To begin, I would like to say that I am completely open to debate on this topic and that I am not really opposed to either way, in fact I would be anxious to hear people’s thoughts…

But, I took U.S. history this last year and college and they were talking about a time when the congress elected the president. Which I ended up thinking it may not be that bad of an idea. I would like to say there was a time when I wanted everyone to vote on everything, even on stuff congress and the senate did, people could just vote from home all the time. I have sense realized I may have been a bit over democratic in that, almost everyone has jobs and their lives, and can’t be expected to be that overly involved in politics. I’ll also add that I think company’s over a certain size should elect their president after the president or owner steps down or dies, but that is for another day. I love democracy!

So, the question is then…. how far am I willing to go in the other direction of democracy… Which with the congress thing, I didn’t think it was the worse idea that the congress people should be in charge of electing the president, we elect a congressman, they elect a president. In part because they are professional voter’s and if we do a good job electing them, should be the brightest and most trustworthy amongst us, that also represent our area’s majority viewpoint.

But, I think about how much congress people know that we don’t know, from military endeavors to scandals going on at the Whitehouse, they even know all the little gossip going around we will never hear about, top secret government information… Perhaps they may just be in a better position information wise to make a very good decision. Plus, given our current system, it may actually be more representative of the popular vote, because the states now are all or nothing in the electoral college. Letting the congress vote, would give the minority of given states more power as well.

Congressmen could still take a vote before an election to see how their area would like them to vote and take that into consideration. Overall, I feel we may think our vote counts for more and that we will also have a more personal relationship with the voting system, because it seems to make it feel more local.

A negative of course would be something like worrying about people threatening congressman to vote a certain way or something like that, with less votes counting for more, it centralizes power a little more and maybe make it easier to manipulate. Not that I don’t like having a vote in the election as well… I am more just curious what other people think.

Also, I have this idea for a more tiered voting system by age… where from like 18-25 your vote counts as 1, then from 25-35 it counts as 2, then from 36 on it counts as 3, or something like that. Give more say to the elders of the community with more life experience and wisdom. Also, very open about that idea as well.

So, to say again, I am not hard line either way on this topic, more just trying to start an interesting conversation… I think you can be overly democratic in certain ways, but then of course you don’t want to be under democratic… I am all for spreading power out as much as possible, just a matter of finding that right spot.

Something to think about anyways!

I have calmed myself a bit from this morning, actually think I may make myself a cup of coffee… 

But, I got asked by my father to deliver parts today, a destination about 40-45 minutes away. The feelings that rushed over me over the course of the next couple hours, almost made me want to tear up a little bit. People have sold me so much on the idea that I shouldn’t be driving anywhere and driving as little as possible. Of course, this is in my “schizophrenic world”, where I feel I am a king and head of a church, among various other titles… 

But, I was sold on the idea I was too important a bit, or in too important of a position to be putting my life on the line, driving myself around. People telling me not to deliver parts, which routes to take to and from work, telling me not to just drive for leisure, don’t drive on holidays, etc… Eventually as I have narrowed my box and conformed to what people wanted… Driving started to feel dangerous, like every time I left home, we are all on edge a bit that I make it to my destination safely. Eventually leaving home on a 15-mile trip felt like this monumental occurrence… I don’t just feel like I am not driving outside of town anymore just to appease people, but, I am uncomfortable driving that far now as well. 

Being a bit of a pessimist, it’s almost like I go into a longer drive, thinking the odds are greater I will crash than make it. I also keep thinking it is inevitable I will get cancer or something… would just seem appropriate given my situation, I think it would be terrifying and exciting at the same time, I truly can’t wait to be in heaven, just not looking forward to that little 15-minute trip there, but I will talk about death in more detail later. 

But, the driving ends up in this situation where I and a lot of the world doesn’t like me driving. They become like very intense situations in my mind… I picture a lot of people getting very upset. People not just mad at our enemies, but, also the leaders of our side, because they made a deal that involved me driving… risking my life… Especially this last one, will be like 3-4 days in a row driving for an hour and a half to two hours. It also gets a bit high traffic near the end of my destination. 

So, today I felt was probably an intense day, I think a lot is on the line if I die, plus people don’t want me to die for other reasons… I assume this driving idea was paid for, probably very expensive… they don’t technically force me to leave, but when I am told they are very important delivery’s and my dad is stressing, yadda yadda, I feel I have no choice. But, I say to myself, either, my enemy can spend so much to ask me to drive somewhere, also involving how important the job is and how to turn it down… or people in charge think it is worth me driving so far, rather than having them spend the money on other things. 

I imagine they have saved up a huge pile of money and that my side is trying to find a way to extract it as painlessly as possible… Or perhaps, they just spent money to ask me and everyone was hoping I would actually turn the offer down… But, some situations it is just do hard for me to say no, I have to still go along with the act in my own way. 

