Everything in Between II
- Operator
- Mar 2
- 23 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
First Age of Creation - Birth
Day: First
Oil Painting: First completed piece
Age: 21 years old
Self Grade: A for Effort
2nd Age of Creation - Balance
Self Grade: Fail...just a study
Age: 22 years old
Oil Painting: 260 or so
Days from First: around 365
Days from First: Around 525
Oil Painting: 375 or so
Age: 22 years old
Self Grade: Fail...definitely a study..on cheap board
Painting on board meant I ran out money for canvas. I threw them out in the trash all the time. This one was saved because I thought my family would like it. Studying negative space with this one.
Self Grade: Fail...um it was saved from the trash
Age: 22 years old
Oil Painting: 376 or so
Day from First: around 525
My family took this out of the trash before it was taken by the garbage adam.
They happened to save this one when it was out on the curb, along with my other paintings...so um..painted this with a white background which is very rare, usually I used blues.
Self Grade: Fail...too overworked. It looks like them though
Age: 23
Oil Painting: Only commissioned painting
Days from First: around 730
Last Age of Creation - Rebirth
Self Grade: A
Age: 23 years old
Oil Painting: 2nd Completed Piece
Days from First: around 1095
Self Grade: Fail
Age: 48 years old
Oil Painting: 701 or so
Days from First : Last
Techniques
Find the style of the solution and you can apply it to anything
My guess is I did about 700 oil paintings in my entire painting career. 20 were given to family and friends, so over 680 paintings were trashed.
Quantity to find quality was my approach.
I learned how to make decisions with every one of those paintings, mostly fails, but successes gained as I progressed. The value of the discarded paintings were experiences.
12 to 16 hour days making dicisinos on how to paint, which made me decisive, with judgement practiced.
I was just having fun and not caring if there was any reward for all the work, that most would say I was wasting my time, since I didn't maake a single dime.
Why would I let judgement from others get in the way of my goal in doing?
Techniques were the treasures found.
I never wasted time finisihing, because improving comes from starting over with a blank canvas.
Refinement limits growth, while starting a new study is limitless.
More decisions are what improves judgement.
My style tranformed into first and only attempt.
The first answer, not rehearsed, holds the power of the moment.
Hope springs eternal from amew, with learning from the past.
The tempo that worked best for me was: do my best, paint directly, master the moment, focus with speed and effort, to outpace doubt and complaints.
Learning without validation has always been a part of my process because it slows me down to get an opinion that didn't matter.
I will figure it out on my own.
Experience
Experience is the greatest teacher.
Being around the best is the best experience.
I learn fast because I love learning.
Always have.
When I got to PAFA, I improved exponentially.
It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to learn how great painters become great, where I got to share experiences with Grandmasters and see how they created.
My peers had elite talent and proved how far one could go with practice. I didn't compete, since I neeed to catch up to their greatness. My peers were geniuses.
I didn't want to embarass myself on the two critiques per week. I didn't want to waste their time with crappy work.
I held my own.
The teachers matched their best by showing what they could do, with technical skills rarely matched. No one hid their talent behind words or false bravado of the modern.
It was a classical school, where we learned by doing, not saying.
Practical skills were tested every day. The race was on for everyone to improve, becuase those critiques showed who was improving and who failed. I stayed in the middle with only 1 painting course under my belt, so I had to hustle,
Surrounding yourself with the best only makes you better.
Everyday I had to prove my worth. It was a great environment to see how other styles were created.
The concept of, "fake it till you make it" was non-existent.
I wanted to learn from the best and see how they did it, by watching. I rarely asked them how, since I was in their space while they were doing.
It was an idealistic school of bringing the best out of the students. Some faltered and others rose to the challenge, of seeing their betters.
I will admit, some got a taste of the jellyness, which grandtitle reminded me this year, and it made me see excel was art. The code is unimportant, it was what I used, a program that created perfect code with drop downs. and cut and post.
I just focused on trying my best.
absorbing the talent of my environment,
and could care less about the show my third year.
I dropped out since I found a girlfriend that would allow me to continue studying.
Relationships are an Art, and she was my first compromise.
My time was split with her and my Ar,t and pulled more towards her, until I stopped painting.
