Back in Virginia

1:05 AM (of Sunday, August 4th 2024)

Today is Saturday, August 3rd 2024 and I'm back in Virginia again as of Thursday, August 1st. Prior to heading out to Virginia, I went to the gym again with Eric, and just Eric, Gus wasn't around and neither was Guy. I did the most workouts I've ever done, I think we did 25 sets total of a lot of different workouts. Too bad I actually don't feel any of that today, I rarely feel sore after working out. I really want to feel sore, I think it's a good feeling when certain muscles feel tighter or cramped, because they feel like they're developing, but they still develop either way.

Years ago I remember going to the gym once with A2, a friend I had growing up. He is middle eastern, formerly Muslim, and we met in middle school and basically grew up together, hanging out all the way even through high school, college, and work. We were friends and hung out all the time basically until around 2020 or so, when he moved to South America, and then a few years later I moved to Puerto Rico, I haven't seen him since, but we're still friends on Facebook.

We've only gone to the gym together a few times. Anyway I remember one night we worked out and we did a bunch of exercises, I did all the same weights as him, since I think I'm just naturally strong. Even with Eric, I'm caught up to doing all the same weights as Eric and he's been gyming for years, for some workouts like leg workouts, I've surpassed him. I still can't really do bodyweight exercises as easily though as Eric, he can do more than 10 pull ups in a row easily, the most in a row I did last week was 7.

So A2 and I worked out together once a few years ago, I think in 2017 or maybe it was 2019, and I just did the same weights as him for all the machine workouts we did. We did do pull ups at the time too, and at the time I wasn't able to do a single pull up, so I did have that weight assisted thing back then, so I didn't do all the same weights as him after all, but it was mostly the same. The next day A2 said he was extremely sore all over, while I told him I wasn't feeling anything, because I really wasn't. I think it all came down to our diet, as that's really the only difference, he ate dead animals while I chose not to, and out of many benefits, not feeling sore is one of them. Though I still do want to feel sore, it really just rarely happens.

Working out is actually pretty fun. A paradox that I've lived with is that I actually do enjoy working out, doing chores, and being productive. These are good activities to me. A problem that arises is that there is no direct punishment for me not doing these things, and it takes effort to do these things, so I often just choose to do nothing instead, which I hate doing. I hate just doing nothing, but I do it more than the activities that I do enjoy, simply because it's easier.

I'm not sure what the solution is yet to doing better in life. I think most of us just stay in the same place because it's comfortable. Even though I am much further along than in 2017, everything does still feel the same, like I am still in the same place, like my abilities are all still the same. The main difference is that today I'm not as anxious about life anymore. I have a lot more followers today, I've been to around 10 countries since then, I have a paid off condo home, I've been in a couple of relationships, I've published some songs, I've gotten around ten million or more views on my mainly veganism related Tweets, I've improved my skills in a lot of areas, I've made some awesome friends and I'm physically stronger than ever.

It's weird how I have made progress in life, and yet still feel like I'm in the same place. I'm definitely not in the same place. I feel like I have to be as successful and as famous as someone like Mark Zuckerberg to feel significant. He owns the conglomerate social media company. I think at some point in the future he will be the richest person on the planet, surpassing Elon Musk, who I think is a fraud. Maybe if I become as successful and famous as Mark Zuckerberg, I'll feel like I have accomplished something in my life? Maybe if I set a world record in something.

I've wanted to set a world record in something like the most pull ups or most push ups or longest plank, since 2021, but I doubt I'll ever accomplish anything close. The workout routines the people had for doing them is insane, something like 1000 push ups a day, 1000 pull ups a day, 5 hours of planking per day, in order for them to have gotten the world record. I definitely do have the time to be able to do all that. I have all the workout equipment and everything at home to be bale to do that. I should be able to do that. First I have to lose weight. That's something I haven't even accomplished.

I'm at least going for my bachelor's which I should have by this year or maybe the beginning of next year. I'm mostly done through this calculus course that I'm taking, and I've gotten a 100% on both the math quizzes so far. There's only the finals left, along with a couple weeks of other homework assignments.

I actually still go through life feeling like I'm a failure, even though I'm relatively accomplished.

