Zy Marquiez – Breakaway Consciousness

Book Announcement: Amor Vincit Omnia – Love Conquers All by Zy Marquiez | #Poetry #Prose #Love #Positivity #Writing #WritingCommunity #LoveConquersAll #AmorVincitOmnia #Books #NoctisBlackburn

AVO#1-1

NoctisBlackburn.com
Noctis Blackburn | Zy Marquiez
August 16, 2019

This is my formal announcement for a book that I’ve been working on for nigh two months. Given Zy Marquiez is my other pen name besides Noctis Blackburn, I am choosing to make an announcement here because of how much it means to me and because of how genuinely excited to I am to share this book.

As the above picture shows, the books name is Amor Vincit Omnia – Love Conquers All, which is a poetry book that I’ve put a lot of work and thought into for myriad reasons.

Now, the first point of the book is why I chose a color that’s mostly blue, with highlights of purple and so on, rather than something red? That’s a fantastic question that those that have known about the cover and have given me feedback have asked. One of the reasons for this is because this book is about Love Conquering All through all circumstances, and not just matters between two lovers. More importantly, though Love is usually ascribed the color red for obvious reasons, Love truly knows no boundaries, no colors.

As such, I thought it fitting to go with a more bluish/purple color scheme, rather than a reddish/purple/pink. Concurrently with that, red as Love is emblematic of Valentine’s Day, couples, romance, and such. And while Love between lovers is a part of this book, it’s not the only part of the book. I thought if I wrote the book from only that direction, it would leave a lot to be desired since Love affects all of us, no matter who we are, no matter whether we are in relationships or not, and so on. That said, nigh all the poems take a two person structure since I find it easier to write from that aspect, and I find it more beautiful as well. In conjunction with that, this book features the most amount of notations following well more than half the poems go extend the notion in many directions since human emotion is embedded deep within everyone and just leaving some poems without adding notations from them felt also incomplete since a romantic couple that seeks to do the right thing (or one person even) can still serve as a metaphor for a much more extensive view on Love.

Because of this, I opted to keep this color scheme because I like it a lot and everyone did as well, though they certainly wondered why bluish-purple rather than red/purple/pink and so on. Now, another vanguard consideration in this color scheme which is just as important as anything else is because a follow up to this book is already in the works, and given that that book is about love in the traditional sense with couples, romance, and so on, it’s going to follow a traditional Valentine’s Day-type color scheme, though I still have no conceptualized the cover or anything.

Likewise, I didn’t want to publish two books on Love with very similar color schemes because although Love is traditionally seen in red, as mentioned before, Love truly knows no boundaries nor colors. I would also like to make this part of a Trilogy, given that the first two books are covering important topics, although I believe the first one’s a lot more ‘objective’, while the second one is more ‘subjective’, I would still like to make it three books, although honestly I’m uncertain if I will be able to figure that out any time soon, so no promise there.

The final key consideration I want to discuss is why I chose the cover for this book. If you look at it carefully, you can see that the background is a heart that’s creation an explosion of resonance out of Love, which is essentially the reverse of a blackhole. Whereas a blackhole absorbs everything in sight leaving nothing left essentially, unconditional love is unconditional because it never stops, which I thought an incisive antithesis to something like a black-hole, which could mirror things that stem out of fear, hatred, and so on, which are important topics in the book. I put a lot of thought into all aspects of this book, and am still continuing to make sure to add some tidbits, but on the whole, the book is nigh complete and it’s almost ready to go. That said, it’s going to be around 2-3 weeks before it’s available to the public since I want to make sure that the book’s hardcover versions come out okay given that Lulu has some serious glitches when you uploading files

With everything previously discussed in mind, I would like to leave all of you with one final thought.

No matter where you are, who you are, what you do, and what you are going through, don’t ever forget that Love creates resonance, incredible resonance, and ultimately helps create the world you and all of us live in. The world truly becomes what we collectively create it to be and the power to do that should never be underestimated because each of us has way more power to change things than we often realize.

I could go on and on, but that’s the gist of it. I appreciate all of you taking time out of your day and reading this far.

Hope you all have a fantastic evening, and a phenomenal weekend! Take care of yourselves and be safe. Talk to you soon.

