Welcome to my blog, a repository for my thoughts and happenstances. I’m Ruben Avila. I write, design websites, train the martial art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and think a lot. In short, I drink and I know things (on an insignificant scale, however).
The purpose of this blog is to capture some thoughts on how I may live life, to document the attempts of achieving personal goals, and my perspective on current sociopolitical forces. I believe men are unrepresented on the digital blogosphere, so this will also serve as a space for a much-needed cultural conversation about manhood. I’ll be focusing on three core areas:
- The Art of Modern Gentility
- The Art of Living a Contemporary Life
- The Art of Non Conformity
Each of these areas can be broken down into a myriad of granular subjects but let us not bog this about page with those details.
You can follow along by RSS, updates in your inbox, or just by checking in here at the site every day.
Abridged Version:
Name: Ruben
Age: 35
Location: Sacramento
Full Time: Small Business Marketer
Independent Projects: Martial Arts Blogger
Other Stuff: Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, SnapChat
A Concise Autobiography:
In the beginning, there was nothing.
Sometime after that, I was born in Los Angeles to two immigrant parents (one from the beautiful country of Guatemala, the other from Mexico). I am the youngest of three children; as the baby, I was spoiled rotten. My father died in a tragic accident when I was three years old. My big brother picked up the slack to help raise me into a decent young man. In my youth, I was obsessed with mechanical toys. Quite often, I would disassemble them to try to understand how they worked. Most of the time, I could put them back together and they still functioned. Every once in a while, I had a fit when I essentially broke a toy. My mother thought I would become a mechanical engineer of sorts.
Since I was an English learner (meaning English was my second language to my primary language – Spanish) I was placed in most of the remedial classes with no regard to my actual abilities. That inevitably led to misbehavior as I was unruly when not intellectually challenged properly, although I blame it on the ADHD. I wasn’t a total jerk though, I rarely bullied other kids, and I didn’t “hang out on the streets.” My brand of rebellion was of the mischevious kind. And, if you ask me, it’s part of my charm. To this day, I am still mischevious. If you are a close friend, I’ve probably startled you once or twice and then laughed at you endlessly. YOLO. Math and the classical Sciences were my subjects of choice. I have a natural inclination toward the logical dimensions of life, but ironically couple that with a wild imagination and an insatiable curiosity.
I’ve had a fairly linear career path: graduated high school, worked full time to pay for university, became gainfully employed, and jumped around for upward mobility. Throughout this time, I’ve always had a need to engage my brain in different ways. I learned HTML and CSS on my own and operated a number of different websites since I was 18 years old. For some time, I supplemented my income serving Google Adsense ads on my websites in addition to playing poker online (when that was still legal).
I have a lot to learn. And, I love that.
I like video games and have been playing EA’s Madden franchise for over 20 years and Call of Duty since Modern Warfare.
I am also an avid Netflix binger. But who isn’t nowadays amirite?
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