SNOTM.com was originally created by Alex Noreiga and it was an excellent collection of his comic work and wisdom about life in general. It was an excellent resource and was well followed and liked by thousands of people. I have taken effort to keep the domain alive and placed his comic strips on this webpage along with an excellent article and reflections by Mayank Mishra. Hope you guys will enjoy it.
Alex…, hope you are ok with your images being placed on the web page, but if you are not, please let me know. Good luck with whatever you are doing now…
Article by Mayank Mishra and Images by Alex Noreiga
Alex Noreiga
Today’s hero is Alex Noriega, an artist and illustrator from Barcelona, the cosmopolitan capital of Spain’s Catalonia region which is quite famous for art and culture. Alex established himself as a self-made illustrator and an artist by creating several profound and food-for-mind illustrations on his webcomic Stuff No One Told Me, abbreviated as SNOTM. This webcomic was quite popular during 2010-2012, while it was continuously being published at his blogging platform. Later, he was more involved with painting, thus, the webcomic was brought to a halt.
The Journey of Alex, as a famous illustrator started by searching for peace of mind. He had several problems at his workplace and his life was not good. He revealed a bit of the reason to start the SNOTM, on his blog. In his own words “At some point in 2010, I was going through a crisis due to some issues at work. I decided to start this blog as a way of trying to find what I was doing wrong. I wanted to put on paper all that I had learned in life as simple as possible and try to see if what was happening around me made any sense. It didn't.”
Stuff No-One Told Me (SNOTM)
As you can understand, Alex brought SNOTM to existence to lay down his own learnings in the form of illustrations so that he could find out what he was doing wrong. Surprisingly, his initiative SNOTM became quite famous among the readers. This was something he didn’t expect. Because he was expecting to make sense of the stuff happening around him through his illustrations.
He is so simple and straightforward that he even concluded that he couldn’t make sense of what was happening around him even after laying out his learnings through illustrations. That meant that the illustrated learnings and whatever was happening around him were completely polar. Maybe that was the reason he felt an inclination towards painting, to still find a bridge between his learnings and the outer world. But during the course of his experiments, he did find out his potential as an illustrator.
Alex Noriega has published several webcomics and single quote illustrations on his website. The comics are quite addictive because of the continuation and the thoughtful-depth they have.
This article is dedicated to showcase the outstanding work of Alex to my readers. Don’t miss the concluding part of this article. Some of the finest illustrations of Alex are waiting out there.
Some Illustrations of Alex Noriega
1) Happiness is in this Moment
Most of the people are either worried by the future or burdened by the past mishaps. Some people take an extra file to acquire worried-wisdom. They actually want to know the future, either of theirs or some other ones. But, knowing the future never stops the future to happen, it only stops the natural growth of today. Such future seekers create problems not only in their lives but in other’s life as well.
Thus, the most important thing is to empty the mind from the trash. And the trash is everything else, but the moment. Knowing that there is only this moment creates all the reasons to be happy.
2) Stay Away from Know-It-Alls
Only a fool knows everything. But, if a fool knows that he is a fool then he/she won’t remain a fool all his/her life. There are people everywhere in your workplace, neighbourhood, family, friend-circle who will try not only to advise on certain matters but force you with all their will to do something, they think is right. But, that advice may be right from their perspective and their life experiences and may have completely reverse effect on your life.
Staying away from such know-it-all fools is a prudent way to acquire intelligence, by making natural mistakes. Yes, committing mistakes is very important to have natural growth in life. But, the know-it-alls will block all the doors to make any mistake, thus, prevent to learn anything on your own and find your inner-self.
3) You Don’t Need Anyone’s Permission
Being yourself is tough. Not because you don’t want to be, but because the people surrounding you, don’t want you to be. Everyone in your contact is somehow trying to manipulate or override your thoughts. So that you may see things from their perspective and not use your own brain. While not using your own brain may help you get success quickly but this habit will never let you develop your own perspective or your own relationships naturally. You will always be dependent on the prescriptions of some other person because you never developed your own senses about what is right or wrong for you. And, what you want and don’t want to do in your life.
You like having a pizza, go for it without thinking about the calories. Because you know that you will compensate by having a good workout the next day. The prescription giver does not know that you will do a workout and forces you not to have that pizza.
Listen to your actual self, and do the things you feel right for you.
4) Reality is Overrated
Reality is a relative term. At a point of time, the reality of a full shining Moon in India may be a complete lie to a person in the US. There is a Sun, shining in the sky in the US.
