Month: January 2019

DAY 8: 1,000 WORDS: ON ALCOHOLISM, ON HABITS, ON TRAVEL, ON LOVE.

Eighth day of my project of writing and posting 1000 words. It hasn’t been that long and I can’t even believe I’ve gotten this far. All that time of working on my self-control seems to be slowly but surely paying off. Aside from this writing/blogging goal, I’m also 31 days into my meditation goal at the moment, which consists of dedicating 20 to 30 minutes a day to silent meditation, without even the noise of the fan blowing in the hot Honduras weather, in peace in our fully darkened room. I’m also currently 76 days into my no drinking goal! This last one is a goal I’m especially proud of. It’s not the first goal I set for myself to limit my drinking, but it is the longest one so far though, since I used to drink quite a lot at certain periods of my life growing up, and I came to a point when I just needed to cut back without a doubt. Since 13 or 14 basically, life was mostly about partying and trying to get as fucked up as possible, to be frank about it. This mentality kept me going for the better part of the following decade, until I realized it was totally stupid. Now at 24, I find that that mentality is gone, I’ve moved past it, yet the habits remain, since habits are strong forces, and once developed it’s extremely difficult to fully let them go. This is especially true of very pleasurable habits, vices, addictions which can develop before you know it, like alcoholism. I don’t think that my goal is to stop drinking altogether, forever, yet I don’t want alcohol to be something that’s constantly in my life any longer. 76 days in, I can honestly say that life is way, way clearer, my mind is way clearer, my mood is way better with less ups and downs, now that I don’t get drunk every weekend and feel a horrible hangover the next morning. Not to mention I get to keep more of the money I work for. I’ll go more into detail in later posts into my full motivations and expectations for this goal, and also into further detail of earlier no-drinking goals I’ve set for myself, and of my complicated history with alcohol. Although drinking can have its place in life during certain occasions, if you feel like you are having problems in your life due to it then it’s always best to completely stop for a set period of time, in order to analyze your life situation from a sober standpoint, and at that point you can make a truly wise decision if you just sit back and contemplate for a moment. So, drinking had a lot to do with the reasons why I decided to travel back to Honduras for what I call my first trip back (on my own, that is), as it led, or contributed to, most of the problems I got involved in in Vancouver. As a teenager, I was drunk a lot, and although I never committed any extreme crimes, my parents couldn’t handle what was going on, as I was getting in endless problems and fights while wasted. My father had brought my brothers and I to a new and better nation so that we could succeed, so that we could prosper, and there was no way he would just stand by and watch me fuck it all up now. He was living in stress every day, the atmosphere was tense at home and it was all my fault. I didn’t hate my family or my home, yet I needed to get out as quick as I could in order to diffuse the tension within me and within my family. As I didn’t have enough money to rent a place in Vancouver, which is in the top ten most expensive cities on the planet, I traveled to Honduras where the few thousand bucks I’d saved up would be worth gold. My objective? Continue my party lifestyle in the perpetually sunny summer of Honduras. Who would have known I would return to Canada in order to save money to return to Honduras yet again, but that the money I’d be saving this second time around would be for my wedding? Again, life works in mysterious ways. That first trip to Honduras was the ticket to a profound transformation which began taking place within me. So, I returned to Canada and got to working as the administrator of an immigration consulting office. I improved my people skills, my time management skills, and my fluency of my native Spanish, as well as my Portuguese. During my time in Canada I got to attend a Kabbalah class mostly every weekend, where I was introduced to a lot of basic mystical concepts, and also got to practice some meditation there. I was feeling great at this point in life, really serene, like I had a clear objective to work towards, like things were truly meant to be. I saved up the money that Maria and I needed in order to marry. Maria saved some of it up back in Honduras, of course, and since her visitor’s visa to Canada, where we originally planned to marry, was denied, I traveled back to Honduras after a year and a half of working. The job had been great, although often stressful and extremely busy, but it was time to go. The time had finally come to be reunited with my love. We were indeed reunited in June of 2017, in San Pedro Sula, and we married a month later on the 15th of July in this same city. We were now together for life, and we were both excited about it, since we’ve both always known each other to be loyal lovers, who are ready to work through problems and make opportunities out of them. Maria brought out the best in me, and it turns out I already had it in me. I had learned much of love simply from my mother’s example. Both my wife and my mother have such big hearts, and I don’t only say this because they are the 2 most special ladies in my own life. I mention this to stress the fact that, when one meets a person who reminds one of the good one has learned or experienced in another special person at some point before, this meeting ignites that flame of goodness that resides within, which has been transmitted at some previous point in time, and which is currently dormant within the individual’s soul potential. Our love was bliss, and after our marriage we had our honeymoon at La Ensenada Beach Resort, here in Honduras. No need to travel anywhere for beautiful beaches and weather (at least for relaxing at the beach). Everything had gone as planned and even a thousand times better. At our wedding, I rapped a song to Maria that I had written to her. The final recorded version is on my 2017 mixtape “Musical Alchemy” (which you can download freely on this website). It was a success, and my family and extended family was there as well as Maria’s. We had some wonderful times during the ceremony, and at night we blazed a nice doobie on the hotel rooftop, watching the smoke fade up to the stars while enjoying each other’s amazing company once more, yet now as a newly married couple, just before heading down to our room. That was July 2017, and since then a long and arduous process of gathering a bunch of paperwork followed, until we were finally able to submit our spousal sponsorship application to the Canadian government, very recently in fact, last month, just finishing up 2018. The application takes about a year to be processed, and there is no reason why it should be denied, so God willing we will be together in Canada soon, and we can have some great times with my family and friends up there once again. For now it’s just another blessed day here in Honduras, writing to you all, to the world, working on my goals and taking it one day at a time. One love y’all!

