The Stratagem’s Archive

Category: blogging

  • I’m Afraid of Wasting My Potential — So I Learn Everything I Can, While I Can.

    How do you plan your goals?

    An Unstructured Structured System

    My goals undergo a process; it often comes from a place of spontaneity: listing every curiosity and skill down on paper, researching the amount of time and resources I’m able to free up without forfeiting my current lifestyle or neglecting my current obligations, and doing a process of elimination.

    More often than not, my plans are born from a place of mild obsession. I hate feeling small, weak, worthless, useless, and always at the mercy of someone else because of their “position/place of authority.”

    To put it simply, I carry a few questions with me everyday. It scratches the surface of my awareness to the point I’m physically on auto-pilot, but mentally overstimulated and calculating:

    • How Much Time Do I Have Left?
    • How Many More Opportunities Do I Have Left To Explore?
    • How Many of My Curiosities Will I Be Able To Satisfy?
    • Will I Be Proud of My Life If I Stay Where I Currently Am?

    These aren’t the complete list of questions, but they are the most important. I had spent the first 2 decades of my life hiding, playing video games to numb the pain, to hide the fact that I was not gifted with much skill, brains, or strength. I could easily acquire skills and experience quick in video games, unless you’re playing any FromSoft game, but I refused to do the same in real life.

    I decided very recently to change my narrative, and it’s a hit or miss some days. Starting a blog was born from a long wish to write and share when I have no one who would sit and listen in person; I’m learning to code, despite having had an awful experience in university with zero exposure or knowledge prior, to be an opportunity to overcome self-imposed limitations; Allowing my mind to wander and become distracted often leads to adding fuel to my personal fire.

    What Are My Reasons For Planning Things This Way?

    My reasons for planning my goals this way is simple. I’m not striving towards pure freedom, some rules need to remain in place. I’m striving to reduce fear’s hold on me and to expand my options. To use my anger against myself, circumstances, other people that irritates me for something constructive.

    How many of us are living life where our options are limited?

    That is what I want, to expand my options, to release as much anger and rage as I can, one centimeter at a time. The goals I’m striving are for me, for where I want to go, who I want to grow into, and to experience things that I had denied myself and witness and be a part of as many things as I can. True freedom is to have options, instead of having no options and feeling powerless, small, useless,worthless, and a failure.

    These are my goals, my struggles, my process, and my drive. Time is against me, it’s against all of us, and my self imposed deadline is fast approaching. 3 more years, I wonder what I’ll have accomplished by then. Only time will tell, and me!

    For more of my writing and things I’ve been planning, you can check out my other articles below. Thanks!

  • Trite and Vexing Vocabulary

    What is a word you feel that too many people use?

    Many words have been used to the point that hearing it provokes a visceral reaction. I know that I tend to feel myself: tense up, I feel a noticeable thumping hitting the front of my skull, I’m mentally rolling my eyes, and letting out a heavy huff. It’s the only way that I’m able to release the bubbling irritation boiling within me, before returning to emotional numbness, especially when I’m at work.

    The few words or phrases that tends to get a rise from me, in the sense that I want to drop kick whoever is talking, are:

    • Can you go do X? (Either I’m already or about to do it, or the person asking bypasses more than half a dozen people standing around just to ask me? That’s infuriating.)
    • Have you seen so-so? (I’m not getting paid to babysit young adults, no. Go bother the people who’s supposed to be training the new hires.)
    • [S/he’s] not doing anything! (Have you EVER noticed you’re doing the same thing? It’s irritating, nothings going to change, just do your job and leave. Still working on taking my own advice too.)
    • I want to go home already. (Me too, but we have to finish sorting the freight, then we can leave. But that’s wishful thinking on good days.)

    These are other words and phrases I can’t think of at the top of my head, though it does make me want to drop kick people, but it also depends on how it’s being said.

    Think of it like this; we all have our preferences and it will differ from the people we know and don’t know, right? However, have you ever heard one person speaking and their voice is pleasant, soothing, and makes you want to listen more intently? Okay, keep that in mind.

    Now, imagine the most irritating, nail scratching, metal grinding metal, and obnoxious sounding person you can muster and saying the words you absolutely despise and are repeating it over and over again until you start to think your ears are bleeding. That makes those overly used words even more difficult to tolerate.

