Interest or not

Tag: life

  • Things sometimes taken for granted

    I just turned on the heat in my home for the first time this Fall. After adjusting the thermostat to the desired temperature heat began flowing through the floor vents within two minutes where air conditioning flowed in the summer. I am so grateful and fortunate to have a home. It’s an apartment and I lease it. I was homeless for six years of my adult life. Most nights of those six years homeless I slept outside under the stars. I knew many cold nights. Cold snowy, icy winter Colorado nights. Nights where I kept moving to stave off the cold, stopping just long enough to rest and then walking through the night to keep from freezing to death until a bus station opened or a cafe when I could afford a cup of coffee. Some of those nights I was welcomed into warming centers for the homeless. Some nights I had a cot reserved in a homeless shelter. Some of those nights a Church and a Synagogue opened their doors as warming centers for homeless people where I stayed. Without the volunteers and donations that afforded me shelter on some of the coldest nights I would not be alive. Volunteers providing free health care and free meals helped to keep me alive and pushing through while I was homeless.

    I had stopped taking my prescribed medication for schizophrenia several years before my debilitated mental health forced me from the home I rented, onto the streets. While I was homeless I didn’t take medication. My refusal to take medication was a major contributing factor why I was homeless for six years.

    I lost all my belongings while I was homeless other than the clothes I wore and a backpack with supplies for living outside.

    Since then I started over. I was placed in a psychiatric hospital where I started taking medication and my recovery began. Recovery has been a long process. I still feel paranoia sometimes that makes no logical sense though through taking my medication every day my mental health has improved very much.

    It is perhaps simple for a person who has always lived in their home to take air conditioning and heat for granted. As people age they eventually start paying their own bills including utilities and might not take heat and air conditioning for granted the way they could have as a child.

    Growing up my home was always warm enough in the winter and if we didn’t have air conditioning we opened the windows to cool the place. That was normal to me. I took the warmth of home when it was cold outside for granted.

    At 18 I was working full time and moved into my own place, and began to pay all my bills. Paying my bills was an accomplishment. The feeling of independence from my family felt good.

    I had stable housing from when I was born until I was 27 when I became bipolar.

    I became homeless because I was using illegal drugs, stopped taking my medication and was emotionally strung out about a relationship with a woman that did not go the way I wanted it to.

    I had very little money when I was homeless and stopped using illegal drugs. I was single and not very eligible giving the conditions I was living in. My behavior was irrational and ability to communicate deteriorated significantly.

    I am very fortunate that my medication is affordable. Taking my medication every day has helped my recovery to this day. I can hold down intellectual conversations. I understand what people say when speaking to me. I regained control of my behavior.

    I lease my apartment. I have a job working as a laborer. I pay all my bills on time. I have a car and a pet dog. I live in a safe neighborhood and thriving community.

    My life is far from perfect and I have many things to be grateful and thankful for. I receive S.S.D.I. and I can go back to work full time and get off S.S.D.I. one day. Receiving S.S.D.I. is a blessing. Very many Americans are to thank for Social Security. You’ve probably paid into Social Security in your taxes and so have I.

    It’s good to be an American and a U.S. Citizen living in United States. I disagree with much of the current Administration in the White House in D.C. decisions they’ve made and policies and that is my right to disagree with politics I don’t believe in. Remember to vote.

    Many Americans become homeless for reasons outside of their control. I am lucky and fortunate that I was given the opportunity to recover in a safe and stable environment. I have many blessings and am a lucky man. I am a success story. While living in low income housing and working as a laborer at 47 years old might not look successful to many people, I am living the life I dreamed of when I was living on the streets.

  • It’s a peaceful life in the North West. Early Fall and the days are warm and nights are cold. It’s not much of a city here with the country side just down the road. From here, and this is the biggest city for many miles. From far away and this feels like a town. All-nighter clubs and bars don’t exist. Most go home before dark. The community is quiet at night. The highway through town brings travelers from across the country and their haul. Timber, pears and seafood from the west coast.

    I worry about illegal hauls, drug runners from south of the border poisoning the community with addiction. It’s a fierce battle for peoples health and safety, freedom and livelihood. The addiction is real, young kids get hooked on a drug growing up making bad decisions and risking it all. Keep your eyes open and nose clean. Word to the wise.

