A Christmas Message

Christmas is a time when we look at our lives through a magnifying glass. Where being sad becomes so much sadder and being happy becomes so much happier. And whatever we don't have feels so overwhelming but it also magnifies our sense of sharing as well, reminding us that whatever we possess is not who we are but what we value in life is what provides true meaning and great joy. Family, friendship, our love for those who need it the most and those we believe otherwise. I wish every one a merry Christmas.

posted from Bloggeroid

Now Reading Exective Intent by Dale Brown

posted from Bloggeroid

Freedom From Religion

I stopped going to church long time ago... Not because I lost my faith to God but because I'd realized it's a religion based on prejudiced.

posted from Bloggeroid

Happy Birthday...

Dear Tatay,
   I never knew you that much to say I miss you, I was very young when you died and you were also young when you left us. It was hard for Nanay when you suddenly didn't wake up but we grew up to be well and okey. I want you to know that you have three children who continue to love you even if you're no longer with us. And Nanay still thinks of you from time to time. We don't talk much about you,  but you're always in our hearts. I may not have enough memory of you but your life had always been an inspiration. You don't have pictures hanged on our wall but I can still see your image when I look at the mirror, you are after all half of who I am. You may be gone Tatay but you're not forgotten, for it is only when we are forgotten that we ceased to exist. Happy Birthday Tatay.

If

If hundreds of years ago we had decided to use our intelligence to understand ourselves. We would not have looked for explanations as to why we do what we do by fantasizing about demons or spirits or genes, but we would have asked, 'Why do we hurt one another?' and found answers based on the assumption that human beings are precious and need to be cherished, for all we have is one another. We would have looked not to some mythical power to save us, but to ourselves, knowing that we are part of everything that exists, and our capacity to be an individual, while at the same time being joined to everyone and everything, gives us a great power, a power which we can have very rarely used to our benefit, a power which the Church and the State have exploited to set one group in enmity against another. If hundreds of years ago, we decide to use our intelligence to understand ourselves, our history would have been entirely different. We might not have ever discovered the wonders of  motor car, and we certainly would not have discovered the terrors of nuclear weapons. We would have probably been fewer, but then many fewer would have died on battlefield or in childbirth or in hunger. We would have developed the arts beyond anything we can ever imagine now, and all of us would be artists. Our arts would have been informed by tragedy, because tragedy would still be part of our lives, but we would not see tragedy as a punishment for wickedness or a deficit requiring compensation. We would not ignore or blindly try to ameliorate the sufferings of those around us, but we would unashamedly and unabashedly come together in the eternal reciprocity of tears. If hundred of years ago, we have decided to use our intelligence to understand ourselves, we would have understood our wanting for everything and have dealt with it, not by denial and blind grasping, but by turning everything from the demand for immediate gratification into enlightened self interest. We would have understood and taught our children that we should practice kindness, tolerance and sharing not because this will assure our place in heaven or because they are the great virtues, but because a society where all the people practice kindness, tolerance and sharing is a pleasant place to live. It is in our own interests that we be kind and tolerant to others. We would have understood and taught our children that, since our life is limited, we have to make choices and order priorities, and since we cannot have everything, we should focus on having the best. Soon our lives would be very different. As the trees disappear, the rain turns to acid, the temperature increases and the water rise, our lives will change, but not in the ways we wish. Our chances of getting everything will get less and less. We do have a little time. Perhaps even at this stage we could decide to do what we should have done hundreds of years ago.

Hold Them Lightly

Wanting everything and trying to get everything by being greedy results only in us getting much less than what we would have had if only we had recognized the truth of the saying, "we get to keep only that which we give away". If we clutch a rose tightly, the thorns prick us and the petals bruise. If we hold in an iron grip our relationship with another person dies. If we hang on to our possessions, guarding them from thieves, we imprison ourselves. People and possessions, like roses should be held lightly. If we let the people around us be themselves, they are more likely to stay with us, and if we do not invest ourselves in our possessions, we do not hunger for more nor mourn them when they disappear.

Smoked Hickory Pork

Cooked Smoked Hickory Pork

Body & Soul

The body is only a vehicle. It's a magnificent vehicle because it carries what is essential, but in itself, is not essential.