I had to get a job after we broke up, and my only 2 references were Excel and Word for Dummies.
I used the Exce book, Word was not needed.
Minimalism
Eliminatiing the unneccary is the Art of simplicity
White Sands was my still life period of study in writing. I wanted to translate my painting style to how I write, with deep hues of blues and minimal details.
My signature style holds my techniques, and I wasn't about to start over.
Identity is one of the hardest aspect of Art, as in life. Copying and memorizing is too tempting for some. You have to make the effort to find your own style, which often leads to ridicule and misunderstandings.
Identity is a tough road and if you stop at the first stop and say, that is my identity, too easy.
Now you are pretending with a copy, and just...make belief, in my humble opinion
A copy is not original. Be your own shit, and just be.
That is the Rosetta Stone of an Artist.
Can you be original oand outpace being a follower?
With my experience of overcoming vast quantities of blank canvases, with thousands of drawings under my belt, a blank piece of paper was not that overwhelming.
I just needed to learn a new medium.
Words.
Without any conventional rules followed...um could care less about rules...I just started to write. I avoided all the roadblocks to writing, like...it has to make sense to the reader...who cares...um that feels like homework.
I write for myself.
I needed to get my writing down to be right for me.
When I saw my style appear, I started creating my painting writings.
It took 2 years of constantly failing, with ridicule and misunderstandings that I just said, could care less.
Someone said to me, "You are middle aged,, it's probably too late to be a writer."
That could be if I wanted to make money off it, but nope. I judge Self, and money isn't the stamp mark.
It is when you know, you know.
I am going to be a writer no matter what. The need to write about the Spotted or else they would do harm again and again until they got what they wanted, which is silence, one way or another.
I didn't even read my studies except one story. I just kept ploughing through like a confident writer, who earned that confidence as a painter.
I was decent painter, in my opinion.
I write in abstract, with minimal detail or structure.
I can't know if I am breaking any rules if I refused to study. I minimized obstacles to the making and doing. This is my third round with Art and I know what I am doing.
My process is to overcome roadblocks by simplifying, and finding the fastest route to doing. That is where the creation is learned, not theory or concepts, the actual making.
That is where all my focus went towards, practice until it became creating.
With amusement I concede, um I am the idiot writer, who absolutely doesn't care if it is undesrstood, or silly things like description or adjectives.
I even break rules to paragraphs.
A sentence and paragraph are interchangable, since it makes it easier to write, and read...bonus.
I write like an idiot because I get bored reading conventional. I don't find my style boring one bit, which is even funnier since I dislike reading...ironic isn't it.
I am a visual person, with my painting education. and shifting gears to writing is as non-linear for me as you can get.
That is what made is so fun to read over and over again, connecting the pieces to othe stories.
Philosophy
Be the Best I can Be
September 2, 2022 was my launch date to my Odyssey of my third act.
I wrote one simple sentence in my notebook, my first success.
"To be the best I can be."
That line is still in use today, my North Star, and the most important story of all my glorious idiotic works.
I followed that up with 892 days of failing, with only 1 success after my first success.
White Sands.
It was the only story I was never tempted to scrap.
I wanted to, believe me, since it is overly sentimental, but every time I went to that story I would just start reading it again and tinkering, just couldn't help myself.
The subject was why I kept working on it, a story of faith viewed from a Gentile with zero faith.
The juxtaposition revealed my theme.
Philosophy.
Trinity
Art Beauty Logic
I was never really a painter, but a philosopher that loved Art, who studied intensely in color and Excel, which gave me experience in Art and Logic.
My interests naturally go towards philosophy, my favorite subject.
It is the most open subject for interpretation, that improved my quality of life.
For me, philosophy isn't trying to unravel the secrets of life, um nope, I just want to figure things out that work for me...it is not an academic theory but practical solutions that were tested in reality.
Theory is boring...um rather have examples and samples of a my own philosophy I created, but I never liked writing.
I just knew what I followed, which is simplicity, that can take on complexity by breaking things down to the basics.
One of the reasons why I wanted to be a writer was because I wanted to see how my mind worked, and see if I could explain it to myself.
I am a fast thinker, proven by an Excle program I built. I learned coding in 1 day, by thinking non-linear instead of linear studying.
