Message in a bottle

Hello there. Who’s reading? Who’s listening? Am I alone? …probably. Lonely? Nah.

A Life, Drifting

I’m just a single guy, going through life, doing the things he enjoys.

I have three kids—have I mentioned that before? I can’t remember. This blog’s always been offhand. Write something, forget it. Write again, forget again.

I’ve written short stories. Novels. Dumb little creative things over the years.

But I never publish. I wonder why... I know why...

The Ache of Making

Ever feel like what you did wasn’t enough? Like whatever you wrote wouldn’t make the cut— people wouldn’t read it, couldn’t enjoy it, probably wouldn’t want it?

I’ve been battling with productivity. I hate that word. “Be productive”—for what?

I pay for my kid’s school. I give all I have. I don’t want to pretend.

I am a writer. I’m not. I am a dreamer. I’m jaded. I am lonely. I am alone. No—I’m tired.

Tired of pretending. Of trying. Of intending but never managing.

Coping. Not coping.

The Human Contradiction

Be judged—whether you like it or not. Move on. Raise your chin. You did your best. No, you didn’t. You could’ve done more. But it was enough. No, it wasn’t. Yes... probably. Could’ve been better, huh?

Who would read the ramblings of a 39-year-old man watching life walk past, never achieving anything except being the best father he could be.

The Spiral

I’ve started taking anxiolytics. I was always upset. Angry. Now I get introspective.

Now I spiral.

Try to metastasize my feelings. Fall into the same pattern:

“I didn’t do what I wanted.” “But I did what I could.” More importantly— “I did what I had to.”

I just want to have to be a writer.

The Ladder: Urgent → Important → What Matters

How to prioritize your life: First what’s urgent, then what’s important, then what matters.

I’ve been stuck in urgent for a decade. Sometimes I do what’s important. I’m tired of never having the energy for what matters.

Message Sent

So here it is— Another message in a bottle. Thrown to the vastness of the internet. To see if anyone reads it.

If it finds you: Hi. Nice to meet you.

I hope you’re having a fantastic day. Or if not happy—at least not sad.

Me? I’m fine. Nah—not fine. But content. Yeah. Content works. Content is better than despairing.

The Epic & the Illusion

There was a dude in /r/writing— Spent ten years writing his epic.

It’s too big. No one will read it. No one will edit it. No one will touch it with a ten-foot pole.

And I got upset. Here I am, writing short stories. Hyper-aware. Intentional. And there he was:

“Everything I wrote is important to the plot,” he said.

No, it’s not.

It’s easy to hide behind creative integrity when the work you’ve been carrying for ten years starts carrying you.

Sunk cost fallacy— Even writers fall for it.

If You Read This…

I just want to be read. Maybe bring you a smile. Maybe be recognized. Maybe touch something deep inside you you didn’t know needed tending.

But it’s fine. I’ll keep writing. Maybe. Sometime. Someday.

And if you read it— That’d be swell.

Once Again

Hope you’re having a fantastic day.

Undertale: Why I Never Played the Genocide Route

 

When I played Undertale for the first time, it was because of a single YouTube video. Back in the era when I used to watch Game Grumps, there was a segment called Steam Train, where Ross would present new games—interesting games, indie games—for the audience.

And in his playthrough of Undertale, he straight-up said:

“If you haven’t played this, stop the video right now and buy it. It’s cheap, and you HAVE to play it without knowing anything.”

And I did.

And… it became one of the most beloved games I’ve ever played. And I’ve only played it to completion three times.

🩸 The First Run: The Mistake

In that first run, I killed Toriel by mistake—yes, a mistake. I was still trying to understand the mechanics of the game. I kept choosing Mercy. I kept dodging. I kept trying to advance. And reading the dialogue, I thought:

“Oh, maybe it’s like in Pokémon, where I have to lower her health so that she understands I am strong enough.”

What I didn’t know at the time is that after a certain number of rounds, the game is coded so that you “crit” Toriel—and she dies in one hit.

And she calls you a cruel person. Because she was starting to believe I didn’t want to hurt anyone…

I wanted to restart the game right there. But no—I chose to continue.

I didn’t kill anyone else in that run… Only the person that should have never been killed.

Sans hated me. Understandably. But Toriel taught me that no matter what—I should never attack.

🌱 The Second Run: The Redemption

So I did my second run—the full Pacifist route. That time, I used the internet whenever I didn’t understand a mechanic. I looked up how to avoid killing anyone if I wasn’t sure.

And I loved the story.

But I missed the story with the scientist.

I hadn’t understood how to unlock her truth yet.

