Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog!
This is the final post on this site since Blogger sites are rather hard to share all over the internet, I will be working on making something a little more professional in the coming days and I will post it here once I have something to lead you all over to it!
Happy Trails everyone!
Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog! Today I wanted to do another Top 5 list and this time I wanted to take a look at something a little different...my Top 5 music genres! These are of course my own taste and if you like these or don't this is not a judgement against you or anything, I just felt like talking about my favourite types of music! So, without further ado let's dive into the list!
Job-Career-Passion-Mission Hierarchy
By Marcus Levis
2019-06-24
In
my travels throughout the working world, I have to say that there has been
nothing I have seen or thought of that could explain the working world more
than something I picked up and expanded on from The Minimalists; Joshua Fields
Milburn and Ryan Nicodemus. In one of their podcasts where they were talking
about jobs and in general the working world and more so about us all finding
something that aligns with our values and beliefs and not just doing something
to get “that all mighty dollar”. Josh mentioned that there is something that we
all should strive to do which is to take our Jobs or Careers and turn them into
something we can become passionate about (or to go and seek out what it is that
we are passionate about) and eventually with enough refining and drudgery we
can turn it into our mission. I decided to take this and expand on it and call
it the Job to Mission Hierarchy. I am going to expand on what each level is,
how to move up and why I feel, much like The Minimalists, that we should all be
striving for the mission.
The
first level is Job. This requires no experience to get started in, this is
often involving retail, restaurants or even base-level jobs to get you in, that
again require no experience. You may need experience in these jobs in order to
move from one level to another, but there is no educational requirement for
these jobs. A dishwasher in a restaurant does not need a university degree to
do that job, a sales representative in a retail store did not need to go to
school for fashion to be able to sell shoes. They are often filler jobs,
serving the purpose of getting us to a place where we can eventually shoot for
that career-level employment and examples of this would be kids getting jobs in
high school, the jobs we all worked in College/University or even the basic
jobs that new immigrants tend to work when they first come over so that they
can get some money coming in. Now, I know of people who at the very basic level
are very content sticking it out working for Walmart or Tim Hortons for the
rest of their lives. They live simply, they can move up the ranks, but do not
kid yourself, these are still not careers despite what you may tell everyone.
If I can get in and work under you without experience, and without any
education, and just putting in my time, move up and eventually replace or even
move above you, it is not a career but a job. The biggest piece about jobs is
that they really only satisfy one aspect; money. You need it, and now you are
getting it, no one really feels fulfilled scrubbing toilets in some greasy
spoon for the rest of their lives (trust me, I was there at one point). Careers
can satisfy much more.
The
second level is Career. To achieve this, there is often an educational barrier
of some sort. A 2-year college diploma, a 4-year bachelor degree, these
employment situations may start off as entry-level and not paying much (or in
terms of unpaid internships, not at all), but there is a chance through either
more education (i.e.. Going to Uni after College, or going for that Master's
Degree) or through the old adage of “putting in your time” you can eventually
move up the ladder, get salary and benefits within most organizations, and a
lot of these even entry-level positions pay more than most stages at the Job
level. Careers can satisfy on both a monetary and emotional level, but let's be
real here for a second, it is still in the bottom half of the hierarchy for a
reason, they are not and should not be the end of achievement. Most people (I
would rough it out to about 80%) are more than okay just striving for some
mediocre job paying them 50-80k a year, with the salary and benefits and just
sitting comfy on that. Why not? They can afford a mortgage on a house, start a
family, go on vacations, do almost anything that you would want to do with that
amount of money, but there is one area where careers lack; achievement. When
you are just sitting pretty making your money over there in the corner, having
had a college/university experience in your past, and making the best life for
yourself possible, you are missing out on feeling truly fulfilled by doing
anything more than just effecting your small circle of influence that you have
created. This is the reason why a lot of people will go through all of this,
the education, starting the family, buying the house and then it will all fall
apart because there is something that is missing; the passion. It is not there
with Careers.
The
third level is Passion. Passions are the beginning of the top part of the
hierarchy and this is something that not all people have the luck or joy of
ascending to, and it is not because they cannot, it is because this often
requires either a lot of sacrifice, breaking apart systems and things that you
have created for yourself, or getting lucky and knowing what you are passionate
about before investing 20+ years into the career you have chosen. Passions are
often harder to eke out into the open because we all naturally have regrets and
worries; “is this the thing I want to do for the rest of my life?” “where is
the money in this?” “I do not know if I want to put myself through that much
schooling...” and a whole host of others because society and the average person
do not have the drive...or do we...but it is just that we think that at the
career level we have it made. People see the house, car, family, vacations
pictures and assume that they have all that society wants them to have and that
they need not achieve any more. That to me is just human arrogance and
laziness. People should then once they have all of the things that they could
need, begin the next phase which is looking for your passion. Something that in
and of itself gets you excited to get up in the morning, something that whenever
it is happening it does not feel like work, something that comes natural to
you, and more importantly, you should be doing it regardless of whether you are
making your money from it or not. If you have your passion on the side while
you are working a career, and then one day you can make that transition that is
the ultimate goal. Your passion is a job that is not a job, a lifelong career
that is not a career, and something that transcends work. Whether that is
teaching, writing, playing sports, gardening or whatever. You may also notice
that it seems like I have mentioned things that many people pass off as
“hobbies”, but that is truly where passions sprout from, things you enjoy
doing, then you find a way to get good (son) and then eventually when you are
feeling confident you can move on to making some money and then eventually
supporting yourself and your lifestyle on something that you are passionate
about. It is a lengthy process, but worth it in the end. Now, to many people
this would seem the end of the line, but if you notice there is still one level
left; Mission.
