Times are tougher than expected now. Things have gotten out of control financially and currently I’m trying my best to sort things out but the next few weeks will be an interesting hard one nonetheless.
First let’s talk about my current ills.
I’m currently trying to communicate with the power company to fix the complex issue that my parents left me to do. The accumulation of debt had triggered the power company to want to cut the electric cord has my attention. It’s due to the neglectful act way back in September when my parents basically ignored the fact that me and my siblings were trying hard to keep things working. I JUST started my job and I get this avalanche of responsibilities hit me like a train. I went into depression right after seeing the mountain of crap I have to process. It almost feels intentional because my parents really want to sell the house but their bad financial habits of burning cash like water had us all in really bad shape at the end of the year.
This has yanked me away from making anything new.
Creatively it’s just been hard to continue doing my projects, so I cancelled them all until I can get back control of the situation.
Right now I’m looking at $1,300 in electric bills and $1,700 home tax that is due at the end of this month. I’m currently at $19 dollars in my account making 12 an hour and getting a paycheck every 2 weeks while my schedule is so inconsistent but average at 20 hours per week, maximum at 35 hours and the minimum at 18 hours per week.
So continuing, the power company is basically done with my “dad”, because the cumulative balance hasn’t been paid in 5 months, but the record shows that I, Me the son, have been putting in a total of $900 since. It’s all in the house account online. Even with that, they ignore it all. I have been cutting down on electric use since my parents left to florida by $150, saving enough so that my maximum that I can give to the bill, $300, can cut the big bill down. That’s the strategy, but again – the power company doesn’t want to have it.
So now I’ve been trying to call them but just the robot answers and I was told that all reps are only focused on emergency calls only at this time of writing.
This is just driving me up the wall and I want to resolve this as quick as possible.
With that said, in which is taking my energy away from being creative, I have to let winter freeze all progress down until I can. Financially I’m in really bad shape and I can’t do anything because it’s on my mind 24/7. Trying to buy food is hard too in winter, as I don’t use a car to get to places. I instead been walking to the grocery store and grabbing as much as I can hold, to then walk all the way home, 1 hours worth, so I can then make dinner after. I’m alone in this part of my life, but occasionally i get help from family and strangers, but not always. This is why I miss how my family used to be before 2018 happened. So now I see that all my time is tied up in living.
To explain more on what I mean about my time being all tied up in living, before 1 video would take just 8 hours to make, now it takes 5 days to do. Creating just 1 image, drawing or pixel, what used to take 3 to 8 hours now takes 3 to 7 days. It’s this I feel that everything I wanted to do is now near impossible. The time I have to set versus trying to get that concentration to make something is way more crucial to me, and any interruption can fuck me up big time and set me back.
When stuff like the electric company trying to pull the plug on me happens, I fall into depression and can’t concentrate anymore. I’m constantly scared about it and simply I can’t find a way to put my focus to do anything but to find a solution to face the situation at hand.
This is why I’m not going to make games, because again, time is way more important now and I’m being drained away with these things that is basically making me suicidal because I find doing my passion mentally satisfying but I have to push it aside. I have to be responsible and my passion isn’t paying the bills.
I’ve been going down this slump for the last 3 years now. It hurts. I thought maybe I can get an investor interested in my project, but nope, it isn’t enough. This was a factor why I tried to go into bitcoin and cryptocurrency, and that just made things worse. I went also into Forex, that killed me because I wasn’t mentally ready for it.
Trying to put together this post is also just bad emotions because of trying to line up what’s going on with me is just painful to think.
Folks, really, I’m tired. I’m tired of hitting a wall all this time. I feel so desperate right now.
Thus my next plan of action, when I get my check, is to reconstruct all 4 sites with a tool that will replace Adobe Muse and implement ads to them all. I really tried to keep things ad free, but at this rate I’m going to lose it all. I don’t want to lose it all – which means imminent suicide. I will self-terminate if I lose it all. Basically is all or nothing, and I don’t have energy to repeat shit again since my crohns is a hinderance and may complicate things in the future. To do this I need help from working with things like ads. I might even ask for help if things really get bad but I have a little bit of faith in myself that I can get over this shitty chapter but that doesn’t stop the negative thinking.
Continuing about my plans, I will have less invasive ads so it won’t be annoying but accumulation of time and combination with content that people will feel satisfy is key here. That’s where finding the money and time to do that is expensive now but not impossible. Expensive because of time, which is, again, much more valuable than money here.
I first must pay out of pocket to get things rolling, but after that I would have to find strategies that can help me get traffic here and my other 3 sites. I’m also going to plug-in an online shop for common goods that people can get that I can get commission from as well. ALL IN DUE TIME! That’s why this stupid energy situation is costing me my time.
Time, I repeat that word like crazy here. It’s something that cannot get back and I’m learning through this part of my life that I can’t simply waste it with this nonsense. 2019 I want to accomplish balance in many things. I want to be able to keep the things I have built. All I have created cost so much time to do, and to lose it all will be extremely devastating to me. So even though if the electricity gets cut, I will have to find ways, like journey to the city library to do my work on my off days, which are now limited due to priority in getting money to pay bills.