I just go straight to the doing and knowing.
I just create and move on. I built a Translator for Code in one day.
I just had an Art education.
My philosophy carried me far with what I can do without even noticing that I got fast with figuring things out. all from my love of challenges.
PAFA was my testing ground. Grandmasters don't care and just do it their way, so I became one with Excel. Once you meet these amazing Grandmasters, you never forget, and a part of you can see yourself being one.
I only met one Grandmaster in the practical. I wanted to be like him. He mentored me for about 2 years, with weekly crituqes.which I never forgot.
The feeling of someone being better at something he just managed from afar was alarming, so I started to care about what I was doing.
That short Turkish mentor was the finest example, who often said, "Lead by serving."
Grandmaster
Effortless is learned through tireless effort
I learned that the best way to learn is to go straight to doing without any worrying...dont't care if I fail as I keep trying until I understand.
I only really know three things with Excel.
Wing Chun style.
Excel is a logic excercise machine that I practiced almost every day of work, for 20 years. I use it all the time and that is how I learned coding without memorizing, which is also a pet peeve.
Memorizing causes stress when you can't remember, or make a mistake. It takes up too much storage of the brain, like constantly repeating to know is too static a way to learn for me. Also words slow you down, and mems reinforces explaining.
I bypass all that stress by simply doing.
It's interesing to see how much I do without explaining.
An example of this is when I saw how I tried a code and learned I read backwards just a fast as forward.
I was shocked that I didn't even notice that I did that. I literally had to slow down and say, do I just do that naturally without even knowing?
The answer was apparently so. I had to explain what I did, which took longer than when I was creating the code.
I just ignored the useless and stay focused.
I am fast since that is my definition of perfection, fast and efficient, and of course, getting it right. QA tht shit out of it.
Grandtitle didn't even read the lines of code and just replied that it was wrong and he was right.
20 or so lines of his preset code versus my 1200 lines, and I won the match easily.
It wasn't even a close game since I wasn't trying to beat him, but looking at the board.
How, you may ask, did I do it...finally someone asks how I did it..um...my best guess is I made thousands of excel sketches in my career, with the majority, non-data related.
I got loads of experience with practical solutions, from simple to very complicated, doesn't matter to me. I just create based on the need.
Once I applied it to data, holy shit, I couldn't believe the speed.
Neither could my peers, who never asked how, but always requested I leave the program I built when I left.
I never did since it would only make it too easy for them.
Improvement doesn't come from ease.
Ease only comfort enhances, which only leads to upgrade levels of laziness if not disciplined enough...um most are not disciplined in my experience.
I merged both my artistic style of painting and my logical style of exceling, so my writing style is unique.
Unstructured structured architecture with direct indirect colors of minimal details.
Beauty
Art is Beauty is Art
Ayn Rand is the only author I ever read that incorporated philosophy through fiction in perfect harmony.
I own only 4 books, with Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged as the two works with same author.
That is how much I enjoy her writing, an author who wrote the most heroic classical stories I ever read.
She was an idealist, who loved philosophy, and expressed it through stories that took my breath away.
Rand's verses and prose are written with such clarity and artistry, rarely is there a section I get bored.
She is the only author who holds my attention from first to last page. Except Atlas Shrugged had too much philosopy with Galt's speech. I needed story to climb that mountain read.
Every word she writes has a purpose, she doesn't waste words in her writing, which is the most original way to write.
She writes for herself only.
Her Truth comes through her stories with pure identity, which follows logic as her tool of focus.
Every time I read her work, I always think, how can something like this exist? How did this ever get published?
No other author writes like her. She is truly one of a kind.
Ayn Rand had the courage to write in her own style, without compromising her self style. She just wrote what she thought was beautiful and true.
Her signature is her own, without any influence to her vision, sort of like Quentin.
When asked who influenced her, and this is a paraphrase, she would say,
"Only Aristotle. The rest was me and only me. A is A."
Rand was always proud that her writing was of her own making, with deserved pride. She is the definition of original, a true Grandmaster who I admire without shame.
I don't know why she is so polarizing, other than you know, her opinions...but her two books are amazing works.