There is no such thing as reality. Everyone develops one for himself/herself. This developed reality helps feel alive and get going with life. Thus, don’t fall prey when someone forces their reality to you. Because people would not like you to find your own answers, they would like you to believe theirs. This helps their ego-satisfied and they feel they have achieved something by telling you what they think is right.
It's completely OK to stay away from other’s reality and find your own answers.
5) Sometimes Quitting is the Bravest Decision
While there are several quotes like “quitters never win” or “quitting means weakness”. But, those quotes are actually developed to make you a slave and never find the real you. If your colleagues, boss or family have made you believe that quitting is a sign of weakness, then they have never cut their own harness just to breathe the freedom.
When you quit, it’s not about your weakness, it’s about believing in your own strength. It’s about a belief that you can survive on your own. It's about leaving the people, who are trying to make you fit-in, whereas you actually want something else from your life.
So, instead of trying very hard to fit-in, just give a try to quitting. You never know what’s on the other side.
6) No One Will Grant Your Wishes
You gotta dream, go for it. There is no genie to make that happen. On the contrary, there are several out there to stop making that happen. Because they feel insecure with the idea of your fulfilled dreams. Right now they can shout at you and give forceful advice to you, but if you achieve your dream they won’t be able to do so. They will feel inferior. This feeling makes them insecure, thus, they try harder to stop you.
Either you cut yourself loose from that dream or strive hardest to make it happen. Anything in-between is just a time wastage.
7) Do It As If there Is No Chance Of Failing
Fears! They stop up. Everyone has fears and they are different for everyone. Both, the type of fears and the intensity of those fears are different for everyone. Psychologically, fear is just a reaction of the subconscious mind to prevent its owner from a certain kind of damage, whether physical, social or financial. It’s quite normal, but today, this preventive measure is also labelled as a weakness by some pseudo-adventurers.
Every fear has its reasons. And, if those are understood properly and in-depth the subconscious will not send the preventive signals.
Understand the reasons, then initiate the project to get success. Because you know the ways you can get failed.
8) The Truth Promoter
There is a widespread fashion to tell the lies and find a way to somehow win. This winning maybe just in a family argument, which is not a big deal. But a race has been started to win over others, even at the price of peace of mind and putting the relationships at stake.
This reality seems weird to read in words but is actually happening in everyone’s life. The worst part, we are getting used to it. Only when such situations and psychologies are draped by words, it feels weird.
9) Never Work For Free
Money is not everything in life but it affects all the most important dimensions of life. Thus, making money is important. In this physical world, it’s the money which can make your life easier.
If you have some talent, start charging for it, before it's too late and others start taking you for granted. Charging for your work also keeps the cheap people out of your way. You meet the premium people who can't afford to take you for granted. And yes, premium people do know how to give respect.
Go for it, charge for your work.
10) No Brand is Your Friend
While loyalty is ok, in terms of your personal relations. It should not be applied everywhere. Because the application of loyalty requires to think about the other person’s safety, benefit and comfort first, then about himself. If you apply loyalty to brands or organizations, you will be at a great loss. Except for a couple of personal relations, you need to be selfish and only listen to yourself.
No one is your friend out there. Everyone meets you for a reason. And, yes they are selfish.
11) Your Family Problems aren’t Yours
There is always at least one person in every family who ruins the peace and brings chaos. This eventually leads to a loss of creativity and generates boredom in the family. Because the chaotic person always wants to rule, but she is not capable of it. Of course, the capable one does not want to rule the family, he lets everyone grow naturally at their own pace.
If you feel the chaotic person in your family is a hurdle for your own progress, then instead of making her realize her mistakes and the consequences, go ahead with your own plans of life. She will not realize her mistakes because in her own head she is not committing any mistake.
Earn enough money to separate and have your own house. No place for that chaotic person in that house.
12) Stay Open to New Things
By default, humans are programmed to adapt to new things. It’s the sceptical behaviour and a feeling to lose a war, prevents us to do so. But refusing to accept anything new does not mean that it will not happen. If nature has initiated something, it will happen. Your refusal will not stop letting it happen. But, your refusal to accept, will forbid you to take advantage of the new inventions for your own work.
13) No Country is Perfect
There is a whole world out there. If you think that you are living in a perfect place on this planet, you have not travelled that much. Or maybe you are too much in your comfort zone to find a better place.
