STAY, O sweet, and do not rise ;
The light that shines comes from thine eyes ;
The day breaks not, it is my heart,
Because that you and I must part.
Stay, or else my joys will die,
And perish in their infancy.
10 September 2012
Break of Day
STAY, O sweet, and do not rise ;
The light that shines comes from thine eyes ;
The day breaks not, it is my heart,
Because that you and I must part.
Stay, or else my joys will die,
And perish in their infancy.
07 August 2012
Godzilla
"When it rain and rain and rain and rains,
More than this,
Baby I hate days like" - Mika, Rain
As much as I'm hoping Chantecler would be rock-a-doodling me a "Sun Do Shine" tomorrow morning, I have pretty much resigned myself to the idea that tomorrow will be another cold, wet, wet, wet day. Right now, today's nonstop army of water bombs have tempered down into a stop-and-go of rain.
With flood water inundating most of the city, government officials have already issued a suspension of classes in varying levels depending on the gravity of the situation in their community for tomorrow. Whether or not it pours, surely, tomorrow would be a very busy day for everyone - cleaning up the aftermath of today's events.
I have no illusions that tomorrow will no longer render me another escape from my pencil pushing and I'm bound to face reality - as well as the big question of whether or not I'd be able to get back home if the weather decides to throw a major hissy fit. (First question's first, if the red sea would either subside overnight or let me conjure up a Moses to get to the office) Nonetheless, I'm taking up the last few minutes of my freedom to do something I've been meaning to do for quite sometime now - a little exhibition for my childhood toy, Godzilla.
Godzilla made up a big chunk of my childhood, as were Barbie dolls - though this figure seems to be more kick-ass compared to a grotesquely unproportioned sex-icon-of-a-doll. Not to mention, it's vintage! Anyway, growing up, I've watched several Japanese Godzilla features that I can no longer squeeze out from my immediate memory - nonetheless, I've always had great respect for this mother lizard. So without further ado, my little Godzilla tribute.
Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T3
Location: Manila Memorial Cemetery, Dasmarinas, Cavite
More than this,
Baby I hate days like" - Mika, Rain
As much as I'm hoping Chantecler would be rock-a-doodling me a "Sun Do Shine" tomorrow morning, I have pretty much resigned myself to the idea that tomorrow will be another cold, wet, wet, wet day. Right now, today's nonstop army of water bombs have tempered down into a stop-and-go of rain.
With flood water inundating most of the city, government officials have already issued a suspension of classes in varying levels depending on the gravity of the situation in their community for tomorrow. Whether or not it pours, surely, tomorrow would be a very busy day for everyone - cleaning up the aftermath of today's events.
I have no illusions that tomorrow will no longer render me another escape from my pencil pushing and I'm bound to face reality - as well as the big question of whether or not I'd be able to get back home if the weather decides to throw a major hissy fit. (First question's first, if the red sea would either subside overnight or let me conjure up a Moses to get to the office) Nonetheless, I'm taking up the last few minutes of my freedom to do something I've been meaning to do for quite sometime now - a little exhibition for my childhood toy, Godzilla.
Godzilla made up a big chunk of my childhood, as were Barbie dolls - though this figure seems to be more kick-ass compared to a grotesquely unproportioned sex-icon-of-a-doll. Not to mention, it's vintage! Anyway, growing up, I've watched several Japanese Godzilla features that I can no longer squeeze out from my immediate memory - nonetheless, I've always had great respect for this mother lizard. So without further ado, my little Godzilla tribute.
Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T3
Location: Manila Memorial Cemetery, Dasmarinas, Cavite
Ludwig and Jenna
Recently, my dad got my siblings two puppies of a Labrador/Dalmatian breed (so he claims). Excited with the new additions, they began throwing in so many names for the new family additions. Sushi? Amen? Alleli?
Eventually, they settled for Ludwig and Jenna. And two adorable puppies they are.
Ludwig is the more sedated of the two. Jenna, I daresay is the rambunctious and whiny one. Maybe a trait I somehow contended with, arguing that it might have been brought about by her gender. Occasionally, the siblings would have them running around the house and learning to climb the stairs - I cannot describe how cute it is to watch them pull themselves up while their little fat bums hang frustratingly at the edge of the stair.
