Solitude Adventures, A Science Fiction Novel: Chapter 3

Third chapter of this little novel of mine.  Thanks a lot for everyone that has read and liked the previous two, I've already wrote more chapters but I haven't had time to edit them, however I think that they would out soon. I hope you enjoy this one.

Woods of Memories

Dying is not what it just to be, and I talk as if I were an expert. This has only happened to me once but I felt that it didn't happen the way it should. I don't know what was it like for all of the other folks that have left this world but for me it was pure pain, there was no calming piece, no serenity, nothing; the pain still went on for an eternity. But I guess time behaves differently when you're not in this world anymore. I was suspended in time at the moment that it happened; I was lying there, my murderer was hugging me and I just wanted to kill him, I was too weak to do anything about it, imagine that scene lasting... for an eternity.

Eventually, I guess I moved on, I'm not sure what happened but I felt that I wasn't part of that world anymore, and I couldn't help to feel so relief, I suppose that this was the peace and serenity that everybody talks about. If you had live in my world, it’s not a world that you would miss. Now that I'm no longer part of it, I guess I should be worried about my parents, I guess I should be watching them but the problem is that I never met them. None of us ever did, we don't have any idea how they look like, we are not really sure where they are, the only think that we know is that they're still alive and they were keeping us alive (well, for me, this was no longer the case, but for all the others it was). The planet where I and all of the others lived was called Bena, this was a planet owned by the Luvic Corporation (who pretty much conquered our entire solar system). We lived in Bena because all of us were sons of workers of the Luvic Corporation. That's right, if you worked for the Luvic Corporation and you had a child, this child was taken away from you and sent to Bena were he was going to be raised by teachers and young adults. As a parent you didn't even get to meet your son, but you still have to work for his education, that's right, your son being in Bena wasn't something  free, parents had to continue working to pay their education and their staying in Bena. If you stopped working, your child was simply expelled from the planet and he would have to become a space nomad, no matter what age.

Once a son finishes maternal education, he would be ready to enter hologram education or as the corporation called it: "Educational Palaces" gigantic crystal buildings that resembled the ancient universities that existed long before. Here you'll son would have to decide what he was going to become for the Luvic Corporation and he had three options: Colonist, Engineer or Maternal Teacher, after choosing one, he would then face endless tests and trials to determine whether or not he was worthy of being a worker for the Corporation, if he managed to past all of the tests he would have to still complete the final test which was almost impossible to approve and only the best of the best succeeded and began to work for the corporation in the area that they had mastered, for everyone else, space was the only place left for us.

Things were not always this difficult.  Generations before, 60% of students managed to succeed on the final test and became active Luvic workers, but for our generation it wasn't the same, the Luvic Corporation had already conquered everything it was needed to be conquered, they controlled and developed every resource that they needed. We humans already possessed an excellent longevity and everything look well and prosperous for them but not for us, not for the children of Bena; we weren't useful anymore, young blood just wasn't needed, the corporation had just the right amount of workers in all of its areas: The colonist had already conquered the solar system, so there was no need for more. Engineers had discovered and developed the finest ways of preserving energy and food, not much improvement could be made in that area. And Maternal Teacher was the most overpopulated job in existences (which was the career path I chose, by the way). The idea of interacting and educating the future generations seemed to be a beautiful thing to do, plus I loved kids, everybody kept telling me that it was the worst job ever, that I should have chosen engineering as everyone else but being a teacher for this kids seemed to be far more important and transcendental.

"What's transcendental about indoctrinating a bunch of spoiled brats that will have no future anyways?" Net always reminded me.

Even thought our planet was mind-blowingly boring, all schools and educational palaces were surrounded by beautiful and enormous forests, where everyone just liked to hang, drink, fuck, whatever.

I met Net when I was camping in the woods with some friends, he was the friend of a friend, when we had our first conversation I was completely loathed by his fucking pessimism, I just hated that pretentious asshole.

"How the hell you know that?" was the first thing I asked him.

"Went to maternal schools myself and look at me, I have no future." It was true, but I just hated being wrong.

"Don't be a pussy, nothing is easy in life, you have to fight for everything, so man the fuck up, would you?" He just laughed at me when I said that.

"I like you, sister" he said and he grabbed my shoulder

"Who the hell still says ‘sister’? What are you an old man?" he laughed once again.

"I like you, sister" he repeated...what a fucking idiot.

After I met him, Net began to change a lot, at first I thought that he was only doing this to comply me, but I was wrong. What I didn't realized at the moment is that he was actually showing me his true self and apparently this was the first time he had ever done that with anyone. After few months of dating him, I realized he was another person completely, he was like me or better yet he had always been like me but he just hid it because no one else would accept him like that. In reality, he was extremely vulnerable and I was the only one who could see this because he let me. Now, I don't know if this was the real Net.

"You know what... even though I never met them and probably never will... I miss them. I know that I'm the only one who feels like this but...I do". And he was right, nobody else felt like him.

He was the only one who had a particular interest in finding his parents and meet them. Maternal schools always taught us that parents were unimportant figures and that they only did what they had to do. They were only responsible in founding our education, which we hated. So no one developed an actual love or curiosity towards them. Bunch of strangers who just gave money and force us to do something we hated. But Net knew that what they've taught us was not the true.

"How can you create a life and just hand over it to a bunch of fucking strangers, who will never let you see it again and you will never know in what type of person it became?"

That particular piece of the puzzle didn't seem to fit well and he made me realize this, I guess that he made me interested in finding my parents and he also made me uninterested in doing what I was doing at the moment.

"I know that you have good intentions but your idea of that job is not what it really is, you're not changing anything, you're not improving anything, you're just helping the indoctrination to continue to the next generation: The Luvic Corporation is the only place in which you're gonna be safe, you don't wanna be in space, you're going to die alone out there. So, you better try the best to become a Luvic worker. Ohh... and for your information, there is pair of workers out there who are founding your education so that you can become just like them."

He later wrote a poem about that, I think it was titled "Solitude Adventures". That was our greatest fear, to die alone out there. To embark on a quest that was going to rip us a part. Nobody wanted that and you could see the desperation and anxiety that a lot of us went through because of that fear.