It still constantly surprises me that most people aren't knowledgeable about a multitude of topics. How come? I'm well versed and relatively knowledgeable in practically every field. Just with computers alone, we can go into the hundreds of related sub-topics from hardware to software, to web development frameworks, to low level programming, to video editing, to music publishing, to computer history, to mechanical computers, to computer theory, to theoretical computation, to research papers such as how and why we use bits (0s and 1s) for storing data, to video games, many different games in many different genres, to video game creation, to social media sites, to social media sites, to video game hacking, to networks and wi-fi, to databases, to information systems, and so on and so forth. That's just with computers.

I also know about calculators, the different ones, the main dominant ones today by Casio and Texas Instruments. I know about the different cell phones, android and iPhones, I know about their history, from the regular phone, I've used rotary phones, landline phones, had direct experience with dial up Internet. I know about watches, about laptops, about monitors, about computer mice, about computer keyboards. I know about different cars, about different companies, about how companies are structured and operate.

I've played every popular sport and know the rules for them. I've played many video games, every genre of video game, and gotten good at some of them. I know about some different countries and some of their histories. I know about China's and Japan's histories, both of their warring states eras, I know China is called Zhonggou in Chinese (or Mandarin), than Japan is called Nippon in Japanese (or Nihongo). For China I know about the Qin, Chu, Zhou, Han, Qi, Yan, and Wei, I know about their Shang Dynasty. the Zhou Dynasty, and so on.

For Japan, a little bit about Oda Nobunaga, about Tokugawa Ieyasu. I know a lot about their present day history, how Nintendo was founded selling trading cards and how their transitioned to video games, about a lot of their game franchises' histories. I know pretty much every popular video game console that ever existed, and I've probably played all of them too at least once, growing up in the Famicom and Game Boy era, not even Game Boy Color, prior to Game Boy Color there was the regular, no color gray only Game Boy. I even owned a Game and Watch.

I also know about American history, how it was "discovered" by Christopher Columbus (the Native Americans already lived there), who's real name is not Cristobal Colon either, but something else, some Italian name that was translated to Cristobal Colon in Spanish, and then to Christopher Columbus in English. I know about the presidents, the founding fathers, the Louisiana Purchase, the initial pilgrim colonies. How Portugal took over one part of South America which is why they speak Portuguese in Brazil, how the French took over Northern America, which is why they speak French there, how the Spanish took over most of South America and why they speak Spanish there, and how the English took over the rest.

I also know a lot about how animals are raised and killed, as someone that grew up with farm animals myself, I saw how they were abused, tortured, and killed firsthand by family members. I can be very descriptive with the entire process of how humans abuse and exploit animals, but it would be very graphic to describe. I hope the world stops abusing and killing them, we don't have to take part in the cruelty as someone who hasn't eaten any animals or animal products in 11 years. I also know how to survive easily and on far less money than most, I've lived on a few years just eating plain rice and beans with some vegetables, under $3 a day worth of vegan only food, for years, intentionally in the U.S. when I could have spent more if I wanted to.

I know pretty much about every pop culture story. Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, a lot of the different Marvel and DC Comics superheroes, but I also know a lot about anime and manga, having read and seen so many of them. I also know about Chinese and Korean manwha and manhua, having read a few of them. I know about a lot of different pop culture musicians like the Beatles, and movies and movie directors.

I can sing along to hundreds of songs. I know the lyrics to hundreds of songs. I know the general gist sound to thousands of songs and can tap or hum along or sing lyrics similar to what they are, to thousands of songs, in many different languages. Oh yeah, I listen to songs in many different languages. French, Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, German, I actually know songs in all of these languages that I can sing along to, but not know what the lyrics means, nor have I looked up the lyrics. I just have this ability to listen to songs, memorize them, and sing along to them. I actually have this ability to play any song in my head, any song I want to, at any time, and I can sing along to that version in my head too.

I have experience in camping. I know how to set up tents, I know how to make a campfire, I knew how to tie some knots (I don't anymore). I know some basic wilderness survival, I know how to navigate by compass, or I should. I am actually an Eagle Scout, which is the highest rank in Boy Scouts that only 1% achieve. I've passed all of the tests and merit badge tasks for many different topics. I have a wood carving merit badge, a pottery merit badge, I don't remember them all, just a lot of different ones.

