Traveling

I think, more than the past, I believe in the future, and in the present, I try my best to trust.

Just because I hurt, just because I feel bad, doesn’t mean I lost faith in what’s important.

And just because I may lose track, whether by chance or on purpose, doesn’t mean I don’t know how to get back, and doesn’t mean I don’t want to go back.

It just means I’m learning.

I’m trying to do what I can with what I have. I’m trying to explore what else I can work with, play with, be with, live with. I’m trying to live the best life I can live in every moment, without getting stuck in the future, or being buried in the past. Most of all, with the demands of a presence of mind, I try to do excellently as a good person. Doing good, being good and staying good.

All this goodness, is nothing close to the childish notion of naughty and nice. Doing good as contributing to others around me. Doing my best to be thoughtful. Thinking of others’ situation before my own, and analyzing as best as possible how to reconcile both, and if sacrifice on my end must be done, then so be it. Being good as to practicing my virtues.

As difficult and impossible as they may be, I can try to be saintly, but never claim to be as such. I aspire to be not because it’s admirable but because I’m directed to be so. As everyone is, in fact. As to be saintly is to be good, people are directed to goodness. Growth is goodness. Transcendence is goodness. Using this transcendence to help us pave our destiny, but not just ours but of others’. Being good technically does not only show your faith and love for others, but your faith and love for yourself as well.

Staying good as getting back into track if I fall down. If I fall for temptations, if I forget important things and reminders, if I chose to do what is not good—Staying good has a lot to do with persistence and determination, and meaning to do it not just because you’re sincere, not just because you have to, but because you know it in your heart that you want to stay well, and you want to do good, to be good, because you are aware that this brings you happiness.

Just as you are, the goodness that you are, in your heart, you bring tidings to your existence. Happiness is happy for happiness. As happiness is universal, happiness of others, may also count on yours. Your affectivity extends from yourself, onto others and multiplies as long as others reflect their lights, from a source so Beautiful. Like mirrors, we reflect His light, His goodness, His mercy and His compassion.

I may not see everything. And I may not know everything. But I know that in my heart, that whatever I’m looking for is already watching me with love and unsurpassed longing. I search, and I am waited for. If I wait as I search for my answers, my answers wait until my personal investigation has been completed.

The Red Queen Complex

Even words can’t speak sometimes.

But when we begin to force them, as if aiming for a ripple effect, they cascade, like water seeping through cracks.

Eventually when you break the wall, they just overflow.

Super giant one-of-a kind apologies to others and myself for not coming up to the already small expectation of sharing a post ‘once a week’.

So last I posted was December, and already it’s February and the entire world is about to welcome summer in its variety.

I’ve mentioned somewhere in my posts before that technically, I’ve already failed the routine of posting once a week and yet, I still continue to do so.

(I tried making up for those like, I’d post 2 entries the ff. week if I wasn’t able with the last. But. I think sticking to your site’s ‘premise’ is like, following the doctor’s orders. If it’s just one glass of wine a day, and you missed drinking, you can’t have two on the next. So. ….I’M SOOOOORRRRRYYYYYY.)

I know even if the comments read ‘0’ count, I still keep on saying these apologies, but it’s for any friend or reader who passes by my page and reads or scans through my entries.

Long apology over. I’m still writing in this blog.

And new entry:

The Red Queen Complex

‘Off with their heads! Off. With. Their Heeeeeaaaads!”

Guess who said that.

I like her, the Red Queen, from Alice in Wonderland.

She’s angry, she’s vengeful, she knows how it feels to be hated and to be unloved. There is no other daring character in this world that I know, in either fiction or reality that is exactly like the Red Queen. If you know one, you’re in a serious treat.

No, I’m not sadistic. I like her, yes, but I don’t want to be like her.

However, I do feel like her, but not necessarily wanting to be.

Are you a Red Queen, too?

But pardon, Red Queen is Red Queen. Let us not rob off her personal merit of carrying her own name, character and definition, however impossible to fully define.

My sympathies go more for her, than for Alice. Her malice makes her sympathetic for me; that fear, that thirst for redemption, her wild revenge and her quest to earn her misplaced, misinterpreted ‘merit’.

