A text post

Hi there lmao what

This post from reddit

Ouch. Sounds like you're having a tough time max. That sucks. I've been there, so I kinda know what you're talking about. I've been in the ever circling vortex of self doubt, frustration, and loathing. It's no bueno. I know. If you don't mind lemme tell you a couple things. You can read em if you want, read em again later if you feel like it. But honestly man, if I spend all this time typing this out to you and you don't let it be a little tinder for your fire, well, you're just letting us both down. And you don't HAVE to do that. You don't HAVE to do anything. But you get to choose.

(Who am I? My name’s Ryan and I live in Canada. Just moved to a new city for a dream job that I got because of the rules below. I owe a lot of my success to people much cooler, kinder, more loving and greater than me. When I get the chance to maybe let a little bit of help out, it’s a way of thanking them. )

Rule numero uno - There are no more zero days. What's a zero day? A zero day is when you don't do a single fucking thing towards whatever dream or goal or want or whatever that you got going on. No more zeros. I'm not saying you gotta bust an essay out everyday, that's not the point. The point I'm trying to make is that you have to make yourself, promise yourself, that the new SYSTEM you live in is a NON-ZERO system. Didnt' do anything all fucking day and it's 11:58 PM? Write one sentence. One pushup. Read one page of that chapter. One. Because one is non zero. You feel me? When you're in the super vortex of being bummed your pattern of behaviour is keeping the vortex goin, that's what you're used to. Turning into productivity ultimate master of the universe doesn't happen from the vortex. It happens from a massive string of CONSISTENT NON ZEROS. That's rule number one. Do not forget.

La deuxieme regle - yeah i learnt french. its a canadian thing. please excuse the lack of accent graves, but lemme get into rule number 2. BE GRATEFUL TO THE 3 YOU'S. Uh what? 3 me's? That sounds like mumbo jumbo bullshit. News flash, there are three you's homeslice. There's the past you, the present you, and the future you. If you wanna love someone and have someone love you back, you gotta learn to love yourself, and the 3 you's are the key. Be GRATEFUL to the past you for the positive things you've done. And do favours for the future you like you would for your best bro. Feeling like shit today? Stop a second, think of a good decision you made yesterday. Salad and tuna instead of Big Mac? THANK YOU YOUNGER ME. Was yesterday a nonzero day because you wrote 200 words (hey, that's all you could muster)? THANK YOU YOUNGER ME. Saved up some coin over time to buy that sweet thing you wanted? THANK YOU. Second part of the 3 me's is you gotta do your future self a favour, just like you would for your best fucking friend (no best friend? you do now. You got 2. It's future and past you). Tired as hell and can't get off reddit/videogames/interwebs? fuck you present self, this one's for future me, i'm gonna rock out p90x Ab Ripper X for 17 minutes. I'm doing this one for future me. Alarm clock goes off and bed is too comfy? fuck you present self, this one's for my best friend, the future me. I'm up and going for a 5 km run (or 25 meter run, it's gotta be non zero). MAKE SURE YOU THANK YOUR OLD SELF for rocking out at the end of every.single.thing. that makes your life better. The cycle of doing something for someone else (future you) and thanking someone for the good in your life (past you) is key to building gratitude and productivity. Do not doubt me. Over time you should spread the gratitude to others who help you on your path.

Rule number 3- don't worry i'm gonna too long didnt' read this bad boy at the bottom (get a pencil and piece of paper to write it down. seriously. you physically need to scratch marks on paper) FORGIVE YOURSELF. I mean it. Maybe you got all the know-how, money, ability, strength and talent to do whatever is you wanna do. But lets say you still didn't do it. Now you're giving yourself shit for not doing what you need to, to be who you want to. Heads up champion, being dissapointed in yourself causes you to be less productive. Tried your best to have a nonzero day yesterday and it failed? so what. I forgive you previous self. I forgive you. But today? Today is a nonzero masterpiece to the best of my ability for future self. This one's for you future homes. Forgiveness man, use it. I forgive you. Say it out loud.

