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Write Again

I just want to know what it’s like to write again…
To release my expectations and sit there staring at the end of a pen…
To not care…
To force myself back into the chair…
Even if it’s just to sit there…
With a blank stare…
Wondering when…
If…
The words I fight just might decide to write themselves tonight…

Read more of my poetry

It’s been a long time since I sat in front of a screen to capture a random stream of consciousness.

To just let raw thoughts flow from my head, through the keyboard, onto the screen, and out into the world.

Something which has really been bothering me recently. Mostly because that was the whole reason I got into this web publishing game in the first place.

When I first started writing, blogging, etc., I didn’t care about much of anything.

The world had just chewed me up and spit me out like some sorry mess of a man. I was of essentially no use to society and everything I loved about the world had crumbled around me.

Words gave me the strength to get me from where I was to where I am now. Yet for some reason I abandoned them along the way.

Publishing those thoughts is like emptying the recycling bin in my brain so that I can free up space in my mental hard drive. Something which has not been happening with any real regularity over the last couple years, which might explain my desire to simply write again.

When I started on this journey, I just wanted to get the thoughts I was having about the world out of my head. I wanted to somehow archive, index and catalogue them so that I could someday search through them and understand myself more clearly.

The goal was to build an ever evolving online playground where I could curiously explore my thoughts and ideas in a way that allowed others enjoy the adventures with me.

It’s why I fell in love with the whole concept of publishing on the web in the first place.

But somewhere along the way things changed. Somewhere on the road from the past to the present, I lost some of that free spirit.

Maybe because I went from having nothing to lose to being scared of losing everything again.

I guess I’ve come to a point in my life where I once again have something to be worried about blowing up from the inside out. And to me, that is the most terrifying thing in the world.

But it must also mean that I have made progress. It must mean I have learned from my mistakes and that I am looking to avoid making them again.

It means that in order for me to move forward I must adapt.

It means that the things which got me here will not be the same things that get me to where I am going. A line of thinking with which I am quite comfortable. Especially when you consider that the only thing constant in my life over the last decade has been change and instability.

So as I sit here wondering how much of the old me to let into this new world in order to spice things up a bit, I also worry about how the ideas I’ve explored in the past have recently jumped up to bite me in the ass.

I think about the freedom and flexibility I have as a young entrepreneur and what I have accomplished over the last few years, and search for ways to balance those thoughts against the understanding that I am still at a very precarious place in my overall development as a complete human being.

I sit here acutely aware of my flaws, but also immersed in the raw potential which sits at my disposal and see a new super power evolving in my arsenal. The ability to not only shape my future, but to help shape the future of my ccommunity, and to help others shape their paths as well.

So you can expect to see and hear a lot more from me as we move through the next phase of our master plan. Both in written and video format. Because while I have not been publishing much publicly over the last couple years, I have been working hard behind the scenes.

And we have a lot of catching up to do…

See you in the next post.

Raymmar

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At The Mercy of My Income

For those dreaming about doing something bigger with their lives but keep finding financial hurdles along the way, this one is for you.

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Will I Ever Have To Teach My Kids How To Drive?

A short video that explores the idea that in the near future, we may no longer have to teach our children how to drive.

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The Best Sandwich in Sarasota?

If you’ve not eaten at Mozzarella Fellas, downtown Sarasota, you’re missing out on the best sandwich in Sarasota. Oh, and other stuff too.

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What if I Told You?

A short poem about the fear of falling in love.

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Why I’m Supporting A Gay Rights/Equality Event

If you had asked me a few years back to attend the Annual Harvey Milk Festival, I would have looked at you a little weird. I would have told you that I think homosexuality is unnatural and that I wouldn’t be attending because I did not agree with the lifestyle.

Watch a short video from the most recent Harvey Milk Festival. Courtesy of Sarasota Underground.

I might have referenced a gay person that I was somewhat familiar with and claimed to not have a problem with their sexual preference, but deep down, there was a piece of my brain that made me feel really uncomfortable with the idea of homosexuality. The part of me that society has trained to feel that way, the part that hates the thought of two members of the same sex finding happiness inside of an intimate relationship with one another.