I also wonder if perhaps my enemies may be getting a little desperate… trying things to make me give up on this endeavor or get as much pain in as they can before this actually works out for me… Because if I can start working from home, I won’t be driving much at all, plus I won’t really have any major reasons to convince me as well. Plus, I seem to be getting more generally happy as time goes on. 

But, today hurt a bit, because so much rushes over me… it also hurts because I recently told everyone I don’t really like driving anymore… so it is a bit painful from many different angles. Mad to be asked with to begin with, It, can be stressful when people don’t act like they know anything, thinking how everyone else will be mad, etc… It just sets off many negative emotions, but I fought them off pretty fast today. A time ago I would have been yelling the whole way there and back… Which, I might add, other things said today made me think they are trying to get me back to my venting and angry days. Trying anyways. 

This is one of the interesting blogs I write… because I write this from the position that everything I have come to believe is true for the most part, this is just the journal of a man going through this crazy initiation/bet. But, the way everything has to come back to me, in keeping with the rules… these are the ramblings of a deeply schizophrenic man… Someone very deep in his delusions… 

C’est la vie… 

I am not sure I used the word proverbial correctly, I have heard it used a number of times and it seemed to fit nicely in my mind. How do we even come to use so many words? We probably take guesses at a lot of words until we know it fits through various means… anyways… 

My situation can be so frustrating, I use the term proverbial wink because everybody around me acts like they don’t know anything, or that I am not a savant, that none of this is happening, they don’t read this, etc… But, then at the same time it feels like people are always winking at me. They wink through their eyes and other means as a sign that they are in on the whole thing, that they believe me, that it is all true, this is all just an initiation/bet you are in… 

It is hard for me to then have to find my place within the confines of the initiation/bet. Because I have to learn to go along with the act in my own way, it is particularly frustrating, because so many illogical things happen in mind, the way things happen or don’t happen, what people say… While I have to find a way through the ruse, there also just seems to be overlying rules and regulations.  

Like, I may come up with an idea that I know is a billion-dollar idea, I know everybody wants to do it, and I know all my friends want to be a part of it on even a local level… but, then it goes no-where, none of my big ideas can work out, it must be because of some rule of the thing that people can’t show me that I am really smart. I think it is the same reason I can’t be officially diagnosed with high functioning autism, it would imply in a way that I am exceptional in some way. But, apparently part of this initiation and my entire life, that my intelligence must remain hidden from me. 

Which, then I have to find something that can’t show I am really smart and go along with the rules of the initiation/bet… but also has to go along with the ruse, they are intertwined. Then a big issue for me, is also finding something that doesn’t make me want to kill myself. I still suffer a lot from anxiety and things at a work environment, I really would prefer and be happy working from home. But, is it possible? 

I feel I am getting hints that I just need to pursue this current endeavor with some relentlessness, that I have to push on for a while, that it may give it a chance to develop into something that will go along with the initiation/bet. My story has changed to one that may be more sellable within the rules I am hoping. Perhaps now after 10 years, my story of “schizophrenia” is now marketable for my art and writing career. That I can use my situation from a different angle now… one of schizophrenic trips and suffering from mental illness, a fascinating tale in it of itself.   

I just worry there is some rule that I can’t sell my art because it is seen as a donation or something of that nature, like people are giving me money. Even though I do spend hours on each painting, which some people say, time is money. It may not have been sellable before because, I wasn’t professionally trained and the story I was selling at the time still relied on people viewing my story that I wasn’t schizophrenic, if that makes sense. There wasn’t a good enough reason to buy my art yet, it’s marketable features all relied on things that were restricted by the initiation/bet. Now there is more the story of the person who suffered/suffers through schizophrenia, can be a conversation piece from a different angle. 

Perhaps, even people will be able to buy my books in small numbers someday… it is now developing into the story of a schizophrenic episode you know… I think a big part of this working will be that I am willing to throw it out there that I have schizophrenia, and then it is up to the viewer and reader to decide you know…  I just have to mentally prepare myself for that angle, which I think I am ready. Would have been difficult years ago, when I was struggling with the title, schizophrenic… because I felt it was like people calling me a liar, it was accepting defeat in a way, I wanted to own this thing from the angle that I am a savant or whatever… but, the only way this may work is if I let myself be labeled as just schizophrenic by many people. I have to accept that I can’t have it my way and from my angle, I have to play along… 

Play along in my own way of course… but accepting the angle…  

I mean, at least they let me get A’s in college this year… I personally think that I would have completely different relationships with teachers and students if I wasn’t in my situation… I sometimes think some of my thoughts or ideas are Nobel prize contestant worthy, or groundbreaking within a particular field… that many people might be studying things that I am saying…  