🧪 The Third Run: The Mirror

So I started a third run. Found the secret area. Prevented a self-harm. And I loved the story even more.

When I first met Alphys, I saw an echo of myself—when I was younger. Socially anxious. Awkward when interacting with others. Always trying to do good, and always failing to be understood.

She was a mirror of my own inadequacies. And at first, I disliked her.

Even after she started helping me, I didn’t feel good interacting with her. She was trying too hard. She was desperate. And something sparked in me—not compassion, not empathy, but indulgent kindness.

I didn’t want to be cruel to her. I just wanted her to stop being so scared all the time.

Then came the letter.

Undyne handed me the confession—unspoken, unread—and asked me to deliver it to Alphys. That was the first crack in Undyne’s armor. Her first moment of vulnerability. And it changed everything.

That letter wasn’t just a plot device. It was trust. And when I delivered it, I was no longer a stranger. I was reliable. I was useful. I was someone who mattered.

And then the True Lab opened.

Not a secret passage. Not a horror set piece. A graveyard. A buried trauma. The rot of perfection.

The True Lab wasn’t just where Alphys tried to save monsters. It was where she left herself to rot.

I was sad. Not because of what she did. But because of what she was forced to do in the background—out of fear.

Fear makes us do a lot of things we don’t want to do. Fear of loss. Fear of inadequacy. Fear of being left alone.

The Amalgamates weren’t monsters. They were mirrors.

They showed what fear does to someone. What Alphys had done. What Alphys had become.

And I disliked her more. Because I understood her.

Because I had been on that same path before.

Because I had done the work. Walked the path. Scraped my way into a version of myself I could stand. And seeing her fall again—just like I had once—I was looking at my past.

And I hated what I saw.

But then… I helped her. And she started climbing.

And suddenly, I saw why I was so angry.

No one had helped me when I was at my lowest. Or if they did—I didn’t see it. Just like her.

And now, I was the player character. And I was giving her… giving me… a hand to get out of the gutter.

And I came to love her. As I came to love myself—with time.

🛑 The Path Not Taken

Then I started it again, thinking:

“Oh, let’s try the Genocide run.”

And Flowey talked to me.

Hi. Seems as if everyone is perfectly happy. Monsters have returned to the surface. Peace and prosperity will rule across the land. Take a deep breath. There’s nothing left to worry about.

Well. There is one thing. One last threat. One being with the power to erase EVERYTHING... Everything everyone's worked so hard for.

You know who I’m talking about, don’t you? That’s right. I’m talking about YOU. YOU still have the power to reset everything. Toriel, Sans, Asgore, Alphys, Papyrus, Undyne… If you so choose… Everyone will be ripped from this timeline… …and sent back before all of this ever happened. Nobody will remember anything. You’ll be able to do whatever you want.

That power. I know that power. That’s the power you were fighting to stop, wasn’t it? The power that I wanted to use. But now, the idea of resetting everything… I… I don’t think I could do it all again. Not after that.

So, please. Just let them go. Let Frisk be happy. Let Frisk live their life.

But. If I can’t change your mind. If you DO end up erasing everything…

You have to erase my memories, too.

I’m sorry. You’ve probably heard this a hundred times already, haven’t you…?

Well, that’s all. See you later… Chara.

And I listened.

⚓ The Reckoning

For me, the third run—Pacifist, secret-finding, saving everyone—was my perfect ending.

I didn’t need to see any more. I didn’t need to explore how it would feel to kill everyone that I came to love.

There are some things that I personally couldn’t cope with. And that’s fine.

Not knowing the suffering of the characters I loved is fine.

So I turned off the game. And I haven’t played it ever again.

Just three runs. Just three endings.

• The imperfect one, tainted by the death of Toriel.

• The imperfect one, where I wasn’t aware of how to help someone in need.

• And the perfect one…

Yes—not the “Pacifist” one. The PERFECT one.

Because for me… saving someone—actively going out of my way to help the only character who truly needed a friend—is what made it perfect.

Call me a baby. Call me weak. Call me a little bitch. It’s just a game. They’re not real.

For me—they’re real.

The feelings were real. The tears were real. The pain of looking through everything to find her and save her… Was real.

Yes, it’s a simulation. A game. A script. A narrative.

But the emotional investment—for me—was never fake.

And I value that more than “knowing what happens if I kill everyone.”

Because I already know.

I would be killing my effort. My emotional investment. My joy.

If I did that, I wouldn’t be revealing another narrative. I would be murdering my own story.

And I could never do that.

