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“The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover, If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the thing you do not see”

–-James Baldwin—

Life is really all about learning to see and understand and or come to terms with what we cannot currently see, isn’t it.

Date: May 10, 2024

Time: 12:23am

Place: The club in the ATX

song playing: Special by EST Gee & Moneybagg Yo

It has definitely been quite sometime since I’ve put some digital pen to digital paper. How has life been and what gains have I made?

The beauty of what I am now keep seeing as I write these chapters/moments of my life is that …… In my daily life, I just can’t (or at least have the hardest time to)  see any movement or true to life gains, and or if there is movement or gains in my life, then it is on such a micron/nano level that it literally feels insignificant to what I am trying to accomplish. and Many times it actually feels like I am going backwards. But when I come here to write and I look back on my last post, I can see that life has moved for me….. The real question though….. Was it in the direction of where I am trying to go?

Lets start with today and how things have been feeling lately and then we will circle back around to how I got here.

Today was a relatively calm day. I purposefully chose to not do anything that would make me “feel”. Sometimes numbness is better than feelings.  Lately I have been feeling very lonely/empty. My journey to my goals seems quite void of deep connections and joy. And after all of the deep internal work I have done, I know quite intimately that my “feelings”  is a matter of perspective and choice of my personal time. As in what am I actually doing with my time on this earth? and I don’t know, or rather I don’t know why it seems so difficult to manage my 24 hours in a day. I have 24 hours to do anything and everything in life. But yet, very little gets accomplished. And worse, I can’t yet seem to connect with people that ignite the inner soul in me.

Hmmmm. Lets see if I can do some recap of how life has been. Since my last post, I was deeply worrying about the platting of my property. And well, I have had some long quiet moments to beat myself up and worry until I’m blue in the face! And in my last post I was trying to figure out how to shit $7000 that I have not yet been able to manifest. and as of last week, I can say that after enough time, I shitted the $7000 and about $2000 more….To the tune of  almost $9000.  Here’s how it went down. I recently met with the engineer at the surveyor’s office to sign the final papers for the platt and to pay the remaining amount to the engineer. While there I was able to ask questions and get a feel of what it is like to talk with people outside of the club scene (definitely a welcoming feeling) During that meeting I went “thinking” that I would pay the engineer the remaining balance and that I would sign a few papers and that the platt would be completed. But sadly and to my dismay, that is NOT how it is done. At least that is not how it is done with this engineer and surveyor. Instead, I went to the surveyor’s office, paid the engineer, and then was informed that I was still going to need to pay another fee to the city. ( And I swear I literally thought that all the fees to the city were paid). I took this information of needing to pay more money with a grain of salt. I told myself that I am at least finally at the finish line and that I just had this one last hurdle to jump and that the platt would be finished and then I could move on to the next task. I asked the engineer about how much money I still need to pay the city and he said about $1200 to $1500. Internally I was shocked and almost fainted, but the business man in me had to remember that real estate is not a cheap business. And that it takes/money and or skills to achieve anything. There have literally been hundreds and thousands of times where I thought something was finished or that I paid everything needed, only to find out that the process was not finished and or that I still owed money to someone or something. Shit like that is really a painful and truly frustrating feeling. And at some point I must learn to be comfortable with the “inconsistency” of “incompleteness” until I learn how to properly gauge finish lines.

So I left the surveyor’s office, feeling that I was finished with the platting process, and sadly during the course of conversing with the engineer and the surveyor, I had completely forgotten that I still had to pay the city the remainder of their extortion money to platt my property. It wasn’t until that weekend that I received the email from the city informing me that I had an outstanding bill. And again, I “allowed” myself to be shell shocked and pissed when I saw the sticker price of the last hurdle. After paying that bill, I again, “chose” to feel that the plat was finally complete. then the following week, I got another email from the city saying that there was still more documents that were not completed. I was fucking on fire with anger…. I said to myself…. What the fuck! Why is there a need to do more scrutiny from the city? The engineer told me this was finished. I later sent a text to the engineer about the email and he said that they will be rectified. Then a few days later informing me that the “signatures” with the notary were not completed. Another What The Fuck? The day I met with the engineer and the surveyor, was also the same day that the notary was there stamping all the signatures. This was another reminder that even though I “thought” shit was finished, that in reality people still drop the ball. So again I texted the engineer and he said that he would ensure that the notary  issue was fixed. Again, I then allowed my self to think that everything was copacetic. I told myself….”OK now I can put all my worries into finding the funding”… Then the next day, I get another email from the city telling me that I owe them money! Dude, are you serious????  Like when the fuck is this finish line finally going to fucking happen? I again texted the engineer with a snapshot of the email only to have him tell me that he doesn’t understand why I have another bill. (Mind you, this bill was luckily only $35 – and not in the thousands) but he said he had no clue why I was needing to pay the $35 and told me that I will need to call the city to find out why that is happening. So now, I MUST make sure to divert time and energy to resolve this issue. Otherwise the platt will never be finished. UGH  FML!!!

