I just had a dream about my mother. In my dream she was talking shit to me, like always. She threw me out of the house, can’t remember why this time. She just kept going on and on about how terrible I am. I was so angry at her for accusing me on shit I didn’t do that I punched her face.

I just saw Episode 13 of The Sopranos, third season, Army of One. I started thinking about the main character, Tony Soprano, he seems to have no reservations when it comes to doing what he feels like doing. Should life be that easy?

I have spent a lot of time considering other people’s feelings. Where does that get me? My dad always told me not to raise my hand at my mother. I did once when I was about 14, but I never touched her. Meanwhile she continued to feed my brain with her bullshit. She’s still the same person today. I’m the one still dealing with everything she ever did to me. So, taking my father’s advice and putting my own feelings aside, where does that get me?

My dream tells a few truths about how I feel about my mother. 1) I remember her mostly for the emotional abuse she imparted in me. 2) I wish I could make her stop.

I think we all know what we need to do. We just don’t know how to.

Going out is getting really boring for me lately. I feel like it’s always the same thing. I need to do something different with my free time. The problem is that I don’t want to disappear completely from the social scene. I just want to have different conversations, experience different things and maybe even find a girl I can have a steady relationship with.

I was at this party last night and this is all I kept thinking. It really is the same thing over and over…

When it seems like the world looks at you as if you’re supposed to be a fuck up. When your own parents tell you you’re a fuck up. When nobody believes in yourself… shit gets really hard to handle. It would be much easier to be done with life as I know it. I was supposed to end my life many years ago anyways. The only reason why I’m still here is because I believe in myself. I believe some day soon I’ll be everything I dreamed I would ever be. I believe I’m already becoming what I’m meant to be.

Right now I wish for the whole world to go fuck itself. For everything bad I represent even before I was born, before I had a chance to speak for myself, before they even asked me my name.

Not a day goes by that I don’t think about these things. Year after year, day after day, I deal with looks that turn into words and then into actions. I can stand quietly in any corner of any street in the world and I can still ’cause a reaction on most people. Make them tuck their purses, make them smile, make them cross the street, almost never nothing happens. At least not for the past 28 years I’ve been alive.

I feel like my parents should have made my life easier for me growing up. I don’t think they did. I would trade my parents and all the scars they inflicted in my mind just for peace. These scars I try to hide every day. Every fucking day of my life I tell myself “shit is alright”, “shit is going to be better”… I’m tired of talking to myself, padding myself on the back and I don’t want anybody to feel sorry for me either. I just want everything and by now I should have something, but I don’t feel like I do.

And then I think: I shouldn’t even be writing this shit down, ’cause this is how the world is and life doesn’t deal everybody a good hand. If my life was a game of poker I’d say I was dealt a 9 and a 3. A 9 for having parents who stuck together and provided a steady income for the family, and a 3 for being black.

Happy fucking New Year…

I cannot complain about anything. The shit that happens in my life are always followed by good things. There are ups and downs happening all the time and I know how to work everything work for me. Ride the good times and learn from the bad ones. In the end, it’s all about what I make out of the situation.

A couple of days ago I was sitting down thinking about opportunities, and I was thinking that for the people that know how to spot opportunities and make them work for themselves, there are no bad days. When I get into deep shit, as serious as the problem might be at the moment, I know that when I get out of it I would have learned something new. Now if I only had more discipline go with that…

I finished all my classes this semester with no problems. I received 260 hours of community service and I’m working on the last 220, even though that means there won’t be a brake between semesters. Insight Society is up and running and I’m in the middle of planning the activities for next semester. My family will be in Panama for Christmas and this week I’ve been talking to a girl that makes me lose my cool… I like it.

I meet a lot of random people. Shaking hands and giving kiss on cheeks is probably how I’ll get sick again. I’ve got rent money, a dream (like always), and slowly but surely everything seems to line up in front of me.

I friend with his successful coffee business made me think about Bullen Tea again. I’m thinking I’m starting to feel a bit tired of chasing my dreams, but it’s impossible to stop. I don’t think I’ll ever know how to live without trying to be better.