I saw that desperation and anxiety... but only once. It was the last thing I saw in this world, his face was full of it. I returned to that moment once again and I realized that everything that happened was just a result of that same desperation and anxiety we were all imprisoned by. On top of all, I actually knew him. I think his name was Roger and for the little I knew him, he was actually a nice guy. But every nice guy turns into a monster given the right conditions, but those conditions weren't his fault. While I was looking at him, I think that he assumed exactly the opposite idea, that everything was his fault, in reality it wasn't, that was the moment when the eternity disappeared.

The more I think about this world, the more I remember Net. The more I remember how  he changed with the passing of time. In the final moments I spent with him, he became so obsessed with everything, especially with the idea of meeting his parents. Before, when I think I used to love him, he just live in his ideas, he just moved back and forward, but later, he just became obsessed with them. He began doing experiments in the Bio-Lab, he managed to hack a long list of data containing the personal and biological data of a lot of Luvic workers. He then began to do DNA experiments, comparing which worker matched with his DNA. Of course, this was going to take him years, but he didn't care. He hired hackers to acquire all of the information necessary to tracked them, after that, I think that he actually hacked a file pertaining to the Luvic Diaphora (The Elite researcher group for the Luvic Corporation), he thought his parents were part of that group, those files were almost impossible to acquire by someone like us, but he did, and he became more obsessed than ever.

I already hated the sex and I knew he to, I already hated being with him and I knew he hated to be with me to. He was always lost in the woods, never available when needed and with the passing of time, he became never needed. I naturally decided to fell in love with someone else and that someone else got me killed...

I don't want to remember more of this stuff but it seems that I'm just trapped in these memories; I just want to escape them. I now live in the forest where I died, at first I thought that this was just some kind of illusion, more like a dream, a death dream, however, every time the essence of the forest seems more vivid, every time I can smell the trees, flowers and shit more intensively. I can feel the grass as if I had feet, as if I were still alive, lost in these woods of memories. I would like to know if I'm the only one here.

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Breaking Bad: What was Walter's final lesson?

Breaking bad ended a week ago, so I decided to write an analysis of this meaningful series, now that is still fresh in my mind.



First of all, I have to say that Breaking Bad it's the best television series that I have ever watched in terms of quality and pacing. By that I mean that it has no downfalls, there are no low seasons, it's impossible to find a boring episode, impossible to detect a bad or useless character, this series is an achievement of storytelling and dramatic pacing. It's a rare phenomenon to find a series in which everything just fits perfectly at the perfect moment in an over all time-lapse of 5 seasons. There is no other series for me that has done this, not even The Sopranos were able to pull this off. (the first part of the six season was definitively a downer.)
In Breaking Bad nothing like this ever happened, all that was written had a purpose and all the pieces fell at the right moment.
But leaving all of those factors behind, let's analyze Breaking Bad like the great modern literary work that it is. Let's analyze this series as people analyze The Great Gatsby or Crime and Punishment. Breaking Bad deserves this.
And of course, we have to ask ourselves, what is the main theme of Breaking Bad? What was its lesson? What did this show taught us?

Crime is bad, actions have consequences, crime is addictive, power corrupts people, crime can destroy your family.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought of them too, but after re-watching the pilot episode I realized none of these themes are the crucial message this story wanted to transmit.
Of course, the themes I mentioned above are present throughout the whole series, but they are just the consequences of the real deal.
In my opinion, the central theme of Breaking Bad is: The terrible damage that a life of unfulfillment can do.
First, let me start with the fact that Walter was a genius. Brilliant Mind type of genius or as Hank puts it "A freaking brainiac". A man who was destined to be the leader of an important scientific revolution or the head of a giant technological company. But, that never happened. He was an ambitious genius who never had a chance to shine. Betrayed by his friends and blinded by conformity, he threw away a life full of potential to become the man we meet at the first episode.

This theme of numbness that we see in the pilot episode it's so important because that's exactly what happens to many people. A lot of us are just blinded with conformity and carried away by time that when we realize, half of our life has passed and we haven't accomplish anything that we desired when we were younger. The world and the passing of time just made us numb, and now you just have to coupe with this life you have right now, which is also the rest of it.
At the beginning of the series, Walt (our genius) was a prisoner of this numbness in which many of us are, but when he got his cancer diagnosis everything changed for him.
Receiving his cancer diagnosis (which lead him becoming a criminal) was the moment in which the real Walt, that ambitious mastermind, awoke from this numbness. You can clearly see this in the Pilot episode.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="437"] "I am awake"[/caption]

The cancer diagnosis was just the perfect justification to turn his life around and escape this horrible and conformist present he now lived in.
Walter never (and when I say never it's NEVER) needed to cook crystal meth to begin with.
He had his pals (or not so pals) of Gray Matter to back up his treatment, but he decided to reject them. Partly because of pride but also because that option wouldn't help him escape this horrible unfulfilled life he now lived in.
Initially, cooking meth was just a "badass" way to prove to himself that he was able to handle this situation. When he got more involved in the drug underworld of Alburquerque as Heisenberg, he realized that he was a desired and respected entity there. Finally someone recognized his abilities and the criminal world was the place where he received that absent fulfillment. The criminal world was the perfect place to build his empire.
But of course, this was the worst possible way in which someone could "awoke". This awakening had brutal and irredeemable consequences for himself, his family and a lot of other people by the end of the series.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="445"] He was Ozymandias king of kings. Now nothing besides remains.[/caption]

But I believe this was the great lesson that Heisenberg had to taught us at the end. This story is not just about an unfulfilled genius. The overall message of this story could apply to any other human being:
Wake up, take control of your life right now, do what you want to do, find fulfillment, before it's too late, before you're old and trapped in a life style in which you can't escape, in which escaping means to hurt someone else, before you have to do what Walter did, before the last two options that you have left are: living whatever is left of this unfulfilled life or breaking bad.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="384"] Learn from this man, cause this man is a story.[/caption]

Thanks for reading.

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When do we actually know a language?

Many polyglots pride themselves by saying that they speak an X number of languages. Unfortunately I have always found this term (the term "speak") extremely vague and inconclusive when it's used in this way. It's in fact more vague and inconclusive when you realize that all of the polyglots have a different definition for it.



When can we say that we speak a language?

Many might say: "It's when you're able to hold a 20 minute conversation with someone", or "It's when you have total mastery of the language and you can pass as a native" others might say: "It's when you talk fluently about many different topics". Others might even say "When you just say a word or a phrase in another language, you're already speaking another language" and, you know... it's technically correct, you are speaking in another language.