There are many beautiful places that you can ever imagine.
14) You are Not Lazy
The too active people usually sting the chord of being lazy for others. They are not lazy. It's just that their life’s priorities are much different than the active ones.
15) Not Everyone is Your Friend
Mark the ones who think of you only when they need you. Because they are not your friends. Staying away from them may give you some room to meet and know some real friends.
16) Taking A Nap
One does need to take breaks from even his busiest routine to get a healthy nap. This will revive your inner strength and bring you back to business with double energy.
17) The Noise Makers
If you have something to say, speak it with a tone that others will listen. Because the intended ones are just too busy with their own projects. If they find your voice intruding their peaceful environment they will shut their ears for your voice. They may not physically ask you to shut up but in their own mind have marked you as a fool.
18) Don’t Try Too Hard
Although most of the people try to be an authority in their field, however, no one is perfect. Understanding this is important because perfection is also a relative term. Just be yourself and enjoy this day. Don’t chase a target as if your life is at stake.
19) The Best Things in Life are Free & Simple
There are some basic needs for a human and those are in someway provided freely by the Almighty God. Exempli Gratia human body, brain, feelings.
Nobody ever pays for the most important thing in life i.e. oxygen. It’s delivered by the trees free of cost, even though we cut them.
20) Love Yourself
Life is short. Learn quickly how to love and appreciate yourself, otherwise, there is a whole lot of circus out there, waiting to train you according to their will. If you won’t learn to love and appreciate your accomplishments, you will fall prey to their perspectives towards you.
And I bet you, the world is not good out there.
21) The Natural Growth
There is no point in making haste. Even those who have the knowledge of the future can’t change neither the core-subject nor the pace of future. Everything happens at its own pace. So relax, and focus only on your own role.
22) The Emptiness of Brain
Ever thought why people shout? Because they don’t have a logical argument for any discussion. Why they don’t have a logical argument? Because they don’t have a brain. Still, they carve for victory in small arguments. To hide their empty brain, they shout, thinking people will focus on their pitch of voice instead of their logic.
But, they just make a fool out of themselves.
23) Adulthood
Adulthood, an age where you realize that you are getting more and more mature. Maturity at every level, be it physical, mental or emotional. But the world is trying to preach you to behave like a kid. It’s a hard time when you have several dreams with limited resources and motivations, and proper guidance.
24) The Death
Life is too short. This seems practically true only when life is about to end. There are several what if’s at that stage of life.
25) Be Nice to Everyone
Another eye-opening illustration from Alex.
Always be nice to everyone you meet. You may have no idea what the person is going through in his life? What problems is he facing? Your being nice may unburden him for some time.
26) Friends
Do you have friends? Are they really your friends? Or they are with you just because of a reason. Real friends will be by your side without any reason.
27) There is Always Someone in a Worse Condition Than You
Do you accuse God of not being just with you? If so, then be thankful to God for whatever you have right now. You have no idea that most of the people on earth don’t even have a quarter of what you have. Yes, that’s true.
28) Don’t Be a Human Robot
While it’s fine to have a routine, being a slave to that routine is bad. It’s good to sometimes tell the routine that you are the owner of yourself. Focussing too much on routines will only leave you as a robot. And a robot is a robot. He has no objective in his life. He has no fun. He just executes whatever program is installed.
Do you want to behave like a robot? No. Then take a break from your routine.
29) Not Everyone is Interested
You may have a good circle of friends. But, no one is really interested to listen to your life stories again and again. Yes, everyone is too busy with their own lives too much. If you tell a person your same life story, again and again, he/she will start making a distance. The distance is just to bring fresh air, not the same boredom.
If you do carve to tell your story to someone, grab a blogging platform and tell the whole world about it. Or as Alex did, be an illustrator. It’s quite ok if you think that you are not a good writer or a good illustrator. Your visitors will give you feedback for improvisations.
30) Loose Yourself
Don’t be a prey to your own brain. It’s just too risky for your brain to let you do something new. It’s a good habit to sometimes tell your brain that you are the owner of your life. And the brain is just one of the several organs of your body. It should not overpower your freedom in any way.
Have fun and ignore your brain’s preventive signals sometimes.
31) Get Rid of The Unwanteds
We all accumulate the stuff we don’t need. That’s completely ok. It’s being human. But, at the same time, one should be able to get rid of the unwanted stuff.
This does not apply only to the stuff we buy from the shops. In fact, this applies to the people we bring in our lives. We should know when it's time to show someone the exit door from our life. It’s also being human.