People see me as a happy person. 14 years ago, nobody would have said that. 20 years ago I was a very lonely child… I will never forget the emotional pain and how hard it was to go from wanting to belong somewhere to understanding that I should be able to stand on my own two feet at all times.

The idea of getting married scares me still, and I think I’m far from it, but I do wish I had a steady girl in my life. It’s been a while since I shared my bed with a girl and felt comfortable doing it. I want the feeling of getting to know somebody really well. I want to surprise her with flowers. I want to lay in bed, watch t.v. and eat pizza while I carefully study every inch of her body. I want to wake up on Sundays and be surprised with breakfast. I want everything I don’t have right now, and when I do get it, I still want to feel free. I want the girl I’ve been thinking about for the past week to be mine.

I said that I was disconnected, and I am… But I’ve also started to feel like I’m connecting with people. Now when I look at people I see things in common rather than just something I’m trying to figure out. I understand why people sometimes stay away from me or feel embarrassed. I understand why my ex girlfriend did it. I also feel like now that I’m starting to see things differently, I should also change the way my website looks and probably even take out some of the articles I’ve written in the past, just because I don’t think they reflect the way I am anymore, but I know I can’t do that ’cause the point of this website is to show myself as I become. So maybe there’s another person that will look at everything I’ve written from beginning to end and understand where I’m coming from.

Talking about my past and my childhood problems doesn’t carry the same weight for me anymore. I don’t relive things the way I used to, nor do I care to relive them. I take this as a sign that I’m almost healed. Life is good now.

I feel disconnected. As if I look at the people in this world and pretend to really be a part of everything that is happening. Not because I’m better, but because of the way I developed into what I am today. People were generally not a factor of my life. Touch, was not a factor. Smiles and the word “love” were not a factor. This is why I feel disconnected and underdeveloped when it comes to human interaction.

I don’t know how much people can see, if they pay that much attention to me, but I know its there.

My smile is fake, a hug is still uncomfortable. It is as if every breath I take was thought of. I crave attention, just like a child. Maybe that’s the true reason for everything I write. I’m just trying to get better. Maybe one day I will feel normal. I think I will.

Damn I should follow my instincts all the time. These days I feel like I do follow they a lot more often, but if I would have only done that before…  I know why I’m saying and I know it’s not worth looking into the past when it comes to stuff like this. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. Just wanted to remind myself. Put it in writing. Make it a habit.

I need to change the way this website looks. It’s full of text and it’s hard to read. Something else I need to do in the next few months. Hopefully before August…

I just finished watching another episode of Law and Order. This one was about a half black, half Asian kid that was a product of his mother being raped. Without ever knowing his father, he ends up raping and murdering Asian women. And while he was growing up with his Asian side of the family in China Town, he was always belittled and insulted not only by people outside the family, but also in the family. So, did he commit these crimes because he had the genes of his criminal father or was it because of his environment growing up?

The more I think about genes and whether or not they influence our actions, I have to believe they somehow do. However, our environment plays a big role in helping us become what we choose to become. About genetics, for example, how can we explain the instinct of a baby to suck on a nipple and hold the breath underwater? Some of our actions are so tightly sown into our genetics that we no longer think about them; like coughing. We cough because we want to expel something from our body, but I never thought about the actual step by step act of coughing while I was doing it…

I’m convinced though, that our environment plays a much bigger role in our becoming than our genetics. Well, come to think about it, our genetics influence the way others look at us and that over a long period of time can cause any person to create new behavioral patterns, whether good or bad. Our environment is not just people, it is also resources available to us that will influence the way we eat and dress.

I can’t think of anything more important for children than to have an environment and the resources necessary to help them succeed in life. This is why I prefer to help the youngest. Because even though it takes more time and dedication to help a young person, it is easier than to have to fight and fix already learned behaviors. I keep saying I’m going to make something out of The Bullen Foundation. Maybe this is the year it happens.

About the title: it’s been a while since I read about redwood trees, but they didn’t become simply because of one aspect of their everyday life. It is the seed, the water, the sun and the rest of the plants and trees around them that in time transformed a tree into a redwood tree.