34 Años

Hoy cumplo 34 años
y mi vida continúa como siempre desde los 20
no tengo metas ni deseos ni ilusiones
o más bien las tengo pero son inalcanzables

no quiero dinero
no soy una persona que mide su valor en cosas materiales
quiero poder escribir y ser reconocido por mi escritura
pero el estrés de la vida que tengo vale pa pura madre

tengo 3 hijos, y los amo
desde que tengo memoria siempre he deseado eso
una familia, una resplandeciente familia a mi lado
una esposa que me ame
y mis hijos encantados

pero no fue posible...
solo mujeres egoístas me encontraron
al principio creí que estaría bien
que solo tenía que aguantarlo

más bien cuando abrí los ojos a como eran
cuando su egoísmo afecto a mis hijos
no pude soportarlo

quiero una esposa que me ame como sé que yo puedo amar a alguien
quiero una pareja que me acepte con todos mis caprichos y desmanes
no exijo mucho
soy un romántico
pero el romanticismo se rompe cuando no es recíproco ni andante

sé que no es culpa solo de ellas, yo también tengo mis fallas
nadie es perfecto, somos humanos
pero no creo ser tan insensato
no creo ser tan desalmado

¿acaso está mal pedir lo mismo que yo he dado?
esperar con la esperanza de la espera de encontrar una parte de mi gasto
no soy un santo, sé que yo también puedo ser desconsiderado
pero aún así solo recuerdo ser el único que pidió disculpas
el único que se arrastró con súplicas
el único que trató de enmendar los problemas pasados

es tan fácil ponerse la mano en la cintura y negar lo que uno ha hecho
pero si en algo estoy confiado
es que traté hasta el final de arreglar lo desahuciado
de maquillar lo demacrado

pero uno no puede trabajar con materiales podridos e inhumanos
con sentimientos negros del saber que uno no es amado
no fui querido
no fui anhelado
no fui esperado
no fui enmarcado

solo fui el medio para solucionar sus problemas estancados

y ahora en el amanecer de mis 34 años me siento desconsolado.

180° view out of my office roof

Just wanted to share a quick panoramic sweep I took with my phone, I love this kinds of angles from places one doesn't always see here in Cuautla most buildings are 2 stories high, well, my office building is 3 stories high and haves high ceilings between floors, so it's quite tall in comparison.

I'll keep posting small interesting tidbits when I think they are post worthy.

Mexican holiday is just around the corner.

Day of the death.

If you have ever known anything about the Mexican culture you are probably familiar with the day of the death, from October 31st to November 2nd, 3 days of remembering our ancestors, it's being said that to know where you are going you have to know where you came from, and nothing beats looking at your past relatives and learn about the struggle they lived to get you where you are right now.

We as Mexicans have a very intertwined belief on the unity of family, and most would agree that we do what we do to provide our descendants with a better economical and sociological standing, this little celebration is as much a way of remembering as it is a way of teaching our kids about the value and importance of those before us, which can be seen on the way they lived and what they did to move forward in life, be it right, or wrong, it's because of what they did that we are where we are right now.

But there is more to the celebration than just looking back to the ones that came before us, it's also an acknowledgment on the nature of life itself, how everyone, in the end, is going to die some day and will be left as nothing more than bones, "Dia de los muertos" is a love letter to death itself, also known as "La Catrina" since we fashion her as a dressy female skeleton, we are proudly standing next to the people that haves already passed away saying "we do not fear you, come spend some time with us" we open our doors, and our minds at the same time to the notion that life is not eternal, and all of us must die some day.

Trying to understand our ideals.

The religious nature of my country leaves nothing short of having everyone want to be remembered as good people, as such, no one remembers the death as bad persons, they just look at the good they did to try and reason that, even if they were some bad they were worthy of going to heaven, yes he might have being an abusive father or a wife beater, but once he's passed away all is forgiven least they deny him entry to heaven, and more often than not, they do it as a way of showing that "we forgave the one that just died so that he may enter heaven, if I ever did anything to you, you'll forgive me too least you keep me from getting into heaven", restless spirits are the ones that their family cant forgive, this translates to a colloquial saying "No death person has ever done anything bad in life", which I personally find very interesting to think about because they are not really saying he was "perfect" but that whatever he did was not bad enough to be sent to "hell" so he was not a "bad" person when he died, everyone forgave him, kind of a circular thinking if you ask me, but since I never was a very religious person it's meaning just washes down to "he did what he could to maintain his family" which is a way of letting go of things.