Spaghetti Meat Sauce Pasta

Cooked spaghetti meat sauce pasta for dinner

Equality

Maybe God did create us as equals, that somehow the idea that all of us can be happy and great can in fact makes us happy and great. That all of us has the potential to have what the others have. Maybe that is God's idea of equality.

Love

When it comes to love we are all insecure, afraid and vulnerable.

Getting Ready for Christmas

Just Thinking

 The infinity of tomorrow gives us something to hope for, to dream that in the future life can be better, but tomorrow is a day away to what we have now.

Looking Beyond

Have you ever looked on humanity
and see not the ugliness but the beauty of its creation,
Have you ever looked on humanity
and see not the imperfections but the likeness to the Creator,
Have you ever looked on humanity
and see not the fear but the courage to confront what can be imagined,
Have you ever looked on a newly born child
and see not the vulnerability but the hope,
Have you ever looked in the eyes of a dying man
and see not the suffering of the body but the celebration of the soul,
For there are things we can see and things we cannot see
but we are not defined on our ability to see things but on the choices we make on what is worthy to look at.

Shameless

Common is the word we use when seeing a politician's logo or initials on our street but common or not it is unacceptable. When a Mayor gets elected does the city becomes part of his property? Then why does a Mayor brand the city he's governing with his initials? There is no explanation other than shameless. Take for example the letter "B" for Binay. "SB" for Sonny Belmonte and of course our very own "Y" for Ynares. Do this politicians have no sense of decency. That's our money not yours... We don't owe you for building infrastructure, that is part of your job description and responsibility after all we pay our taxes.

Injustice

What lessons do we exactly teach each other when a person being accused of plundering this country gets away with the crime she committed. How about the lesson we teach each other for having a different kind of justice to an ordinary man who steals bread so he can feed his family to a President who steals millions if not billions just to satisfy her greed. In this country we have two kinds of justice the former is for the poor and the latter are for the rich. Take for example former President Gloria Arroyo. In power for almost a decade she's been accused of enriching her family's wealth at the cost of people's taxes. And now that she's out of power the current administration is seeking justice for her crimes yet it comes too short for an ordinary Filipino being accused of a lesser crime. Here she is enjoying a hospital arrest on one of the country's premiere hospitals and now seeking a house arrest. Maybe there is nothing wrong with that, after all she's suffering from an illness but does our government provide the same privilege to an ordinary criminal. Am I allowed to stay in my house if I get caught stealing money from a bank. This kind of preferential treatment to politicians is shameless not only to the accused but to the prosecutor who tolerate it as well. President Aquino maybe calculating the political repercussions of his actions that jailing Arroyo on an ordinary cell might be perceived as an overkill. But overkill or not everyone should be treated equally. Being a former President does not entitled you for a special treatment out of respect, in fact punishment should even be harder because you have been entrusted with power and uses that power to your benefit. Then again our justice system is not perfect but whatever considerations they are providing the former President it is my only hope that the same privilege be provided as well to an ordinary Filipino if they cannot treat Gloria Arroyo as an ordinary citizen. The time of death is the time of great justice, someone said that... at least Gloria Arroyo is near to that ultimate justice.

Untitled

I dream and long for someone like you,
To come in my life and bring something new,
For I need some changes and perhaps hoping someday,
You would come to give answer to my prayer.

You have your life and I have mine,
Living apart from each other where everything is fine,
But there is a part of me I knew that is lacking,
I did not realized until you came knocking.

What a joy you bring when you came into my life,
Taking away the pain the past left behind,
My failures, defeats and all those stories,
Will be gone and replaced with your wonderful memories.

One Year of Blogging

When I began this blog about a year ago I never really knew what was going to come out of it. I'm not expecting something magical, I just wanted to express myself. Like many of the bloggers out there I want an outlet to express in words the thoughts that comes out of my mind about everything that is going on. You may find it boring or irrelevant but it is real for me, same thing that is happening in your lives that you wanna talk about. Whether it's just a thought or an actual experience I want to share it to someone else. To whom? I don't know. To you I guess whoever you are reading this. The potential is limitless.

