The SubCrux Notes

So after a week heavy in cultural and national holidays here in Chile, the comeback into reality was pretty hard. No studying and all relaxing turns into a giant mess  back from a week break, especially when I have a week full of quizzes and tests, for which I was ill prepared. Much worse, my wallet's been running short, so coffee is a luxury during my stays at college. Luckily I've been experimenting with something these past couple of days intense in studying and classes:

POWER NAPPING!

What is power napping? In short, it is any kind of rest in which you shut off your consciousness for a short period of time, just before you enter deep sleep. This could be anywhere between 5 and 30 minutes, depending on each person, and it has been claimed to be use by genius such as Salvador Dali.

Overall, my strategy has been the following:

Am I so sleepy that I cannot pay attention [in class] any longer?

If yes, is coffee a viable option: do I have enough money, or will it interrupt my sleep (six hours before sleep)?

If no/yes, then I'll take a short power nap.

I just lean back in my chair, and let my mind race for a few moments. Usually by the time I forget I'm in the classroom, and I'm in some sort of "day dream" then I've achieved the state of mind I want. Usually here, something will bring me back: a subconscious worry that will remind me that I'm in class, an itch or even a jump! And that's it, I've relaxed my mind enough to be refreshed and back on track. Usually 5 minutes off the job won't get me too lost in class, so I can easily pick up afterwards.

I've done this at home after lunch, in class and during a quiz today, and it has worked great! I don't plan to keep this going, instead it's just a last resort when I sacrifice night sleeping hours for studying, and plan to let go of it once I can reclaim my lost hours of sleep.

"...perhaps the answer can be as simple as one, two, three. Namely, message, momentum and mass."

So, I made a big decision last week. I'm running for student president of my major. I do have some past experience in student government, but this faculty is much bigger, and I've never run for an official position. Yet here I am doing it.

I can't wait to learn everything that's coming up, so I went out to start learning online. Sadly, I haven't found much. Still there is about a month before the elections, and I've been able to make a group of 20 people in just one week.

Being depressed is one of the worst things that could happen to a human being. Mainly because it's triggered by false projections of one's self or repressed deep desires that later erupt as traumas.

Mines was a parent-hood related dilemma: while my mother mainly showed approval mainly because of my academic success, I was getting pretty low grades in college, studying something which I wasn't at all sure that I liked. So, I felt like I had failed myself, because this "success" had become the root of my self-esteem. Yet, I finally understood what I had to do to undo this bad habit my mother had created out of me.

While in one of my psychological appointments, my doctor and I were talking about the things which had mainly shaped my childhood. I felt rage, even hate, towards my mother because I felt she didn't care about anything except academic achievements. That's when my psychologist said:

"Well, don't you think your old enough--and smart enough--to take care of the things your parents didn't teach you, yet you want to know?"

And that's when it clicked! Of course, my parents nor yours are or were perfect beings. And it's very probable that their desires or visions of morals and ethics have nothing to do with yours, and in many cases, they can actually be contradictory to our sort of lifestyle and being. So this is when dissonances begin to emerge, and it can take some people down a very dark road.

There are certain things that you learn as a mindless child by just observing your parents, or by interacting with them. Whether it'd be their cold sense of connection, their negative smudged point of view or even their subconscious perception that success is everything, these are bad habits that are inherited from our parents which hinder us from living healthy and happy lives. So what can you do about it? What did I do about it?

Well for starters, it's very healthy to be honest: Yes, your parents did what they thought was best for you, even though it wasn't the best for you, so be grateful. Now, it's time to fix the problem. Understand what the problem is, and what you would like it to be instead. Then, find a way, an explicit way to slowly achieve what is it that you want. Next, learn to unlearn your parent's misguidance and learn new habits of all your own. After much, much, much, much practice, you'll eventually get the hang of it, and soon enough, you'll have the problem fixed!

The Urgency vs. Importance Matrix helps you categorize, or rather, triage, your daily tasks.

"Not to say may be very good, but there is no reason why we should always be silent." - Shunryu Suzuki

Sometimes, it's fairly easy for me to come up with an argument, and the next second, a totally valid argument in the opposite direction. This has led me to some road blocks, especially when interpreting Buddhist and Taoist texts, or while "philosophizing".

Now, Taoism would say that expressing victories or events to others would be a banal and pointless act, while Buddhism would claim it would only feed the ego. So when a vibrant and loud thought comes into my mind, such as the article mentioned before, I have trouble choosing what to do about it. Sometimes I feel guilty and it does feel like I am showing off, and since I have a history of being an intellectual prick, I try to evade those types of moments.