I feel like people still don´t know who I am and what I want to do with my life. It´s that little boost I need from just one good product. It could be a music track, a successful restaurant, whatever. I need to catch that wave and ride it for as long and as hard as possible. People need to see in order to believe, and I need them to believe in order to feel good. Because without people who believe I can´t sell and get rich, or create art and be famous. Pretty simple I think.

I need to put myself in the front line though. Start making good music, open the damn business even if it costs me a lot of money and time. It´s the only way anything is ever going to happen.

In a few days I´ll be 28. I still feel the same about myself so that´s good. One day maybe I´ll feel like most grownups: give up my dreams and be “responsible.” Find a job and all that shit. For now I just want to keep doing what I feel like doing, which I don´t think it´s a bad thing at all.

It’s been a while since the last time I wrote, I know… I think about writing every day but me dan webas and I end up doing something that calls my attention a little bit more at the time. Lately I’ve been thinking about the images societies have created on different races and how some big event or a set of them shifted people’s perceptions to what they are today. These perceptions will always be changing. Usually at a slow pace, but doesn’t necessarily have to be.

I’m specifically thinking about the perception Mexican people have about white people with blond hair. It seems most Mexicans want to be of fair skin and if they are, they usually have a higher level of confidence about themselves. If we look at a magazine or turn on the t.v. or whatever, we’re most likely to see the person with the fairest skin as the one with the highest position of power. Tele-novelas are a clear example: they don’t represent at all the population in Mexico. The actors and actresses usually have very fair complexion. Something you wouldn’t see in the majority of Mexicans, but this is what people seem to like around here, or are at least used to.

The skin color thing probably has something to do with the colonization of Mexico. Imagine you are part of a group where everybody looks like you when all of a sudden a new group where everybody also looks alike, but different from your group, start taking away everything you and your people ever had. It would be hard not to recognize you are being defeated, or that the new group is stronger than you. When a group ends up being completely oppressed,  most people still remaining in the group would wish for peace, and in wishing it they will also try to be more like the new group and fit in. They would want to forget they were ever defeated and be one of the winners.

It was easier for the Indians to become more like the whites because they already had some things in common. Like straight hair. But for a black person it would take much longer to achieve an acceptable level of whiteness. A black person is on the other end of skin colors and hair types, and so the story was different for the average black person. Most black people today continue to either

1. Feel defeated and humiliated. Afraid to walk into the unexplored they have remained in one of the few black communities that exist and take whatever the flourishing communities, usually composed of those who have the fairest skin, throws their way.
2. Try to fit into the “civilized” world created by the fair skinned in order to feel more like winners. This they do either by adjusting their personalities and/or using their fairer skin to their advantage.
3. Come into conformity with who they are and use it to their advantage. They become strong from the inside-out and they know their defeats are just another lesson in life to learn from.

Unfortunately, I think many Mexicans fall under description #2 and most blacks under #1.

Until we learn to look in the mirror and love what we see, we’ll always remain someone’s shadow.

My report: after I finished watching this movie I started reflecting on things I hadn’t thought about for a while. I like movies that inspire me to do something different. This is a good movie to see. The way the story is narrated, the comedy, the drama, the obstacles the main character goes through… everything is good.

My rating: Rating:

About it: After coming within one question of winning 20 million rupees on the Indian version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” 18-year-old Mumbai “slumdog” Jamal Malik is arrested on suspicion of cheating. While in custody, Jamal regales a jaded police inspector with remarkable tales of his life on the streets, as well as the story of Latika, the woman he loved and lost. Danny Boyle’s film won a Golden Globe and Oscar for Best Picture.

Decisions are what life is all about. I’m happy with the ones I’ve made so far, and if I was to leave this world today I would go knowing that I lived a good life and made the right turns. Living in Mexico has opened my eyes a bit more. I understand myself a little better and I know which are the things that I have to work on. My goal here is to become a more social person. Sometimes my nature to be independent gets in the way of building long term relationships. I still keep in contact with friends in the U.S. and Panama, so I take it as if I’m doing something good in terms of the person I’d like to be in the future. Its hard to have a balance though. Everything takes time, whether I’m working on improving myself by becoming more intellectual or social. I also get tired of talking to people, especially when there nothing new to say (understandably so), but I’m good at faking interest. I’m much better at first encounters and introductions than I am at making relationships last.