32) The Taken for Granted
Learn to value the people who are with you. It’s ok to find someone else attractive, but never take the one who is with you, for granted. You may never know, that the one with you is your life support.
Also, if you can’t respect the presence of someone who is with you, develop a habit not to disrespect him. Look at the situation from the other side as well. What if he does the same?
How will you feel? Do you want to be respected or ignored?
33) You Are Your Own Owner
You have the sole responsibility to remain the owner of yourself. You can either act responsibly or as an irresponsible one. Being responsible, you will develop your own perspectives for various dimensions in life and explore what you want to explore not what others want you to. Being irresponsible, you will seek other’s opinion every time. You will think about others’ opinion on your opinion. This way you will never develop your own perspective and always seek others’ help.
Most of the people who meet you, have an agenda. They meet you for a reason. The reason is to take control of your thoughts. If they can’t do it just because you have created a solid defence mechanism, they will find the loopholes and infiltrate.
It’s your sole responsibility to retain control of your life with you.
34) You Don’t Have to Know Everything Right Now
It’s ok to be ignorant of some matters. Even the experts in their fields do lack some kind of information. Time is the only thing that you possess. Give time, some time to unveil the necessary things at the right time.
If you rush to know everything, you won’t be able to learn anything. Have patience and be selective. Start with just one thing. Get comfortable with it then speed up your pace. Master that one thing. Get expertise in that one thing. Once you get expertise in one thing, you invent your own mechanism for expertise. Then apply that mechanism to learn other things.
35) Religion
Being religious or not is a very personal thing. One may not believe in God but may be a scientist, who believe in scientific laws. For him, scientific laws, are absolute. One may be a true believer in God still can’t buy bread on his own. For him, earning money may be a sin. The documentation and arguments are infinite.
But, one must not be a believer in God just because he is afraid of death. This will ruin the whole idea of being a worshipper.
36) You Are Not Really That Important
A good friends circle may be important for someone who either craves for it or needs it for growth. But, trying to fit in the world just because you have to, may leave you with nothing.
Not everyone cheering your name in the crowd is your well-wisher. Choose your friends wisely.
37) Do What You Love
If you like doing something, go ahead and learn some more techniques to be better at it. That one thing may give you all you want.
There are quite a few people in this world who are actually doing what they love. Rest are just a part of the rat race which is never going to give them any kind of satisfaction.
38) The Miracle of Music
Music has immense power to provide new vibrations in the environment. It can calm you and make you feel better. Feeling better means more energy for creativity.
39) The Misunderstandings
Humans are just humans. Every human has its own brain and the brain can process only the data it can analyse. If you say something which is not in the database of someone’s brain, it’s not your fault. They are the ones who need to upgrade their system.
But, there are few who are really interested to upgrade their own system. Most of the humans are trying to inject viruses in other’s processing units, resulting in downgrading other’s system.
40) The Art of Communication
We are humans and most of us only understand textual communication. Thus, talking can help you with most of the problems. All you have to do is talk the way it should be listened to. Don’t just say whatever comes to your mind. You may be marked as spam.
Also, sometimes a silence is much better than a communication. Choose your options wisely.
41) The Emotions
Being humans, we are born with emotions. We express and understand emotions in almost every situation. Of course, while evolving we have managed to hide some and show some. Some have gone the extra mile by practising to express false emotions.
Whether real or fake, one thing is for sure that emotions are temporary. They get surfaced for a reason and when the reason has elapsed, so do the emotions.
42) The Weak-Strong Battle
In the circus of this world, there are ringmasters trying to tame the free birds. Why? Because their survival depends on it. If they won’t tame others, the others will tame them. This is a lesson their ringmasters have taught them. And they are just applying their own learnings.
So, if a person is trying to make someone feel weak, it’s actually not making him stronger. They just think that they are becoming stronger. And there is a difference between both perceptions.
43) True Friends
Alex has actually illustrated several quotes only on friendship. This is just one of them.
To find, if a friend is pretending to be your friend or is actually your friend, Alex provided a check mark. See whether your so-called friend receives your call or not at late nights. It’s a green signal if he receives your call.
44) Television, the Demon
A family requires consistent communication regarding one another’s lives. So that they may understand and help each other. This process keeps the family knots tightened.