    There’s nothing that can be done about it, sadly, it’s another lingo, and the best I can do for myself is to tune everything out and do what I have to do. No matter how angry, bitter, and resentful I feel, no matter how much I want to drop kick people, I just have to exist and let go.

    For more posts like this, I have a few recommendation below, and I’ll see you over in the next ones!

    Where Peace Radiates From Most?

    My Life Through An Alternate Lens

    The Little Things Make Me Happy

  • Where Peace Radiates From Most?

    What brings you peace?

    The majority of the prompts I’ve answered since starting my blog had asked similarly, but worded differently, questions, and I had mentioned doing some physical activity. Walking had been my most prominent answer, although it’s true, this brings me contentment.

    Peace on the other hand is different; I’ve lived near the ocean my whole life and, as a kid, I’d used to have to be dragged out of the water to leave. Some people have a strong connection to the ocean: they care for it and in return the ocean would care for us. Not in the same sense as we would care for our family and friends.

    One of my grandma’s younger brother had take shrapnel from a grenade blast when he served in the Vietnam war as a young man. He was on and off medication because the doctors couldn’t remove all of the metal in his body because it would have led to him bleeding to death, so they left the metal in his body. It was until their dad took him fishing one day that, when he was out on the water casting a line, his pain felt far away.

    Whenever I used to go swimming, I would never stray too far from the shore, I would feel at peace in the water. The saltiness of the water would let me float on my back, fill my ears and everything would feel and sound muffled, sand would end of getting into places you’d never want them to be, and I would stare at the sky and let the current take me adrift.

    Being in the ocean, among the sandy shores, that hasn’t been fully contaminated by myriad of sun screen or boat waste, has been healing for both body and spirit.

    Even though I haven’t visited a beach in years, being in a hot bath provides a similar feeling the ocean used to bring to me. That feeling, though fleeting and stretched into infinity, was being able to let go and drift.

    No need to go anywhere, no obligations to fulfill, no noise about being a failure or a success or a nobody or a somebody, just being. Just breathing. Just existing.

    The sea has its rules and ignoring it would lead to disaster:

    • Never face your back to the water, else a rogue wave comes and drags you in.
    • Never fight against the current, go with it until the current calms and you can swim.
    • Take care of the sea, make it better than you found it, and it will care for you.

    Letting go and drifting in the water had brought me peace. It made me wonder if this is what moving on would feel like when my time comes, but I won’t know until I get there. The next time you’re in a large body of water, or even a simple bathtub, drift on your back, close your eyes and let the water envelope you.

  • The Autodidact’s Journey: Introducing the “Starting Over” Series

    What Will This Series Be About?

    Welcome, Co-conspirators, the Stratagem’s Archives are now open for perusing. Today I will be starting a series called, “Starting Over.” To put it simply, let me ask a single question.

    “What skills or hobbies did you want to learn, but stopped MOSTLY because of an awful experience?”

    That is essentially what “Starting Over” is going to be about; returning to pick up the skills and hobbies I gave up on and didn’t pursue for years. All thanks to the experiences I had that convinced me I wasn’t smart enough to learn, or that, because I had no prior knowledge or experience or skill, I shouldn’t have pursued those skills or hobbies in the first place.

    As you already know, “The Stratagem’s Archive,” is a place where I document my interests, thought experiments, what I’m learning, what I’ve learned, and what I’ve tried so far. Despite not having credentials, formal education or a mentor, or prior skill and knowledge, I didn’t want the obvious to prevent me from trying again.

    Fear, criticism, boredom, lack of money and time and energy, and every other obstacle under the sun already dictates majority of our lives.

    As a lifelong learner, a person, and an Autodidact, I am choosing to say, “No More”, and start my journey with picking up the things I gave up on because I “failed to learn it the first time.” (HEAVY AIR QUOTES).

    Anyways, each “Starting Over” installment will be different and broken up into parts:

    • My previous experiences and what made me stop.
    • The resources I’ve chosen to get back into learning.
    • And what I’ve learned and made so far to showcase here on the blog.