Now, for my siblings to house-train them.
Eventually, they settled for Ludwig and Jenna. And two adorable puppies they are.
Ludwig is the more sedated of the two. Jenna, I daresay is the rambunctious and whiny one. Maybe a trait I somehow contended with, arguing that it might have been brought about by her gender. Occasionally, the siblings would have them running around the house and learning to climb the stairs - I cannot describe how cute it is to watch them pull themselves up while their little fat bums hang frustratingly at the edge of the stair.
Now, for my siblings to house-train them.
Touch the Sky
Princess Merida: "I don't want my life to be over...I want my freedom!"
Queen Elinor: "But are you willing to pay the price your freedom will cost?"
Touch the Sky
Julie Fowlis
Brave OST
When the cold wind is calling
And the sky is clear and bright
Misty mountains sing and beckon,
"Lead me out into the light"
I will ride, I will fly
Chase the wind and touch the sky
I will fly
Chase the wind and touch the sky
Where dark woods hide secrets
And mountains are fierce and bold
Deep waters hold reflections
Of times lost long ago
I will hear their every story
Take hold of my own dream
Be as strong as the seas are stormy
And proud as an eagle's scream
I will ride, I will fly
Chase the wind and touch the sky
I will fly
Chase the wind and touch the sky
Life is Divine Chaos
"Choosing to live your life by your own choice is the greatest freedom you will ever have." - Anonymous
Often times when I am in need of a release from the tensions of work, I'd friend-hop across the office for some QT with some trusted tongues. One such peer happened to have this little quotation magnet on her wall..
Life is too short to be keep bringing yourself down.
Life is too short... to keep regretting.
Often times when I am in need of a release from the tensions of work, I'd friend-hop across the office for some QT with some trusted tongues. One such peer happened to have this little quotation magnet on her wall..
"Life is Divine Chaos. Embrace it.
Forgive yourself. Breathe.
And enjoy the ride.."
Life is too short to be keep bringing yourself down.
Life is too short... to keep regretting.
Rainy Tuesday
"I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth." - Genesis 9:11
Not that I'm calling God a liar.
The weather condition here in Manila is not getting any prettier, rain keeps pouring down ceaselessly as it had been all night. Coming home from work last night, I rode with my immediate superior through EDSA, braving the god-forsaken traffic for more than three butt-flattening hours. I had feared that I might have to check in a hotel as several roads have already been blocked off and labelled as swimming pools. Thankfully, luck has been kind and I managed to arrive home in one, not-so-dry piece.
Waking up this morning, dad has groggily announced that everyone is to stay at home because of the downpour. We are not to risk anyone being a vigilante under this phenomenal circumstance. Twitter is abuzz with updates, as the main arteries of the metro are already submerged in rain water; a good portion of the streets are no longer deemed passable. Travelling to work under this situation is an obsessive suicide.
I had already sent an SMS to my immediate superior begging off work for the day - and even without receiving a response, have assumed to have been let off the hook. Nonetheless, she updated me and my colleagues mid day to inform us that as per our company's Human Resource, our offices are all open for employees who would care to come in. As for those who wish to be a bit more lazy-boned, focusing on their personal safety than their professional obligations, then the absence would be charged to our vacation leave credits (which I have already, so conveniently used up). I have also sent out a mass text to my colleagues informing them of my absence for the day and wishing them good health under this abhorrent weather - of which one of them responded with a why-u-no-come-to-work-while-we-all-were-able-to? Seeing the state of the city being up in red alert now, I am nursing my pride with a very satisfied schadenfreude.
Imagining the thousands of Filipino residents scrambling outside keeping their lives in order as their houses become encroached with rain water and garbage, I wonder if there is anything that I can do instead of just stay at home comfortably with a cup of hot chocolate and type away infront of my laptop.