The
fourth and final level is Mission. A mission begins once you have finished all
of the above steps from the passion and are now fully supported on your
passion. Now you are turning around and giving back to the community at the
very least, and trying to change the world at the very most. You have become
proficient at the particular passion; you could even say that it is “your
calling”, and now you are giving back to the world because you are in a state
where you can afford to do so and have nothing much more to gain personally, so
you want to see the world succeed. Whether that is going from teaching in a
high school classroom to teaching English to children in a foreign country, going
from practicing writing philosophy to publishing the next great philosophical
piece, going from gardening in your backyard to running the local botanical
gardens. It is taking that passion up to a level where more people than just
you and those closest to you benefit. The mission is the ultimate end goal, and
if we were all striving to achieve this (and we all can), the world would be a
better and happier place. If everyone could do what they love to do, support
themselves on it, the world would not only be a more fulfilling place, but one
painted in all of the colours and told in all future stories.
Marcus
Levis (Age 23)
Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog! Today I just wanted to give everyone a little sneak peak into at least a portion of the plot of my current works 2101. I hope that this will help build the idea of the world that I have created and I also hope you like it.
2101 is obviously set in the 22nd century right at the beginning of the year. The world has been taken over by Big Data who has managed to hack into the human genome using the Bhav-Link technology of the microchips that were implanted in the brain stem in order to eventually control the human race.
It is an ode to/love letter to George Orwell's 1984 as I look into the future and in a sense envision how things in the world that we currently have, get out of control (differently than they already have). I can only hope that there is an elegance to the story in a similar way to 1984.
Wish me luck and talk to you all tomorrow!
Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog. First off, Happy April 2022! New month and of course it is also the birthday month for me and so no matter what I am always a little excited (despite turning 26 I do not care). I wanted to take some time today to talk about the progress on my book 2101 and just let everyone know where I am at and of course since we are going into a weekend, I will be taking the weekend just to rest up and prepare to knock it out of the park come Monday.
So, when I started the book back in July 2021 I really only worked on it for a few hours. I got maybe 1500 words into it as a place holder idea and then left it until I rediscovered it when launching this blog. Between July 15th, 2021 and March 20th, 2022 only around 1500 words total...I am now sitting at around 12-13k words as we enter into the first day of the Camp NaNoWriMo that I talked about yesterday. This is a massive improvement. I also have a few side documents that I use to scribble ideas into and I know that the camp technically started today, but I will not be starting till Monday as I need to relax this weekend and take a breather (everyone is entitled to that).
I have now completed the first three chapters of the book and I am now working on Chapter 4, I am actually quite impressed with how things are moving along and I think one of these days soon, when I am much further along...maybe I will share the 1st chapter of the book here on the blog? At least what it will look like at that time I think will be something pretty cool! I will however talk more about the book tomorrow and reveal a little bit about the plot of the book just in case people are interested.
Thank you for reading and see you tomorrow!
Meditation
on Karmic Influence
By
Marcus Levis
2019-06-04
The definition of something such as Karma is
officially lost on the average person living in the 21st century except
those who happen to practice faiths and spiritualities in which it is incorporated
(Wicca, Paganism, Hinduism ect.). I am of the belief that Karma affects more of
the day to day lives of all of us now then it ever has. I hear a lot of people
use this term in my day to day with a lot of them not really having a deep
understanding of how it truly affects them. Karma is all over the place and
exists constantly. Karma is dished out or awarded based not just on our
actions, but the intentions behind them and how severe we mean those
intentions. I could do something nice for someone, but if I am thinking in my
head how much of an ungrateful asshole they are, and that they should be lucky
that I am even helping them at all, this will negate any positive karmic value.
Karma is of course awarded in a score. This is
something that I will touch on later in a separate piece of work, since it is
quite complex, but for now I will focus on the level of influence Karma plays
in all our lives. It is in every thought, every action and every emotion. Karma
itself does not take a physical form, but it persists in a way that is easily
manipulated by the universe. In that way, and that way alone can Karma always
be with us.
We must watch the way that we speak as it can be in
the harshness of our language. We must watch the way that we think because it
can exist between our thoughts and we must watch the deepest feelings of our
souls as it can manifest itself even in there, and in there it will and can
cause the most damage. It can even exist n our dreams though that one is up for
debate, but there are a few points to be merited for that.
