When the average artist suffers in their artist block, there is but the madness-consumed fellow that breaks the mold. This archetype finds random and chaotic source material and samples bits and pieces together to mix wonder. This slow cooker lets the moment settle itself, and only manifests what the recipe calls for. Oddly, the objectively lost find anything to scour.

My travels on this place called me to maintain an internal dialogue. In order to sate my own interests, my taste in writing is kept impactful. All the words matter, but only some stick. Sometimes, the most obscure details are best left in plain sight. Others, we wish the search was worth the navigating. If doesn’t hurt to have a treasure map, especially when we have an idea what the treasure is worth.

Each book has to sell like gold. That’s the figurative carrot on their figurative stick.

This one is short. When you room in college, you’ll usually have a roommate. You can’t always find a roommate out around walking on the street unfortunately. With the age of technology, finding a roommate has never been easier. Each student is coded into automatic systems. It’s as easy as prison.

Arranged marriages, dating apps, roommate assistance, what’s the difference?

When you make significant progress in the real world, it shifts the way the rest of us perceive living, and what it means to be a alive. It can change our daily lives so much, that we no longer do what we used to do. From waking up and brushing our teeth, to not having the energy for it, we adapt to our environment. I like to imagine a comparison to humans and birds, that our cars and houses became roadblocks that they were required to adapt to for survival, and the trees that we had to chop down to get to where we are now. It screws over the birds twice when a human makes progress, and someone out there was screwed too. I feel like humans screw over everything else, because to make one thing is to destroy something else.

I never really answered why progress is a portal exactly. It is because it takes us away from everything else, becomes untouchable for a moment, and lands anew in new lands. The end result maybe far beyond our original scope, and the definitions just lead further in. We gain a foothold of knowledge, seemingly uncovered rather than discovered, and lose it all upon rebirth. Somehow we recognize the patterns whether from youth or from our ancestors before us. In a way, we know our progress could stand the test of time too if we found it strongly enough. Not only can we persist, but we may indeed carry our belongings past death if we saved it for later. This is how we remain on Earth through the ages as humans, for our needs stem from the same tree.

The portal part is the transition itself. The change is only noticeable after the transition has begun progress. It makes a significant impact like a real portal noticeable in the world, a black hole that takes up more space than it looks in that singularity. It stretches something until the ant who only needed one step to walk the gap needs hundreds. More breaks are required on the way, and thus we never stopped sleeping– setting up camp for the night. The progress will come day or night, but usually not both at once. We will recognize that the pursuit is futile at some point of time, and our mind and body cave in. We cannot keep the singularity afloat for long, but instead we make segments like bamboo and shoot our chutes into the sky defying gravity, the pull of singularity.

Some of us can keep a tight lip on secrets, and I am not one of those people. If something dramatic happens in my life, I always want a second opinion on it. It doesn’t feel good to gossip, but it feels needed sometimes. When the cat is out of the bag, things get curious.

It’s hard to tell someone they have an ego without someone calling you out for it. Their egotistical actions plus your complaining equal being an egoist yourself? It doesn’t make too much sense to me logically, but you can feel the tension and stress from mentioning another person’s name behind their back. It’s like they are going to hear you and attack you at times for it, or that the world is going to crumble under your feet. Plus, you literally have someone else’s name in your mouth ready to say something bad and you know what they say: “If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anthing at all.”

Sometimes we gotta defend our honor. You make excuses or reasons for why whatever they said about you wasn’t true, but then from their POV they could pass a lie detector. You call someone out and then they cross-complain with their own gripes. Someone points out an error in your procedure, and then you double-down on it and ignore any criticism. Trust that I have seen it all before, but don’t because I don’t want to be held accountable for what I don’t know. The egotistical arrogance for just wanting to be right all the time.

If you admit you’re wrong, is that enough?

If I was hurt by their actions, can I talk down on their reputation?

If I just don’t like them for some reason or another, is it okay to tarnish their mood because they ruin mine daily?