It is kind of crippling to think, how in the world can I possibly extend a helping hand to those who are in need but at the same time, be safely tucked away in my own home with all my family and loved ones. Often times, we would resolve to donate some goods for charity during the aftermath of the craziness, after someone has already lost a leg, a car, a home, a family, a loved one. Then again, I can always be the hypocrite who preaches and still lazes about in my own little comfort nook.
Eric Greiten wrote in his admirable book, Heart and Fist, "If not me, then who?". Then again, if everyone thought the same way, I can safely answer, "The next guy asking the same question."
Although not very altruistic, I decided to do my immediate world a favor and clean up my room and other things that require my attention. This rain has served a perfect opportunity to straighten up my life somehow. As they say, you do not need to do big things to do great things. My life is in need of such great things.
Not that I'm calling God a liar.
The weather condition here in Manila is not getting any prettier, rain keeps pouring down ceaselessly as it had been all night. Coming home from work last night, I rode with my immediate superior through EDSA, braving the god-forsaken traffic for more than three butt-flattening hours. I had feared that I might have to check in a hotel as several roads have already been blocked off and labelled as swimming pools. Thankfully, luck has been kind and I managed to arrive home in one, not-so-dry piece.
Waking up this morning, dad has groggily announced that everyone is to stay at home because of the downpour. We are not to risk anyone being a vigilante under this phenomenal circumstance. Twitter is abuzz with updates, as the main arteries of the metro are already submerged in rain water; a good portion of the streets are no longer deemed passable. Travelling to work under this situation is an obsessive suicide.
I had already sent an SMS to my immediate superior begging off work for the day - and even without receiving a response, have assumed to have been let off the hook. Nonetheless, she updated me and my colleagues mid day to inform us that as per our company's Human Resource, our offices are all open for employees who would care to come in. As for those who wish to be a bit more lazy-boned, focusing on their personal safety than their professional obligations, then the absence would be charged to our vacation leave credits (which I have already, so conveniently used up). I have also sent out a mass text to my colleagues informing them of my absence for the day and wishing them good health under this abhorrent weather - of which one of them responded with a why-u-no-come-to-work-while-we-all-were-able-to? Seeing the state of the city being up in red alert now, I am nursing my pride with a very satisfied schadenfreude.
Imagining the thousands of Filipino residents scrambling outside keeping their lives in order as their houses become encroached with rain water and garbage, I wonder if there is anything that I can do instead of just stay at home comfortably with a cup of hot chocolate and type away infront of my laptop.
It is kind of crippling to think, how in the world can I possibly extend a helping hand to those who are in need but at the same time, be safely tucked away in my own home with all my family and loved ones. Often times, we would resolve to donate some goods for charity during the aftermath of the craziness, after someone has already lost a leg, a car, a home, a family, a loved one. Then again, I can always be the hypocrite who preaches and still lazes about in my own little comfort nook.
Eric Greiten wrote in his admirable book, Heart and Fist, "If not me, then who?". Then again, if everyone thought the same way, I can safely answer, "The next guy asking the same question."
Although not very altruistic, I decided to do my immediate world a favor and clean up my room and other things that require my attention. This rain has served a perfect opportunity to straighten up my life somehow. As they say, you do not need to do big things to do great things. My life is in need of such great things.
23 July 2012
16 July 2012
08 July 2012
07 July 2012
Love?
"When you meet somebody and you just get that feeling like you've known them forever. And they're definitely a part of your life and you can't imagine life without them and you want to be with them every minute of everyday and share everything with them, That's love."
- Paper Heart, 2009
06 July 2012
In the Pursuit of Love
Arriving home from a chatter filled evening with my "Quiricada" girls - a sort-of three-girl therapy session where we shamelessly become possessed with the gift of tongues and semi-truths and coach each other through our personal dark ages into our individual epiphanic renaissances, I am filled with awe and excitement as one of the girls have taken a route not so commonly taken - in the pursuit of love.
In a seemingly desperate fit to win back the man she thought to have lost years back, she spontaneously booked a ticket for a flight tomorrow to meet him - without plans, without any guarantees - just that adrenaline pumped leap of faith that things will work out. Que Sera Sera.