But, getting A’s in college may mean, that I have a better chance of getting published in some papers or something, on a small scale perhaps… I want to try and self-syndicate myself… My goal is to hopefully get some weekly articles in a few papers, sell some art, maybe some books, and a few other merchandise items… just be able to make a living enjoying what I am doing… 

This schizophrenia angle is interesting… we have entered into interesting territory… Because now I have something to sell that doesn’t necessarily have to market me as smart, but rather an interesting, eccentric personality who has been through a great deal “mentally” the last 10 years… 

Accepting that I may have to sell my story as a schizophrenic episode, and dealing with schizophrenia was a tough pill to swallow in many ways… But, I feel really good now, with some high hopes… If it means getting to do what I love, I am very interested… 

Like right now… I can still write like I am not fighting schizophrenia… But, it can be sold as that is how deep in a schizophrenic state I am, that I don’t even realize it! Which is a hard angle to accept, that everyone may come at you like you are crazy, I had to find in my mind how I would go about that and be comfortable with it. That “feeling bad” for me, may be part of the angle… the poor schizophrenic… the injured deer… 

I still personally find my art nice to look at, even without the story… But, with the story… thought provoking and a conversation piece… Perhaps I will sell my art with a copy of my book in the future… 

I hate blatantly talking about a business strategy, like I am out to use people… if that makes sense. But, I am rather desperate, working from home is very important to me, and even thinking about other jobs and having to change my daily routines is very frustrating… I really should be on disability, but now that I did good in school this semester, I probably have no chance, and I can’t play the I did well in school because I have high functioning autism and am really smart, but have trouble functioning in a work environment, because we can’t diagnose me with high functioning autism! To me it is a no brainer that I should be on disability, all along my path people always seem to act like I should definitely be on it, even the disability employees, sometimes I may even get a gesture like it should be an open and shut case… But, I don’t think it is going to work out… So, I really have to try and make this work. 

So, I press on… 

This wasn’t even necessarily what I wanted to write about today, I had much different thoughts written on paper this morning.. Perhaps tomorrow! 

I think I am finally going to mean it when I say this will be a short blog today, but you never know once I get going… 

I just wanted to say, that even I find myself at times with a sense of disbelief or unsureness about the afterlife. But, I don’t think it is because of something to do with logic or reasoning. Rather it is just a gut feeling I have sometimes that life just can’t be that good, that heaven sounds to unbelievable and enjoyable to exist. 

I personally think it is a case of learned helplessness, which I am sure I am not alone. We are so use to this universe and all the bad things…. bad feelings, evil doings, natural disasters, you name it. Not to mention just day to day struggles and things like that. Plus, we are so limited here in these human bodies, it’s hard to picture ourselves being able to do other things. Not that there aren’t some great things about our human bodies here, that we may experience in heaven. It is certainly nice to feel and touch things, although we would prefer to be exempt from extreme pain! 

But, all the logic is there as far as I am concerned if you buy into the God is Good principle…. that we have beyond great lives ahead of us. It can be hard to let go completely of disbelief though, which when we can’t it affects us… for me it may make me a little jealous of seeing other people enjoying life or something I am not able to do right now, because I’m thinking, just in case there is no afterlife, I would like to be enjoying this life while I am here. But, as the days go by and I get older, I let go and enjoy watching people’s happiness more and things like that.  

Which, could bring me to a point, that is very hard to dedicate your life to a cause if you don’t believe in heaven and God, because so many of us would like to see the fruits of labor. Granted we do so much for our children and future generations, but we would like to see some pay off to our hard work. Which, if you never think there is a payoff, it can be very hard to dedicate your life to something, you will sit there wondering if the cause is worth or that you would rather spend what little time of existence you have doing something else. There are people that spend their whole lives undercover in some dangerous situation to keep everyone safe… I have to imagine sometimes they are looking at pictures of people having a good time and wondering if they chose the right path or something. 

Which, I don’t want to suggest that people can’t dedicate their lives to something just for a future payoff like heaven, that people can’t be completely selfless in this life, but it can definitely help you dedicate your life to a cause… 

“And when he gets to heaven, to saint peter he will tell, just another soldier reporting sir, I’ve served my time in hell.” 

But, in closing, I just want to say I think that it is just that learned helplessness and gut feeling that drives so much disbelief… which can also potentially lead many people down a bad path. Something to be aware of though, and work on, it is like the one of the last hurdles on a path to enlightenment and inner peace…. Also, being able to accept death and even look forward to it! In good time of course!  

Hope you are having a good Sunday! 

This will probably be a short blog today… it stems from an article I read in psychology today by Abigail Fagan in their most recent magazine, along with some previous thoughts before reading the article… plus I am probably mixing in some common sense that most people are aware of. 

I guess it I write this just so make us more aware of our biases can be based on very intricate details… not even on a greater cultural scale and things like that. But, the article talks about how we treat people that look similar the same way or how sharing a name with someone can change your attitude towards both people. 