And of course, then the ads for special miracle language learning products come: "Speak a language in 3 months,1 month, 2 weeks, " And I have even read "2 days". And of course, as all marketing tricks, they never define the terms that they are using and they keep the actual efficiency of the product as vague as possible.

What do they mean by "speak"? If by that they mean the second definition that I offered, then I'm extremely impressed. But if by "speak" they mean my last definition (which is most probably the case) then the term "speak" means nothing at all to me and holds no importance as an achievement.

So, when can we say that we speak a language?

I don't know.

Personally, I believe that we are asking the wrong question. The term "speak" is a bad measure of success in a language, since it holds no absolute definition, it can mean something incredible or something unimpressive.

Most of the time, when we study a language, we have the goal of being optimal users of this language or optimal readers. But I think that being an optimal language user or reader it's just the culmination of a lot of important language learning and acquisition processes that happened before. Being an optimal language user it's just the natural conclusion of these processes.

But now the question is, what are these language learning processes?

I'm not able to describe all of them, but I'm able to describe to you the one that I think it's the most essential and important, and that is: "To know the language"

To know the language, to be acquainted with it, to know it as a good friend or, putting it with more correct terms, "To have Linguistic Knowledge".

If there's one thing I'm beginning to hate more and more these days, it's without any doubt the use of vagueness when someone is discussing a topic that requires proper definitions.

I wouldn't like to be vague at all in this post and I'm going to define to you what I mean by "knowing a language".

If you're interested, the definition that I'm going to use for this term is the one described in the book "An Introduction to Language" by Victor Fromkin, Robert Rodman and Nina Hyams. This book is heavily used in the first years of MIT's Linguistics and Philosophy curriculum and it's completely amazing, check it out, it's a magnificent introduction to the great field of Linguistics.



So, as I said, I believe we are asking the wrong questions in this paradigm. Instead of asking when do we speak the language, we should ask:

When do we actually know the language?

Linguistics Knowledge is the first thing that you should be after, it's the basis of it all. Once that you acquire Linguistic Knowledge you can move to Functionality, then Fluency and (if you're that crazy for the language and the right conditions are met) Bilingualism.

This is how An Introduction to Language defines Linguistic Knowledge. If you present the following symptoms, that means you know the language you're studying, I'm so sorry.

Linguistic Knowledge is recognized when the following criteria are met:

• Knowledge of the Sound System.


• Knowledge of Words.


• Knowledge of Sentences and Nonsentences.


• Creativity of Linguistic Knowledge and Performance.

I'm going to explain these points in more detail.

• Knowledge of the Sound System:

"Part of knowing a language means knowing what sounds (or signs) are in that language and what sounds are not."

Ok, so you obviously speak English. English is a language that you know extremely well. So, if I say the word: "Correr", you instantly know that "Correr" is not an English word, it's not a word that belongs to the English language. But how did you know this? How did you know so instantly that 'Correr' wasn't an English word?

Easy, you know which sounds belong to English and which sounds don't. "Correr", that weird double r sound is nowhere to be found in English, so you instantly conclude :  that's not an English word. The same happens with signs while reading. If I write the word "Antaño". You know that's not English, what the hell is that 'ñ' thing? that sign doesn't exist in English, that's NOT English.

If you're studying a foreign language, let's say French. And if you're already able to figure out which sounds and signs belong to the French language and which sounds and signs don't, that's one sign that indicates that you know French.

• Knowledge of Words:

"When you know a language, you know words in that language, that is, which sequence of sounds are related to specific meanings and which are not."

In this context, we are going to define a "word" as "A sequence of articulated sounds that posses a specific meaning".

Knowing a language isn't just about recognizing individual sounds, it's also about recognizing sequence of sounds, recognizing words. Again, you know English, and if I say the word "Chaleco", you instantly know that's not an English word.

But why? I mean, let's analyze the sounds. We have "Cha", this is a sound that exists in the English language: you can find it in words such as "challenge", "charity", "charlatan". Then we have "le", again, that exists in English, you find it in words such as "lesser", "let", "lend", "elegant". Finally "co", which we can find in words like 'cop', 'cooperation', 'coalition', etc.

So, what's going on? How did you know this wasn't English? As I previously mentioned, it's not just about sounds, it's also about the sequence of these sounds. There's no word in the English language that sounds the way that 'Chaleco' does. Although its sounds exist in the English language, English words don't tend to sounds this way. The English language never uses that sort of sound sequence in its words.

If you're learning French and you're able to recognize which sequence of sounds do sound like a French word and which sequence of sounds don't, then, that's another signal that you know French.

• Knowledge of Sentence and Nonsentence:

"When you know a language,you know the sounds, the words and the rules for their combination. Our knowledge of a language determines which strings of words are well-formed and which strings are not."

This is where the interesting part begins. Syntax! Here is where you're able to realize if you indeed know the language. A language isn't just about sounds, it's about the sequence of these sounds (which are words), but it's still not only about words, it's also about the sequence in which these words are used.

If you know a language, you know the correct way in which people tend to form sentences and phrases.

You know English, so check this list of sentences:

1. John kissed the old lady who owned the shaggy dog.


2. Who owned the little shaggy dog John kissed the old lady.


3. John is difficult to love.


4. It's difficult to love John.


5. John is anxious to go.


6. It's anxious to go John.


7. John, who was a student, flunked his exams.


8. Exams his flunked student a was who John.

Can you tell me which sentences are OK and which sentences are kind of weird?

If you answered 1,3,4,5,7 and 2,6,8. Then you  have knowledge of sentences and nonsentences.

But why 2,6,8 are not sentences? Quite simply, because people don't talk that way. You've spent a lot of time with English and that time has allowed you to know that they never say stuff like that. Your experience allows you to recognize that no one speaks with that order, thus, those sentences are malformed.

While studying a foreign language, to be able to tell whether or not a sentence is using a correct structure, it's usually one of the hardest things to do. You require a good amount of exposition to the language in order to do this, and it takes time (sometimes, a lot). But, when you do it, it's one of the most remarkable achievements in language learning.

Knowledge of Senteces and Nonsetences means that you have acquired the syntax of this language (the syntax! probably the most important aspect of any language), if you have managed to do this, congratulate yourself, because this is quite an achievement.

