Episode 6: Navigating Joblessness, Gender Identity, and Becoming my Main Character

kick back relax welcome to the laid-back life it's your boy laidback marco and i'm coming at you with another video it's been it's been hard to get these things out consistently every week but it's it's been also fun to challenge myself and see if i can actually put out one video a week which is actually not a lot but i think when you're trying to push the quality of a video and and make it not just a rant it is a little difficult and i think i've learned a lot of editing skills and in order to keep retention actually and i know it shouldn't be about numbers and retention but i want it to be entertaining and valuable for you guys i try to do things like add b-roll or add some zoom ins and hide some of the cuts i do actually watching my videos i've been trying to get rid of a lot of my vocal tics the um so all these sort of things that you do unconsciously because you're trying to fill space and conversation is something i'm trying to get away from not only in not only because of youtube but also because of conversations i really like to think what i'm talking about and consciously say things as opposed to having conversations via reflex and i think that's how you get these deep authentic connections and i've been trying really hard to live for authenticity and it's caused a lot of challenges i would say between my myself and my my mom and potential challenges in the future because as i go towards maybe doing hrt and transitioning which is a hard thing to talk about there's a possibility not the possibility the inevitability of having to sever connections whether that's with family or friends or people you consider close but the impermanence of life is one of those things where it's sad and i see myself aging and you know there's those age filters on instagram and tiktok that you can use and you're like one day i'll look this old and let's get a sick cyborg body that you know turns invisible like there's an inevitability of aging and eventually dying so i figure your friends and family won't be around for forever so you might as well live authentically and try to be yourself and i think that's the first topic i want to talk about today is just living authentically life is way too short to just be okay you shouldn't just be okay and not every day of your life is going to be this amazing even if you get your dream job doing art or music or whatever it is i think my dream job is something that's not even been invented yet as a job description and i'm trying to make make it happen whatever it is and i think when you wake up every day you should be excited to do what you're doing and i get a little nervous before i record these videos in fact i sat around for 30 40 minutes just contemplating starting recording and i think what i learned from all these books all these self-improvement books they say in different ways is sometimes you just need to start and get it done take that first step and i've recently started taking that first step towards going to art school i drew another still life i'm trying to get away from drawing anime as much as i love anime and anime can teach you drawing but it's an anime is it's a simplification of a shape and form that you understand into a style so i'm trying to get to base reality i guess you would call it i'm trying to really understand the shapes and forms of things and even simple things like boxes you'll find are hard to draw so i'm trying to simplify and pretend like i don't know anything i think assuming that you know something is one way you can treat yourself in the foot and that's kind of the second point i wanted to bring up actually as i learned to edit better and better using davinci resolve because i like resolves business model and a lot of hollywood studios like resolve actually through my freelance work i'm hoping to buy a copy of resolve studio which is a lifetime license and they give you free upgrades for life it's the same model as fl studio which is the music program i use the digital audio workstation and i really like the model of you pay for it and you own it and having a lifetime subscription and i'll have to apologize to fl studio because i pirated the software for so long for the first five years of making music for seven eight nine years i was using a obtained copy i would say but i finally put the money aside to buy a copy and i am i'm happy with that but i would say don't assume you know something and this is kind of something i've said before but i'm watching these how-to videos on davinci resolve and it's step one learning to edit and i think with a lot of the basics the fundamentals of everything basketball photography music production whatever it is you're doing a lot of people will gloss over the very basics of a program or skill set because they want to get somewhere and i watched the first tutorial but i'm actually watching it again and trying to implement some of the tools and shortcuts and functions that they cover in the tutorial into my workflow and that includes tagging that includes using different edit functions that yes there it might take you know a week or two to integrate into my workflow but over my lifetime hoping 40 20 years from now when i've woken up and said by god i've arrived that alan watts that iconic alan watts line i've i've arrived i'm hoping 20 years from now all that time and savings and self-improvement will will turn into something i'll be a real person a real authentic