Reality

What we all want is to be free and secure. What we find hard to accept is that it is impossible to be totally free and totally secure.

A Point of View

Do you go to Church that condemns you for being who you are, just so you can feel holy for an hour... I don't think so...

Understanding One's Self

If we do not understand ourselves we cannot know what is right for us, and if we do not know what is right for us we cannot begin to approximate what is right for other people. And fortunately for us, the more we know ourselves the more aware we are of our own doubts and dilemmas, while the more we can hold the belief that there are once and for all solutions in the major problems of living.

Valuable and Lovable

     We keep ourselves locked in this conflict over whether or not we are good, and we hang on to the fantasy of perfect parents because we have not questioned our assumption that 'My sense of self-worth is something other people give me'. When we change our assumption to 'My sense of self-worth is something I give myself', we see that other people's good evaluation of us is the icing on the cake, not the cake itself, that the conflict over whether or nor we are good is irrelevant, and that the fantasy of perfect parents is one that we have outgrown.
      Those of us who had ordinary people as parents can, if we think about it, gain our freedom from the fantasy of perfect parents because we can construct a realistic belief along the lines of my parents tried to do the best they could. Through their own lack of understanding and through the necessities of their lives they cause me pain. This pain made me believe that I was not valuable and lovable, but now I know that this belief is incorrect. I was, as I am now and shall always be, valuable and lovable.
     Those of us who had as parents people who were cruel and indifferent to us have more difficult task in gaining freedom from the fantasy of perfect parents, for we have to see that whom we are born to is just a matter of chance. Some of us are very unlucky. That is annoying, but still no reason to believe that because we are unlucky we are unlucky in everything else. The realistic belief we need to construct is along the lines of, 'No matter who my parents were or what they did, I was, as I am now and shall always be valuable and lovable.

Chewy Under the Christmas Tree

Decorating for Christmas

Just a Thought

There is no reason why we should not indulge in a little sacrifice if it makes us feel better and helps to restore self-esteem. But we need to remember that we do good because it makes us feel good.

Chewy

Sadness

Where does this sadness come from? Of course in the lives of every adult there are some things to feel sad about, opportunities lost, love denied. But the sadness I feel is more powerful and more pervasive than these events alone would provoke. Even when other events in my life might be regarded as more than compensating for these disappointments and losses, the act of counting one's blessings does not dissipate the sadness. Nothing, it seems, can compensate for what might have been. What has been lost? I have pondered about finding this sadness in me when I reached a point in my life where all the disappointments and losses I had experienced had provoked in fact to be very beneficial. I was now leading the kind of life  I had dreamed of when  I was an adolescent, I write, I travel with family and friends, our own delightful home, a good  income, and healthier than i had ever been. As well, I had been successful in excluding from my life quite a number of things which I did not want to do and which I would, when I was younger, have felt obliged to do. I had also relieved myself of the burden of worrying about whether people approved of me. Most of the time I felt extremely happy, but every now and then I would find myself feeling sad. I thought about this and I thought about this daydreams, when I was young I imagined that as I get older
I daydream less and less. As adolescent I had dreamed of many things and fell in love with many different people, but with each passing year, I thought, the range of possibilities gets less and less, so that in older age there is nothing to dream about.
I know now that this is not the case. I go on telling myself stories to comfort myself and to view the future with hope. So I still daydream a lot, and these dreams, like the dreams of my youth, are about wanting everything and getting everything. I want to have it all. My sadness is because I do not have it all.

Proper Education

The world we live in is entirely different from the world we evolved to cope with,  with the result that our minds are out of whack with our world. This has given us major problems like pollution, overpopulation, the destruction of the atmosphere, the extinction of plant and animal species and the threat of nuclear annihilation. Our old minds are designed to look at things as they affect individuals and to respond to immediate dangers like a sudden changes in our climate or an earthquake. Large-scale, continuous threats are not instantaneously obvious to us, so they get ignored. For instance, one terrorist attack will cause thousands of people to change their travel plans, but all Filipino citizens ever killed by terrorist would not add up to the number who gets killed every day in this country by handguns or automobile accidents. Part of the problem is that our education is almost irrelevant to many of the changes that are taking place in the world. People are taught algebra with great precision in schools, but I've never met anyone who's ever used algebra after the age of 16. On the other hand, they're not taught probability, which is something they need every night when they watch the news. People need to understand the nature of the world they actually live in as opposed to the world we're taught to believe in. And we're changing the world so fast that we believe the curriculum needs to be changed every decade. Our past is no longer a good guide to our future, and understanding what could happen in our future is what education needs to be about.