We must not fear Karmic recompense, as if we do, the
negative repayment for our actions will be far worse off in the end and the
positive repayment will be less so to the point where we may not even believe
in ever doing good things for the old adage “no good deed goes unpunished” is
only true in this sense. One is never truly punished, only delayed the desired
gratification.
Karma’s positives and negatives will show themselves at
different times. The positive payouts will be not immediate, but always done
with your best interest in mind. The negative payouts will always come when it
would most inconvenience you as that is part of why they are negative payouts. The
universe does not like owing anyone and will always return itself to a neutral
state as best possible. If a deed is done with such an amount of positivity
that the universe could not pay out all at once, then it will trickle out over
a long period of time, but one day it will neutral out, same goes for something
negative, though that tends to then come with many later in life obstacles.
Karma is a huge influence and its reign should never
be questioned as it cannot be stopped even if few tried. It is here to stay and
this is how I believe that it exists even more than ever today in the 21st
century!
Marcus Levis (Age 23)
Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog! Today I want to talk a little bit about the preparation that I have had underway for Camp NaNoWriMo April 2022! This is going to be my first one, and I want to try to explain the camp as best I can and then talk about what exactly I have done to prepare for it.
NaNoWriMo is the National Novel Writing Month and it takes place in November of every year. The organization NaNoWriMo runs that event on their website and really it is all about getting yourself into writing and it is all about honour system, self-reporting. The main event in November is to start a brand new piece of work (usually) and starting from scratch, try to write 50,000 words in the month which usually averages out to about 1,667 words per day.
They also run these smaller "Camps" twice a year in April and July where you can work on any project and even prepare yourself for the larger event in November.
For me what this turns into is me working on 2101 and preparing for April 2022 Camp NaNoWriMo by putting an additional 10-15k words into my book in order to have the story already well started for when the month starts. I am also trying to add 50,000 words into the book by the end of April 2022. This will in my opinion really get the book on the way towards being completed. Somewhere between 60-70k words should be where I find myself after the month is over and it will be one hell of a nice effort.
By the time I get to July 2022, I think I would either want to work on the same project and get it right to the end by August 2022, or if I can manage to finish the book before July 2022 camp, then I can work on another project that I have waiting in the winds.
Just thought I would let everyone know what the process has been like and I have now finished the first three chapters of the book which really helps to create the world of 2101. I will talk more about that book in a future entry soon!
See you all tomorrow!
Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog! Today, as per what I stated yesterday, I want to talk about the books that I wrote back in 2019 and self-published around this time in 2020. I was really in my Philosophical groove back then, and of course I will find it again in the future, but I wanted to share these with you and of course I will be creating a page with more information as to where to find them and purchase them.
A Meditation on the Nature of the
Afterlife
By Marcus Levis
2019-05-25
I
have spoken before on the nature of whether or not it is possible to prove my
existence in this life, but now I wish to take that one step further and add to
it by talking about what I feel may be the end goal of my purpose here. This is
something that I have thought about for a long time, and now that I am truly
taking that next step and thinking about and questioning the nature of
existence, I am willing to ask these tough questions and do the best I can to
answer them for myself. What is my purpose here? Why is it that we have a life,
gather as much knowledge as we can, affect as much as we can, and then just die
off and poof, all of that knowledge is gone and (according to most people
anyways) we then do not return to this same plain of existence, we die and go
off somewhere else...somewhere eternal.
I
wish to posit a potentially different view.
What
if, the knowledge that we gather, actually does go with us to the next life, and
that yes, according to what it would look like for those of us living right
now, it would be considered the “after-life” because it takes place after this
current existence is over. What if instead of it being that, it was preparing
us, or even judging us to see if karmically speaking we are worthy of moving on
to an existence where everyone is at the very least a good person. Where every
person who has been proven worthy and it is not just famous people who have
been known all of their lives for making change on a massive scale, but also
the common Joe or Jane who was a good person all of their lives will go, and
all of those with neutral or negative karma scores will be forced to repeat an
existence on this plane, to forget all of their knowledge gained, and do it all
over again.
What
if this next life that we are all working towards, will have us keep all of our
memories and knowledge, and have us then live among the others who have also
garnered a positive karmic score. In that life there will then be more trials,
different ones in what I will call Second Life (no longer after life, and it
will make sense in a minute why I am saying this), we will all be good and pure
of heart, but in order to move on from Second Life into Third Life, you must
set yourself apart during what may be a longer and more reflection-filled life.
To me, it is akin to what all Witches are told about Summerland (Wiccan
After-life), it is a warm place, where the weather is always perfect and the
setting is the perfect place to reflect on one's life and prepare to make the
inevitable return to this plane of exitance. The only difference I feel being
the fact that that will be what the next life is, that eventually you will die
in that realm and if you have set yourself even further apart from the rest of
the crowd (let us say there were 8 Billion people when you died in First Life,
and then when you got to Second Life there were only 5 Billion, it is about
setting yourself above those who are there and they come from all across human history),
then you will be able to move on to Third life, which will have even less
people (say 1 Billion) and it will have different challenges and tasks for your
longer life there and so on. Prove yourself in Third Life and you can move onto
Fourth Life with even fewer people who have set themselves apart from the
previous crowd (Say 500 Million) and so on and so forth until eventually there
is an end (I am not sure when or where, but there will be one) where you sit
among immortals who are talked of only in storybook context back in First Life
territory.