fake and i've been trying to be less fake so i think when people ask me how i'm doing every day it's so it's so easy for you to say oh i'm doing fine even when you're not feeling fine and how do you expect to connect with people if you don't say how you're actually feeling and i think if i was an ever ever a leader of an organization i i want to start this laid-back lifestyle company this laid-back lifestyle brand i want to i want to inspire others to live live authentically and and live up to a certain standard but also be relaxed while doing it right that's this whole idea of laid-back life i think as a leader if you're in disingenuous with your if you're disingenuous with your following or followers or or company it it will come bite you in the butt so when things are not going well don't say everything's going well say it's a challenging time right now and i know that but things are are going to get better i don't know how how would i be a leader a thought leader i'm trying to position myself as a thought leader and i often feel imposter syndrome but i also realize there's some skills and things i know too and this comes into you know what i've been talking about finding value in yourself and valuing your valuing yourself to the point where hey i might not be the best at this thing but i can teach someone else what i know you know being not afraid to to reinvent yourself and step outside of that comfort zone is a lot easier said than done so recently i've been watching movies with friends and maybe it's not movies i i'm used to seeing but stepping outside of that comfort zone helps me to see that there's a world outside of what i'm used to and i've been so scared to to leave japan because i love this country so much and and i love the culture so much but the reality is there's there's a whole world outside of japan and i don't want to i want to come back to japan hopefully you know 10 20 years from now and life's one of those things where 10 20 years from now i might even forget i said this but i'd like to come back to japan on my terms and hopefully be in a career and a place in my life where i don't have to worry about money or fixing my car or all these little things that i really shouldn't have to worry about at this point in my career and i don't know if it's the economy or the company i work for my skills are are just not good enough i'm looking to go back to school i don't know what it is but i i can't seem to get a job in in a field i'm really excited to work for which can also be a bad thing because a lot of people in the gaming and anime industry are taking advantage of because they love games and anime right so it's always a hard position to be in yeah but you think it's it'll be easy when you you wake up in that place and you're working but what if you're being overworked and you don't realize it because hey i love what i do i've recently been also trying to give up the idea of what my life should look like at this point and just live where i am now and that's been very difficult to let go of what i think i should be and to be what i actually am which that sounds so silly when you say that but recently thanks to my friend eric i've started listening to this this guy called west sissel and it's funny because i was listening to alan watz and rom dos and all these beatnik from the 60s and i was i was thinking there should be something that's a lot more modern than this and west sissel is actually to the level of alan watz where he makes he reduces things to absurdity but he still thinks deeply about stuff and it's a little bit more modern and there's some humor mixed in there and it's really helped me to shape my ideas and even talk about my ideas out loud and i'm hoping one day that these strategy sunday talks which i'm thinking about reinventing and rebranding myself as life strategy guide because often i don't get them out on sunday and i want strategy sunday to not be just about my like i want this to be a life strategy guide for a bunch of things so trying to expand outside of that but i've been trying to get in touch with my spirituality and you know there will always be that that christian boy inside of my my mind but i think if i were to describe my my spiritual and religious views it's christian plus um because that's a deep part of myself that i can't get rid of i was talking to my friend eric again we talk a lot because he's like my my i think we're in the company there's you know the senior managers the president and then eric and i are in a department and the department's actually kind of we all kind of have our own responsibilities other than our department head but i talked about even when i produce music if you use a certain reverb sound it makes it sound like you're in a church and i always try to include that because that's always been a part of my life and as although i i think i've moved past a traditional christian view there's some things about christianity that i like being kind to people you know and i've been getting in touch with it more even though my my favorite views are actually eastern you know buddhism and and shintoism and even native american religions which aren't eastern but they're they kind of share a lot with shintoism and hinduism and buddhism which i i'm looking to read more of the the old texts and actually become more well versed and read in these texts but one thing i'm really trying to do with christianity and one of the people i'm actually meeting on my upcoming vacation um my first