them. But, if you have been reading through 2024 and early, you can see that I have yet to make proper piece with the world and most its people. I do not know if I’ll ever be at peace with what has been happening or will be happening. But as long as I have myself to talk to. No one is going to stop me.

I am still healing…

Hope you liked this post.

My Shoes

Hurt comes in all shapes and sizes.

A cry is heard, every single time a baby is born. We come in life through hurt, experiencing hurt, and our most formative years are spent hurting. When we learn to walk, we often fall. We get hurt. We get back up. We get hurt, again when we try to walk again, but haven’t yet figured it out exactly how. Then, later in life, we hurt when we learn more, experience more. The first time you ride a bike, you get hurt. The first time you play a sport, you got hurt. The first time you played a game, you lost and got hurt. Your first love, has left you hurt. Your first relationship has left you hurt. Your first fight with your mother, father or family, it is hurting still, maybe. You and your best friend when you had your first fight, it hurt. All the things we live through bring hurt. Life is nothing short of hurt. Whether it’s verbal, physical, mental, hurt is there from the moment you are born, to the moment you die of hurting too much. But, we learn to cope with those things. some, do better. Some, worse, through alcohol, drugs, gambling, food or any other similar addictive process or thing that can help fill the void, at least temporary. But, most of us do not learn how to cope. There is no such book about coping that can apply to everyone everywhere. Yet one thing we seem to keep forgetting is that we all hurt all the time.

Oh, I am not exaggerating, did you know that when your stomach is digesting food, it actually hurt your body physically? The reason you do not know that, or feel that, is because our body has a somewhat healthy way of dealing with that and not transmitting that hurt to your brain. So, hurt can be ignored, hurt can be bottled up, hurt can be dealt with appropriately. But that is, if we learn how to deal with it. But no one teaches you that, and those that try, most are putting you on a path of hurting even more. If you do not know how to process the hurt, if you do not know to vocalize your hurt, if you do not know how to cope with your hurt, that will bring you more hurt. And in this world of violence, hurt is literally everywhere at every corner, as hurt is part of our communal experience and culture. Our most prized art is about hurting, is making you feel hurt, rarely do we appreciate those that try to create art that heals. So, if we all hurt. If we all are born through hurt from labor, why do we break so easily and never get ourselves back together? Because the world is created by those hurt to hurt others. So when everyone is hurt, the world itself is one of hurt, the system we deal in is one that is hurting us.

So, then, why do I expect someone that is hurt to understand me? Why do I expect someone that can’t piece themselves together to look at my hurt and understand it? When clearly, they can’t understand their own hurting and how can their perspective even engage with my hurting? If their can’t fit into my shoes, nor are they even will to walk in them, why do I keep expecting them to do as I do? Why do I keep expecting them to understand what they did to hurt me? And why do I expect them to put in the effort to understand how I am hurting? When they can’t seem to get out of their own shoes, and even attempt to put on my shoes on. Life is full of hurt, but in this hyper-individualized world created by this violent system made by these hurt people to hurt people, we need more people that understand. You can understand whatever subject, system, thing, as much as you’d like, but if you never try to understand it from the human perspective, for the side that is hurting, you are not just missing the point, you will contribute towards creating a better tomorrow. Because then, you are acting to protect your privilege instead of creating equity and helping the world rid of much of the hurt its creating.

So, when you refuse to walk in someone’s shoes, and you simply react based on what presumptive image you have of them in your head, rather than listen and assess the things being related to you, there is no hope in my opinion, for you to understand the hurt of many. Hurt has many shapes and sizes, much like our shoes, but saying that all shoes are the same, is silly. My shoes, are different than your shoes. My hurt has been going on longer than you have seen or known. My shoes are more worn than yours for a multitude of reasons. Just because I use my shoes different than you do, does not mean that my shoes are less valuable than yours or anyone’s. They’re shoes, they’re made for walking. Much like the hurt that’s made to hurt you, one does not negate the other. But one did come before the other, so, if you refuse to walk in my shoes, but you’ll gladly walk in my enemy’s shoes, then how can I take what you tell me in good faith? Have you walked in my shoes before you spoke? Have you even imagined yourself where I am standing? How I am feeling before you wrote? I do not expect anyone to fully understand what I am going through, we all hurt in our own unique way. But, if you care about my hurt, I expect you to do the bare minimum and put yourself in my shoes first.

