We are roughly six mounts out from going to Japan me and my small adventure team. I have made ready virtually everything possible. I only have a few logistics left to iron out before our departure. I have an incredible trip booked one with amazing hotels and capsule hotels for us to stay at. This will be my last trip though the major cities and next time I will be focusing on going north and an extensive trip to Mt. Fuji. This will be my fourth Trip across the pond bringing me closer to understanding the culture and way of life, but still I am left with many questions. I am still pushing myself with noble intentions of learning the language, something I really need to kick into high gear if I want to be anywhere novel at it when I get there in September. For this trip I will be visiting the city of Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka. I am particularly happy about going to Osaka and trying all the many amazing flavors that Japan’s second largest city has to offer.
I have also been busy with my art and that movement. I have finished a few new pieces that I am particularly happy about. Beauty inspires me. I once read a phrase from a book that is titled, Steal like an artist. The idea is that there is really nothing new and everything is stolen in some form or another. The gimmick being if you do steal something then the goal of an artist is to make it somehow better than before. That is the goal anyway, making what I capture better and more impressive than I could ever imagine. That being said I don’t know if “stealing” crosses the line or blues an ethical line of some sort.
I created an entire show that doesn’t actually exist but has left the public to believe that I have in fact had a showing my works of art. In all honesty all I did was go around and take pictures of galleries and various walls and thought the magic of photoshop I put up my own art work. I reworked the shadows and surroundings to make the piece of art be as authentic as possible. The fact that most people wouldn’t look that in-depth at the pieces or give them that much scrutiny said that I would be able to fudge some of the lesser details and still pull of what I was intending. Everything about the show and the pieces were an illusion other than having made the drawings myself. Even the pieces themselves could be debated as to whether they were real or not. Ultimately, I played upon the idea of what people thought and believed that knew to be true. I had plans to make more artwork and keep up with the drawing and posting.
My art served another role. Propaganda. In the sense that my works of art were promoting ideas larger than life, that I was living my best life possible. Ture, I was living my best life possible, but I wanted more than just sharing idea on social media and my website I wanted more than anything genuine human connection and interaction, as it was and is there the true spark and meaning of life. In today’s society we lack that connection. We have replaced the genuine connection for a screen, memes, reels, and live streams. In other words, we have rendered our lives down to content, selling a name a brand and an idea.
My cooking has taken on a life of its own making for some incredible dishes. I have learned and perfected a few things including creeps, and that potato basket for eggs. I decided to start a page dedicated to my cooking adventures and everything it brings along with it. This all started when people started complaining about how they were tired of making the same things over and over or they didn’t know what they wanted. I get that, cooking can be easy for someone to get stuck in a rut and make the same dish over and over again. The other problem is that food has skyrocketed in price and left many people rethinking what they are going to have for dinner or what they are going to buy at the store. I personally remember that in 2018 I could buy two steaks for $16.00 and just the other day I bought the same sort of stake only I had to pay $25.00. Needless to say, I ended up cutting them into four steaks and made several different dishes out of them. After the meal I intend to make today I plan to go in a different direction with my cooking.
There for a while I was a vegetarian. I went almost two years eating healthy and taking advantage of the fact that I also worked in a restaurant at the time afforded me the ability to eat one amazing healthy meal. There are several reasons for doing this; one, I want to diversify my menu and dishes, and two I want to lose weight and become physically fit.
After changing my job and becoming less active than I had been in the past I can defiantly tell that I have put on some weight on. Even before I was heavier, it just seems that every time I get into the grove, I have a set back and it puts me at a disadvantage causing me to fall even further behind. Another reason for getting back into the swing of things is so that I am ready to tackle Japan my goal is to walk 130 miles in 12 days, shopping and sight-seeing, that will be a goal worth talking about. That goal is totally doable. The health benefits out weight any other reason, become sharper of mind, more energetic, not to mention balance my body out and detoxify from the nasty sugars and other chemicals.
The next big thing in art comes with becoming a YouTuber with my own Channel. The goal here is life is about having something to say and finding a way of expressing it. One of my own personal mantras is, life is about having a dream and living it. Too often I have watched individuals live their life with regret, and end up checking out angry and bitter. Even I have thought about my own life, and if I am to live forever, I must make for the best vehicle to do so.
I have also dabbled with the idea of time travel and the notion of going back in time and what that would mean or how that would look.
Several questions came to my mind. One, what juncture would I pick to go back to. Two, if it was a success, going back in time, would I be the younger version of myself or would I exist at the same time as my younger version of myself. Both have promising applications and both have drawbacks. If I became my younger version would I also get to keep my mind, the memories happenings and everything that I came to know of the “future.” And, if I came back as my older version would changing my younger version also add to my mind. If anything I hoped for the first that I would come back with the mind that I had because then I would have the ability to not just add to my mind but I would also be able to delve into the concepts of being someone even more than I could ever imagine. But the biggest question is why, why go back in time at all.
The answer was simple, because I seemingly missed out on life’s opportunities simply because the “stars and planets” were not aligned in my favor I wanted a do over. Even still there, there was no guarantee that I would accomplish something a second go around. The other notion would be that it wouldn’t be long before I would be completely off script. The only thing I would know would be specific junctions of events times and places. Untimely as much of a great story it would make to tell. One thing I have to remind myself is that at every corner I have given life my best for who and what I was in that moment. Although I guess you could say that one of the biggest factors is that I haven’t always given myself my best. That is where we attempt to make the necessary changes, and ready myself for the future and the future things to come.
At times doubt and anxiety can fill our sales causing us to go off course. We become frustrated that events and circumstances didn’t pan out quite like we had hoped they would be leaving us to questions ourselves and our direction, let alone everything he have invested in mind body and soul. Expectations create the faults and cracks in our dreams, as we come to expect events and circumstances pan out in certain ways. This also comes at the cost of much needed inner work. The desire to overcome and be better than what we once were. And though art and meditation will I lay the blue print of the things I wish to see become reality become reality.
I think that the other big take away about wanting to go back and change things is that there is really nothing really worth changing, because there the idea and notions, circumstances and events that I might have wanted to change weren’t that impressive to begin with.
Today, I stand at the forefront of change, and although fear, anxiety, doubt and worry filled my sail, as the captain of my own ship I had to drop the sail and let those negative vibes blow past me before raising them again. For the past eleven years I have grown accustomed to life, a predictable routine and set of outcomes. Although there has been some ups and downs there for the most part life as I have known it has remained stable. I mistake this as certainty and that everything would stay together long enough before having to jump off on the next great adventure. Although change can be scary, change can be necessary in order to grow and to make for the next great adventure in life.
This journey may be starting sooner than I thought leaving me to change my plans and to reexamine my thinking. This line of thinking has only gotten me so far in a quandary. I realize that I have been going it alone for, sort of the coffee shop paradox. The notion that I am actually a part of something and that there are actually people around me who care when really, I am just caught up in the moment and circumstances. Rather than try and be a part of the lives of people whom I considered closest it would seem that we couldn’t be further apart to which I find there is no reason to continue to hold on to anymore, instead send them adrift. Other people’s thinking best suits them, and to think that their line of thinking has anything to do with the way I think feel and live my life is fooling myself into some kind of delusion.
Carful who you share your hopes and dreams with. Too often people want to way down your dreams with their doubts worries, or worse ladened them with their own expectations of how things should or shouldn’t be until you abandon your own line of thinking. And so April beigns the next big chapter of my life, the jumping off point of the next great adventure.