mentor that actually he saw something special in me um my my my second boss my first office job really i was going around with this goofy looking resume um which was over designed and all my resumes have been like this because i figure if i pour my whole personality into my resume if the place i'm working applying to work for doesn't like it i don't want to work there anyway it's a very it's a very it's like going all in in poker i'd rather just put it all up front there and and not play these stupid games that we like to play um i like to play fun games and i've been looking forward to getting back into that competitive gaming when i move back to seattle but but he saw something special in me and he he's very christian and um he runs a non-profit music kind of education thing in in hawaii and it's maybe something i can help out with but i think the the christian thing that caught my attention came from some random philosophy youtube video where if i was brought up christian and i want to be a good person live with it said live with his heart live with jesus's heart and and i tried to do that and all aspects of my life you know i don't want to be kind just to to be kind but i really want to empathize and that doesn't mean i think a lot of people think jesus was a pushover but jesus wasn't a pushover right i mean he got pretty angry and he stood up for himself when people were gambling in the house of god or you know um but it's hard when you're confronted right it's like what jordan peterson says um and i love i love jordan peterson too and i take what i i like from him and leave what i don't um but being meek is not about so if someone is trying to engage you in combat it's not that you can't do anything back it's it's a situation where you you you could hurt someone or perhaps or or defend yourself but you know no big harm will come from it anyway so you you don't allow yourself to be stomped over because you can't do anything or it's it's hard to describe but yeah it's it's not that you you when you get punched you don't hit back although you could hit back and inflict much damage you don't raise raise an arm and try to defend yourself and i actually heard a story about martin luther king who got attacked and his first instinct was to damn some dude just punched me i'm about to knock his lights out too but he moved past that and didn't defend himself because that would that would show that it would go against everything that he's trying to preach so he so i've been trying to do that in less extreme situations and it's kind of hard to do and it's difficult to do on a daily basis for me i think just slowing down and thinking about okay oh this is such a cheesy what what would jesus do is like this such a cheesy way to to say stuff and it's funny because the people we we end up being more rash and real with are the people that are close to us and that will love us anyway so i i opened up to my mom about potentially transitioning and uh you know we got into a pretty um i i think she doesn't see how biased she is with the information she's delivering i don't think she's very accepting of it and i don't think she's self-aware enough to realize she's not very accepting of it and there's maybe there's maybe things i'm closing my mind off to and i know there's risks involved and especially you know socially health-wise there's just risk all across the board and it might be one of those things where if you look back at a decision 20 years from now and you regret it but we got into a pretty heated debate and i i took a dig at her by comparing her to to my father who hasn't actually been a good father and i i haven't opened up about this a lot on my youtube channel but uh i think the the line from serve the servants one of my favorite songs from nirvana it's such a weird funky song you know it has a surf lyrics and the way curt sings is it's kind of like he's making a joke out of the whole thing and it is he's kind of making a light-hearted attempt at describing his his life you know he says instead of i tried hard to have a father but instead i had a dad and i think that describes the relationship with my father pretty well i wish i had a supportive father and maybe that's one of you know i think maybe one of the reasons why people transition is they don't have a good male role model in their their life and that might be just a psychological thing i'm stuck with um you know i raised by raised by my sisters and my mom essentially my dad was like in my life when he felt like it i i compared her with my dad and that was that was an emotional that was just an emotional dig on my part and i knew it as i was typing and i probably shouldn't have typed it um but it's hard to not also feel accepted for who i want to be and i think it's one of these situations where it's funny because i often talk with chat gpt and have philosophical conversations with it and as someone with with high-functioning autism chat gpt it really helps me to convey emotions and feelings i want to get across emotions and feelings i want to get across because i feel like sometimes i'm there's this one race from mass effect where they have to say how they feel because they're so slow moving and their faces aren't very expressive that if they're surprised they have to flat out say they're surprised so if someone went up to them and surprised them they'd be like surprised i am very surprised by this their voice is kind of monotone which is fun and mass effects a fun franchise i can't wait for