• 
• 
• 
• 

Blog

 

The road trip home every other weekend always makes me philosophize. Like so many times before I am pondering about the existence of God. Logically laying out each data and conclusions. Maybe its just now that I had the courage to actually write about it where people can see. Hopefully not though, but thats another issue.

 

Anyway, I was thinking how Man throughout the ages have been exaggerating the notion of God to the point of being outright ridiculous. Man has taken extreme pains to explain the things around him. The time he gazed up in the sky with the first glimmerings of consciousness must also be the first time he asked the inevitable question WHY.  At which point he must have become the highest order of being on earth. To ponder on such relatively insignificant issues he must have established the beginnings of a civilization which enabled him enough leisure time to ask such questions. Instict led him to believe there must be someone higher even than him. Things around him he can not control must be the workings of a being more powerful than him. The power to call forth storms and thunders to move mountains and the ground beneath his feet.

 

Attributing petty human emotions to what he conceived as an angry god, naturally he did what sensible sub-being is able to do. Appeasement, worship, offerings, atonement, the works. And the rest as they say, is history. Man have moved on to being ridiculously descriptive and even graphic at times to appease this angry god.

 

As for me, I believe in humanity. Where he is going and what he has been through. That he will survive. Immortality achieved through his loins. Man will eventually take care of himself as he always has.

I DON’T LIKE TOO MUCH COFFEE. {with a note of sarcasm}

Because a few well chosen words from the right person has the same effect as drinking buckets of coffee anyway..

I’d rather have a good conversation, in any case when a good conversation proves elusive I guess the coffee will have to do.

 

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m an avid coffee drinker, I’m trying to quit I guess. From a double shot caramel macchiato, mocha frappucino lite with whipped cream, White Mocha Frappuccino, Java Chip Frappuccino, Espresso Macchiato, capuccino, latte, or the good old nescafe 3-in-one to start the day.

 

Why drink coffee at all? What makes it so good to start the day? Make a small conversation with an old friend you just happen to pass on the street on the way to work, school,  or some errand.

 

Most people say, or rather most coffee drinkers would say the day just isn’t the same without a cup of coffee. It is the mildly stimulating effect of the caffeine in coffee that gets us going for the day. That is probably what appeals to most people about coffee and there is little doubt that the caffeine is a mildly addictive drug as well. Some would go as far as to say they can’t live without it. I guess we all want to perform better, be a better person. And somehow coffee does that however briefly.

 

Same goes for all the things we can’t live without cellphones, ipod, laptop,wrist watches, computer games, liquor, books, even a person. Those things/people we just can’t give up because we are better because of it/him/her. Somehow we feel a need to be intoxicated, ‘take a sip’ every now and then, just to make it through the day. Familiar huh?

 

I remember a phrase from the Dr. Jekyll/Mr.Hyde; Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.

Maybe if you are stripped of all you can’t live without what remains will be distinctly YOU. No illusions, no pretentions. To bare our souls each day. To detoxify, so to speak. Quite terrifying I’m sure. But I think we owe ourselves to be that kind of person. To be able to perform and get through all the clamor, the confusion the ups and downs of each day without any help but our own.

 

What is the new year but a mark of the passing time? An end of one and the start of another. Why does Man give such importance to endings and beginnings? New Year, anniversaries, birthdays, death days. It seems we just don’t get enough of celebrations. Especially the Filipinos, we celebrate EVERYTHING. Feast of various saints, not to mention the various celebrations of other religions, ramadan, chinese new year, diwali (?), a baby’s first step, a child’s first day of school, the first word uttered, monsary (month anniversary), second monsary, (third monsary?) . It just goes without saying that filipinos are a thankful lot. We recognize our blessings and we just have to say ‘thank you’ in our own way.

 

Strangely enough the coming new year makes us think of the things we have done the previous year and plan the inevitable ‘new years resolution’. I don’t think this pattern of thinking is coincidental. Deep inside we all want to be someone different, someone better than we are a year ago.

 

I always say life is a constant celebration. Waking up each day is enough to cause a street party! (woohoo!) Being able to experience LIFE, to actually live it and not merely existing for some mundane reason is all that matters. How are we to appreciate the magnificence of a birth of a child or the simple joy of carefree laughter or the warm smile of a friend without pain of loss or even anger? How do we know something can begin without knowing there has to be an end?

 

Nobody told me it can’t be done so I did it.

Sometimes we are limited by the things people around us keep telling us. We become immersed in that culture of mediocrity and conformity. Limited only by the things we see. It takes some amount of imagination to break away from all that hinders us to be who we are meant to be. If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.

 

ON WHY I ASK SO MANY QUESTIONS:

 

The point is not the answers themselves but the mental development achieved through striving for those answers. We’re all complex flawed creatures stumbling around in the dark. Perhaps our minds, little transcient bubbles of consciousness adrift in this overwhelmingly hostile universe need an inflated sense of their own importance, of the logic of the universe, in order to summon up the will to survive. Perhaps we will all be driven mad by the truth. Or perhaps stripped of illusion at last, we will all become SANE.

It seems that life is NOT without a sense of irony. Just when everything starts falling into place it falls apart. I guess life just has its own twists and turns. Some turns are surprisingly for the better–some are just surprising.

 

The past few months had a dreamlike quality. Life was rather easy. I just knew it could not last, that somehow something hideous is waiting for me in the next bend.

 

Sometimes I think we must not expect happiness. It is not something we deserve. When life goes well, it is a sudden gift; it cannot possibly last forever.

 

But then what are we to hope for if not hope for happiness? Hope for an early painless death?

 

Pathetic.

 

There are a million things in this world I’d rather do. There’s a whole world out there waiting for me. I’m not about to be bothered by a few difficulties.

 

I think it was the sudden deaths of the people I knew that jolted me into awareness once again. It reminded me that life is short. Too short to be bothered by petty things like false appearances, minor inconveniences and the constant hubbub of humanity around us. Rather we must pursue the things that have greater impact. We must look beyond our borders, and not to be limited by the things we see around us.

 

Sometimes we are limited only by our own minds. There is really NOTHING WE CAN NOT DO if we put our minds to it.

 

IF WE DREAM WHY NOT DREAM BIG?