~ Rebel Spirit ~

DAY 7: 1,000 WORDS: LOVE, WORK, AND MYSTICISM.

Seventh day of writing and publishing 1000 words. So I started this challenge a week ago now, with a brief explanation about what mainly motivates me to write. On Day 2, finishing up on Day 3, I detailed some of the facts of the country of Honduras, my mother land as well as where I’m currently writing this series of posts from. I began by explaining the circumstances that brought me back to this beautiful country of my birth in the first place, after having lived in Canada for about 12 years, since the age of 10. Up in Vancouver, let’s say I didn’t make the best decisions, and so shortly after completing high school I chose to come back to Honduras to avoid the chaotic atmosphere that surrounded me for a while, having always been an adventurous spirit with a deeper view of life and the world, which I unfortunately just didn’t know how to express my whole life. To me, life always seemed to be about constant change, about continuously new and exciting experiences, along with new environments and circumstances. This is one of the main reasons for my profound respect for psychedelic substances as well, a topic I will go more in-depth into in later posts. I came to Honduras and I started working at a call center, where I met the beautiful, loving woman who became my wife a few years later. She brought a new freshness to my life, she always displayed such kindness, such a simply satisfied demeanor, without demanding much from life, a humble person in every respect, respectful towards the world and all its inhabitants. Maria influenced me in unimaginable ways, especially since all my previous relationships had been filled with problems and had left me with trust issues, no doubt. Our meeting each other is one of the main things in my own life that have played an important role in truly convincing me of the fact that everything happens for a reason. All of the bullshit I went through back in Van, most of it self-inflicted to be honest, was necessary for me to even decide to leave in the first place, to explore my roots further and to immerse myself in Honduran culture once again. This was needed for me to meet the love of my life, something I’m forever grateful to God for. The universe unfolds in mysterious ways, and there is a positive to find in every negative we encounter, even if it’s just a new life lesson learned. The seasons changed, and we fell more in love with the passing of each day, planning to continue our life in Canada, since we had bigger plans for the future which are easier to realize in a more developed country. We decided to marry as soon as we could, and I returned to Canada to save up some quicker cash than we could both even make here combined. Yesterday I described the job which I took on in more detail, upon my return to Canada towards the end of 2015. I worked for a year and a half for a successful immigration consultant who owns his own business in Downtown Vancouver for almost 2 decades now, the same one who previously worked on my own family’s application and residency eleven years earlier. Although extremely demanding, I enjoyed the job he offered me, since not only did I learn a lot, even about discipline in general and using time wisely, but it allowed me to keep my mind off of distractions from my main goal, which was the money I needed to save. The days were so packed that they went by so damn quick, it was amazing. There was no time for thinking of being home, or elsewhere, except on my break conversations with Maria, of course. Partying and other pastimes would only work against my objective, so I wasn’t doing much of that at all. Another important aspect of my life that began to take shape back in Canada was quite an important one, it was the mystical side of things as I see them now. I mentioned in an earlier post that I grew up in a home of believers. Since a child I learned a lot about the Bible from my parents, and our family always attended Christian congregations, sometimes Messianic Christian churches as my dad has always had a deep interest in Judaism. Over the years my father began to find the Christian message shallow, and the followers of Christianity a bit hypocritical. I myself don’t agree with any wide generalization of people of any denomination or religious belief, yet I understand where his ideas come from. Finally he stopped attending church altogether and started going to synagogues instead, and attempting to learn Hebrew online with some success in fact. He went to many synagogues, just as we had gone to many different churches over the years, never really belonging as members to any specific one. One he eventually settled at to some point was a conservative Jewish synagogue, Beth Tikvah. He went there every Saturday morning for Sabbath service while my mother continued attending the Christian Baptist church on Sundays, maintaining her strong faith in Christianity. Often we would read the Bible together as a family, especially during my younger days, and there was a sense of harmony. As it seemed that my father, always being very spiritual in his outlook of life, had now lost faith in Christianity’s simple message of what many see as blind belief, and was starting to explore deeper into the nature of spirituality, the differences in religious beliefs were causing a lot of arguments between my parents in those days. I felt like some of that previous harmony was lost, so I sometimes attended the service with each of them at their respective places of worship, when I was home on either Saturday or Sunday. While attending Beth Tikvah, my father got involved in a Kabbalah class. It consisted of a small group of congregants who would meet in the small library room of the synagogue every Saturday afternoon after the main morning service, and would discuss the mysteries of the Kabbalah. I attended some of these classes with him, initially in the few times I joined him, and what I heard actually had me wanting to come back for more next week, which I started doing often. The class, or discussion, was led by a Kabbalistic Rabbi, not the official Rabbi of the synagogue, an avid reader, researcher and writer, Rabbi Joseph Saltoun, and his profound descriptions of psychic and mystical concepts, along with the texts he chose to put forth to us, sparked in me a flame has kept burning in me up to this day. At first I learned mainly about the Kabbalah, but it didn’t take too long until I expanded my knowledge, and I started learning of new, amazing things I previously knew nothing about. At that point I realized that most mystical systems have mainly the same messages for humanity, and that we are all able to follow their examples in order to live a better life. I found that this has been explained throughout history by so many teachers, and that it is an undoubtedly true message of hope for humanity. I attended just a few classes before my first flight back to Honduras, before I met my wife, and then I attended pretty much every week during the whole year I was back in Canada saving up for my wedding. I learned quite a lot, and it was the beginning of what today I would say is my mission. My mysterious meeting with Maria also seemed to go hand in hand with the mystical teachings that stress that everything in life is how it is meant to be, and that we must accept things and act accordingly at all times, being fully grounded in the now. Tomorrow we’ll get back on topic and move on with the story though, I promise! 