So I must now take time this week to go to the city. This will take at max 2 hours of my time, but remember, I have 24 hours in a day, and I am just having a fucking hard enough time understanding “how” to manage my time to create a “happy” and “meaningful”  life. And for me these 24 hours are precious to me. And if I can make these things happen on line or in a simple phone call, then that would or could be helpful. But because all of this is brand spanking new to my life, I will need to take time to go to the city, to ask questions, to fully and completely understand who the fuck dropped the ball and how to ensure that this never happens again.

But…. remember the initial question when starting this particular post…. Have I made any progress? And luckily it seems like I have made progress, but at what cost? At what internal and emotional mental anguish? Seeing the proper perspective sometimes seem almost impossible. It is like the movement seems to be stuck on repeat at the finish line. Many people say that it is the last mile of the race that is always the hardest. And I gotta say, it definitely feels true.

In my last post there were still the “ongoing” issues of my vehicles. My truck, my car, and my motorcycle. When I was a young boy, I remember thinking that anyone that has 3 vehicles must be rich. Now years into my future, I am lucky enough to have 3 vehicles, but I am also now someone that has 3 vehicles that are old and all vehicles need major work. Not only have I needed to save money to finish the Platt of the property, but I am also needing to save money to pay for the architectural plans for the apartments (and that will be just as costly as the platting cost) But I must also somehow have money available for these 3 vehicles. My truck which as I have stated is a money pit, is now looking like it is about ready to drive. For the last 3 months my mechanic EVERY week kept telling me that he just needed one or two more things to check before the truck was ready to drive. I literally have been going to his shop every damn week for almost 3 months and somehow, there ALWAYS seem to be some “reason/excuse” for something to pop up that has kept him from having the truck ready. And now after 3 months of him telling “just another day or two” He finally gave me the green light on how much I owe him and that the truck was ready. He told me that he gave it a test drive and that it was “good to go”.  I gave him a butt load of money only to drive the truck to my house and have it die on my several times. Literally it just stopped working. I was lucky enough to be able to make it back to his shop so he could diagnose why it died on me. And it wasn’t until a few days later when he said that he looked at it and took it for a another so called “test drive”. I then once again got in the truck and drove it towards my house. And again, it kept dying on me. Is this shit just badluck? Is there even such a thing? I don’t know, but it feels like it.

Back to the event…… I was lucky enough for it to make it to my house. And upon arriving to my house, I told myself that I would try to not worry about it and that I would deal with it the next day. Then the following day, I got into the truck and  it started up but the moment that I drove the truck it died on me again. And this time it would not start. It was so bad that I literally killed my battery. I then called the mechanic and then had to have the truck towed to his shop. Luckily I have something called AAA which is a automotive type of insurance for when I get car troubles while driving. And I did not have to pay to have my truck to be towed to the mechanic.