But that part of me is dying fast. And I can’t tell you that it is gone completely or that it ever will, but I have a whole new perspective on many things in life. And the amount of fucks I give about how people decide to explore their sexuality is quickly fading.

And honestly, what kind of world are we living in, where the things that happen in the privacy of of our own bedrooms, among two consenting adults, is anyone’s business other than that of the people who are in the room doing it. And more importantly, who the hell am I to tell anyone, where, when or how they should play with their private parts.

“But homosexuality is immoral and wrong!” Said some religious reader somewhere!

Oh yeah, says who? The bible? Your church? Your government?

Related article: Is everything you know about religion wrong?

Who the heck are they? And why have we let them into the most intimate parts of our private lives? Are we so incapable of ruling ourselves that we have deferred every one of our decisions to the approval of others?

Are we not just people living inside of small communities? Are we not all human? Do we not still preserve the right to think and act on our own? Have we lost the ability to mind our own business? Have we stopped managing our own lives and shifted towards the idea of collectively managing the lives of others, and in turn, lost control of everything?

And what kind of world are we building for our children? One where we are still free to think and act on our own? Or one that is managed by mandate? A world where our decisions are dictated to us? One that leaves us always worried about the opinions of someone else. Always letting someone tell us what to do, what to say, and how to say it.

So you see, I may not support the entire LGBTQ movement, but I wholeheartedly support my gay friends. I support their right to believe in whatever they believe in. I support their right to gather, and celebrate and have sex with whoever they want… As long as it’s not with me.

Because what right do I have to claim free speech, if I am not willing to support those who speak freely?

What right do I have to talk about liberty if those are around me are not encouraged to live freely. And what right do I have to tell you, or anyone for that matter, how to live your life?

Because that is equality.

Because that is the level playing field that America was supposed to be. Not this doctored up version of democracy that is starting to feel more and more like fascism.

So I am supporting the Harvey Milk Festival and my friends who help pull it off every year. With my words and with my wallet, and I would ask you to consider doing the same. Mostly because they need it, but more importantly, because America needs more people who are willing to stand up for what they believe in, even if that means defending someone else’s right to do something you might not completely agree with.

 

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God Sent Me To Piss The World Off

People get so offended when you challenge their thought process. Me? I live for it.

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Am I Analog Dating in A Digital World?

How to date when you cant relate. An open exploration of our current dating paradigm.

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Is Everything You Know About Religion Wrong?

Your god is not real. I know because he told me!

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Standing Naked In A Crowd

An introspective look at the desire to fit in and the freedom that comes from being yourself.

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Learning to Let Go

My heart breaks, my body shakes and when I try to tell you, my voice quakes….

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The Game We All Pretend Not To Play

This post is part of my 30 day creative writing challenge. Click here to learn more about the challenge or here to explore the other posts in this series.

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You walk by and see a glimmer of your reflection on the side of a building You still look good. But who’s keeping score?

You are, that’s who. That’s right, I know you are. We all do. We all judge one another based on first impressions or superficialities. We all walk around with this idea of who each of us is supposed to be, but so often, we don’t even know ourselves.

Looking when we can, fighting for a glimpse of the person we think we could become. Hoping that the world will one day see us as who we might be, not as who we actually are. Hoping that they will believe the person we pretend to be.

But then the facade cracks.

The cloak of cowardice that you have been hiding under will be lifted to expose the real you. But the real you is not strong. The real you has not thought that far ahead. The real you has been too busy pretending to prepare.

Pretending not to be flawed. Presenting perfection to the public in order to bask in the glory of popularity. Hiding under your make up and materialism. Hiding the emptiness that has consumed your existence.

But this game will end. And when it does you will know true loneliness, because your entire existence has been built on the pretense of prosperity. Because you have not learned how to handle the hurt. You have just learned how to hide from it.

If you enjoyed this post, please share it with a friend. It’s the best compliment you could ever give me.

This post is part of my 30 day creative writing challenge. Click here to learn more about the challenge or here to explore the other posts in this series.

