Notes from my 91st trip (Concentration)

You're no longer good at your job the moment you think you're too good to take advice. 

The majority of my problems stem from me putting myself down. 

I always had a child-like anticipation whenever I saw Flora. Everytime. No other person made me feel that way on such a consistent basis. 

I may not end up w/ Flora, but she taught me my definition of true love. She taught me a lot about what I have been searching for in this life. 

Fightland treats its writers like fighters. In other words, they treat you like shit, but you're somehow better b/c of it in the end. 

Being an investigative journalist is essentially a job designed to determine the truth in a matter. I guess when put like that, it makes total sense that that is my chosen profession. 

I think one of the most helpful tips I've heard on being a good writer is the importance of being curious.

A huge part of how capitalism works is profiting off people's depression. In other words, there are systems in place that intentionally keep you trapped in cycles of depression b/c that is how it generates profit. It is truly, truly sick. 

There is something super endearing about hearing your father call himself "kind of a half-assed sort of guy". 

My father described going back to Taiwan as going back to the land of his childhood as a rich man. I get it. In many ways he beat life. He's losing in other ways, but that's where I come in. 

You cannot be too invested in how you feel.

When was the first time you were hurt? 

I see now that this entire process has been about acquiring armor for my return to Brazil.

One of the best things I heard tonight was a fiction writer describing to me what he does. He finished by saying, "I've just given myself license to make up stories." 

Flora. The light is always on for you. 

Notes from my 90th trip (Finados)

Everyone has to have their way to make sense of the world.

There needs to be a steady practice of something to see yourself through the storms.

I think about the people that made compostable garbage bags, and I just wonder how much thought and science must have went behind that, like how much someone would need to know about how many things in order to make that a workable idea. There's no way they started from nothing to eventually get to the goal of compostable garbage bags. They had to have built off of some prior knowledge that was already established. It's all really just serendipitous timing. I'm blabbering about all this to say: 

Focus on what your work is now, no matter how much you think you hate it. There is a reason it exists, there are lessons to be learned, and the only real way to get out of a tough spot is to master the thing you hate. 

A lot of times what we think is good for the world is actually just good for us. It's important to keep that ego in check.

Regardless of your opinion on fighting, to see and meet someone who has mastered an art of combat is impressive, if you know the time, sacrifice and discipline the higher levels require. 

It's amazing how much we can play the victim in a relationship when we're only looking at it from one angle. It's funny, but when Flora and I were together, even the mere suggestion of us breaking up was preposterous, like someone had tried to convince me that gravity did not exist. Us being together was a fact embedded into my heart. It was the only thing I was sure of. Still kind of am. 

Flora was super irresponsible in so many ways, but she was never vicious towards me. That just wasn't part of her nature. But I was to her. She saw very ugly sides of me. I see that now. That's what needs to leave my body.

Notes from my 89th trip (Light of Christ)

Michael, you have inherited the being that is haunting your family. It is ancestral. It is up to you if you want it to finally end w/ you.

I think the moment I started doubting Ken Wilber as any sort of teacher to follow was the moment he openly admitted to beating the shit out of his wife, who was diagnosed w/ terminal cancer and was dying, then tried to somehow make himself out to be a victim in the whole ordeal. It's like yeah...go fuck yourself dude.

I could not have become a boxer without the help of Grace Kong.

The women who have appeared in my life vying for the position Flora once held should know exactly what that position is. It is the throne of my life, my example o be a better person, to honor and never betray. Never hurt. That is how I revered Flora. That is the type of dedication I was talking about because I am ready. 

Basically, if you are to ask what I've been doing w/ my life, it is aI am taking care of my home. It is and has been going through a significant remodeling. 

Perhaps the best message I took away from watching the 2hrs 22mins of "The Martian" can be seen in one of its previews. It says: 

"I guarantee you, that at some point, everything is going to go south on you. And you're going to say, 'This is it. This is how I end.' Now you can either accept that, or you can get to work." 

The truth of a great writer is that they are a channel for the divine and it is their duty to care for the vehicle that needs to deliver that message. 

The passing of Dennis Costello brought together 400 bikers across America. Let me repeat that. 400 bikers. Like tattooed outlaws for real. They had a motorcade running from Seattle to Tacoma. For a man to have that kind of influence, that much affect on so many individuals that they came out to send him off well, is an inspiration to aspire to. 

I once met a very pretty girl at a bar in L.A. She's actually the one that started our conversation. It went:

"I told your friend that I find you intimidating, but he told me you were a really nice guy and that I should just talk to you."

"And what do you think?"

"I don't know yet, but why do you wear that do-rag?" (It wasn't a do-rag, but looks like one.)

"It's not a do-rag."

"Whatever it is, you should lose it. Because you're so cute, but you wearing that scares women away."

I ignore the insulting cultural implication and just smile in response, taking in the compliment more than anything.

"I'm serious, you're really good looking! You could probably have any girl here."

I probably blushed at this point.

"But don't get any ideas," she said. "I'm married."

We then had a 15 min conversation about she met her husband (b/c that's what I would do w/ that information). Turns out, they were together for 7 years before they got married, suffered a number of betrayals (mostly infidelity, mostly from him) and it wasn't until a six-month no-contact period that he proposed to her. After all that I said:

"How did you get over all that? I mean, how did you trust him again?"

And she looked at me, w/ the deadest look in her eyes, and said the words that have been tattooed on my heart ever since.

"I had to forgive him," she said.

I respect and appreciate Floyd Mayweather Jr. as a fighter, but I feel differently about him as a person. I disagree w/ almost everything he represents, primarily his obsession and God-like revere of money. That and he beat the shit out of the mother of his children. I don't think people pay enough attention to that.

"Healing is not an event. Salvation is not an event. It is a path to be followed." 

I am not looking to be married; I have met someone that I want to marry. There's a huge difference.