There and back again!
For all those entrepreneurs who mail asking asking me if I want to market my blog in so many ways. I say to you thanks but no thanks!
My humble blog is not for money or for marketing anything. I am not a writer and for this space I use to just share my experiences good and bad.
I thank you all for the offers but should you mail me please understand I shall not be replying to you. I hope you have a great day and I wish you all there best with your endeavors.
Peace! ??
In this world of Los Angeles where persons buy up properties then do them up and rent them at crazy prices. I now have personal knowledge of the way this can go.
Over a month ago we the tenants were informed our building had been sold, the new persons had looked at the place during the pandemic and were going ahead with their evil plans. At the time we the tenants were unaware of what the evil plan was. During the lockdown it wasn’t easy to evict tenants so we figured there was some time before we would have to be evicted. And it’s not allowed to mess directly with the tenants (cutting off electrics and water).
So the plan goes like this, you say you’re going to do a retrofit for earthquakes to bring the building up to standards. Then you hire a company to do the retrofit. Seems normal and even though it is annoying there isn’t much the tenants can do when the permits have been approved.
Then what you do is the crafty bit, you fence off the parking so you have to find street parking when everybody and their cousin is home during a Pandemic and then NOTHING! It’s been over a month and the parking is the same since the day they fenced it in.
The company who is aiding the persons who bought the building in behaving like ass holes is https://www.optimumseismic.com.
I have called them, first time I called they said the work would take six weeks and not twelve, even though on their website they say it takes about three, this is not a big building! The second time I called and asked when they would be starting the work again they just put me off with some BS and never got back to me. I was surprised a company would be so complicit in helping to kick tenant out of their homes. Some have been in this building for more than thirty years. I have heard people say it’s just business, I disagree and the people being forced from their home would agree with me.
Greed has been kicking out the tenants in Los Angeles for years, the people who lived and work in Los Angeles when people think of it in its heyday have all but left. I am leaving soon as I am done with the BS and dirty streets, lack of empathy from the people who run the city. I am lucky that I can and I have somewhere to go. But many are not as lucky and having to do this during a Pandemic makes it just a bit more stressful.
I don’t know what Los Angeles will look like in years to come. I see lots of fancy apartments with lots of apartments vacant as regular people cannot afford the money they are asking. Maybe it will end up like a Chinese Ghost City.
I am so excited to be saying “My wife is going to be published.”
This has been on the cards for years, ever since I have known Susan her passion has been Poetry, she has a way with words. Even the fiction she has written (not published as of yet), stories based on experiences she has had and the fact she feels it’s necessary to edit my blog posts (not this one though) HAHA!
Susan constantly surprises me with new Poetry and check out her interview with Wombwell Rainbow Series. Susan has her website FloweringInk.com where you can keep up with her new book and recently published work.
And please check out her blog Stories From the Edge of Blindness.
Creativity is a wonderful thing. It gives us art, music, poetry, photography, gardening, and the list goes on. Creative people come in all shapes and sizes and in all temperaments. They can be rude, humble, obnoxious, or shy. They can be also be depressives who will go without shelter and food, simply to be able to express themselves creatively. It gives their lives meaning. I am not saying that all creative people suffer from depression. I am saying that a lot of the artists I know do have a dark side, and this is reflected in their work.
Does it help to have some level of depression to be creative? Does the function of creativity lead a person to depression, or to depressive thoughts? Are we, as humans, attracted to the chaos and drama that can come with social non-conformity? Is it the dark side of existence that we wander toward, to feed our creative minds?
It’s part of our wiring as humans to have good days and bad days, and how that looks can depend on external factors, such as, where we live, how we look and our status in society. Does the way we are raised provide us with different tools when dealing with depression? When we as a society get to the stage where we can change our DNA, eradicate things like depression, are we not only changing the chemistry of our brains, but also altering the parts of our mind where creativity resides?
What could be the function of depression as it exists with so many of us? Does it have a function or is it just a chemical imbalance, a mind fuck, if you will? And if, in the future, we can remove the genes that gives us these dark feelings, should we do it? Will it create a happier society? Is it moral to allow people in the future to be afflicted with depression if they don’t have to be? When our genes are changed, and people have a bad day, how will they react when sadness should be the resulting emotion? Will we be like the Eloi from H.G. Wells, “The Time Machine” (spoiler alert), devoid of emotion with a certain apathy, as they are in fact really just a food source?
In the future, when we can gene sequence humans to be whatever we need them to be, what will creativity look like? What is the future of creativity in a world without depression? And even scarier, will it be humans or AI that are the creatives?
I am writing this in a café, drinking a coffee. How long will it be before the first blog post written by an AI is posted? Will it be about what it is like to work and live with humans? Will it be funny? Sad? Will it feel like a threat to other bloggers? Will the AI truly appreciate all of the likes and comments?
In the future, will creativity be considered an emotional plus or an impediment? Will the darker side of creativity be considered an abnormal way of thinking and be judged as detrimental to society? I personally think that, as people, we would find Utopia boring and probably start killing each other, taking drugs or just staying drunk all of the time, even more than we already do.
Some of the greatest people I have met are often quite “off”, not what would be considered normal. They have an edge that makes them interesting and fun to be with. Some may call them crazy, but that is just personal interpretation. Different people have different normals; that is what makes interesting conversations and relationships.
So, what is the future of creativity? We shall know quite soon.
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