• Creativity of Linguistic Knowledge and Performance:

"So, are you saying that you were the best friend of the woman who was married to the man who represented your husband in divorce?

In the history of speech, that sentence has never been uttered before."

Finally, knowing a language is not just about knowing the sounds, the words and the syntax. But it's also about using all of these elements in order to express yourself creatively. As the dialogue puts it: To create sentences that have never been uttered before. Or, to create sentences that we have never heard before. Creativity of Linguistic Knowledge is one of the most vital aspect if you want to express yourself or survive in another language.

I guess that's the most impressive thing about the human language. The fact that it's all about creativity. We're constantly creating sentences out of thin air in order to express ourselves in given situations, sentences that probably have never been said before or that we have never heard. Other animals also posses complex communicative systems, but in those communicative systems there's not a lot of creativity involved. Our langauge demands an enormous amount of creativity in order to use it. A non-creative being will never be able to use a human language properly, never.

And finally, if you're able to be creative with the foreign language that you're learning. If you can constantly form original sentences with a correct use of syntax and you posses all of the other criteria too, then, congratulations, you know the language.

As you can see, knowing a language it's not something easy. A language is an extremely complex entity. Getting to know a language is like getting to know a person. It's going to require time, exposition and different situations or approaches so you can see the multiple faces that this language really has.

After doing all of that stuff, you'll know that you know this language.

Best of luck in your language learning and thanks for reading.

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Solitude Adventures: A Science Fiction Novel, Chapter 2

Second chapter of the Solitude Adventures series. This chapter is narrated from the point of view of Roy, one of the guys patrolling the forest looking for Mata.

 

Late Night Judgement

 

The death of that asshole was the only thing that I had in mind. But killing him was something that I had to leave for the others to do. For me, it was already to late. Somehow, I always knew this was going to end like this. I was patrolling the forest, my rage was the only thing that was pushing me forward. We trusted in that incompetent piece of shit and, now he cons us and disappears, I had no other choice but to become a space nomad because of his fucking fault and ineptitude. All my life, all my plans, everything that I had done and everything that I had endure in this godforsaken planet was for nothing. At least, before I leaved to encounter my dead, I needed to kill the bastard who ruined us all. Those were my thoughts while I was driving the motojet looking in the darkness of those woods alongside the others. We were closing in on him, I knew it. I took a detour because I thought I had heard something coming from the waterfall that was near us, so I headed there. I arrived to the waterfall but there was nothing to be seen, however I knew that the bastard was close. My motojet still had a good amount of energy so I was able to activate the tracking pulse radar, it was a relatively new device that detected any human pulse in the area, it required a lot of energy to be activated but I felt that this was the moment to use it. The radar detected a pulse moving quickly to the east at less than 15 kilometers away.
I took out my magnum and I headed there at full speed. He felt into that waterfall and in a few minutes he was already 15 kilometers away? He was using a vehicle, unfortunately for him, I was using my motojet. He was just a few meters away, he was completely alone, he was there for me to kill. I was only looking at the pulse radar. It was so fucking dark and I was driving at full speed. The pulse radar wasn't able to detect any other types of objects, so if a tree or a rock or something else was lying in front of me, my face was going to smash that at full speed while my motojet exploded. But I didn't care at that moment, I just wanted to kill him, that was the only thing in the world that matter. The energy levels of my motojet were dropping, that damn radar consumed a lot! My motojet had only a few seconds left of life, I looked ahead and I finally saw him. A dark figure running in the woods like crazy, he was still a little bit far away, but not for my magnum. I fired the first shot and missed, however I saw him and after I fired the first shot, he just stopped running and he raised his hands. My motojet died and I was still a little bit far away. I just saw Mata's dark silhouette raising his hands. Although we were some meters away, I was still able to imagine the way that he was going to beg me to spear his life, it was already to late for that, my rage at that night didn't allow those types of negotiations. I just got off of the motojet, I looked at him and I fired four times, he fell to the ground.
Just at that moment, my whole world changed. All my rage, anger and violence disappeared all of a sudden and I was just left with an emotional void and the resting consequences of my actions. But still, as I was walking to see his corpse, a part of me felt that it was worth it.
I started to hear some motojets approaching the area, "too fucking late you poor idiots" I was thinking "I was the one who haunted him down like a pig", I guess that was the only part of myself that felt it was worth it. My whole world changed for a second and consecutive time, when I saw her blond hair lying on the grass and her white jacket all covered in blood.
"Who the fuck are you?", "What the fuck have I done?!"; those were the two questions that governed my mind and my being at that moment.

Two shots in the stomach and one shot in the leg, she wasn't moving at all. I could see her eyes were closed and her face impregnated with pain and suffering.
"This wasn't my fault, this wasn't my fault!" came after.
"What the fuck was this girl doing here?". No one else was supposed to be on these woods, but there she was, and it was me, the one who killed her. If it wasn't for my dead motojet I would had fled the scene, but there was nowhere to go for me at the moment. The other motojets arrived.
"Holy Shit Roy! What the hell did you do?" one of them asked.
"We were supposed to kill a dude!" another wisely added.
"This wasn't my fault! Who the fuck is this girl and what the fuck is she doing here?". There were only two of them and they were observing the corpse of the girl.