    I grew up one day, made better decisions than when I was a young man. Still the scars are on peoples lips at work, scars from bad decisions made they’re paying for to this day. Work is labor, it’s not the office kind. Work is controlling traffic at a construction zone. Good for a young man not in college trying to get by. Good for an older man who didn’t graduate college and still has the strength to stand for eight hours on the side of a road for a days pay.

    No hi paying salary here, that’s for a career at a desk. Sometimes I wonder what will become of me when I no longer have the strength to work on my feet laboring day by day. I hope to live long and in peace, one day with caretakers who keep me housed and fed. Keep your chin up.

    It’s a different kind of look into the future living paycheck to paycheck. Used to laboring for pay will come to an end one day. It’s not a future where all needs are met and then some. Being thrifty goes a long way. Limited money speaks for itself. It is worth living. Making the most of every day.

  • Timing

    Have you ever heard, “timing is everything” I’ve heard this statement time and time again from a young age growing up. In today’s world so much happens in 24 hours. On news reports that are aired to the public, the public receives the report instantly in the case of live news. Similarly making a live feed on TikTok or Facebook have a similar effect. This is the world humanity have adopted and growing into. Time’s have changed. Growing up cell phones did not exist. When there was news to share it was face to face in person. Time to tell a story and receive the story was at a human pace. Cellphones changed the way we communicate. To call someone we used to have to be home to place a call or at a payphone at a fixed location. Or at work. With cellphones the instant we want to share a story we can dial the number and press send from almost anywhere including in flight. And have live video chat instantly with the person answering on their cellphone. I am lucky. I’ve seen both. When a live news report on television was not as common as prerecorded news reports. When I had to be at home or at work to place a call. And those calls did not include live video. They were not in flight.

    This was normal for me and everyone else. When cellphones were made available on the market people gradually bought them and service for them. It took years and years and years before most people owned a cellphone.

    This is not the case today. Younger generations are growing up going to elementary school with their cellphones. It’s considered more safe to have a cellphone for many reasons.

    News travels as fast as the click of a send button. Dizzying is a way to describe how fast technology has developed. Dizzying for older generations. Younger generations are growing into the ability to communicate instantly. That is normal these days.

    It’s so tempting to place an instant call to a person you know to tell them about a news report you just watched. While that is your choice remember the phrase “timing is everything” There are opportune moments to tell someone a story and there are inopportune moments to share a story. Humans are sensitive. Humans are more sensitive than any technology. Humans are more receptive than any technology.

    It might make sense to call a family member to tell them about something that happened instead of waiting until your with them in person and able to tell them face to face. Some things can wait to be said when you’re in person, other things are important to say on a phone call right away.

    I live alone. My family live around United States and in foreign countries. Opportunities I have to speak to my family in person and face to face are limited in the many miles we live apart from each other. I know not to call my parents in the middle of the night waking them up. Similarly when I was living with my family I knew not to wake them up in the middle of the night to talk. Respecting others has to do with timing. Knowing when a good time to call family or a friend is important. Living many miles and states and borders away from my family make timing of my calls to family very important. Even during the day when I’m awake in Pacific time zone and family have already been awake for four hours on Eastern time zone we have to be sensitive and careful to make calls to each other when it’s sensible.

    If you think back to before the invention of the phone, people communicated mostly in person. Those days are before my time. We had one phone at home growing up. One person at a time could talk to someone else on it locally and long distance. Those days are our shared human history. Those stories are precious and remind us of when things went at a slower pace. Sharing news was done on horse back. That was the fastest method to get a message to someone else.

    Communicating is human nature. Humans are social beings. Communication is learned and speaking is powerful. Speaking to one-another and to groups is how society gets along and grows and learns from each other.

    I might not like or agree with a news report I watch during the day and how I respond and communicate about a story is important.

    The words I speak and who I choose to speak to has an effect.

    Many lessons can be learned from history, distant and recent. Saying the first words that come to mind are important living in society. Sometimes taking time to think about the words we use to share a story is sensible. Both are important and both are human nature.