Yet, I did it anyways and sent it to the student body members. Sincerely I didn't expect them to react to it at all, but after I got the feedback I got my hopes up they would formally present it to the public. Instead, they were just sending it to other folk where it made a bigger impact than I ever intended.

So perhaps, one should not always be afraid of showing off a little bit, as long as you don't hurt anyone or your not rubbing it in. Also, keeping  expectations to a minimum works well most of the time, you can never guess how far your actions will expand.

A few months ago, I attended a "Commercial Engineering" (Business Administration and Economics Major) Pre-Grad Congress which was held in my own home town (Congreso CONCAIC 2013). The topic on it was "tomorrow's challenges". At first I was skeptic, perhaps even pessimistic about it, but if its anything my spiritual journeys have taught me is to keep judgements on the low and be open to what could happen. As the three day went on, I took notes, trying to make one big conclusion from it, which I did, and I wrote it down.

Out of the blue, I wrote a big 3 Word-page summary on the entire congress and my take on it. This was something that I never planned, it just happened out of the blue! Once I finished it I asked for help from a school friend that went on to study journalism. She was too afraid to cut it down for me, saying it had a very hip and straight voice, she liked it! But I was already sure that it was way too long.

Not knowing what to do next, I started to pass it out to my friends and student body members of my faculty. I didn't get that much feedback, mainly because most of my friends don't read much anyways, but I did get good feedback from where it mattered. The president, vice-president and another guy from their team congratulated me, saying it was excellent, and they wanted to make it public. I agreed right away, and was psyched!

Yet, it all seemed to be just words, until about a month later, they came to me with the idea to make an actual magazine about the congress, and my article had inspired that in other universities. So I had one goal: make the article shorter. I already had written the article, all I needed to do now as make it shorter. But first, I needed to do a little research:

WikiHow can be amazing! It gave me the basic things I needed to write:

Get to now your audience

Identify the needs of your relationship

Be unique and write with passion!

Do some research.

When writing take in consideration: length, have an outline, style structure and voice, editing, and respect others while ignoring trolls.

Tips: Don't miss deadlines, apologize for mistakes and seek for help (courses, friends, feedback, etc.!)

CoppyBlogger's: Write an article in 20 minutes:

Make a list with ideas.

Let your ideas incumbate

Edit those ideas (Pick the ones you need and don't!)

Use bullet points!

Be short and precise (500 words or less)

Come back to it later

When writing various articles: do the best ideas first!

I even took a few notes from Wikipedia's guide to writing Wikipedia Articles, especially: "One line paragraphs should only be used when you want to extremely point something out."

Article Teller's "How to write an article" gave me good tips, but nothing that didn't begin to repeat the three before. I watched a youtube video, and once I realized they all started to say the same thing, I knew I had researched enough!

So I applied my notes. I identified my audience, and the ways I could connect with them. I was pretty confident with my style, since I already had been congratulated by various people on it. There wasn't too much research to be done since I was there, and the goal was simple: make it shorter.

I grabbed a piece of paper and sorted out the ideas. Once that was done, I re-read and cut up my old version to make a new. I re-organized it a bit to make it more logical and to stand out some points and viola! A 1.5 Word-page article that was just submit to be presented to other universities (in an informal matter).

If all goes well, it'll spark some interest and it'll be for real. I'd be really interested in making the magazine a reality, but that would be an entirely different learning story!

Well, hello there, it's so nice of you to have dropped by this place :).

My name is Matías, or otherwise known as Subcrux on tumblr, and perhaps other mediums, and this is my learning blog!

What's a learning blog? Well a few days ago I came across this article on UnCollege.org. Here I will write about my learning experiences in many fields. It was a very interesting concept , and to be frank, I was motivated to actually do something about it. So here I am!

Throughout my life I have always been interested by knowledge, so I grew a natural bond to science. Later, into my college life, I grew more drawn to the ideas of understanding, so philosophy became my new lover. But due to a hard crash and burn, and a short depression, I was forced to take other fields. Now I seek to learn as much about anything and everything that captures my attention, and this blog will be my book of notes on which I can come back, reflect, re-process and re-learn, as well as hopefully getting to know new people in the same areas! (So don't be shy and drop by an ask or note :D)

What areas are of my interest? Well, I did study astronomy/physics for nearly 3 years, so naturally science. As stated above, I had an affair with philosophy, so expect that! Due to a natural deficit in the area, I sought out help in more social and "romantic" areas, this is what some would call "pick-up artist", but frankly it's helped me more in so many other areas. Spirituality has grown into me as well, venturing into Buddhism, Taoism and other esoteric-like mixes. I am currently studying in a business administration and economy program, so expect critiques and experiments in those areas. As well as all the other amazing things that you can learn in life!