I LOVE PEOPLE, but...

I actually do love people very much, but…

Society has been a thing for now over ten thousand years. And while the progress humanity made in terms of human rights is astounding in the past 80 years. I find it as fascinating as writers back during world war 2, the great war, the Napoleonic wars, and many others in the past did, that we believe ourselves to be civilized people. Hell, George Carlin said the same thing not fifty years ago. Yet we quote the man and his words still hold true to this day, a thing that we shouldn’t celebrate it. A thing that we should be terrified of. Any writing, theater piece, song, moral that is old and still holds true, does not show the timelessness of the piece, it shows the lack of progress. So, I find it hard to take any pride in what I do, what I write, what I believe, when I see people with their whole might trying to hold onto outdated and violent values. Even the church itself changed how it interprets the holy texts. Yet we look at the violence, the hierarchy we keep from feudalism yet disguised as the ultra rich, as things we need. Yes, technically anyone can become the ultra rich, but the chances of that are getting smaller and smaller as the disparity between the rich and poor has been forever growing. 

Yet in a world of plenty, most people are getting scraps, if anything. And do you see what I mean? This is going to be a long post complaining about shit people aren’t doing right. We’re fucking up the bag, we’re ruining the only fucking place we get to live on. There won’t be a Mars colony any time soon. And when there will be one, you won’t be on it, sweetie. There won’t be enough resources to get you close to even escape the hell we are creating for ourselves here. Because there’s no way more than a few thousand people will manage to escape this to Mars, the Moon or a space station, if that. And not that I hate to break it to you, but, much like me, you’re a nobody. When it comes to survival, humanity is quite bad at pulling together, unless that is the only option, which we clearly haven’t grasped that it’s the only solution we have left. What I am trying to say is that I love people, I do. But I find it frustrating to befriend them, when they talk about fucking, drinking, fighting, misogyny, misandry, how they’re racists, xenophobic, and all other sorts of phobic. And you can’t fucking tell them that saying those things is wrong, and not free speech cause it’s violence. Nor can’t you tell them that you couldn’t give a shit about drinking or fucking or fighting people, cause you find that stupid. Because that is their level, what they can afford to think, be or have fun with. Some do other things as well, of course, some, that’s their whole personality. And that’s what it is. It’s not like we’re creating more chances for them to do more or be more.

So, you see, it’s not that I dislike people, I love them. But people don’t make the case for themselves. I’ve seen good people turn fascists. I’ve seen smart people become the dumbest people you could possibly imagine. And those that hold out all have problems. Mentally, physically, both, me included, I have problems of all sorts. But most of them come from people. As I can’t control them. As I can’t talk to all of them. And even if I do, it’s not like there’s a point in trying to convince them of anything. People are so ingrained in their social programming they could kill a fucking puppy if you told them it’s their worst enemy. They certainly don’t care about killing babies in the middle east. If you read to this point and you think that this sounds harsh, these exact sentiments I displayed for the past 2 years, and you can read these sentiments on a nicer tone. Yet, I do not know what else to say to make you believe me that I love people. Because otherwise why would I care this much? Why would I want people to be decent? Why would I want people to rid themselves of hate and violence? Why would I want people to come from a place of good faith? Why would I want people to have better, easier, nicer lives? And advocate for all this if I hated them? I don’t know how else to put it. I love people, but if we let ourselves be driven be greed, power, violence, outdated values, we are not pleasant or someone I want to be around very much. As these people are anxiety and stress inducing…

You can read the exclusive story on Nobody The Extra blog with the tagline “Everything happening is a story…”

People Don't Understand Violence: Part 2 - It's Not Just Physical

Freedom isn’t violent, violence is violent…

It’s not just war, bombs, hate crimes, murders, fist fights, assassinations, violence is so much more. I don’t think there’s a need for me to explain how beating your wife or war is bad. So, we will pass these things. As violence is every present everywhere you look. But people will not seem to face that fact because it feels like they like to relish in that type of violence. Be it because they take part in it, or they enjoy it as it is targeted towards people they do not like for any arbitrary reason that makes no real sense. But we need to unlearn this, violence is not just one that is seen.