For instance, if you have had bad encounters with people named Tyler, you will most likely approach me and other Tyler’s with greater caution. Even if you aren’t aware of it, we all generalize a lot. Same thing with people of certain builds or down to the smallest of features. I have found myself even generalizing people by the sound of their voice…. It’s amazing you can hear someone’s voice and think something as far flung as, this person is probably a cheater. 

What can be weird sometime if how much our generalizes aren’t always wrong in a way… some people may talk a certain way because they have been emulating the same type of person or something like that. Or how we grow into our names within a society… is it to say that the name Tyler may be treated a certain way almost identically in completely different grade schools? Would be an interesting study.  

We tend to get a lot of our generalizations from movies as well, where we see this type of person or that type of person acting a certain way… whether they are usually the hero or the villain, or a bully or the bullied… Can a tv show or movie where a person named Tyler is a bully, seen by millions of children across the country, affect thousands of Tyler lives? Are they now subconsciously generalized throughout the country, making it more difficult to form that good first impression? 

It is just a bit fascinating how all these different factors affect us and different relationships… how we may initially view somebody… How all the Tyler’s of the world are helping to shape my own encounters of the world. If they are doing good, chances are people will be more likely to come in thinking that I am most likely a good guy you know? 

But, what is so amazing is we are generalizes so many things to help shape the world a certain way, putting people with different nose shapes in different groups, left handed people, the style of dress… there isn’t much on the table. 

Obviously, it can lead to even disastrous effects potentially when people may generalize an entire race, culture or religion… I felt those were the more obvious ones. 

I thought it was interesting… and maybe it can help you realize sometimes your initial reaction to someone might be because of some kid that looked the same or had the same name in the 5th grade treated you mean. Perhaps it may make us a big more open minded with meeting people. 

Generalization is part of our survival mode as well though, it helps us to try and survive in this world… sometimes 6 out of 10 people that act a certain way may be dangerous, you know? So, I am not saying to go completely against your instincts anyways… like 6 out of 10 isn’t great numbers, naturally you should be a little on high alert. Your brain is doing some odds calculating for sure when you meet people… not that your brain might be operating off some miss information… 

It’s like when I look at Bobby Fischer later in life… when he started getting really racist and supporting some hate groups a bit, people couldn’t even hang out with him anymore… In a weird way, he may have still been thinking logically… he just believed all the information given to him and that he was listening too. I could see if you believed a lot of stuff that gets peddled out of certain groups for whatever reason, you may come to hold very negative views, and act in a certain way. For better understanding I say that… people do that on all sides… 

It’s important to have all the information and honest and trustworthy sources, giving out proper evaluations of what is going on in the world… Also sharing good solutions to problems, that try to find the path of least resistance first… Acting more from the heart and the angle of self-defense. 

Well this blog post ended up changing into something all-together haha, my just gets going… I wanted to talk about how I found it amusing that we may just a person by the shape of their nose and ended up talking about bobby Fischer in his later, darker days. You can still tell I am fascinated with Bobby Fisher and want to defend him best I can, he is a treasure! I am fascinated by many chess players actually! 

You should watch some documentaries about the current champ, Magnus Carlsen, the Mozart of Chess… He can play like 10 different games of chess in his head without even looking at the boards… plus he seems like a really nice guy! 

This blog has already proven useful from a therapeutic stand point in a multiple of ways… today I actually had a little break through on something I have been evaluating. 

I started to focus more on what my current problem areas are mentally. I have issues at work with still thinking people are looking over my shoulder and things like that, but I also started to realize something else that has gradually come to the forethought of my thinking. 

When I do yard work, run a machine for a while, and things like that I would get a lot of anxiety and not be able to do it very long. Like today I was out weed whacking and after like 15-20 minutes I start getting that hazy feeling, get a little hot, a little out of focus, some minor thoughts that it may lead to me passing out or something. Now, you might think it would all be work related… 

But, there is a screwball, when I take a shower I can also come out feeling that same way sometimes. After writing more about my thoughts about getting in a state of meditation and things like that… I started to realize these are the times when I am most alone with my thoughts… not really anything else going on in the background or anything, free to think about whatever.  

I think now, during those times, my brain must still be wired to think of negative thoughts and go down negative paths of thought. It especially must be happening a lot subconsciously, which it is good that the thoughts are getting out of my conscious thoughts. It is just my brain will give me that threaten to knock me out a bit feeling if I don’t alter my course. I normally got do some breathing, listen to the radio or something, eat a snack.  

But, I am getting closer and closer at least, like it was good I didn’t really want to leave work early this week besides today. I should start working on it more, perhaps an hour a day, paint without the radio on, just be alone with my thoughts, force my brain to start working on it in a more comfortable atmosphere.  