This is something that I’ve been thinking about for the past couple of days and I felt like putting it down on paper since I haven’t written anything in a while. I’m out.

Garden of Eden by Julius Guzy

A Thousand years after Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, the world started to flourish and three villages had been formed by the children of the first man and woman. God saw how well humans seemed to be adapting to the tough conditions outside the Garden and in his curiosity, He summoned three representatives from each village and showed them the tree their grandparents had been forbidden from eating and told the men they could do with it as they wished.

This tree was no ordinary tree, each branch produced a different fruit. In total there were 100 different fruits. From oranges, to apples, pears, papayas, etc. The first man looked for his favorite fruit, climbed the tree and ate until he was satisfied. The second man also climbed the tree, but he picked a few of each fruit and saved them so he could trade them with the people in his village. The third man decided not to climb the tree. Instead he sat there and thought about the tree itself. He knew that now that the tree had been discovered it would not last very long, so he thought of ways to replant similar trees. Every village, he said, should enjoy such a wonderful gift from God.

When God saw how different the reaction from each man was He learned he could no longer give humans a second chance in the Garden of Eden as immortals. It was too late, He said, for mankind has evolved its way of thinking and adapted to its new environment in order to survive. God realized that the abilities to rationalize and dominate over all creatures he had given men were being used for as much good as bad, and that the world and everything in it would become a very interesting place to observe.

The man who instantly ate his fruits became known as a consumer. The man who saved his fruits to trade with his village became known as an opportunist; and the man who sat down and thought about helping all villages benefit from the tree became known as an idealist. Over the years, villages from three villages have married and had children with each other, and today all the people of the world are born with all three of these characteristics. The one we carry the most will determine most of our actions in life.

“Having different ways of thinking and facing problems,” God thought, “is the only way humans will be able to survive outside of my Garden.”

I need to tell this dream I had last night before I forget it. I don´t know what to make out of dreams, and here is why: I fell asleep on the sofa in my living room, and while I was still sleeping I felt someone or something next to me. I could just feel a presence next to me. So I extended my right arm to reach over what was there and I held on to something bony… it must have been an arm.

I thought to myself this was too real to be a dream. I wanted to wake up and fight whatever was in that room with me. I tried to move my entire body, but I couldn’t. I tried to scream, but I couldn’t open my mouth. My body was dead, and I got the feeling the arm that was moving and holding on to something should have been dead too. This should have never happened…

I let go of that bony thingand immediately I started regaining strengths. I could feel something entering my body, as if giving me life again. A few seconds later I was up. I looked around the room and nothing was there. My heart was beating fast and the experience lingered.

What happened? Was it just a dream or was there something really there? Maybe someday I´ll find out.

My Report: 500 years ago Africans were taken from their homeland and enslaved in America and Arabic countries. The estimation is at about 10 million slaves just in America, but this number doesn’t count on the direct hit slavery had on the children, grandparents and wives who were left behind. An entire continent was raped in every way imaginable, still being raped today and nobody has paid the price. A lot of those who were supposed to pay a price for their crimes have perished, so most likely nobody will ever pay the price.

So where do we stand now? Brought from Africa, enslaved in America, civil wars gave us freedom but no protection. Lynched, raped (physically and mentally), beaten and segregated, no matter what blacks fight… and then we got the right to vote, and to be sit and dine anywhere we want, drink from any fountain, and still we fight for more. Now we’ve got black businessmen, millionaires and millionaires, sportsmen and singers, pastors, doctors and nurses, a presidents in some of those same societies that kept us segregated and we fight for more.

More needs to be done though. We’ve got a lot of black people today suffering from mental slavery. We can’t get rid of the past or push away the present that sometimes surround us. We’ve got blacks doing drugs in high numbers, in jail or committing crimes and a lot of it has to do with the emotional abuse that started many generations ago.I think that the best way to end this mental slavery once and for all is by separating new and old generations, changing the environment in which they grow and teaching children about what happened and is happening in the world, but also let them know that they have options now and that the best they can do is take advantage of the opportunities and never let the same sad history repeat itself. This is why I’m interested in adopting children and opening schools. Watch the movie.