This
is First Life, and I fully believe that if we were only given the one life to
live, we would all be pushed towards experiencing only hedonistic pleasures, so
that when we die at the end of this life, we could say we have done stuff
before poofing out of existence forever. I do not believe this to be the case.
I think this life is set up as a testing grounds (as with the rest of them
going up) for the knowledge that we gain in this life, to them use it to help
our lives in Second Life if we get to move on to it, if we do not because of
some form of karmic imbalance, then when we die we will be reborn unto the same
plane of existence in First Life, with the karma bank reset and we will try it
again. There is no Heaven or Hell, but a world where the only people who live
there are people who have made positive contributions throughout their time in
First Life, where there would always be sunny days, green grass and cool
breezes. Where there would be no crime and where we could do as we please
because the universe would trust us to do so, is that not a comforting thought?
Something to drive one to want to do good in this life? For sure it is!
Marcus
Levis (Age 23)
The first thing I feel when it comes to creating anything new, especially when it comes to an idea set like Philosophy generally is, is to find something that you oppose and then to connect yourself to the viewpoint opposite that. In tihs case, to know my enemy; Humanism. Humanism has been around since the renaissance around 1500 AD and due to it being over 500 years old, I do not believe that it makes sense to speak in those terms anymore.
One of the major parts of Anti-Humanism is a belief in working with what we have now. Humanists believe that if we all just hold hands and sign "coomb-by-yah" that all of a sudden all of the world's problems will go away and we will be harmonious into the future. That is of course bullshit since there are so many inequalities that exist in the world today and life is just too complicated to boil it down to a single fix item that solves roughly 8 Billion people's problems.
When it comes to Anti-Humanism we work with what we have and meet people where they are at. Morality is a big part of the system, but when it comes to Anti-Humanism there is encouragement for you to find and develop your own moral code and set. There is only one rule that MUST apply if the system is to work, and it comes from the Wiccan Rede "And Ye Harm None, Do What Ye Will". This meaning that all of the moral decisions that you make should inherently either effect ONLY you, or be for the betterment of everyone that would be effected.
Another major part of the system is Accountability. OWN YOUR SHIT! If you did something, you own up to it! That is all there is to it. No pointing fingers, no throwing people under the bus, take your raps and move on! There is no need to draw things out if there is a clear blame to be found with you. The major problem in the world today is everyone feeling that they are not worthy of blame in situations where they clearly are. WE would be better off in society if people owned up to their shit.
There is a lot more to this, and there is a "manifesto" of sorts in the works, I am working on my first writing project, my novel, then I will get back to Anti-Humanism, but I want to start talking Philosophy here on my brand new site!
Thank you for your time! See you all tomorrow
Ps. Logo above is the logo I created to represent the Anti-Humanist movement! The energy and passion comes from within to improve ourselves and society...remember that.
The Only One
By Marcus Levis
2017-03-23
It is really hard being the only one
The only one who will listen
The only one who understands
The only one who is always there
The only one who cares.
It is really hard to be the rock
It is really hard to be the ONLY shoulder to cry on
It is really hard to be the one to take all of the abuse
It is really hard to be the one still hanging on and
still caring
It is really hard to not feel like I have done enough.
Not showing emotions
Not thinking others to be relevant to my pain
Not letting others in because they will not understand
Not wanting to be hurt…again
Not wanting to burden others.
It is hard to be the only one who gives
The only one not taking
The modest one
The Happy-go-lucky one
The talkative one
The only one who cares...
But that one no one cares about.
The one wanting personal space but needing to talk
The one having trouble but being told to “SUCK IT UP”
The one feeling like the one getting tuned out
The one feeling different…inside and out
Being The only one.
The one having a tough time but can’t talk about it
The one no one approaches, but expects the world from in
return
The one everyone ignores
The one that is deemed as CRAZY, an OUTCAST, a LOON
The only one.
Being the only one viewing the world in a different light
Like an observer of human behavior
Like an “other”
Like someone who doesn’t fit in
Like a “non-human”.
But that is okay…I have embraced that
Because it is all that I have in this world
Is me
The only one.
Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog! I wanted to take a quick moment to shout out the launch of my Fiverr Profile! Over the course of the week ahead I will be taking time every day to look into how I can make it in this Freelancing, Gig-Economy and I am more than ready to get there! I will also be updating the blog to have the information for my account available on it, but for right now, if you are interested in taking a look https://www.fiverr.com/markythewriter?public_mode=true this is the link to the profile!
I will be doing a much more In-depth run down of the services that I offer, and linking that information to the home page of this blog as soon as I have figured everything out!
Wish me luck and check it out if you have time!
Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog! One thing that always hits me around this time of year is the one month countdown to my birthday. April 27th is now just under a month away and I wanted to take some time to look back on and reflect on what the last year has brought me and what things I want to look forwards to once I have turned 26 at the end of April.
Starting the story back at the end of April 2021 I of course turned 25 and that in my mind was kind of a big occasion. No longer on the early half of my 20s anymore, I am now in the upper echelon of years heading towards 30. I just feel you can be taken more seriously in life when you are 25 and over since you are not usually new to life's challenges at that point.
When I turned 25 I was working a job that I rather liked, but due to the pandemic it had been hard to make the money I needed to survive and unfortunately that lead to a small mental breakdown on my part at the end of May and into June 2021. The stress of not knowing if I was going to make enough money to even buy groceries was an apparent issue for me. This lead me to start applying to full-time jobs as of mid-June and finally snagging one at the very end of July to start near the end of August.
At the very beginning with my first ever Full-Time job things seemed to work out perfectly! My coworkers were lovely (and still are) and the fact that I was finally working a consistent job with consistent shifts really just worked out for me...the only problem was, I was not used to working Full Time and it was slowly chipping away at me, having to be ON 24/7 when at work and always at 110% energy output really started to wear thin starting in late October 2021. By December 2021 I was dying for the Winter holidays that were to come and even took an extra week off during the winter holidays.
I am not a fan of Winter anymore...the cold sucks and I want as little of it in my life as possible. I did my best to get through January and February of 2022 and start the year off on a positive note, but things just were not meant to be in that way. The cold weather, mixed with the stress of the job got to me and I just had to leave. Age 25 has been an age of trying to figure things out and try to go in the natural direction, but it not being what I am best suited for.
This bring us to now, March 2022 (well late-March 2022) and now I have just begun my Freelance Writing career (which I will talk about in the next post very soon) and I will be looking to try to get that off the ground as soon as possible in order to start getting some money in, help people and just have that freedom to work anywhere at anytime and control my working life for the first time in my life. I realize that is what I really want and would love for 26 year old me to kick it up a notch and make it at least a consistent living (not looking to make millions here, just enough).
25 you have been interesting, higher highs than the last few years here at the end, and some of the lowest lows I have ever experienced in my life, but we survived and I am stronger for it. 26 you will kill it, I know you will!
Thank you for reading everyone and see you in the next one!
Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog! Today I just wanted to start a conversation about some of my earliest writing ventures. I know for me that I have been interested in some sort of writing since about the 4th grade which would be around 2005 for me.
My earliest writing project that I can recall was some sort of medieval story that I remember starting out writing by hand in little school notebooks and even my teachers thought it was quite good. I worked quite hard on this around that time and ended up giving it to one of my teachers in the 5th grade to look over in mid 2006 and aparently she lost it and only came across it again about 3 years later when I started the eighth grade in fall of 2009 she came to me to hand me back the notebook with her notes in it and unfortunately, that one project was all of my momentum at the time and of course I was a child so my attention got pulled away to other things, but eventually I got back into writing again in early 2013.
I started an idea for an Historical Fiction series (that may one day be written) and I have tried since then to try to write it, but of course school, work and life got in the way of it all and that is something that was unfortunately a theme, but this time I think I am finally able to get into the writing game when there is not much more time to be able to do it..as per some new things that are coming in the week ahead.
I will talk about it then!
Let me know if you have ever gotten into writing! Tell me about some of your earliest writing ventures in the comments!
How can I be aware of you when you
don’t exist?
By Marcus Levis
2019-05-18
How
exactly can I be aware of you when I am almost completely sure that you do not
exist? So far as I know it, the only person whose existence I can prove is mine
own. I know that I exist, and even if I go back so far as to use the
quintessential piece that is supposed to determine my existence from Rene
Descartes “I think, therefore I am”, I know for damn sure that I am thinking,
but if this is to be believed, how exactly can I prove that you exist? Where
exactly do you appear on the spectrum of existence? I cannot prove that you are
thinking. How exactly can I prove that you are even alive and legitimately in
front of me at this very moment? How can I not think that this existence is but
a simulation (I do not generally ascribe to the simulation theory, but for this
point it makes a lot of sense), and how am I to truly know that I cannot wake
up at any time and be back with those I have always known in the realm
unreachable by those living.
I
know I am alive, I have a pulse, I breathe, as I type these words out, I can
hear the tippity, tappaty of my fingers on the keyboard and I can hear the
sweet sounds of Antonio Vivaldi playing through the speakers on my iPhone 6s. I
am hyper aware of the feeling of the keys as I am pressing them to spell out
the words on screen, and I can smell the sweetness of my heavy-creamed coffee
sitting on the table and taste its oh, so sweetness with every sip. How exactly
can all of this, all of these sensations come to pass and come to exist, but
that I cannot still be sure whether the other person in the room, or the other
people I meet on a daily basis, or even those closest to me, actually exist.
They
say that only those who truly question the nature of existence itself are truly
to move on to become philosophers, or at least join the ranks of the greats.
