ADHD, Subtraction, multiplication, division…

I haven’t touched this in a while and with good cause!

Not really. Things have been a bit of touch and go. Heavy goes the mind that does release the pressure of the entire world on its head.

There are times where folks say to just get it started and you will fix it up later. We see how that happens when the newest AAA game comes out. Though I have to say, this has been a long time coming and it is mostly due to a lot of fear.

Last year, I got diagnosed as having ADHD. It is one of those things that many people talk about now, but shoot, taking the medication has really shown how much it affects me and how I have the mental energy to do things.

Imagine you have three tasks in front of you: picking up a box, drawing a circle, and building a Jenga tower. None of these sound difficult, yeah? However, with what I have going on in my mind, I have to decide which one to do first. That takes up a LOT of mental energy, believe it or not. Then comes the pre-planning: where do I take the box? Do I drop it or put it down slowly? How big a circle? Is it using a piece of chalk, pen, pencil? If pencil, will it make that noise that is so annoying, it wrecks my nervous system? What about the Jenga tower? If I complete it and it falls, will I have to rebuild it again? Will I be able to or will it be marked as a permanent scar on my life?

See what I mean? I take some medication and the overthinking, though still there, doesn’t overload my nervous system. That is how it has been these past few months.

Given the economy being as it is, I’m looking towards my creative side; the side that I have neglected for most of my life. Though I do lead some TTRPG games on the weekends with friends, I have been thinking of taking that to the professional realm: selling my Game Master skills to others. It would be a good bunch of money on the side; but aye, do I really want to turn something that I love into something monetary?

Thought of also getting into voice acting, source my voice to beat the digital code walkers that mimic human speech in gaming and in animated episodes. Another mental energy drain that would not be so much if I were to get a gig. So far, just applying and putting myself out there.

Then there is that book idea. Ah, I have so many ideas and I have one that would rock your socks off… if I can just write it down. Well, the problem is not writing it down, it is the logistics to afterwards. My story deals with mythological figures and I am worried that if I tell the story that I will be taking from another culture and I don’t want to be a book colonialist. A book-olonialist, if you will.

In addition, there is the Youtube channel. I will be sure to post it up here once I JUST DO IT. I’ve finished the audio recording, and I do not have all the video footage yet but I can do it. It just… again, my brain is like in energy-conservation mode. Though this stuff would be fantastic to put out there, mentally, my brain just with holds what is going on.

Many ideas. Many projects. Awesome stuff! Though my brain…

I don’t want to blame or put everything down on my brain. My brain is awesome. It has helped me get through a lot in my life, let me tell you.

This is just a big step for me. Like, imagine signing up for Kick boxing classes knowing you will be sparring against people that have been doing this for DECADES. I’m afraid of getting hit and not being able to get back up.

But we, as people, got to. Plus, I have these pills that are helping so I got that going for me.

Anywho, that is it for now. Let’s see if I can get some views up in here!

Gandalf the Black in the snow

Today was interesting as I got out of my apartment to go to the office unnecessarily due to someone thinking it is a good idea to continue learning English through wet snow and ice.

Before I go over what happened, I must tell you of this staff I found. Well, walking stick.

A few years ago, I was in the Tatra mountains with this lady who I barely knew, hiking. We went through a public cave; a tight fit in certain areas, but there was a line of people going through it as if it were a ride in Disneyland. Unlike Disneyland, one can touch the walls, the ceilings, and everywhere else, though be wary of their own bodily detriment. There were hardly any fences, borders ropes, or low-ceiling cushions through the darkness.

As she and I went through, over a small crevice, I saw two wooden walking sticks, laid out on a semi-flat surface, as if on a pedestal for the spirits that may have inhabited the cave. I am one to trust my gut instinct for I dared not to disrupt the cavern beings if I could feel the ting of trepidation.

However, since I didn’t, I snatched one of those walking sticks for myself and left the other one behind. Some folks behind us took the other and we got out of the cave with a souvenir of our journey. All in all, thankfully did not have luck with the lady I was with and I am a much better person for it.

Now, this walking stick is not, from my knowledge, something you buy easily in a store. There are no ornaments, no postage or advertising logos on it. It is a simple lightly-colored wooden stick that is about 130 cm long. It is fairly sturdy, having used it to walk through forests, mountains, and through hectic weather conditions like what we have now: ice and snow.

Now that you have an idea of what this stick looks like, imagine going through your modern city street walk and you see someone wearing a black business coat, cargo pants, boots, and this walking stick.

No. I mean STAFF.

Well, I get out of the apartment to the street, rushing to catch the bus and lo and behold, down the street, a car and a snow plow right behind it come towards me. The car, driving backwards, turned into the bend and ended up getting stuck. The snowplow sees the trouble but backs up a bit to give the driver a chance to course correct.