I won’t get ahead of myself this time, thinking I can change this extremely fast… maybe try and think, down the road a year or two… then if it happens sooner, all the better. 

But yardwork is one of those extremely meditative type jobs… then it apparently can be a matter if you meditate about positive thoughts and things or negative trains of thought… Subconsciously, my mind must still try and jump on the negative train a bit. Which of course, my mind is currently in this inner battle of achieving zen and positive thoughts, I am just caught up in the middle of it. 

It is nice that the battle is getting deeper and deeper into my subconscious, less and less those negative thoughts come to the surface… At the cost of some panicky situations for me… I was telling our office manage today, how when it first started years back, there were days where I felt like I got the crap kicked out of me all day, I might end up laying in a bed scared to even think or my mind was going to punish me. It was real rough for a while. 

But thinking better consciously more and more often is a great feeling… I feel like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now… that perhaps one day I will enjoy going to work on Monday again! I am very lucky I work for my father where I have the chance to work out my problems with some understanding. It may be an opportunity to look at some types of programs for people fighting some mental issues that are between disability or whatever… perhaps like a half type disability or something, where people work part time with some leniency as they work out problems… I don’t know, something to think about anyways, especially now that disability is so intertwined with mental illness, there could be some good ways to get people back on their feet. I feel a healthy minded person will often want to work. 

I still of course, would love to have the journalism, blogging, and artist career take off. Perhaps even add pottery making to my repertoire down the road, I think I would like pottery. That is the current dream, given my current situation… 

But, I at least understand something new about myself now, I find that can help speed recovery up, just being aware. But, I definitely have to work on being alone with my thoughts, I even sleep with the radio or tv on… I have been known to have issues sleeping if I have nothing on…  

I was excited to get home and write about that today… Could be something that other people have been going through and didn’t realize, may be part of the reason you don’t like meditative jobs or meditating, because rather than think about neutral or positive things, or being able to reflect on negative things in a healthy way. Perhaps your mind is just quickly jumping to only negative thoughts… It can be something rooted deep in your subconscious… Will have to think of a course of action and some cognitive tricks to start making adjustments… May need to find a job that occupies your mind more, no free time to think… start meditating and working on your alone time thoughts when you are in a more comfortable environment… start small, work your way up, 20 mins a day, then 30 mins a day, etc… maybe start reading, etc… There should be a way to hopefully navigate your mind out of it though. I am a big fan of cognitive therapy, more using your own brain to repair your brain, using little tricks and things to navigate your way to positive thinking. 

That concludes my session for today hehe. I ended up writing way more than I thought I would… Hope you all have a good weekend! 

Making my little Art Degero bio the other day, brought up some old thoughts. I actually wrote about them during school this year for one of my classes. It is how when you find something, like painting for me, that puts you in a meditative state, where by doing a certain amount and type of work, it frees your mind to think about whatever.  

It may be better described with certain jobs, when you know your job like the back of your hand in a way, so instead of dedicated a lot of your thought to that specific job, you are free to think about whatever. Which, if you are at work for 8 hours, you are forced to come up with something to think about. Day after day, a person has 8 hours dedicated to potentially deep thinking. Thinking about politics, family problems, vacations, what you are going to do this weekend, life’s great mysteries, etc… 

A lot of jobs, especially many high paying jobs, can often force you to think about your specific job all day long, and will cell phones and e-mail can even carry over into the night…. 

Some of my personal best thinking is while working in the shipping department, I have done some deep thinking and soul searching at that shipping desk… When I was more able to, running a line of parts on a machine could also prompted some deep thinking at times, but as time progressed that just came overly stressful for me, but I digress… 

I guess I say this, because many people are underestimated in this world… Perhaps they weren’t great at school or something and that might cause a lot of people to write them off. But, often times, they find one of these deep-thinking jobs and become philosophers in their own right and way… with 8 hours or more dedicated deep-thinking time. Many though, never come to think to highly of their own thoughts, because even they wrote themselves off, because perhaps they didn’t follow the traditional path of intelligence. It, is part of the reason, I have always felt average though, everybody always seems smart to me, people all got something to say and things they have thought deeply about. 

I sometimes think, there is probably some cleaning lady out there with a few kids that could right one of the best books ever about being a mother. All day, every day at work, she is trying to figure out her kids and help them the best she can. But, perhaps she may never share her knowledge, because she is “just a cleaning lady”. 

This can also be handy for someone with writer’s block, or someone trying to figure out their life. Instead of sitting at home where you may have lots of distractions. Try getting one of these types of jobs… go clean dishes or something. At first it may be a little stressful, but eventually you will start to get a thinking sweet spot, where the work is almost happening automatically, and you are thinking about anything and everything else. A good thing to do, may be to look up writing prompts and things before and throughout work… get the brain firing a little bit… But, you are putting your brain in a think or be bored and possibly miserable situation. 

