Tag: life

DAY 36 (1000 WORDS, 3rd attempt)

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Some days I feel like I can’t find the right inspiration to write from, like I can’t find any solid ground to stand on to make any sort of concrete point. All I really have are my own often contradictory ideas and opinions, which are colored by my own life experiences, my own confusions and my own beliefs, which I wouldn’t want to think are beliefs but I have to be honest about and admit they are. I think beliefs can be really limiting, because once we believe something religiously it becomes easy to shut ourselves off from any other ideas that might contradict our own. On the other hand, it seems like it would be really difficult to live life without any beliefs at all. Obviously there are things we can all tell are or are not a certain way, and it would be absurd not to believe the facts of life just for the sake of being open to new ideas. We all go through life believing certain things, and disbelieving other things, whether we know it or not. Belief gives structure to our lives. I used to think that I wanted to learn about everything, I imagined myself finding mystical truths of the universe while deep into mystical experiences, either induced by heavy meditation or by psychedelics. I even visited a Float Tank downtown a few times, always searching for some trippy meaning to life, as I mentioned yesterday. These days though, it doesn’t seem as fun as I’d expected. The more I spend time thinking about life and the world in its current condition, the more I realize how backwards everything is, how divided everyone is, and how it’s all going according to the plan of higher powers who wish to control us. The worst part of it all is that I often can’t say anything, and this is why I rarely write about this sort of thing, even though I always think I should more often, because I know that I’m part of the problem. I’m contributing to the destruction of our planet just as much as everyone else, because even though I see the problem, and I’m sure many others do as well, I don’t really do much to go against it. Why? I don’t want to make excuses but it really doesn’t seem like there’s much one can do. We’re all dependent on the same things, I need my internet, my music equipment to record and release music, my computer to write on my blog, social media to share my ideas, the customers who call me at work need technical support with their cable issues, some older people crying and obsessing over their TV’s because they have no other company and nothing else to do. Materialism is the religion of the modern world, and we can’t dare say anything about it because we wouldn’t be able to turn back even if we wanted to. It’s sad how disconnected everything and everyone is, and I really think it’s all deliberate. Things get more expensive but people don’t make more money, people can’t keep up, families don’t work because there’s no time to be together, kids go out on their own and end up on drugs due to lack of guidance or simply because they’re following trends and idolizing artists who glorify living like junkies and justify it just because they’re rich. Why is it that kind of music that ends up popular? Probably for the same reason we see alcohol and cigarettes in movies, everything is a business and everything is advertising. The media is also owned and it’s crazy to think that whatever narrative the people with money and power want to promote can be promoted with no problem. People vote but in reality everything is probably manipulated in order to keep people divided and fighting rather than waking up to realize it’s all just a show they’re putting on. So why am I saying all this? Simply because it just came to my mind, just like it often does. I kind of wish I could still feel like I did back in the day, when I didn’t really care about anything other than partying and being reckless and getting high and trying to hook up with girls. At least back then I could have fun, and I don’t recall feeling much anxiety. In a way, although I hate it, I’m kind of thankful for my anxiety now, because it really keeps me from doing a bunch of dumb shit that I know I shouldn’t be doing. I know I wouldn’t really enjoy living how I did back then if I was living it right now, but I guess I just wish things didn’t seem so hopeless. I used to think of the world as a magical place to explore, like some sort of adventure from a movie or a Zelda game, an open world with challenges to beat. It’s hard to hear like that when all you hear about is problems all around the world, knowing I’m already in one of the best places to live makes me even wonder what the point of travelling would even be now, even back to my home country of Honduras which is super dangerous. I feel like I don’t want any problems or even possibility for problems now, I just want guaranteed peace, peace of mind. Well, as I said at the beginning of this post, I have nothing to offer other than my ideas, even when they’re not too positive or optimistic at times. This is just a day in my life, a stage I pass through as I continue living and learning, and if life really is positive deep down, and good, then I’m sure I’ll eventually experience that, because I know it deep within, I know that life and the world are good, even if we haven’t created the best civilization on it, it is our fault, not the world’s, so I’m sure there’s still hope for recovery, so I’ll see where life takes me.

much love

~ rebel eye

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DAY 35 (1000 WORDS, 3rd attempt)