Mind you almost 3 and a half months prior, the mechanic was constatnly telling me that the truck was “almost” ready, “just another day or two” was his favorite words. And then when he said that the truck was ready and that he gave it a “test drive” only for me to drive it and have it not work, and not once but this happened twice! Now after days of him having the truck (after it was towed to his shop) I again spend every god damn Monday to go to the shop to find the status of the truck, only for him to tell me that he doesn’t understand why it won’t run. He said that the “initial” issue is that the choke on the carburettor was not opening and that he was going to change it to a electric choke and that will solve the choke issue, but that after he got the choke to work properly, he then told me that for some reason gas wasn’t passing thru (or into the carburettor) and that the gas filter was showing that there is gas being pumped to the carburettor. The mechanic went on to say that a year ago when he was working on the truck, he had put on that carburettor and then shortly after that he had his accident which put him out of work for a year. And that there was probably gas that was left in the carburettor and that the gas went bad and that it needs to be cleaned. I then told him to take the carburettor to a carburettor shop that specializes in cleaning/fixing carbuettors. He said he would do that and then move from there. Since that time I sent him a text message asking him about the progress but he hasn’t responded. So now I MUST go again to his shop and visit him this Monday. So again…. there is this fucking repetitive theme/cycle of and in my life, that the issues that I keep trying to solve just seem to keep going and going and coming back to life and not truly getting solved or completed. But….. If I am going to find beauty and joy along my journey to my dreams, then I must try and look back at where I was over 3 montths ago, and not just look at where I am at this moment.  And so I with the truck I must look back at where I was 3 months ago. Over 3 months ago the truck still had multiple issues that had not been resolved. And most of those issues had to do with electrical problems. And as of late, it seems like all of those issues are resolved (fingers crossed). And now it’s back to the engine issue. And I am expecting my mechanic to be able to fix this issue. The only question is how long will it take for him to get this accomplished. UGH!!

and as for vehicles…. there is my motorcyle. for several months now, I am having to add oil to the engine every two weeks. It is almost to the point where I am havintg to add a quart of oil every week. This means that very very very soon, I will need to replace the engine. Earlier this week I took my motorycle to the dealership to have its routine oil change and scheduled maintenance. And while there I decided to talk with the service manager about the quote they gave me to replace my engine. Their quote was $2000 above the lowest quote from other motorcycle mechanics in town. And the difficult part is that whomever does the work will be installing a “used” engine. and in reality no mechanic can give a true warranty on a used engine. So it is EXTREMELY important that I choose a very reliable mechanic shop. That last thing I want to do is pay $4000 to $6000 to replace the engine and then have it not work within 6 months. So today while talking to the service manager, he tried to get me to think about buying another motorycle, but I had to tell him how and why I DO NOT want another bill/payment, I do not want to have more credit card or loan bills. He ended up showing me a nice looking motorycle. It is the same brand and type as the motorcycle that I currently own, except that is much newer and modern compared to my current motorycle. and the motorcycle he showed me had 50,000 miles on it. And I must say, it really was a pretty bike, but again, I must try to focus on costs and not on wants. In the end I told him that I probably have about 6 months left with my current motorcycle. And he said that he will keep an eye out for any engines that will fit my motorcycle. And I must also begin randomly looking for motorycles on the internet. In the past I found a website that pulls together motorcycles for sale (across all of the country) but I am still left with the issue….. If I buy a used motorcycle for $5k to $15k, how will I know that nothing will go wrong with it…. Especially if I buy it from a owner that lives in another state? With my current motorcycle, I bought it here in my city, and when I bought it, I had to take it back to the dealership for them to try and fix a small issue with it. And if I buy a motoryccle in another state, I simply just won’t be able to easily drive to have the issue fixed. It seems that either way I do not have an easy answer to this problem of my motorcycle needing another engine.

And to round out the vehicles issue, there is my car. a little over a year ago I had to put a used enigne in my car. Do you see the reoccurring theme? (I swear at some point life WILL get easier) And now with the grace of God, my car works. But I also only use it to drive in my city. But the (now current) main issue with my car is not that it is 17 years old, the main issue is that many years ago I put a body kit on it, and I did not have it done by truely knowledgable people. and so the body kit looks like shit and is falling off of the car. And the paint job also looks really bad. And for me the issue is not the body of the car. Because personally, I don’t like the way the car looks, but it gets me everywhere I need to go, and to me getting from point A to point B is more important than the looks of the car. (At least that is what I tell myself)