These are the kinds of questions you ask a clergyman in confession or something, but just remember that justifying yourself doesn’t make you right. We don’t determine what is right and wrong, but we can choose to follow one path or the other. We can’t always predict who is going to get hurt from what we do, but we can do something important.

We can empathize and at least see their POV. We are lucky if they provide it to us honestly, securely, and calmly. Sometimes they leave us with silence and we have to garner all that ourselves. Sometimes we hurt somebody in physically/mentally in a way that scars them for life. It can even be an accident, but sometimes we know we wanted to hurt them. It is usually because they hurt you. Some of us are weak and get hurt easily, but we should recognize that and be honest about it. Some of us should be honest and say they are too numb to feel things, so they need to be told and reminded in a logical way. We can’t blast the light on a show so that everyone is as bright as the sun, but we can shine a spotlight. The way we see the light is up to our eyes to see, our body to take us there, and our mind to make it make sense. If you are missing the point of view, find how to get there. If you are blinded by the light, don’t look directly at it or get burnt. If you are unsure what you are seeing, think if you have seen anything like it before. If all else fails, close your eyes and take a step forward.

Hate to intellectualize some sex tropes, but maybe I will even romanticize them. Womanizers are the man’s version of a maneater. Post over. Just kidding, I haven’t beat the point to a pulp yet. I’d like to imagine there is something serene about these tropes we are missing, like something to admire about them, because oftentimes we fill a trope we don’t know the nuances to.

The womanizer is a type of man who is able to pursue multiple feminine sources and come out on top. They are better off in the matchmaking world than most of the other tropes, but the genuine, authentic types don’t take kindly to flattery. Those gentlemen who compliment a good woman are wasted in the bars and brothels. A good man is no womanizer, but that doesn’t stop men from the endless chase. The womanizer symbolizes the persistence of the man towards the woman.

A maneater is like an unstoppable force and it carries more weight than the modern girlboss. She wants to have men wrapped around her finger, and these kinds of women can be loyal too. The only problem is that they are always loyal to themselves first, as they should be. See, they develop a lot of social value around their traits and charisma. She knows what she wants and she knows ways to get it. When a man doesn’t play her game, she gets bored and finds new players. It really is those players that get caught.

So what can be learned in modern society and whether these tropes fit morally, effectively, and replicably? Well, there is something to be said about the effects they have on the rest of us. These tropes get down and dirty while most of us stay high and dry. Sometimes it takes a little elbow grease, and these two get things done, or at least get someone to do it for them. They win in efficacy, albeit it seems like the victims just get caught in a web they could have easily escaped from if the web didn’t look so tempting. And in terms of repeating their mistakes, should we? I leave that up to you to decide.

Perhaps it is the wisdom from age speaking, but I think starting over your life with all that you know now is such a good way to express who you are. If we took away all the scaffolding, cleaned up the paintjob, and really made it sparkle it could be worth anything. When you passed a fancy house and said “wow,” or “this is for rich people,” you are only proving that hard work pays off.

When it comes to good books, movies, games, etc., it is like we wouldn’t mind refreshing our memory to start over once again. Imagine how nice it would feel to experience a smooth texture for the first time. I would be obsessed, personally.

I wonder why we don’t have greek engraved marble pillars anymore. I wonder why the streets aren’t paved with cobblestone. I see houses being built and they look compact instead of large and flourishing. Well, our whole society changed and apparently these are the features we can produce these days. It’s not like everything is a downgrade, because it could have nice plumbing, beautiful interiors, etc., but we might get turned off from the color light bulb they use. Can’t judge a book by its cover, and definitely shouldn’t just assume every house made in 2025 is doodoo garbage.

Quite frankly, it is childish to think we couldn’t do it all over again. Where would the fear come from, a lack of resources, network, etc.? I could see it if it was like you started making music at age 7 and your mom passed when you were 12, but you got things going before she passed in a way that couldn’t be replicated after. Makes sense, but does that mean the person who produced the music at age 7 just disappeared? Where was the curiosity, and did it just vanish because you had nobody to force you to do it, or no fear of failing?