The Red Queen, to me, is the epitome of frustrated love and unaccepted difference. I find her will to live so very much astonishing. She is a kind of nemesis that keeps you wondering, “Why? Why? Why?” Just to arrive at the simplest of answers no one can dare translate as coherently as she sees it in her own mind.

She is jealous and coveting. She will rob you in an instant if you possess something she wants. She is high-tempered and lacking of basic social skills, but her aggressiveness and direct-approach sends everyone moving and talking about and even for her.

But as earlier confessed; I may find myself resembling the Red Queen in times, but I dare not want to be like her.

Content and deluded by her own misery and loneliness. Someone who agreed with herself that the world is how she sees it to be and no one else can change that. Someone who’s smart enough to force herself in leadership, but dumb enough not to know how to handle the responsibilities. She fumes, explodes, rages and pounds. All that beautiful, bountiful energy; recycled into the universe without her turn of good use.

That to me is her unfortunate downfall. An opportunity lost to contribute something good. Nothing is more saddening than an opportunity lost. Regrets bore out of this, and yet we have the audacity to tell ourselves that we have learned our lesson, only to commit the same mistake not only twice, or thrice, but over and over until our life must’ve been sucked out of our bodies.

The horrifying and good thing about this lifetime we spend, however singular, is that as energy is recycled, opportunity can present itself again. Yes, hence the performance of similar mistakes. But we cannot blame ourselves so much because of our innate downfall; our lack of an all-knowing intelligence. A basic truth we can never, and I mean it, ever change. So we have what we call ‘perfecting’; a state where we are close to perfect, but not really.

Given that we enjoy and learn in our own faults, it is just as a given that we secretly or adamantly aim to change that.

Did the Red Queen want to change?

I certainly want to. But the Red Queen found perfection in her own imperfection. And for those who think they are perfect, and nothing more can ever be added or subtracted, you’re one and the same fault.

The answer is brutal and simple: We’re not.

So deal with it.

Seriously, work on it.

My All-Time Top 10 Favourite Christmas Movies

My Top 10 Christmas Flicks:

(Ones I never tire of re-watching, and keeps getting better every time I do.

Not to mention, I can watch it at any part of the year, and still feel Christmas-y.)

1. Home Alone

Starring Macaulay Culkin

2. How The Grinch Stole Christmas (2-D Animation)

By Dr. Seuss

3. The Nightmare Before Christmas

By Tim Burton

4. While You Were Sleeping

Starring Sandra Bullock

5. The Holiday

Starring Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet

Jude Law and Jack Black

6. Scrooged

Starring Bill Murray

7. A Christmas Carol (3D-Animation)

Starring Jim Carrey

8. The Muppet Christmas Carol

Starring Michael Caine

9. Tokyo Godfathers

By Satoshi Kon

and last, but never the least

10. Elf

Starring Will Farell

Try to watch them!

Enjoy!!!

Facebook, Personal Return

What could have possibly urged Facebook to come up with activation and de-activation settings in general? As I mentioned in my previous input concerning Facebook ‘Delirium’, I’ve a hunch that it had something to do with one’s reputation on-line while our reality-spaced life is busy on its own.

Of course one may argue that our on-line life is a mere reflection, or a snapshot-collection of our reality. However others may contest that on-line in itself is a different life, another entity, one we can easily manipulate and alter as we please. After all, perception on-line is heightened. You control what you want to be seen. Edit, fix, use photoshop and all other kinds of alterations. You can stare at the same face for hours, studying profile pictures and albums and reading previous comments, creating ones and monitoring anybody (who’s your ‘friend’) including yourself.

To me, it is a form of vanity. Apart from myself, there are others.

And others are in form of friends and family.

See, this is the point where I technically surrender to the ‘Facebook Way’. Yes, it’s an admittance. Yes, it feels like some sort of defeat. Yes, I’m back.

But this time, for better reasons.

I once began Facebook for the sake of reminiscing; your typical high school story where she wanted to see her old friends check out their old photos. (Not so old!!!)

And then it snowballed into something bigger, and I realized I was tweaking my profile more frequently than I should.

