La Bitácora de Otoniel Reyes

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  • The Downside of Being Different: A Misunderstood Mind’s Perspective on Life

    I’ve been so different from anyone for such a long time, it become normal for me. Even though is really hard to be misunderstood every time, you end up feeling good about it. Now, before I describe the downside of being different, allow me to introduce myself.

    I’ve been so different from anyone for such a long time, it become normal for me. Even though is really hard to be misunderstood every time, you end up feeling good about it. Now, before I describe the downside of being different, allow me to introduce myself.

    I really appreciate you’re here, really. In the following 700-ish words, I’ll do my best to give you an all-inclusive guided tour to my weird (the good weirdness) mind, so hold to your seat, grab yourself a drink and let’s do this.

    The very basics of being me

    My full name is Otoniel Reyes Galay, I am a 31 years old guy with a stormy background. I am from the Dominican Republic, born in Santo Domingo and raised in Miches, a small coastal town in the east side of the country famous for a long list of bad things and even though everyone knows it, they still call it the “Perfect Paradise”, I have never realized if it is a joke, ignorance or maybe faith.

    I’ve being tied to so many titles I hate, but basically and hopefully, time had given me the ability to stand, I would say that, my superpower is to keep standing.

    Looks like my life has been a disaster. I’ve been broke so many times, had terrible credit, had to ask my father for money so many times, it ashamed me to look at his eyes. Haven’t been rose color at all, but that’s the beauty. I’ve learned so much I can talk about life from a million perspective, so every experience had become a good reason to believe me when I talk to others.

    A playground early life full of joy

    As a kid, I learned to play various musical instruments, mainly Latin percussion. Thanks to my mom, I strummed my first guitar chords, which opened the door to a whole new world for me. Over the next ten years, I learned to play wind, brass, string, and percussion instruments.

    My mom also took me to typing classes, an informational technology and office suite course, and not one, not two, but three English language courses. By age 15, I had earned around 20 certifications from various courses and workshops.

    Being active in church since I was 6 helped me develop my interpersonal and speaking skills early on. I lost my stage fright by participating in dramatizations, doing mimicry, poetry, singing—you name it! My childhood became a self-development playground. I explored everything I wanted and learned so much, thanks to people like Mom and Dad, Marcela, Eli, Joel, Joselo, Rafael, and many others involved in my early development. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

    I have always been passionate about drawing and painting. Unlike most children, I truly wanted to learn how to create paintings like the greats. Over the years, I developed a deep appreciation for artisans. I built my own flutes and even constructed an electric violin. As time passed, I learned how to make sofas and basic furniture. I’m not sure if that’s why I love carpentry so much, but there are still plenty of things I’m into and have tried in life to discover what I truly want to do with my existence.

    The high school me

    In high school, one of my teachers inspired me. He was the only one in the area who had actually written a book. I have to admit that before I saw his book, I never took the time to think about writing something myself. This was one of my first approaches to creating something unique. When I combined that inspiration with lessons from another Spanish teacher who taught me about rhythm, metric, and basic poetry writing, I found the origin of the 320 poems I wrote, along with two novels and a few short stories.

    Moving on to music, I wrote many pieces, especially for guitar—one of which is still on Instagram, so check it out after you finish reading! I also created 8-bit music and graphic resources for video games (of course, I love video games, but I prefer creating them to actually playing them). I released a free 8-track album on Bandcamp. Additionally, I crafted hip-hop, reggaeton, and other instrumental music as a hobby, using those tracks to record self-written songs (with the worst quality you could imagine) with my close friends and family.

    As for drawing, I still have notebooks filled with my older drawings, and I’ve shared a few on my Instagram and my old OpenGameArt account. Feel free to explore, and by the way, leave a good follow! XD

    A professional life comes in

    So far, you have read about a lot of things about me, right? Well, I haven’t finished yet. Told you I took computer classes, for sure, but, haven’t said that, in that course, I gain the curiosity that brought me here: how is software created.

    In that course, I learned the basics of computers, but wanted to know how to actually create those things in the screen by myself.