But ….. If I am going to have “some” people respect me, and it also be the same people that actually “have” the ability to help me build my life in real estate, then it is important for my car to look nice. It doesn’t have to be new, or a high end name brand vehicle, but it also can’t look like a piece of shit. And more so, if I want to go to the nice part of town to mingle and meet new people. For example if I go to a meeting of people that are looking to make new friends, then I am more than sure that many of those people will judge me. Unfortunaely humans judge, It is the basis on how we decide if someone is a friend or foe. And as much as I can make a great impression of my mentality and my physical appearance, it will most certainly be counter acted by the looks of the piece of shit looking car that I drive. So for this very reason, over two years ago I purchased a new body kit for the car. And over a year ago I found a body shop that will do the new bodywork and paint job. And that meant that I had to find ways to squeeze my budget until I was able to save $5000 for the body work on the car. And with the grace of god, I now have the money saved to fix the body of my car, but…… The big BUTT is that I have 3 vehicles, and each one of them is in a state of degradation and I must be able to juggle the proper way to have only one vehicle in the shop at a time. The last thing I want is to put my car in the shop only to have my truck not truly be “safely” running, and then to have my motorcyle finally die on me. This cataclysim would leave me without any transporstation for atleast two weeks. Which means that I would be left having to rent a car for two weeks. Which would be another un-needed costly expense that I could have avoided.

Then there is always my emotional need for physical connection. musch has occurred with the woman I love. But I think its best that I put all this in a nutshell and talk about most of  those details at a later time. What I can say is that she, like many humans from poverty have mountain sized hurdles in life. Poverty somehow creates so many stumbling blocks in our life. And many of us either get tired of trying or we get so lost that we get lost along the journey of life. And without knowing,  Many if not most of our hurdles and stumbling blocks are things that are created by ways and attributes of our parents and the remainder created by our surroundings. And ever since I first did Ayahuasca, I felt that the woman I love could benefit greatly from a Ayahuasca ceremony. And since my last writing, I was able to have her do a Ayahuasca ceremony.

God, there is so much that I could write about the events that finally led to that moment. It really was a journey just to get to that moment of her life (and mine). And with all my heart, It was a beautiful moment. And ever since that ceremony, whenever she speaks of the event, she speaks of it with great beauty. I truly think it was the first time she ever felt real “self love”. You see, self love, is something that truly should have been taught to us during childhood, but when you come from poverty, “self love” is sadly the LAST thing that anyone ever thinks about. It is basically non existent. Instead we think about money and how to survive in modern society while watching other people have what we want and we have been “robbed” of having skills or knowledge to attain what we see. It really is a toxic way of thinking.

For the woman I love, seeing her go thru the teachings of Mother Ayahuasca was truly beautiful. And I am thankful that she allowed me to giver her that gift. And the beauty of her finally feeling self love means that she will forever know what it is “supposed” to feel like to be loved. For so many of us, including her and myself, our version of love comes from what others say love is supposed to be. And depending on your parents (or lack there of) your version of love could be very toxic. And unfortunately, her version of love that she was taught is toxic. But I have confidence that one day (I don’t know when), but I have confidence that one day, she will tap into that ayahuasca moment of self love, and she will be able to begin to frame her life around and with and in healthy love, a healthy love that she deserves. A healthy love that she will be able to give to others and to herself. It will be a healthy way of believing in herself and her ability to always be the very best version of herself. Sadly it will take time, it will take a lot of reflecting on the events of her life, she will need to take time to think about and reflect on how she speaks to herself. She will need to go thru a “dead period” where she vacates all circles of friends that are tied to her old ways of love, old ways of communication, and old ways of self communication. And then she will need to constantly search for the meaning of positive love and ways to see what positive nurturing love truly looks like. then finally she will need to find ways to actually “enjoy” positive love. Remember, just because we want positive love doesn’t mean we know how to accept it and even less of how to nurture and connect to positive love. These ideas and ways of looking at life are not taught during poverty, so these things sadly take time. But I am hopeful for her and I believe in her

So where does that leave me? Well that leaves me to look and find a beautiful loving woman that will find me attractive enough to spend her life with me and to have children with me. Could that be the woman that I am speaking of? Yes, it is possible. But I must also allow life to move at its pace, and so I must also be open to the universe and know that the love I seek is also seeking me. And so where will I find this woman/this love that is seeking me? That unfortunately is still a mystery. But I know that I must believe that it will happen. (Wish me luck)