    I am extremely excited to begin this project; I had stood in my own way for a long time, believed people who knew better tell me to give up, but I only have this one life.

    • When will I ever get the chance to do anything ever again if I keep letting myself waste time with sulking and wishing?
    • When will any of us finally decide that NOW, choosing to try again, to start again, will be the only time we have now?

    Whether we are “Starting Over” or trying something new for the first time, we get to decide to:

    • shift our perspectives and psychology.
    • adjust our relationships with success and failure with learning and ourselves.
    • be proactive with our learning anyways.

    That is the beauty, and challenge, of being a lifelong learner and a fellow autodidact, polymath, renaissance person, and everything in-between. I have a similar post down below that you could check out, and I’ll see you in the first installment. Thank you.

    Enjoyed this post?

    I write about creativity, coding, art, and personal growth.

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    Fixing An Xbox 360 Error Code E68 As a Complete Noob:

  • What Profession(s) Do I Admire?

    What profession do you admire most and why?

    This is a tough question because it seems to me that we can only pick 1 profession to admire and explain our reasoning below. I’m going to be bending the prompt to suit my needs and share what I think instead.

    The professions that I admire are almost all of them, except for the illegal types like: trafficking, prostitution, drug dealing, forcefully indentured and many more that I don’t want to immerse myself in.

    I’ve worked entry level jobs my entire working life. I had worked at 2 separate grocery store chains, I’ve worked at a fresh food restaurant called, “Teddy’s Bigger Burgers”, I’ve been unemployed for 7 months from leaving my first job that I had since high school, and I’m currently working at a warehouse full time and at a rage room part time.

    My reasoning behind admiring every legal profession is that every job does keep society and the economy thriving.

    Yes, though many jobs are essential and necessary, I’m aware that the countless ways we are able to earn an income are less than ideal and to our preference. Myriad forms of employment are also:

    • Dangerous
    • Unsafe
    • Unsanitary
    • Grisly
    • Life threatening
    • Etc.

    However, without the people who have the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual fortitude to handle those kinds of work, someone was given the strength to do those jobs, things might have been different, wouldn’t you agree?

    • Teachers
    • Military
    • Customer service
    • Drivers
    • Nurses
    • Paramedics
    • Doctors
    • Veterinarians
    • Business owners
    • Custodians
    • Morticians
    • Programmers
    • Farmers
    • Ranchers
    • Personal Trainers
    • Accountants
    • Information Technicians
    • Hospice care
    • Police officers
    • Private investigators
    • Detectives
    • Security guards
    • Fire fighters
    • Rangers
    • Volunteers
    • Freelancers
    • Chefs
    • Bakers
    • Animators
    • Actors
    • Drivers
    • Bartenders
    • Comedians
    • Therapists
    • Authors
    • Publishers
    • Game developers
    • Architects
    • Spelunkers
    • Historians
    • EVERY JOB THAT LEGALLY EXISTS THAT CAN’T FIT IN THIS ALREADY LONG LIST, BUT ARE ACKNOWLEDGED ALL THE SAME!!!

    Every job is necessary, many are needed, stressful, monotonous, spontaneous, and sometimes thankless. Even though each job might not get the recognition, status, or pay that we believe we deserve, we are able to provide for ourselves, our families, our presents, and our futures.

    That is something we can admire – each job is a stepping stone and learning experience if we ever want to move up laterally in a company or vertically into a different field – we have the capacity to make our own path the best to our ability. We earn our keep however we currently can and strive for whatever we want to achieve in each chapter of our lives.

    If you agree or disagree with my list, share your thoughts in the comments below. I would love to know what you all think about this prompt. Otherwise, I have a few other prompts you could check out below. The archives will be closing now. See you again when we open. Thank you!

  • It is Important to Carry Memories

    What is the most important thing to carry with you all the time?

    I’m a hypocrite because I don’t make enough memories in my life with my family or those I care about. I’ve always hated cameras and flashes – it mostly stemmed from a childhood fear of one of R.L. Stein’s Goosebumps book about the haunted camera – and I never liked seeing my own face.

    Although, I guess I’d rather live through the memories than be included in the memories. I’ve always believed that my presence, even among family, tends to spoil the fun and experience. I’ve gotten good at being an observer because I know what it’s like to have someone very close to me lose their memories, themselves, in real time.