  • Anger

    I have a lot of anger regarding my father. It’s a mixed relationship at best. I am angry about how he treated me when I was growing up and how he was absent and unavailable to talk to for so much of my youth. Sometimes I wake up late at night angry at him. It’s a mixed relationship because on the surface everything is appropriate. We are polite to each other and cordial. Deep down inside I have moments when my anger about him is all I can think about, it lasts for several minutes and then dissipates.

    I’m 47 and live across the country far away from him. This is good. It’s difficult to make progress with family when there is a long distance separating us. The last time I saw him was last summer. I traveled to visit him and my stepmom. They invited me to their home and as a guest in their guest room while I was in the area. The visit was polite and cordial. We didn’t talk about anything that would have angered us.

    My father becomes very defensive when his actions are questioned by me. A good thing about the physical distance between us is he’s not here.

    The older a person becomes the more set they become in their ways. It’s not a terrible relation. I don’t wish harm against him. I wish he would apologize to me about his negligence when I was a young boy.

    My stepsister seems to have a much better relation with him. She pointed out to me that our grandpa died when my father was around 18. My grandfather worked very hard supporting his family. According to my father, my grandpa seemed to spend much of his time working.

    I know my father admired my grandpa for his work ethic. My father has a large appetite for work. He has worked most days for as long as I’ve known him. Father is on the verge of retiring.

    I wish I made better choices in my youth. I wish I made better choices in my twenties and in my thirties. I wish my father would have respected my mother throughout their divorce and after. I wish my father would have kept his negative opinions and words about my mother out of his mouth when speaking to me. I wish he could have shown respect and been dignified to her. I wish he could have treated her with respect and dignity while I was a young boy and through my teenage years.

    I wish he did not introduce me to pornography magazines and on pornography on his computer. I wish he did not tell me about fucking a raise between his secretaries legs when she asked for a raise in salary. I wish I didn’t walk in on him having sex with the woman he hired as a live in nanny to look after me. I wish he didn’t tell me about when he had sex with a prostitute at a brothel not very far from our home. I wish he never pushed me to the ground and would not have kicked me when I was down.

    I wish he new better how to raise a young boy. I wish when I was a young boy and chose to move out of my mothers home to live with my father he could have made more time to play ball.

  • I unfortunately have done numerous crazy things in my past. Fortunately I’m making rational decisions these days followed by rational actions and have learned not to react to something I don’t like when there is no reason.

    One crazy thing I did was look online for love. I’ve heard of success stories about couples who found each other through dating websites, something I’ve had minimal luck doing. I decided I wanted to get married and convinced myself that I needed to look internationally online for a woman who was looking to get married. This was about 13 years ago. At the time I didn’t feel confident approaching women in person about dating.

    I was making other crazy decisions and actions back then but for this post I’m going to focus on the specific crazy decision I took upon myself to look for love internationally. I’m not saying looking for love internationally is crazy. People do it all the time and create loving relationships that last. I wasn’t confident enough to approach women in person about dating and resorted to reaching out through the internet hoping to find a lover.

    Have you heard the song American Woman by Lennie Kravitz. That song summed up my opinion about American women which left me looking outside of United States for love. I spent hundreds of dollars on contacting women in foreign countries through websites that offer the service of connecting couples looking for marriage. Not much came of it.

    I wrote a letter expressing my interest in finding love and marriage to no one in particular and posted it on to Craigslist “man for woman” long term relationship in San Jose Costa Rica. I received numerous replies to my post and after vetting the replies one specific reply stood out to me. A young woman who was a college student studying to be a Doctor and living with her sister’s family in San Jose replied to my post.

    I liked what she wrote to me. We started writing back and forth and eventually had a Skype meeting where we got to see each other and listen to each others voice on a live video meeting. I got my hopes up. I was falling for her. Five months later I boarded an airplane with my buddy in Denver Colorado and we flew to Miami and then from Miami flew to San Jose, Costa Rica.

    Long story short, it didn’t work out. We arrived in San Jose and the next morning when I met the woman in person I was hung over from cocaine I took the night before. The impression I made on her was lacking. I did my best to give a good impression. I was on time and brought her a fresh bouquet of flowers and when we sat at a table in a restaurant for lunch I knew within me then and there I was not ready for marriage. Our meeting went well although not as planned and the spark I thought we shared did not show itself.

    I went back to the hotel where I was staying and proceeded to do more cocaine. Would have a spark between us have lasted if I would have stayed sober and arrived chipper to our meeting I do not know. Other than doing illegal drugs I was making other irrational decisions in my life back then.

    I’m going to stay on task and continue the story. For the rest of the trip I hired a tour guide who brought me to historical landmarks in San Jose one day. The next day I hired the same tour guide to take me to a beachside Resort outside of San Jose.

    A cab driver drove us to a small town on the coast where I hired a small boat and captain who brought us over the open water to the other side of the peninsula. When we docked I hired another cab driver to drive us through the jungle to the Resort. I rented a room with two beds at the Resort and spent the afternoon on the beach and drinking alcohol at the tiki bar beside the pool.

    A guest arrived at the resort paragliding into the ocean and swam to the shore. The tour guide I hired connected with the guest who paraglided in. She was a Canadian and on vacation from working at a Spa. The next morning I left early to make it to my flight to Miami on time. I left my tour guide at the Resort and hired a cab to drive me through the jungle to the pier where I bought a ticket on a large boat with many passengers that floated us to the small town on the other side of the peninsula.

    Back on land I hired a cab driver who drove me directly to the Airport in San Jose. I arrived at the Airport early and eventually my buddy showed up. We flew back to Miami Florida and then to Denver Colorado. From the airport in Denver I drove my car home. The next day I returned the gifts I had brought with me for the woman I went to Costa Rica to meet at the store where I bought them and went back to work.

    Not long after that I got a call from her one evening while I was eating dinner at a restaurant and told her that I was hung over and had taken cocaine the night before our meeting. That was the last time I heard from her.

    The moral of the story is don’t do illegal drugs. Like I said there was other irrational decisions I was making back then and was not ready for marriage.

  • Desire

    I want a woman to share my life with who is a mate and a lover and my best friend.

     Most of my relationships with women are polite and basic. I rarely am in a relationship with a woman. I am very attracted to women sexually and would like to have a woman as a lover.

    When it comes to meeting a woman, I do my best to be polite and appropriate. I believe there is a woman who wants to be my friend and lover and mate and partner. It’s up to me to meet her. I’m 47. I have never been married and have no children. Depending on the woman I meet these are considered my attributes. I have more time to dedicate to a woman than I would if I had children.

     I feel that when I meet a woman if she has children, I will do my best to be a good man in their lives. Honestly if I meet a woman I’m attracted to and she has children, the thought is scary. I don’t have experience raising children. If I meet a woman who has children, and her children are already living on their own I would be relieved. Many a single parent raises their children on their own and need a good fiance or fiancee in their lives. I will do my best if I meet a woman with children to be a good man to each of them.

    Last night I got up in the middle of the night and poured out the rest of the bottles of beer in the sink. It felt good knowing I don’t have anything intoxicating at home. I don’t get drunk these days. I stopped getting drunk over 12 years ago. The most I drink in one sitting is 5 beers. Usually if I drink, it’s two beers and I stop. I don’t go to bars often and want to stop going to bars. I’m better off when I don’t drink a drop of alcohol. I don’t do drugs. I’ve been clean from drugs for over 12 years. My sobriety is very important to me. It’s very important to me that people in my life are not getting drunk and not using drugs. Healthy relationships are very important to me.

     Relationships are a two-way path. In a relationship it’s important to be on the same path. It’s important to acknowledge people on the path they are on and when our paths meet to respect each other on the path. Friendships build this way. I think everyone is on a path. Some paths have many people on them. Other paths have few people on them. Some paths appear to be straight. Other paths zigzag. Meeting people where they are on a shared path is how to live in society. Some paths are wide with room to walk around others on it. Some paths are narrow with just enough room to walk around another person on it. Paths go in many directions and to many destinations. At 47 the paths I travel are more predictable than 12 years ago. There are good people I meet every day on shared paths. The world is a safe place overall and there are good people everywhere.

  • Human relations

    I’m trying to get the word nigger out of my thoughts. The n word doesn’t occupy my mind often, but when it does it’s deliberate. I don’t consider myself racist. I speak to people with respect appropriately that depends on the individual. When I was a teenage boy I repeatedly got in trouble, some of that trouble was with other black boys of similar age as me.

     In current news media the n word is shunned for good reasons. Most of my friends were white growing up. Sometimes we’d joke around and call each other dog or the n word in a friendly manner. I understand from learning US history the n word emotionally hurt many people and is very divisive. I remember using the n word once yelling at a black man who didn’t pay me for driving him in a taxi cab to the destination he asked me to.

     There are less black people in the community I live in, in comparison to Los Angeles where I met and befriended many people from a variety of cultures. I learned a lot about people living in L.A. It’s my opportunity to not label a black person in my thoughts as anything else than human. A living breathing person who has feelings and feels encouragement and respect when those thoughts are present.

     Thoughts are things. I left my teenage years over 28 years ago. I’ve learned how to relate better to people since. I don’t feel guilty or ashamed for having thought the n word when coming in contact with a black person. I’m glad I don’t use it. The n word is a heavy thought. It’s my old psychological baggage I let go of. We are a free country, free to live and love and prosper.

    I’m making the world a better place letting go of old psychological baggage and wishing readers health and happiness. This post is meant to encourage continued good relations with people of all colors.

  • Wow

    I think back to my experience around and with computers. My first clear memory of being around a computer was when I was about 5 years old. My mom is an author and at home in her office at her desk was her computer. Often in the morning I would find my mom typing at her desk. Mom had an IBM computer at the time. It worked as a word processor she wrote and printed drafts of her cook books on and with a printer at home. Then she would send a cookbook draft to her Editor a person who worked for Random House or Penguin Publishing in a big corporate office and skilled at reviewing literature and making recommendations on the draft.

    At one point I got to learn how to use my moms computer and practice typing. The object was to spell as many words as possible in a timed session. That’s how I learned how to type. At first I pecked at the keyboard and over time I was able to learn how to type. There was a game on my mom’s computer that was more like a mythical story. My memories of using my mom’s computer are not very clear. That was 42 years ago. There were no graphics and no pictures on the screen, it was all text, written onto the screen.

    Several years later I moved out of my mom’s home and into my dad’s home. My dad also had a computer. He had several computers. My dad used his computers to manage his business. At the time my dad owned Apple Macintosh computers. The computer mouse pointing arrow tool had recently been invented. The first computers my dad owned had black and white screens. Black, white and grey graphics where all it could display. That and words. The computer my dad let me use had a paint program where I learned to draw simple pieces of art. My dad invested more and more in computers and learned how to repair them. Later my dad opened a computer store where sales people sold new computers and repaired used computers.

    It’s accurate to say that from a young age I grew up around computers. It could have been 4th or 5th grade when at school us students were introduced to computer class. Our school had a computer room where our teacher brought us and taught us how to draw lines and designs on the Apple Mac computers with text prompts.

    So much has changed in computing over the years. Whether I was using my parents’ computers or a computer my dad gave to me, computers were a significant part of my experience growing up.

    “These days”, July 2025 the PC or personal computer has advanced so much it is mind boggling. Artificial Intellegence is powerful and so receptive it amazes me. The fear people have about AI has a basis weighted in science fiction. Why not, In science fiction stories there are villains and there are heros. In those stories usually the hero neutralizes the villain at the end. It’s a struggle.

    People with experience using a computer vary as far and wide as humanity. I’m not too worried about Artificial Intelligence’s effect on humans. Artificial Intelligence will create new problems and solutions at the same pace. People struggle and overcome their struggles. That’s life and that is human nature. Life is good. Make the most of it.

  • Civilization, differences and solutions

    POTUS Donald Trump would have appealed to me when I was an elementary school student. The bully mentality meant a lot back then. Would he have appealed to me in a good way or a bad way I do not know. Some kids bullied me at recess and I bullied other kids at recess. It didn’t help. It wasn’t good. Bullying happened and it was a big deal. It hurt and then I hurt my peers. As I grew I learned to avoid violent confrontations. On TV seemed to be an everlasting fight between people of all ages and races locally and nationally and around the world. This was the late 1980’s. I was 10 years old.