"Oh crap, she's Danna, Net's chick. Dude, you just killed Net's chick!"
"Danna?" I thought, "Yes, I know her, Net's chick, jesus, did I really kill her?" I was asking myself. I looked at her one more time to verify if this was really happening and when I looked at Danna, her eyes were open.
"Oh crap, I think she's still alive dude"
I looked at her face, she looked at me and for a moment, I felt all her pain and suffering by just gazing her eyes.
She closed them, that horrible pain was gone and I returned back to the real world, where I was still able to save her.
"One of you, give me your motojet, she needs a medic fucking now!" I asked, expecting a "no" for an answer.
One of them just laughed and asked.
"What's wrong with yours?"
"I have no juice left" I looked at her once more and the pain was returning "this girl is dying! I need another motojet, give me one!"
"No, no, no man. Your dead girl, your responsibility, we have the right bastard to kill, we have no energy or time for this shit."
They just turned around and they left as quickly as they came.
"Useless pieces of shit!" I was screaming at them. Then, I looked back at the girl. It was game over for her, I had no idea where the hell we were but I was sure that the only clinic available was far away in the center of the city. She was just there, those bullets were consuming her life bit by bit and I was the one to blame, I did this. I just kneeled besides her and I held her in my arms, she looked at me.
"I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry" I kept telling her "This was an accident, those guys, they left you here to die"
After I said that, she just looked at me, with a face of deep contempt and anger, that face was so full of energy, so full of rage, I understood her final words never uttered by just looking at her face. Those emotions were frozen and she just closed her eyes. That was the moment in which I understood that everything was my doing. I was the one who paid that hacker, I was the one trying to kill him. There was no one else to blame, not the girl, not those pieces of shit that abandoned us, not even the guy I was looking for. I killed that innocent girl, I cause her death and I was the only one to blame.
A couple of motojets were patrolling the area near I was. I looked at them and I just asked myself "What are you looking for? This is all fucked up, what's the point of killing that bastard, it's not going to solve anything, everything was our fault to begin with". But I guess that's easy for me to say because I've already tasted the flavor of immediate vengeance when I killed the girl thinking she was the hacker... we were pathetic, we deserves the worst.
I couldn't just leave her there, her name was Danna, she was Net's girl. I had only met her once, but I never crossed words with her. I knew Net , he was a good guy and he was going to be my judge. I carried her and I crossed the dark woods by foot. I found a way back to the city, a way back to school with her body in my arms.
I needed to see Net, I needed someone to judge what I had done and I didn't care for the outcome, if he killed me, that was fine and if he forgave me, the space was going to kill me anyway.

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Teaching You Spanish (Pilot Episode)

I've been wrtiting about languages and language learning for quite a time, discussing different methods, approaches and theories but I guess it wouldn't be a bad idea to also help you learn a language in a more direct way: teaching you, and the best language that I have to offer is Spanish since it's my mother language.

Wheter we like it or not (and believe me, I'm not the greatest fan of Spanish), Spanish is of vital importance in today's world, if you're American I would say that is almost mandatory for you to learn Spanish. Almost your entire continent speaks this language and a good chunk of your country to. I guess that it's the first language that you should learn if you're from there.

So I created this first episode, it follows a methodoly similar to the Pimsleur method, which I consider to be the best method for beginners, but I will try to create more realistic or useful situations that you may encounter while travelling to a Spanish speaking country. This series is aimed for eveyone who wants to know the functional aspects that you have to use in a normal Spanish conversation. The Spanish that I will be teaching is Mexican Spanish, and the situations are mainly settled in Mexico, hope you enjoy it and tell me what you think.

[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/103586277" params="" width=" 100%" height="166" iframe="true" /]

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Solitude Adventures: a Science Fiction Novel, Chapter 1

So this is the first chapter of a new novel I've been writing, its called Solitude Adventures. I've been writing articles for two years now but I also write some fiction and I figure: what the hell, I'm going to publish some early drafts of this story to see what you think. Solitude Adventures is a science fiction novel about a bunch of youngsters living in an isolated school planet, when suddenly some fuck up shit starts to happen. Every chapter is written in the point of view of a different character, I hope you enjoy this first chapter.

Children of Bena

 

As the dwelling on the field continued, we gazed into the black heaven which was no more colorful than our years to come. The smell of failure came to me as an awaited and relaxing fragrance, destined to fail, the unknown and the nothingness unfolding in my mind and presence. Laying besides me, for her it was the same, destined to fail. Lying. As the dwelling on the field continued….

Out of the silence, while I was lost in the emptiness of it all, that emptiness got interrupted.

"You should be moving" she told me.

"I'm trying to enjoy possibly the final moments of my life, when I run I feel that I'm spilling the final moments that I'm able to enjoy" I said.

"Don't be such a fatalist Mata, you can still make it out of Bena if you wouldn't take so many fucking detours".

I appreciated the enthusiasm that she showed regarding my situation; the fact of the matter was that even if I managed to escape this goddamn planet I was doomed anyway. Those who became space nomads were forever lost in the memories and knowledge of the other ones that were able to stay together. Nobody is able to survive in the dark and cold pool of space and all the unknown nightmares that kept. In the our world, solitude kills faster than any cancer.

"What about your boyfriend?" I asked her "Does he want me dead too?"

"I seriously doubt it" she said, "he wasn't that angry when he looked at its failed results, I think that he just wants to speak with you."

"Really? Well... Net has always been a reasonable guy, it's good that you're with him."

I smiled at her, but her face was full of confusion and sadness after I uttered that sentence. I don't know if she was also in love with me but at least she cared about me.

"Mata... I can't believe that this is happening to you, I can't believe that you're in this situation, why did you accept the job if you weren't able to pull it off?"

"I WAS ABLE TO PULL IT OFF!" I shouted at her, she looked at me, biting her lips.

"Someone got me screwed, that wasn't a common preprogrammed system of security, someone knew what I was up to, that system was prepared to counter all of my codes".

I knew it from the moment that I started to enter in the first screens, I had just a terrible feeling after it was already too late to back off, I have been hacking EP systems for the last 4 years, and I have been able to hack the final exam results 3 consecutive times, the security system shows improvement over the years but nothing I can't handle, but this year, it was different, it was modified by a human.

"I was screwed before I even began the job"

"So you're telling me that someone in school set you up?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying and I want to know who, I want to know who bested my abilities"

She just stared at me more worried than ever.

"You really want to die here, don't you?" she asked.

"Becoming a nomad equals death, staying here equals death. I'm already dead" I replied.

"And you're creating paranoid delusions in the process, no one updates or modifies the security systems of Educational Palaces, the only ones who are capable of doing such a thing are the engineers who designed it, and they're long gone."

She had a point, the Educational Palaces were magnificent school buildings that were abandoned many years ago, however, we, the students, still attended to classes. No professors to be seen just artificial, holographic ghosts of them. Their systems were never updated and they always taught the same things generation after generation. The Educational Palaces remain the same with the passing of time. The technology in which they were built is almost ancient, only a geek like me has studied that type of obsolete linguistics to be able to understand them; I found the books that taught me such skills in an abandoned ship, close to the Alic Sea. I burned those books after I learned what I needed to learn. I was the only one familiar with its system, the only one capable of hacking the final test results. At least, that's what I thought but I have a tendency of underestimating people. Now that I think about it, if you would have lived my life you would have that same flaw to.

"Wait a minute" I was starting to put the pieces together. I stood up and began walking around in small circles in the grass. "Pretty much every one of my clients wants me dead, correct?" I asked.