Rating:

About it: In an effort to encourage children and leaders to work towards a more stable future for generations to come, filmmaker Owen Alik Shahadah explores the history of atrocities which resulted when, 500 years ago, countless Africans were forced to migrate from their continent. Interviews with such notable figures as cultural activist Dr. Maulana Karenga, Hidden History author Andrew Muhammad, writer Dr. Francis Wesling, and Dr. Molefi K. Asante, the father of Afrocentricity, and interviews with everyday laypeople are inter-cut to offer telling insight into the conflicts brought about by racial inequalities. Accompanying these interviews are a broad spectrum of images from the beaches of Barbados to the streets of London and the cities of the United States, as well as a haunting score by composer Tunde Jegede. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

My Report: I found this movie inspiring. It remind me of things I really love. Ironically the story of the main character was very much like mine, except I wasn’t about to get married. Most of the movie took place in Panama and it was realistic for the most part. Good movie.

Rating:

About it: Fresh out of high school — and freshly scorned by his high school sweetheart, whom he planned to marry — Conner Layne (Christopher Masterson) embarks on his yearlong honeymoon alone and learns plenty about himself in the process. While trekking through Central and South America, he befriends a young couple (Johnny Messner and Brooke Burns) who help him move forward, both physically and emotionally.

Why is it the we shy away from new life experiences, but love them when they do happen? What is it that makes us so afraid to live every day as if there was no tomorrow? Is it just because we do think there will be a tomorrow? It’s almost a guarantee since we are able to wake up every morning and do the things we usually do. Go to bed and do the same thousands of times over until one day the unexpectedly happens. Death makes its introduction in the form of a fatal accident, or as it is now for many of us: health deteriorates and life starts to drift away. See now its just too late to really be awake.

I’m going to look into extending my travels a little further before I start classes in Mexico. Maybe make it to Guatemala or even Belize.

Just look at this car. It’s classy, good looking and comfortable all in one. If I could only afford one car (won’t happen) then this would be it. I know these are strong cars for a fact. I totalled a 1997 Land Rover and I came out of it without a single scratch. I can travel with anyone in this car and feel safe.

I just woke up to a nice little email from Tracy. She asked me to post her email so I will. This post, like the previous one, is not about dissing her. This whole website is about my life and what I learn from my experiences. If I ever write about something I knew wasn’t the truth then the lie would be on me. I would rather not write until I was ready to do so or just not do it. I don’t have to.

It is sad, but true: when you have friends to support your decisions whether they are good or bad and you don’t take the time to think things through, you end up missing on the learning that would have come out of the experience. Haven’t we’ve heard this type of great support before? “Fuck her, you just need to get laid,” “He’s a jerk, you can do better than that,” “Men are such assholes,” etc. What do friends know? Do they know and appreciate the boyfriend who helped take care of the girlfriend’s nephews the best way he knew how for several months? Or do his friends understand how much he appreciates his girlfriend for taking care of him and showing him around when he had just moved into a new country and the whole world seemed like new again? These are the types of personal connections that make boyfriend/girlfriend relationships hard to walk away from and that friends don’t understand or sometimes even know they exist when they try to help. It is definitely not a bad thing to have friends, but unless we start assuming responsibilities and taking complete control over our lives, friends are more of an obstacle to the process of becoming a better person.

Look at both sides of the coin. Somebody treated you wrong? Yeah, no doubt he or she might be a jerk, but what can you do to avoid that from happening again and with anyone else? Look into the things you can control to make yourself a better person. Yes, I have cheated and didn’t know how to communicate my emotions, but I’ve been practicing and learning about myself and I’m a better man now. I don’t get in relationships with girls if I don’t feel I can make a full commitment, and as far as communicating my emotions, well trying really hard and this blog have done wonders for me. I think I explained my perspective pretty well on I Believe in Two Sided Coins.