As such, it's a given that whatever we do to the people around us, as long as we don't "break" the family ties we won't be remembered as bad people, "betrayal of family" such an ingrained concept on the Mexican psyche, you are nothing without your family, if a man kills another man trying to rob him he is a delinquent, if he does it because his family needed the money, society would look at him with kinder eyes, not the law of course, just society in general.

It reminds me of the Netflix series "Narcos" most people saw Pablo Escobar as a monster, except his family and the people that got to know him personally, it all comes down to "he did it for his family" and it shows in how the people around him, the poor people, treated him, they all wanted to be part of his family in that same series, we are shown the life of the investigator Steve Murphy and his wife Connie Murphy, she leaves him at one point in the series fearing for her and her baby, for most of us that would be seen as a betrayal of family, I know most people in the USA and some European countries would see it as a normal thing to do, but you never abandon a member of your family, even less in such dire circumstances, and what some might consider the right thing to do, Latin american people would see it as being a selfish condemnable act.

Celebrating with the family.

What better way to celebrate than with a gathering for dinner?, we all love our food, even more in Mexico where the cuisine varies greatly from one area to the next, and we all bring dishes from all our family members into a cacophony of flavors that go from spicy to sweet and everything in between, if you have never being to a Mexican feast I would highly recommend it, in America I've noticed that the "party food" is sometimes monotone, in Mexico we set up a buffet with such disjointed themes and ingredients that you are sure to find something you'll like, but what celebration of the death could be without the people you are celebrating, we arrange altars to those we loved, not unlike the Japanese altars, picture of the departed in the middle, but we are much more colorful, orange and purple are the colors of the death, and we arrange the flowers of the death around them, it's an art in itself that we teach to our kids from a very young age.

I remember burning my self jumping this
when I was a little kid

A path of flowers and candles is set outside the house all the way into the altar, the door is left open and the food is set in the altar so that our dearly departed may come and go as they please, most of the time there is a bottle of the liquor they enjoyed in life, tequila most of the time, with a shot set, and a pack of their favorite brand of cigarettes, of course we lit one up for them to smoke when they arrive, the altar is set in the morning, the food is brought early evening and is left thorough the day, for the celebration most people make their dinner arrangements the night of the 31st, it's not always a party mind you, most people would gather on their mothers house but if they can't they will have a private feast for themselves.

After dinner, people will then get into the custom that is most common to the world, kids will dress up as the death or the devil or even a monster and go out from house to house asking for candy, teens will gather on organized parties with their classmates and have a party of their own with music and booze, and the adults will most of the time get drunk remembering the ones that are not there, it's not uncommon for the 1st to be received with a hang over.

It's not uncommon for people to stay until after midnight

Then comes the 1st of November, swarms of people will go to the pantheons to visit their family members, some bring the "comal" and eat lunch there, in my town it's common to eat cecina with home made tortillas and have a few beers next to the gravestones of our family members, we decorate their graves with all kinds of flowers and then go home in the late evening, not all people liked to go at the same time so it was recognized that the 2nd should be taken too to be able to visit your family whichever of the 3 days you would like, and all 3 days are fair game for kids to ask for candy.

I can hardly wait to take my kids to ask for candy.

Who doesn't want to be famous?

Reasoning why I want to start a blog.

"Dad was such a drag.

Everyday he'd eat the same kind of food,

dress the same,

sit in front of the same kind of games.."

My life so far.

Everyday, after work, I get home, eat with the family, chat a bit, go upstairs and get online

Every day for the pasts two years my life has being slipping past me.

I'm 30 and call it "the crisis" if you want, I became so self aware of dying that sometimes in the night I would lay awake breathing heavily, dying a little inside every night it happened.

It doesn't help that the woman that I wished to be with me for the rest of my life decided to leave me after a few nasty words that came from pure frustration with our relationship, somehow, I just lost it, lost her, and lost my path...

Now I find my self feeling lonely every day, I get home, eat, go online...

I know I'm not alone, I have my father and my mother, my son and two daughters that I see every weekend, 3 friends that I love as if they were brothers, a brother that I don't see very often, I'm surrounded by people that I care and that care about me.

I am economically stable, I just feel like I've given up on life, like nothing even matters anymore, like all that I've done for the past 10 years is just NOTHING.

I know that's not the case, I lost a business, started another one, married twice, got 3 kids out of the deal, drank every weekend with my friends, partied very hard for quite a while after my first divorce, lost a friend that chose her side when I didn't even ask him to choose a side.

And now I find myself wishing to make something out of me, the path I've traveled has brought me here, into a den of self loathing and disgust, of self doubt and apathy of life, into feeling that if I died nothing of importance would be lost.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suicidal, I don't want to kill my self, in my darkest hours all I could think about is that I don't want to die alone and without fulfilling my dream.