Last rule. Rule number 4, is the easiest and its three words. exercise and books. that's it. Pretty standard advice but when you exercise daily you actually get smarter. when you exercise you get high from endorphins (thanks body). when you exercise you clear your mind. when you exercise you are doing your future self a huge favour. Exercise is a leg on a three legged stool. Feel me? As for books, almost every fucking thing we've all ever thought of, or felt, or gone through, or wanted, or wanted to know how to do, or whatever, has been figured out by someone else. Get some books max. Post to reddit about not caring about yourself? Good first step! (nonzero day, thanks younger me for typing it out) You know what else you could do? Read 7 habits of highly successful people. Read "emotional intelligence". Read "From good to great". Read “thinking fast and slow”. Read books that will help you understand. Read the bodyweight fitness reddit and incorporate it into your workouts. (how's them pullups coming?) Reading is the fucking warp whistle from Super Mario 3. It gets you to the next level that much faster.

That’s about it man. There’s so much more when it comes to how to turn nonzero days into hugely nonzero days, but that’s not your mission right now. Your mission is nonzero and forgiveness and favours. You got 36 essays due in 24 minutes and its impossible to pull off? Your past self let you down big time, but hey… I forgive you. Do as much as you can in those 24 minutes and then move on.

I hope I helped a little bit max. I could write about this forever, but I promised myself I would go do a 15 minute run while listening to A. Skillz Beats Working Vol. 3. Gotta jet. One last piece of advice though. Regardless of whether or not reading this for the first time helps make your day better, if you wake up tomorrow, and you can’t remember the 4 rules I just laid out, please, please. Read this again.

Have an awesome fucking day ☺

tldr; 1. Nonzero days as much as you can. 2. The three you’s, gratitude and favours. 3. Forgiveness 4. Exercise and books (which is a sneaky way of saying self improvement, both physical, emotional and mental)

Edit: Wow reddit gold? Thanks! No idea what to do with it or whats the deal but many thanks!

Edit2: Someone asked what I meant by "much more when it comes to how to turn nonzero days into hugely nonzero days". The long and short of it is a simple truth, but it's tough to TOTALLY UNDERSTAND AND PRACTICE. It's this: you become what you think. This doesnt mean if I think of a tree, I'll be oakin' it by august. It means that the WAY you think, the THINGS you think of, and the IDEAS YOU HOLD IN YOUR MIND defines the sum total that is you. You procrastinate all the time and got fear and worry goin on for something? You are becoming a procrastinator. You keep thinking about how much you want to run that 5 k race in the spring and finish a champion? Are ya keeping it in mind all the time? Is it something that is defining your ACTIONS and influencing you DECISIONS? If it is, then you're becoming the champion you're dreaming about. Dreaming about it makes it. Think and it shall be. But do not forget that action is thought's son. Thoughts without actions are nothing. Have faith in whatever it is you've steeled your mind to. Have faith and follow through with action.

Ok, Ryan that's a bunch of nice words n shit, but how does that help me turn slightly nonzero days into hugely nonzero days. Do you believe all these words you just read? Does it makes sense to you that you BECOME WHAT YOU THINK OF? Ask yourself: What do I think of? When you get home and walk in the door. (how quickly did you turn that laptop on? Did turning it on make you closer to your dreams? What would?) At the bus stop. Lunch break. What direction are you focusing your intentions on? If you're like I was a few years ago, the answer was either No direction, or whatever caught my eye at the moment. But no stress, forgive yourself. You know the truth now. And knowing the truth means you can watch your habits, read books on how you think and act, and finally start changing your behaviour. Heres an example: Feeling like bunk cause you had zero days or barely nonzero days? THINK ABOUT WHAT YOURE DOING. and change just a little bit more. in whatever positive direction you are choosing to go.