mass effect 4 and all these games i want to kind of dive into their world but for me chat chat gpt it helps me to kind of analyze process and emotions and think about this thing and i i asked it in a future cyberpunk world where transitioning is like almost well they solve aging and transitioning and you know i was talking about it with a couple of things but if transitioning is one of those things that are is virtually not different from being born of a certain gender what what would cause certain people to and technology isn't there yet but it'll eventually get to that stage and then a lot of these arguments that people are against it they'll kind of hold no weight and i was wondering what would they might be afraid of and some people like a certain order religious views are the thing but i i don't understand why you couldn't be religious and and trans at the same time because to say my interpretation of a bible or a word is better than yours doesn't really make sense or yeah it's just one of those things and i'm talking about religion but it is a part of my life but i can never i don't see why you can't have both worlds i don't see why it has to be one or the other and i think the next thing i wanted to talk about is just not being afraid to try new things and i think i've talked about this before but i think one of the things i'm i'm shifting from it when when i play games it used to be all about multiplayer and i do like multiplayer because it's that mental chess battle battle between you and another player another human being and and you know it's not like a computer sometimes when a computer beats you it's it's because they have unfair human reflexes or the difficulty scaling is just kind of ridiculous in some games but when when you lose against another person it's like well they they have the same tools as me usually so um it's a it's a fun kind of mental battle but recently i've been trying to invest myself in worlds like runeterra the world of runeterra is so much bigger than what we see in league of legends and i think you you can get get a kind of sense from the creators of games or uh writers or or films is you really think about living in that space in a sense they're they're living in that space or just a little bit and escaping our world and i think i i want to start fiction writing again and i don't know what i what writing i will do but i've been told that i'm a pretty good writer and i think a lot of people have told me hey you're a good writer so maybe it's something i should try to explore the skill maybe i was born with that i haven't seen i think my my english teachers would always tell me hey you're a good writer my my aunt tells me you're a good writer even my mom's like hey you're a pretty good writer um the thing the thing is i don't know if they're just trying to blow me up because to make me feel better is the thing i always get that sense of well i i'm not that great of a writer right otherwise i'd have a job doing it or be an author or poets or a songwriter or something um yeah i've been trying to read and write more and live live outside of this world and in space is i think i'm kind of getting to the point where i'm ranting about random things now but i think there's a couple things that you should maybe think about and try to bring into your life i thought i would have had it figured out by now um i'm turning 29 this year and i'll be 30 i'll be 30 i'll be 30 soon and that that number is three decades is a long time so next week i go on vacation and hopefully it'll be a fun travel vlog and i'll get to hang out with my my sister and i think i needed a big mental break but at the same time i don't want to take a break because it feels like if i take a break there's other people who are working but i don't know if it's inefficient to just keep putting my head down i think that like the best example is i was trying to get good at league of legends in college and i sacrificed everything to play league of legends i guess i didn't drop out but i almost dropped out i didn't really have a girlfriend because i i just wanted to do esports and i think i talked about this before but it's one thing to like half fast and fail and another thing to like really pour yourself into something and still fail and i think that's what makes me afraid to try anything else in life but at the same time i don't want to just go through life being unhappy with with my job and situation and just settling into the daily monotony anyway i have some freelance work to do and um yeah i don't know what i'm gonna do after i'll be i'll be unemployed and a month from now realistically so yeah i'm just kind of at a loss for what to do and i'll have to just pack everything in my car and kind of live out of my car for a little bit which is man that's embarrassing yeah i don't i don't want to end this too on two of a depressing note so yeah i'm just looking forward to vacation and i'm just proud that i stood up for myself i'm just proud that i stood up for myself and and i'm hoping that these these these videos will be more structured as i said but i think i did follow a structure and i did get everything off my head that i i wanted to get out and maybe one of these things is the video is unstructured but i i turned it into a structured blog post and i need to do more blog posts and and and do more of x y and z and maybe i'll have that opportunity when i'm employed but we'll see peace

2023-06-24 23:25

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