Noctis Blackburn
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P.S. I’m currently at my friend’s house as we just had dinner and she’s being insistent on us going to celebrate which is why I’ve transferred most of the above from my phone onto her PC since it’s easier, and honestly, I’m being lazy at the moment since I don’t want to be doing any additional work. The point is, make sure you enjoy the little things, ALL of them; when life is great, celebrate it; however you want to, and with whomever you want too. Those little moments are what often mean the most.

Speaking of little things, genuine happiness for a friend or another is one of those little things. This is why having friend ask me out to dinner and so on to celebrate was a pleasant synchronicity that took me breath away considering it turned my whole day around as I told her. She became the direct antithesis to everything negative today and I appreciate her wholeheartedly for that. To be honest, going out on a Friday night’s not something that I do often except for writing, but given than I’m always open-minded I’m not going to say no, especially since she’s even more thrilled about this book coming than I seem to be in a weird way. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I wasn’t thrilled.

More importantly, don’t ever be afraid of following your dreams, no matter how big or small those may be. Make sure to go after them with everything that you are, no matter who wishes you ill-will, no matter who judges you without ever truly making a shred of effort in trying, no matter what hatters appear in your on your path, because ultimately how they act is a reflection of how they are underneath, and those that act the darkest often have serious problems if they seek to hurt you in any way whatsoever, especially in a true moment of happiness. Let those people be, no matter who they are, no matter what your connection to them is, because if those people refuse to be supportive or happy for you, even if you’ve wished them the world and continue to try and shower them with positivity, even if they’ve often thrown you under the bus, ultimately, toxic people will always be toxic by the very nature that they employ, by their actions, and they will always be their own demise, nobody else. Someone who is positive and genuinely happy with life will never seek to make you an emotional dumping ground for all of their problems. Stick to those that lift you up, stick with those that care for you, and don’t use the word Love as a weapon against you because they refuse to face their fears and keep acting out of well of hatred that they hold within. Stick to your people, the one that truly care and Love you, whoever they are. It’s that simple. Much Love to you all.

#Quote Of The Day | #Mindset | #Business | #Success

“Who you are tomorrow begins with what you do today.”
– Tim Fargo

5 Lessons From Owning & Operating Businesses In The First Year [Part 2] | #Business | #Finance | #Investing | #Growth | #Mindset

“Achievement seems to be connected with action. Successful men and women keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.”
– Conrad Hilton

“Who you are tomorrow begins with what you do today.”
– Tim Fargo

Zy Marquiez
July 27, 2019

The previous write up discussed 5 lessons from the first year of business of my close friend and business owner Hussein Jabai and me. The lessons bellow will continue along the same lines with 5 additional thoughts that could prove valuable for those starting their own business.

#6: Know Your Customer Base

Are your primary customers middle-class consumers? Are they individuals concerned with health? Are they parents searching for entertainment options for their kids? Are they females? Males? Moreover, what’s the age range of your customers? Those two examples (of many) dovetail incredibly closely, for they allow you to know how to tailor your business model for your customers.

Social media analytics and other tools help with this. Figure out how to ascertain the demographics of your customer base, and you’re one significant step closer to success towards knowing whether your products will appeal simply to parents, techies, gamers, intellectuals, or any other type of individuals.

#7: Don’t Be Afraid To Go Against The Grain

Though Jabai’s business model and myself each go against the grain in their own ways, we will focus on what he is undertaking because the scope is much larger and intriguing.

Jabai is an individual who is in the discipline of health and wellness. For business, he could have simply stuck within the run-of-the-mill health and wellness strata of society, and found incredible success. But he’s in the process of expanding way beyond that. His passions are filtering not only into helping individuals with personal training, which he thoroughly enjoys, but into his Fighter Training Systems (FTTS Project), which aids in Injury Prevention for First Responders. But there’s more, he is also undertaking a personal initiative to create a program that strives for a much larger scale regional (and perhaps global reach) that could help individuals not just locally, but in various global regions.

The above example is the type of mindset that doesn’t settle simply for success, but reaches into making a difference, which is what ultimately changes lives.

#8: Always Strive To Continue Learning

Whether in life, business, personal relationships, or anything else, learning can take place reactively, or proactively. Though lessons in each can provide incredible depth, reactive lessons (and insights) are simply lessons that come when the tide brings them, whenever time provides them, rather than you venturing into the ocean to seek your own veritable treasure. In other words, you can wait for treasure to arrive on the shore of a beach brought about by waves, with that treasure brought to you, or you can venture into uncharted waters like a treasure hunter, and seek treasure of endless types. Self-directed education is one of the ways that individuals can find treasure within the field of business.