Television breaks the series of communication. How? Because with television, comes various daily soaps, which can be addictive over a period of time. Why? Because you watch a person on the screen every day, then find his life more interesting than yours. Or maybe worse, you find his life more miserable than yours and start advising him virtually, sitting in your own home. This process creates an invisible bond between the soap character and you. And finally, you are cut off from your family.
45) Wisdom Vs Age
There is a saying that a child is the father of a man. Conversely, there is also a term called maturity. Thus, there is no relation between wisdom and age.
The retired ones get fooled by the minors. And some great discoveries and inventions have been done only after hair went grey.
It’s all about the learning process, not the age.
Comics by Alex Noriega
Alex had been quite famous for his webcomics. This article is presenting two of his webcomics. These webcomics will give you more insight into Alex.
1) Everybody Else
This webcomic describes Alex.
When Alex turned 30, he started thinking about himself from a different perspective. He started thinking about all the people he had met in his life and the ones he chose to be his friends. Also, the friends who were not anymore in his friend list.
Alex was never a social guy. In fact, he had always avoided crowded places and the people he didn’t know. Despite being a shy guy Alex succeeded in making some very good friends during his 30 years of age.
But in the last couple of years, Alex stopped making new friends because he found himself in very painful conditions. Some of the friends who changed the city, did not call back to him, some avoided him badly, some defamed him behind his back and some were even envious of him. Such situations led him to a conclusion that eventually his friends are going to hurt him in some way. He felt very lonely and ignored the last year.
So he found a way to understand the reasons for such situations. He started illustrating to find his answers. Although he knew that he may come up with a lame excuse while making a comics, still he did it in a hope to get the answers. He wanted to finish the comic to get the answers.
To make a good comics he used to fix several things. This fixing helped Alex understanding what works and what doesn’t work for the comics. But he accepted that if this process is applied in a wrong way, it can lead to a state where one may be too afraid to fail. Simply because he is assuming that the worst will happen to him.
So, he learnt that it does not matter how much effort he puts in his comics, some will fail to entertain the readers. It’s not his fault, it’s just part of the process.
Same applies to his friends. It doesn't matter how much effort he puts in his friendship, some friends are going to leave. It’s just part of the process.
2) Mountains
This comic is also related to the personal life of Alex.
Once, one of his friends asked him whether he still feels frustrated. He replied that he used to feel frustrated in his childhood but not anymore. He has found something that keeps him happy. And it is drawing. It has not been always like this. But he still has to learn a lot.
When he was a kid he fell in love with comics, art and illustrations. He felt so deep connection with the artwork that he wished to be a professional artist one day.
But it didn’t happen that way. Just like any creative person, he had many interests and he used to get lost in one or many. Also, the small decisions and the details in the artwork were very hard to apply. Thus, even after being passionate about being an artist, the art itself was too frustrating in the real world.
In the worst case situations, he felt so bad about his artwork and hated himself too much for not producing any work even near to the artists he admired. But, today he has reached a point with his artwork, where he feels very comfortable with himself. He no more compares his work with any other artist. He has finally found his own voice.
Alex is very much aware of the hard work he has done to reach this stage. How many uncountable sleepless nights he has spent to learn the techniques which today makes him comfortable in his skin.
Once an art collector asked Picasso about the time taken by one of his pieces of painting. Picasso replied that it took 50 years for that one piece of painting. Many people will think that Picasso was just lying and trying to pretend that the piece took too much effort. But, Alex agrees with the reply of Picasso. Why? Because it takes thousands of struggles with mistakes then fixing them to get a good result.
There was a teacher in Alex’s illustration school, whom he admired very much. The way he used to teach illustration is not a standard method. Maybe that was the reason he was admired. Every week the students were given an assignment to prepare an illustration inspired by a rhetorical figure, usually from literature.
After the deadline, the teacher used to talk about the illustration of every student. He used to assign more time discussing the illustrations that didn’t work. He discussed in detail about the reasons why those illustrations didn’t work. With that way, everyone learnt more with their own mistakes. This learning taught then to prevent those mistakes and be a successful illustrator.
Alex likes to compare illustration to mountain climbing. It’s difficult to successfully climb a big mountain at the first attempt. Because the climber does not know where he should climb fast and where he should slow down. He has no idea about saving his own energies. Thus, the climber may throw the towel at an early stage.
The next time the climber may calculate the distance and get more understanding about the directions. This may not help him even the second time to climb quickly. But, it helps to know that struggles and pain are an important part of making any art. And most important, those struggles and pains are just temporary.