I think we all had those dreams where it showed us our vulnerability. We are allowed that, and apparently our brain does want to feel those fearful emotions. I even enact chase scenes where I am scared to death, but I still wake up and escape. Well, that’s our escape from death in life. It is being one step ahead. It is seeing the traps before they’re sprung. Take it easy on yourself when starting new projects and let yourself feel the dread of dropping a new single or the fear of rejection from a career or person. Starting all over is like how the lettuce plant became broccoli or something, and that’s what evolution is all about.

I feel like night owls in humanity meet other night owls and do fine, but early birds and night owls can not mix without sleep disruptions. Who knows if it could be more survivable?

People who love to be right will force the situation around them being right more than framing the rightness about the situation. Then they blame you for calling them out as if it wasn’t a part of their plan. Their plan was to never be wrong. They failed. To acknowledge it is to let it exist, and they can be right in their Boolean logic so long as they remove the “false” from the false records.

People who want to be in control will force their ruling orders, even when there is nothing to govern. You can tell when they defend something adamantly, that it is something they feel a sphere of influence within. The controllers don’t want to share what they profit from, and often their life is involved in secrecy. They become hoarders of everything and nothing at all.

People who revolt may revolt beyond their means and ends. They will tear themselves apart in order to tear down what they despise most. It takes a certain kind of vengeance within these people to act, but once they do they lose their self-control. Revolution is more than a protest, it is the claim over the future, and oftentimes it becomes tyrannical- a hasty cheat in the system in order to “benefit” their delusions.

It’s in all people to just exist and be. Are we the harbingers of ideologies and people? I can only define my claim of such to be what is rightfully mine. If I were to have kids, I have some claim, but not all. The universe gave me the child, and so to the universe I would be most thankful and owe gratitude. It turns out that life’s blessing is that we may never have to endure the pain that brought us into this world unless we decide to- no, that is just not true.

It would be so nice and kind should life work out perfectly for all of us, but the truth is in the details. What suffering we create in our heads has none to compare with the true suffering: the counter copy of true euphoria. If we all got to choose our circumstances, we may not all choose the paths we have lived, and instead opt for the routes we manifested in our heads.

We believe that there was a possible chance we could have acted differently. That perhaps, we did have free will to think and behave. We have but the present to claim and nothing else. We owe nothing to our memories, only those that are worth remembering today. We don’t always choose what matters to us each day, because what matters changes quicker than the days can pass.

When making big life changes, I tend to stagnate. There’s always some side mission I have to get to before finishing the main one. It’s not that I am not making any progress in my life, but it’s not where I need it to be. I go on tangents easy. I go perpendicular from the point. It ties into that superficiality that seems to consume me. I want to be understood, but I am afraid of the acknowledgment, like when you have something to say to someone but are afraid of the consequences.

It seems like it would help to know others are going through problems as well, but it only helps when they solve the problems I am currently going through. If I already solved those problems, I don’t really need alternate solutions. They are nice “what-if’s”, but that’s part of my problem: giving those questions space. Some questions should not be entertained.

Anyways, it feels like we are each on a raft and sometimes it feels better to trade it for a boat. I wonder is it ever worth it to trade a boat for a raft. I mean, they had to on the Titanic didn’t they? It’s a good last resort, so it is good to have both. Being stuck alone in the vast ocean is a death wish, so any way to stay visible is an aid. I might be getting too distant from the original point, but it feels like we are in wars for these rafts and boats. Everyone wants to live in a yacht, but nobody wants to trade up their rafts. We want our boat and our emergency raft too. Who is to blame us?

So if there is this constant battle with the old and the new, it must help to have both. Like Theseus’s ship, maybe the real question of whether the ship is still the same after replacing all the parts is in the blueprints. People with all their problems solved do have the blueprints to their success. Some people sell the blueprints, and some sell the ships. Some own the dock and they must feel so proud of the platform they created. Some built the lighthouse so that the sailors stay safe.

You don’t have to trade up your rafts for a house or vice-versa. You don’t need a boat or a yacht. Fisherman, traders, and military need boats. The rest of us need to learn how to support them instead of always wanting to be supported. That yacht won’t float forever.