A. Verbal Violence

Violence comes in so many forms. Verbal, is another popular form of violence. Whether it’s verbal abuse of a significant other, racist, xenophobic, hateful stuff, slurs and their use. There are so many ways of being violent through words. But, luckily, lately we being to understand that and fight back against such behavior or at least label it correctly, such that we can say “this is bad”. Which means we can do something about it. And if we can understand this, we might understand others as well. For example, it seems that a great subsection of abuse, which is political or systematical abuse is still a mystery for many.

B. Political Violence

Policy makes system, system makes policy, it’s a vicious corrupt circle. But we need to understand that these two things are tied together. One can not be without the other. If violence is present in one, then it is present in the other as well. Same goes for corruption and everything that is bad, not just violence. But let us start with strictly policy…

1. Strictly Policy

Contrary to popular belief these days, assassination attempts are not the only type of political violence. Policy and law can be violent as well. For example, the UK and France restricting the right to protest. That is a violent precedent that steps on the rights of these people. I don’t think I have to explain to you how apartheid is bad, how the Holocaust and genocide is bad, how the Jim Crow era was bad, how war is bad and that all this usually starts with policy and law. The Holocaust was legal, and you’ve probably read that multiple times. We’ve talked about this in the previous post about Historical Consequences. So, hopefully you understand how all that is violent. Because otherwise we’d be stuck here for eternity. But, if you understand those things, you understand the base level of political violence and how it can have many forms. 

So, now that we get that out of the way, there are plenty of other ways policy and law can be violent. Basically anything that restricts your freedom and makes your life harder is violent. For example, if you have rights, and a certain group of people do not have the same rights you have, that is political and systematical violence. Why? Because they do not have access to certain rights. And anyone against that, is violent against said group of people. Red lining, a thing that happened in the US where if you were of a certain color, you were not able to buy a house there. That is also political violence. Here’s another example, let’s say you were born in a city. You went to school, you got your degree, you work hard, but by the time you started school to now, the price of housing has gone through the roof. That is political violence, as it is tied to directly to policy of your government and it affects you directly. The government could do something about it. Plenty have done so, there are studies on this which could bring a solution. But the people in charge have an inherent interest in not doing something, because they are systematically using the excuse of a free market to plump their pockets and those around them in order to profit. And it’s really difficult to think they are just incompetent when we have too many examples, studies, exposes of them doing these things on purpose. And not with just housing, food, water, and pretty much everything else that could make our lives better, which got harder and harder to attain. Just like creating a family, pollution, global warming, these are things policy could change and make our lives easier and better. But the violent system will not accept such a change for the loss of profits.

2. Strictly Systematical

So when everything is for profit, and profit comes at the expense of workers, what is this system if not violent against the cogs it uses to function? A corporation can bribe officials, to get a license to dry out a lake, put a fence around it and sell the water to the locals. Something Nestle is really good at. That is violence. And it is brought on by this system. A system in search of maximizing profits for the shareholders. It doesn’t matter if an African village is left to die or walk 1.5 km to the nearest water source, if Nestle can sell you that water for 1 dollar when the salary there is 2 dollars per hour, that’s all that matters. Now, I don’t think I have to explain to you that worker exploitation is bad. But while this is a real extreme example. Just like the children making your iPhones, picking your cocoa and coffee beans, you are also exploited. If a corporation makes 4 billion a year, pays out its CEO with 3 million dollars, yet you make 600 bucks a month, you are being exploited. And the governments allowing this, makes it legal. Thus this is a violent systematic problem, affecting us all. So every single thing an employee can do to profit and not pay you, is inherently violent. And when this is at the very core of the philosophy of everything we do, then everything is violent by its nature as this is its system. And you can’t change your jobs out of it, or bootstrap yourself out of it. You can only join in the violence and start your own business, if the entrance level is low and exploit others.