"You told a bunch of guys that you would be able to hack probably the most important test of their lives at a ridiculously expensive price and then you failed. Yee, what is our friend Mrs. Logic telling us Mata?"

Oh!, my beloved Danna, I had just the perfect comeback to that.

"Ok, so we can conclude that everyone is pretty mad at me. Net was one of my clients for this job." She quickly stared at me, she knew where I was going. "Can you please repeat to me what was his reaction when he knew that I fucked everything up?"

She looked at the grass.

"You son of a bitch" she said laughing while nodding her head. "So you think that Net was the one who got you screwed?"

"You said that he wasn't mad at me, If I were him I would be pretty fucking mad at me."

I just looked at her while smiling.

"I'm just repeating what our friend Mrs. Logic is telling us Danna."

"Well, stop listening to that bitch!" She stood up. "Net would never betray one of his friends. You talk like if you didn't know him."

"The only thing I know is that we don't know no one at all, plus, you said that he wanted to speak with me, isn't that the case?"

"Mata, just stop that train of thought of yours. It's going to lead you nowhere."

I was starting to hear some motojets in the forest, approaching the field we were on.

"Why does he want to speak with me Danna?"

Danna listened to the motojets approaching to.

"Shit!, Mata they're coming!"

"Why does he want to speak with me, Danna?!"

"Damn it Mata I don't know!, he has been behaving so fucking strange these days, I think he wants your help."

"Strange? strange how?"

They were just a few miles away.

"Get fucking moving!"

"Where is he?"

"I dont' know"

"You're his girlfriend and you don't know?"

The motojets were about to enter the field.

"Fuck, I'm sorry Mata."

She began to run away to the opposite direction and she hid in to the woods. I did the same but I didn't stop running and I encounter a slope. It was the first time that I was running on that kind of environment. Hell, it was like the third time that I ran in my life. So, I image that you can guess what happened next. Every single and irrelevant little rock had the power to destroy the balance of my feet completely. There was a waterfall near me and I just kept rolling towards it. I was praying to the gods that I didn't believe in, to stop the fall, but their existence disappointed me once more and Mr. Gravity made me pay my lack of balance by escorting me to the lair of Mrs. Waterfall.

Thanks for reading :)

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Monster's University: The Hard work vs Talent Paradigm

Do you remember when you were a child and your parents use to read to you different types of tales every time you were about to go to sleep?  I don't. But anyway, you know which stories I'm referring to, you know these types of tales and you know that there's always an underlying lesson that you must have acquired by the end of the story. Usually , it's a lesson that you've already acquired or is something so obvious or dorky that you completely forget about it within few minutes. Classic Disney movies work the same way, hell, even the most popular and classical Disney movies are based upon these stories. Except Pixar movies, those are different. Pixar movies tend to explore themes that we don't ordinary see in kids movies and some of these themes and lessons are actually quite complex than just the classics : "The true beauty is inside", "True love conquers everything", "You're the only one holding you back", etc. Take the revolution and oppression theme that revolves around "A Bug's Life":



The middle-aged crisis and the family issues that Mr.Incredible has to endure and how these things put his family in danger, the dilemma that Woody has to face while choosing a momentary period of happiness with Andy or an eternity of fame in a museum but alone.

The conflicts that these characters face are quite complex but at the end of the day, they always learn the lesson that we expect them to learn, they always make the choices that we expect them to may. Except in this final release: Monster's University.



The overall theme that Monster's University presents us is the classic "Talent vs Hard-work" paradigm; Mike Wazowski representing the notion of hard work and determination and  Sulley (and all of the other successful monsters) the notion of talent and natural ability. You may think that this is nothing new, we have been presented with this same paradigm in a lot of different movies and what is the lesson that they always teach us? It doesn't matter if you don't have talent, if you keep on trying, you will succeed. If you show determination and hard work you can keep up with the ones with natural talent and even overtake them. Hard work is always going to defeat talent. That's the lesson that we have learned but now here it comes Monster's University and this movie doesn't come to retell this lesson, what it does is actually the opposite: this movie challenges and question this idea that we thought we have learned and in the process that teach us the true hard lesson about the "Talent vs Hard work" paradigm.

What Monster's University and Mike Wazowski's quest of becoming a "scarer" are trying to tell us is that, this paradigm is not always true, hard work doesn't always manifests in success and in some disciplines, a degree of natural talent is required and cannot be acquired through hard work.

You can try, you can be determined but hard work is not always going to defeat natural talent. Just because you desire a dream so much and you try everything to reach it, that doesn't mean that it's going to eventually come true. But when you fail you need to know that this wasn't your fault. With the other lesson, failing is such a painful process because everything is up to you, success is there and you can take it, if you couldn't take it that means that you didn't tried hard enough and your failure is completely your fault. In real life this is not true, Mike had the knowledge and determination to become the greatest scarer of them all but he lacked the essential natural talent. After learning this hard lesson, Mike modified his dream based on the realities he has faced and that's exactly what we do in real life, that is the true lesson that we have to learn about this paradigm: Sometimes we have to just accept failure, move on and try something else, if you've tried really hard there's no shame in that.

So as you can see this is not the typical lesson that you get from your typical fairy tales or your typical Disney movie, this is a hard lesson to learn but an important one and Monster's University does an excellent job in teaching it.

Thanks for reading :)

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Video Games as the Highest Art Form

First of all, I'm real sorry I haven't been writing anything for these past 5 months. Sometimes you just shut yourself down and you lose touch with the things you used to do. But I'm back once again and I'll try to become a more serious writer/blogger from now on. I won't change the direction or the things I usually talk about, I'm still going to be writing about language, philosophy, music, films and other stuff but I'll try to write more often and in a more serialized way, maybe two or three posts per month. I'm also in the process of writing a science fiction novel called Solitude Adventures; it's not the first novel I attempt to write, it's actually like the third, but I would like to publish some chapters here and see what kind of reception (if any) does it get.