The dream.

I have being a writer since I can hold memory, when I was a little boy my mom and dad bought me a book, the "365 bedtime stories" book, one short story for every day of the year, I still remember the first story and the story of my birthday as if I had just read it, and even more remarkable I remember writing in a little diary my dad bought me pieces of the stories with me inserted as the Mary Sue.

I left the diary stuff when I was a little boy and moved on to poetry in my teen years, oh how I loved poetry, it was the joy of life to read them and write them, even remember giving some to a few girls and after being rejected or laughed at, I kept writing them, but now I had a challenge, I got it into my head that writing was meant to be seen, not saved, I had always watched shows where "the writer is so shy about it's work" well I was not going to do that!, so it became my duty to "publish" my works, I would copy and staple around 15 poems at a time and give them to whoever wanted a copy quite a few girls were interested and liked my poetry, I even remember one of them sending a poem of mine in her name to a contest and winning, I was super happy but didn't care about the prize, I just wanted my words to be read by people I wanted people to "see me" even if they didn't knew it was "me" they were seeing.

That evolved into an obsession of becoming a writer...

Life won't just buckle over and give you what you want.

And so I decided to become a writer, I would read every day, I would write every day, I would study every day about writing, it was my calling, what I wanted, what I wished for, I wanted to study "Philosophy" to get a better preparation on writing...

And then life happened.

I won't go into details, but I ended up getting enrolled into a business school, a miserable business school, quite obviously I flunked out and decided to get working, opened a business and had it for around 3 years, got married to my first wife to which I had my first son, that didn't last and got a divorce, 3 years later re married and had 2 daughters, my business busted, started something else and that relationship didn't last again...

All the while I kept writing small pieces every other week, some where for my self, others for the people that I love and for my family, all the while wishing I could write a book, I tried and tried and tried, but stress and work and life wouldn't let me do it, I wrote like 5 different books in my head but never had the chance of putting those things into words, I just lost the habit, I just lost the way, I just didn't  have it in me anymore to put what I wanted into words.

Substituting the dream with the trendy.

As I explained before, I thought I could be happy by just getting people to "see me", so I started a YouTube "experiment", I had already uploaded some videos of me very drunkenly singing songs without music, you can still find them online in my YouTube channel if you care for that, I loved watching people playing video games and loved video games myself, as such, I said "what the hell I'll do that! that way people will see me" and did some game play videos for my channel.

"How's it going bros my name is Pewdiepie"

It's not the same... it doesn't feel the same, there is a huge disconnection about what I am doing and what I am saying and what I want to make for people to be entertained, I wasn't saying anything of what I wanted to say and a very diluted sense of what I am trickled down into trying to be funny.

I hated that feeling.

I still try to twitch from time to time and will probably try to do more videos without the obvious copying of big YouTubers but I don't feel like I should fake my reactions, and I don't particularly like scripted sequences, so I'll most likely do more stuff in the vein of just playing and reacting to the game on what I think than trying to be funny and hope people like me, maybe that's why I enjoyed doing a bit of twitch from time to time, too bad my internet and current PC can't handle it.

And we are back to having no outlet for my creativity and my voyeuristic need to be "seen"

¿What better way to regain the habit of writing than doing blogs?

I noticed that one single outlet I had was writing stuff on forums online to people, discussing topics, giving my two cents, all that stuff, and I noticed that I usually wrote more than who was writing to me, that got me thinking "I may still be more literate than the people that I read on this places" I mean I know I'm wrong, but still it just showed that I loved writing, and that I should do that more.

In comes blogger, an outlet of the past, present and future, I have spent so many hours reading stuff in here that I have lost track, such a great space of like minded people, writing and sharing our thoughts, reading on peoples opinions, learning with them, getting in arguments, understanding people, who doesn't like to have their small little space on the web to publish whatever they want?, who doesn't want to be acknowledged by others?, have their views countered, engaging on discussions, saying what you want and learning what others want to say, such a beautiful solution to my thirst for writing.

and here is where I start, with an introductory post, about why I'm doing this and where I come from, hoping for people that get to read this to get to know me a bit more, what better way to introduce my self into the blogging community than by doing a blog about why I want to blog?

I'll keep on posting, I'll try to post daily, some will be short, some will be long, some will be about nothing, some will have such an in deep meaning behind that will hurt, but at least now you know in a broad sense where I come from, let us find out where I'll go!.

Next up... what I like to talk about and why I don't talk about it with anyone.