You can mask it as incompetence, corruption, the free market, freedom of expression, political freedom, religious freedom, whatever you want to call it, this system is one with violence at its core. Remove the violence, the system is suddenly called something else. Because this system needs profit, profit needs exploitation of workers, exploitation of any kind if violent. So if we want to change this system, we need to change. We need to stop making excuses for what is. In no fair world, no matter how responsible one is, one should have access to everything and have all their rights, if they do not impede the rights and freedoms of others. And no, there is no right to be a bigot.

I promise we will talk what you can actually do and solutions some other time. But this two parter was about violence and most its forms. 

You can read post early on Nobody The Extra Blog with the tagline “I actually do love people very much, but…”

Your Job Makes You Dumber

All hail the rage bait…

By the way, this is part 4 out of 4, of a mini-series about work, self-improvement, life philosophy, that are tied together. Since I do have more about the exact same topics. Not that you have to read the rest to understand this post.

Read part 1 here: https://www.raulfo.com/nobodytheblog/2024/5/21/levels-to-life

Read part 2 here: https://www.raulfo.com/nobodytheblog/2024/6/25/overwork-overkills-you

Read part 3 here: https://www.raulfo.com/2024/10/11/culture-of-the-future-past

While the title might be provocative, since most people identify and take pride in their jobs. Much like everything we do, the things we like, we make part of our ego. Whether it makes sense or not, we look at jobs as developmental. And they are to a certain degree. But, much like education, most corporations, thus most jobs, aren’t setup for you to succeed. They are meant to hold you down in the same position for as long as possible. With the promise of raises, bonuses, promotions, a party or two a year, anything most companies do, is NOT there to promote you and develop you. It’s there to make use of you. The more productive, the better.  Doesn’t matter to the company your actual worth or how much money you bring in, as long as you do not know what your worth is, it’s fine. And the bigger the company the easier is for them to make you look as easily replaceable and disposable.

Why do I have to preface this? Because, if there’s an illusion that your workplaces is your “family” or anything delusional like that, I want to remind you that most companies and corporations made record profits in the last 5 years, and you have gotten nothing out of it. And I am sure that your company is an exception, unless you google it. 

Let’s think about it. It’s Monday, unless you work from home, you wake up, you start getting ready for work and then you go to work. That means that those morning hours are not really for yourself, you are preparing for something, your job. You don’t have time to enjoy your morning, unless you put the effort to wake up that extra little early, which, why would we? Sleep is amazing. Then, you waste time on the road to work, unless you are lucky enough to live near where you work, you are going to waste at best an hour, at worst more, going to work. Those are two to three hours already wasted during the week going and preparing for work. Now, you go to work, unless you work part-time, this is at least NINE MORE fucking hours of your day. Because you do have that half an hour to an hour lunch break. Then, you have another hour or more going back home. That means that every single day BILLIONS of people use twelve to fourteen hours per day for work. Unless they work twelve hour shifts, then it’s sixteen hours per day for work. Then you expect these same people to have time for art? Themselves? Self-improvements? To clean? To cook? To socialize? And THEN sleep eight hours? When? How? With what time?

And most jobs are repetitive, best case scenario, you get new cases on the same line where you need to fix, but where you do not need to bring any new skills into it. So, you don’t actual develop anything else, you just get better and faster at your job. That is, if you have who to work with.

So, most people, a. can’t afford to get smarter, b. even those that afford to get smarter, their job is too specific on a niche to use more than one or two brain cells. Of course, unless you innovate. But innovation costs money, if you need money to innovate, your job will not innovate anything.  Because innovation cuts into profits, and unless your job brings more money after the innovation, your job does not matter. You are a sucker of funds that if it were after them, they would rather NOT have you there. So, unless you can innovate without money, that’s not an option. Or, unless the government gives a grant to create the innovation. The point remains, most jobs are not there for your personal benefit. 

