Thoughts

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  • Yet Another Co-working Space?

    Since last year, I’ve been itching to fly out somewhere. This time, it’s not about finding my self or escaping from a mistake (yeah, just like the rest of the human race, I ran off before from some very bad decision). But I’ve been looking for a workplace where it could offer me the convenient space to work with an affordable rates for freelancers. I wasn’t able to find one so I started doing a bit of traveling.

    Fast-forward and a couple of times I’ve been in and out of the city, I couldn’t still find a space I want to spend my day in and out.  There are a couple of co-working spaces here in Davao and most of them just sprouted recently. But I see a couple of issues from yet another co-worker‘s point of view.

    • Spaces setup aren’t spacious. If it is, it’ll cost you much-much more.
    • Most co-working prices are for SME (small-medium enterprise) folks.
    • Fully-booked spaces.
    • If some exist that I’m not aware of, they don’t market enough. If they don’t market enough, they simply don’t need me/no room for me.
    • Missing a bit of interior flavor and mixed work-and-play.
    • Missing some digital nomad needs.
    CYY_6614
    A co-working space in Manila. Spacious isn’t it?
    Photo from Warehouse Eight

    You might ask why not work from home. I got 3 answers for now:

    1. I was working from a studio apartment where I sleep, work, eat (and …sleep again?) all in the same very room. And our house (which where I’m currently staying) isn’t conducive for daily-brain-squeezing-yet-fun-tasks I deal in work.
    2. I always like working with people around—it inspires me when I see them working hard esp. when at one point I see myself slacking/procrastinating, and there’s more to it.
    3. High speed and reliable internet is pretty expensive here. Can be justified when shared with same paid individuals.

    I’m here in my room at my parent’s house and it’s been months since I’m back and it’s been months since I’ve been checking out (cheap) flight bookings because of the same drive.

    But..

    There’s no escaping this time. I’m gonna let myself face it with whatever I have. I don’t want to go home again thinking I’ve got nowhere else to go to work conveniently.

  • Norma Jeanne Maloney

    Sometimes it’s not what you know, but who you know.

    It suggests that sheer talent or even honing your skills aren’t enough. You gotta go out there and get connected with people that would take you toward the direction of where you’d like to see yourself to be.

    When someone comes to apprentice with me, I’d like them to make a two-year commitment and not work outside of Red Rider, because I think it takes that amount of time to go out and paint decent signs.

    Showing up for two years even you feel like there’s nothing could come out of it. I’m not all about how after 2years you’ll be making so much money but it’s more on having to accomplish what you you’re trying to be best at.

    Read up on Norma Jeanne Maloney: From Truck Driver to Complete Creative Control.

  • Free Spirited

    Last Saturday night, the big family got together and my uncle mentioned about my brother being free spirited. I was extremely curious and have been wondering since then.

    Being free spirited…it did ring a bell with me as I’m not sure if I am free spirited yet. Im not actually sure how does someone becomes free spirited. What I know is my brother knows what he wants to do and dont give a dang care about whether he’s right or wrong, and the fact that he ain’t got any responsibility in our family, not because that’s what I feel but that’s what really it is, might mean something about he’s aura of being free spirited?

    I can’t help after that but think if untangling oneself from any responsibilities make him/her free spirited?

    I somehow agree to that.

    In retrospect, in my elementary years I felt like I was free spirited. No responsibility and no pure pressure. Mostly fun. Surely, that could might be it — it could be the feeling  of knowing your self completely, going after things while completely ignoring any consequences. You just do and feel it.

    If those are the case–then I’m not yet one of them. No, something in the process of growing up made me not one of them anymore.

  • Always the Way to Blog

    I could remember I started blogging way back in 2008 when I got no other things to do aside from taking classes in college and playing online games (RAN is on top of my head). My aunt was and is always going to be my inspiration of why I got my self into this kind of stuff.

    I started using blogspot. Then moved to self hosted WordPress with the help of such wonderful aunt, who used to be a web designer and developer that time! I remember it was around version 2.x (somewhere 2.6 or 2.8) of WordPress that time. The admin/dashboard and post editor were the best thing I’ve ever seen! And that feeling you had when you’re so excited about learning how these things work. But then, I’ve had this bipolarity when it comes to where I truly want to blog. Back to blogspot, moved to tumblr, then moved to WordPress.com after deducing that WordPress is the genuine way to blog. I’ve tried so different names/blog URL and tried blogging for different niches—hoping I could get advertisement earnings or sponsorship out of it. The online is a wild jungle where you can try to be anything it influences you to be. Me moving with different platforms and under different names suggested I underwent personal issue that time—I’ve been trying to find who I really was.

    Until finally I bought my own domain and dropped the idea to blog for glamour and profit. But I didn’t settle with it as my domain for blogging yet. It was initially there to help me established my portfolio as a web developer. I’ve got so many things to say that I don’t want to limit it with just anything about my career, so I created a dedicated blog for anything under the sun on WordPress.com. That didn’t last for long though.

    I don’t actually want to maintain more than one blog and I realized all I want to share pertaining to my self is always going to be who I am—as a whole—and this domain is going to be my persona in the online arena. So I’m back at blogging full time in this very place.

    I secretly envy blogs that have archives way back from 2004 or older. Reading from those treasures make you to time travel (compressed in small bytes) and reminisce the moment. Ultimately, you see how you’ve grown since then.

    It’s amazing how the platform you’ve been using grows with you, too. Now I can blog directly on my desktop just because WordPress.com released an app (which now an open source project!) that changed the direction of blogging. I know there are other innovative and modern tools to blog but when you stick with yours, and not leave it hanging when there’s new and hot out there, but instead help it grow with you—It’s a different feeling you get. It’s like family, no matter how you think you’re so fed up seeing their faces, there’s an intimate connection that makes you want to see them again and again. And like family, you don’t turn your back when time gets so difficult.

    Blogging is always going to be different with WordPress—it’s about openness and community. I settled on this. I should’ve sticked with it.

    As someone who helps make things (read: websites) on the web, the project they brought into this world spurs me to keep creating and venture to innovate with openness in mind.

    If you haven’t started blogging yet, only God knows the reason why is that, but hopefully tools like this makes you to re-think about kickstarting a blogging journey. You don’t want to miss the chance to grin when you read your posts published from 5 or 10yrs ago.

  • On Getting There

    We always have something to say every time we read a book or ebook. Quick read I did tonight on one of the free ebooks of Blinkist tackled about the things that we can do to get the life we always dream of. It’s not a one big step but there should be a bit by bit work every single day that ultimately leads to that big goal.

    With a clear vision for your future, strong motivation and an understanding of your priorities, you’ll see that what you believed to be impossible – living your ideal life – can absolutely come true. It just takes some persistence, commitment, positive thinking and a strong belief in yourself to get there.

    It’s not just this time that I read about motivation but I’ve been continually reading about that topic to get a grasp of how I could suck motivations in different ways. As we all know, everyone has their own dream but it’s a matter of persistence, commitment, positive thinking and strong beliefs that you can do it – also known as self confidence. Those things are indeed easier said than done but I believe if we only take a single step at a time and apply each little by little in a consistent manner, we might surprise ourselves that these aren’t difficult to embody after all.

    And the last gold piece I loot out from this night reading..

    Be proud of the person you are and the desires and preferences you have.