He had come back from another country a few days back and what she initially planned to be a very direct and innocent confrontation between the two ex-lovers have quickly blossomed into a whirlwind adventure that stands without the conventional foundations of a concrete boy-girl relationship. He had come here without the intention of seeing her, and I guess, with how things have progressed, he too, was taking his chances of seeing how things could work out the second time around.
A day after his arrival, he flew to the province to visit his family (this, he re-booked, to stay one day in Manila to spend it with her). And although they were beginning to get cozy with each other like the "good old days", minor misunderstandings have begun to rise and with the kitchen unintentionally getting a little hotter - temper wise, she decided to make the stand and try to win him back.
Friend: "Do you think it low of me to do such a thing?"
Kat: "Not at all. You are following your heart. If he is worth all the hassle, then go ahead."
Friend: "Won't that scare him?"
Kat: "It shouldn't. And it's not really about him entirely. At least, if things didn't work out (*knock on wood), you can say that you did everything you can to win him back."
When you love someone, you fight for them. You stand up for them. You take that leap of faith for them. Even in the bleakest of times, when all hope seems to have diminished, I believe that even a hint of initiative can bring down a dam full of pent-up emotions. I admire people who can valiantly pursue their love. Take on that adventure. Live without the regret that they never did enough. Live without the regret of what if's and shoulda woulda coulda's. Do what I can't seem to do for myself.
In a seemingly desperate fit to win back the man she thought to have lost years back, she spontaneously booked a ticket for a flight tomorrow to meet him - without plans, without any guarantees - just that adrenaline pumped leap of faith that things will work out. Que Sera Sera.
He had come back from another country a few days back and what she initially planned to be a very direct and innocent confrontation between the two ex-lovers have quickly blossomed into a whirlwind adventure that stands without the conventional foundations of a concrete boy-girl relationship. He had come here without the intention of seeing her, and I guess, with how things have progressed, he too, was taking his chances of seeing how things could work out the second time around.
A day after his arrival, he flew to the province to visit his family (this, he re-booked, to stay one day in Manila to spend it with her). And although they were beginning to get cozy with each other like the "good old days", minor misunderstandings have begun to rise and with the kitchen unintentionally getting a little hotter - temper wise, she decided to make the stand and try to win him back.
Friend: "Do you think it low of me to do such a thing?"
Kat: "Not at all. You are following your heart. If he is worth all the hassle, then go ahead."
Friend: "Won't that scare him?"
Kat: "It shouldn't. And it's not really about him entirely. At least, if things didn't work out (*knock on wood), you can say that you did everything you can to win him back."
When you love someone, you fight for them. You stand up for them. You take that leap of faith for them. Even in the bleakest of times, when all hope seems to have diminished, I believe that even a hint of initiative can bring down a dam full of pent-up emotions. I admire people who can valiantly pursue their love. Take on that adventure. Live without the regret that they never did enough. Live without the regret of what if's and shoulda woulda coulda's. Do what I can't seem to do for myself.
05 July 2012
04 July 2012
Happiness
It is common advice,
Do what would make you happy.
And if I did..
I might be struggling with infamy
Or have already been shot dead with my blood watering the pavement
Light headed and blindly high on some drug-like euphoria
Brought about by a temporary perception of happiness.
My heart pounding wildly
In ecstatic revelation of a new discovery
My blood fat with glorious indulgences
Filling every inch of me with that experience.
If I did what would make me happy,
Will I really end up happy?
Then again,
I may end up feeling like a heap of shards
Prometheus-ly incarnating back into a fragile decor
Only to fall back
Down down down
And cracking into little pieces of worthless value.
Do what would make you happy.
"Happiness is over-rated."
29 June 2012
12 June 2012
What Makes You Happy?
In the absence of a clear cut map in achieving my existential purpose, I resorted to piecing together fragments of advises people have been throwing at me since Day 1 of my sensibilities. I guess, our memories can be faulted for being so emotionally programmed - retaining only bits of information that have managed a strong impact on one's person. Seems that for most times, little life lessons get washed away into the big, deep ocean of our minds. Retrievable through extensive excavation, but with no guarantees of success. Other times, people's philosophies overlap into a confusing debate of what's right or wrong - the goods and the bads - the blacks and the whites - and safety of the grays in between.