Saying all these things, simply to point out that I’m finally accepting what I have intentionally neglected for this long.

There have been various reasons, and when I say various, I really mean a variety. From ex-boyfriend issues, to photo-lifestyle-pseudo-competitions, to account-hacker(s) and not to mention, creepy stalkers who keep on adding you and God knows whether they’re just changing their profile pics every time it’s a new one.

There were many reasons why I had to just quit. I couldn’t help but think what other profilers thought of me, that anyone smart enough can hack in, no matter how tough Facebook can protect my account. But I always worried about my long-time friends who would ask me when we bump into each other, ‘Where are you in Facebook?’ . ‘Did you de-activate your account?’ , ‘Come back na kasi!’ , ‘If you’re serious about blogging, get your Facebook back.’ , ‘Just don’t add him/her when you get another one.’

None of those arguments could persuade me. Not really.

Especially not if I wrote not long ago a blog-article pertaining to my delirium over Facebook, and how much it can consume my time, even if it was in fact, little. (The fact that I obsessed over the details makes it feel so invested. Couldn’t believe myself that I was committed to an on-line representation. It was a little too shocking to me, basically because not all the applications or status messages or fan pages could define who we really are, let alone what we show in our reality-space-in-the-flesh lives.)

It was my loved ones. You know, those people who supported and loved me thru thick and thin; Who loved seeing me in Facebook and getting in touch with me with just a click, typing here and there.

I can’t bear it for long…not having to show them our precious taken memories from mere cameras and have it display in the most influential on-line network yet.

FYI. I’m back because this time, no strings attached, I’m coming in just as me. For myself first, and consequently for others. I’m going to use Facebook to help me understand myself, my friends and all the colourful interests invested by other people. I’ll try my best to be more careful. But knowing Cyberspace, let alone life, that’s never genuinely possible.

Technically, I’m taking the risk.

Where it all boils down

Nature literally ate thru my memories.

Our house have always had the problem of termites to deal with. For one, they love to make houses from the ridges of our walls and two, they eat anything (of course) in their midst made out of wood.

So we made adjustments as called for and transformed storage areas into compartments of glass, pyro-glass, and even ended up making our interior look stylishly modern.

My custom-made closet, which was used to be made out of wood became steel & glass with a touch of mirrors. I had the liberty of having a shelf made out of glass, and has now served a great purpose in my room.

However, our second floor is still made out of narra, and as we still prefer to keep our narra despite natural crises (there was a time it flooded in our second floor thru the terrace, and the narra broke up along the edges, so we had to get used to the uneven floor then on) I find myself still battling it out with the ambitious termites.

They went under and up in my supposedly invincible shelf, however do not fret, no, thank God, they did not eat my books, unfortunately, they ate my 'time capsules', boxes made out of italian paper filled with cards and papers from long-ago memories that I so wished to preserve.

Out of a bundle, only four items survived:

A small Christmas card from my best friend.

A singing competition ticket where I supported friends, not to mention a crush (I leave notes at the back of receipts and some tickets).

Another Christmas card from the people I work with at Church.

Yet another Christmas card from my mentor at the university.

A Valentine's card from my dear parents.

And lastly, an invitation card, the 'prototype', I spared for myself from my 18th birthday, my debut.

It gave me the chills when all the cards that had something to do with the Holy Family were competely preserved. Scratches here and there, but it's still crisp and clean over-all. I can run my finger on the paper's matte surface and it felt as if it was just bought.

These items remained intact.

But what they stand for is what baffled me the most.

They were the people I trusted. Loved. And cared for.

They represented my family, my friends, my womanhood, and most of all, my faith.

It all boils down to the essentials.

Even if everything else are taken away,

the most important things stay.

Today, I was reminded of that. Though in an unusual form, a reminder still.

Steady Burn

Is it either none or everything?

When Black and White becomes too hard, too serious, too forlorn, is that when other colours start flooding the picture?

I remember saying how simple everything is, that only man makes things complicated.

But had I bothered to ask why?

As much as I hate complicated, when people say life isn’t simple, that it’s complicated, is it because we made all these rules and regulations, all these exceptions and limitations that we may have actually blinded ourselves from the simplicity of reality, only because we couldn’t take it?