Random thoughts of March

Oh boy. I thought I’d have gotten my shit together by now. But, as always I was wrong. My wishful thinking has really fucked me up. The thing is tho I have no idea how to fix myself, I can’t be bothered to talk to someone. Not because they’d judge me. I don’t know, I think letting someone know how lazy and flawed I am might make them hate me instead of helping me and for that I’m fearful of letting my thoughts my insecurities out. I honestly wish I could share my thoughts to someone else. I started to feel better when I started to write for my blog, but as everything I do, I lost interest and slipped from updating it regularly real quick.

This has gotten worse, it really has. I want it to stop. I want myself to be better, more responsible, more productive for the better of me. Nothing is helping, I can’t really focus on something for five minutes without getting bored and jumping to something else.

A pill of ritalin didn’t help me either, well, it did help me focus on things but it was a fucking mess to deal with. The amount of depressing thoughts that came with it is not worth it, not for me at least. But this is a new beggining, I’ll try to take things slowly, baby steps instead of trying to master something in a day which is impossible.

New Final Cut is amazing.

Ehhh

It has been quite sometime since I last posted something here on this blog. It truly is a pain to come up with something new everyday, which I have already failed to do within the first month of starting this journey. But I am not going to give up this resolution. Even if spew bullshit blogposts like this everyday, it still count as a contribution to the resolution I have made.

Need ideas, need will power, need peace of mind.

Two

It has been quite sometime since I last wrote a blog post. Well, about a week is not long for a regular blog, but this is no regular blog. This is a daily spew shit that comes to your mind kind of blog. I slipped a few days but on the bright side I have written more word in the first month of this year than I have done the entire year of two thousand and sixteen.

Hey hey hey, don’t think about the past. F O C U S. Present.

It’s a new month, the second month of this year. More importantly a month has already passed us, what the fuck right. Shit goes by so fast. Yeah anyways, it’s February. 
This is the month where cupids come out and do there thing. Where love birds do their love thing, nine months later, that OH SHIT moment. Hooray unprotected sex.

Happy February, I hope this month will be good.

I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not fuck, like in those movies. Not even have sex. Just sleep together in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was hurricane.

John Green, Looking for Alaska.

Ugh.

I uninstalled Viber and Telegram from my laptop. That was the best decision I have made this year so far. Before deleting I didn’t realize how much of my time is being wasted on these two apps. How much of my productivity is being traded for texting. I spend most of my time in front of my laptop and I am the kind of person who texts back immediately. So being bombarded with notifications doesn’t help. As fun as it is, it is having a huge effect of how I productive I am.

Now, I didn’t leave these services. I can’t. Without them I would lose the contact of so many people in my life. I just deleted it from my laptop. The phone’s with me, so I am still available. But now it’s less distracting, I can keep my phone away while I work or study. I really am out of things to write about.

I can’t write reviews

Back when Netflix wasn’t so anal about using VPNs to access contents limited to other regions, there was this app called Smartflix. It curates every title available to stream on Netflix as a whole. It gave the user birds eye view of their entire library no matter where you are.  Due to copyrights and other legal shenanigans, the library of contents are vastly different between different countries. For an example while an obscure arthouse movie is available to stream here in Sri Lankan version of Netflix it might not be available to the Netflix US. So what this wonderful app does is, it breaks the barrier of region locked contents to its users by acting as a VPN. So if a show or a movie is only available to UK customers of Netflix, and I here in Sri Lanka wanted to stream the title, it will automatically connect me to UK VPN, and I will be able to stream the content. So yeah, that was awesome while it worked, then they got shut down because Netflix put a ban to it. I got too carried away with this technical nonsense.

Back then while it worked, I found a show called Utopia. I jumped into it without knowing much about it. The show opens to a colorful violent shot inside a comic bookstore where two men is looking a for a manuscript. From this very first scene, before the main titles appeared, the show set the tone for its viewers. That was when I knew I’m in for a treat. This show doesn’t fuck around. The original score alone is enough reasons to watch this show. And that’s not even including the brilliant look of this show. The cinematography is so vivid and full of colors. You could pause at any moment, and print it, voila you have an art piece to hang on your wall.