A wiseman once said, learning from your mistakes leads to knowledge, while learning from those of others, leads to wisdom. Always seek to learn from the footsteps provided from those before you, and even if you can’t because you happen to be doing something that’s brand new, you can still learn laterally from other individuals and their businesses in this respect.

In conjunction with that, one of the books that provided great insights into learning proactively is the book Small Business Marketing Kit For Dummies. This is an excellent crash course into possible avenues for individuals seeking how to expand their awareness of marketing, all the while offering pragmatic examples of what can be undertaken.

#9: Find (and Construct) Mutual Support Mindset Networks

It’s my estimation that the vanguard reason that Jabai and myself bonded so quickly wasn’t simply because we were business owners, but more importantly, our talks, whether business or personal, were based around the same type of mindset. Each of us employs a mindset that doesn’t simply seeks success, but seeks to go beyond that into creating something unique and far reaching.

Where I myself seek to help individuals express their creative desires through the medium of LEGO in multifarious way which helps bring people of all ages joy in countless ways, Jabai is seeking to help people well beyond the scope of individually tailored health.

Jabai doesn’t simply strive to stay in a comfort zone and be only a personal trainer, he seeks to expand his health and wellness business well beyond the scope that most people within the health and wellness area do.

While individuals can truly do most (or possibly all) things in life alone, one need not go at it alone when there are people of the same type of mindset out there, you simply need to find them and grow those relationships, whether it is in life or business.

Mutual mindset support networks aid in significant ways, from learning how to streamline your approach, having open-minded brainstorming sessions, to proactive seeking to not only to learn lessons from one another, but from others as well.

Each of us is seeking incredible distinct dreams, but with the mindset of empowering others, whether it is creatively or through health, and to buttress that with relentless passion to grow not only as a business, but as individuals as well.

#10 – Do Not Throw Away Time By The Wayside

Mincing no words, the average person spends time inefficiently by the truckload, it is a problem we all have, and its unfortunately a growing trend.

According to an article from New York Daily News penned a while ago, the average person spends 5 hours watching TV daily with some watching even more than that. At 5 hours per day, that amounts to 1,825 hours per year. That is 18250 hours per decade, and 91,250 hours per 50 years. That’s a lot of time! Over the course of 50 years, the total amount of time spent watching TV daily amounts to 3802 consecutive 24-hour days over that span. Or “just” 5 hours a day, for 50 years.

For the sake of simplicity, let us assume most of us happen to get 8 hours a day sleeping. In an entire 168 hour work-week where the average person spends 56 hours a week sleeping, and 40 hours a week working, that leaves one with 72 hours free. If one were to spend 35 hours a week viewing television, then that would leave 37 hours of free time. That’s nearly half of all of one’s available time spent watching television. That doesn’t even count social media! That seems ludicrous, does it not? That also doesn’t even begin to cover other activities individuals may carry out that don’t yield growth, whether in life or business.

Those are just some statistics of how much time is wasted, and there’s a lot more. The main point is that time is wasted by everyone including myself to varying extents. With modern media, it’s easy to spend countless hours on various apps and websites.

The best way to get around to creating time templates is simply to watch how much time you spend on social media and websites. There are apps that help with this. Once you do this, you will be downright shocked at how much time you spend on certain apps per week.

As you realize where those time vortexes of yours are, you will be able to adjust accordingly, hopefully slotting something productive in those areas like self-directed learning, business analysis and forecasts, etc.[1]

Final Thoughts

In modern times, success in business is not as complex as it was in the past. With the rise of the internet, social media and online social network, there are literally countless resources at hand, and a lot of those are free. However, if you can learn (proactively rather than reactively) from the mistakes and footsteps others took in a way that it can prevent you from making the same mistakes yourself, thus helping you forgo unnecessary hardship and time waste, you will be quite a few steps ahead of the competition.

Seek to push your business beyond the boundaries of comfort zones, but first, seek to push yourself beyond what you think you are capable of. What you do personally within your life, the mindset you employ, will inevitably seep into that of your business and your employees and will become the template for success in your future.

In life, individuals often surprise themselves of what they are capable of doing once they employ a can-do mindset, rather than a can’t-do mindset, and in business it’s not different.