I was in the ROTC, so I know a lot about military things too, like ranking, and the different weapons, and some basic strategy, and stuff like that. I've shot at least 9 guns, including one machine gun, though I don't remember any of their names. I think I've shot an AK-47 before, an M16 too, popular weapons in Counter-Strike, but I honestly don't remember. One I do remember is the Dragunov, which is a sniper rifle, and I only remember it because of the stand-out name. I've ridden a tank, I've ridden a helicopter. I've marched and did PT drills wearing the U.S. Army uniform.

I think I can go on forever honestly about the amount of knowledge and experience I have. I have also been to around 20 different countries. I've lived in Asia for around 7 years, the Pacific Islands for around 1 year, North America for around 20 years, and Central America or the Carribeans for around 3 years. I know how to speak three languages. I can type in Dvorak and Qwerty. I know how to use both Vim and eMacs (eMacs is objectively superior).

I know how to bicycle, I know how to swim, I know how to dive. I know how to surf (so much easier than skateboarding). I know how to Heely. I know how to play the flute and the piano.

I've experienced love. I know how to love, how to be in love, how to kiss, how to cuddle, how to spoon, how to have fun in bed, how to flirt, how to be romantic, how to be purposeful with a woman, how to be a man.

I know about a lot of histories of some people, enough that I can recite their life like a biography. I know about the lives of Isaac Newton, Einstein, Tesla, Edison, Steve Jobs, Genghis Khan, Leonardo Da Vinci, and so on. I think those names I would be comfortable giving a biography about, I know enough about their lives that I can talk a bit about their upbringing, childhood, adulthood, and late life, although my memory for each isn't perfect. For the ones I don't know on a biographical level, I know about pretty much anyone, Nefertiti, Qin Shi Huang, Siddhartha Gautama, Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, Washington, Voltaire, Napoleon, Marcus Aurelius, Gandhi, living figures like Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, pretty much anyone. Just so many random names, Magnus Carlsen, Novak Djokovic, Lewis Hamilton, Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift, Akira Toriyama (recently passed), so many random names, literally name anyone and I probably know about them, even people obscure like Arnold Ehret, Eugene Sandow, Jack LaLanne, John Von Neumann, Charles Babbage, Claude Shannon, and so on.

I can probably go on forever. I can go deep into any topic too. Like operating systems, I know the histories of GNU/Linux (it should really be called GNU), about Mac OS X (it originally started as NeXTStep OS), about Windows (originally started as QDOS). I know the history of their creators too, of Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds, of Steve Jobs and Wozniak (and Ronald Wayne), of Bill Gates and Gary Kildall of CPM. I know about X Display and Wayland, KDE and Gnome, about the many different Linux distros, about Nano, about vi, about ed.

I can pretty much go on and on, about any field. We can get into medicine, into finance, into politics, into nature, into religion, pretty much any field and topic I am very knowledgeable in. I've talked to a lot of people. It always surprises me when they don't know about a subject, because to me that subject is so clear and obvious. Pretty much no one knows about veganism, a lot of non-vegans think they do but they really don't, otherwise they wouldn't be torturing and killing animals, especially when you can get all the same taste and flavor and even better without using any animal parts, plus improved health, considerably less resources, and without animal harm.

It really does surprise me a lot, that people don't know all that much about many topics like I do. Like what do people do in their spare time? Other people have lived more years than I have, yet they pretty much know a fraction of what I do in a lot of topics. How is that even possible?

There was that one time on the drive to pick up Guy, that Eric gave me a test on psychology, he was studying for his psychology finals, and he gave me a test that he said was the accumulation from all the years he's learned in psychology, for his master's in psychology. It was an hour drive, and he tested me on the way there and back, and he said I got pretty much everything right. To me, a lot of the stuff there was just obvious, like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, or Pavlov's Dogs, or Kubler Ross' stages of grief, or Frued's ego, id, superego, or a bunch of other ones. He said I'd do better on this test than a lot of the people majoring in psychology in his class would, and he was doing his master's in psychology.

I've talked to Eric too and he didn't even know Toyota was a Japanese company, he drives a Toyota. He said he didn't know any of the car companies and where the cars were made. I can name a few Japanese car companies easily, like Mazda, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Honda, Lexus, Infiniti, Nissan, Acura, and I think that's all I can name right now. I know cars like Hyundai and Kia are South Korean, cars like BYD is Chinese, Tesla and Ford are American, Rolls Royce is British, BMW, Volkswagen, and Mercedes Benz are German. This is just from the top of my head. I can name Japanese laptop companies too like Lenovo, Fujitsu, Sony, American ones like Dell, HP, Apple, and so on.