Every line was crafted to make her Truth become crystal clear through dialogue, plot, and the most beautiful lines.
For me, she writes poetry, sustained through sheer will. The ambition and work needed to keep it together, without any boring moments, masterful.
It took a lot of work to write that way, every line was mastered. I know hard work when I see it, and hers takes the cake. She is my favorite author for that reason.
"Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision," said Ayn Rand.
She inspired me at 19, and no matter the differences I have with her philosophy, which is about half, she showed me that it was possible to write in pure form.
She is the most original author I have ever read.
I have read Fountainhead countless times, and Atlas Shrugged maybe five with the speech at the end never fully read.
I can read her work without accepting all her philosphy.
Her Art is too powerful to dismiss over a disagreement with her beliefs, sort of like Kanye.
My favorite quote of Rand's is, "The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me."
Classical
Find your Best and the heroic within is revealed.
Philosophy was my favorite subject at the University. I applied my philosophy into both my Art and life.
Sakyong Mipham and Marcus Aurelius are my two other author's works I own.
Turning the Mind into an Ally and Meditations.
This 64 page digital sketchbook is my version of Meditations.
I follow Aurelius in how he wrote his masterpiece, which was to write for Self.
The only difference is that I write on a public domain, unbothered if anyone reads it.
I always tell people I was classically trained, but they don't understand, I mean from age 6 until present.
Roman.
Classical electives at the University
Oil Painting taught like the Old Masters, mentor and pupil
And after, was my own classical training I imposed on myself.
Modern wasn't experienced until my first girlfriend, and I was shocked. They like things, like a lot of things. I don't like many things, just a simple clasical guy.
I am completely different from modern and it made me realize I was naive. I can't read modern people well.
I got the most challenging Modern and I was not overwhelemed, even with the hardship. I just kept learning from suffering. I learned to read poeple and know when to Trust them. One and done.
My luck changes in shifts, the greatest way to learn.
6 years of bordeom to 32 years of ease, then 6 years of hardship, and hopefully 32 years of luck.
Sounds about fair.
Speed
First attempt oversomces second guesses
Imagine me as the fastest writer on the plains, writing as fast as I can, but not recklessly. I am trying to finish the story on my first pass, with the the goal of getting it right the first time.
I get bullseyes more than snake eyes because I have thousands of tries under my belt. One only get better by practicing, until it no longer feels like practice, and you just start doing.
From studying to doing is the transition that naturally happens with practice.
First attempt is the only attempt.
The edits I make don't count as attempts, just upgrades to the design of the story. Those upgrades rarely end, um still making small adjustments to White Sands.
But if the idea is better than my attempt, I try again, until it matches my vision.
Unlimited tries with only first attempts with each try, by either starting over or gutting most of the sections out.
I tried over a hundred times with White Sands, leaving only 9 sentences until it slowly started expanding to what it is now.
Truth
Truth that matters remains.
White Sands was written from the middle, with one simple thought about how my wife's sister must have felt at night praying, when she knew she was going to die.
White Sands
Hope
I imagine that the quiet times
were most likely the hardest
for my wife's sister.
Especially the late nights,
filled with shadows.
The stillness is where silence is felt.
The waiting can be unbearable,
especially when hope seems lost.
I am sure she prayed into the empty nights
when she was alone.
I am sure the emptiness
made her feel even more alone.
One thing I have no doubt though,
her prayers were filled with hope.
Hope is never wasted,
no matter the results.
It is a gift that was brought into this world.
That was my Big Bang that created everything on this page except my Codexes.
Those 9 sentences are a reflection of my own thoughts when my wife and daughter did something none too pleasant towards me.
No judgement on my part.
I decided to finish White Sands after I forgave the unforgivable.
I wanted to be a writer so I can write about everything,
including the unpleasantness that made me write those 9 lines.
Space
Create space for what matters
White Sands taught me two very important things about how I should write afterwards.
First, start stories in the middle and expand in two different directions, the beginning and end.
I call the middle the Everything in Between, the ideal place to put my best effort since it doesn't have any continuity issues.
No stress in writing if I don't have to think of outlines or even plots, just ideas that are simple to write outward towards the purpose.
White Sands was the only non-linear story I wrote. Now that is the only way I write.