Don’t wait upon the shores of life for treasures to come to you, veritable life insights that could also be applied to business; that is simply wasting time you could be using to venture on into the unknown seeking the treasures that life and business provide. And you never know, when seeking those very treasures, you might just run into a life-lesson or insight that changes your life forever.

One can’t put a price tag to life-altering life-lessons and wisdom that come about which help you not only in life, but in business as well. Those can only usually be attained by venturing beyond comfort zones.

Life happens to everyone, but unbounded success happens only to those that keep persevering beyond their comfort zones and into uncharted waters, even if they face a storm. And just like those storms within the seas help provide the circumstances that create master navigators able to steer their vessels in any way, within any storm, the metaphorical storms life and business provide will make you capable of navigating through various circumstances be them economic downturns, personal plight, or anything else.

Such is the mindset of a proactive individual; such is the mindset that makes unbounded success inevitable.

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Author’s Note:

[1] Time efficiency and inefficiency will be something discussed in the future and extrapolated upon at length given the incredible ramifications it has for business and success. This is only covered in this article in a cursory manner to give an individual a morsel of how significant time loss is within our lives.

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About The Author:

Zy Marquiez is an an author, business owner, CEO, avid book reviewer, inquirer, open-minded skeptic, and writer who aims at empowering individuals while also studying and regularly mirroring subjects like Consciousness, Education, Creativity, The Individual, Ancient History & Ancient Civilizations, Forbidden Archaeology, Big Pharma, Alternative Health, Space, Geoengineering, Social Engineering, Propaganda, and much more.

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#Quote Of The Day | #Mindset | #Business | #Success

“Achievement seems to be connected with action. Successful men and women keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.”
– Conrad Hilton

3 Simple Ways To Streamline Organization | #Time | #TimeManagement | #GettingThingsDone

BreakawayIndividual.com
Zy Marquiez
July 18, 2019

Organization is something that many struggle with, including myself. With that in mind, I’ll discuss 3 different simple organizational mindset gems to be kept in mind.

#1 – 2-Minute Rule

The 2-Minute rule is a notion that I picked up in Getting Things Done by David Allen. Allen is an individual that’s created an organizational mindset in his book that seeks to do exactly what the book’s title is, get things done in a simple and yet streamlined fashion. Getting Things Done shines due to its simplicity, and although many of the tips and tricks Allen notes are common sense, many people struggle with the implementation of these organization mindset gems because they are treated as individual components to be added and discarded as such, rather than an entire organization mindset paradigm, which is incredibly different.

In any case, what’s the 2-Minute rule? Simply, this rule means that anything that can be done in 2-Minutes or less, should be done on a regular basis, at least once a day I would venture. This type of goal-setting can help decrease clutter, streamline organization, and will ultimately lead to a simple way of employing mindfulness when you least expect it [1].

#2 – Put Things Where They Belong In The First Place

This book This rule seems obvious, except almost everyone breaks it at least a couple of times a week, or like me, dozens, if not way more than that, particularly with my poem and writing which is all over the place from notebooks, journals, countless books, notes, index cards, and everything else you can think of [2]. If I can write on it, I will, and the organizational triage center that I lovingly call an “office” is merely a waypoint for destruction and chaos. Except when I employ this rule.

Though I am struggling with it at the moment, once yourmind set changes and it becomes automatic, you’ll do it effortless and not have to do twice the work, or even risk forgetting where you put your keys in the first place for instance?

Essentially, this rule follows loosely the adage: “Do it right once, or don’t do it at all.”

#3 – Employ Sticky Notes Often & Mercilessly

In Invisible Influence, Kevin Hogan does an exemplary job of showcasing the wide range of methods that can affect an individual’s sphere. The sticky note, or post-it note, is one of those outside-of-the-box social engineering bits most people wouldn’t consider social engineering, until you realize that such is obvious for the very basis behind the post-it note is to ‘engineer’ how you act towards a certain goal.

It’s use should not be underestimated, because (1) not only is it simple to employ, (2) it is cheap, but more importantly, (3) it works. Even so, it’s easy to forget, but if you make a habit out of it, much can be gained from

Those are three very easy ways to streamline organization, and the best part is that two of them are free and can save you hours a week if you implement, and oceans of stress you don’t have to deal with it when things are where they should be in the first place.

Do you struggle with organization at all? Would love to hear your thoughts on the matter! Feel free to comment below.