~ Rebel Spirit ~

DAY 6: 1,000 WORDS: A YEAR AND A HALF WORKING IN CANADA, BEFORE MY WEDDING.

Sixth day of writing and publishing a thousand words. This is the first weekend since I started this challenge for myself, and I had some plans set for today already, so I’m glad I was able to set aside some time in order to write this today, even though weekends are usually real busy for me. Maria and I woke up today really early in the morning and caught a quick bus (called “rapidito” here in Honduras, translated to “very fast”) to the Guamilito market, one of the most popular markets here in San Pedro, where one can find many beautiful hand-made crafts, all shining with lively, vibrant colors along the walls, among many other cool things. A few weeks ago we bought some stuff there actually, including a really nice wooden pipe with some Mayan kind of design, which I personally enjoyed testing out quite a bit with some good chronic. I feel it even added to the taste, but it could just be all in my head too. Today we made sure to buy some veggies, broccoli and peppers for our next few days’ meals, and also some tortillas so Maria can make some delicious tacos she’s been wanting to make for a while now. Needless to say, I can’t wait to try ’em out, since her meals are always delicious. We had a great time, it was a beautiful sunny morning, and we ate some ‘yuca con chicharron”, yucca with pork rinds, at the market just before heading back home, where we relaxed to watch a show. Maria had to go after that since she’s scheduled to work 4 hours today. I wish she could stay home with me, but it is what it is. At least I have some time to work on my writing. I also got to finish reading Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” today. Very strange story for sure. Although very simple and the plot uneventful, I enjoyed it a lot to be completely honest. It’s the first Kafka book I’ve read but my guess is that the point of the story might be to transmit a feeling of hopelessness to the reader, as the protagonist of the story finds himself suddenly turned into a giant bug overnight, and can hear his family talking about him and his situation from then on, yet cannot communicate with them in any way. It’s part of a series of books I’ve been reading since November 2018, since I set a goal for myself of reading at least a book a week. This week I finished two short books, the aforementioned “The Metamorphosis”, and Evelyn Underhill’s “Practical Mysticism”, as I often read non-fiction, sometimes even more than fiction, in fact. Now that I finished reading that story though, and commenting a bit on it, let’s keep going for now with my own story. Yesterday I left off at the part of my life when I traveled back to Canada, at the end of 2015, in order to save up for my wedding with Maria. This objective motivated me so much that for the very first time in my life I actually put my all into the job I got hired for, I really put it an effort, no doubt about it. I made sure to put in extra hours whenever necessary, to learn as quick as possible how to do everything correctly so as not to jeopardize my job. I had returned to Canada with a very clear and defined goal, to save up the money for all that Maria and I would need in order to make our dream wedding come true as soon as possible. We had a hope that we could get married in Canada, so Maria applied for a visitor’s visa, but it was unfortunately denied for very vague reasons. It seemed we just had to face the fact that we would be apart from other for the time being, there was no way around it. We still kept in touch every day on WhatsApp chat and video. Even though I returned to live at my parents’ home, they found comfort in the fact that I now had a serious objective, that I was committed to the job I had, and that I was no longer partying or hanging out with friends for no reason anymore, making reckless decisions and staying out most nights. The situation had significantly changed since those crazy childhood days, and I was enjoying a new peace of mind I had never felt before while living at my parent’s home (ever since my teenage years started, at least). Being far away from them for so long had allowed all of us to analyze our relationship, as parents and son, from a different perspective, it seemed like it had done us some good as it had renewed a fresh new appreciation for family. My newfound love had allowed me to put to the side, somewhat, my restlessness and need for constant excitement. My life became work and home, since I would have to catch the SkyTrain every morning, on weekdays, from Surrey Central station, and ride all the way Downtown to the Megrez office, and would take the same trip back home in the evenings, after getting off work and blazing up at the New Amsterdam Cafe that is, Vancouver’s most famous weed lounge which was just two blocks away from my workplace. That became my daily routine, and work was exhausting since there was never a second of the day when I was truly free of some task. This job was demanding in every sense, and especially it demanded a certain degree of seriousness and careful attention which I had never applied to any previous job I’d had in the past. I had to make sure the office ran smoothly in all its aspects. I also had to make sure I did everything as I was supposed to, since my boss, the owner of the company, hired me mostly due to his respect for my parents, who he himself helped immigrate to Canada in 2004. Although, in a way, I was more fit for the job than most of those who had held it in the past or who were aspiring for the position, speaking fluent English and Spanish as well as very good Portuguese, in some aspects I was completely unprepared, as I had never had any kind of experience with executive work, and I was only used to jobs where I was just another employee, where my work wasn’t essential at all (at least in my eyes). At Megrez, everything passed by me, and it was my task to refer each document, each case, each call, each client, to who it corresponded to, and also to scan and save and file everything in its place. There was only about 3 other employees at the company, apart from myself and the boss. The days flew by like airplanes in the sky, faster than race cars as I longed for the big day when I would return to Honduras and be reunited with my love. We’ll continue this tale tomorrow though.