I still have so many things to put in order. I still don’t have my house completely built and requires more than one simple bucket full of money. I still must finish my current 4 apartments. I must still build 12 apartments. I must get rid of this current club job at the club and replace it with the income from my apartments. And during all that time, I must force myself to find time to go out to events and meetings. I can’t meet my future wife or positive minded friends if I don’t go and do things. And then what if I don’t want to live in America in the future? I have been thinking that maybe I will live on the island with my family in Venezuela. Maybe I live there for 6 months of the year and then live the other 6 months in America. Then recently while pondering my future, I decided to look for places where I can live and have my money stretch farther. I ended up finding a place in Vietnam. A tiny town called Hoi Ann, where I can live upper middle class for less than $800 a month. I because I also find asian women attractive, and I now enjoy eating vegetables and the sheer fact that I love learning new cultures, it is very probable of me seeing myself in another country. The concept is a little weird only because I have lived in Texas my whole life. But the components of what I can have and enjoy allow me to see that I can turn probablity into fruiton. Remember it’s all about a matter of perspective.

So while I am trying to figure out how to have dependable transportation, and how to keep my job here at the club, and how to find money to build my apartments, and how to stay healthy and attractive enough for a woman to want me as her partner, and how to find time, money, and people to help me finish my current apartments, and how to have money and time to finish my current home….. while doing all this and more, I must also be mindful and open to where I will be planting my feet in the future. The choices I make today will decide where I am tomorrow.

And as of late, I am now taking on the task of learning how to help my mom as she moves into her elder years. This year my mom will be 90! That is super awesome. I never really thought about how old my mom will live to be. And I am truly blessed to have my mom still alive and living. Currently she is about 3 months away from her 90th birthday. And she is able to live 99% independent. And without the need of a wheelchair or someone to help her bath. Independence is in some forms truly importnat. Interdependence is also very important and having a healthy balance between independence and interdependence is something that not enough of us really think about for our own life. And as I have probably mentioned in the past, my older half brother is living with her. Sadly I feel that for the most part he is detremental to her health rather than a benefit to her health. But if I have to “try” to find some form of good thing about him living with her, it is that if my mom were to have a heart attack then he would be there to call the ambulance. The only downside is that there is a very high chance that he would intially be the cause of the heart attack.  But that issue of my half brother is a whole major problem on its own. Sadly he has done nothing with his life. He has no “real” friends. He has no friends that can help him in life. He has 6 children from 5 diffrerent women, and none of the women from his children want him, and none of his children want him. No human being is perfect. but for him, at the age of 63 or 65, he literally has nothing in life. No job, no retirement, no car, no home, literally nothing.  He spent his whole life doing everything except studying on “how” to be a loving person with himself.  Which in essence is really “how” to understand and mold the “inner you”. And now my mom must carry him as she herself can barely carry herself (at the age of 90). A real life example of non self development.