My Thoughts

I don't actually look to see if someone is better off. What I'm concerned about is that I can look after myself, that I can take responsibility for myself. It is I believe the exact opposite of selfishness. It's taking responsibility for my action.

Tuna & Tomato w/ Mushroom

I cooked Tuna & Tomato with Mushroom for Dinner

Now Reading The Sacred Bones by Michael Byrnes

Being Responsible

If we accept responsibility for what we do, we can have something taken away from us. Politicians who admit their errors can lose their power and position. Men who see that the expression of their sexual desires injures others, and that this is wrong, have to deny themselves the expression of these desires if they are to be able to live with themselves. Admitting our errors, failures and inadequacies can take away from us the feeling that we deserve to have everything. Hence many people will go on denying responsibility so that they can think well of themselves. Some people can deny that they are responsible and not be called to account, and others are censured by society. But censured or not, those people who try to get everything by denying that they are responsible for what they do in the end fail to get everything, for other people turn against them and never trust them. Such selfishness provides short-term gains but long-term woe.

Racism

Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man's genetic lineage. The notion that a man's intellectual and characteristic traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own characters and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors. Racism claims that the content of a man's mind is inherited and that a man's convictions, values and character are determined before he is born, by physical factors beyond his control.

Being Christian

Each of us journeys in this life from birth to death. God has chosen a path for us and calls us to walk along it. But He also created us with free will and allows us to follow a route of our own choosing. There is nothing more important than choosing a path that leads to meaningful, fulfillment, compassion and joy. If we choose our own path, we risk the consequences of walking alone, with only our own meager resources. But if we choose to walk in God's ways, He will give us all we need for this journey. When there are forks in the road, obstacles to be overcome or alternate routes to take, God accompanies us and helps us discern His path from others. Wherever our journey of faith takes us, it inevitably encounters suffering. Our culture, to the contrary, tells us to avoid suffering at all cost. Advertisers tells us that if we buy the right products we can avoid not only suffering but also the smallest inconveniences. However God teach us that suffering is a natural part of human life.

Learn From Your Mistakes

In order to learn, you've got to be free. You've got to be free to experiment, to try, free to make mistakes. That's the way you learn. I can understand your mistakes and I profit greatly from mine. The secret is not to make the same one twice. But I need to be free to experiment and to try. Give me that chance. Allow me the freedom to be and to be myself and to find the joy in need. Don't give me your hangups! Let me find and overcome my own!

Now Reading Sidney Sheldon's AreYou Afraid Dark?

Risk

To hope is to risk despair, and to try is to risk failure. But risk must be taken, because the greatest risk in life is to risk nothing. The person who risk nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live. Chained by his certitudes, he's a slave. He forfeited his freedom. Only the person who risks is truly free.

Samsung Ch@t335

Bought a new phone Samsung Ch@t335.

A Letter to Romeo

I want you to know how important you are to me, how you can be the creator of the person that is in me if you choose to. You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble. You alone can see behind my mask. You alone can release me from my shadow world of panic and uncertainty and loneliness. So please don't pass me by. I know it will not be easy for you. A conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. And the nearer that you approach me, the blinder I may strike back. You see, I am to be fighting against the very thing I need the most.

Something To Think About

You can understand people better if you look at them, no matter  how old or  impressive they may be, as if they are children. For most of us never mature, we simply grow taller.

Remembering my Father

 Dad's 30th death anniversary 

It is only when we are forgotten that we ceased to exist. To my Father you're gone but not forgotten.