However, the area near my place is not excellent for driving so the person was stuck. So was I because I had to get up that path or else take the long way around to get to my bus stop. So, holding onto my stick, I ask the driver for help. It was a young kid, but they accepted.

Not sure if any of you ever helped a car get out of a ditch, but is it supposed to be so easy? Just move the car back and forth and then push it forward when it gets to a certain spot. That’s what happened when I moved with my Staff in hand the whole way through.

After pushing the driver out the way, they reversed and beeped their horn to me in thanks. The snowplow followed ahead, the driver seemingly indifferent to the situation.

As I went my path upwards, another group of drivers were attempting to get their car unstuck from the snow. I showing up with my staff offer my services and assist and again, get them moving again.

Now, was I the catalyst to their salvation? Yes. Yes I was. I mean, sure, they would have figured it out eventually but I must say, if I were in their shoes and I saw a stranger with a staff offering their help and then when they arrived, things worked, I would say that they were magic.

I became Magic today. I was the mystery. It was awesome.

Teaching A.I. to take my job is a good thing

What could I possibly be saying when the job market is looking as bleak as it does now? What is even with that title? Let me explain and hopefully by the end, this is not just a click-bait title but something I have been toying with.

There are articles written out there that say that there is an A.I. bubble, something that is going to expand so much and then POP, all the investment will go down the drain because the infrastructure is just not going to be able to handle it. The jobs being lost now will be right back up, because there needs to be a “human” element to all of this, not a total removal of services.

What I do is teach. I’m an English teacher in a country outside of my own. I don’t have CELTA certification or TEFL. Did not go to school for it; I only had on the job training. Sometimes it works, sometimes I have to get tips from other books, magazines, and online tutorials about it to work with certain students special needs (not in that special needs way, more like with short-attention span or to make the material easier and more fun to toy with).

The pay is not great, and there are no perks to begin with (A B2B contract with the school so any perks I forfeited from the get-go. Free coffee from a not-well-maintained coffee machine in the office when I go there).

Again, why teaching A.I. is great? A.I. where it doesn’t get stressed, it doesn’t raise its voice or get cranky if it had a long day, or stuck in traffic? Where it can correct all manner of speech and dictate the appropriate tense, article, preposition in most sentences?

Because.

It will fail.

With a short-attention span these days, it is a gimmick these days. Sure, it may help some programmers or concept artists here and there, maybe even organize the ‘boring’ tasks of restructuring or cleaning up, but people, human people, every day people are going to want the tactile responses from a real human being. The experience, the history, the imperfections.

We see it all around us. The ‘sterilization’ of society. We want the streets cleaned, but we do not want to offer people adequate housing, food, or medical support. We want creativity, but we do not want to pay a living wage to artists or allow them to unionize for our films and/or TV. We want a partner, but we forget to fill the void within us that can only be filled by one person: ourselves (and therapy).

It is like farming but not wanting to get your gloves or overalls dirty. That is what they are there for! It is good to feel clean, but it is also good to feel dirty as well, it is what we have been designed for. Strengthened for. We as a society have forgotten that.

What I say is no different from what a lot of people would say. However, there will be a day where this cleanliness? This sterilization and bland architecture that seems to be all the rave? It will go away. People desire color, creativity, originality. Looking back at films and yes, some of aged well, others not so much, and others not at all. Yet, we get to learn from them and can make them better!

To me, A.I. is something that will happen, no matter what. But instead of an R2-D2 or Johnny 5, we are getting Yes-Men/Women who average out what is out there and sends that information to our screens. Even then, they break the ‘illusion’ of being real because they are essentially calculators with access to Word Documentation.

The thing is, human beings, in the long-term, desire to have healthy work and things that are made with not only craftsmanship, but also with soul. That have meaning. A.I. can not reproduce that. Try as it might but at the moment, it can’t.

Of course, I say, at the moment. If certain companies were to hold back, work with what they got, go small first before going big, then sure, it may take a few decades, might even be after the original makers are gone, but that’s the effort and longevity of those who propelled work and are remembered for doing so.

Hence why Art is forever. Invention helps humanity on the day to day, but Art? Art ensures people remember your vision. Beyond what one did to get there but the morality of that is still murky.

This is all just thoughts from my mind. I can say though that knowing what A.I. knows and what it doesn’t gives me a leg up. From that, I’ll be able to stand tall with my fellow humans because, ironically, we do have legs.

Crying while watching Jumanji

By the times the credits are rolling, so are the tears. I am thirty-nine years old, and I had never cried to this movie before. It is a kids’ movie, being that is good for the whole family but the themes it touched upon and my more ‘mature’ aesthetic got me in the feels, surprisingly.