In a fairly recent discourse with my dad, we've managed to touch on several issues regarding my life and future. And as much as he has given me his thoughts on matters, his wisest action (though not very relieving)is to leave the decision onto my hands. Pontius Pilate.
Again, I would live to delve into the concept of everyone going through a "solo flight" through life. Sometimes I wish I can find the auto-pilot button somewhere. Despite how our choices would ripple out into our web of connections, the most important consideration is "what makes you happy." Dad, though not outrightly pointing it out, implied how he can give me a set of limitations and corresponding penalties for all my "wrong doings", but despite those hindrances, it is my will that will set me out if I intend to strive and attain what I want. Parents, people, laws can only set out the guidelines and the consequences resulting from deviance, but life itself has no rules. The game of life is as exciting and varied as you want it to be.
Reading George Martin's Game of Thrones and Ken Follet's Pillars of the Earth, one gets thrown out of their comfort zones into absorbing behaviors that are grotesquely barbaric, but completely feasible and frighteningly understandable given the period. They're not right, but in those times, what does it mean to be "right"? What is "right"? Quite often, I find myself floating back down into Milan Kundera's world of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being". How comforting it is to be understood by someone who can pen down your feelings into paper.
Society dictates the status quo, the norms and the proper etiquette and habits, but we know ourselves too well to know what is best for us. We can either fall in line, marked with a batch number and dispatched for public consumption. We can opt to go left and right, winding around some dangerous road and disappear from worldly knowledge. We can rocket ourselves to the moon and find the hidden Transformers space craft. We can start a war, or preach peace, or become a solution. We can struggle to survive or survive to struggle. Live to love or love to live. And in the end, it is a mere question of what would fulfill us, as a person.
What makes you happy?
In a fairly recent discourse with my dad, we've managed to touch on several issues regarding my life and future. And as much as he has given me his thoughts on matters, his wisest action (though not very relieving)is to leave the decision onto my hands. Pontius Pilate.
Again, I would live to delve into the concept of everyone going through a "solo flight" through life. Sometimes I wish I can find the auto-pilot button somewhere. Despite how our choices would ripple out into our web of connections, the most important consideration is "what makes you happy." Dad, though not outrightly pointing it out, implied how he can give me a set of limitations and corresponding penalties for all my "wrong doings", but despite those hindrances, it is my will that will set me out if I intend to strive and attain what I want. Parents, people, laws can only set out the guidelines and the consequences resulting from deviance, but life itself has no rules. The game of life is as exciting and varied as you want it to be.
Reading George Martin's Game of Thrones and Ken Follet's Pillars of the Earth, one gets thrown out of their comfort zones into absorbing behaviors that are grotesquely barbaric, but completely feasible and frighteningly understandable given the period. They're not right, but in those times, what does it mean to be "right"? What is "right"? Quite often, I find myself floating back down into Milan Kundera's world of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being". How comforting it is to be understood by someone who can pen down your feelings into paper.
Society dictates the status quo, the norms and the proper etiquette and habits, but we know ourselves too well to know what is best for us. We can either fall in line, marked with a batch number and dispatched for public consumption. We can opt to go left and right, winding around some dangerous road and disappear from worldly knowledge. We can rocket ourselves to the moon and find the hidden Transformers space craft. We can start a war, or preach peace, or become a solution. We can struggle to survive or survive to struggle. Live to love or love to live. And in the end, it is a mere question of what would fulfill us, as a person.
What makes you happy?
Green
Green is alive. Green highlights beauty, though not necessarily be the object of beauty. Green is fickle. Green is selective. Green can be evil and jealous. Green can be healthy. Green can be malicious. Green can be environmental.
Green is often misunderstood.
Independence
Today, we celebrate the Philippine Independence Day - that momentous, though seemingly hypocritical, occasion when the Philippines has declared independence from all the nations that have prostituted it.