And boy did it deliver. It was probably the most exciting 2 seasons of any TV show I’ve ever got to witness.

This is not done. Reviewing stuff is hard.

A serious relationship

Let me tell you about my love. My true love.

Ever since I was a child I have known you. I was aware of your existence. I’d see you time to time, hanging around. Never really cared for you back then. Mother used to warn me, don’t get close to her, she would say. Except she was wrong about you.

I was in my late teens when I started to see you again. Got curious, wanted to learn more about you. I started fantasizing about how you would taste. And then, I met you.

It went horrible. The first time we met, I didn’t quite like you. I wasn’t happy. You didn’t live up to the imagination I had in my mind. It was pretty rude of me to react that way, I admit. Then a friend told me to give you another chance. She’s something special, he said. She will make your life better, he said.

So I gave you another shot. This time we took it slow. Rather than jumping into it, we went step by step. You were sweet to me, you were kind. Slowly I acquired the taste of you. I started to appreciate the bitterness inside you. We became inseparable. I knew. This is it. I was in love. We started seeing eachother everyday. I brought you home. We spent countless nights, awake and restless, together.

When I am with you, I feel unstoppable. You made my world a better place. 

This is to you, my true love, coffee.

A chill playlist

I have no idea what to blog about so I’ll try to curate a playlist instead. These are some songs I would consider absolutely perfect to chill and unwind to. So grab a drink and chill the fuck out.

1- Yaël Naïm - Toxic

 2- Vulfpeck - Wait For The Moment

3- Noname - Diddy Bop

4- Chet Faker - Talk Is Cheap

5- Shura - Touch

That’s it for now folks, enjoy.

Random

I just have to write something today. Something, even though I don’t know what it is. Something to calm the panic inside me. Fuck! Stressfully I am typing this to calm myself. If there was a control room in my brain, the server is about to reach its maximum bandwidth and the little workers inside the control room are freaking the fuck out. Yep! Just like how it was shown in the Pixar movie Inside Out.

Speaking of movies, I saw a movie called Anomalisa the other day. It was a stop-motion animated movie. None of it was for children. The movie perfectly captured what I would imagine someone who's going through midlife crisis. Maybe we should call it Midlife Crisis: The movie. It perfectly showed a upper middle class man, slowly losing his mind. And the movie also featured one the most realistic and awkwards sex scenes ever done in the history of cinema, and it was done using 3d printed puppets.

My masterpiece

Shit shit shit shit. Shit shit shit shit shit shit. Sheeet shit sheeeeit sheet. Sheeeit shit shit sheeeeeit. SHIT! Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit. Sheeet shit shit shit. Shit shit shit. Shit shit shiet shit shit shit. Shitttt!!! Shit! SHIT! Sheeet.

Shit shit shit shit.

Shit sheet shit shit shit shit. Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit. Shit shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. Sheeet shit shit shit shit shit. Shit sheet shit shit shit shit. Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit. Shit shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. Sheeet shit shit shit shit shit. Shit sheet shit shit shit shit. Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit. Shit shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. Sheeet shit shit shit shit shit.

Shit shit shit shit shit. Sheet. Shit. Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit. Shit shit shit shit shit.

Shit shit shit shit shit shit. Shit shit shit. Shit shit shit. Shit fuck shit. Sheet shit shit sheet. Shitt sheeit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit. Shit shit shit shit shit shit sheet. Shit shit shit shit shit shit.

Well shit.

unedited untitled

Throughout my teenage years, I have never really been active. I got fat, not morbidly obese but obese. Or to put it in a nicer way you could call me as overweight not obese. I wasn’t always like this, though. When I was a boy, I used to be skinny. My mom complained nonstop about how little I ate. Mothers are so dramatic when it comes to their child. 