~ Rebel Spirit ~

DAY 5: 1,000 WORDS: RETURN TO VANCOUVER & LONG-DISTANCE LOVE.

Fifth day straight of getting a thousand words down and publishing them! When I started this challenge I was afraid that I would lose motivation after the second or third day, a thousand words seemed like a lot to tackle every single day. I see now that by taking this challenge I’ve proved those expectations I had for myself totally wrong, at least so far. Fifth day going and I feel I have more to write about than ever before. Sometimes the desire to write vanishes for a few days for no apparent reason, as if new inspiration needs to be build up, to accumulate in order for writing to happen. These past 5 days though I’ve been filled with ideas of things I’d like to mention in these posts. I think it might have something to do with the style of writing I’m using at the moment. I’m simply putting 1000 words together on the spot, about whatever comes to my mind at the moment, but also trying to stay on topic and on sequence as much as possible! Before, I almost always had a topic in mind that I wanted to write about, and I spent endless minutes and hours editing, re-reading, deleting, adding different words and phrases. I felt confined by the organization process and the having to divide everything up into little paragraphs and such things. I know organization is surely important, but I’m just saying I feel freer when writing this way. Every writing style has its time. Alright, so let’s continue with the story that has brought me up to this point then. Yesterday we left off a few years ago when I came back to my birth country of Honduras, started working at a call center as a collections agent, and had my first interaction with my future wife, which was an unexpected hug! So, after we bumped into each other, hugged, and smiled at each other for just a second, we started talking more and more often on the “floor”, where the work gets done, where all the little box cubicles are at. I asked what she liked to do on the weekends and she simply replied “sleep”. Sleep? I thought she was kidding for sure. I was used to looking forward to Friday every week in order to get as crazy as possible all weekend long! We didn’t make any plans just yet, but one day, just casually talking about what we each were going to eat later, we ended up planning to go to Wendy’s later on, during our break, since it was the closest place to eat, right outside the call center. In fact, we got a special discount there for being employees at the call center. So, evening came, and just as it was getting dark we went out to eat on our last break of the day. We ordered some burgers and fries and some iced tea, which I noticed she loved just as much as me, and we had a great conversation. She mentioned a situation in which it seemed like things had worked out in her favor, in which she had gotten rid of a problem that had been bothering her, almost miraculously and out of the blue, and she thanked God for it. I mentioned that everything happens for a reason. Although I was still ignorant to much of spirituality at that time, and wasn’t really thinking much in spiritual terms at all, I always had a vague belief that everything does happen for a reason. Our conversation was so great that we were really late back to work, but the job was chill so it wasn’t really a problem. A few weeks after that we had a movie date, and that’s where we kissed for the first time. I can’t recall the movie we watched anymore, to be honest. After this, our friendship grew as well as our love for each other. During this time I was no longer living with my grandparents, I had gotten a place with a good friend, Randy, who I met at the call center as well. He had lived in the States, in Miami, most of his life and is kind of like my crazy friends from back in Canada, so we had a lot of good times. It was during those crazy days that I asked Maria to be my girlfriend, on January 17th, 2015, almost exactly four years ago. We spent that whole year together. Since we worked at the same place, we were together throughout the day, through our short breaks and lunch hours, during times of low call volume. Her English is not bad at all, having taught elementary school kids here in Honduras before going to work at Collective Solution, the call center where we both worked. She accepted, of course, to be my girlfriend, and by the end of the year, we were so crazy about, and committed to, each other, that we decided to get married so that Maria could go to back to Canada with me, eventually. The idea was that I would travel back to Canada alone in order to save up some money for our wedding and honeymoon, for everything we needed, and also since I hadn’t seen my parents and brothers in over two years, other than on Skype. Maria could continue working at Collective for the time being. I flew back to Vancouver in December of 2015, and it was great to see my family again, yet I really missed Maria. I got a job working at Megrez Consultants, an immigration consulting firm. This job was quite different from any other job I had been hired for before, as I was to be the executive assistant to the owner of the firm, as well as the administrator and receptionist for the whole office. I wast to be the first one there and the last one out, and I would have to work extra hours sometimes. The name of the owner of Megrez is Jose Godoy, and he’s ran his immigration consulting business in Downtown Vancouver for almost 20 years, helping people from all backgrounds get all kinds of processes and applications done in order to come to, or stay in, Canada. Since he is of Chilean background and Spanish is his native language, as well as speaking fluent English, his clients are mostly Latinos. I would have to speak English as well as a lot of Spanish, which was good for my practice in order to keep it fluent and fresh (and I even learned some new Spanish at that job), and I would sometimes have to speak Portuguese as well, which I know from my father’s side, as he is from Brazil. In the meantime, I would Whatsapp Video chat with Maria every day, always during breaks and my lunch hour, during which I usually ate at the Pho place right below my workplace (Pho is delicious Vietnamese soup, for those who don’t know), and as soon as I got back home. She became so special to me over time, and we couldn’t wait to be married, and for her to be there with me. More on how everything unfolded next week though, since I gotta get to work now. Take care and God bless!

~ Rebel Spirit ~

DAY 4: 1,000 WORDS: WORKING IN HONDURAS, AND MEETING MY WIFE.

Fourth day of writing and publishing 1000 words. Thankfully I woke up today feeling really motivated to finish my writing before I left for work. I realized I can reach more people during the day, probably since most English readers are awake at around the same hours as I am. I also realized that putting 1000 words together isn’t so difficult after all, which in turn made me realize something much deeper. This realization, which has come to me 4 days into this writing goal I’ve set for myself, has revealed to me the fact that, if I wasn’t writing already before and publishing something on my blog every day, it was simply because I didn’t really want to. I always said I wanted to, yet I wasn’t putting the work in as I should have, I was still second-guessing, doubting whether things can work out, making excuses and writing only for myself, or some days not even writing at all since I was even second-guessing my thoughts before I had a chance to jot them down. I was in love with the outcome, with the mental image of success that I had visualized so often, yet in my obsession I had forgotten to really feel and be at one with the present moment when my writing was taking place, when my art was being created. I feel that I’ve begun to regain that now, and needless to say I’m real glad about it. As I write simply just to write, I notice I enter a state of flow, of clear-headed continuity, much the same as the feeling I get when I create and record my raps. It’s made me see that we all have things we could naturally excel at if we weren’t so afraid. Too many of us are still living in fear, or wondering what the point is of even trying, or thinking there are a million others just like us, so what difference could we possibly make? To be blunt, this kind of thinking reveals a completely backward mindset. Our ideas of what living life really means need to drastically change. At the end of the day, all each and every one of us can ever offer the world is what we really are, and nothing else. We must be ourselves to the fullest, and not give in to fear, or to pressure, or to temptation, or to laziness or pessimism. It is enough to simply BE ourselves, to just BE HERE NOW, and the right situations are bound to come to us. But alright, now that I got that thought down as a sort of intro for today’s piece, let’s continue with the story of how I ended up back here in Honduras, writing to the world about life. To sum up Day 2 and 3 of this writing experiment of mine, I’ve been detailing how I grew up as a teenager in Vancouver, BC, in Canada, and since I got involved in a lot of problems by following the crowd and doing dumb things, and since I just couldn’t reconcile my lifestyle with living at my parents’ home, I decided to travel back to Honduras, to live with my grandparents and work at a call center for a collections agency. At that job, about a month into being employed there, I met a beautiful girl, the one who is now my amazing wife! Although I was captured by her voice, as I sat a few feet away from her, I didn’t say anything on that day. I wondered about her though. She seemed so mysterious, so quiet and simple, so relaxed, so kind. A few weeks after that experience I arrived at work and found a letter at my cubicle desk. It had a cute cat face drawing, and it said my name and some other things. A secret admirer letter? Wow, that’s weird for sure. Not many people actually do that kind of thing, especially girls, I thought. It had some initials but no name, and it never could have occurred to me that it could be from my future wife, from that mysterious girl who sat at the corner. Up to this point, I had never even thought seriously of the possibility of getting married at such a young age. I had no need to, and it seemed like an unnecessary bond, a trap that would prevent me from having endless fun with any girl I wanted. Let’s remember that up to this point in life I had always been primarily focused on fun, on what I thought and always said was “living life to the fullest”, which was basically just a delusional hedonism now that I look back at it. I never thought that things such as true love and romantic companion were possible, having only met and interacted with girls who were always getting drunk and partying and acting even crazier than me half the time! I had dated girls who cheated on me, and I saw how my friends all broke up and got back together a million times, cheated and were cheated on. All I knew was fake, everyone around me pretending to be friends, but only hanging out since we all were attempting to mask our own sorrows in drugs and partying, loyal to no one but ourselves. I understand all of this now, for sure, but at that time I didn’t have these ideas. I was ready to let the party continue here in Honduras as well. As soon as I started working at the call center I met a lot of guys like me, who all smoked weed of course, but also drank, did other drugs like coke, and partied and fucked all the time, living life day by day yet for no deeper purpose other than mainly chasing thrills. I’m not trying to judge anyone, I was living in the same way, and it’s been hard to get out of it as habits definitely do stick around for a while. I also know why it can be tempting to live in this way, since it allows for non-stop fun with minimal time for reflection, which would reveal to us our feelings of sadness, of not being truly satisfied with life. The point is that the show went on, and I was nowhere near ready for a serious relationship at that time. The first time Maria and I actually spoke was by pure coincidence. I was walking into the call center really fast from my break, and as I opened the door to go in she was about to open it from the other side. Since I was going at a considerable speed we sort of crashed, not too hard though, it was more of a hug, so we just hugged anyway and she smiled. “Sorry!” I said smiling, for having bumped into her, but I knew she enjoyed our hug just as much as I did! “No problem!” was her reply. Since we sat real close to each other, we got to talking in our free moments between calls, and shortly I figured out the letter on my desk had been from her. From there everything just kept going uphill, but I have enough words for today, so the story will have to continue tomorrow! Adios for today, amigos!

~ Rebel Spirit ~

DAY 3: 1,000 WORDS: WHERE I’M WRITING FROM (part 2)

Third day of writing and publishing 1000 words. For the sake of honesty I have to say, my energy and enthusiasm today are not as high as they were during my first two days of this challenge, and for that reason I wasn’t able to post this in the morning as usual. I won’t let this sudden mood change kill my determination though, so I have to get 1000 words together no matter what, and I will post them before midnight for sure. One of the main reasons for this goal, apart from exercising my writing ability, is to work on my self-control and determination. I haven’t set a date for how long I’ll write 1000 words for, I’m just going to keep writing indefinitely, hopefully until the end of my days. Anyway, just to quickly recap on where we’re at so far on this literary journey, yesterday I was explaining a bit about the circumstances which brought me from Vancouver, BC back to my birth country of Honduras, where I’m currently writing from. I didn’t have space to finish my story yesterday, so let me get back to it. Growing up in Vancouver, where my parents moved in 2004, I started hanging out with a lot of crazy kids. Many aspects of Canadian culture were very different from what we were accustomed to as a Latino family. Adapting to this new experience and all it entailed was hard on my parents, especially during the first few years, but to me everything seemed wonderful as I lived in a childish state of pure ignorance towards my family’s situation. After arriving in Vancouver at the age of 10 and starting to attend elementary school (grade 4) I started making friends quick, having already learned a significant amount of English at a bilingual elementary school in Honduras. I was a naïve kid, excited about my freedom and independence, about being a teenager in a new country, a safer country with more opportunities for fun and adventure. My parents, having always been very overprotective, now began to loosen up a bit, feeling like Canadian culture was somewhat more sane than that of Honduras. Having always taught my brothers and I about God and morality, and having been great examples of ideal people themselves, my folks never imagined that their firstborn son would end up caught up in some of the things I ended up getting involved in. Today I would feel a deep regret about all of the suffering I caused them, except that I know now that everything is meant to be (although things are only meant to be so that I can learn something from them in order to positively impact the present, and by extension the future). At the age of 13, around 2007/08 was really when it all started. I was always a friendly kid, and was open to friendships with anyone. I met Mike in grade 8, he was my best friend all throughout that year and throughout the summer that followed it. Grade 8 in BC is the start of high school, so that year I got to know more kids than ever before, due to the fact that all grade sevens from all elementary schools in the area were now in classes together, all at the same school. I’ve always been kind of a weirdo, and the kids I started hanging out with the most were the craziest ones, a lot of them being introduced to me by Mike, who was a really troubled child. We started problems everywhere we went. Alcohol and other drugs made it all real fun and allowed me to ignore the reality of what I was turning my life into, as it was all a fun and crazy mess with no time left for reflection. I was living on auto-pilot. I’ll touch more upon this period of my life in later posts, but for now we can skip the details of some of the craziest things that happened during those years. Let’s just say for now that many dark years of of lying went by, me lying, mom crying, dad yelling, school and police accusing, me denying. Fights, school suspensions and eventual expulsion, shoplifting, and many more constant problems I was always involved in. After about 9 years of this my parents were getting extremely tired of it, and since I was now about 19 years old I was getting tired of the constant conflict as well. It had always annoyed me, and I had wanted to move out of my parents house for as long as I could remember but I never had enough money to do so since I always spent it all. Now that I was almost 20 I knew it was time, I had to move away no matter what. By this point, I had already calmed down a bit since the days when I was hanging out with Mike, and really the only drug I was still using constantly was weed, as I still am up till today (more on why in future posts). My parents could never accept this though, and I could never come home and simply be at peace since I would always have to hear a lecture about a habit which I was not going to stop after having already blazed for about 7 years straight at that point, and which I had already decided was an essential part of my lifestyle. I flew to Honduras as soon as I could, and came to live at my grandparents’ home, in a spare room they had. Since 15 years old I had always worked, since I liked having my own money so that I could buy exactly what I wanted whenever I needed it, and the same was going to be true in Honduras. I  was really into working out in those days, so I signed up for a monthly gym membership. The gym mentor was an old crazy Honduran who had lived in the US a while back and told me stories about having fought in some old war, I can’t remember which. Anyway, after a few conversations he told me that here in San Pedro Sula, most English speakers work in call centers, as they pay workers good money for simply talking on the phone, doing customer service, sales, or collections work. There was a popular call center, Collective Solution, right across the street from the gym. I told him I would apply, and I did and was hired that same day, as good English is really the most basic requirement they look for. About a month after starting to work there, I think in August of 2014, I met the beautiful lady who became my wife a few years later. The call center is divided into different “campaigns”. Basically, each campaign is a third party representing a specific client, some American company that has agents working overseas (in order to pay them less). I was hired for a collections campaign, to collect on past due accounts for the Fresno Credit Bureau. A few steps from me was a campaign for H20 Wireless, a cell phone company, and in one of the spare moments of boredom in between calls my attention was caught by a soft, emphatic voice, saying to the customer on the other end of the line, “Hello, my name is Marie, how can I help you today?” I turned around to notice a mysterious girl with a hoodie on her head sitting in the corner…

~ Rebel Spirit ~

DAY 2: 1,000 WORDS: WHERE I’M WRITING FROM (part 1)

Second day of writing 1000 words and publishing them. Yesterday I mainly touched upon on what inspires me to write, trying to simplify as much as possible even though I have various complex reasons for writing and for undertaking this challenge (of writing and publishing 1000 words a day, every day). Today I’d like to focus actually on where I’m writing from at the moment, and why. I am currently living in Central America, writing to you all from the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula, the same one which thousands of people including women with babies to their breasts recently just began marching from, less than a week ago, forming part of a huge caravan which moves along in hopes of soon arriving at the United States, ready to live the American dream upon entering the country as illegal immigrants. To be honest I think it’s really irresponsible to attempt such a challenging and dangerous journey with small children, but the more time I’ve spent here the more I realize I’m not in the same situation as these people, so I can’t accurately judge their actions. I just think it’s irresponsible due to the fact that Trump has vowed not to even let any of them in, of course. Why would people want to go somewhere where they are not welcome? Where they would be deported as soon as found? People must have some real good reasons to leave. I was personally born here in Honduras, back in 1994, in its capital city of Tegucigalpa, and lived ten years here before my parents decided to move to Canada. I’m forever grateful to my folks and thankful to God for providing my brothers and I with the opportunity of growing up and going to school in a first world country, in a safe and developed nation, one of the safest in the world in fact, and I surely wouldn’t be who I am today if it wasn’t for their decision to leave their old lives behind so that my brothers and I could live better ones in a new country. We were never rich, but we were never poor either. My father has been a scholar all his life and has a Master’s Degree in economy, yet even he chose to leave a good career behind to go and work random odd jobs in the Canadian cold, just so that his three children could have greater opportunities than we would have ever had here in Honduras. I owe so much to my parents who took me from here to Vancouver at the age of ten, and apart from that, it is obvious that so many people who live here are so sick and tired of doing so that they are taking desperate action in order to escape. So what the hell am I even doing back here for such a prolonged period anyway? That’s definitely a question I’m often asked nowadays, both by people who have lived in the States before and have been deported back here only to forever miss the lifestyle they used to live, as well as by those who have never even lived outside of Honduras but would jump at the opportunity of leaving for good. A few travelers have even died on their journey up North during the first couple caravans which took place, and the fact is that people here just don’t feel safe, they don’t feel they can trust their government or the police, and they live in constant fear of the ruthless gangs and corrupt politicians who control every aspect of society and business here. So many people feel the journey is definitely worth the risk, even with all the dangers involved. A lot of the people I’ve met here so far in my time being back simply cannot understand why I would want to be here, being able to travel back to Canada at any moment as a citizen. As a kid I  flew back here to visit once or twice, along with my family, for a few weeks or a month. Honduras being as dangerous as it is, my siblings and I spent most of our time with family, with my cousins, uncles and aunts and grandparents. We always returned to Canada, and as I grew into my teenage years growing up in Vancouver, I got mixed up with some bad crowds, and the stressful situation at home and with my family relationships simply were too much for me to deal with any longer. When my parents moved to Canada they never imagined that the greater liberty which the youth has there, living in a safe country, creates an atmosphere where kids as young as 12 or 13 are often free to be partying and consuming drugs, whereas in Honduras most kids at that age spend most of their time with parents. I was living a lifestyle of partying, constant drinking and consuming other substances to excess, staying out all night and ignoring my parents’ phone calls for quite a few years, since around the age of 13. I got in trouble with police, with school staff, got kicked out of school, and eventually ended up finishing my high school education online. The worst thing, the thing that really killed me though, was the constant guilt I felt for putting my parents through such stress. They thought they were losing a child to the negative forces of the world. But I didn’t want to change my lifestyle. In those days I had ideas much different from those I have today, and rather than changing for the better and attempting to mend the broken relationships I had with my parents, I thought it best to just leave. I thought they would be better off without me, and I would have more peace farther away from them. Ignorance is bliss was really my philosophy. I’ve always had crazy fantasies of travel, a wanderlust that impacts my whole being and prevents me from standing still. I still wish to travel the world as much as I possibly can even today. So, faced with a depressing and seemingly inescapable situation back home as I could never did save up enough money to get my own place, I decided to travel back to my original home, back to my roots and my culture, unaccompanied this time. I flew to Honduras in 2013 and unpacked all my stuff in one of my grandparents’ spare rooms, knowing they knew nothing of my craziness and would not bother me or prevent me from doing what I wanted. Well, I have enough words to post for today, so I’ll have to keep the story going from 2013 up to now in tomorrow’s 1000-word post.

~ Rebel Spirit ~

DAY 1: 1,000 WORDS: INTRODUCTION TO EXPERIMENT.

First day of writing down 1000 words and publishing them. What’s the point of this long term goal I’ve set for myself? The main goal is simply to use my talent to the best of my abilities, to practice, to share what I can with the world, and to learn more about myself, and the universe in general, in the process. I have been writing, in fact, for about eleven years now, but in the form of rap lyrics. You can check out my songs and albums in the “Music” section of my site. I’m a musician and I try to be as conscious as possible with the lyrics I write (although that wasn’t always the case), since I now understand the great impact all our words have on the world and on the collective consciousness. For as long as I can remember I’ve been wanting to really write though, to get my ideas across in a clearer, more concise fashion, even if just to a few people. Sometimes, being so focused on fame and wealth, we become discouraged by having only minor success, or only a few followers or readers. Unfortunately I’ve been guilty of this myself. In such cases, we fail to see how much of an impact we might be having on these few people who interact with us or with our art, who in turn will impact the lives of many others down the line. We forget to acknowledge the fact that each powerful impact you make on a single person is a miracle, it is a great blessing and a privilege to be able to make a contribution to the total power of goodness in the universe. I believe we all have this potential goodness within us, it being the essence of who we truly are at the deepest level of what being even means, “the image of God” within us. It is a simple message I want to bring forth through my work, whether working on music or literature. I claim to follow no religion, but in reality you could say I follow every religion. I read and learn as much as I can from the ancient and newer texts of all the great religions and mystical orders, and I’ve realized up to this point that they all point towards the same main ideals, ones we can all feel within us through our power of intuition. All the mystics of all the religions throughout the ages have emphasized the power of peace and of respect for all people, and of acknowledgement of all worldly citizens as our brothers and sisters, as equal to us. I practice meditation daily and follow a lot of what Buddhism and Hinduism teach, since I believe much wisdom can come from quiet contemplation and serene concentration of consciousness, as well as focusing on spiritual matters instead of sense enjoyment all the time. Apart from that though, I was raised in a mainly Christian home, although my father later preferred Judaism and started attending a synagogue. Although a lot of the Biblical concepts, especially those of the Old Testament, have become strange to me in my recent years of studying Eastern spirituality, I still read a chapter of the Bible on most days, together with my wife, as I do believe there is much to be learned from it if one seeks to humbly understand instead of judge or condemn. We just finished reading First Kings last night in Spanish. I’m familiar with the teachings of Jesus and with most of the rest of the Bible as well, having been taught about it extensively growing up, and none of it conflicts, but rather goes hand in hand, with the teachings of mystical ideas such as those of the Vedanta or the Tao. My message is not merely religious however, it is a simple yet essential message which we all need to hear, whether from within ourselves or from others who have heard it from within themselves, in order to live life correctly, and to stop causing more problems and confusion on top of that which exists all around us already in this crazy world. We need to stop separating the spiritual from the physical, and we need to see the oneness beyond all apparent duality. We need to stop second-guessing ourselves so much, wanting to be the greatest, wanting to be known, afraid of being rejected, afraid of everyone else as if they were different from us. We need to simply be, and to understand that being is One in all of us, and that we are all sharing a common experience since we are all being together, one Being, basically one Spirit keeping us all alive. The more I’ve been realizing this, the more I’ve felt there is no sense in holding back my writing any longer. Those who are meant to read this will read it, and those who aren’t won’t. Some will understand and others won’t just yet, but maybe later. We all find inspiration in so many different things, and this is what keeps life going. This is the start of me doing what I love to do with the purpose of affecting the world in a positive way, regardless of what anyone might think, regardless of money or what the journey of life might bring. If you’re someone trying to promote positivity and you think you have something to offer which can impact the world in a good way, don’t let doubt or insecurity hold you back. Let your light shine with no shame or fear, and doors will open up. For too long I lived with no purpose, I wrote music with no deeper meaning, I hung around with old friends cracking jokes and beer bottles, partying, getting into fights and problems, just completely acting a fool. Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” is the book that made me finally understand that life without meaning is empty and that one must find meaning in life in order to truly be alive. I now have enough words to publish the first day of this experiment. Let’s see where this goes from here.

~ Rebel Spirit ~