    Despite my personal feelings, the reason I chose memories is because I grew up with my paternal grandpa who had Alzheimer’s. As a kid, I didn’t understand why my Papa couldn’t remember much and my family told me to be patient because he couldn’t remember. You can’t tell a kid to do something when, at such young ages, it’s instinct to be impulsive and impatient.

    On the days he forgot, it hurt because it was as though, as a kid, my Papa could remember to do his chores, walk to McDonald’s to get his coffee, and get home safely, but not remember us.

    Sadly, I wasn’t the most behaved kid and I would do really stupid things like, locking the house door from the inside and watching him try to force the door open until my grandma would tell me to open the door. After I did, my grandpa would walk in, see me, and nothing else.

    I even remember when I would sleep in my grandma’s living room and I was woken up because my head was hurting, like someone was taking a hammer to my skull, and it had been my Papa hitting my head like I was a pillow because: 1)it was dark; 2)he couldn’t recognize or remember me.

    Even though it’s been years since I thought about him, he passed away in 2009 and I was just entering intermediate school, I think I’m thinking of him because my maternal grandpa passed away last month.

    He was still young – in his mid-sixties – he loved to cook, sing, play cards and make up his own rules to play, he told me stories of his time in the Army, his regrets, and how he would have done things differently if he had the chance.

    Now, I have both of my grandma’s still alive, but because I’ve been working so hard I haven’t made time to hang out with them or my family.

    My paternal grandma is in her early 80’s, still sound of mind and body, and maternal grandma is in her late 60’s, still sound of mind and body too.

    I fear that something will happen to my paternal grandma because I moved out, even though I tend to call her, I haven’t called her in a while. Even to my other grandma, hell, even to my parents.

    My mom likes taking pictures, I found them a waste of time, but as I’m getting older I’m starting to see their significance. As I get older, so does everyone else, and the amount of time I’ll get to listen to my family’s stories grow smaller and smaller, but even memories will slowly fade with time.

    I can’t remember much of my time with my Papa anymore and my Grandpa’s stories are slowly fading because I didn’t hang out with him as much as he wanted. I’d try, but I also didn’t make much effort either.

    I don’t know what anyone is going through, but if you have people in your life you still care about: call them, tell them you love them, something. Anything, especially if they do matter to you. My family doesn’t say a lot of things enough, we’re not ones for words of affirmation but through actions, but I can share that, from my experience, it does make a difference.

    I’m still working on this myself as I’m learning to navigate my own life as I’m approaching my new life stage of 30. Not there yet, but making memories is all we’ll have, even if we forget them, it’ll come back to us when we need them.

  • What Would I Want My Blog To Achieve?

    What change, big or small, would you like your blog to make in the world?

    The kind of changes that I would like my blog to achieve would be what I had originally planned it to be – a place where I could share my thoughts and ideas, archive the things that I’ve been trying my hand at and what I’ve learned so far, and possibly connect with people who might have similar interests as well.

    I had let fear stop me from trying new things and from pursuing things I wanted to because I believed it was difficult and I was intellectually challenged to learn. It wasn’t because I was dumb, rather I had been in a state of “learned helplessness”, I was inadvertently taught to give up and do something I could comprehend instead of pushing through.

    After years of allowing this trend to stop me, I finally started my own blog and I’ve been using it to share my progress, interests, and lessons learned from the day to day of my life or from lessons learned from somewhere else. I got fed up with living in faer, with stopping myself from trying new things, and from not exploring sooner because I am feeling behind in life.

    Despite feeling this way, I have a literal written record of what I’ve been doing, trying, and applying in my life through WordPress, through The Stratagem’s Archives, originally known as Plans2Action, to keep me accountable on my plans and executing on them while I’m still alive. I won’t have a lot of stories to take with me into my next life if I didn’t do anything new or had finished something to completion.

    Even if my blog doesn’t change the world or impact the lives of others in some large or small way. The only life that it should change is ultimately mine and this venture had been no small feat since starting. But it had led to some pretty grand ideas to formulate and execute on, right? I’ll see how this will go for me; I’m simply “Just an average dilettante who likes learning new things, see what outcomes I get, and share what I’ve learned here.”