The linear stories got trashed because I had to think of completeing what I started. Too boring to write that way, and I should have known, since that is not how I write Excel programs...which I decided to include into my style of writing.
I merged how I painted with how I excel, which took me a while to figure out, since I never thought of creating programs to be of any value with writing.
After I stopped painting I filled my artistic void with creating Excel programs.
I have two styles that joined, and my third style is, um I don't care how complicated my pages are...I am the only one that reads my work.
My writing is abstract, deconstructed at first, and then put together where the pieces fit best in the many pages that have different topics and places.
"A place for everything and everything in its place," said Ben.
I am comfortable not knowing,
because I am too busy creating,
not wasting time memorizing.
I know what I am doing,
which is simply making.
The rest will figure itself out, without any concern of planning.
The first moment is the purest moment of creation,
which I learned with painting
and maximized with Exceling.
Pride
Pride and humilty are the same if you get ack up from a failure
White Sands taught me two very important things about how I should write afterwards.
Second, I had to learn how to self-edit.
It took 2 years of trial and error, but I finally understood, um I had to learn humility.
My confidence can be annoying to some, including myself.
I had to learn nothing I write matters unless it help the story. Editor me decides, not the Writer me, which had to learn to give up control of what was kept.
As Writer me, I wanted to keep everything.
I put the effort, so it should stay was my attitude at first. But as the Reader me, who is Editor me, said, um, no.
This sucks take it out. Try again.
The Writer me, who is stubborn as hell, had to finally say, fuck you, you are right. I will try again, but I don't like your tone.
The two had to coexist, the Passion and Reason of my writing finally came together and made peace.
Passion was the writer, the reader was Reason.
That was the 2 year battle I had with myself, and often they didn't cooperate. It wasn't even really a battle, since most of time I didn't even read my own work while I studied.
Editor-in-Chief Operator said, its been two years, you have to start creating finished products.
It was a humbling experience.
I can be stubborn when it comes to Art, borderline arrogant.
Study time was over and I had to start completing my 64 page goal in 12 years, so I finished Blue Moon shortly after, a story of the one that got away. She was the most beautiful Eve I ever met and I know she makes the guy she married the happiest guy.
No doubt, she is special, the rarest of rare breed, the low maintenance girlfriend.
Haven't met one since her, but I experience a year with her, so I can know if I meet such a rarity.
I will ask for a dance and take the lead since she may not know how rare she is.
Weak
Weakness shows the strenght in trying aagin.
I honestly believe I don't have natural talent, which is a great place to start.
I have no ego that I know anything. That doesn't mean I don't think I can do it. I just practice until I get to where I want to be. My lack of talent made me stubborn and my will power was strengthened.
Like abnormally strong, like I don't quit until I get it right.
When I was having that battle of who was right between myselff and grantitle about the code, for me, it was about the code.
He was a non issue or his title.
I always say, read and check your work and others, before being certain.
Red Credo taught me quality.
I checked his work and said in the nicest way, um mine worked and yours didn't, along with 2 other codes that you told me were not possible.
Even when I told him it worked, he showed absolutely no interest in it.
Disbelief by ignorning is the easiest tell of insincerity.
Most likely because he was too busy making sure his title still had that subject matter expert polish still intact.
I could care less about titles, since I had the same title as he did.
I was not impressed with myself when I held Head of Department for an internet company. It was in Sales, Retention, and Sales after Support, my least favorite role.
The one good thing about that role was I met the Turkish Grandmaster. He was my first Teacher since PAFA and I learned from how he did things, not what he told me, which was only to nudge me to do better.
The first thing he did when he got the role was fire my boss in the fist six months. It was decisive and the right call.
I perked up, I had my first perosn that earned my trust like the nuns did.
Ashame I let him down. I slacked off at the end becaues I lost interest in the role. I shoudl have changed before the stagnation got me to do something I deserved.
I got fired. and it was the right call. 5 years in one job was the longest and I was unprepared for the marathon.
I leanred from my mistakes.
That mistake led me to the greatest job that restarted my stubbornnes to be the best I can be.
Blue Collar for 5 days stacking boxes in the cold back of a long truck.