    Some years later, I went to college to study Pedagogy, there I found a friend for life, Danilo, who developed even more that question. After a month my mind was finally open to the external world with internet, that was all I needed.

    I started by learning about algorithms and programming languages, and created simple software in C++ and C# before knowing, actually, nothing deep. A year later, I took a free course on HTML and CSS, then JavaScript, and never stopped, I’m still learning a lot of things about computers, technologies and software development.

    Finally, in this part of my life, I founded my first 3 businesses, all of them failed before starting. The good one, that evolved overtime, was website design/development, so that was my first almost-successful small business.

    So far, I was (and still do so) a full-time teacher with a web design side hustle. Started freelancing to keep the business alive, found some international customers, others national ones. Built a nice looking portfolio, and, guess it? Impostor syndrome came.

    A little room for personal development and success

    You can’t imagine how cruel we can be with ourselves. It became a routine to look at me and say only bad things about the reflection. What’s interesting, though, is that we struggle so much to do the same to others. Somehow my depression woke up, found myself fighting with me for a long time.

    Voices inside my head kept telling I wasn’t enough in any way. I lost myself and had to take a break from even teaching. Stayed at home for, like, 40 days until came back to school and decided to keep pushing forward. I started reading the Personal Excellence blog, watching TED conferences and forced me to think straight.

    That was enough to put in my head the hunger of success. I started following inspiring people everywhere, changed my music collection, and created a want-to-read books folder.

    I started a blog to showcase my things. Separated into categories, one blog for each of my major interests. That was a big mistake. This is the fourth time I start blogging, and the differentiator is the attitude.

    Learned from Dan Martell, I started buying back my time to be better. Of course, I’m not making tons of money right now, because first, I have a thing or two to do.

    Lessons I learned from being different

    Everything I have experience until today, have given me a different vision of life. A vision you won’t find in a single book. I’m building my philosophy around the pieces of information I get from all the people I admire. The people I envy, those who already are where I want to be, taught me this:

    Stop Scrolling

    Get rid of your freaking phone, as much as possible, as soon as possible. It will be always impossible to you achieve the goal if you are distracted. I think you are a slave if you are over 15 minutes a day on the phone for entertainment. Maybe you have been putting too much effort to tell yourself you’re good, but no. You’re wasting your time, so go out, find a good idea, greet someone, whatever, just get freaking up.

    Do it all

    Everyone knows we need to work out, to read, to work, to reach and so on. The thing is, if you want to excel, you should write a list of the things you have to do. Keep track of doing them, consistently, force yourself, and teach yourself you can do it all.

    We have told to ourselves too many times that it is not possible to do everything we need to. That’s the root of the problem. First, you need to reconquer the positive thinking you had when you were a child. Everybody had it until ourselves or someone else forced us to conform and surrender. Let’s conquer ourselves back again!

    Invest in yourself

    Start investing in yourself, no matter what, that’s a not negotiable right there. You rather buy a good book than have a nice dinner, it is worth it, I promise. Take time off, go for a little walk, wake up early, shut out loud your dreams, so the world knows them. Make the crowd fear your hunger. Make them look at you like you are crazy, so the wrong people will take a step away by themselves.

    Find someone as crazy as you are

    Most of the time, we want to be lonely wolves, but, the truth is the key to win is having the right people around you. If your circle is not the one you need, switch it. If your city can’t give you what you need, move. And, at the end of the day, look for those whose share your vision and align in values. That’s the people that make you win in life. Those are the ones I am looking for, so I that’s you, follow me, we’re going to conquer the freaking world.

    The downside of being different

    So, here’s is the downside of being different: Most people are waiting for you to fail to feel good with themselves. I swear that most people want you to fall to justify their laziness. Bet you that most people want you to be broke so they can look at you to feel relief.

    So, the downside, and the reason I feel misunderstood, is kind of easy. Most peeps can’t look at life as I do, can’t feel like I feel, when pick up the phone in the middle of a conversation.

    To me, it is really sad to see my loving ones, to lose their lives at the phone. I feel like I don’t belong here, and much people notice it and treat me like so.

