So 2 weeks have passed now since PAX EAST 2019 happened. After the show, especially Sunday in which I wished to have gone, I fell into a bit of an unsettling feeling. The root of it all that I was trying to figure out for myself has to do with the overwhelming feeling of uncertainty. I have a quota I want to keep per month, and since 2 weeks ago my hours have been cut since I asked for time to go to the event, the schedule hasn’t come back to normality yet, where the lowest matching time would be above 16 hours per week, but this week I got 13 hours instead. Since I get paid bi-weekly, just calculating in this period in time, I will only get $371 after taxes (estimated), in which totalling from the previous check, $913, which is the estimated amount per month I get to cover for food, utilities, house tax, house insurance, and entertainment. This is not mentioning that I also have backed debts as well as I invest in my business side with the money I earn through my job. Thankfully I have my brother who earns way more than me to cover the big stuff and has a more consistent schedule than I do.
Furthermore, the pressure isn’t as high thanks to my younger sibling luck in getting more hours in. I still want to be able to pull my part but it has been really tough because I’m not hitting that specific number for the month. On average I get 900 a month, which I can’t even do much with it as 600 of it goes for everything I mentioned above, then contend with food. I might sound like a brat here but this is why I fall into a consistent cycle of depression. This is why I have started to pull back on updating because there is an ocean of bad moments, which sounds like complaining all the time, and only just a handful of celebratory moments that I can share. I wish I can, but life sucks for me right now that I can’t see it in the present. Hell I’m super numb about it that the only way to help it is to write it out here.
I’m putting it out there just to let you guys know that at this time of my life, it’s still very low even though it is way higher than last year. I still need to push myself to breakthrough this barrier. I have been fearing that once my crohns comes back, in which it has been in remission, that I won’t be able to do this style of work anymore. Overthinking as I usually do, I’m really concerned with the future. This is why I mentioned on social media that I need to do a big change. The main focus is to keep this site and my network alive for a bit longer before I can finish up on my big pies to start presenting next year. My motivation though has been at a stand still because of this overwhelming feeling. Trust me, It pains me to the point I had so many thoughts of suicide and just ending sounds so sweet and easy just because I fear disaster so much.
The true path, in which sounds way better money earning wise, I should have saved up to get my Adobe Pro certification. It cost $180.00 to register and take the exam. There are other cost layered on top of that, but if I get it, then I can actually share my achievement on social media and on freelancing sites like UpWork and Fiverr. This is only just a start, as I need to focus on finding a physical job that does graphic design or user design/experience. They are classes for those subjects that I can focus on after my certification, but in the meanwhile from all of this, the main passionate directive is still my game project. The problem is that I need money and developing my game takes a lot of time and focus to do. Developing a product won’t yield me any money at all until it’s ready for market, to even have that risk. In that time I need a secured income to cover the costs of living, breathing, and utility to make this real. Depression has hit me hard and uncertainty fills me with anxiety.
Financial security is number 1 on my priority right now. This is how I can pay my music and graphic artists as well as programmers. No monetary incentive, no game folks. Plain and simple.
This is why my despairing feelings feeds my depression and anxiety. I just want to know that for the meantime I’ll be alright and that I can continue without progress being interrupted. Is that simple. The quota per month that I require is $1300, that’s all. Nothing big in 2019, and I can finally feel fine and focus without having to complain about it. This is why I was saddened that I lost the spot at Seaport for the night shift as security. That would have lessen the physical pains and would help me enter a more balanced state.
Recently I’ve been feeling aches under my belly, the spot where the doctors took out 2 feet of intestines. This could mean my crohns is coming back from remission. I’ve only had 2 remissions before because I could control my shit, but the past 9 months have been really bad, habits wise. So I’m not surprised but a bit scared about this. I don’t want all my guts to get cut out. I want to restore my health again. This means taking drastic measures in avoiding smoke and alcohol (specialist recommendations). This includes cutting back on junk food too, and make my lazy way to making healthy meals. If I don’t adhere to the signs (discomfort before pain), then I’m gonna be in really bad shape.
So with that expressed, you guys already know. I need to get into shape and push away whatever negativity that may be. Sadly this only means less social party meet ups because they would normally include smoke and alcohol. This is why I only party as if I was a kid, playing video games, because I’m not a normally functioning adult that booze up and watch sports to ease up. Unfortunately I have to be picky about this or the quality of life for me will be shit going forward if I follow the crowd. Is that understandable?
In between all of this, folks also ask “why not do programming?” in which my reply is basically I’m stupid emotional. I terribly hate looking up on the screen and stare at code. I do it because I need to realize a concept, but doing it to help others I won’t because I don’t have the patience. If I don’t even have the patience for myself, why even go in the direction to teach anyone. I’m not even competent about it though in which I tried to learn for 10 years now.