Part of what makes those jobs stressful though, can then be… not having things to think about… I used to even start bringing logic puzzle books to work….. 

Which that can be helped a bit by a blogger like myself, attempting to fulfill those boring gaps at work, hopefully provoking some deep thoughts to carry you through the day. Radio people, podcasters, newspapers, etc… 

I don’t know where I was going with this, I guess giving you something to think about! Also, that you shouldn’t underestimate people! 

For me, painting hits the mental sweet spot! Particularly the style of art I do…  

I should add I am definitely not trying to rile things up between different types of jobs and who is smarter than who and etc… Just pointing out an observation and thoughts from personal experience. I personally don’t have a highly technical brain in many ways to even perform jobs that require my attention all day long… But, that is a story for another day!  

The style of art I adopted all started back in…. either grade school or middle school, maybe middle school. I was at a band concert and a young adult was in front of me doodling on a paper. He was doing two things I really liked, he was making these like very abstract 3d type box structures and then was also drawing a sort of amoeba type thing. Perhaps even that night, but certainly by the next day I started copying his work, and then found myself just filling pages with different designs and putting them wherever on paper when I was a bit bored. I began to play around with different colored pens a bit and doing bubbles inside the amoebas… I drew a lot of the boxes as well, I still like to do that. 

So, I did that for years, was one of my go to doodles. I don’t remember much of college in general, so I am not sure how often I did them there, but, I am sure I did. After college, I even would do them at work in between boxing parts with a little downtime. I think I had pondered how they might look on canvas someday, but I had no experience with painting at all really, so never really tried. 

I may have drawn some in my first mental hospital stay, but certainly in my month long stay at the second mental hospital I was drawing them again. I started to use much more color at that point and thought more about painting them. I got out of there in November and I may have even gotten my first canvas sheets for Christmas that year, I wanted to give them a try finally. Which when I did, it all changed a bit, because I have like no clue how to paint really, and I couldn’t make things as small as on paper with just pens or colored paper. So, they became a bit simpler in a way, when I transferred them over to canvas. 

Well, I was struggling working even back then and decided I would try and sell the paintings for work. I didn’t exactly realize what I was going through yet, so felt people I knew may like them. I felt I had a rather good story to go with my art, which in the art world often times, you are buying a piece of a person’s time and their life story. There is certainly, just the amazing art, where people do phenomenal things. Which, I thought, perhaps people might like to buy a little bit of my story, would be a good conversation piece. Plus, I always felt they looked cool, and came to think the paintings were turning out very well. I came up with a quote one time that was something like… Art is painting your autobiography or something like that. 

Really bringing up some memories now, my first effort at selling art was under the label, Mad but True, my friend’s idea. Which even then, I thought I might write and turn it into like an online magazine type deal and my friend who came up with that name, went to school for journalism… I felt I could hire him to write as well once I made some money. It has come full circle in a way, which is funny, because I was thinking of him again for the same reason… Man, if this does well, maybe I could hire him as a writer or sports writer or something. But, I haven’t rattled that name Mad but True in my mind for quite some time. 

So, I launched that site and got like zero views, nobody seemed interested…. it may have even been around that time I felt a friend of mine took a little jab at me, asking if I could paint a portrait of his family… A bit like saying, nobody wants to buy that, they will only pay for a skilled artist. Which, it may have just been said to be telling, it has lead me to think, that while I am in this initiation/bet, I can only get jobs that I am “technically qualified” for. Which, I think there are lots of rules, but I will save that for another day. 

Well, I gave up not super long after I launched the site, was losing what little money I had paying to keep the website up. It was a failure. I would eventually keep finding myself painting at times. Then when I got my apartment, I made my next go at it, that may be when I started using framed canvas. I had really high hopes, and the bet was certainly in full swing at that point…. it may have actually been at that point when my friend asked me to paint a portrait of his family… so it may have been a bit of a put down and telling at the same time. It didn’t work out again, but I just painted and painted while I had that apartment, was filling the entire place wall to wall with painting. I started painting a lot of crosses, which, I began the Sunday tradition of reading a page or two of the new testament and then reflecting on it as I painted for an hour and listened to church music if I recall. I got through the whole new testament just a couple pages at a time, every Sunday. Which, at that time I was also giving “the people that listen to me” my interpretation of it. Also, inspired by a tom petty tie dye shirt I had, I started using a vast array of colors in my other abstract works. 

Flood hit… a lot of my painting covered in muddy water… others covered in dust… they didn’t come out in very good shape, and I just cleaned them off with a hose… They might not survive to long, but I saved them. I still really like them, and they were an important stage in the transition of my work. Plus, I still use the same style a lot. 