That job changed my life and I started the climb from being weak to strong and determined, I quit after 5 days becaue my body was still sore after the weekend.
I was too old, 46.
Everything
Everything is connected if one believess in Everything.
Writing was my third mountain I wanted to climb with full measure.
I climbed two already, so it was not an impossible peak, since mastering things is cumulative.
You can learn quickly based on what you already know.
I think all the Arts have overlapping concepts that match perfectly, still the same rules to composition and balance, which is contrasts and counter balance.
No retreat, no surrender when it comes to these expeditions in Art.
I take these challenges seriously, with the knowledge that there will be overwhelming fails in store.
Art is the only thing that is not boring to me.
I get bored easily because I figure things out quickly and lose interest.
I love failing because that means it won't be easy.
With writing, it was my most ambitous attempt, since I don't even like reading, which made it amusing for me to try.
I could actually fail on this climb since I have no interest in it whatsoever.
I stopped reading after college, with an average of 1 book every few years
I was going through a rough period in my life and I had a lot to write about.
I didn't want to be a writer.
I had to be a writer or else the Spotted will do something unreasonable again, and May 18 25 seemed like the first sign in that my surroundings had changed.
If I can write clearly on the Truth, One may help.
I can't do it since my Title makes me a leper to the Shields, which is ironic, since I am trying to tell the Truth, that the Spotted are the Wildnernes. U
ncivilized.
They roam within the safe and gullbile communities, since the Shields got pesuaded by the Gypsy of the North Philly.
But whatevs, not my call, just giving my two cents.
Effort
Best effort is Best inention
I just kept trying every day, unfazed that my writing was not good.
No one believed I could be a writer, which is the best place to start.
No distractions.
I stayed focused on what I can control...can't help it if someone doesn't believe in me, it never really did until, you know, when I had to learn sometimes you have to if someone is certain about who you are.
I wanted to be a writer so I would be prepared if that ever happens again.
My progression was slow, a painstaking crawl of futility at first, with very little improvement.
It was tough.
I had to double my pace to even improve, teaching myself without any influence.
Self taught in the plainest way to describe it....I don't even ask if this is writing.
I wrote 5 hours a day,
8-12 hours on my days off work,
non- stop,
starting on the day I forgave my wife on Christmas Eve.
I forgave her so I could concentrate solely on my writing.
Prior to that, I was probably writing an average of 3 hours a day from September 2, 2022.
Once I got past the 3 hour mark, I knew, I was going to be a writer.
I got over the hump with my determination to become and started to be.
But I still needed to improve and learn for 1 more year of trying my hardest.
Writing helped me forgive the family I lived with for 5 years.
They are still family and will always love them, no matter what.
A lot of my writing deals with how I overcame the hardships I faced.
I didn't want to forget how I had to start over and build up my philosophy.
I had to ensure that I would never have another experience like that again.
White Sands reminds me of all my failures, with all the effort needed to accomplish my first story.
It also reminds of my hardest Test, of being my Best towards my wife and her 2 daughters.
Match my best with their best, without complaints.
I became a writer once I got past my first sample.
I finally translated my styles from paintbrush and design of Excel, to finally the fountainhead pen.
My shades of blue and architect lines were found on February 10, 2025.
Chapter 13 Bible
Both my wife's sister and Sister Laticia
wrote notes inside the Bible.
They both studied.
They were testing the Truth
of what they wrote,
out in the world beyond the Holy Words.
A crease in the page,
a line underlined,
a note made to the side,
anything to show
that there was something important.
Experiences are a page from our life.
The Bible and life are similar,
in the sense, the effort put
into studying will show in one's understanding.
The effort one makes
is the reward one receives.
If one can understand the experience,
the words will have meaning.
Words are a reflection of one's understanding,
not the other way around.
The truth of oneself,
the beliefs one hold,
guide through life,
proven by action,
tested by repetition.
I think good teachers try to inspire,
not impose.
Perhaps that was why Sister gave me her Bible
when she said goodbye.
I received her gift
and made a promise to myself.
I matched Sister Laticia's gesture of kindness
and read the Bible from cover to cover
before I left the faith.
Not sure what I can remember
since I have never been tested
on what I know of that Book.