    I have learned to celebrate the less significant success, even just an appointment with a lead. Winning is just that, but you have to decide to win to be a winner because most wins are ignored. Stop complaining and take time to ask how to do it better. Start asking better questions.

    Now, if you have a problem with your phone and want to know how to stop scrolling, read here.

  • Plan estratégico para 2025

    Plan estratégico para 2025

    La base de una década de transformación

    Este año no es un año más. Es el comienzo concreto de una visión que cambiará vidas, empezando por Miches y expandiéndose al resto del país. Aquí comparto públicamente los pasos que estoy tomando durante 2025 para construir las bases de mi visión al 2035.

    Objetivos clave para 2025

    Formalizar la visión y estrategia a 10 años
    Ya no es un sueño. Es una hoja de ruta real, documentada, diseñada para ejecutarse con foco, consistencia y propósito.

    Iniciar el Proyecto Open Miches
    Continuamos recopilando datos sobre negocios, transporte y educación. Miches.info será la primera plataforma abierta del país con inteligencia de datos locales para el desarrollo.

    Establecer el ecosistema educativo East Coast Institute
    Comenzamos con la base legal, los primeros borradores curriculares, alianzas estratégicas y la definición del modelo académico y operativo de East Coast Elementary (ECE), East Coast High School (ECH) y East Coast University (ECU).

    Lanzar el Laboratorio de Investigación (fase semilla)
    En paralelo al ECU, estoy desarrollando el plan para el primer laboratorio de IA, robótica y sistemas de transporte personal en la región este del país. Este año se establece la visión, el espacio inicial, el modelo operativo y el equipo fundador.

    Preparar el terreno para la empresa de manufactura de vehículos eléctricos
    Inicio del estudio de factibilidad, tecnología disponible, prototipos iniciales y conexión con expertos en energía, diseño y movilidad sostenible.

    Diseñar la base de un nuevo movimiento político ciudadano
    Comienza la investigación legal, el diseño del manifiesto fundacional y los primeros encuentros con ciudadanos que creen en un nuevo tipo de liderazgo, basado en transparencia y progreso real.

    Consolidar presencia y confianza pública
    A través de este blog, charlas, entrevistas y trabajo en comunidad, fortaleceré la confianza en la visión, con hechos, no promesas.

    ¿Cómo se ve esto mes a mes?

    Cada mes está enfocado en un pilar estratégico. Aquí un resumen:

    MesFoco Principal
    EneroRevisión profunda de la visión, organización de vida personal y profesional
    FebreroRedacción y publicación de la estrategia 2035 (esta, que supongo, ya leíste)
    MarzoLanzamiento oficial de Open Miches y primeras métricas
    AbrilPlanificación legal y pedagógica de East Coast Institute
    MayoEstudio preliminar de infraestructura para ECU e inicio de diseño curricular
    JunioDiseño y prueba del sistema de recolección de datos y dashboards locales
    JulioRedacción del manifiesto político y encuentro con aliados clave
    AgostoPrimer prototipo o mockup conceptual del laboratorio ECU
    SeptiembreAlianzas con universidades, ONGs y expertos internacionales
    OctubreLanzamiento público de la plataforma educativa East Coast (fase web)
    NoviembrePreparación de rendición pública de avances del año
    DiciembrePublicación de resultados anuales, aprendizajes y visión 2026

    Cómo puedes sumarte

    • ¿Eres educador, desarrollador, ingeniero, artista o soñador? Hay espacio para ti.
    • ¿Representas una institución que cree en el conocimiento abierto, la tecnología ética y la transformación social? Hablemos.
    • ¿Solo quieres apoyar? Comparte esta visión, difunde las ideas, siembra curiosidad.

    No estoy esperando que las cosas cambien. Las estoy construyendo. Paso a paso. Año por año. Y este 2025 es el pilar cero de una nueva era.

  • Volviendo al español. ¿Qué hay detrás del cambio tras repentino?

    ¿Por qué ahora, de repente, todo en el blog está volviendo al español?