Then on a very fine morning of December, a wave came and changed the life as I knew it. Back then I was 10 years old. A little skinny ten-year-old boy. The wave, the wrath of God as we knew it back then destroyed most of our life. After waiting a week or so on the island I went to Hulhumalé with my mom on a military cargo aircraft, that was fun. We stayed at a family friend’s place, they were nice. We stayed there for a month or two, till everything cleared up at the island. And this is the point where I started gaining weight and I never went back to being skinny ever since.

Fast forward years later, I am in my early twenties. Still overweight.

Now I know, it’s 2016 2017. Where everyone is a special snowflake. As soon as you call someone fat, there will be a mob telling you that you can’t just call someone fat and to stop fat shaming. It has gotten so bad over the years, there are literally thousands of movements created just to make these fat fucks feel good about themselves. It’s okay to be proud of your body, but promoting it as a healthy lifestyle, that’s just going too far.

It’s not that I don’t love my body, and no one has bullied me because I was fat. I knew it was unhealthy to be fat. I always knew that. But being a reckless teenager I never cared. Things have changed since then. Even though I am not putting as much effort into fitness as I wish I could, I am doing something about it now. That’s how I started running. It’s painful, yet addicting. At least it’s better than doing nothing at all.

Some wise ancient greek dude once said

No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.

Now, that is hella profound. My boy knows what he is talking about and you gotta do what ya boy tell ya to do. 

Twenty two in ten

Don’t depend on others for your happiness.

Being stuck in the past will only make the present dull.

It takes an effort to keep a friendship alive.

You will regret things you didn’t do more than the things you did. Stop being a pussy, take chances.

Don’t take things too seriously.

Experiences are better than materialistic obsessions.

No one has it really figured out. You gotta keep your head up and move on with life.

I ain't got no time for yo petty shit.

Misery likes company. Stop hanging out with people who are always negative about life and things in general.

Humans are generally nice, people are willing to help. You just gotta ask.

Hilarious

So the other night I was out with my friends to celebrate a birthday. We went to a steakhouse, he wanted to give us a birthday treat. We went there, the place was crowded. A good percentage of the restaurant was occupied by caucasian tourists, possibly on their vacation. After waiting for a minute or two a waiter was able to secure a table for us. We sat down and ordered Australian Porterhouse steak, each for everyone.

While we were waiting for the food to arrive, as any sane group of people would, we silently sat there scrolling through social media. I’m just kidding. While we were waiting we chatted. Throughout the conversation in response to something which I said, my friend said that if she ever visits my island, she will tell my mom about my bad behavior. To which I responded with a hand in the air to high-five. Yup, that’s how I deal with grief, dark humor, my friends didn’t find it so funny, though.

It has always been the thing I fear the most. The thought of parents dying has kept me awake for nights. When it did happen, I didn’t know what to feel. How to feel or what the fuck to do. I wanted to hug someone. I wanted to scream into the void. I wanted to talk to someone. Instead, I bottled up everything and cried in silence. I had only one friend, darkness. As if someone carefully gauged my out. At least I would get accustomed to darkness then. I can’t even bring myself to listen to the songs I used to listen to that period in my life. Life through threw a bucket of darkness into anything that reminds me of the day I had to say goodbye to a person I would trade my own life for.

To deal with grief. I embraced dark humor. Because when life gives you lemon the best you can do is laugh about it. Death is inevitable after all. The reason I laugh at the cruelest jokes out there is not because I am some kind of a sick person. It’s because there’s nothing I can do about it besides laughing. And some of them are really funny. Fuck you if you think otherwise.

With all that being said. It was an awful day. Things have been awful ever since. But that’s life, it will fuck you up. And it pisses me off when I see kids acting bratty to their parents. Whenever that happens in front of me, all I want is to smack that fucker back to reality and tell them to be nice to parents. Then I remind myself that I was once an edgy kid. That’s part of growing up.

I am still not able to write about it the way I want. Those memories are shredded into pieces inside my brain. Each time I write about things like these it’s like collecting those pieces of the ground and gluing it together. Hoping it to make sense, hoping there’s a clue in there somewhere. It’s all messy and there’s no flow in this.

The journey of finding myself shall continue.