The Foul Mind

I have on occasion said a joke or phrase that horrifies those strangers around me. It take a lot of conscious effort to control my foul mind. I work in a profession(security contractor), where I am mostly surrounded by rough, disgusting, and sick minded men. I love the fact that I am able to talk about the most farfetched, cruel, and down right fucked up subjects that come to mind while at work. Current subjects: How we should skull-fuck Iran and zoophilia. From the little experience I have in working a “real world” job, political correctness, and politeness seem to be the dominant social behavior. Dog fucking, it seems, has no place in a professional, productive, and cohesive work environment.

I don’t believe I can handle a job where censoring my dirty mouth, avoiding offensive subjects, and being a “nancy no-no” are required. I worked in a warehouse for a small skin care company for two months. Aside from the two owners and two other guys who worked the warehouse with me, the staff of fifteen was all women. I remember one time I came into work, still sleepy, possibly hung over, and one of the girls said, “Good Morning, Raul.” to which I responded “I fucking hate my life.” With a horrified look on her face, she proceeded to say “You know, life is beautiful, you have a job, my husband doesn’t have one… blah, blah, blah, I’m a narrow minded bitch.” I don’t remember what, if anything, I said to her, but I do remember thinking, “Really? Take a fucking joke, cunt.”

My dark sense of humor began to develop when I was a teenager. Back in the days when Rotten.com and ebaumsworld.com were relevant. The internet allowed me to grow insensitive and to hold nothing as sacred. I learned to love and adore our first amendment rights and to despise censorship and any form of dishonesty. Internet writers like Maddox and Tucker Max combined with the violent, hate-filled attitudes of the men I served in the Army with, allowed me to realize that it was alright to laugh at the thought of: taking a preacher, bending him over a pew, fucking him in the ass, until he swears that he is a Jew.

In his book, Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain says of the people who occupy the male dominated profession of line cooks “You might get the impression from the specifics of my less than stellar career that all line cooks are wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts and psychopaths. You wouldn’t be too far off base.” I believe, to a lesser extent, the men who work male dominated blue collar jobs, exhibit these dark characteristics. We like it. We like being able to exhibit our lowbrow, unhealthy, sickening selves in the place we spend most of our time.

Some people do need to feel safe at work. They want the humorless shield of Human Resources protecting them from anything mildly objectionable. Their spirits may be too soft or more likely, they just like to separate their work environment from their personal lives. A pretentious fuck may claim acting like a testosterone infused monkey is just immature behavior that is reserved for lower classes. It’s not conductive of those who are educated, of status, or of fine pedigrees. So fucking what?

The thoughts in my mind are raunchy; I smile with delight at that which I should cringe, and my mouth is dirtier than a Mexican hooker’s pussy. Does that make me a bad person? No. There is a difference between being able to laugh at the deviant and actually doing it. It’s the men with this kind of humor who you want to fight your wars, fix your cars, save you from fires, police your streets, and cook your meals. Dark humor creates a deeper connection amongst men than whatever bull shit team building exercises the corporate world pushes.

~Raul Felix

Warrior-Scholar

“Any nation which draws too broad a difference between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.” ~Thucydides

Its easy to envision the warrior as an overzealous, testosterone infused, rage machine only hell bent on destruction. Its even easier to portray the scholar as an aging, pretentious, ivory tower elitist, digging through obscure scrolls and texts in insolation. In order for civilization, and us to progress as individuals, the mind set that you’re either/or must cease.

The warrior: whether he be a Soldier, Marine, Sailor, or Airman; must be willing to educate himself in the ways of the world. He must not only know how to fight, but why he fights. He must come to terms that sharping his mind and increasing his knowledge is every bit as important as keeping his shot groups tight and his body strong.

The scholar: whether he be in academia or an armchair intellectual, must acknowledge that only feeding the mind, while letting the body decay is a great heresy to nature. History may have been written by the scholars, but the warriors were its creators. Intellectual discussion and theory is grand, but the warriors actions and application of ideas will win the day.

The scholar and the warrior are men with their own ambitions, motives, and agendas. Each fighting a personal war within themselves and the world. It’s not enough to just be warrior or scholar, one must become both. Without the thinking of the scholar and the doing of the warrior, he will falter and face defeat on the battlefield of life.

Being a warrior-scholar doesn’t mean one has to be a member of the military or academia, but rather embrace the warrior-scholar spirit and mindset. It means being physically and mentally tough enough to overcome the trials and tribulations of life. It means being mentally versatile and resourceful enough to find solutions to each common and unique problem life puts in front of you. There will always be times where mind will triumph over matter and others where matter will beat the mind. Why not have both as an asset?

~Raul Felix

Resistance

In The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, he writes about the number one enemy of all artist. He calls it Resistance. Resistance is the reason we log onto Facebook first thing in the morning instead of getting to work on our craft. Resistance is the reason we come up with excuses as to why things can’t be done; instead of trying to figure out how it can be done. Resistance is what keeps us in our comfort zone. Its what keeps us from pushing ourselves and getting shit done. Resistance is the reason we stay mediocre and live a life of melancholy.

Resistance is the reason I haven’t posted a single blog update in over a month and half. I have been making excuses. I’ve drawn a blank as to what to write about. The muse was fucking with me. A blinking cursor with nothing written before it has stared at me, mockingly. A nasty sense of self doubt filled my being. “Maybe you don’t have what it takes, Raul. You’re not a writer, you can’t even keep up a silly little blog that no one reads.” That’s the cynical, devilish voice of Resistance stomping on my ambitions. You know what? Fuck you! I am more than good enough to accomplish my dreams and ambitions and I’m not going to let YOU or anything else stop me.

“Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.” says Pressfield. I have a daily struggle with it. I have these grandeur visions of the man I will be five, ten, twenty years from now. Then I ask I myself what have I done TODAY to help me progress towards becoming that man? If I draw a blank, I feel an intense sense of disgust towards myself. If I can come with maybe two or three little things that helped become a better man, than I do have a small sense of self satisfaction, even though most of the time I feel I could have done more. For example, if can say to myself that today, I wrote 1000 words in my journal, I read for one hour, and I ran 5 miles, I will file that underneath a day where I beat Resistance(a tiny bit) and did something to become a better man. If on that day all I did was browse aimlessly on Facebook, watch movies, jerk off, and maybe did a half-assed work out. That’s a day that Resistance kicked my ass and I think of myself as a worthless bum.

Resistance is there every single day. It never gets easier to beat it, as you become better the challenges it throws your way become tougher. It gets in your face and tells you in the most brutal way possible. “Yeah, you wrote 1000 words? So fucking what? It’s garbage! How about you write 1000 words of something actually readable?” You meet that challenge and it turns around says to you “Oh, you wrote 1000 words of good stuff? So what? It’s not great. Try again, pussy.” Even when one creates their first great piece, Resistance will say to you “Oh wow, ONE great piece? You’re nothing more than a one hit wonder. You got lucky. You can’t do it again. You have no talent.” It’s a vicious, endless cycle. The challenge will either make you great or it will bury you. I chose to dig myself out and become great, no matter how deeply buried I am right now.

~Raul Felix