Yesterday I wrote about my fascination with learning about spiritual ideas from different religions and trying to learn if there’s any common origin between them. Today I think I’ll write about another fascination of mine, which might not be as intense anymore, but is still a part of my life, and was definitely a huge deal for me when I was a bit younger. It might not be the healthiest thing to be obsessed with, but I gotta tell the truth. If you’ve read some of my earlier posts in this series of a thousand daily words then you might be aware of how I’m just recently starting to cut down on weed after about 15 years of daily use. These days that’s a big deal for me because weed has always been something which I thought I’d never really need to cut down on, but what you might not know is that weed is far from the only drug I’ve used throughout my life. In fact, my unhealthy fascination I mentioned at the beginning of this post is drugs. Yes, drugs in general have always been extremely interesting to me, and I feel like that is very intimately tied with my love for spirituality, philosophy and all things weird. I’ve always loved learning and researching (about things that actually interest me), and I knew that drugs were dangerous, so even though I was in the eight grade and still very young, I knew that I had a lot of research to do if I was going to embark on this path of experimenting with psychoactive substances, but I was determined to do it so I learned as much as I could. Weed was my first high, and at first I hadn’t decided to make it an everyday habit, but I was completely interested and started learning about it’s effects and even history. Since I had no tolerance at all, weed was super psychedelic for me, something that has never been the same after years of heavy use. I liked how it made me more aware of my thoughts, how everything i thought seemed interesting and meaningful, and as I started learning online about other drugs I naturally gravitated towards substances that offered the same kind of trippy, introspective effects, more specifically psychedelics. I became fascinated with mushrooms and LSD, and I don’t remember whether my interest in psychedelics or my interest in hippie culture came first, or if they both sort of grew together and eventually inspired me to try to live a spiritual or philosophical life. I’ve always thought of the world as extremely unjust as well, and I guess it was the whole anti-establishment thing which made me really like hippies, as well as their use of psychedelic drugs as some sort of sacrament to look within themselves and see what they could find. That life seemed a lot more meaningful to me than working for money my entire life, chasing more power and status. So I started reading countless trip reports on Erwoid, from first trips to heroic doses, to all sorts of combinations, so I was learning about more substances as I learned about mushrooms and acid. The trips were so insane, the visions people spoke of and the feelings they described were so interesting to me, and so I started asking people if they knew anyone with shrooms or acid I could buy. I didn’t have much luck at school at first, but I eventually met this kid, I don’t really remember how, who sold me some acid. I mean, he was a nerdy looking kid from my school, but I don’t remember how I knew to ask him or how our meeting came about. Anyway, I had some crazy acid trips, and from then on I decided to try all psychedelics. Although a lot of it was curiosity, I know that deep down I was never using these substances for the sake of “having fun.” I’ve always had a huge desire to search for truth, to find some truth that will help me live life in the most meaningful way possible, and I was always looking to have mystical experiences that I could learn from, maybe learn something that could change my life, and I can’t say that I didn’t find exactly that. I really think that tripping so many times since a very young age has a lot to do with who I am today and who I grew to be. When I started getting into drugs and drinking, outwardly I was trying to fit in. I was rapping about nothing, about being cool or whatever else I thought would impress people, trying to rock fake designer clothes and smoking cigarettes just to look cool, looking for fights. I don’t want to blame hip-hop because ultimately I was the one who was trying to copy a culture, and a pretty toxic one at that, but it’s obvious that the way I dressed and the way I acted in those days was was inspired by hip-hop. Who didn’t want to have nice cars and clothes and to have any girl you wanted? Tripping made me see the deeper meaning of life though, and eventually I stopped writing those types of raps because I started to see it as an art form, as poetry, in the way that even 2Pac saw it. I also stopped trying to rock designer clothes because I started to loathe materialism and completely rejected being someone who is constantly trying to impress others with meaningless things such as the amount of money or luxury items I have. Tripping hard really let me see that life is way to deep not to take responsibility for my life, to waste it on meaningless things. I started reading a lot of philosophical and spiritual books, such as Aldous Huxley’s “The Doors of Perception” where he talks about the similarities between reported visions of psychedelic experienced and the art and mythology of ancient religions like Hinduism and Buddhism, and this inspired me to learn even more. I’m at the end of this post and I really only got to touch on my relationship with psychedelics, which is one of my more positive experiences with drugs. Other drugs, like alcohol, I haven’t had the easiest relationship with, but that’s a topic for another day.

much love

~ rebel eye

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DAY 32 (1000 WORDS, 3rd attempt)

We are who we are. Just like the world and its inhabitants are all so different, just as there are so many different viewpoints, ideas and beliefs, cultures and traditions, which make up the world we live in, there are also many elements which make us who we are. Each person is a world within his or her self, with many different sides, some of which they may never show the world. We are a product of our environment, yes, of the way we were raised, of all the people we have known and interacted with throughout our lives. Every second changes us, every idea is taken into our consciousness but it is also imprinted into our subconscious mind in some form or another. We are also who we are because of our genes, and maybe we all behave in certain ways because of our shared collective past as part of mankind. Maybe we might even carry something over from some past incarnations, if reincarnation is indeed real. We are all aware of the complexities of the human mind, we recognize this within ourselves, yet it seems like we often forget this when it comes to other people. We see only what we are shown, or only what we want to see, but we forget that usually there is much more than meets the eye. We are born, we live to the best of our abilities, and for what? Some of us are afraid of trying to find out, while others spend their entire lives trying to find that ultimate meaning. We often take pride in being part of a specific group, but we don’t realize that one group is not big enough to fully describe what all of its members really are, only a small part of that. We become entangled in ideologies and make ourselves believe things beyond any doubt, when we really should be humble and understand that we can’t even fully know ourselves. Even with an entire long lifetime, there will probably be things about ourselves which we’ll only understand when we reach a certain age, as well as things which we’ll never fully understand. Life is too complex to make sense of, to apply one ideology to it and to base all of our decisions only on that. We are also extremely complex, and we are impossible to fit into one box, one label. We might feel some way about something now, but as we learn or as we experience more of life, we might come to a different understanding, and this is why we should always be humble and open to learn. Belief might provide us with comfort, but it is often the end of learning, since we choose to close ourselves off from anything that might go against our beliefs. I get it, as I said, life is hard to make sense of, maybe even impossible, and it’s a relief to feel like we’ve found an answer, something to help us get by with a feeling of being in control. I’ve never been able to believe in anything to the point of having absolutely no doubt, because I know that life is unexpected and mysterious, and I know that the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know. Who am I to pretend like I have it all figured out, when I’m just one person living one life, among billions of other people who inhabit the world at any given moment? What about all of their life experiences, their thoughts and feelings? I’m sure that many of the conclusions others have come to from their own experiences are probably completely opposite of what I think I’ve realized in my twenty-something years on this earth, and that’s okay, that’s the way it should be. The beauty of life is trying to understand others, to connect with them, to share what we can and to receive what we can so that we may come to some sort of mutual understanding. In the same way, all of the elements within ourselves can lead us to many different conclusions about life, but if none of them are constant, then are we really the same person at all times? I am no longer who I was ten years ago, or even yesterday, and I’ll probably be much different many years from now. Life is a constant learning journey, and learning from others can help us understand ourselves. We can see the similarities in our differences. The Greeks had the concept of the world as a Mother, Mother Gaia, and although these days we use the earth for our own monetary gain, because of greed, it could possible that the earth is a sentient being, maybe every planet and galaxy is alive. Just like little microscopic bacteria live on us and all around us, and they probably see us as a huge landscape to walk on, to live on, perhaps we can’t see this planet earth for what it truly is because we are so small. Even though we are physically small, we are connected to the entire universe, and our spirit is immortal, the same thing that keeps me alive is what keeps you alive. We breathe the same air, the same air that humans breathed thousands of years ago, we are all connected by invisible bonds. Sometimes I feel so overwhelmed by such complexity, and I’m not exactly sure what to make of it, what to do with it all. Then I remember that this is the beauty of life, observing, learning, understanding, not understanding, putting pieces together, taking them back apart, making mistakes and growing from them, failing and feeling the motivation to succeed. In this age of materialism, I really think it would do the world much good if we would all look within, if we could all stop trying to associate with groups and ideologies, and instead look within ourselves and ask ourselves who and what we are. I think if we looked deeply and honestly, we would find a lot of good within ourselves, and this would inspire us greatly to connect with others, to do something great in the world, not in terms of amassing wealth, but in terms of creating genuine connections with others, in terms of being there for those who need us, being overall more attentive to the world around us.