This winter I might get all of this bad shit happening and paying for utilities is even crazier this season. So it would slow me to a crawl but stop me. Cutting cost is the game here through this moment, which will end in 2 months, hopefully.
So if things get better in those 2 months, then expect me to return back to making anything big again and finding a programmer to help out, otherwise I project that this year it’s gonna be another 2017 until the end, and I’m really trying to make it better.
So everyone is talking about what they have experienced in 2018, right? Well, it’s my turn to tackle this as well. I really don’t want to look back at the bad stuff that has happened, but the good stuff won’t have that shine if i don’t. So let’s get deep into the bad stuff first.
Side Note:This is a script for my video I’m presenting as well. I feel it makes it easier for people to choose either to read it or just listen to me read it out loud to you. It also helps me keep on track on what I’m doing in the video now, as I can’t wing it anymore like i used to because my mind just can’t.
Alright,
The first thing that happened that continued from November 2017 to January of this year is the bitcoin craze. All of the world was watching in as cryptocurrency stormed into town with new innovative concepts that can help humanity advance into a new more personal world for everyone in the globe. This is actually nothing new as it was something that has been happening now for the last 10 years. But sadly it was as expected a short lived thrillride that fascinated many in getting into it. The biggest of the promises is basically getting rich with the explosive trends. Bitcoin felt like an element that would have changed everything the way we lived by introducing blockchain in many places in our industrial world.
That is still pending, but sadly I won’t see anyone adopting bitcoin in a very long while. The scene has drastically changed and evolved to the point in making bitcoin obsolete for whoever wants to jump in now. The common man won’t ever need to use it as cash anymore. It’s a novel idea now, and only the crowd was interested in leaving the control of the Fiat currency, but instead, cried like a baby for governments to instill their corrupted hands on to it and deliver it back to the world power of the international monetary fund. Thus rules in place blocked concepts like crypto from ever gaining any dominance although not absolutely. There is still potential that the world will adopt a better world currency that bitcoin promised.
The IRS has put penalties to anyone who tries to incur crypto without reporting it. That by itself stops anyone below the middle class from ever adopting it. Even though 10 years have passed since bitcoin got introduced, I feel we need at least 30 years more for the world to comprehend it and make the crypto market mature enough for everyone to be in it. The Status quo never changed after the tsunami of bitcoin in the year 2017, but it gave rise to shady pyramid dealings with folks who thought they were protected by the element of anonymity by getting into crypto. The IRS isn’t stupid, they prepare themselves for anything that remotely seems like counterfeiting or schemes that try to undermine them and the very system we all are in.
This is why everyone flocked so hard on Bitcoin, because it is the new wild west. No rules, new frontier, with promise of great wealth and riches one would only dream about. This was true to only that 1% who won the lottery, but not for me or my family. We got tricked into the whole craze late in the game. I wanted to learn more about it but not like the way i carried it out. I feel so heartbroken about it and lost when all the money just simply disappeared in the rollercoaster ride that was bitcoin. I was just too clumsy and dumb to understand this new thing, and many have gotten burned by this too.
I went and invested in websites that promised returns, that vanished within 3 weeks of their arrival. Thousands gone. I thought there were people who believed in changing the world, but instead acted in the shadows to deceive and trap those who acted to find riches as fast as abnormally possible. Seeing examples of many who have won, it felt like a mosh pit of zombies wanting to get rich quick. My father bombarded by fear and stress, was getting convinced by a crook who just wanted to absorb as much money for himself as humanly possible, praying on my stroke-ill parent who only wanted for his family to be at peace.
Bitcoin was in the center of this hallucination. This is the true experience and why bitcoin globally will not be taken seriously for a very long time with the average joe. This is why the market dived once all the schemes were revealed by the governments as games to hurt the innocent. This is why the giant tech companies had to block crypto ads to parent the innocent who just wanted to break away from their hell.
This all happened within 7 months in 2017, and concluded in April of 2018.
Just in how crypto fell in value, I decided to go back into game development, and put the last of what I had, money value-wise, into it.
I just wanted to get a prototype working so i can tell everyone about my game and be able to find others to help me push forward this 7 year old project that originally was a story I started 20 years ago. I worked on this so much and so hard. So I seeked for someone to help me advance to the next level in making it a reality. I projected to have an alpha build by June of 2018, but that didn’t happened. Instead, i missed the deadline I had to submit to Boston Festival of Indie games, and I slided into a deep depression that caused a suicidal episode. My parents telling me they are gonna sell the house didn’t help at all with me feeling any better.
I had cut my wrist, knowing that i can’t go on anymore. The debt overhead, the house, letting my parents down on the bitcoin bullshit, letting my family down in general just had me spiritually defeated. My dreams crumbled. My heart crushed in a million pieces. Then after I felt really dark and hopeless. I really just wanted to end my life.