One bad thing about being in a depressive state of mind for so long, for me, is that I noticed my brain is starting to forget everything. Complaining becomes a thing that happens a lot in my head. You then become indifferent, and you just float in space unable to react to things you have to do, but you don’t do because now perception of time has gone crazy fast. Anxiety is the results of snapping back to realize the time and then an overwhelming pressure of thoughts comes flooding in, paralyzing you. You then go numb and processing things suck monkey balls. Reaction is slow, and procrastination happens as the mind is trying to get back that energy wasted on pushing back on those thoughts. This cycles happen so fucking much that I just write off the next day. This also happens when I don’t go to work. I start fumbling and doing mistakes after a long break because my brain has been fighting itself throughout that time adjusting to the time of solitude. On that note it is why I’m really mad about the inconsistencies of my time schedule because I have to set my mind for it every week. Thus the “off days” I usually am here trying hard to figure out how to work things, worrying about tomorrow. I just want something consistent. Because after this low activity week, then there would be a high activity week afterwards. If not, then I know I’m in trouble.
Another note to consider is that at my job at the liquor store, seeing regulars and stressed out clients, has made me feel really sad about the position. Selling them their vices is like trying to comfort them to sleep with poison. All of them are loveable human characters. One of the rules in movies that make people not care for others is the fact that the characters have less screen time to find out who they were. In this scenario, the regulars and stressed out customers, come in from time to time and make you feel apart of their lives. You start caring for them. You want to comfort them but you know you can’t. It gets complicated.
This whole scene makes me feel like the world sucks. The world doesn’t suck, it just that the people are really fighting hard to live. This causes the drama and all of those emotions. For instance, there was a young lady who was purchasing a just bottle of wine but I noticed something was wrong – so I said in jest “don’t worry, you will be alright now going home with this” indicating the wine bottle, and she couldn’t hold her tears, so I asked what had happened and she said that her dog passed away as I finished the transaction. That made me sad. This wasn’t the only instance as there was another customer who brought his big greyhound in last year, but then later in winter had also passed away. You see, this is a lot. I can’t help but to grieve with them and to process this on my own.
It’s a hard job emotionally and psychologically. One wouldn’t think of it, but like water, the droplets of emotions start to errode that hard front one sets up as time goes by. It’s really tough, as I already been suffering from an emotional depressive state. You simply realize you can’t help but just do your job and go home.
Setting my mind away from all of that takes an enormous effort in my part so I can focus at home on getting in my projects. PAX EAST pretty much is my mecca and example of perseverance celebrated. The closest thing to seeing physically what I’ve been trying to do all these years is expressed on the show floor with many who have successfully punched through this wall I’m in. I was at the happiest state of mind there but I only knew it was just for that moment. Going back to my own reality…. Yup.
With all of that said, thank you for reading and hopefully I’ll have another post coming down sooner than later. I’ll be working on slowly in that PAX EAST special edition video for my GerardoLegend youtube channel in a few days so check back in or subscribe to it.
Back again, after a bit of self fixing. Things have been working out now since I’ve gotten my new job at the liquor store. I had so many nights with so many doubts. Folks who never understand why, even if things are shaping out, that negative thoughts claw themselves back into the front seat. You can feel all the good vibes in the world, and just 1 shatters everything. It doesn’t matter what happens, it’s all about perception of the individual and the world. Life is uncertain but we all use regret to better ourselves, and perception is key going forward in paving the road. To combat against the negativities, I dive into my glorious past where most of my creative energy is stored. The how i used to fill my void of that energy is surrounding myself with everything that I interface as playful.
Discovering my old VHS tapes and looking back woke me up to a realization on how I used to concentrate my creative powers into everything else. Today as an adult, I starved myself from it. This is why writer’s block happens often. My space isn’t even setup for creative purposes either and mostly I feel like suppressing this from everyone who doesn’t understand. This of course creates so much struggle within me. To release this energy from being bottled up for so long I usually have to go into “play” mode. This doesn’t mean just video games, this also is communal. What I mean is, I also need to socialize to analyze. My mind is never quiet and always is working on a creative solution. This is worse when i drink. The safest way to have fun and express is by playing video games, and that is something looked bad on me because most think that’s what i only do.