Down the road, I try again, this time as Art Degero, make a website, business cards, I send out postcards to all kinds of art galleries in various cities, I do Facebook advertising, all my friends to join the face book page. Ask some of my art friends to look at my stuff, see if they may have some luck in their art communities. I really put forth a strong initial effort and kept it up for a while. But I was out of room for paintings with frames. So, I needed to sell some to make room to paint more, and then keep posting them. I kept at it a little while, but felt it was all for nothing, so decided to pack it in… I had really high hopes that time, so it was big letdown… plus other people had high hopes and thought it was going to work, so I thought it was going to work. Was planning on a store front and a coffee shop/bookstore… eventually I would learn how to do pottery… I was highly emotionally invested… So, it hurt…. But that is part of the bet, making me think things will work out before tearing me down, get the optimal amount of pain out of the fall. 

Then, last year I decided to go to school for psychology to be a therapist but wanted to minor in journalism to write about it… then I decided I didn’t want to be a therapist and that I would do journalism and psychology… then I decided I should try writing for the paper to get it going, which I came up with the title for my column, The Eclectic Schizophrenic, which the editor liked a lot. So, I wrote a couple articles for them and was thinking of taking everything real slow with the 4-year degree being when things would culminate. But, then this summer I had that bout of depression, and my brain kicked into dopamine mode and I got all hyper trying to find something that would make me happy and continue to be happy. So, I decided to try and get the career in gear now, which I like doing regardless, I just like writing and painting. 

Started the blog… then I felt like painting again. I thought, hey, maybe people can take them off my hands if I give them away for free. I would enjoy just having a place for them to go honestly, that extra little sense of purpose of doing them, not just sitting in a pile in my room. So, I decided to try and start giving them away, which then I thought, may as well bring back Art Degero, you already made the bank account and did all the business paperwork, have my business license or whatever, its already turn key to get going. So, not it could be considered, The Eclectic Schizophrenic presents Art Degero.  

Which of course the wheels are turning again, I can’t help but get excited. Maybe I will give away 25 or 50 away for free, and then ya never know, maybe a couple people will tip… then maybe in a year or something, I could sell them for a little bit of money. Perhaps I could start trying to contact newspapers or try and do some freelance work…. Maybe in a year or so I could be making a living doing this… I just need a little to be happy… between the art and the writing, who knows. 

If I could just write, blog, and paint for a living, I would be living the dream. Even if it was just a few hundred bucks a week living at my parents haha. 

So, it really has gone full circle since Mad But True (10 Years ago)… hadn’t even occurred to me until I wrote this how much so… I am certainly more committed now to continue my efforts and am even pursuing it on an academic level as well… so in a few years, I should be “technically qualified”. But, I don’t know, maybe it will work out before then if I am lucky… would be phenomenal if it did. 

But, that is a little of the story of my art. Could probably write a book just explaining the art and my art journey to be honest. 

Sorry it was a long one today! Just took off on me… Also, did not proofread, so sorry if any errors! 

Trying to find a little balance in my life between my mindfulness and excessive thinking. More and more I am starting to have more periods where my mind is relaxed, essentially not thinking of anything consciously for durations of time. I think it is really heathy for me and part of finding my inner peace, going beyond just not thinking about the past or future, but rather not really thinking at all, just absorbing information. 

Where I am trying to find balance now, is that I obviously still need to spend a portion of time thinking of new ideas to write about and planning out a bit of the future. I worry in a way that if I stop the racing thoughts, they won’t come back… In fact, I have a little bit of a funny story… 

When this schizophrenia really started, and I began to feel I was part of a huge conspiracy, my mind just went into gear and wanted to figure everything out… it just raced and raced for years, always thinking… Well, when I started working on my anxiety and started with the medication, one night when I went to bed… I stopped consciously thinking, and I freaked out, I woke up in a panic thinking I had lost my memory, I just started trying to think of anything I possibly could. Eventually I got my mind racing again and stopped panicking. I eventually realized that it would be a good thing to relax and not think, but then it became a very gradual process of slowing my mind down in general and also starting to have moments of no thoughts at all. It is a good feeling, now that I trust I will think again haha… I think when I was younger I spent a great deal of my time not really thinking, but rather just absorbing information.  

But, now I want to make sure I spend enough time thinking up new ideas… but I have to realize, that doesn’t mean I need to think about it all day, excessively. Rather I just need to set a certain amount of time a day to look at prompts, read articles, or whatever to get the wheels turning for a little while, think up my two ideas for the day and then be done with it…. If something else happens to pop in my head throughout the day I have a notebook ready to write it down. 