  • My Life Through An Alternate Lens

    Describe your life in an alternate universe.

    Exploring The Opposite Side of Me

    I could imagine that an Alternative version of Me would have pushed through a lot of things. Alternative Me would have:

    • Stood her ground or walked away from friendships that weren’t supportive of her.
    • Avoided being a victim of stalking from discerning people sooner.
    • Stopped being a people pleaser ASAP.
    • Pushed through 1 more year of wrestling.
    • Started many projects early on: YouTube, blogging, coding, game design, locking picking, investing, etc.
    • Pursued scholarships to afford a full 4 years of university.
    • Pursued a mentorship or went abroad for school.
    • Avoided (personal loan) debts and paid with cash (for most things).
    • Found an apartment sooner to learn independent living, rely on family less sooner too.
    • Took my nutrition, sleep, and health more seriously.
    • Spent more time hanging out with family than shutting herself in her room over the years.

    Everything I currently am, the lessons I’ve learned up until now, this alternate me would have learned sooner and done things sooner with a broader and larger portfolio than what I currently have built up so far.

    Very likely I would have explored and been exposed to different fields, different people, experiences, and lessons sooner because I stood up for myself and didn’t let fear control me as my current self had done for years.

    So afraid of being alone, I clung to horrible friendships; So afraid of failure, I struggle to accept compliments and need constant reassurance that I’m doing alright; So terrified of being criticized that I never improving my skills or further my learning: writing, sketching, health, investing, anything until 2023 to 2025.

    But I can’t dwell on the past or on what I should have done, I’ll become depressed, and I’ll need to keep working on myself and pursue the things I want to while I still have the time. I had wasted years on hypotheticals that my reality had declined until this year alone, that it’s time to put in the work now more than ever. Time to improve, learn from the past, and build my present and future regardless of where I am today!

  • $200 in Exchange For More Time and Memories

    What’s the most money you’ve ever spent on a meal? Was it worth it?

    Before every Outback Steakhouse closed down in my state, it was the restaurant that my family would go to for lunch and dinner. It was the closest, and one of the better, sit down restaurant where it would be roughly a 20 minute drive for both sides of our family to get there.

    We used to buy a lot of appetizers before the entrees and then pack in dessert. For 2 people in a HCOL state, $200 is roughly the norm, including tip as well.

    The reason Outback was special was because it had been where I used to take my grandpa for his birthdays – I wasn’t making much money, but it was worth spending the little money I was earning – to hang out and talk stories with him.

    Good food, good company, what else could anyone ask for?

    I hadn’t hung out with my grandparent’s on my Mom’s side often, I usually didn’t feel like going to visit their house because I just preferred to stay home. Although, I used to work the night shift before, so I couldn’t hang out regardless during the week.

    Just so happen, my grandpa’s birthday landed on my days off, so I called him to hang out and we met up. He’d try to ask me if we could do lunch whenever I was free, but our days wouldn’t always line up because of our jobs. Gramps wasn’t retired yet, he was pretty young, so the movie productions would call him to work and I had my job to do too.

    Anyways, I remember some of the stories he used to tell me:

    • His time in the US Army after her graduated high school.
    • When he was stationed in Japan and in South Korea during the Propaganda war between North and South Korea, I think. (I remember the propaganda part, that was crazy!)
    • He was one of the few American soldiers that was able to compete, and win, in the Korean soldier’s Taekwondo military competitions.
    • He used to be the unofficial quartermaster in his unit. Whatever you needed: money, steaks, cigarettes, beer, he was able to get it and provided. He even remembered selling to his CO’s and they wouldn’t bother.

    I remember that he shared a few of his regrets. Gramps was a stubborn guy, like it was either his way or the highway kind of stubborn. He wished he made different choices if he had the chance. He told me that he:

    • Wished he stayed the full 20 years of active service to have gotten the pension and benefits from the military. He only completed 17 years.
    • Instead of joining the movie productions as an equipment driver, he wished he became a Stevedore instead. He mentioned they had great benefits and were part of a good union, but he was young and arrogant then.