    The cold war was grinding to a close. At 10 years old I didn’t know what the cold war meant. But I did know that the last of it was there and then and that it became the recent past. Later I learned that the cold war was a build up of nuclear weapons and bombs and that eventually United States and Russia agreed to reduce their stockpiles of military weapons. The reduction of weapons deescalated the tensions between the two countries. No missiles were launched, and no bombs were dropped during the cold war. On television the old war was world war 2 and on television shows from much further in history documented world war 1. The old war, world war 2 was not ancient and it was a war fought by my grandfathers both serving in the US Military.

     My grandfather who was alive at the time looked and sounded to me at 10 years old, very old. At that young age, many very old people looked like they had been in a war. They survived and it looked like war took a lot out of them. Later I learned that old age is natural and what everybody experiences over many years of growing. Old age has nothing to do with war. There are many story tellers who are elders and many of their stories are about topics other than war. Ancient civilization, for example in America and Africa and Europe and in Asia looked different in each continent.

     Humans from different races around the world lived in smaller communities. There were battles and violence and there was also peace. Humans have evolved learning how to live and work together. Humans living in community learned to plant crops and grow large scale agriculture. This is how many people around the world are fed to this day.

    Despite all the advances in engineering and modern architecture and science and technology, there are still many human problems society and civilization have not solved. There is plenty of food to feed every man, woman and child. And every day people go hungry, are malnourished and die of starvation. Health care has come so far since electricity was harnessed and the light bulb was invented. So many inventions have been made including the locomotive train and railroad system. The motor that runs on fuel. Airplanes and satellites. Still despite all the industrial advances, people are left to die alone when not enough trained paramedics and available ambulances are ready and able to service a region.

    Problems haven’t stopped happening. Problems people have in 2025 didn’t occur 10 years ago. Pollution in the environment causes problems for humans and animals. Pollution causes people to get sick. Toxins in the environment make some places unsafe to live for humans and animals where the only thing that live are cockroaches. Mysterious illnesses such as covid effect the global population for several years and although a vaccine helps to reduce and stop the disease the origin of it is elusive. Was covid created in a laboratory in a city in China that leaked or was it from a little black winged flying bat that defecated on agriculture and spread in food?

    Solutions in 2025 are created with Artificial Intelligence on a computer and on a cell phone. Personal computers and cellphones didn’t exist when I was 10 years old. A remote controlled television was a luxury. Televisions and computer screens took up more space and were the shape of boxes. A movie was first viewed in a large theatre projected onto a screen the size of a large wall. How movies are shared has changed a lot. Many movies are not shown in movie theatres. Many movies are first viewed on televisions, computers, cellphones and tablets.

    Email and instant texts and video chats and virtual meetings are often the fastest way to communicate with people. Long distance phone calls are of the past. Limited minutes on cellphone service are of the past. Music unites people locally, nationally and around the world. Music is also used in politics and while it can spread patriotism it can also spread messages of hate and fear and violence and racism. Music is loved and loathed, celebrated and shunned. Music is powerful, use it wisely.

  • Leaders need followers and followers need leaders. One is not better than the other.

    Sometimes it’s difficult to be alone. Then in one moment the difficulty is gone and being alone is easier than having company. Being independent is learned out of necessity. When the environment an individual grows up in is not safe and the people in it are not safe to be around, the individual often learns how to live independently without relying on one other specific person. The individual learns to rely on themselves more than any other person.

    It’s good to have friends and it’s good to have a social life and it’s good to have people around and not be by yourself the whole time.

    Still for an independent person it is not simple to be social all of a sudden. Social skills are like a muscle. Flexing your social skills takes time and repetition to get good at. A person who has many independent characteristics needs time being around a few people and talking to them to be comfortable in larger social settings around more people. This is how a person with limited social skills strengthens their people skills. Taking small bites.

    I could only imagine that an individual who is skilled in social situations might have a difficult time functioning independently all on their own with out the help of a specific person. People are that way. If you are used to being around people all the time you would probably have a more difficult time going independent and making all of your decisions on your own without input from specific people you’re used to socializing with.

    Leaders need followers and followers need leaders. One is not better than the other. They are both vital  and valued in humanity and in society and in success and in failure.

    Learning from many failures can lead to success. One success may be all that’s needed.