I already worry about writers block somewhere down the road, whether in a year or whenever… But, I just need to develop my little system and stick to it… trust the system. Especially now that I plan to cut myself off from the news, that is obviously a source of ideas or a place to see what is going on in the world, or what may be important to talk about. I remind myself that the blog is a journal as well, so many days I will just be talking about day to day activity. The ideas should come if I get a good system… 

I need to start letting my mind slip into relaxation mode after I do a little work though… It seems to want too. But, then sometimes, it is a new animal to deal with, because in that relaxed state yet, it is still battling depression and boredom… So, I may achieve a relaxed state, but for whatever reason I may still slip into a little bit of a depression… then my mind fires up its own dopamine drug and gets me all revved up again, and the cycle repeats itself… although I get a little closer every time to be fully relaxed. It is nice when I can finally sit down and watch an entire movie without stopping or fidgeting throughout, moving all around the chair. 

I do get some moments of complete relaxation though… it is kind of like when I was getting out of the deep depression, first I might feel good a few hours a week, then eventually a day, then eventually a week, then eventually close to a month. I am at a few hours a week of complete relaxation right now, I have gotten lucky with a day, and have almost went a whole week before. So, it is the next thing my brain is working on. Which, I have always felt my brain has been systematically fixing itself, starting with the worst problems and then working its way up. 

So, getting closer and closer, and also trying to find a balance between not thinking, and letting my mind race a bit. 

I am in a decent place mentally though, bouncing back from little stressful and depressive moments much faster than before. 

Think that about wraps it up today… I might as well be sitting on the couch in a therapist’s office haha. 

I read an article the other day… it said, if you want to be a writer you have to write every day. Which, it came at an interesting time, because I was pondering… should I just blog every other day or a few times a week? Will I run out of ideas down the road? Will there be days when I have nothing to talk about? Which, after I read that I told myself, no I have to think of something. 

So, my goal has been to think of at least two ideas to write about a day, which has been going well. A lot of time, one idea then makes you think of another idea and it snowballs. Also, I started signing up for just word prompts that they post every hour, just to see if that word doesn’t get the wheels turning. I will even take that word and google it to take the next step to see where it might lead. 

A huge thing I have been finding, is essay prompts, I was inspired to look because during school, some of their essay prompts are great to really get you thinking about new ideas or too study a subject a bit more in depth. So, I found out you can find essay prompts for almost any subject you are interested in, plus you can find personal story prompts or journal prompts for people that journal every day. There are probably countless questions out there to answer, right at my finger tips, thanks to the internet. 

So, today I thought I would do just a more fun personal story prompt. The question is, what was your most precious childhood possession? I would hoping to dig deep into my mental reservoir to think of some deep sentimental thing I possessed, but there was nothing in particular that stood out. I decided to go with whatever video game system I owned at the time, whether a nintendo, sega, n64, playstation, xbox, etc… I loved video games. 

I think I balanced outdoor play and video games pretty well. I spent a great deal of time outdoors whether playing sports, hiking around the woods, roller blading, what have you… But, I also played a lot of video games, and my system traveled with me often on trips to grandparents or wherever. It was such a great thing to fight boredom or on a rainy day. I spent countless hours playing, and was always kept coming back for more. One of my favorite things to do was go to a video store and pick out a new game for a few days (just had a flashback of getting road rash!). 

Then when we got older and the systems got better, we could start playing game like halo on two different screens, which made for complete mountain dew fueled all nighters with friends… I still feel I coined the phrase Xbonothon! Then on to college having drafts, and playing football seasons of madden with friends… it was a great time. A lot of great memories were had. 

Somewhere along the way I lost my ability to play console games anymore… 

As the Schizophrenia and what I feel is also high functioning autism progressed, I just lost the love and that drive. Not being able to play for more than 15 minutes at a time if I am lucky for the most part. I would love to still have that love for gaming, would certainly help we get through many days, but it just isn’t in the cards. 

I can however play EQ2, literally all day long, all day, everyday… That is an mmorpg, I am particularly fond of, but I don’t consider that a console game, I like to refer to it in a way that I have an avatar in an alternate dimension… You can really roleplay and sink into that game if you really want. But, that is a story for another day with lots of other ideas. 

This blog was about console games, which I really got to live through the progression of the systems… A didn’t play much of an atari, but pretty much tried everything else up until about 22/23 years old when me and friends were playing wrestlemania on N64 all the time at my apartment. Then after the schizophrenia set in and this whole situation started to go down, my love for console gaming went.  

I think I could still rock some guitar hero though! I wish they would go back to what made them big, with more classic rock type songs. I think they lost me and a lot of other people when they more tried to appease the hardcore gamers that only wanted really hard to do more metal songs. A lot of us love just playing a jam and relaxing after a hard day’s work, maybe standing up, putting on a little show for our imaginary audience, acting like we were up on stage haha.  

Today was a bit of a random assortment of thoughts, I have stories of playing video games and could go on a long time… fun to take a trip down memory lane sometimes. 

But I think I would have to go with video game consoles as my most precious childhood possessions…  

Rollerblades, paintball guns, wiffle ball, etc… maybe a few other things were contenders… but at the end of the day… well I was probably playing video games at the end of day.