16 July 2021

 Song mood: Left Hand Free by alt-J.

I can see that everything is getting better. It’s amazing what a few videos on Youtube and Tik Tok can do.

I watched an friend’s animation video. I was amazed by the skill that it takes to make a cool video.

I miss Doctor Who and cannot wait for the next series (season). I watched a movie the other day called: An Adventure in Space and Time. It was a dramatization of the creation of the first television show. From choosing who will play the Doctor to the producer’s fight to keep the Daleks and have them in the show. It was an engaging movie which stared David Bradley as William Hartnel the first Doctor. Which was neat because he played the first Doctor in Peter Capaldi’s final episode.

Peter Capaldi will still be my favorite Doctor because he wasn’t meant to be lovable. He was supposed to be the grumpy old man. The Doctors alternate. One is usually silly and fun and people love them. The one that follows is usually stern and grumpy and unlovable.

Tik Tok has given me a boost in serotonin. I find myself able to laugh again. The neat thing about Tik Tok is that I get more suggestions on what to watch. One of my problems is I get stuck within myself. I watch the same shows and the same type of shows. But now, I see other people on the app and the shows that they like. And now I can get out of my little box.

I started watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine. It has Adam Sandberg and is really funny. It’s kind like what if the Office was a police precinct.

I posted my first real video on Tik Tok and it did not turn out the way I expected. And that’s good. I messed up on the second one as well. I told a wholesome joke that my father told me. When I was young, I could remember and tell a thousand obscene dirty jokes. Yet the only joke I can remember now is the wholesome one my father told me. And that’s a good thing.

The neat thing that I discovered from another friend is the one minute story form by Quentin Lucas. He posts videos of him telling these one minute stories. And I thought yes. This is what I’m looking for. Story telling for me, is being an entertainer. And now I have a new form for me to entertain.

A really neat discovery I made last night, and I really don’t know how I made it, was the Yang style eight form. Forms are movements in a pattern in a style. So when they say Yang style 24 form, it’s 24 movements in a pattern. If you were to think in karate terms, one movement would be a kick, the next movement would be an inner block and so forth. I discovered that there is a Yang style eight form. I had always thought that 24 was the lowest.

And more importantly, I found videos. I will skip ahead on the online Tai Chi course I’m already taking on how to learn any movement in Tai Chi by watching it. And figure out the 8 form. Once I do this, the possibilities are endless. What I will do is an hour(s) long loop of the same 8 movements until I master it. The thing I love about martial arts is the controlled repetition. Most of all, you learn through repetition. What happens one you do the same thing for an extended period of time? The muscles get tired. And when they get tired, they seek the path that is most efficient, thereby expending less energy.

That alone would bring me out of the hell that I was in.

After mastering one form, I can move on and do other things in martial arts. I could, for example, take the kata (Japanese word for forms) and turn them into a Tai Chi exercise. I could relearn karate through Tai Chi. I’m not sure if I would do that. Because I can see more people either entering my life or coming back to my life. There are many cool things I could learn and teach. Push hands will always be my favorite exercise in martial arts.  Push hands is where two people face each other.  With their palms facing out towards the other person, they hook their hands together and move the hands in a circle until one is able to feel the momentum and push their oponent.

So now, the world is beginning to open up to me. What needed to happen was that I needed to get my mind off a few certain things. Once I got past certain things, then I was able to move my mind. I was able to discover things that would help out in my writing. To help out with making friends. To help out with my exercise. To help me become human again.