Or is it, that precisely because we couldn’t take it, adding colours apart from black and white seemed to be the practical solution of living with reality; make this, make that, do this, do that, then you can have this, you can have that. Because by chance, if black and white was all there were, we couldn’t have worked hard for it, or it was all too easy to burn, or too easy to fly.

In the beginning there were only two coulours. And then as I grew older, I saw a hint of blue, a hint of red, and then some yellow, a splash of green and so on.

Have you ever tried burning all colours into one?

How majestic. Terrifying, but majestic.

Facebook Delirium: How Badly Do You Want It?

To be honest, it had come to a point that I wasn't able to share anything at least once a week.

Which technically defeated the premise and point of this blog.

However, as the point and focus is simply to publish an entry once a week, I shall commence in writing and continue what I started, despite the lapses of entries.

Facebook Delirium: How Badly Do You Want It?

Recently, I've just deleted my first and only Facebook Account that held 400+ friends, 0 applications and a couple of entries on poems, blog entries and my personal favourite, my history of status messages.

My turning point was staring at my Facebook personal page and waiting for people to comment on my photos or greet me with anything. I would type in status messages that was supposed to catch attention, or inspire thoughtful conversations. For a while it worked how I visualized it to. Definitely I was amazed by how far and fast Facebook could connect you to people.

Without even trying to talk to them up close, checking their profiles seem to be enough to tell you how they are at the moment.

And the same way could they identify with me.

I understand how creative and resourceful the mechanics of Facebook could be, but as the weeks pass by, I get the feeling that I was starting a habit that was bound to push thru if I didn't put a stop to it.

The question was, is it a bad habit, or a good one?

The nature of Facebook on the first place is most obviously understood from its welcome page,

'Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life.'

With that said, how can anyone not want to get a free account?

I put up an account for myself to share pictures from high school. I thought it was a long overdue responsibility to inform others that I have stolen snapshots of our good times together, and I took several of them that never got a place in any of our school yearbooks. So I finally decided to give it a place in Facebook.

It worked and I was an FB-user for almost a year.

My friends, I noticed, would constantly change their pictures, their stat messages, and update their activities. I was amazed by their snapshots and their fast-paced lives. I was personally motivated to document mine by regularly taking pictures of myself and updating my stat message according to my mood, or to a major activity/project I concerned myself with.

Until I got tired. My life. My current activities. Do they all have to be in Facebook? Because it's become so personal, it became so trendy, it was an Idea to reflect your every-moment or current position in the Internet by the powerful Facebook.

I was aware that other people deleted their accounts 'permanently' due to security reasons.

Although I have my own worries (my account had been hacked and FB asked me to change my password, and ever since I never left my Messages without deleting all traces of correspondence--which were my only FB treasures.)it wasn't really due to security reasons why I deleted it.

It felt like a fun-pressured rat-race. I know it's different for each one of us, but for me, Facebook became a place where you're ought to share something online if you care for your 'cyberspace-identity' or your online-representation.

The truth is that I can hardly keep up with my reality-space life. How much more for a cyberspace, Facebook-empowered identity?

It's still online. Despite the many blessings found in the Internet, let alone Facebook, I find that cyberspace is still a fickle world to trust in.

I still believe in technology however, which is why I rely on e-mails when it comes to online-correspondence or sharing of pictures. As for getting in-touch with my friends, texting is next to breathing here in the Philippines, and that comforted me at the thought of losing my FB account.

I may not be able to use all the 'cool' applications served in Facebook (which I never partook in on the first place; I always thought it was a waste of time--that I could've been doing more important things--which I did--instead of using them.) or 'connect with friends' the Facebook-way, but one thing's for sure:

Friends are friends, with or without Facebook.

Family is family, with or without Facebook.

However,

Facebook cannot serve its purpose, without the support of the people.

As for all Facebook-users, each has a grateful or special story to tell. I don't contest that. Even I have my own good memories in FB.

But it tires me and I find that it's been eating a lot of my time.

As good and tempting as it can be, I just don't want it any longer.