The movie we are talking about? Of course, Jumanji. No, not the one with Jack Black. The 1995 version with none other than Robin Williams.

There is something about this movie, watching it many years later, that has a pull that few movies these days ever did. One of the things that watching it now made me appreciate it was its ability to not over explain.

We start the movie in what seems like the 1800s, some kids are digging a hole and putting a box in the whole that is making, not to stereotype, this jungle drum beat. The kids bury it and then it fast-forwards to the year 1969 (or some date similar) to a New England-like place (I am going by memory here and can’t take the time to look it up at the moment).

There is no witch doctor, no family curse; it just is. As the audience, we see Alan, a short kid who is picked on by the town bullies because of his family name. Now, this is something I can see being an issue these days. The kid lives in a mansion. Literally. From the looks of it, he is an only child and lives in something that is akin to living in the White House (or makes the McAllister family in ‘Home Alone’ envious). Of course, the house being so big does help with making the events that do happen later in the movie keep stable (because a stampede rushing through a two-bedroom apartment on the seventh floor of an apartment complex probably would leave a whole lot of mess on the pavement, as well as a visit from PETA).

However, despite the financial well being of his family (they made their fortune making shoes), Alan is also friends with Carl(played by David Allan Grier), one of his father’s employees. Carl tries to introduce Alan to a new line of shoes (think pre-Reebok basketball sneakers), but Alan is so into his own well-being, when he forgets to pick up the sneaker from the line and it damages a piece of machinery, Alan walks away, leaving Carl to take the blame and eventually get fired (in that timeline, which we’ll get to in a moment).

Before the machinery incident, Alan talks to his dad, trying to get a ride with him home so he doesn’t get beat up by the bullies. His father, speaking to him ‘mano-i-mano’ tells him to face his fears because well, his father has other things to do. The separation between the two is tangible as Alan feels like he has to face a lot of what he goes through life, alone. The mother is visible, but absent as the other half of parenting and that brings me to another point.

Now, I understand that the movie is suppose to bring about an allegory between Alan and his father(who is played by Jonathan Hyde who also plays two ‘father’ roles in the film), Alan and Peter (the boy who moves in with his sister and Aunt later in the timeline), but the women in this film are absent.

Sarah Whittle, who is played by Bonnie Hunt later in the film, is the girl who Alan likes but hasn’t come up and tell her. After a fight with his father about going to a private school that he doesn’t want to go to, Alan prepares to leave the house to runaway. His parents have to go to some grand party meeting. In the car, Alan’s mother is trying to tell Alan’s father something but when confronted angrily, she just stays silent.

The women in this movie do not exhibit any power whatsoever and it is disheartening to see. Even when at the end of the movie and things go back the way they were (this board game is WAY too powerful), the mother is still absent and I feel it takes away from the importance of parenting where there is a time to be harsh, but also a time to be soft. Yes, Alan does realize he is taking after his father’s ‘cold’ ways when Sarah and his sister, Judy, praise Peter when he grabs the game from a raging river, or after a battle within a department store with the Hunter that comes out of the game, Alan sees that after twenty-plus years in the game, he takes after his father and only when he is a ‘father-figure’ himself, does he realize what is going on.

However, Sarah, Judy, the kids’ Aunt; they have things happen to them where they are in turn, powerless. Sarah could have kept playing till she rolled a five or eight, but she was so scared she never returned to get Alan out of the game (this is after they began playing in the 1960s). Judy is a great liar, where her skill to create fabrications only comes in when talking to the police (make those connections as you will). Then that is the only time she actually is active within the whole movie.

Peter, the supposed quiet one, not only talks Alan into playing the game with “reverse psychology” that HIS FATHER taught him (cause the kids’ parents are dead in the past timeline, you see), but is also the one who catches the board game, who creates an elaborate Home-Alone-esque trap in the department store while turning into a monkey-human hybrid, and is the one who gets the ax from the shed.

The movie so heavily leans on the men doing all the work and yet, the women are the “outliers”, the collateral damage. Even when an indoor monsoon from the game floods the house and a crocodile tries to eat Sarah and the kids, Alan is the one to save them all.

Now I get it, Robin Williams was the star and he does a FANTASTIC job in the role he is given. However, the character Alan is not remarkable. He doesn’t have a specific skill or interest that makes him stand out. The world, in Jumanji, revolves around Alan and so do the women.

Imagine, instead, that Judy was the one that created the amazing Rube-Goldberg-Canoe-Rocket? Or instead of Alan saving everyone from the crocodile, Judy saves everyone and shows up as an equal to Alan, facing her fear and showcasing how much she cared and loves Alan? There would be, at least in my perspective, balance. Just like in the board game and everyone is equal in the eyes of the game, so should everyone else be able to outside the game.