Well, then if this is the true measuring stick, I have been ready to join the
ranks of the greats since I was 13 because this is a theory that I have talked
about in one form or another since it came to me during the summer of 2010. I
have told many people this and it seems to make sense to a lot of people. I
know I am alive, but how exactly can we prove that all others around us are
truly alive as well. Sure, when I touch you, I know that you are there, I feel
the warmth of your skin, I can hear your breath and even smell it too. When I
kiss someone, I can taste them, I can hear them when they speak, and all of
these things you would think would more than satisfy the curiosity and check
off all of the boxes on the checklist for “definitely alive” but it does not.
Sure, I can say based on all of the sensational data my senses get that your
body is in fact there in front of me, if you hit me or throw something at me, I
am going to feel that pain, but here is where I will reverse it...if I throw
something at you...I will not feel the pain, guilt maybe, since we are
naturally programmed to feel such emotions when we do something “wrong”, but I
feel none of the physical pain that you experience, thus in a small sense
bringing back the question from off the top; how do I even know that you exist?
I
certainly do not have the answer as of yet, if I did, I would gladly share it,
but this is a question that has been on my mind for over a decade now. I know
that I am not even close to an answer, but this is for sure worth exploring in
more detail in the times to come.
Marcus
Levis (Age 23)
Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog! Today I want to shift gears from the awesome entry from yesterday and talk about some of my earliest essays, many of them will be ending up on this blog, and they are of course Philosophical in nature and they start to outline my many Philosophical theories that I have used to build my personal belief system. Today I will posting the first of those.
The Philosophies that I post from pre-2019 (of which I think there are only 2 that I can find) are not a part of this larger set of essays that I wrote in 2019 and 2020. I will also soon get back to the essay writing game here in 2022 in order to again keep the mind fresh and warm just before writing. Those essays served much the same purpose that typing here on the blog on a daily basis does, it helped me to warm up my fingers and mind for the process ahead when it comes to writing.
I am curious though, if there are other writers who are following me, or others who write as a hobby, what is your warm up? Or are you just the kind of person who starts writing as soon as you have an idea, no warm up necessary? Let me know in the comments!
I will see you all tomorrow for another post!
Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog! Today I wanted to talk about my Top 5 Books here in 2021. Admittedly, due to things going on in my personal life, I have not had a lot of time for reading up until now, and I certainly plan on getting back to it, but I wanted to take time today to talk about the 5 best books I have read in my roughly 26 years on this Earth so far! Let's dive into it!
### Fair-weather Friends
(June 15th, 2014)
The one thing that I
personally feel that people do not need in their everyday lives, are
fair-weather friends. These are those people who stick around you for the good
times only, and at the first sign of either trouble (money, job loss, breakups
etc.) or mental issues (depression, anorexia/bulimia, PTSD etc.) they fly the
coop as quickly as they can, because they don't want to deal with you, and help
you through anything, mostly, because they never truly cared.
The things most wrong
with the ideology of people who are only fair-weather friends, is the lack of
caring and often times the lack of giving back to their friends is an issue.
Its either always excuses as to why they will not give back, or they just will
leave at the first sight of needing them for more than they bargained for (which
I'm telling you, isn't much).
When we are looking on
the surface for the signs of who may or may not be a fair-weather friend, we
are looking at a few key aspects; attitude, loyalty and egoism/narcissism.
The attitude portion, is
mainly that their attitude towards you is very, very passive, they either will
not get huffy or too hot and bothered by you because they feel that you treat
them well, or they are always on your case, but never want to help you with
anything at all, and in both cases, they will flee at the first sign of
trouble.
Looking at the loyalty perspective,
they are either fiercely loyal (until something bad happens) or their loyalty
is based on whether or not you are in good times or not, these kinds of people
will pop in and out of your life, through only the good and not the bad, hence the
term "fair-weather friends".
Now examining the
egoism/narcissism portion, you will very much come to see that this kind of an
individual is very much either all about themselves (or others like them) or
needing to be the center of attention/glory hog. Being the center of attention
naturally is great and a great feeling, but these kinds of people will
naturally go out of their way, to be the center of attention and it is so pitiful
the lengths they will go.
What are the problems
that having fair-weather friends can bring into your life? Well it can for
certainly bring upon loyalty issues with people, wondering whether one day to
the next your "real friends" will be there for you or not, or whether
they will abandon you just like your fair-weather friends have. This kind of
thing can be torturous on a person's mind and way of life. Going from having
the positive support of say 8 people to finding out that really only 3 or 4 of
the people would really be there to help you.
## Marcus Levis' Scale of
Friendship
This scale has 5 levels
on it, and each will be explained:
Positive Acquaintance:
These people are people who are in and out of your life, but you really do not
have much bad to say about them.
Fair-weather Friend: The
friend that is only around you for the good times and flees when there is any
sign of trouble, as they do not really care highly about you.
Friend: Someone who has
been in your life constantly for a period of 6+ Months and has been a positive
force in your mind.