Untitled

Our lives are overburdened, and living often seems to us a terrible complicated affair. The problems of the world are so incredibly complex and we see that there are no simple answers. The complexity always leaves us with a feeling of helplessness and powerlessness. And still, amazingly enough, we go on, day by day, always half subconsciously yearning for something simpler, something more meaningful. So how we look for our lives and living becomes tremendously important. It is up to us to bring this authenticity, this simplicity, this directness, this unburdened clarity into our looking. If such a thing as living life fully interest you, then it's up to you to learn about it and live it.

Life

I think it's important to tell children about the continuity of life. We live in a stratified society. Little children are kept together. Adolescents are kept together. Young marrieds are together. And if you remain single people ask you, why? Old people, for goodness sakes, are kept together. I was lucky as a child, because our house was always full of people, grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins, new born babies. I could tell you different stories about that all in the same house! And I learned early that life is a continual process and not stratified. I saw old people and I knew that someday I will be old too. I saw people dying and I began to appreciate life. But when you don't see it you don't know that it's there, and you're scared to death of it. Most of us are horrified about death. We don't know how to die or live with dignity. If you have lived with dignity, you'll die with dignity. You don't have to worry about it. As long as you have life you can live right through death. But children have to have some knowledge of this. They have to see it. We hide them from funerals, we don't let them see bodies. We don't give them answers when they say "What happened to my dog?" "What happened to grandma?" "She went away on a trip". Little kids are going to learn what you teach them. They pick up attitude of their parents. If their parents are scared to death, so are they.And that's no pun intended. Then another thing that is essential is that children learn that they have a choice. They will only believe that they have choice if you give them alternatives in their lives.

Trash TV

Local television feeds Filipinos a steady dirty diet of trash.

Road Menace

The worst form of transportation... Not to mention the most undisciplined drivers which always causes heavy traffic on every road in the country. Only in the Philippines!

Untitled

A wonderful realization will be the day you realize that you are unique in this world. There is nothing that is an accident. You are a special combination for a purpose, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise, even if they tell you that your purpose is an illusion. You exercise that combination, so that you can do what is essential for you to do. Don't ever believe that you have nothing to contribute. The world is an incredible unfulfilled tapestry, and only you can fulfill that tiny space that is yours.

Weight Loss Endeavor

Today I am going to embark on a heavy task, and when I say heavy I literally mean heavy. I have been preparing myself for the past few days now on going on a diet. I know to some of you out there this may not be a heavy task but for those who have weight problems and tried on losing them they know pretty much how hard it is to undergo this kind of ordeal. It's a mental test really, self control to be exact. Although I'm not what you call an obese person, I consider myself overweight based on the ratio of my weight to my height. So let's see what happens as I talked about my weight again in a month's time. Wish me luck!

Now Reading "The Last Days" by Joel Rosenberg

Losing Yourself

None of us can heal the things that life has done to us. They're done before we can realize what's being done, and they can make you do things all of your life until these things are constantly coming between you and what you'd like to be. And in that way you seem to lose yourself forever.

Thinking Out Loud

     If a man in the street were to pursue his self, what kind of guiding thoughts would he come up with about changing his existence? He would perhaps discover that his brain is not yet dead, that his body is not dried up, and that no matter where he is right now, he is still the creator of his own destiny. He can change this destiny by taking his one decision to change seriously, by fighting his petty resistances against change and fear, by learning more about his mind, by trying out behavior which fills his real need, by carrying out concrete acts rather than conceptualizing about them, by practicing to see and hear and touch and feel as he has never before used these senses, by creating something with his own hands without demanding perfection, by thinking out ways in which he behaves in a self-defeating manner, by listening to the words that he utters, by listening to himself, by listening to the words and looking into the eyes of those who speak to him, by learning to respect the process of his own creative encounters and by having faith that they will get him somewhere soon.
     We must remind ourselves, however, that no change takes place without working hard and without getting your hands dirty. There are no formula and no books to memorize on becoming, I make my life and no one else makes it for me. I must face my own shortcomings, mistakes and transgressions. No one can suffer my non-being as I do, but tomorrow is another day, and I must decide to leave my bed and live again. And if I fail, I don't have the comfort of blaming you or life or God.