This post it's going to be a little bit different from the other's I've written, because this time I'm going to be talking about video games.  This is weird because it's actually the first time that I talk about video games in this blog and I'm quite an active player, so I wonder what took me so long. But anyway, this post it's completely inspired by the whole debate surrounding the following question: Are video games art? I'm sure that all gamers would agree and I'm sure that all non-gamers would NOT agree. One of the most peculiar things about video game criticism is that people who criticize video games in the most savage of ways are people who never play them. There are people who speculate that video games are only meant to entertain and again, these are people who don't actually play video games or they are not knowledgeable players because video games have shown us again and again that they're not just about entertainment, games like Deux Ex,Grim Fandango, Journey, Mass Effect, Half-Life, Heavy Rain, Metal Gear (even tough Kojima doesn't have the same views on this) Ico, Okami, Flower,Limbo, The Last of Us, The Walking Dead, Spec Ops: The Line and many others are perfectly capable of exploring the human psych and to show beautiful landscapes and situations in which the player is not only watching but he's actually engaging with them. Of course triple A games suffer the same paradigm than hollywood blockbusters, they need to appeal to the masses ,so they have to follow a general structure and they have to stay inside the box. But for more indie or adventurous games this is not the same and they can follow or break the common gaming rules whenever they want to, they don't need to make their video games appealing to the masses, they can just use mechanics to express and create the experiences they want to. Video games like this are becoming more present because the technology is already available and accessible to different kinds of artists, that's why we are seeing all sorts of video games that seem to break the paradigm of what we previously believed in.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="550"] The Passage of an entire life time in just five minutes[/caption]

But in this post I won't be discussing this question at all because, for me this question is a no-brainer and it's not worthy to be discussed; of course, video games are art and the ones who are not able to see this are either non-gamers ,people who don't know what art is or people who don't know in which type of art to categorize it. I'm actually here to make a bolder statement. In my point of view, video games are not only an art form but they are the highest art form there is (or well, they are showing signs that they are). Of course as Dr. James Asher affirms: "Teaching is the highest art form of them all" and I completely agree but when it comes to aesthetic and visual arts; video games are the winners.



First, we need to consult our friends, the ancient Greeks, to understand what are the proper divisions of classical arts that they originally developed. Before anything else, we must understand that in the process of art there are two entities involved: The artist and the audience. According to the ancient greeks there are 2 types of fine arts: The high arts and the low arts.

• The high arts are the ones in which the audience can perceive the art only with their superior senses (which according to the greeks were sight and hearing) and there was no need to interact physically with the art. In this category we can find: Painting, Music, Architecture, Sculpture, Theater and Dancing (and I guess we could also add Film and Photography).


• The low arts are the ones in which the audience has to perceive the art with their inferior senses (which according to the greeks were taste, smell and touch) and a physical interaction from the part of the audience is mandatory. In this category we can find: Gastronomy and Perfumery.

If we are to begin to think of video games as an art form, in which of these two categories would they belong?, or maybe this distinction between art forms is already to obsolete for this era. But anyway, let's say that we are trying to classify video games in this spectrum. Soon we realize that something curious happens. Video games can fit in the category of high arts. We engage with them with our eyes and our ears but they have something different from all of the other high art forms, the audience actually engages with them, the audience has to interact with them, a feature that none of the other high art forms has. By this maybe we can consider it a low art, after all, the interaction of the audience is mandatory. But here comes another point of view to this whole "category" thing: At one point in time, people said that theater was the ultimate high art form because it involved all of the other ones such as music, dancing, architecture, painting. Then it came film, and people considered film the ultimate art form because it also included photography. Now let's look at video games, they include all of the other art forms and even more. In a video game you can find photography, music, acting, scripting, drawing/painting, architecture and also things that are not consider art forms such as programming and development of artificial intelligence. So, how can an art form (that combines all of the other high arts) be a low art? Seems like we're facing a paradox here. But this exercise makes us realize something: Video games are a complete new revolutionary art form by its own and I guess we cannot really categorize them with the old ones.

Video games are not the art of sounds, nor the art of movement nor the art of color and pigments, they are the art of experiences.



They're emulators of experiences, they create an experience and you have to engage it and live it, this is something that none other art form can perform, so why we cannot consider this the greatest art form? All art forms try to imitate or express the beauty of life, video games are capable to do this in a deeper way because in video games you have the factor of choice, you have actions and you have consequences and you have to live according to the things you've chosen, just like in real life:



And if you're still cynical about this idea, try to make a good video game yourself and you'll realize this. Or watch the process of making a good video game and you'll see everything that its require and how immensely creative these programmers need to be to work in this medium.

Video games haven't reached the goal of becoming  the greatest art form or even a recognizable one yet, but everything indicates that they're just in the right path to become the highest art form, new artist are joining this medium and creating things that we have never experienced before so the possibilities are endless and let's face it, this medium is still in diapers. I would recommend you to watch Extra Credits, it's an amazing web series that will give you a completely new perspective of what video games are and everything correlated to them, it will give you a new perspective of this entire medium.





Here's the link for Loneliness: http://www.necessarygames.com/my-games/loneliness/flash

I also recommend you to watch Errant Singnal's videos, amazing video games analyzes there:

Well, this is all that I have to say right now and I would like to know what other people think about this topic, leave a comment if you have another point of view that I'm missing. This would be all for now and thanks for reading. :)   

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Soen - Cognitive (Review) A Hard Album to Talk About.

Ok, this is a great album but a hard one to talk about and you already know the reasons why.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="346"] Everyday without the sun[/caption]

I think that the problem lies in people who are always looking for something new, something that they haven't heard before or something that doesn't remind them of anything. And that's completely ok, I even share some of their thoughts honestly. The reason for this is that it's not only about the music, but about the identity and style of the music also. The identity and the style of the music are equally as important. Why? Because if a band doesn't create their own identity or style and they borrow it heavily from other bands, a lot of people are not going to appreciate their music for what it is because they are going to be too busy comparing it with those other bands. And I think that's exactly what's happening to Soen.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="562"] Does your singer has to be bald to?[/caption]

But in all honesty, Cognitive is a great album and it has a lot to show for. It's not an original album by any means but it does an amazing job at capturing key elements of the bands that influenced them, combining those key elements in a perfect harmonic and balanced way. Believe me, that is not as easy as it looks. Sadly, a lot of people are not going to be able to realize this because of the reasons that I already described, but thinking about it, I cannot really blame them either.

With all that said, Cognitive is a perfectly balanced album, entertaining and a living proof of what the genre of progressive metal is capable of doing, combining key elements of their most important bands nowadays. It's not an album that is going to change your life, unless you have never been exposed to this kind of music before. If you haven't, this album is going to be the magic door that will introduce you to the iconic bands that influenced them and to the genre itself.