Best Friend: Someone who
has been in your life for 3+ years and has been an extremely positive force and
is very much willing to help you in dire times of need.
Ultimate Friend: Someone
you know and trust (and may have some degree of either love or respect for),
who has been in your life for 8+ years or longer and would help you through
anything at the drop of a hat (pretty much) and the only thing they really want
in return for assisting you, is your friendship, and to know that in the same
situation, you would do the same.
There are of course the many
types of friends that a person can have, but I am mainly focusing on the
concept of fair-weather ones.
Fair-weather friends can
really bring a person down, because as was previously mentioned...they give one
a very false venire of trust and companionship that just sours the mood when
you find out that it is fake.
In closing, I would like
to simply give advise, as cruel as it may seem, test the loyalty of your
friends, but only do it in either dire situations or in minor situations where
you will need help, to try and learn who cares...and who doesn't.
Marcus Caydon Levis Age
18
Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog. Today I just want to start a short conversation about how it is that I am trying to get into the habit of writing every, single day.
I think one of the first things about getting into a habit is to do it every day and I try to start my day off by getting around to the writing (today being an exception due to something I had going on this morning). I just think that my brain is the freshest when I can get it rolling right away...coffee, breakfast and writing. That way as well, especially when I am writing for myself, it does not get in the way of the rest of the day if I knock it out first thing.
The other thing that really helps is making sure that I have everything open that I need for when I am writing. A content calendar, which I have physically written in a journal next to me as a type this, is key so that there is a version of myself in the past that thought out all of the posts that I would make, and then day of, I can warm myself up to writing but typing out a blog post, journal and then eventually work on my novel for a little bit.
All of these things are key, timing, not skipping a day when you do not need to and just simply working your day around whatever you have to do since writing can always be done as well as adhering to a proper sleep schedule and getting some exercise in the process too such as the mid-day walks that I like to grab since at this time of year the best weather is in the middle of the day. That may change in a few months time, but for now this is my March 2022 writing habit building process!
See you all tomorrow!
Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog! Today I just wanted to write something quick to walk everything through what is currently here on the blog, and potentially what things I am thinking of adding for the future.
First off of course you have the main page of the blog where you can check the latest and most popular posts on the site. This is also the landing page for the site and where you can also find the navigation bar to head to any of the created pages.
Secondly, there is the "Works of Fiction (2014-Present)" page. This is the place where any of my short stories and one off writings can be found. Whenever a new one is eventually posted on the feed, they will all be linked on that page so that you can read any of them at any time.
Finally, a page that is going to be under development is the "Philosophies" page that will be created today. This page will house links to all of the different Philosophical pieces that I have and will write...starting of course with the ones that I wrote in the past to be posted, then eventually getting around to new ones once I post the best ones from pre-2022.
Just a quick overview of what exists on the blog here in March 2022 to start things off!
See you all tomorrow!
It was a bright and sunny morning as the local junior league football
teams got out onto the field. The grass was as green as the leaves on the trees
and as luscious and soft as a pillow. Today was the opening game of the season
for these teams and they were all looking forward to getting a chance to win
game, win trophies and make it to the playoffs and eventually win the
championship. There were hundreds of young kids out of the fields warming up,
but one in particular, who was not.Billy
Smith, who with his short blonde hair, crazy green eyes and freckled face, was
sitting off under a tree off to the side of the fields. Billy had been a soccer
player his entire life, and thus had very little grasp, if not interest in the
playing of football. Sadly, since moving to this part of the country, there
were no major soccer leagues for him to play in, and he was forced to either
play football, baseball (which he doubly hated) or do nothing, and he couldn’t
just do nothing when he loved sports so much.
His parents had
always been so supportive of all of Billy’s sports endeavours, and really loved
coming out to the games to watch Billy play. They had already bought him all of
the proper equipment and paid the fees for him to play at least one season, so
he had to play, and he figured he might as well at least give it a try.
Billy got up from where he was sitting and joined his
team on the field for the practise. His team was called the Bears. The Bears
had always been a losing team, the same player kept coming back, year after
year, and they still kept missing the playoffs by a small margin every single
time. He hoped that this year, they could be a successful team. The coach of
the team was a grizzled, older man who was always apparently known for working
his team hard, and harder when they lost games.
Today, was the first game of the season for the Bears.
They were playing against their rivals the Flames. The Flames were often
playoff contenders, and were known for several years, going deep into the
playoffs, due to their amazing passing game, blitz plays and running game. The
first few quarters of play went just as they knew where going to happen, the
Flames got out to an early 7-0 lead on the first drive of the game, and by half
they were already up 35-7. The Bears were getting blown out.
Billy was a wide receiver, meaning that it was up to
Billy to catch the balls thrown at him by the Quarter Back (QB). Billy, having
played soccer all of his life, had no ability to catch the ball whatsoever and
kept dropping the ball when it was thrown to him in the first half, so much so,
that the QB never threw to him again in that game.
It was basically that way for Billy all of the season,
even though his team won a fair amount of their games, he could still not catch
a ball. His team won 7 out of their 15 games played, and with a 7-8 record,
they were one win away from possibly making the playoffs, or one loss away from
being knocked out of the running again.
