Welcome to Bending Pink Steel (aka why this little project might change your life)

The first of many Matrix analogies. 🕶️

He’s beginning to believe.

Two-thirds through the first Matrix movie, Neo is at a crossroads. A homeless-guy-now-agent walks towards him, and Neo has to decide.

Turn around and run away in the hopes of maybe (but likely not) making it to another phone before the whack agents get him.

Or stay.

Face the agent head-on.

Lean into this whole you’re the one crap and see what happens.

If you've watched the movie, you know what happens next: a duffel bag of kickass. Sure, Neo comes within an inch of death, but at the last moment, he proves why you should never skip leg day and survives to…

Wait for it…

Run away in the hopes of maybe (but likely not) making it to another phone before the whack agents get him.

The point of the story is the middle.

You, reading this right now, are in between two agents largely outside of your control: the circumstances of your birth and the conditions of your death.

In this squishy little middle, you can do anything. You can believe anything. And this matters because your mind makes your life.

A sh*tty mind leads to sh*tty beliefs, choices, actions, relationships…

A great mind leads to great beliefs, choices, actions…you get the picture.

The whole story of our lives begins by being written in our heads. And we have the pen!

Only sometimes, it feels like we lost it. Like we dropped it behind some random couch years ago and are stuck living through the only 4 lines we ever actually wrote down. Or we wrote some good stuff once, but some assh*le with a marker came and covered it up. Or our pen ran out of ink, and we're sitting outside, in the rain, listening to a really sad song about a dog, wishing we had a dollar to go buy a new pen that could maybe change our whole life.

Well, you’re in luck.

No, not because the pen analogy is finally over. But because you’re here, today, reading this. And even this small act is reshaping your brain.

Changing the way you think is like bending steel.

There’s a lot of ways to do it. With heat, cuts, or pressure. But they all work gradually. And the best methods combine techniques. Pulling from what has worked for other pieces in the service of creating something new. A stronger version of what was.

This Substack is your pen. It is your heat. Your toolkit.

And with it, you will create a mind you love. A mind that works for you, not against you, in building a life you're proud of.

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Hi, my name is David Ramos.

I’m a husband, brother, writer, and habitual napper. I'm a son of abuse and an ex-seminarian with a smart mouth and the degrees to prove it.

I have broken-toed shoes from the miles I've walked in the tunnels of depression. I have South Park humor with Oxford aspirations.

If most of this doesn't make sense yet, that's ok because I'm still learning myself too.

I’m learning to love the mind I have while I coax it into everything it could be. Writing helps. The right people help.

And so, maybe sharing a bit of my writing and a bit of my right peopleness will help you too.

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If you choose to stick around (which I honestly hope you do because I feel like we're vibing now), you’ll receive a new post every Monday and Wednesday.

Think of each one as a slight pressure bending your mind into a new, useful shape. Individually, the changes are invisible. But together, and over time, the changes become inevitable.

You’ll learn new things and experience new things, and feel feelings, and laugh laughs, and sometimes get pissed because I said something you already knew was true but never gave yourself the permission to accept.

I promise to be honest if you do.

I promise to be as kind to you as I am to myself. And as hard, and as soft, and as patient. 

And I will respect myself.

That means using paywalls, and pacing my work, and asking for help. You can consider everything I do an invitation. You (Yes, you specifically. I can see you because of tech wizardry, muahahaha… that’s not true. I just wanted to make sure you were still paying attention. Which, if you’re reading this, you definitely are. So, um, ok. Good on you, mate. Clearly this whole aside has gotten out of hand and was really just a way for me to deflect the awkwardness I felt setting appropriate boundaries. ✌️)

…you are always welcome to accept the invitation and encouraged to share it.

But don’t ever feel guilty or behind or left out. Us dudes have enough sh*t shoulds thrown our way.

This is the kind of space I wish existed for me. A place to get better at my own pace, in the ways I want to improve. A place where we can talk about the heavy with humor. A safe, sarcastic backroom for buds working to change something, and sometimes maybe everything, about our lives.

It’s time to bend pink steel. To shape the mind that will create the life you’re after. To finally do it.

It's time to step into who you fully are so that Morpheus, in all his shadowy swag, can peek through the window of your existence and say confidently…

He’s beginning to believe.