So, with the promise of education taking you to the next level, we get a job. But, much like education, culturally, we look to jobs like dead ends. As a director, a CEO, a doctor, lawyer, whatever high reputation job is seen as forever. But, unless you are ignorant, even a doctor goes to meet with other doctors or study and keep learning their whole life, since science always advances. A lawyer keeps learning as laws keep changing. A CEO, keeps, uhm, so, well… Gets bonuses for firing people? But you get the idea. Some of these jobs include a constant learning and development process. Most jobs do at a certain level, that is true. But, learning about the same subject and nothing else, is dangerous. People can get blunt and burned out, or they can feed into their ego that they know everything and that there’s nothing else to learn. Thus transforming people into either depressed/frustrated professionals or egotistical monsters that know better than anyone. Because in life you need something more than your job, in order to live a healthy life. By this I do not mean just have a significant other, going shopping, watching some trash series, and going out drinking with friends. Those are but the bare minimum in order to live a simple decent life. But that decent simple life, is not one you will be developing any deeper level. What I am trying to say, is that you have a responsibility to yourself to keep learning and developing yourself. Read a few books, be aware of what is happening in the world, check your sources, delved into art or projects, take time to develop your personality and beliefs. But, if you can’t afford to do this, because your job takes too much of your time, strains you so that during the weekend you can’t do these things. Then your job, objectively might make you dumber. Because change is happening and is ever present, if you do not keep up, you will find the world around you changed and you will not like what you see. So, if your job is not ever changing with the times, nor does it allow you to change with the times, you will be left behind in a world you won’t recognize and in a world you aren’t taking any part in. Which is scary and leads to fascism… But, we’re going to talk about that and people not understanding violence next.

Hope you liked this post. Leave me your opinion in the comments.

Culture of The Future-Past

Learn, work and then what?

By the way, this is part 3 out of 4, of a mini-series about work, self-improvement, life philosophy, that are tied together. Since I do have more about the exact same topics.

Read part 1 here: https://www.raulfo.com/nobodytheblog/2024/5/21/levels-to-life

Read part 2 here: https://www.raulfo.com/nobodytheblog/2024/6/25/overwork-overkills-you

Some of these things are not just cultural, they are something that has been seen everywhere in the past 80 years everywhere, not just the colonial and right countries. My grandmother said this to my father. My father told me the same thing. Every single close relative repeated the same thing every single time. And I can bet, that if you have close people to you and your life, you have heard the same thing I did. Go to school and learn, she said. Yet when I asked why, there was no other clear answer than you must. And do not misunderstand me, I am a big fan of education, and I think we all should go through school. But, the way we treat learning is oxymoronic. In order to learn, you need to remember things, and how things work, that is right. But, that only applies to the things we know or want to know. The problem is, that in life, and in our human history, there is a lot left that we do not know. And which we need to find out, try, experiment and do better. But, as long as our perception of education is as a tool we need in order to survive and nothing more, is something that is clearly detrimental. As you can witness in the rise of functionally illiterate people in the world, the rise of fascism, and the rise of celebrities that produce nothing of value, not even music, nevermind any actual good music, books or arts. These do not just happen because of a grand conspiracy of the great media trying to distract you from what’s happening in the world. These things happen because people pay attention, people buy into these things. Thus, they’re success and proliferation. Which means, the way we do education now, isn’t exactly great.