much love

~ rebel eye

DAY 30 (1000 WORDS, 3rd attempt)

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One of the first books I ever read which inspired me greatly was Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road.” I don’t remember how exactly I decided to read that book, but by the time I finished reading it I was determined to one day travel the world and find whatever was waiting for me far, far away from home. I guess I ended up reading On The Road because I was always fascinated with hippie culture and history, which eventually lead me to look into the beat generation and their literature. I’ve always sensed that something is off in society, and it felt really cool to learn about a group of people who one day challenged the standard way in which society worked, taking a stand against materialism and war, and embracing spirituality and community, living with presence rather than for money and success. As I’ve grown up, I’ve come to realize that I probably romanticized the whole thing way too much, and that, although their hearts were in the right place, it takes a lot more than non-conformity to actually make a positive change in the world. This doesn’t change the fact that I still feel like a hippie at heart. I’ve always thought that living life on one’s own terms, staying true to oneself, is what really matters in life, far more than success or wealth. Today it doesn’t seem like most people would agree. Most people are trying to chase dollars, to accumulate as much money as they can, living in fear of being left behind, of never having enough, of not having anything to pass down to their future generations. It seemed amazing to me, to read about Dean and Sal’s adventures as they made their way through the United States, hitchhiking, drinking and meeting new people. I wanted that so bad. They weren’t worried about the future, they were ecstatic about the now and going wherever life took them. I’ve always admired that a lot, having the courage to face the unknown and to really embrace whatever life has to offer us wherever we may go. I also have always been super interested in strange things, everything weird from mysticism to psychedelics, and basically drugs in general. I guess what both mysticism and drugs have in common are altered states of consciousness. I know there wasn’t much of that on On The Road, but that was even better because these guys were actually enjoying life sober, just high off life itself, apart from some beers here and there. Actually, now that I think about it there was probably more alcohol than I remember. I always wanted to live like that, and I’m a bit sad to say that my dreams of adventure haven’t really come true. I don’t mean to blame the world, but the fact is that the idea I had of the world when I was a kid doesn’t really match what I started noticing as I became older. The world now seems like a cold and heartless place, and it gets worse as time goes by because we are all becoming more isolated and divided. Rather than coming together and bonding over our shared consciousness as human beings, we close ourselves off from others because of things such as politics and religion. In a way I guess my dreams have come true. I travelled back to Honduras, my home country, and I met my wife Maria there, as well as some great new friends. I guess I just expected more adventure, more running around from here to there, more of a hippie life. Maybe I did get the hippie life I wanted, but it just wasn’t what I thought it would be. I did party a lot with a lot of people, using all kinds of substances, I had a lot of laughs over the years, but it seems like a lot of it was just super shallow, like there was no substance. Perhaps I was expecting too much, I expected philosophy, to find a deep meaning in everything, and instead I noticed how people are mainly focused on their day to day activities or on “making it” in some form or another. I don’t know if things have always been like this, but I suspect that the more we merge with technology, the more we advance technologically, the farther away we seem to step from trying to find any deep meaning in life, or even thinking about it. Maybe we all think about life and its meaning, but maybe we’re all too afraid to discuss these things with others, so we choose to engage in small talk instead. I realize that, over the years, as I started feeling like life wasn’t really like the idea of life that I had in my mind, I started closing myself off from life and people in general, and I wonder if this is what happens to many of us. Children are magic, they’re full of dreams and passion, they’re excited for life, they don’t need any external stimuli. They say what they think without fear of ridicule. It’s only when we start growing up that we start to see how the world works, and it feels like dreaming will keep us from functioning and succeeding in society. Maybe this makes us close ourselves off from others, further amplifying the feeling that the world is a cold and lonely place. I don’t really know, I’m just trying to make sense of it. I have to be grateful for my life though. I haven’t travelled all over the world as I wanted to, but at least I got to immerse myself in my own culture again, which I had left behind at the age of nine when my parents moved to Canada, and I even met my amazing wife there which I wouldn’t change for anything in the world. I also travelled to Brazil, where I met some family from my dad’s side, and I also met a lot of cool people there and partied in some beautiful beaches. I love travelling to places and immersing myself in the culture, and living there for a good while. For now I’m just focused on establishing some solid ground to stand on, trying to finally make something happen with my music, while I’m in Canada, but I really can’t wait for another adventure, to travel somewhere else and feel like I’m on the move again. I guess I’ll always be a hippie at heart.