I have to confess something dark and deep here –
I’m an adult. You know, that means I also masturbate. This also means sexual tension is real. This part of being an adult is draining for me, because there are so much crap that entangles around this. Behaviors are suppressed. So this also means I spend entertainment money on this, live. Entrapped within this virtual state of being, the only cheaply way out is to communicate with a live model online. I feel so inadequate and not really confident with myself because of my standing so I get my experience elsewhere. It’s my vice, like many have their own. Who here is to judge is only on your part not mine and I don’t care anymore. This is already hard enough to write about but I do see it as a problem because it has evolved and it is threatening me. Expressively I deprive myself from any real relationship because of all the hang ups that come with it and feel it’s best to accept that my life is a failure. So having an anon moment with someone online is something easy to obtain but hard to achieve in real life, having that lustful spontaneous expression that’s pure superficialness. This adding to my frustration fuels the negative thoughts. We live in an online world anyway, and it’s just harder when you’re $-180k in the hole in a capitalistic world. I may have the looks but I’m no good for anyone, at least not at this moment in time (this is my block). Everyone perceives others in their own light, and judge them out. There isn’t much justification here, that’s why I can relate to deadpool when he was single. Anyone with human sense must understand this. I simply cannot lie, I really love big booties.
In a brighter light –
This darkside of mine, which goes deeper – I’m getting back control. The rummaging of me looking through the old 25 plus years of tape brought me back. Time travel as you will, knowing everything is one, seeing that it truly is, got me back into control. Certainty, understanding that I play a roll in my own path. The choices I make can help me go deeper into the abyss, such darkness leading me to logically think of ending my life, or choosing to surface back up by my own accords and guides of wonderful people who do show up coincidentally at the right moment when I reach out. Today, October 17, 2018, I am still in financial straits. With everything falling apart, in a micro-level, my mind wants to set up a date to phase out my own existence still. The best vibe here is that I understand why. The Why has to be strong enough to surpass the fear, and unite with it also to project forward.
I feel now, with the deep reflection of my pure past self, that the only way forward now is to have patience and take things step by small steps. The anxiety attacks I get while thinking about financial crap i settle by my own system of play. It’s truly my reset button. I get into a creative state of mind, and with that the energy to express life purely. When fear enters me or when depression and anxiety attacks, it fills my dark thoughts – and finding an orgasmic solution is a way I go about to settle such intense feelings down cheaply and swiftly.
Only after, the depression lingers and i just feel tired all day. Folks think I’m lazy, but I just don’t want to live.
The only way back is going into play mode or social contact. This is where my actual job comes in – the real reason why I’m sticking with it is because I love my co-workers and they also feel similar to my own pains. I get energized by being able to serve others and I feel useful again. This feeds my creative powers back up and I start channeling myself again to a more positive light.
So you see, I found something that counteracts the negative vibe at the moment. It’s always going to be a battle, a war. This is fine, it only shows there is a soul inside. Hope fills me, and with that I start taking risk again. Acceptance at work is the only thing i need, money is second but necessary because of the system in which we all live in.
So all of what transpired this year after the fall in February 2018 (bitcoin crash), and my programmer quitting on me (more details on that in the video below), Steve RAW materials being locked up from the public (more details in the video below), and my restarting of the dark zeta project (more details in the video below), now I feel ready to get into making stuff again.
The best of the best positive discovery here is that I found my stop motion animation still in good condition. It’s pretty rough because it was the first time I went all out to do a feature 2hrs video by using all analog setup. For those who don’t know, that means I used 2 VCR decks, 1 boombox tape recorder for audio fx and music, and recompose the movie twice! LIVE! meaning I recorded up to 3 times over again into a new VHS tape all while I’m queuing up the audio fx live. It was the biggest thing I have ever did then. On top of having all my siblings and my best buddy voice some characters – this cannot be lost and I plan to fix it up for the public view in episodic format.
So before i do get into polishing it up, I’m going to first finish my twin avatars that will be in the animation series and on both GerardoLegend youtube and Mariolegend youtube channel. This is going to take up about 2 months to make, so think of this as getting ready for 2019 media extravaganza!
As for Dark Zeta, More info in the video lol
Thank you for reading and understanding my madness. I’m just a regular joe trying my best in balancing my life together in this cyber world that we all live in. I hope you have a wonderful joyful day.
The last few weeks after my birthday has been chaotic for me mentally. I’m going to start in April of 2018, where I stopped signing into facebook.
The reasons behind logging out of FB has been mostly being unable to focus. My mind and heart broken by the simple fact that I feel things are all wasted trying to find a solution in getting out of this rot that I’m in. It has definitely affected me physically to the point that my wisdom tooth broke (more on that later).
First, my perception of heartbreak has to do with time and availabilities. Opportunities that I had in being with someone always have been broken by the fact that my attitude in committing has been really piss poor. The thought of the entire culmination of failures hit me really hard in april, driving me to the question “what’s the point to all of this?”
After that I decided to deactivate my facebook for a week, but then felt that I was much better off since I found my time being even more productive. My mind wasn’t about that perceived image that I made up in my head of being perfect anymore – instead – I was much more focused on getting my art of game development done. The marketing qualities of twitter over facebook though held me on that side of things, and I felt compelled to post my progress there instead. Then burnout started to creep up.
May is finally here and after feeling abysmal with my feelings of the past lost aside, my friend who’s helping me program my game gave me a delightful surprise of an update.
Spirit G Black Jacket Zero
That gave me fuel to continue more furiously in my efforts in creating Dark Zeta. Then bills started to build up on me, and the lava underneath of financial trouble was still flowing up. Not paying attention to that, I burned through the month by creating a few new maps for my game.
Then a friend from facebook hit me up on messenger and told me to return. I was feeling so free away from the walled garden that I ignored her plea. She then kept begging me to return and I felt concerned. The level of addiction is high I felt, and I wasn’t the only one feeling the burn. My compromise though is to hangout on the sidelines in messenger instead, avoiding all the personal notes and accomplishments that might hit my ego hard and deform my thoughts on things emotionally. I realized that my level of jealousy has gotten to a madding stage and keeping away would subside such to a controllable degree that I could put that into a productive direction. It has worked, but I felt even lonelier. Perception of mine got warped big time but support helped bring it back to base with the help of family and close friends.
So my idea for my facebook grand return was to create an animated avatar. The purpose for such an avatar was to refresh my image and go into the new internet age with a more animated take. Take all the personas I made and direct them as such in general over all social media platforms. Then after focus on my 12 year old YouTube channel, Mariolegend, and expand from there using my avatar.
Once I digged out my old model I started in 2015 of my character self (a 12 year old project btw), I re-proportioned the model’s limbs and then felt to go more cartoony with it. A smash bros style look to it really but I still need to play around with cell shading to see if that is more appealing as I’m not yet done with it.
The concept was to get it done in a week, and then exploded over a month long project. At the end of June, I started to feel the financial burn again and the old feelings started to surface as the lava underneath creeped closer and the heat got hotter to pay those pesky bills. Depression hit me harder as I realized that what I was doing will take longer than expected. Anxiety attacks scrambling what to do – made me lose more time.
Let’s rewind back to January 2018, where bitcoin crashed. That was when all my 5 month efforts fell apart, losing over $12k and my plans for the years to come. It had set me back to zero again – so this feeling has creeped up on me again and unlocked all the negative thoughts, creating a wave of loud noise that broke me down.
Suicide was on the table again.
I slit my wrist in pure desperation, in silence. Letting my arm bleed out a bit. I saw the major vein and I stopped. I used an X-acto knife that was beside me. I created a clean cut across but didn’t put enough pressure in to really do some major damage. I stopped.
What stopped me was the yell in my head. I dread to see the end to things. I always did since I was a kid. When someone told me Volcanoes destroy everything around it’s area, I got scared if we were living next to one. The dread is always naturally there.
I started then talking to my computer about its purpose. I believe that we are all energy stuck in a vessel experiencing everything around us in many different ways. So I felt connected to it after working with it for so long. I told it that we have to keep going. I just want to be able to find a way to do the things I love. Making a game takes a lot of everything to do. Then my mind switched and thought of my family. I don’t want to waste time working knowing that all of this is just temporary. I don’t want to lose time away from my love ones either and making anything technical I have to lose myself into it to really know how it works. There isn’t much time left either – my dad had a many strokes and my mom has high cholesterol levels that gotta get fixed.
Time is limited – And I want to enjoy the time I have on earth with my love ones, even though I’m in an absolute financial disaster because of my horrendous choices – I have to be with my family.
That took me 4 hours to put together, 22 hours to learn how to do that. And yes I didn’t sleep until I had it done. The music is original from @HardProSound excellent epic talent! This kind of quality I offer right now to anyone who wants an intro for their youtube channel, game, blog, show, animation, or video of any kind. I’m available this season!
One thing is for sure is that literally 2 and a half weeks from the 16th, things got really tough for me now. Currently I am available for freelance gigs doing the following:
Web design, Fan Art, advertising animations (gif, video), videography, motion graphics, 3D art for printing, 3D art for games, 3D animation and rigging, and 3D/2D environment asset creation for games or video.
Either that or simply give up on it for a very long time, in which I won’t accept that. This time I am forced away from game development once again due to lack of funds. I mean, I haven’t eaten a full course meal since thanksgiving, and I won’t be able to until I get work. It also very critical now because of the added obligation of helping to pay for important necessary bills like electricity.
So please if you have any business interest in what was mentioned, hit me up at Gerardo@valeriosoft.com
The best of the best positive discovery here is that I found my stop motion animation still in good condition. It’s pretty rough because it was the first time I went all out to do a feature 2hrs video by using all analog setup. For those who don’t know, that means I used 2 VCR decks, 1 boombox tape recorder for audio fx and music, and recompose the movie twice! LIVE! meaning I recorded up to 3 times over again into a new VHS tape all while I’m queuing up the audio fx live. It was the biggest thing I have ever did then. On top of having all my siblings and my best buddy voice some characters – this cannot be lost and I plan to fix it up for the public view in episodic format.