    He decidido dar el paso y hablar de mi proyecto a 10 años, y esto significa un montón. Ya compartí en el apartado Mi Visión, a grandes rasgos, cuál es mi proyecto 2025-2035, que para muchos resultará como demasiado, especialmente porque no soy nadie actualmente. Para la mayoría ni existo, pero la verdad es que me da igual.

    En este punto, y antes de explicar el porqué de los cambios, te diré que, desde mi punto de vista, solo tienes 3 opciones:

    1. Construyes el futuro que sueño, conmigo
    2. Construyes el futuro que sueñas, por ti mismo, o
    3. Te quedas a esperar a ver si mi proyecto triunfa o fracasa

    No le des tantas vueltas ¿Te lo pongo un poco más claro? La realidad es que yo tengo una visión del futuro y me encuentro dispuesto y trabajando para traer a la realidad mi visión, así que, ya sea que tengas tu propia visión o no, puedes acompañarme a construir un mejor lugar para las futuras generaciones, quedarte mirando sin hacer nada o impulsar tu propia visión para Miches y el resto del país.

    Ahora sí, ¿Por qué los cambios, Oto?

    Debido a que, desde el inicio, intentaba forjar mi marca personal, mis aspiraciones eran internacionales y por ello la mayoría de mis publicaciones en el internet, fueran en el formato que fuere, estaban en inglés, de un tiempo acá, sin embargo, empecé a publicar contenido en español y en formatos cortos para audiencias de TikTok y YouTube que me di cuenta muy pronto de que realmente no son lo que necesito y me aparté de ellas.

    De cualquier modo, ahora he decidido iniciar un proyecto que vengo posponiendo, desde hace años ya, mi incursión al mundo real para provocar un cambio significativo para nuestro entorno y darle forma al futuro que nuestros hijos y nietos merecen.

    Este es un proyecto que, para mí, puede ser esencialmente definido con la palabra legado, esto es, lo que quiero dejarle al mundo para que me recuerde. Muchos saben que tengo una mente libre y sumamente imaginativa, soy un creador, no un seguidor, soy el constructor y arquitecto de mis sueños y ya es hora de que esos sueños lleguen a la vida real.

    Entonces, volviendo al tema -vaya que me voy por las ramas con facilidad-, de ahora en más las entradas de este blog serán escritas en español, ya que están dirigidas a mi público más cercano, aunque pretende ser inspiración y ejemplo para el resto del país, del caribe y de Hispanoamérica.

  • What the hell are young people doing now?

    Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting someone that’s actually special. She’s a 16-year-old girl from San Pedro de Macoris that made me question my own community. But before I start the story, let me tell you something, your hands are the only hands available to build your dreams, doesn’t matter if you realize it early in life or 5 minutes before dying.

    That being said, I met this girl on my way to Santo Domingo, and, thanks to being trying to improve my communication skills, I took the initiative and started talking asking for her age, because, a good starting point was her physique said she was maybe too young to travel alone, and that was my icebreaker.

    A minute after we were speaking about her life, desires and achievement. I got amused by all the experience she already had. For instance, it blew my mind that at her age she has being teaching, making robots, learning languages, researching for science expos, studying for becoming a nurse and even has a nice plan for her future: pursuing a degree on neonatal nursing. She is a multi award winner in national competences, including robotics and Spanish language.

    Now, think again and keep in your mind that she’s 16, and now, allow me to introduce you to the average female teenager in Miches. Studying only in school, coursing 3rd to 4th grade of high school, ‘regular’ performing at most school subjects. No clear project for her life, and no recognition at all from any mayor source. What about the male one? Even worst, they’re mostly confused about the basics, they don’t know who they are or how to differentiate themselves from others, they look and act all the same thing, and it is not even near to admirable, I love to call it the “Dembow virus” and it’s destroying their future by and for themselves.

    By writing this, I’m just reflecting that, we have, maybe, in some point, normalized that the young generation is or will be fucked up, and now we feel what we see all around is kind of normal, but it isn’t. We parents are doing a freaking bad job, and we must, as soon as possible, not only become aware, but making even the impossible to create change.