    My Grandpa seemed vulnerable during those moments. I know that, as he got weaker, no one took him seriously at the house. I would tell my younger cousins that, if Gramps was as young as he was when I came into the picture, they’d be shitting themselves.

    They didn’t believe me because the Gramps they grew up with was very different from the Gramps I grew up with.

    At family gatherings, I’d help him cook. He’d show me how he did things, be it steak or making shrimp tempura from scratch. I listened when I was there because it seemed no one else was listening. Not even my younger, and his favorite of us, cousins.

    We recently had his funeral – he was in and out of the hospitals and we all thought he was getting better – and it didn’t look like he was dead in his casket. He looked like he was sleeping instead.

    I waited to see if he was going to sit up and have this as some sick joke because we didn’t visit as often like we said, make us come together in a morbid way. But he didn’t. He didn’t wake up.

    Much like my other grandpa who died when I was graduating Elementary school, though he had Alzheimer’s, I’ll eventually forget this grandpa’s stories: I’ll forget how he sounds like, what he smelled like, how he used to play music and sing. I might eventually forget the songs he sang along to too. I know what they are, I had most of them on my first IPhone in high school, but I won’t be able to hear him sing along anymore.

    Just like my other grandpa who passed years prior, the only memory I can remember is when he used to hum to himself. Just a tune when his mind was good. I used to copy him intuitively to remember. Even his tune is a broken forgotten melody I struggle to pull to the surface.

    Even though I didn’t have the money then, I could have made more money, made more time for him. But I was more worried about my paternal Grandma I lived with because she was much older than my maternal grandpa that I thought we’d have more time.

    The last time he was strong was when we celebrated my 28th birthday at the Cheesecake Factory last year. I was working the night shift when he passed away in the hospital this year.

    My parents told me the morning after I finished work, and on my day off, that he passed and I asked them why they didn’t call me. They said that they didn’t want to tell me while I was working and that they didn’t want me to remember my gramps’s last moments with his passing.

    I could have at least been there, but that time passed and now he’s gone. I don’t think of him much these days, but when I do, I still cry. Like I didn’t grieve enough at his funeral.

    I wish I had more time, I wish I didn’t waste what time I had, and I’d trade all the money I have and more if I could have been around more. But I can’t and I’ve learned from my mistakes with my surviving Grandmas. Do more than I did before.

    Even though I had spent $200 at Outback to celebrate the few birthdays the two of us went for him, it was worth the memories we have and I miss him.

  • What The Little Things Mean to Me — And Why They Matter More Than They Should.

    List 30 things that make you happy.

    Maybe 30 Is Too Much

    I can enjoy a few small things that make me forget the insanity of the world and my current place in it – most are free and others have a monetary price – as these ground me most days. These take my mind off of whatever distresses me and I’m able to temporarily return to a baseline of calm and ease.

    This isn’t a comprehensive list, though it is long, but it’s not everything that brings me joy. You know when you have a lot of interests and you have to narrow things down to fit on an index card? Yeah, I had to do that here. What usually brings me joy, the order is of no importance, is:

    • A walk around the neighborhood
    • A hot bath after a long day of working
    • A good book to read
    • A good pen to write with and a good journal to write in
    • Good music to listen to
    • A good movie to watch
    • Making time to sketch
    • Playing a good game (video, card, reading, or D&D)
    • Letting a YouTube “Let’s Play” playlist play in the background
    • Cooking a nice meal for myself and for family
    • Solving a problem that’s stumped me
    • Learning something new and interesting: be it a fact, skill, or a secret
    • Talking stories and listening to someone talk
    • Existing alone in silence
    • Visiting a bookstore and libraries
    • Going someplace where no one knows you
    • Collecting foreign currency
    • Being alive as a means for revenge

    In these rare moments I focus on doing something or nothing is when I’m most free.

    I’m not struggling to meet some arbitrary standard, not trying to impress someone who decides whether or not I’m worthy of something they have power over, not trying to do something that could benefit someone else through my work and efforts.

    A brief reprieve, a moment to simply exist.

    A moment to let the voices outside of me, and inside my head, to fall away, and I’m left in silence before the noise takes over again. Thank you for reading this one, I’ll see you when the archives opens again.

    The Courage to Live: How Living is The Best Revenge Against a Broken System: