The Mind

Disgracefully Drunk

Harsh mouth, foul scent, lurching, slurring, and stumbling. Needless to say, I am hammered beyond salvage and absolutely embalmed to the gills.

I’m in my car trying to find the steering wheel, driving home with useful terror. Because, y’know, you always give your heart to the future ’cause the present is where you hustle.

‘Cause pints of Guinness gets down to business.

I let moonlight pour into my eyes before tomorrow’s sun bakes it raw. Somewhere in my head my brain is telling me what to do. But sobriety is a distant jewel, ghost beyond ghost, holding on to dear life while looking for little deaths— something cute, something evil.

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Killing Dreams

Did you realize it was going to kill you, so you killed it first?

It’s a weird relationship we have with our dreams. At a young age it nurtures us because dreams can still become a reality; but at a later stage in life, it eats away at our souls as it slowly starts to resemble the many things that will never be.

Because you don’t see it coming, do you? Just one day, all of a sudden, the storm arrives and the tides turn.

Gone are your panache and pizzazz. Gone are your audacity and affirmations. Gone are the fun and fuckery of waxing poetry. Because sisi puede is now no bueno. (more…)

Roun’s Rants Vol. 6: Quarantine Reflections

What does one reflect about in these corona-times?

Well, first off, fuck China. As if Birdflu, SARS, H7N9, etc., is not enough. Now they’ve taken away our plans and pursuits; our daily routines and jobs; and have placed people around the world in body bags, urns, and six feet down the dirt.

That’s right, I said it.

I mean, why the fuck would you drink bat soup or eat a motherfucking pangolin? Have you seen these things? I mean, look at this animal.

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Imagination: The Theft of Fire

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The imagery that surrounds us today are all worn-out, played-out, out of touch. It feels the same every time—every visual, every texture, every sound—to the point that we don’t even blink anymore. We just go through the motions because we know exactly what to expect.

And we start loathing it and we stop caring.

Today whether you go to the movies, you listen to the radio, you turn on the TV, or turn to speak to the person next to you, it seems like they are all saying the same thing—the same stale and sterile, tried and tested, mass produced and mass consumed opinions.

Twenty-first century media might have brought light to the world, but it doesn’t bring fire. Cautious objectivity is the job of machines and scientists, but we are a different animal. Light may illuminate. It may even bring peace, clarity, enlightenment; but light doesn’t bring fire. Fire is different. Fire burns. Fire is passion. And just like the fate of the rebel Titan, Prometheus, fire is something that is forbidden and something you can get punished for. Simply put, fire is truth because fire is risk. (more…)

Consumption Theory: Social Media vs Private Media

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Experience IMAX 3D and the ultimate home theater experience in surround sound and Ultra-HD. Welcome to the world of blogs and microblogs, of forums and comment sections where everything is about trending and tagging; tweeting and trolling; searching and snapchatting; installing and instagramming; logging in and never signing out.

In the age of the spinning wheel, the beep-beep-bops, and the dot-dot-dots, this is the era of the viral state of mind—the mass consumption of social media.

Now right off the bat let me just say that I’m all for social media. I like blogs, facebook, youtube, etc. I think they’re wonderful and I believe that Gary Vaynerchuck was right when he said that we are now living in “the second industrial revolution.” But amidst these technological tectonic shifts in our reality, it just seems to me that something is lacking. Like an obese person looking at himself in the mirror for the first time in many years, we are beginning to recognize something we have been neglecting. And that is our poor diet of private media. 

But what is private media? (more…)

Creativity: Interludes of Madness

tuesday-madness-03You look out the window. It’s not yet the end of the world but you can see it from there. You know you’re all alone and no one’s around. Your eyes gleam lunar wild and you lock the door because you start to hear the gremlins and goblins come out. Suddenly you notice that the rug is actually made out of Ewok fur and you hear the cat outside, plotting your demise because you haven’t fed it for two days straight. You feel the rush of natural morphine, seeping and swelling in your veins. You feel the circuitry in your brain sparking and glitching. Soon you begin talking to yourself, arguing and changing sides. You’re sampling again, medicating in darkness, invoking secret passions and fears, and becoming conscious of the level of sex and rage you’ve tried so hard to lock in. But despite all of this you feel safe in the danger because you know that it’s all yours. In fact you think it’s wonderful, freeing and necessary. You hiss and fret and laugh, and soon you’re happily greeting the madness with bared teeth until someone knocks on the door and the shadows slip away. (more…)

Limit Breaks

Death by monotony. Death by theories and statistical wisdom. I.e. death without a trace.

You feel it coming that’s why you search the internet, scour for articles, watch the videos. Maybe even pay to watch someone in a panel or on the podium, hoping that their words will somehow stain you a little longer, seep into your life a little better, into your abilities, activities.

A month-old into the new year and a lot of people are still “motivated.” But just as water and food, this mental and emotional diet, if not nourished, will deplete. And this is why people will always wonder why they are always starving, deprived and depressed.

Online clickbait “secrets” will often try to sell you on some sort of system, “a way of thinking,” that will change your life. But this is only true if you have accepted the true necessary equation of “the secret,” prioritizing a way of doing instead of the passive, a way of thinking.

Blood + Sweat + Time = Chance (more…)

Appetite For The Hustle

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So my friend told me the other day, “What if you don’t make it? What if you end up like all these people, working minimum wage because they’ve spent their lives working for nothing? You’ll end up old, broke, and nobody will hire you back.”

At this point I can write, “well that got me thinking,” but in fact it didn’t. In fact my response was so immediate because to me the question was so stupid.

“What makes you think I want to go back?” I said. “Besides, even if I don’t make it—”

Now let’s stop there for a moment. First of, I really hate it when people say that line: “Even if I don’t make it…” It is a statement of weakness disguised in moral eminence, as though money and fame didn’t really matter to you. It is a passive-aggressive claim of higher standards—a preemptive dulling of a theoretical pain—hiding the fact that you’ve accepted loss without actually losing. (more…)

Hope: Silver Side Effects

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There is still time.
You can be anything you want.
There is someone for everyone.

Hope.

It is the cosmic lottery ticket, the deus ex machina, the human silver bullet. But what they don’t tell you is that hope has a darker element to it—its toxic compounds; its catabolic nature that eats away at your heart, mind, teeth and nails; its silver side effects.

Because the truth is, hope alone is not enough. (more…)