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Stealing Inspiration: The Truth About Picasso’s Famous Quote.

This post is part of my 30 day creative writing challenge. Click here to learn more about the challenge or here to explore the other posts in this series.

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“Good artists borrow, great artists steal.”

Pablo Picasso said that… or did he?

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Supposedly this is a Picasso quote, but this article claims otherwise, and gives us an interesting perspective on what that quote actually means.

As an artist, I have heard this quote many times over the years. I have also heard people discussing its true definition, often with the wrong connotations.

Many people take it as permission to plagiarize or directly steal someones work, but that’s taking the quote completely out of context from the creative mind. In reality, what the quote is intended to portray, is that a great artist steals inspiration, not the work itself. A great artists will see something of beauty, and then understand how to make it more beautiful by adding a piece of themselves to it.

A lesser artist will attempt to accurately copy the existing art, and in the process create a lesser quality knockoff. This can be the only result, because there is nothing to gain from copying something that is already in existence. It just becomes something to do.

There is no innovation or creative process involved in passing someones work off as your own, but to see something of value and then make it yours… That is the sign of true creative genius.

A great artist will find inspiration in everything around them and steal that inspiration to make it the foundation for their art. This is why artists, musicians, writers etc, always need a muse. They need something to move them emotionally. Something from which they can steal inspiration in order to do their best work.

The great artists see the world around them as a vision board. As a concept for what they might create, limited only by the boundaries of their creative brains. The great artist steals from everything they see. From all of their experiences and all of their interactions. We steal inspiration from everywhere we can because we ourselves are inspired.

Inspired to create. Inspired to build. Inspired to change. Ourselves and the world around us.

So the next time you find yourself in a creative slump, just take a look around. There is beauty all around you from which to steal. There is plenty of inspiration to go around and always remember that the sign of a true artist is their ability to steal something and then make it unique. To make something that is the same, but different.

Because there is no real originality. There is only continual duplication. So it is necessary to steal. But only the inspiration behind the work. Not the work itself.

So, if you find yourself stealing directly from someones work, then maybe that means that you are not the great artist you thought you were.

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Thankfully I’m Not Planning A Funeral, But…

Why is it that something like this to happen before we do the things we know we should be doing all along?

This post is part of my 30 day creative writing challenge. Click here to learn more about the challenge or here to explore the other posts in this series.

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Today my heart is heavy. The thought that I should be making funeral arrangements keeps running through my mind. You see, I got a text yesterday letting me know that my dad had been in a motorcycle accident. And usually, a message like that is followed by really bad news.

But the worst of his injuries, as far as we can tell right now, are a broken leg, heavy bruising and some serious road rash. We just got back from the hospital, and don’t get me wrong, I am really happy that the injuries were not more severe, but I can’t help but think about how different this weekend could have been.

As I sit here and write my thought for the day, I can’t help to think about the possibility of life without my dad. Then I start getting mad at myself for being such a shitty son. How come I don’t call more, or visit more often? Why is it that something like this to happen before we do the things we know we should be doing all along?

He only lives four hours away and it took something like this for me to come visit. That’s the only thing going through my head right now. Mixed emotions and the thought that it easily could have been worse.

What if I wasn’t just coming to help him get around a bit while he gets used to walking around on crutches? What if I was here to handle funeral arrangements. What if I was here to see my dad for the last time?

I’m going to try and think about something else now. To not have those thoughts running through my head, but it is hard to push them from my mind. But as I push those thoughts from my mind, I wonder if anything will actually change moving forward.

Sure I’ll have this experience to remind me how much I love my family and how much I often take them for granted, but I have a sneaky suspicion that pretty soon, things will go right back to the way they were. I’ll head back home. His leg will heal. And the void in our relationship will return. We’ll go weeks without talking, I wont come visit and I’ll hate myself while doing it.

But maybe not. Maybe this is what we needed to remember how much we really matter to each other. Maybe we will find a way to make more time for each other moving forward. Or maybe, next time, I won’t be so lucky. Maybe the next call I get will be something more severe. And I will have to spend the rest of my life thinking about how I could have done something different. How I could have loved him more. And that is a pretty scary thought.