Even with that glaring bit, the movie itself is just full of whimsey. Playing a game that when you play, the animals start coming out? This is around the time I started receiving Zoobooks through the mail and let me tell you: before the internet, those books were SO GOOD. Looking through each page, seeing the details of animals of all shapes and sizes. Watching Jumanji brought me back to such an era where what came out of the game was not fiction, but an animal I could see in real life (besides those man-eating vines. The spiders were probably from Australia, I reckon).

The transformation of the mansion from this extravagant, posh area, to an abandoned home, to a living rainforest lives rent-free in my mind. Would it be difficult to move any type of furniture around in that house? Absolutely. Does it look better as a rainforest than later on when they attempt to recapture the Christmas feelings of the McAllistors? You bethca. (I have been dunking on Home Alone but it is just something about movie homes’ during those times that have a similar vibe).

The use of both traditional animatronics for close-ups and stills, alongside the use of Computer Generated Graphics is astounding, because, at the time, recreating a real-animal and make it life-like was just out of this world! I mean, yeah, the monkeys still look bad (it is that uncanny valley with the faces), but the rest of the animals? Stellar work to those who worked on the film both in programming and in practical effects.

And though I do see the movie is plagued by being filmed around Alan’s life, I must commend it on taking itself seriously. There is a part after Alan and the kids meet up with Sarah and she is still trying to believe that the little boy from the 60s is alive and also, the game is magic, she tells them she is scared and what if she gets sucked up into the game. Alan reassures her that he won’t stop playing, and in doing so, both Judy and Peter say the same thing, propping their hands in the center of the table.

In this day and age, that kind of scene would seem out of place. It feels too grounded in reality. The movie takes a moment to reflect on Sarah’s fear and confusion, but also showcasing the bravery, resiliency, and promise from the group that they will not stop until the game is finished. No wink and nod to the audience, just pure story.

Ultimately, I think this is one of the reasons why, even with my gripes with the female characters, the film holds up so well. It is not looking to make a franchise (though if there was a Jumanji in different parts of the world, that would be SO AWESOME! Alas, it was not to be…yet), it was not looking to sap more money with tie-ins (yes, there was that interesting cartoon and board game but that’s later). A film that wanted to showcase the importance of parenting, being a kid, and facing your fears.

Oh, and to always finish what you start. Hence why I am typing all of this down at once and not taking any breaks because if I did, it’d be twenty-nine years later until I come back to this.

“Darkest Timeline”: why does it matter?

When people began mentioning about “we’re in the darkest timeline” or “this is the worst timeline”, I was at first thinking if they were quoting the character Abed, played by Danny Pudi, from the show, “Community”. At first, I thought, it was cute, or I would grin at the mention of this show in social media comments and posts.

But then it was not going away. Like a catch phrase from Rob Schneider in the 80’s, it got annoying to hear, or in this case, read. With Climate Change, tyrannical governments, job loss through Language-Learning models, social media disasters, mental (and physical) health crisis’ that are happening all over the world, why are people so insistent to bring this phrase up in serious discussions of said events?

It made me ponder why it affected me so much. What people post online should not bother me so much, even if it is an attempt of rehashed cynical humor. However, it just kept gnawing at me; this response to these dastardly and abysmal circumstances all over the globe struck me as a sigh of giving up. “The Evil that is all around us has won. It is time we all go home and wait for the End times”.

I do not want to give up. I want to hope. I want to do. Even if this was the ‘darkest timeline’, then what are we doing just waiting around, allowing the bad people be bad people? Or the bad things being bad things? Of course, someone would say ‘well, technically, what is good or bad?’ and to that person I say buzz off and try to sound remedial somewhere else. You know what I mean, and you know what you stand for.

The phrases we use day by day affect our very minds and souls. I’m researching more about it (more like reading books that may or may not have been cross-checked), but there is something I remember, and this comes from Mr. Rogers.

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” -Fred Rogers

We must find and shine a light on those helpers. We might not know who they are (just like a superhero), but we can see they tried or did good. They risked their lives or just created something great and shared it with the rest of us. We do not even have to see the news. We can look all around us and see it. I mean, I hope we all can see it.

The trees grow, even if the human vibes are disgusting. The rain falls to water the plants. The animals around us do their best to continue the cycle that has enabled them to assist the plant running the way it has for hundreds of thousands of years.

If this is the ‘Darkest timeline’, we would not have been able to see ANYTHING around us because there would be no light. That means we have time. Time to change things around us. It doesn’t have to be as big as Superman or Chadwick Boseman; one just has to be able to make the change.