You all have a great evening.

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Author Notes:

[1] Getting Things Done, by David Allen.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Invisible Influence, by Kevin Hogan

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If you find value in this information, please share it. This article is free and open source. All individuals have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Zy Marquiez and BreakawayIndividual.com
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About The Author:

Poker, Writing & Life: Chasing Waterfalls, Chasing Dreams | #Poker | #Dreams | #Writing | #Life

BreakawayIndividual.com
Zy Marquiez
July 10, 2019

There are many moments in time in where you arrive at a fork in the road, and whether you realize it at the time or not, you have essentially two options: you can remain in the original direction you intended, in the original course of your bearing, or you head off elsewhere, plotting a new course in your ventures. Over ten years ago, I had circumstances that provided the canvas for very possibilities.

In the online poker space, which I played for a living for over ten years and is what was my main ‘career’ of choice until over a month ago, Poker Stars offered a player-program that was based out of the rakeback that the ‘house’ (Poker Stars) wins. [For clarification’s purposes, the way the casino guarantees itself profits from those playing poker, with every hand played that sees a flop, a certain percentage (that is capped at a certain amount) is kept by the house, and that’s how the casino makes money. In other words, it’s a small ‘tax’ (or fee) players pay to be part of the game.]

With that out of the way, Poker Star’s loyalty program was incredibly robust and easily the best in the game, which was one of the vanguard reasons they were the best online poker company by far. Though the name of the player program escapes me at the moment, the program essentially would guarantee players to earn a certain percentage of the money they themselves paid the house. It was Poker’s Stars version of a “tax return” if you want a lose analogy of it. Essentially, the more hands you played, the more money you ‘made’.

The strength of this program was that if you were able to log in an incredible amount of time and effort, you would be able to clear somewhere along the lines of $80-000 – $100,000+ year (with significant benefits as well), which was an opportunity of a lifetime, especially give that’s before your winnings. Yes, before winnings, you could still make that kind of money back then [1].

Anyone that played on Poker Stars had that option. All you had to do was make sure that you were playing in the right amount of games logging enough hands, which was admittedly obscene, but for the driven, very doable, and log an incredible amount of time playing the various form of poker games available. This is where the rubber meets the road.

I brought this idea up to my significant other at the time, and told her that it’s an incredible opportunity, and one that shouldn’t be overlooked given how such an opportunity (even playing only a handful of years) could really set someone (or a couple) financially up for the rest of their life.

Anyways, after endless debates and considerations, I relented to the fact that it was best not to do that, given that we agreed (although in my case, it was tentatively, and I will get to that in a moment) that it was more important at the time for the relationship. In hindsight, even though I think it might be seen, or even objectively be selfish, I believe that what would have been best for the relationship would have been to sacrifice a bit of personal time, in order to set the future up nicely. The future is what it’s all about, right? At least, that’s what I thought about then and still ponder at length now. And though I do realize you ‘only’ live in the moment, to pretend tomorrow will never come is like pretending you need not eat food now because you know you can’t be hungry later because all you have is now.

Even so, at the time, the choice we made seemed tenable, though it still irks me that I didn’t do that, especially since I was working at home, which was the main strength of playing online poker, because any one in that instance could always take breaks by themselves, or with acquaintances, friends, family, significant others, lovers, etc. How many other jobs in the world allow that amount of latitude and freedom?

But that wasn’t the case. Had it been a traditional job, where you spend time away from home, I wouldn’t have regretted the idea at all. But the choices were made and now we are here.

I bring this about because during those times, poker was job, but more importantly my passion, so to not be able to chase it to the fullest extent of the opportunity always left me feeling like I left a piece of myself in the past that I will never be able to get back.

Fast forward to the present, now we get to writing.

Currently, I’ve already made a choice that, regardless of where my path as an individual heads towards in life, I will continue writing since it is my main passion. But where as in Poker I wasn’t able to test the limits of my passions, in writing I will not do that, I couldn’t live myself if I followed that course. I could not sacrifice a passion, a dream of that magnitude again, without looking back at the end of my life without feeling like I didn’t live life to the fullest, even if we’re only talking about it through the lens of writing.

Now, what makes this matter even more interesting from a variety of angles is that, wherein Poker I had to do it for an income (whether I liked it or not), with writing I don’t have to do that.