What else can I say? I wish Tracy the best, but unless she starts putting her emotions aside and depending so much on other people for moral support, nothing is ever going to change. Through my own experiences I’ve found that sometimes it’s good to take a break from life as I know it and look into myself to find the things I do wrong and fix them. I stopped feeling sorry for myself, I make no assumptions and I don’t feel like I know it all either. If I knew it all then I wouldn’t do anything wrong in the first place. I am my worst critic and my best teacher at the same time. The truth, that’s all I want. That way I can start understanding and making things better for myself.

Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like Tracy ever read the comment I posted a few days later on What Goes Around Does Come Around or the post on Waiting and Cheating. All there is to this whole thing is that because of my relationship with her I’ve become a better person. At this point there is nothing else that matters or that I want from it. I took the time to step away from my own ego, looked at everything from her perspective and I learned from the things where I was the problem. As for the things where she was the problem, I just look for girls that don’t have the same ones.

Here are her emails:

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On October 17th Tracy wrote:

Hey, I’ve been thinking about you lately…  How’s life?

I’m really sorry about the way I treated you.  I hope you’re really happy and feeling succussful.  Write to me sometime if you feel like it. 

Tracy

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On October 22nd I wrote about her email on What Goes Around Does Come Around.

———————————-

On November 29th Tracy wrote:

I was surfing the web and ran across your website.  Here are the true facts:  #1 I’m not lonely!!! #2 I apologized because I was trying to be nice, but the truth is you were an absolute asshole to ME during our relationship!!!  #3  What goes around comes around??? Then I guess you must have had or will have a girlfriend who cheats on you and is emotionally unavailable.

I certainly wasn’t trying to start things back up with you Antonio.  The thought has never crossed my mind.

POST THAT!!!

I’ve never felt more dead than when I was a subordinate to my parents or employers. I don’t think it’s right that I felt that way with my parents, but that’s what happened. As long as I live, I know I will be living the life I want to live or fighting to live that life.

I don’t think it’s right that people die without ever experiencing another culture or spending more than half their lives working just to meet their needs. But it’s also natural that people do these things because we’re afraid of the unknown. Having a job and knowing what to expect every day is a lot more easy than having a business and having to take big risks.

The risks entrepreneurs take are a hit or miss. You either make it or you don’t, and when there is a lot invested it could frighten anyone. Only does that truly believe in themselves will eventually succeed.

How is it possible that babies know to hold their breath underwater? And why is it that the first thing we do when we sense immediate physical danger is to protect our heads? Is it possible that the learnings from many generations ago became so embedded into our ancestors minds that they became a part of our “basic package” so to speak? It is the only reasonable explanation I have at this moment.

This preset behavior is something that we can clearly see in animals. Somehow pinguins know how to find their way to the same mating place every year and birds know how to make nests. These are proven techniques for the survivor of their species that were initially thought from generation to generation until eventually they became, like I said, a standard.

I also think we all continue to develop these standards. Right now for humans in economically developed regions it may very well be the ability to multitask. We drive cars and talk on the phone, watch TV and get dressed, eat and read at the same time. These are all things humans who live 200 years ago may have not been able to do. Another things that I’ve thought about for a long time is the air we breath. If we had the ability to bring from the past a person that lived in this world 1,000 years ago, will this person sofocate? Will the air be too inpure? It would be like taking a person from the United States and putting them in a place with high elevation without conditioning first.

I’m interested in learning more about this and figuring out how I can use it for a benefit today.

As you can tell from the watches I picked, I like them classic and simple. Nothing real fancy, it just has to work and look good, but not to the point where it just becomes ridiculously show offish.

What I like: they say she’s got a big ass, but that’s the least. She’s a hard working woman and she can keeps up looking good. Does she speak Spanish? That would be a plus. Nice hair color, good lips, nice skin tone, it’s all good.

What I don’t like: I’m going to get rid of this section.

What I like: I really liked her on The Sopranos. Not because of her character on the show, of course, it’s just a show, but she is a really good looking woman. I like her olive skin, her hair, cheeks, lips, tits, legs and smile. I get the feeling she also makes great conversations in real life.

What I don’t like: There is nothing not to like so far. She was married once, but that’s not a bad thing the way I see it. It just means she’s a little more sure of what she doesn’t like.