  • Most degrees are obsolete now and most people don’t notice it

    A few days ago I went to an opening ceremony, after a little while I found myself talking to a colleague I just met, BTW now he’s a good friend of mine, and we were talking a lot about career, christianity, faith and other topics we share opinions and found many similarities between each other.

    One of the many topics that popped out throughout the conversation was the formal education and I realized something that, even though I knew I already knew it (yes, sometimes you know that you know something you know).

    I’ve work in plenty of industries, with several companies around the globe and the only single thing I actually use my bachelor’s degree is for my main, full-time job as a primary school teacher. As you probably already know, I’m a software developer and I’ve been making software for the last 10 years, professionally for 7 years now. But one thing you may ignore about this is that, actually I’ve no formal education in that single field, as well, as most of my current knowledge base.

    Actually, and it may sounds surprising, but I haven’t even, ever, completed an online course on Software Development, of course I have started several of them, but I’m a reading/writing learner so I learn the most through reading material and synthetising the content or teaching someone what I understand, and for years, that was an action figure of mine, Tony Stark. It’s a POP next to my monitor. I use a custom version of the rubber duck technique to check my understanding, explaining to Tony how he must program or use the knowledge I was learning.

    Most of my knowledge on software development comes from books (and no, usually I don’t finish my books neither), documentation and real world practice, yes you guessed it, is practical usage and real life challenges what have taught me the most.

    Many times I got rejected in job applications because of my english, so I started learning and using english more and more until I started feeling more comfortable using it in a daily basis. Another thing I have no way to show how or where I learned from. Graphic design, make your guess… studying behance, deviantart and pinterest designs from experts plus Krita docs, Gimp docs, InkScape docs and a few ‘tips and tricks’ videos on YouTube were enough to learn what I know on the topic.

    And I can go over and over coming with examples from my very own experience that demonstrates my point, in today’s world, by 2025 it doesn’t really matter if you have or not completed a 4-year degree. Businesses cannot trust universities and have to ‘teach you the real world’ before you’re making money for them, so, it’s a lot better if you have the knowledge and practice they need to get you the opportunity.

    I have’t need yet to demonstrate how or where I have learned how to code, but my portfolio (almost inexistent now) talked about a man that’s serious about creating software and deeply understanding how it actually works.

    My final thoughts are that in today’s world, education (if have not yet) is getting democratized and finding a way to perpetually be owned by people, not universities, not companies, no more centralized high paying skills or high quality education. Even better when you take in account LLMs, the bigger revolution of our era.

    In my country, most people haven’t realized that, actually, there’s no more (significant) economics behind a good education, and of course, we don’t need degrees no more. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think there’s a value in many subjects when it comes to a degree level, like engineering, most health careers and other fields, but, like, in general, you can make a life, a good one just by learning how to learn, investing your time wisely and putting in some effort, practice and a lot of repetition.

  • I have gained an enemy

    Today, while running outside, noticed a guy I know, the ex of a good friend of mine, ignored me in the road and made it visible, so I, somehow, could understand he’s now my ‘enemy’, and yes, that so, like, how can I put it? Childish?

    At the moment, I, sarcastically, said “I have lost a big resource… what a problem” and continued running looking forward. Now, I could tell you why, because yes, I know exactly why he did so, but, I don’t want it to feel like I’m giving excuses, so I won’t tell you I didn’t want (literally I just said no) to stop to listen to some random thing he categorized as “important” and continued walking around demonstrating I wasn’t interested on his “important” thing.

    As you may think now, today’s post isn’t about the fact that a random guy think I should stop my life to listen to shit he got to say, nope, it’s about personal development.

    I just realized that, somehow, people will always find a meaningless shitty talk an “important” thing just because it is something they care or just feel interesting about, so, it is absolutely right to learn how to put your own things above everyone else’s priorities. The hard truth is that if you don’t put your own life above your priority list, no one else will do it, neither.

    And yes, of course I’m sick of hearing and reading the same thing, but, that moment when you finally experience it for yourself is where you finally understand it, it feels like a divine revelation, and this is my message to you today:

    Don’t go around waiting someone else put you first, you got to claim and maintain the first place in your life for yourself.