I can write when I want, how I want, where I want, for whatever purpose I want, to accomplish whatever goal I wish to accomplish and all around the parameters that I set upon myself. This freedom (and passion) is definitely something that I don’t take for granted given that it’s allowed me not only to be able to live life in a more meaningful and much wider range than in the past, but in a way that is even more fulfilling than I ever thought possible.

Concurrent with that, the bonus is that because I’m not doing it as a career, I don’t have to worry about any of my writing ‘paying the bills’ through that passion, which allows me the freedom of expression and choice that I would otherwise had if I had come through writing from a more traditional vantage point.

These considerations are born about because I find it highly intriguing how often I converse with people on myriad subjects where they are passionate about hobbies (or possible dreams) and so on, though usually not in a I-want-to-make-a-living-out-of-this sort of way, but in a passionate way nonetheless, and I see people, give up on something they are passionate about because they just don’t see it as ‘possible’. I can definitely empathize with such instances given how I myself followed this course a few times, though not necessarily for these very reasons.

Be that as it may, this is the type of mindset that holds individuals back, and I think most individuals are familiar with some part of this spectrum, and it’s something that serve no purpose but to anchor an individual upon the sea of regret for the rest of their lives.

Thankfully, life has kicked my rear end enough, and I have made enough mistakes to realize what it is I truly want to follow through with, and at least it didn’t take as long as I thought it would for me to realize this.

Yes, no passion that you wish to take to the fullest extent, or at least, to a far-reaching range is easy to follow through with, nay. But if you truly want something you are passionate about, sometimes you just need to jump into the deep end of life and begin swimming.

Either way, I know that 50 years from now, irrespective of where writing takes me, I won’t have the regret of not having followed through with my passion for writing, as I know I will have when I look back having played online Poker. And for that perspective, I am definitely thankful.

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Notes:

[1] In full disclosure, I believe that the amount of money that could be made had a wider range than the one mentioned, but either way, it was enough to make a comfortable living by average middle-class income standards.

[2] I apologize for the lack of content on the blog; I’ve been busy on a few different things I will discuss in the next few weeks, and also dealing with some health issues at the moment. Nothing serious, but I just don’t want it to get as such, so I just need to take care of myself. That said, I still plan on uploading content of a wide scope here, I just wanted to do a small update on why there hasn’t been much the last few weeks.

[3] This piece was written with the thoughts that even if it doesn’t seem feasible at all, sometimes it doesn’t hurt to truly consider how complex or truly complicated chasing a dream or a passion is. If thought about open-mindedly on paper, sometimes certain things aren’t as complicated, or as simple, as they may be at first blush, but consideration of them at least allows for the true scope of the issue to be grasped, rather than think that you can’t do it because x, y or z reasons.

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About The Author:

Depression & Mental Health | #Life | #Death | #Depression | #Suicide | #MentalHealth | #Psychology

BreakawayIndividual.com
Zy Marquiez
June 26, 2019

As a preamble, this piece on mental health is prompted by two different significant circumstances, one of which is personal, one of which is not, that took place the last day. The personal component will lead to set the foundation for what follows.

This piece will only touch lightly on the subject of mental health as equal parts vent and equal parts reminder for others to make sure that whether you happen to know someone, or simply think someone else might have mental health concerns, let them know that you are there, no matter what. No matter how many times it takes, for there are not enough ways to tell people you care for them.

When any single person takes their life because they thought nobody was there for them, which has happened way more often than it ever should have, it shows the possibility that (1) these individuals were not told they were cared for, or loved, (2) they were told, but didn’t really believe it, (3) they were told, but they were not shown, (4) they were told and shown, but it never registered anyways, (5) they went through one of the above circumstances, but their health issues didn’t allow them to have their mental faculties in full, preventing them from noticing, or appreciating the truth behind someone’s actions, or (6) another issue altogether that couples to the above in a different way.

As it happens, I have been writing quite a bit about mental health the last couple of days, and all of this stemmed from a poem that I helped co-write, which was thankfully a collaboration with a very talented acquaintance that I only met nigh a week and a half ago or so. During a conversation, she brought up the idea of a collaboration before me, and after we jumped at the chance, she settled on the topic of depression, which I didn’t mind whatsoever.