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Well Laid Plans

Mike Tyson once said “Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the face.”

And life has a way of punching us when we least expect it.

This post is part of my 30 day creative writing challenge. Click here to learn more about the challenge or here to explore the other posts in this series.

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There’s nothing like getting a group text in the middle of the day to let you know that your dad has been in an accident and is laid up in a hospital. Turns out he was riding his motorcycle on I-95 in Miami when he was struck by another vehicle and flung from the bike. Luckily it was stop and go traffic on the highway so he was not hit while going full speed.

First reports indicate that the only major damage is a broken leg and some bad road rash. Maybe a busted up bike and a sore ego to go along with it all as well.

It wasn’t too long ago that I got a call from my best friends girlfriend. My brother from another mother had been thrown off of his motorcycle that morning. But he would not be as lucky as my dad had been today. He was going full speed when he was flung from his bike. He shattered his pelvis and both wrists. It was a miracle he survived.

Both of these are freakish moments which could have dramatically changed my life. So close having two of the most important people in my life permanently removed from the population. But nope, not this time. And hopefully not any time soon.

I’ve not had to deal with death very often in my life. There was one difficult death in my past, but most of the death in my life has been relatives that I was not very close with, so the pain was not devastating. Even though part of me wishes it had hurt more. Part of me wishes that I was not so estranged from my extended family so that those deaths would have meant more to me.

But today we are not talking about death. We are talking about life.

The news I got today, although initially upsetting, is actually good news. It means that right now I am writing this thought as I head out to go see my dad. Alive.

I could just as easily be going down to handle funeral arrangements, and that would suck. And as cliche as it sounds, that should remind us that there is no guarantee of anything in this life. There may not be a tomorrow, or even a tonight. There is no promise that this moment is not your last. So make sure you do something today that matters.

Make sure you make the most of whatever moments you do have because no matter how well laid your plans may be, there is always the rest of the world to deal with. And that means complete chaos is always an option.

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A Family of Friends

If I shared this article with you directly it’s because you are part of my family of friends. Please take a moment to read it and then share it directly with those who are in your family of friends.

This post is part of my 30 day creative writing challenge. Click here to learn more about the challenge or here to explore the other posts in this series.

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I don’t come from a big family, so over the years my friends have become my family.

In some ways that family is more important to me than the one I was born into. I mean… I don’t want to diminish the strength of blood relationships but that is not what this post is about.

This story is about the few people we encounter through the course of our lives, that make us feel as if we were meant to meet. Those people from whom you are incapable of withdrawing your unconditional love once it has been given. The people we call our best friends.

The family we are born into “requires” our love but we get to decide which of our friends “deserve” our love.

There may be nothing more powerful than picking the people you want to love in life. Then letting a few of them in to see the real you. The broken you.

See, we all put on a show for the world. We all want the public to see us one way, while in reality we live anther. Because who would accept us if we were really ourselves all the time?

It wouldn’t take long before we started getting into fights, and running into problems at work. We would start pissing people off left and right and eventually we would find ourselves all alone. So instead, we pretend.

We attempt to restrict our true selves. We pretend to comport in order to fit into the different communities in which we live. But there is a small group of people from which you need not hide.

The people who you would take a bullet for, and just as fast, punch in the face. Maybe even while laying in the hospital bed after taking that bullet. And you would throw that punch with confidence, knowing that they will love you anyway.

Because physical pain stands no chance when you make that kind of connection.

When you find someone who can make you smile from a million miles away. When you find someone who doesn’t even have to be in the same room to make you feel better about yourself. When you find someone who you can allow into the closest circles of these lies we love to live.

When you can find a person who decides to put you first, because they know that you have done the same for them.

When you can finally find, a family of friends.

 

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Hitting the Wall – A Random Collisions of Thoughts

This post is part of my 30 day creative writing challenge. Click here to learn more about the challenge or here to explore the other posts in this series.

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Dear god, what did I get myself into?

If you don’t know, about 11 days ago, I committed to 30 consecutive days of sharing my thoughts publicly.

What was I thinking?