  • How to automate an Angular project’s auth system creation

    How to automate an Angular project’s auth system creation

    Maybe you have read my last post about automating a NestJS authentication system. Now, of course, I had to automate the same for Angular. Since I code mostly with this stack, this is going to save me 3 to 4 hours in each new MEAN project I start from now, and so you can too now. Thank me later XD.

    Follow along to know how I did it, how challenging it was, and how to use my script.

    Automating an Authentication System UI?

    Oh yes, of course. People often recommend being lazy to be able to be productive. That means, for those of you that didn’t understand, that the lazy worker is the one with the effort worth time-saving solution. In this case, I started with the NestJS part automation, later, just asked myself, why don’t repeat the same for the UI? And for sure, it is still the same problem: Setting up every project involves authentication.

    So here I am, now trying to repeat the same, this time with the visual part of the task. I had the NestJS automation, so following it, copying some code from my last project I build a simple yet useful piece of automated code. Now, same as the last one, I just need to run one command from the terminal, and instantly I have a full authentication system. This auth system includes the same user profile as the API boilerplate. Maybe predictable, yes, but here are the components of my automated script:

    • Login
    • Signup
    • Password Recovery (request)
    • Password Reset
    • User Profile
    • An Authentication Interceptor
    • Auth Service
    • Tailwind Installation and configuration
    • An environment file
    • Every interface needed (API responses, user, and payloads)

    Was it worth it?

    Hell yeah. If you put this and the another one automation together, now I’m saving 3 to 4 hours to myself. Think of this like when you go camping, and you already have all you need packaged in a really large backpack. Maybe the day you were preparing that backpack, you feel way too awkward. But without any doubt, now you need it, it totally makes sense, right?

    So a little insight here is for businesses, build yourself a system that save you as much time as possible, so you use your time just for the things that make you more money. In our case, developers, automate as much as you can to build yourself a concrete wall of productivity and become high performers in our field.

    I get it, it’s awesome, but, how can I use it?

    To use this automation script, it’s basically the same as the last one, once you’ve created your project go to the root directory in a terminal. Once there, just run the script with the raw file using curl:

    curl -sSL https://gist.githubusercontent.com/kenliten/d6a7028310d43d87ed889c779f3b8007/raw | sh

    Wait for it to complete, and, yes, that’s it.

    If you like it, please consider sharing it with your friends or colleagues and follow me on social media.

    That said, wish you a merry x-mas and happy new year.

    Peace!

  • How to automate user auth system creation in NestJS

    How to automate user auth system creation in NestJS

    In this tiny post, I will explain the process I have followed to build a User Authentication System for all of my non yet created NestJS projects.

    Let’s dive in the creation of a crazy automation task: Auth System with roles and support for Google auth.

    I was in the startup process to start a new project for a client. Then I found myself with a task I’m sick of, auth system. I mean, almost every single MEAN project will need an auth system. In this exact moment, I realized I can be way more productive if I had a script that makes up this configuration for me. Just like Nest, Angular and Rails have their generators, I can create a script for this.

    So I got hands on the dirt and (with a little help from Duck.AI to get started, duh!) crafted a single bash script that:

    1. Installs every package I will need for the authentication system
    2. Creates the folders I will use for the authentication system (including user management)
    3. Crafts every file the authentication needs (except for the spec files)
    4. Creates both .env and .env.example files
    5. Prints out the next steps to complete the setup, so you just need to copy and paste within the app.module.ts file

    So, wrapping my journey, I would say that:

    It literally took more to automate the process than actually do it by hand. But, next time will be a no-brainer to achieve the same, in just 20 seconds.

    It is really worth it when you can automate a task or create a system that saves you time. I think it is particularly important when we’re talking about a time-consuming task.

    Lastly, of course, I have uploaded it to GitHub (That way I can use it from any place in the world).

    Here is the link.

    As an addition, if you need some help automating any task is taking you a lot of time, reach me or text me out.

    Nothing more to say, this is it. I need to get back to work.

    Peace!

    EDIT

    I’ve created an Angular auth system automation too, check it out here.