But I digress, and the deeper story of my half brother will defienately be saved for another post. At some point in time, the moment will happen where him and I will find out last moments ever seeing each other. and when that time comes, it will be note worthy. And a new chapter will begin. Currently I am now learning to ensure that I am involved in my mothers health. even though she is mainly independent, she is beginning to have issues where I can clearly see her decline. It really is an odd thing to watch something you love decline. I have watched relationships decline, but to watch someone or something I love decline is defineately new to me. Painfully I had to watch my dog, Abigail, decline. She was a strong, beautiful dog, and an even more amazingly beautiful family member. I am blessed that she was kind enough to chose me in her life. (Thank you Abigail. I love you). But it was emotinoally hard for me to watch her decline, and when I found her dead, that was also extremely hard and deeply heavy on my heart. Everyone dies, its just not something that happens to me everyday. And I know that at some point this will also happen with my mom. And so I take it as my responsibility to try and ensure that I take my mom to all doctor visits and to try and address any body pain or ailments that needs tending to. And it is important that I try to say to my mom “I love you”.  Those 3 words were void many times from my moms vocabulary. She spent most of her life being forced to physically work. And work at jobs that allowed someone without an education. And also on working to keep me alive and didn’t have enough hours in a day to understand her own badly taught family habits, let alone also try to learn new habits. But again, my mom is very independent and beautiful in so many ways. And up to a few years ago was still mowing the lawn herself. And so I can’t know about all the intimate things that ail her. As she has mentinoned she has never been this old and so understanding her body is constantly evolving. But from my standpoint, I must try to fix (as best possible with the financial abilities and the medicare that she has given the government) to fix or keep working all of her 5 senses. For so many of us, as we age, especially in america. We eat so unhealthy that we either get a heart attack, or get cancer in some part of our body, or we go blind, or we get alzheimers. and every one of these issues attack some form of our senses or part of our body that is important for us to be mobile. And my mom for at least 10 years has been deeply opposing me on getting hearing aids. and over the last couple of years she has talked about a problem with her right eye, and over the last two years I can see that she is beginning to forget things. And so I am now trying to find ways to help repair or aid some of these issues from rapidly decreping her life. I have been having my friend Lanette help me with getting doctor visits scehduled for my mom. From visits with my moms primary doctor, to a neurologist, and MRI scans, to Opthomologists vists to now Retina surgeon visits. Painfully my mom has hemoragging in her right retina, and I am not sure how much we can fix, but within a few months I am hoping that my mom will be able to get at least half the vision back in her right eye. And after the MRI, I was able to see that my mom defineatley has the onset of mild dimentia. And mild dimentia eventually leads to moderate dimentia, which leads to severe dimentia. and that is a major issue, and doesn’t even speak to the issue if you have dimentia and cant hear and can’t really see. And remember your body is frail and old. I truly hope that my mom can have atleast 5 more years of true indepenence to enjoy her life. She is a beautiful woman and she gave up so many things to try and be a mother to me and my other half brothers. Sadly my half brothers here in America really just can’t comprehend all that my mother went thru in her life….. But at the same time, here in America I have/had 3 half brothers. And one of them is dead, the second is either dead or will be dead by the end of this year (he has stage 4 cancer) and the final half brother is currently living with my mom and may very well be the reason why she dies sooner than necessary. So needless to say, it is important that I, whenever possible try to tell my mom that I love her and to see about learning how to be helpful in her health (for as much as she wants or allows me to be)

So my mom and her health is now requiring mental space in my mind and my life. Regardless of how challenging it is for me to learn this apsect of life, I must always remember that I have been blessed to have a woman love me enough to always care about my life, and it is only proper that I give love and care of my moms health in return. She deserves that much and so much more. I love you Mom!!!!!!

Lets move to a different subject…..

Speaking of health, I have been personally battling with finding balance with my own health. For anyone that does not know, my goal (if possible) is to live to a HEALTHY 120. But in order to live to 120, I must pull so many things together in just the right order to ensure that I live to 120 in a healthy and non decrepit way. And among many issues, one of them is food. Now a little over 2 years ago I began fasting, or as they call “intermittent fasting” For almost two years I have now been eating 95% of the time by having only one meal a day. It took me a long time to get to that point of eating only one meal a day, and it took me a lot of deep mental power to reprogram myself to have only one meal a day. And to get there I also had to do 24, 48, and 72 hour fasts. I also used a continuous glucose monitor that monitored my bloods sugar level 24 hours a day. I also measured my ketones. The idea of ketones is that it tells you how well or bad your body is burning fat in your body, and I also weighed myself every day. It has truly been a long deep journey. And overall everything was copicetic. At least I thought it was until about 3 months ago. somewhere near 3 months ago, I had gained about 12 pounds and I couldn’t easily drop the 12 pounds. I noticed that I had allowed myself a few weeks of having a few days of more than one meal a day. I noticed that I was stressing and finding eating food as a way to relieve my stress. I must say, when you really learn how to do long fasts, it really does teach you about your mind and what you are secretly telling yourself. And so once I gained those 12 pounds I told myself that I would lose the weight within a 2 or three weeks. I told myself that I would do 2 fasts of 72 hours and that I would be back to a good weight. And well, that shit didn’t happen. I didn’t accomplisht the goal in two weeks. I did the 72 hour fasts for for two weeks in a row, and I was not anywhere close to losing the 12 pounds. Fast forward to this week, and I am now 7 weeks into this damn consecutive fasting. (not including the one meal a day)