In this sense, I like to compare Cognitive with Flying Colors. They are not the greatest and most original ground breaking albums in existence but both of them are a great way to introduce yourself to the genre. Flying Colors with Progressive Rock and Cognitive with Progressive Metal. If you don't care that much about styles or identities you will also enjoy this album a lot and for those who do; It's completely OK to dislike this album but you cannot say that it's a bad album, it's not original, it doesn't create anything new, but is not bad music in any way. I care a lot about the style and the identity of the music, but I was still able to appreciate the elements that they were able to compose in a lot of the songs.

Drums, Bass and Guitar were perfect. Vocals pretty well but I felt like they needed something else to create a different and more original identity. The exact same goes for the artwork and music videos.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="515"] Not the most convenient art direction to take, just saying.[/caption]

The themes that the album explore are also interesting to analyze, they mainly revolve around the conflicts of reaching cognitive freedom and the struggles to protect it.

These are the most influential songs, in my opinion.



I specially love the ending, reminiscing of April Ethereal.



If you liked them, and if you keep an open mind, you will definitively like the album and draw your own conclusions.

Thanks for reading :)

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The Stupidity Of Debating The Existence of God

Look, I love debates. They are fun, exciting, entertaining and if they are done in a correct and in a deep manner, they always leave you with something to think about. In a debate there's no winners, well, that's actually not true, there's no official winners, you're the one who must decide who the true winner is at the end on the day, based on the arguments presented by each of the opponents and how well they defended them and formulated them.

So, debates exist because they allow us to examine challenging questions looking at both sides of the coin.  They expose us to all the arguments and counter-arguments regarding that question and at the end of the day you are the one who decides what's the triumphant argument or what is the triumphant point of view regarding that challenging question and the  current status in which that question is viewed or perceived.

In seems like something ethereal.

Now bearing that in mind, is easy to assume that if we try to apply this phenomenal activity, this beautiful exercise into one of the most challenging questions ever imagined by philosophy or theology (that been the existence of God) We are going to witness  the greatest exercise of human intellect and expression in history.



But the funny thing is that the answer is a complete NO!

The act of debating the existence of God is one of the most fruitless, repetitive, time-consuming and  non-progressive things ever imagined. If you are ever entangled in a debate about the existence of God, I don't care if you're a theist, an atheist, an agnostic, a pantheist, an ignostic, whatever. Get the hell out of there, because let me tell you, that discussion is going to lead you nowhere and I will give you my reasons.

The reason why almost all the debates discussing the existence of God fail (and I'm not only talking about those mundane arguments that you get yourself into with your friends, relatives or so, I'm also talking about professional debates with academics, audience members and everything.) is because the debaters almost never define what the hell are they discussing about, they never defined what God is in the context of this particular debate. As I expressed before, "God" is a term that could express a myriad of completely different things. The term "God" is an ocean that englobes any kind of deep meanings in which a person could relate to or appreciate. God could be the beauty that you perceive in nature, God could be the essence and the rules in which we discover how this universe works, God could be your inner self that is always demanding you to transcend, God could be this world when this world favours you, God could be the love or the strong emotions that you feel for someone else.

Now, you realize how many meanings that word could carry and if you're going to get yourself into a debate about this vague term, the first thing that you must do is to define what are you discussing about specifically , the first thing that you must do is to define God in the most specific way possible, if you're not able to do this then this debate will be completely meaningless and a waste of time.

Don't believe me? Take a look at this debate.



I know, the debate is too long, and the most probable thing is that you're not going to be able to watch the whole thing. When you have the time watch it, to make a long story short Hitchens basically wipes the floor with these dudes single-handed. Nevertheless is a really bad and poor debate, because nothing is clearly defined, nothing is clearly defined by the apologists, nothing is clearly defined by the moderator (which in my humble point of view is the worst moderator in the history of debates) and nothing is clearly defined by Hitchens (although he sometimes try).

And by this, you get a debate that goes nowhere, debaters that don't move forward and that keep spinning around in the same arguments and counter-arguments that they already established.

If you look deeply the debate doesn't move forward because of how these apologists portray the Christian God. After watching this debate and making a few observations, I realized that must of people are actually wrong when they assume that religion never changes, religion chances to and their Gods chance with them. By this I've realized that the Christian God has truly evolve.

The concept of God that these apologists are defending is vague also, but for what I saw I can say that their views of the Christian God are formulated by the combination of 4 key distinct aspects:

1.- The God of Jesus Christ (every time they say "Yeah, but Jesus Christ said... ").

2.- The Cosmological God ( every time they pull out the "fine tuning" card or when they say "but look how everything is in order in our universe... ")

3.- The Hardcore God of the Old Testament ( Yahweh, this is a dangerous card but they only use it when it seems convenient, generally saying "Yeah, but in Genesis says..." ignoring pretty much everything else that this God did. They know this is a dangerous move and they don't use this card very often anymore.

4.- The Personal God  (every time they say "Yeah, but it doesn't matter what you say, ever since I started to believe in God I have found my purpose and I've been living in happiness everyday of my life" etc, etc.)

They start with the God of Jesus, when Hitchens refutes that, they go with the Cosmological God, when Hitches refutes that they go with the Personal God, when Hitchens refutes that, they go with the Old Testament God, when Hitchens destroys that, they go back to the Cosmological God once again. Hitchens is trapped in a debate that he will never absolutely win because the concept of God is not clearly defined and these apologists keep bringing different concepts into the table. He is in reality debating about 4 different Gods (which are not really that bound to each other, except the God of Jesus and the God of the Old Testament) and if one of those is true, all of them are true to.

That is what happened here and that is what will happen in pretty much every debate like this.

And even if you're able to endure a debate like this, at the end of the day is that pretty much nothing will change, the christian will still be a christian (almost all christians that engage into debates are strong christians that will not change their beliefs) the theist will still a theist (maybe he chances a little bit his perception of God but he will still a theist) and the atheist will still be an atheist  (almost all atheist that engage into debates are strong atheist that will not change their lack of beliefs).

Note: I'm not saying that we should never debate about religion, if the subject is focused on religion and religious values in society, then go for it, there's a lot of substance and a lot of stuff to talk about. But if the whole debate is only focused on proving or disproving the existence of God, then everything becomes meaningless, a waste of energy and a waste of time.

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