To say the least, the poem was incredibly thought provoking, and quite inspiring in a few different ways, which I kind of didn’t expect to be honest. On a subjectively deeper level, this piece made me think of lots of personal emotions and issues that I haven’t delved into for quite some time for various reasons, and even downright buried for many years. Having said that, what we wrote resonated with me so much that I have written dozens of poems of myriad types, some of which I plan on sharing in the future hopefully, including some the topic of depression, or darker subjects that revolve around mental health.

In fact, today, while I was stretching and writing poetry on this and other subjects, I got a text from a friend that said someone that we followed on social media had unfortunately passed away, which is where the second component of this blog posts comes in.

Through my friend I come to find out that Desmond “Etika” Amofah passed away due unfortunately to suicide. Whether someone is a youtuber or not, it’s extremely unfortunate when someone takes their life, especially when there were significant mental health issues that were known for months beforehand, but this is also how it happens at times.

How I ran into Etika’s work was simply by watching him over a decade ago on Youtube covering gaming, which is something that I am incredibly fond of. He was one of the content creators that clawed his way from the bottom and rose all the way to the top, and was incredibly popular for what he accomplished, and even inspired many in his journey. I won’t cover much more than that given that there’s literally countless articles out there covering the deeper aspects of his life. I simply mention this because although I didn’t know him, I did watch him enough to find an incredible affinity and kinship towards him, as many others have, when he was doing his work and it made me incredibly gloomy after hearing of his passing, especially given the circumstances.

The keystone point is, don’t ever assume people know you care, or even love them, and even if they do, they might still have problems reconciling that fact. Everyone thinks differently, so how someone expresses how they care is vastly different from how another individual does. Likewise, different people see acts of caring and love in different ways. Some people see small circumstances and find a lot of caring and love behind it, others do not; some people express themselves in ways they think are obvious forms of caring and love towards others, but others might not see it that way given countless reasons.

With all of that in mind, it is downright crucial to show others that you care and/or them, whether they have mental health issues or not, but especially if they do.

Consistent acts of kindness, whether small or not, can go a long way to help others come out of the catacombs of mental health issues, or prevent them from getting there in the first place.

Never underestimate the power that showing others you care can have. It might be the smallest gift you can give, but it might be the best gift someone could ever receive, because it just might change the course of their life forever.

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Author Notes:

[1] I say perhaps, because I am uncertain of what these individuals have gone through, or go through, but subjectively speaking I have found this to be true for myself and some close to me)

[2] Honestly, I wouldn’t had written this blog post if I hadn’t collaborated with the person I co-wrote that depression poem with. It’s not that I don’t have appreciation for mental health issues, it’s just hard for me to speak about these issues subjectively given some things that have happened in my past. But having had to privilege not only to write something on this very topic, but have it be meaningful in a way, incredibly so in fact for me personally, has nudged me in a direction that I hadn’t contemplated in going toward, but one that I appreciate to the fullest extent. I definitely let the person know that I appreciated the opportunity and I sure hope we can work together again, not only because (I think) we worked well together, but also because of how well the poem came out, but that will ultimately be up to them.

Either way, this situation is just one of those seemingly little circumstances that can change your outlook on many things, and make you realize that there are people out there that will relate with what you have to say at the deepest levels, and I haven’t been able to do that with this topic, not like that. Especially given that I often mask emotions with metaphors and I am not as blunt as I am in my personal journal or random accounts I often employ in various nooks across the internet just to let off steam.

My main point is that many times people think that there aren’t others out there that care, or care enough to listen to them, or to help them wade through the issues, when in fact the opposite is true. There are people that would walk through oceans of fire for them to make sure that they are okay. But as I’ve alluded to elsewhere, many people often don’t show others that they care because they see the acts that they themselves undertake as ‘obvious’ acts of kindness, even when others might not see it that way. And if a person sees their own actions as an obvious act of kindness and love, why wouldn’t others? Simple: because not everybody thinks likes you, feels like you, acts like you, or ultimately lives like you, why is why you should never underestimate the power of acting out of love, no matter who this action is towards, and whether you know that person or not.

You all have a great evening, and no matter what, always show others you care.

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About The Author:

Zy Marquiez is an avid book reviewer, inquirer, an open-minded skeptic, yogi, and freelance writer who aims at empowering individuals while also studying and regularly mirroring subjects like Consciousness, Education, Creativity, The Individual, Ancient History & Ancient Civilizations, Forbidden Archaeology, Big Pharma, Alternative Health, Space, Geoengineering, Social Engineering, Propaganda, and much more.