I can honestly go deeply about any topic. I don't even think I scratched the surface mentioning what I know about. I know of thousands of characters in fiction, thousands of different plots and stories. Any random character or plot or story, I can go deeply on. Some people might only know about the DC heroes and know nothing about any anime heroes like Goku. I know about both, and more. I know the entire stories of One Piece, Dragon Ball, Naruto, and many other anime and manga, and about the Flash, and Superman, and Batman, and many other heroes.

Then, not only that, I know about things outside this area too, like in video games. Someone might know about Pokemon but know nothing about Half Life, the story and plot. Or they might know about Fortnite but not about Garry's Mod or Minecraft. Or about Dota but nothing about League of Legends. Or about World of Warcraft but nothing about Super Smash Bros. I know about them all. All of them.

I even know about the popular pop culture stuff like Huak Tuah. I know about the gen Z slang like "rizz" or "L" or "W" or "drip", and so on. I know a lot about cultural and political issues too, pretty much all sides of any debate on any topic. Gender issues, animal rights, abortion, race, immigration, religion, and so on. A lot of people are single issue, they only know about one thing like abortion for example, and know nothing about animal rights (they kill and eat them), or about the immigration or other debates. I know pretty much about all of them, pretty much about all sides on all of them. And then outside this, single issue people don't know anything else about anything else.

It is always surprising to me that I can bring up a topic, and the other person wouldn't know about it. How....? There are people that know nothing about a "raw food diet" of what it means, of its origins, of people who practice it. I do. There are people who don't know what the "Go" board game is, of its origins, or any of its players such as Honinbo Shusaku. There are people who don't know any famous names in Chess like Bobby Fischer or Magnus Carlsen, you can give them these names and they wouldn't know who you were talking about. There are people who don't know the rules of backgammon nor mancala, or dominoes, or poker or blackjack, I do.

One game I don't know the rules of is Mahjong. I have seen a lot of Mahjong games, but I can't say I know the rules unfortunately, I've never played and haven't been able to pick up on the rules based on just observation, but I do know the gist of it.

I can talk to most people and enter their world of specialization as if I were someone that also lived in that field. Mary is a scientist and biologist. Eric is a masters in psychology. Ami is a software engineer. Emma plays video games like Minecraft and Fortnite. Wahl works in medicine and is an expert in fitness and nutrition. Lia is a business, marketing, legal expert. My parents mainly only talk about politics. These are probably the people closest to me in my life right now, yet I can enter their worlds of expertise and and to them in their area of expertise as if I were someone that belonged.

I don't know what my own expertise would be in. My profession is business and computer programming basically, but I'm very into veganism and know about all the other topics I mentioned.

Anyway. I'm sleepy now. I could honestly keep going forever. I didn't even name what I did the past few days. I played VR games and inhaled a bunch of plastics into my lungs in PR on Wednesday night. I sneezed out the plastics and also coughed out blood with the plastic in them. I made a video and a Reddit post on this incident, the Reddit post got over 8k views and a decent amount of attention. The video only got 10 views, even though I spent like an hour making it.

I flew to Virginia again on Thursday. I texted Emma again at the airport, while I was texting Ami too about the coughing out blood incident. I told him I would go to the doctor for it in Virginia. I did some work on Friday, and then went to Washington D.C. with Mary and we saw Back to the Future at the Kennedy Center together. It ended at around 10 PM maybe? Maybe 11? Then we went to HipCityVeg, a fully vegan restaurant which is open until 2 AM, and I'm glad the place was full and packed. We hung out at the steps of the Smithsonian Art Institute for a bit and then I drove her back.

Today, Saturday, I went to the doctor for a checkup on my lungs and had an X-Ray. There was nothing found which is great. The doctor said the human body filters out any solid thing before it enters the lungs, and it usually ends up going to your stomach instead. Then my parents and I went to Wal-Mart and we bought some food for the week, all vegan since my parents are plant based as well.

In a few hours, we're going to Philadelphia and just explore the place. Anyway I'm very sleepy.