Well, just like in the first game of the season, they
were playing the Flames, and the Flames had been having a disappointing season.
They were also 7-8 and if they won, they would go to the playoffs, and if the
Bears beat them, they knocked their rivals out of playoff contention.
This being the last game of the season, this made Billy
more determined than ever to complete the goal he set for himself after the
first game…catch one pass. Just one pass would elevate his morale and would
also make the team believe in him so much more than they already have been. Due
to his lack of skills he was benched in a couple of the games this season, and
the coach debated benching him for this one, but he didn’t, he let Billy play.
The first quarter started easy enough, with both teams
tying 7-7 and grabbing a touchdown a piece. The second quarter saw two of the
major Wide Receivers for the Bears taken out of the game, and two guys
(allegedly worse than Billy) brought into the game. The score was 21-7 for the
Flames at the half. By the end of the third quarter, they had tied it up at
21-21.
The 4th quarter began with an easy field goal
for the Flames and they were now leading 24-21. They then went back and forth
on two consecutive drives each (not getting a touchdown) and all this time
never throwing to Billy. There was now 00:30 on the clock and the Bears had the
ball on the opponent 21 yard line, almost in their red zone. This was almost a
desperation play for the QB, knowing that his team was about to possibly have
another losing season, he decided right then and there, he was going to try…to
throw to Billy. The QB hutted the ball back in the shotgun, and waited for
Billy to get open, he dodged one tackle and when he saw an opening, he launched
the ball into the end zone right at Billy.
It was as if time itself, slowed down. You could hear the
whooshing of the ball through the air as it travelled. The ball was in a
perfect spiral, it could not have been thrown any better than that. As it
neared Billy, his determination grew, he pushed aside the defender and dove
towards the ball, and instead of it just hitting off of him…he caught it!
TOUCHDOWN BEARS! Screamed the announcer. As Billy lay on
the ground, not wanting to get up for fear that he had failed, even though he
was not sure he hear the announcer correctly. Billy eventually got up slowly to
see his entire team looking at him from down and coming to run at him and dog
pile him to the ground. He had done it! He had won the game for his team! It
was the most amazing feeling of elation he had ever felt in his entire life!
From that moment on, Billy sought to make football his sport of choice. His team went ot the playoffs and won the championship that year. Then when Billy came back the next year, he practised just as hard if not harder than the other guys, to make himself better and make more catches. Billy would go on to play the game of football well into his adult life.
The moral of this story?
Don’t judge a book by its cover, and if you don’t like something, don’t jip it
until you try it, the best way to live life, is to only have opinions on things
you either understand completely, or have tried, not ignorance.
Hello everyone and Happy Monday and also Happy Spring 2022!
Yesterday we took a shallow dive into the subject of "The Muse" and now that we have started on this daily blogging journey together you and I, I want to take some time to announce my first writing project that I have begun working on, give you a little background and then maybe...just maybe I can give monthly updates on the project until it is completed.
I have written a Philosophy book in the past as well as an essay collection (they will eventually be linked to the blog) and we will talk about those at a later time, but this is my first foray into the novel writing department and I wanted to give everyone a little taste as to what the project is...and maybe I can think about giving a sneak peak when the time comes.
The first book I am writing right now is currently titled 2101 and it is an Orwell-inspired future dystopian novel, where much like in 1984 the world that the main character knows is one that had been taken over by "The Party" and was spreading what could be seen as an exacerbated form of Soviet Communism in the Post-WW2 era, my book is taking some of the similar style of ideas, but of course blowing up many of the modern tropes and looks at what life would be like if Big Data controlled the world through a massive merger during the late 21st century and the state of affairs in a technologically advanced society where everyone is essentially controlled by Big Data to keep their grip on the world holding strong.
I have finished so far the first chapter of the book and I am currently working on the second chapter, character development and trying to build the world in the present day, as I will be willing to admit here, character development is not my strongest attribute, but I did a lot of history and scene setting in the first chapter that a few people I have read it off too have said it is really good.
Creative people do not often like to toot their own horns for fear of backlash or being made to look vein, but I too think it is rather good, but good because my mind still deeply flows with ideas. I think when you are creating something through a certain level of inspiration, it is only as good as the flow of ideas. Even if it seems at times like the ideas can be random, there is always a way to piece everything together in order to form a story. I have always been someone who enjoys telling my stories and so here we are now, me telling a story that I am completely conceiving of based on the most recent book that I read.
This is the first time in a long time that I honestly feel the ideas flowing, and I really do not want to let that all go to waste just being ideas. I plan to get the book past the 5k word mark today in order to really get the story rolling and help to prepare me for my first Camp NaNoWriMo experience that begins April 1st, 2022. I will be talking about that as we approach the date.
Taking things one day at a time is the best way to live and it is the way that I find my story unfolding. I hope you all have a great day and a great start to Spring 2022 as WINTER IS OVER!
See you all again tomorrow!