I’m starting to wonder that myself right about now.

I never considered the fact that I might run out of things to write about. Maybe I should have planned ahead, or had a few articles ready on the fly. Maybe I should have prepared for moments like this. For the moments when nothing makes sense. When the only thought going through my head is “Go lay in bed!” For moments when I must not only fight the world, but must also fight myself. To create, to live, to smile.

It’s not that I’m at a loss for words. There are always plenty of words running through my head. But if I were to put them out to the world in their raw form, none of you would be able to understand them. None of you would be able to deal with the havoc that they are so capable of wreaking.

Instead I must massage and manipulate those thoughts. I must mold them so that you can read them and enjoy them as an interesting story. As beautiful allegory.

I wonder if any of you could last a day inside of my head?

I wonder if I could last a day inside of yours?

I wonder what it will be like when we are able to experience each other so intimately. Maybe that will be the 22nd century orgasm. The ability to jump into someones brain in a way that was never before possible. Combining your emotional experiences with those of another through the blending of technological and chemical processes. An experience that will surely make sexual relationships obsolete. After all, we’ll probably be ordering perfect babies online by then.

What the hell are you even talking about Raymmar?

Oh, nothing!

Just random thoughts, a few of the many that come to me through the course of any given day.

By the way, is it day 11 or day 12 of this challenge? Who even knows?

Wait what? It’s your challenge, you should know!

Shit, it’s not even half way through and it seems all I have left are fractions of thoughts. Thoughts about business mixed in with thoughts about bills. Thoughts about paying them and about trying to get by until the next time they come back around. Just a few of the random thoughts that I always deal with as a fledgling entrepreneur who keeps his brain out on public display.

The thoughts of a guy who keeps it real in his writing as well as the world he lives in. Something that has proven to be more costly than initially anticipated. So much for the freedom to be free. Turns out it’s pretty expensive to be free.

This website and some of my thoughts, have cost me A LOT of money in consulting contracts over the last year and a half.

The language, the raw expression of emotion. The religious references, the political rants. All of it has upset potential clients enough to lead them elsewhere for services that I was best suited to deliver. Rejected based on open expressions and thought. Rejected for everything this country is supposed to be known for. For poking fun at the things that we are not supposed to talk about publicly. Things that we are supposed to think only for ourselves.

Because the narrative needs to be controlled in order to be effective. And it would upset the balance if too many of us actually figured it out at once. If enough of us realized that life is a game, and then actually started to play it. And learned that the rules of this world are not written in stone. They are written by men and made to be challenged.

Imagine if the whole world was willing to admit that they might be wrong. About something. About anything. About everything. Maybe even about themselves.

Imagine if we could understand that at the end of the day, we are all human. That we are all capable of excellence, yet equally capable of making mistakes. That none of us are perfect. And that just because someone want us to pretend to be that way, does not mean we have to.

So here is another day of my thoughts. As random a glimpse into the back of my brain as you’ll ever get. As I sit here, avoiding myself and exposing myself, all at the same time. Trying to connect you to a piece of yourself that we all recognize, but hate to admit. Like riding a moped to the grocery store. It might be fun until your friends see you, but then the explanation begins. Because there is always an explanation isn’t there?

Always a reason. And that reason is never us? But maybe it should be.

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A Brief History of Me!

A brief autobiography. Because everybody should have one!

This post is part of my 30 day creative writing challenge. Click here to learn more about the challenge or explore the other posts in this series.

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Overview: It occurred to me that everyone should have some sort of autobiography. It might be important in helping you organize your thoughts, tell your story, or just to write some part of you down for your future self to read. That being said, for today’s challenge, I present you with…

A Brief History Of Me

My parents moved to Columbus Ohio from Puerto Rico a few months before I was born. I guess you could say I was a journey man from day one. I grew up and lived a modest life on the north side of Columbus, Ohio graduating from Northland High School.

After High School I enrolled in the industrial design program at College for Creative Studies in Detroit Michigan with the desire to become a car designer. After a year in the program, unsure if I would be able to afford the next 4 years or be able to sit in a room and draw all day for the rest of my life, I decided to leave school and moved back to Columbus to “figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up”.