much love

~ rebel eye

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DAY 29 (1000 WORDS, 3rd attempt)

The days pass and everything changes like the year’s seasons. We search for meaning but things happen seemingly without reason. We laugh and we cry and we try our best to forget the fact that we were born to die. We were born to die but we were also born to live. We were born to love and to find the treasure within us which only we can give. We say goodbye, we sit with our memories of brothers and sisters who relocated to the sky. It’s a beautiful thing to believe, but sometimes I can’t help but wonder if we all just choose to be naive. We try to distract ourselves but we know deep inside that we’ll always grieve, for the people we wish we could see again, the dreams that we fought our hardest for but still couldn’t achieve. Not everything is meant to be, and I hope we all come to realize that, eventually. We roll with the punches, we swim with the waves, we give in to pleasures which keep us enslaved. Everything’s a mess, the passion and the stress, the love and the hate, for injustice, for the hypocritical and fake. We apologize, then we make the same mistakes. We don’t know the game we’re playing in, some day it’s karma, some say it’s a sin. Nobody wants to lose, but there have to be losers for others to win. Survival of the fittest, could it be true? Could this be the way we’re meant to live? Is there anything about it that we can even do? The strong kill the weak, we struggle with the deepest truths within our soul which are to complex to speak, 60 seconds make a minute, seven days complete the week. Did God create it all, at the genesis of creation when the wild birds sang? Did we all come from an explosion of elements? The big bang? Religion and philosophy, division and atrocities. We move through life with an insane velocity, accumulating more than we need but never practicing generosity. I can’t provide hope, my rhymes are all over. High me doesn’t recognize me sober. Drugs, alcohol, fascinating substances, some live their whole lives attached to them but never know what substance is. Pleasure takes the place of meaning, entertainment becomes more demeaning. We try to escape reality through books and movies, or daydreaming. We can’t face the facts, so we try to out others down to make up for what we lack. Fighting over male and female, white and black, we sell our time for money that we can stack, up as high as the sky like the tower of Babel, we kill our own brothers like Cain did Abel. With words, with looks, with spite, we never forgive, as if we were unable. I don’t mean to generalize, I guess I jus feel like venting about what I see with my eyes. What I hear with my ears, people living full of fear, media propaganda which is toxic, like Britney Spears. Not talking about her, just a reference to the song. I used to spend all my nights with my speakers and bong. Weeded, never thinking whether I really need it. When I trip I think of family, the time I’ve wasted, the tears I’ve tasted. Addiction, got me thinking things stranger than fiction. Though I love it, often times I hold it all back because I don’t wanna be seen as a walking contradiction. But not anymore, I know we’re all very complex, universes live within our soul. Yet we hide out spirit just to fit into the mold. For the right price it seems any man can be sold. Slavery was never abolished. Nowadays we just do our work with our suit buttoned up and our shows perfectly polished. Just an exercise in rhyming, I wish I had better things to say but I can’t find the silver lining. I guess I need to work on my attitude, need to exercise gratitude so I’m not always whining. All this grinding, business meetings and contract signing, yeah we’re making more money but what are we really finding? Does truth not matter? What about all the functions that are installed in our greet matter? We live through tragedies and dreams that are shattered, broken in to pieces that the world tries to scatter. We suffer and we dwell in the pain, only end up feeling sadder. We receive wide advice but only end up getting madder. Some of us live in the moment, others plan to forever climb a ladder, up to the top of the world, higher up than the purest shatter. Concentrate. Attention spans decreasing, can’t concentrate. Constant technological stimulus crippling our ability to contemplate. To reflect and to realize. We only see the physical but we don’t exercise seeing with out real eyes. Relativity, truth seems to be what we want it to be. Inactivity, stuck in the house with nowhere else to be. But I still suspect that hope isn’t completely lost. We can make a change, but the more we wait the higher the cost. Stream of consciousness, I don’t know if I’m getting any point across, but this is just my mind, doing what I do, writing rhymes, attempting to find a bridge to cross. To where, I don’t know, but I feel like going. I feel like moving, I feel like feeling the rhythm and grooving, I feel like truly knowing. Instead of feeling confused, in a world of abusers and the abused, of people who feel like they have nothing left to lose. I’m already crazy, I don’t follow the collective opinion, so I might as well continue loosing the screws. Life can hurt, but I have to learn to heal quickly from whatever bruise. I’m not pessimistic, I know that in life we have the right to choose, but it just seems like in the test of life there’s more false then trues. Duality. The blues inspired the blues, now we jam to the emotions, music can have us feeling deeper than the ocean. Fuck all the commotion, I rhyme because rap is poetry in motion. Vibration, words that can uplift like levitation, we all do what we can and what we enjoy, or at least we try, before we die and head to our next destination. So don’t think too much, just do what you do, like I’m doing now, otherwise you’ll be stuck in procrastination. Your time will come, so just wait patient.

much love

~ rebel eye

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DAY 28 (1000 WORDS, 3rd attempt)