In July 2018, my wisdom tooth broke. I was malnourished, my body was showing signs of breaking down. I was suffering pains as well. The heartbreak was too much, but then my parents, helped me at this time. I had to choose to wake up from this down turn. I tried to recover myself from it by taking vitamins that helped with my mood, but it wasn’t enough. I was still feeling dead inside.
My parents then suggested for me to leave with them to florida for a good 3 weeks. AND just when I was getting ready to leave, my desktop computer just goes bad on me. I couldn’t finish my 3D model I was working on, so I left it alone and just… Go to florida and focus on family.
That helped a little. I got to see my niece for the first time. I went to disney world… That was such a good highlight. but more on that later-
It helped, the bad feelings were subsiding. Then i texted my brother and told him to help me. He agreed to find me a spot at his job. Thus another miracle right there-
Okay, I guess 1 more bad moment before I go into the good.
The final nail of hurt was September 29, 2018, where I missed Boston Festival of Indie games because the guy who promised me to work on my game had vanished. Then I get a text from him saying he can’t continue any longer because of the technical conditions set and also he was suffering. He hasn’t had any other job but making games for others, and at that time he didn’t have any income. The pressure in paying rent was there, and the agreement had to be broken. It wasn’t fulfilled, he wasn’t able to do the battle mode I paid him for to do because of technicalities that discouraged him from doing so. That’s why I told him to do what he can. He succeeded in making it the character move and climb ladders but no battle mode because, again, the package library that was being used was a pain to understand it.
That killed me. That hurt a lot. I was looking forward in seeing what he could have done.
Then I got scammed again on instagram.
At this point, in late October, consider me not feeling anything anymore about life. Reality hit so hard that I just became numb falling deeper into despair. My health diminishing as I put energy into my new job, and nothing to look forward for the future but bills and more debt. depression had set in again really hard, and I tried to “work it out” by just focusing on my job but I just got lost more and more into my negative thoughts.
Instead, work helped to put a hold on those thoughts until I returned home.
It has been really tough to do anything creative since then. Even to stream live was just so hard for me.
~Now enter the positive parts of the year~
My wisdom tooth breaking smacked me with some sense. I realized I had to wake up from this feeling and I pushed hard. I got angry against this negative bind my mind had over me. Then the trip to Florida helped a lot. Meeting my Niece for the first time was a wonderful experience, not adding that my sister took me to Volcano Bay at Universal Studio park. We even went to Downtown Disney. It was a great time that blinked me back into sense.
Then to my surprise, my brother had actually got me a spot at his job right after I arrived back home from spending the time with my parents and sister. This happened right in August 2018.
I got to see my brother get married. I made new friends. I’m still without working phone service lol
My parents got to fly over and experience my brother’s wedding as well. They stayed home until late October, then they left back to Florida. It was a great time, putting my focus on grinding and paying back what was owed.
I also started saving up for the Nintendo Switch in late September 2018.
My job has been very welcoming with great people to work with. The pay is meh, but it doesn’t hurt at all to know that the ensemble of workers are super kind and wonderful. It makes me care more about the place.
Then I was invited to go to a meeting of entrepreneurs called the moonlighters. That was good and I felt I made progress in being brave and going alone. later in November, my sister gave both me and my brother a huge surprise that basically turned things really interesting for the next couple of years.
As for my health – to find a balance, I intensely switched into vegan/pescaperian diet. It has resulted in more stamina and agility than what I had eating meat. Alas, it has been hard to cut away 100% in eating dairy foods, but I keep it at a minimal. I notice that when I do eat meat, I get sick for 2 days but when i do grains and soy products, I tend to get back that lost energy. Even giving up eating bread helped in alleviate my asthma, surprisingly for me. This also helps to control that depressive mental state a little bit. It doesn’t get rid of it though. Reality is still there.
Rocking hard 5 weeks streak of working, i hit a all time high in earnings in November at $1,900. I wasn’t even counting but the bank reported in the amount and I was shocked. Since it’s the maximum most busiest time at my job, they gave me the extra hours. This gave way to me being able to get a Nintendo Switch Smash Bros edition at the day of release in November. I immediately had buyers remorse, so I placed the item in the attic until it was time to break it out in December.
After all of that, entering December, I was able to pay my electric bill in full confidence. I’ve been saving up my power use at home, and working extra hours helped to cut down on electricity use.
I’m in total efficiency mode. It helped my brother focus more on the bigger picture as well, which is paying the other stuff that are equally as important. The only trouble here is saving for the biggest bill coming up in February 2019 – In this note, I have to grind hard and ask for extra hours at work to cover this one.
So there is an immense progressively positive movement here. I’m single, so I don’t have anyone telling me to do stuff. That’s where I have to really be hard on myself because there is no one that will give me that hard love than I. It’s hard. I’m getting forgetful on things, so I’m losing stuff too.
I’m alone.
You may take it as a negative, but it is also a positive. I’m happy in being alone, but having someone extra reminding me or watching my back would be super great! I just am not that lucky right now to have anyone like that with me. If you do, treasure them.
With that said, thank you for having the time to take all that in.