Shortly thereafter (March 2004) my mom and I went to visit my dad who had just moved to Manatee County Florida as the county surveyor. I saw an ad guaranteeing $36,000 a year to sell cars and figured “Why the hell not?”. I delayed my flight a few days so that I could take their sales training classes and flew back to Columbus the following Saturday. I packed all my stuff into the back seat of my 1999 Hyundai Tiburon, worked my last day as a lifeguard, had one final hurrah with all my friends before hitting the road back to Florida the next day. In one week I had gone from vacationing in Florida to living in Florida and shortly thereafter, my love for sales was born.

I was recruited from the car dealership to a local insurance agency to sell commercial property and casualty insurance. Things were going really well for me until one day they weren’t (I am skipping a few details here, but that’s 3rd date material). I ended up moving back to Columbus in November of 2009. Floundering around for a while, working misc jobs here and there, pretending to be a consultant, working at the swimming pool as a lifeguard again and I even managed a kitchen, all while trying to get back on my feet after my fall from grace.

Struggling to find a direction in life I felt lost, alone and worthless. I never gave up hope and I always knew I was put on this earth to do something amazing. I moved back to Florida in March of 2012 to chase my dream with reckless abandon. I figured if I was going to struggle and flail around in life, I would at least do it for myself. More than a year later I am doing well, building a reputation in the community as a thought leader in the world of sales and marketing, inspiring people through creativity and free thinking and I am now testing the waters with a few of my own ventures.

I have a variety of talents spread across a number of disciplines. I am an artist at heart, but I am also a skilled graphic designer, writer, web designer, user interface designer, I shoot and edit video in my free time, handle SEO, blogging, social media, write a couple thousand words a week and so much more. I am the modern day renaissance man with a passion for learning and everything creative. My quest for world domination is really a shill for me to learn and explore as much of the world around me as possible without having to do it under the constraints of someone else’s corporate philosophy.

I firmly believe that I have struggled in life as preparation for what is yet to come and am looking forward to the next chapter in my life. This website is my voice to the world. A place for me to speak my mind, stir conversation and show off my creative talents. Stick around for a while, bookmark the site and feel free to keep in touch as I claw my way from nothing to the top of the world!

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Perspective: Why We Are All Right In Our Own Eyes

“Maybe you felt uncomfortable with the way I portrayed you because I was right!”

This post is part of my 30 day creative writing challenge. Click here to learn more about the challenge or explore the other posts in this series.

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Yesterday I shared a very difficult experience from my past. It was an event that changed me forever.

Some of the other people who were there that day took issue with the way I portrayed them in that story.

I found that interesting, because a few of the others who were there reached out to me privately to let me know they appreciated that post tremendously.

But the truth of the matter is that I am only able to write from one perspective. My own. I can only tell my story from where I saw it, and I did just that, as honestly as I possible could.

No offense to those who did not like my thoughts, but they are my own and I am the one writing this narrative. I am the one exploring my thoughts. Maybe you felt uncomfortable with the way I portrayed it because you know I was right. Have you considered that?

Have you ever considered that the reason you hate hearing the truth because you know it’s true? Because you know that you are not being honest with yourself? Unwilling to let yourself see the real you. Hiding behind the person you want the world to think you are.

This is why I am challenging you to write every day for 30 days. Heck, maybe you’ll get hooked and end up like me. Unable to go a day without writing something. Even if it’s just a random thought. Even if it never gets shared, read or heard.

Because I want to tell my story. I want to give my perspective. I want to organize my thought so that I can learn how to understand myself as thoroughly as possible. And I want to share them with the world so that I can use them to hold myself accountable.

So thanks for being a part of this challenge and please, share your stories with us so that we can share them with the world. If not for me, then do it for you. I read them all myself, respond personally when I can and share it on my blog if it’s really good.

I promise you’ve never been as high as the moment when you get a note from a reader telling you that your work changed their life.

So express yourself! Share your thoughts! Define your perspective.

Because if you ask me, it’s the only way to truly live!

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