There’s a lot of things we would like to express to the world about ourselves, and at times it might feel like nobody cares, or it might feel like we’ll be judged for being our true selves, so we decide not to do so. Keeping the world unaware of who we truly are might provide comfort in the moment, since we don’t have to face whatever hostility or ridicule might come to us if we dared to show the world our authentic selves, but in the end this will only damage us, and it’ll prevent us from fulfilling our goals in life. We can’t truly connect with others if we don’t show them who we truly are, and even though we might end up meeting a lot of people, even having a lot of friends or acquaintances, deep inside we’ll always know that we haven’t made any deep, meaningful connections with anyone. At this point, as we feel the weight of loneliness on our shoulders, as we grow old and time goes by, we might feel like we don’t have a chance of forming any true connections any more, and we might start acting up in order to get attention from others. In the modern age of social media this is a huge problem. A lot of people might not even have a real connection with themselves, let alone anyone else, because they have been travelling a path of imitation, wanting to be the next big celebrity, for example. Their whole style is copied, the way they talk and act, even their opinions on important matters, are all copied, knowingly or unknowingly, from their favorite celebrities. Kids with low self-esteem are constantly bombarded with images of the perfect lifestyle, a life of luxury and constant thrills, and they decide that they want to live that type of life also. These kids barely know themselves most of the time, and since they lack proper guidance they don’t even have a chance to discover who they are, their true passions and skills, what really makes them happy in life. When I say happy I’m talking about true satisfaction, being at peace with oneself, not about chasing one thrill after the next in order to never experience boredom, in order to never spend time reflecting on life, learning from our past and planning out our future. The idea of living fast and dying young is appealing to a lot of kids who want to convince themselves that they’re fearless, that living in the moment means doing whatever is the most fun, or whatever will impress others the most, without thinking of future consequences. Too many people are also infatuated with money and are willing to do anything to get it, even if it means putting their dignity on the line or leaving their values behind and engaging in unethical behavior. In these peoples’ minds, having money will bring them happiness by allowing them to purchase anything they want at any time, to live a luxurious life with minimal responsibilities and the most fun possible. What they don’t think about is that, once they do have the money they dream of, they still won’t find true happiness. They might not care because they can keep themselves busy with pleasure, one expensive form of pleasure after another. They might go through their whole lives without ever even bothering to try to search for something deeper because pleasure might be enough for them, since they drown their true feelings out with drugs or sex. People need to realize their true worth. We’ve all faced our own hardships in life, we all come from different backgrounds and we all see things in unique ways. We never know when we could inspire someone just by being honest about our own life experiences, about our own opinions and innermost thoughts and feelings. Too many people are trying to fit in, not realizing that they’re throwing out all the hidden treasures within them, and all for what? Just to fit in with a bunch of other insecure people who are only trying to follow what’s “cool”? If you’re afraid of showing your true self to someone for fear that they might reject you, then think about why you would even want to be accepted by this type of person in the first place? They don’t actually like who you are, just the fabricated image of yourself that you try to pass off as the real you. I believe that we could advance more as a species if more people were willing to be themselves, to stand their ground regardless of whatever might be cool, or even whatever might be legal. Legality does not equal morality. People need to think for themselves, to analyze and understand themselves, then to share that understanding with others so that we may learn from each other and grow together. I know we are all flawed and none of us are perfect human beings, but it is precisely this understanding that should motivate us to be unapologetically ourselves. Who are other people to judge us? We were all born here and exist for reasons we don’t completely understand. Other people may offer advice, but we are free to accept such advice or reject it. We shouldn’t fear advice or criticism, we shouldn’t take it as an attack on our opinions. This comes from a place of insecurity. Unfortunately, too many people with worthwhile ideas second-guess themselves, doubt themselves, and never end up sharing any of those ideas, they stay limited to their own minds. On the other hand, there’s so many people who are simply following the crowd, and for this reason they are confident that they’ll be accepted. After all, they’re only following a proven model for success. It’s much easier to go along with whatever ideas the majority of people have in your day and age, than to find the courage to stand for yourself and to say exactly what you feel should be said. Being real might isolate us, but at least we’ll know where we stand, and we won’t feel disappointed in ourselves. On the other hand, if we simply settle for going with the flow because we are insecure and in need of attention, we might indeed gain the approval and praise of the world, but we’ll always know true loneliness, and resentment will grow within us, because we’ll know that we be rejected if we dared to be ourselves. People might scream our name, but they will never know who we truly are, and therefore we will be like ghosts, unknown to the world and probably even to ourselves, always trapped within a caricature we’ve created.

much love

~ rebel eye

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DAY 27 (1000 WORDS, 3rd attempt)

Not sure what to write about tonight, really. I guess I’ll just write about everything going on right now. I’m uploading daily beats, I’m writing my daily words, I’m trying to exercise every second day, whether jogging or doing yoga. It feels weird doing everything sober though, since I’m so used to being stoned all the time. I’ve been feeling weird sensations in my chest when I move, as well as a general shortness of breath, nothing extreme but just annoying. At first it was making me go crazy with anxiety, but after researching for a bit I’ve become convinced that it has to do with me cutting down on weed since I see a lot of posts from ex-smokers of many years who share similar stories. It makes sense also because the discomfort started pretty much a few weeks after I first started my goal of cutting down on bud. I’ve been smoking weed since I was basically twelve, and I’m 27 now, so I have a lot of readjusting to do. I’ve learned some new things from my research, such as the fact that THC is a bronchodilator, meaning that it expands the airways in the lungs or something like that (I’m not the best at explaining medical terms) so quitting quickly can have the opposite effect on the lungs and cause bronchospasms. I haven’t smoked weed in about a month now, but my idea wasn’t to completely quit, just to switch to edibles and to cut down on my consumption in general. I guess what I’m experiencing is a combination of my lungs starting to heal from all the constant smoking over the years, as well as me feeling the effect of no longer having the bronchodilator effect of THC so often. It should pass with time from what I’ve read, but I’m definitely never going back to smoking the same way as I did before. In fact, I’ll only smoke once a month or something, if even that, and just eat way smaller doses of edibles, maybe just 2 days a week. It’s crazy, I never even knew this kind of thing could happen from quitting weed, and although I’m not blaming weed in any way, it just goes to show how nothing is meant to be abused, and everything has to be done or used in moderation. I was definitely abusing weed for so many years, it was good for everything and wasn’t harmful like other drugs. It made everything way more interesting and chill, so I just rolled with it. Ever since I’ve gotten really into spirituality, years ago, I’ve been planning on cutting down just because I realize that we have all we need within us, and that attachments are what cause suffering in life. A classic example is how a drug addict feels shitty I’d they can’t have their drug of choice, which in my case is weed. I now have to readjust to real life, and get back out into the world, leaving my peaceful inner world on the side for some time. This is actually why I finally made the decision to cut down, because I was planning to go hard with my music and to finally get serious about it make the dream happen. I for sure didn’t expect to have this kind of reaction though. Anyway, I’m not trying to complain, I just think that too many people, assuming that weed is all good and can cause no issues because it’s natural and relatively safe for recreational use, don’t bother to do any research, and end up abusing it in order to mask their real feelings and escape from uncomfortable realities that may cause anxiety of depression. As I’ve been learning from Carl Jung, anxiety is with us for a reason, so that we may analyze the way we are living and make a change, but if we just mask our anxiety and never face it, then what will happen when we finally decided to put that mask away? Will we be able to deal with all the unacknowledged anxiety that has been building within us? Well, it’s tough but I know I can do it, I know I got this. I just have to keep focusing on what I’m doing, creating dope music and expressing my deepest ideas and feelings through my lyrics, which is what I’ve always been inspired to do with my raps. I have a beautiful loving wife who supports me through all of life’s ups and downs, and I have a good family I can count on as well. I’m still healthy, thank God, apart from the aforementioned issues, so I gotta focus on exercising as often as I can and eating healthier as well. I know that everything will be okay in the end. Other than that, I’m just really excited about life and where this music thing will take me. I’m almost done my next album, Rebel Spirit, which will be released on all streaming platforms, and I’m really feeling how all the tracks are sounding so far. Oh, something else I’ve noticed during my sober days is that I’m getting really tired and sleepy at times. When I used to get high all the time I would sometimes stay up until 3 or 4am, just fascinated by whatever ideas I was learning or whatever music I was creating. Now I actually feel tired, as I do right now while I yawn, and I know that means it’s time to go to sleep. I guess it’s because things don’t seem so interesting anymore, even things I love with a passion, like philosophy and music, but I know this will pass with time, it’s just part of withdrawal from being used to constant weed stimulation. I’m not sure what else to write for now, but I suspect I’m close to finishing today’s thousand words, so I’ll just end this on a positive note. I wish everyone out there the best in life, stay balanced and healthy, and I pray you have the power to break any chains and attachments you feel you need to grow from. It’s not easy, but moving on to a new stage of life often requires painful sacrifices, leaving behind some of the things that we strongly identified with in the past. It’s time to grow, to become new, stronger, wiser people.

much love

~ rebel eye

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DAY 25 (1000 WORDS, 3rd attempt)

These days it seems like mental health is being acknowledged and discussed more than ever before. It’s good in a way because we are getting more open to sharing our vulnerabilities, and we are becoming more open to understanding other people’s struggles. Is this because we are becoming more caring and understanding, or could it also be because more people than ever before are experiencing symptoms of mental afflictions? We are living in a time where people are isolating themselves in fear, fear of disease, fear of the government, fear of unprovoked evil. The world, in general, seems to be getting a lot more restless, and we are seeing hate and violence all around us, so it is natural for many people to retreat from life, in a way, to shut themselves in their minds, in their own little world with the people they love. Although mental health is being acknowledged, it is seen as something evil, even as a mental illness, when in reality this is not exactly the case. When we get physically hurt, the pain we feel is our body telling us that something is wrong, and according to Carl Jung, neurotic conditions such as anxiety and depression are also messages we are trying to convey to ourselves, messages not just from what’s hidden deep in our own minds, in our subconscious, but from what Jung called the collective unconscious. Jung’s famous idea of archetypes was something he arrived at by analyzing a lot of his patients’ dreams, as well as the different stories found in the books of the world’s different religions and mythologies. The main idea is that we all share a collective consciousness which is hidden from our day-to-day consciousness, much like our own subconscious is. Like the subconscious, the collective unconscious can also trigger strong impulses within us, the difference being that our own subconscious is made up of subliminal images and ideas that have stuck with us because of our own life experiences, whereas the collective unconscious holds images and ideas that are with us because we are part of a collective whole. According to Jung these ideas, or archetypes, come from the evolution of consciousness that mankind has lived through for who knows how many years. These strong values which have always been present in humanity don’t just disappear because we change the way in which outward society functions, they are still there within our psyche, influencing our personalities. These archetypes, such as building a good social structure or becoming mentally independent from our parents, are ingrained into us, and they make us feel as if there’s certain things in life that we absolutely must accomplish. Jung’s theory was that if we try to fight against these ingrained ideas, which can be referred to as the tasks of life which we all feel compelled to complete, then we will run into mental problems because we are choosing to live in a way which is contrary to what we are hardwired to become. It is true that we have free will, yet that doesn’t mean that all of our impulses will lead to our well-being. In this way of seeing neurotic disorders, we can perceive them as signs that we are not living correctly, that we are fighting against our true nature and our true calling. Often times this is because we are afraid of facing up to the tasks of life, and we try to deceive ourselves into thinking that we don’t need to achieve anything. We might convince ourselves of this by telling ourselves that the issues does not lie within us, that the issue is external, and therefore, since it can’t be fixed, we are doing the right thing by not getting involved. One of my favorite writers, Charles Bukowski, said “I don’t have any politics. I’m an observer.” In a way, I really liked it when I read that quote, because I’ve always felt this way myself. Bukowski was also an alcoholic, and analyzing that quote, along with his life, makes me wonder if he maybe had some demons of his own which he was too afraid to face. I can tell this is the case in my own life, when I analyze it through Jung’s theory. For years I’ve been getting stoned, simply because weed can make ideas a lot more interesting, it can make the inner world of my mind appear fresh and limitless, with everything the mind can conceive of and create. It also makes music and philosophy more interesting, my two favorite things to consume. I told myself that the world is fucked up, and that I didn’t need to complicate my life with it. I have my wife and I enjoy music and philosophy, so there’s not much else in the world for me other than possible trouble. Maybe I’ve really been hiding away from the world because of fear, fear of losing the foundation which I already have, or fear of unexpected trouble that could come my way in a world that’s growing increasingly turbulent. Carl Jung explains how, at the beginning of a neurotic disorder, the neurotic person might not feel too inconvenienced by avoiding life situations which may trigger anxiety, and in fact will feel some comfort in it, yet over time, as his or her life becomes routine, the person notices that something is wrong, because life has become restricted and closed off from the world. Because of the archetype which drives us to create social bonds and connections, the neurotic can’t help but feel distressed because, deep inside, from the collective unconscious, stems this feeling that they are not fulfilling something important which is imperative to their happiness as human beings. Being super interested in philosophy, psychology and spirituality, I’ve always known about and been a fan of Carl Jung, yet his body of work is so extensive and his ideas are so deep that they must be analyzed time and time again, and I had never really went too deep into what I’m discussing in this post today. However, as I research more into it, I have to admit that I do see myself in the image he paints of the neurotic person. This isn’t a reason to panic though, because again, anxiety is just a sign that change is needed, and that means there is hope for change.

DAY 24 (1000 WORDS, 3rd attempt)

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I love to learn many things, and throughout my life I’ve been inspired to learn from many experiences and circumstances. It’s because of my ideas and decisions that I find myself in the place where I stand today. People, in general, express themselves in different ways, depending on their own life experiences, but who can know for certain, to the point of being able to advise others, what the right way to live life is, who can know what is the right thing to choose at any given moment in life. It’s easy to look at others’ mistakes or faults, from the outside, but it might not be as easy for them to notice these issues themselves. For example, the other day I was walking with my wife and I noticed that a little leaf had ended up on her hair somehow. She had probably been walking with it on her head for a while now, but since it was on the opposite side of where I was walking I didn’t notice it at first. However, as soon as I turned for some reason and looked at her straight on I noticed it right away and removed it. Of course, it’s not a big deal, nothing would happen if she would have just kept walking with the leaf on her head, but that’s not the point. The point is that it made me think, it made me realize that perhaps there’s things that we don’t notice about ourselves, yet might be easy for others to notice. Your hear is on your head, so it’s impossible to see it, at least the part of it that doesn’t slide down your face. Of course, my hair is my hair, so I should be more familiar with it than anyone else, yet for some reason, precisely because it’s mine, I can’t see a good part of it, while others easily can. In fact, I can never look directly at my own face, I can only see a reflection of myself in the mirror. Everyone else can see my real face though, even though it’s my face. If I have something on my face or hair, someone who looks at me can remove it, but it’s difficult for me to see whatever’s on myself. You might be familiar with the Bible quote “First, remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother’s eye.” I love quotes like this, quotes that provide general wisdom on how to grow as human beings, because most of the time we make changes in our life depending on the situations we are facing, and even though we can’t know for sure what the right decision is at any given moment, if we are armed with real wisdom then we have less chance of making the wrong decision. We are always wondering what is the right way to navigate life, how can we become better? We often have doubts and insecurities that lead us to anxiety and indecision. That can be a problem, yes, but in reality, it comes down to how we look at things. Our indecision is a chance for us to analyze the situation further, maybe to seek advice from others who can relate to our situation. If someone has a suggestion for us, we should humbly listen. As long as we understand that we are in control of our lives, we have no reason to be afraid of any words that may come to us from anyone. On the contrary, we never know if a perfect stranger could be the messenger we needed in order to finally understand something we’ve been indecisive about for so long. We should humbly listen to advice, then analyze it to the best of our abilities, and finally make a decision. I’ve received lots of great pieces of advice throughout my life, some of which I have saved into the book of my memory, and some which I have unfortunately discarded and thrown into the trash. I probably could have saved myself some trouble if I had listened to some of those that I discarded, but changes can be both good and bad in the end, in the sense that, one can learn even from the worst mistakes, in the end it’s all up to you. Again, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I can not guarantee that any way of life is the right way, I can only share my own experiences, and I know that when things seem completely hopeless, usually that’s when we can dig deep into ourselves and find truth, find what we’re truly made of, we can reflect, we can get to truly know ourselves and grow, and eventually we can bounce back stronger than ever. The thing I wrote about how it’s easier to see someone else’s mistakes, and then the quote I posted about removing the beam from your own eye before removing it from others’ seem to be a bit contradictory, but so is life. We might be faced with a situation where we can easily remove someone’s obstacles for them, but is that always the right thing to do? Do we always know what’s best for others? Could we be doing them a disservice by preventing them from living their own lives and overcoming their own obstacles? Just as I said we should listen humbly to advice, we should also be as humble as we can when providing advice, we should not force others to follow in our footsteps, because even though we may have learned a specific lesson from our own life experience, we may not know everything that someone else has lived through, that has brought them to their own current experience, so we might not really be helping them as much as we think we are. Should we do all of our kids’ homework, for example, so that they will never learn anything? Should we shelter them from the evils of life, so that they will be paralyzed when shit finally does hit the fan? No, we should provide our humble advice, not in order to manipulate, just so that we can share what we know. From then on, it’s up to them, and if they’ve learned to listen to advice in a humble manner and then analyze it, rather than instantly rejecting anything that may contradict their beliefs, then maybe they might end up actually making a right decision, a right decision influenced by you, because you shared with love and not with force.

much love

~ rebel eye

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DAY 23 (1000 WORDS, 3rd attempt)

Kalvonix and I have been making music together since way back when I started rapping. Back in high school when I was first starting out I was just making my own music by myself, but when I heard of a school group about rapping I was interested to see what it was about. To be honest, as a young kid with a wild imagination I imagined a full recording studio with a recording booth and all the equipment needed, but that wasn’t the case. I’m not complaining, I just mention that because it’s funny how kids’ imaginations are. The group was Access Denied, and it was made up of a few different people, mainly Calvin, aka Kalvonix, and his cousins Ohwell and Nizzl. In those days he was called “the rapper of the school” since he loved showing everyone his passion for rapping. I guess at some point he and Mr. Begg, the school English teacher, had come to an agreement to work on a school rap group, and so Access Denied was born. I joined later, but we quickly made a few mixtapes together. We usually recorded right in the classroom, after school hours so no one would be there, and our music was educational and touched on lots of different subjects, without getting too serious about them, but just getting the main message across. Those were fun times for sure, and we even did a show for the Olympics here in Vancouver, and also ended up on the newspaper front cover. “Rapping for a reason” was the title of the newspaper story. They also did an interview with us which was on TV. Of course, all of this wasn’t because we were incredible rappers, it was mostly because it was a school project and we were rapping about positive things. I didn’t mind it at all because I was writing and rapping, which is what I loved doing, but outside of Access Denied I was always working on my own music as well, which wasn’t always the most positive, but it was real to me, since I wasn’t living through the most positive times in my life either. Kalvonix was also doing music on his own, of course, and after he graduated from high school a year before me, we kept meeting up at his house to record song remixes here and there. We eventually had an idea, to release a mixtape together, since we were starting to make more and more songs together. We titled this mixtape “The Come Up.” Back then we weren’t the most professional, we were young and we were really making music kind of in a rush, to be honest. We were having fun though, so we just wanted to move on to the next track and complete it. I spent a lot of nights at Calvin’s house, rapping all through the night up in his room. The good thing is his house was pretty big so I think his parents couldn’t really hear us rapping the night away. Since we were making so much music, we eventually made the Come Up 2, and at some point we decided to turn in into a recurring thing. By the time we recorded The Come Up 3, we had decided that we were getting better and we had to get our music out to more people. That’s when we decided to go around his neighborhood knocking door to door selling CDs of The Come Up 3. I definitely don’t regret it, but the music isn’t really as good as we thought it was in the moment. Over the years we recorded the Come Up 4, 5 and 6, before lots of things in my life changed and I ended up moving away to Honduras, my home country, and eventually meeting my wife Maria, then waiting three years for her residence papers to be approved, and eventually returning here to Canada in February 2020, right before the whole COVID pandemic really started getting crazy. During all of those years we didn’t really make more music together, and maybe we didn’t even think about it. Calvin had success with his own music, always being super active with it and showcasing it to the world, and in my case, I was way into living a spiritual life, to the point that I had decided not to pursue music anymore because I didn’t want fame, because of the possibility of it corrupting me and the beautiful family I had formed with Maria. I remember actually telling Calvin I was quitting music, and he was questioning whether I was sure of my decision. In that moment I was one hundred percent sure. I never wanted fame, but I have always wanted to share my music with people, and to share inspirational messages through it. Fast forward some more time, spirituality-wise my thoughts changed in a way, and I basically decided to start pursuing music as a career again as I grew increasingly frustrated with 9-to-5 life, which I believe is corrupt, soulless and exploitative. I told Calvin I was back into music, so we put together The Come Up 8 and 9, mostly from a few of the last songs we had recorded together, as well as some songs from his albums that I was featured on. As I started getting serious with music again, and Calvin was getting more professional than ever and constantly releasing music on streaming platforms, we decided to make The Come Up 10 an album, with no remixes, just original tracks we could post for streaming. Since life is a lot busier now for both of us, it took us about to years to finally complete this album, but I’m really proud of it, and it’s really symbolic in a way. We’ve come a long way from our early days recording the first Come Up. Our flows have improved a lot, our writing is more impactful and our sound is overall more professional. It’s also been maybe a little over ten years since we started, so the number 10 is kind of symbolic in a way as well. We released The Come Up 10 this year on August 12th, a few days before his Calvin’s birthday. Kalvonix has always been a big inspiration for me, not only because we share the same passion for music and rhyming, but also because he was born with cerebral palsy and faced a lot of struggles growing up, yet he never let that get in the way of his passion and his dream, and nowadays he’s found a decent amount of success, and I’m super happy for him. I’ve always been all over the place, lacking the dedication to make my music thing happen in the way he has, but life is a learning experience, and I can say that now I’m more focused than I’ve ever been, so I’m excited about what the future holds. I’m constantly working on new beats and songs, and Kalvonix and I don’t plan on stopping our work together either, so The Come Up 11 is already in the works. For now though, give The Come Up 10 a listen, I’ve embedded the Spotify link below so you can listen right on here if interested. I appreciate anyone who takes the time to listen, since we put a lot of effort into this album.

much love

~ rebel eye