I am now into my 7th week of doing 70 or more hours of fasting each week.  Of the last 6 weeks I have done 3 weeks of over 80 hours per week of fasting and the other 3 weeks were just over 70 hours of a fast. Remember I thought I could lose the 12 pounds in two weeks. But I learned that my subconsious was trying to find ways to have me pack in more calories during my one meal a day. So even if I fasted for 3 days, My subconsious mind would make me compensate by eating more calories on the other days. This has truly been a battle. And so 3 weeks ago I summized that I would probably need to do a 4 day fast. And to be honest…. I DO NOT WANT to do a 4 day fast. I just really, really, really don’t want to do a 4 day fast. I have been conditioned to love food! But after last week, I finally took the plunge and decided to push myself to do a 4 day fast. last week I looked at the graph of my daily weighs and I saw that I am slowly losing the weight but it is very minimal, and I could see that my mind would probably need me to really and truly make myself suffer inorder to get down to a super low (almost unhealthy) weight just to get my subconsious to try and reprogram what it is supposed to see in the mirror. Now mind you, this isn’t just a “mirror” thing. After all my research and even with me being my own guinea pig, I can see and truly feel my body be its best when it is at 20% BMI.  And so inorder for my BMI to have some “breathing” room, I am forcing myself to get to 19% BMI. My body/mind MUST learn the proper range of what I should weigh, and anything under 19% BMI is the beginning of underweight and anything above 21 is leading me back to where I was. And so I MUST teach my mind to be healthy. And true healthy for me is 20% BMI, but until I have deeply reprogrammed and developed my mind to easily and lovingly stay at 20% BMI, I must ensure that I push my mind to get used to being able to get to a lower BMI than where I want to be. Getting to a higher BMI for humans is easy, but to understand and live in a low BMI is a lot more challenging for Americans.

Rounding out this post is 3D printing and the progress at the 4plex.

In the last post I had the plumber that was sick and had not finished the replumbing of the sewage lines. and he freaking charged me way more money than was necessary. (I am still low key pissed from that) But since my last post I am happy to say that the sewage lines are finished. And after paying an arm and a leg for him to do the project, I am now seeing if I can get my normal guy to do any remaining plumbing work. There were pipes that I needed to reroute and others that needed to be capped and instead of hiring the plumber it is just cheaper and better to get my jack of all trades guy to do the work. And my electrician is also just being so lazy to do work and uncommunicative with me, and again I am trying to see if I can get my jack of all trades guy to finish out what the electrician has not yet completed. And this apartment should have been finished and rent ready before March, but instead, because I still struggle with understanding where and how to push the money from my job, I am still at a point where the apartment is not compeleted. But….. I am deadset that I will at the very least have that damn fucking apartment ready by Deccember. Unfortuneately this apartment has been over 6 years in the works. That’s how long I have been losing out on money….. Although it is important to remember that when I got the mortgage for that 4plex, I had no real clue as to how much work would need to be done. And even more so, I had NEVER given real thought to all, and I mean every fucking item and change that I would want those apartments to have. And it has been such a long painful, hurtful, journey of growth. And yes, along the way I have truly learned alot. I just wish, that as the years move forward that I can and will be learning the lessons in a less painful way. And that I would hopefully be able to learn them in a joyful and loving way.

But to the point…. Apartment #2, It is closer to being ready. I have my jack of all trades guy, now doing the final touches on the half bath and on the bedrooms. The next phase will be the final touches on the kitchen and living room. Then the final touches on the laundry room. Then it will be the items on the balcony (which is primarily adding accent lighting). And all of the “final touches” could be done in one week, the difficulty is that my jack of all trades guy is choosing to do the job alone, and worse he is an old guy. Like literally an old guy. So he just moves slower. And so I save on price because of his speed, but I also loose because of his speed. Either way it is a tough choice. And overall, the only real reason I am doing any of this shit is because I want to have a better life and have freedom to live as I choose. And on one hand I am allowed to choose how I spend my money and decide who I hire, but on the other hand I still must be forced to go to a job at the club and take treatment from people that are unkind and unhelpful. And it is important for me, that rather than me focusing on all the negative things  from work to all the challenges in real estate, I must try to remember that I must choose to be happy in the moments when I “have the ability” to choose how to spend my money and my time. And in concerns to apartment #2 and my jack of all trades guy. I must deeply believe that I am practicing on learning that things take time and that I must learn to enjoy finding ways to get everyone on the same wavelength and way of thinking. My job, goal, and enjoyment should be to paint a vision, enjoy looking and finding tools to teach the vision, and then actually enjoy the time in teaching the vision. And do it in a way that allows all my workers to get the job done by the deadline. This is much harder that I ever thought. But if I can believe in myself, then I will eventually learn this process, and at the same time, also learn to become the very best human and loving person possible.

So hopefully if I can keep lovingly pushing without loss of energy, I can get that apartment ready by August and not December. Which now leads me to the 3D Printer and my hobbies.

I have not been skydiving in at least two years. I have not gone to get paid affection in many months. And I have not yet pushed hard enough programming to find the time to go out and meet and find new friends. (Remember the car thing is a big red flag in this area). Rather I have been so deeply worried about money that I have told myself that I really need to find new ways to think about what I do with money. So I am trying not to spend money in a “unnecesary way”. A unnecesary way that will allow my money to be enjoyed only “one time”. As in one event or one thing. Hence, skydiving, paid affection, going to a event where I won’t know for certain that it will yield me the end goal. This may end up not being good for my emotional state, but I gotta get thru this perceived hump of problems with my vehicles. the vehicles have been a HUGE dent in the how I HAVE to plan my future expenses. So instead, I have chosen to put some attention to my 3D printer. At least with the 3D printer I can enjoy some mental creativity. Besides, there are few things that I need to print that I could use and would make my life a little easier. And recently, I have been having a lot of trouble with my 3D printer. Over the last month I have tried to use my 3D printer but I just ran into problems with it. It seems that not only is my 3D printer old and outdated, I also have not been paying detailed attention to preparing for each print. Specifically ensuring that the bed is level. My printer is a Anet E12 and it is not a popular model. And because of my desire to want to rush rather than take time to setup every damn print, I have ruined the nozzle of the printer. And I have ruined it more than once. And every time I ruin it, it only causes weeks of delays before I can print again. I can easily buy a new nozzle, but the shipping time is weeks. So instead I can buy an aftermarket part on Amazon and have it arrive at my house within a few days, but it means that I then have to find ways to “connect” it to the printer. And to be precise, the nozzle is connected to other parts, that as a “whole” is called “the hotend”. And the hotend comprises of 4 or more parts. And now after replacing the hotend twice, I now have a problem where the nozzle does not want to heat up to the proper temperature. This is a MAJOR problem. After hours of trying to understand the different ways of fixing it, it seems like I would need to take even more hours and weeks of “learning” about the intimate workings of a 3D printer. Which means that I would be spending time on “how to build” a 3D printer rather than spending time actually “printing” with a 3D printer.

I look at it like this….. I own a car, but when it has problems beyond the basic (as my current vehicles have done) I don’t want to spend time learning how to be the damn mechanic. This means that I will need to buy tools and spend countless hours to fix the fucking issue. Instead, I just hire a mechanic to fix it. And so it is with the 3D printer. I finally got to the point where once I could see that I would literally be learning how do everything from coding the firmware to soldering and splicing wires and learning intimate 3D programming words, that is when I tapped out and said…. “Fuck that, I’ll just pay someone to fix it.” So I spent more time, more hours, more energy just to find someone that could fix it. This is time and energy that could have been used to do so many other things in my life….Sleep, exercise, meditation, meeting people, going to banks etc. But because I am trying my best to find “healthy” outlets for my mind and still keep it within a way that my money gets stretched farther, I used my time to find someone to fix the printer.

After emailing and calling a company, which by the way, the guys at TH3Dstudio.com were super helpful. It did take several days to get a response, but the response was honest and trustworthy. And after reading the response, the guy made compelling arguements that it would just be better (in costs and time and headaches) if I just bought a new 3D printer. And he even recommened a 3D printer that would fit what I am trying to do. And so kudos to the guys at TH3Dstudio.com.  My next step is to now do a little more homework (ugh) and ensure that the recommendation is truly what I want. And as for my current 3DPrinter. I give myself 1 year to “maybe” get it back up and running. And if I can’t get it working properly then I will and MUST allow myself to give it away. I find it hard for myself to just give it away, as I still find value in it. And yes, eventhough it doesn’t work, somehow the poverty mindset in me still finds value in it. And I can only assume that I find value because of what it can do. And that with just a small amount of focused knowledge, that the printer could be back up and running.

Well, it’s getting late and I could write forever, but I gotta end this post and get back to trying to be happy in the spilled milk that I have created. I thank you for reading this, and as always, please wish me luck on my journey.

Much luv,

Max.