So, when all you hear is go and learn, for me, at least, it doesn’t have much value. Now, when the second part comes in, it all starts to feel like a scam. Because go to school, learn, get good grades and then you go to a good college, and then you get a good job. Like, hold on, where did these fucking steps come from? These isn’t what any of us signed up for. Now we also need good grades? Why aren’t average grades good enough? It’s not like these grades these anything but your capability to focus, remember and regurgitate material, so it might not be useful for any of us at any point in our lives. And again, do not misunderstand, I love knowing stuff, I look at stuff every day to learn at least one new fact about something, doesn’t matter what. I love pulling out random facts and factoids about stuff, it’s a neat party trick. But, while some of it useful to me in the writing process and in not making a fool out of myself when I can’t point Turkey on a map. Most of the knowledge I use in my day to day life, has been and will be outside of what I learned in any educational system with the exception of reading, counting and some other basic stuff we all learned. So then we go onto college, another thing I think should exist and be used by people. Sadly, like the rest of the educational system, college is bad for most of us. And this is a twofold thing. Firstly colleges, with few exceptions, rarely give you the practice and teachings you need to get a job once you finish it. Nor do they help you in finding the experience you need to get where you want. Thus most college students go and work outside their field. Then secondly, this is also a cultural issue, since we treat college as a paper you need to get in order to get a job, any job. And nowadays it doesn’t matter what experience and skills you actually have, you need a stupid fucking piece of paper to prove what exactly? What would a bachelor in literature prove to the IT firm about my qualifications when hiring me? NOTHING. And you can apply this to most jobs, from corporate to the service industry.

Then there’s the lie that even if you go through all these tedious steps, you might not get a job. There are plenty of people with degrees that have no jobs. Having a degree doesn’t mean much, if you do not have experience, and if your college is tight and fills up your days, in order to get those good grades, you might not have time to actually get experience to get hired. So, it’s like a… It’s bullshit, it’s what it is. Then there’s the fact that we now tell everyone that most important jobs are not careers. We need people in logistics, in sales, in the service industry or society collapses without its treats. But we tell those people that they’re not worth a damn, if they’re not upper management. But there’s is OBJECTIVELY not enough fucking jobs in upper management for us all to advance to. So, some of us are being fed bullshit. That’s why I said the way we treat education is an oxymoron. Go to school, learn, get good grades, go to a good college, get a job and then you’ll eventually get a good enough paying job. But that’s objectively a lie these days. In most of the world, wages have been stagnant, upward mobility has been shrinking, which means that those that were lucky to get the good jobs, won’t move from those jobs, unless they are offered better paying jobs. And with the retirement age getting lifted everywhere in the world, that means that those people will remain for longer in those positions. Giving younger generations no chance at the upward mobility they were fortunate to take part in. That can also lead to stagnation instead of innovation, as those in the jobs, long term, at least, will not bring any new ideas, as they have been far removed from the actual process for far too long. That’s why CEO as a profession is bullshit, but that’s a topic for another time. 

What I am trying to convey here, is that education should not be looked through this cultural lie, that a good education gets you a good and well paying job. Because it might not, unless you know someone or are rich. The education you got, if you have not been thought in the process of getting educated how to use it, it might not be useful to you. Especially if you’re not smart enough to figure out how to use it. And this education system, does not teach you how to use what you learn well enough for most people to even have the chance to get on the same level. And most colleges are not setup to set you up to work towards a job. And that wouldn’t be a problem, if the jobs wouldn’t be the same, but that’s the topic for the last part of this mini-series.

Hope you like this post.

For more exclusive content and early access to posts like these visit: https://www.raulfo.com/nobodys-extra-blog-landing-page

Here is the cover photo for an exclusive post on Nobody’s Extra Blog with the tag: A mask crafted is a curse created. A mask worn is a miserable self-fulfilling prophecy.

Nostalgia's Trap

Memories are deceitful. And when we make them an endless pit, we will drown chasing what never was.

I remember. Do you remember? What was your happiest childhood memory? Do you remember the endless summer days? Do you remember the flavor of your favorite childhood soda? Do you remember how happy you were? How much you were having? What about those endless nights gaming with your friends? Or those simple nights spent talking and riffing until the sun came up? Do you remember that one crazy friend we all had? Whatever happened to him? Do you remember how those days felt on your skin? Do you remember that one song you all used to sing? Brings you to tears now thinking back on those days, doesn’t it? Do you remember that day you all first got drunk? Do you remember how all that freedom made you feel? Of course you do. We all do. Well, we remember some form of it. I remember it one way, you remember it another, the neighbors that were forced to listen to us probably remember it some other way. But, I bet my dollar that you had an answer for all those questions. If you haven’t yet done down a spiral of nostalgia humming that one song, thinking of that one time, what are you waiting for? The allure of nostalgia is something that keeps us very much in a bind for eternity. Much like a drug, after the first free taste of it, we are beholden to come back for more and more. 

Our relationship with nostalgia is quite similar to our relationship with everything. In excess, it’s bad. There is no other way around it. And in this day and age, it feels like we have forgotten anything to do with any sort of moderation when it comes to nostalgia. Much, like spirituality, we took something of an aid to this terrible life we as humans created for ourselves, and now we are using it as the thing that drives us. As we start to believe in a mirage. And the more we push for it, the more it becomes a delusion, the worse things get, the more we want back to the good ol’ times. Like an idiotic self-fulfilling prophecy, we have blinded ourselves by snorting nostalgia to a degree where we can’t distinguish between a badly rendered memory and what was reality. Please continue reading to the last word, before you decide that what I am about to read is mean or bad. We take what we had for granted. Our ignorance and lack of supervision or any real responsibility was indeed freeing, but it also meant we were sheltered from the reality of our world. As we were left to our own devices to live life, experience it, make our memories, create the core of our nostalgia. And instead of learning how beautiful life could be if we all had the means to live a good life, we took it as life back then was good. Missing the entire point of your youth and freedom. So now we long for those times back, by wanting to restrict and recreate the same circumstances from back then, only without realizing that we’re constricting our own freedoms.

Our memories were great. The good, the bad, the very poor, in my case, I do remember things I loved. I remember things I regret doing or not. I remember that song fondly, I remember how those summer nights felt on my skin. How it felt to spend a night outside and just talk and laugh without a penny on my name. How it felt to play all day, enjoy summer to the fullest. I remember these things like they were yesterday as well. Otherwise I wouldn’t have chased that high again and started to buy retro games and consoles. But, nostalgia is a hell of a drug. It can blind us to the reality that is in front of us which we should confront, and it can turn us into dangerous addicts. As we try to force things back into something that never was and never can be again. The more one consumes nostalgia, the more the danger of getting mentally stunned at an back to an age of adolescence. Immature, unreasonable, with rose tinted glasses glued on whenever thinking of the past, someone addicted to this drug can have these symptoms as they are in a perpetual loop seeking the same thrills from when they felt at their freest, much like someone stuck in a never-ending midlife crisis. So, please, consume nostalgia at your own peril. But if you do, remember to do it with moderation.
For more exclusive content and early access to posts like these visit: https://www.raulfo.com/nobodys-extra-blog-landing-page

Here is the cover photo for an exclusive post on Nobody’s Extra Blog with the tag “Honesty, honestly, doesn’t work for everyone.” To read it visit the link above.

When I Look at Me

Existing is complicated.

If you live you are going to create stuff. You create actions which creates a reaction, this in turn creates memories. Now,, with those memories you do as you please. You think as you please and as you can. But, something you can’t do, is undo those things. You can apologize, take responsibility for those actions. Get forgiven and forgive yourself, but you can not undo what’s been done. Which is fine. And if you’re thinking that you can undo because you can repair stuff, we’re going to enter a long discussion about a certain ship and I do not wish that upon you. So, as you exist you do things, things are being done to you, and thus existence is a constant flux of things happening all the time and all the time happening constantly to you. And, as a writer, I can not help but look back at myself. The first time I did that, it broke me. Now, a second time, I do not have the same self-esteem problem when it comes to my own ego. Which sounds fake coming from me patting myself on the back, but I have a point with this. I wanted to see if I can reinterpret some of my old posts from the original blog from 2008 for you here, with a new perspective. As I have done at the beginning of this blog when we moved over to this website. But looking back, some of the stuff I posted did not age well. Not because it was anything bad, morally speaking, but because I do not feel the same frustration as I did back then. And I have a better way of putting things into at least a certain perspective, which would make more sense even for my old self.

And that is a complicated feeling to face, while happy that I can do that, which is what we should all try to strive for… Have an answer to the questions our old past selves had. A dream, for sure, as many questions have no answer, and some answers can never become a solution in our live times. Depending on the scale of the question and the answer. But, I can’t help it, when I look at me, who I was, at that the frustration I had, that even if I had the answer, there was never something I could do about any of that back then. Nor do I think it would’ve satisfied me. But rather put more flames beneath my wings to try more, do more stuff, no matter if I knew something or not. And I wish I had the same drive I did back then. But I do not, and that is the one thing I can only admire about my old self, the stubborn, dumb, self determination to do something, anything, everything. Yet I think this is more of a universal feeling we all have after a certain age. Whether you remember how much you could work, how much you could do, how brave you were, how fun you were, these things are what drive the mid-life crisis, are they not? Finding these things in us are always fine, in my opinion, as long as we apply the wisdom we got through living and we don’t just throw ourselves without thought to do the things we used to.

So, I can’t help but look at myself and ask if the way I am is okay. If there’s something else I should have done to be better, become someone that’s more than I am right now. I’ve been ruminating on a book that I could’ve finished in two weeks for 6 years. I could’ve done so much more if I had the courage I had when I was younger, at least that’s what I am inclined to think, yet at the same time I would’ve been in so much trouble, if I had that courage and impulse. So, when I look at me, I can’t help but think of how lucky I am to be who I am now, riddled with anxiety, yet with stuff I always wished to have. Not as sure of myself as before, but doing things I love. Yet, despite all of that, if you’re an overthinker, there’s always some if, some maybe, some something that someone could have done better, should have done better. So when I look back at me, I there are mixed feelings, yet there’s not much regret or hate. So, when I look at myself know, I can’t help but be excited for what I will think of this moment right now in ten years from now. What I’ll think of myself and these words then? What new wisdom will I have? What new answer will I have to the frustrations I have now. to the questions I have now… What do you think? What do you feel? What critique do you have? I ask now to my future self. 

For more exclusive content and early access to posts like these visit: https://www.raulfo.com/nobodys-extra-blog-landing-page

Here is the cover photo for an exclusive post on Nobody’s Extra Blog with the tag “If you ask people, love is… Complicated.” To read it visit the link above.

Nobody The Blog Now with MORE

If you have been reading, thank you.

We just passed 15 years. And I finally have the chance to bring everything on this platform together. So, if you want to support me more, you can do so. You can now create your own account. Why? Because you can now subscribe to Nobody’s Extra Blog. And what can you get there? You can get early access to the next posts on here. Exclusive posts that will only be posted there. Exclusive chapters or pages from my next book. Updates regarding everything I am planning on doing and more… Do not worry, no content that has been publicly available to you until now will go behind a paywall. You will continue to get free short stories on a monthly basis. If not even more now.

Having this paid page is nothing but an incentive for me to write more, do more, and get back into the things I love doing more. And give you more content, more thoughts, more of everything. And, if we are lucky to grow enough, we might be able to bring on other nobodies to help them grow as well, and transform this blog into a voice for people and pay them for their work for more than a fair cut. But that is in the future, right now, I have posts until September planned. And I have more content for you in mind. Who knows, maybe I’ll finish the two series I have started but have yet to finish if this goes well.

As we go towards the 20 years of Nobody The Blog, I will always treasure this chance to do great things and write for the nobodies of the world. 

So, here are the taglines for the next posts you will expect to see on the Extra Blog starting with Friday.

If you ask people, love is… Complicated. (This is an exclusive post for the Extra Blog for this Friday)

Existing is complicated. (This is for a post that will be posted on here as well, but it will be available early access on the Extra Blog.)

I will not lie to you… (Early Access)

Everything is history and everything is context, including you. (Early Access)

Freedom isn’t violent, violence is violent… (Early Access)

I am good enough if I say I am good enough, unless you say I am not… (Early Access)

As you can see, there is a lot of Early Access waiting for you on the Extra Blog in the upcoming weeks. Which means there is a log of free content on the way. But, that’’s not all, between those posts will be extra exclusive posts for the Extra Blog, which I do not want to spoil yet. And, of course, also posts updating you on what I am working on. 

I appreciate you, here’s to another 15 years and. See you on the Extra Side.
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