Despite the special celebration of this non-working holiday, I find myself tied down and boggled with an enormous work load that refuses to take its weight off my chest. My brain feels like a shapeless mush being zapped and resuscitated with whatever will power is left in my person. Honestly, I am mentally fatigued and emotionally stressed. I guess this little experiment has gotten a bit out of hand, and the results I have wished to achieve from these measures seem to have deviated from my expected outcome. Draining myself into exhaustion, though for a period, has successfully stopped me from dwelling too much on my emotional combats - has backfired and inundated with me a whole new set of chest-gripping fears and nauseating symptoms. I have tried to avoid emotional crashes prior to sleeping, but overworking myself has merited me less sleep, laden with a jumble of work-related, list-making dreams. In my wake, I find myself curling into a ball and struggling against an intangible pair of hands around my throat. And I say, when I've regained my composure, all for the love of life and work.
Thus I begin to question if this is truly the thing I deem right for myself. With work, you'll have money and with money, you can buy independence, and with independence, eventually happiness. How much independence is there in a situation where you zombie-ly drag your feet to the office, cajole frustratingly with colleagues who 90% of the time think you're a bit too alien for their comprehension, massage your brain with an overload of information until you realize you've practically bruised it black and blue and then in the late hours of the night, scrape yourself off the pavement onto a public vehicle to commute home. Rinse and repeat. And when you get your paycheck, you realize that you don't have the time to do the activities that you want. Sacrifices have been made for the sake of ambition. I say, let's raise that flag of independence high enough so everyone can see. I am a working woman. I get paid. I have money. Honestly, right now, I just feel like a whore.
In the streets, there just seems to be a hundred signs reminding people to say "No.". Say "No" to drugs. Say "No" to abortion. Say "No" to oil hikes. Say "No" to graft and corruption. But these are the bad things. How about your dreams, little girl? How about making it big, little girl? How about saving up for that rainy day, little girl? And this little girl was taught to say "Yes", because I am ambitious, because I want to experience new things, because "there is so much more to life than" what I got right now. And the cycle continues. Not fully digesting the fact that too much of anything can be detrimental until its too late to turn back.
Often times, I've been told to find the balance, not to bite off more than I can chew, temper your ambitions. I guess, right now is the time that I ought to learn that lesson. My boss, a practical though sometimes devious man, has one special reminder that I try to keep to heart.
B: Expectations from you? I only have one. I want you to wake up every morning with a desire to come to work. If you want to come to work, you'll do your best and when you're at your best, that's when the results come in.
I wake up everyday, with an optimistic thought in my head that I can contribute much to my job. And because of such, and because I've finally found him as an ear to hear out my suggestions, I felt empowered to take on my day's work. But I guess, ambition is usually the strong point as well as the weakness of the young. Once you've progressed into a longer, less fruitful tenure, you realize that you're at a dead end and that life will just flow in and out like clockwork. Nothing will change until the battery finally dies out on you and someone else will be hired to take your spot.
Try to imagine being young in the company of pessimism. You hear them chatter, "So what if I give my best, I will never get anywhere anyway.", "I am not of the "promote-able" race. If only I have chinky eyes, maybe that would make all the difference." And although you know they mean well in aiding you, you also acknowledge the disappearance of initiative and drive in themselves (especially seeing your youth with more years to taste and run and experience). At times, this can be very contagious.
In school, I've often felt the barbaric mental race to get to the finish line in one piece. You battle your way through sleepless nights, piles of reading materials, and maybe a whole pitcher worth of caffeine. And when you finally make your case, presenting them to your judge and master, you take that sigh of relief and wait fidgeting for your grade. And when you receive that passing mark, you would feel an overwhelming sense of relief and success envelope you like its one of the most remarkable achievements in your life. At work, it becomes a completely different scenario. Or at my work, to say the least.
With little promise of a promotion and an assured pay every month, employees eventually would lose their battle spirits. Their battle scars are for naught and complacency is the best medication for such troubles. Dealing with onerous and painstakingly meticulous details become burdensome and somehow should be omitted out of the equation, if possible. Little issues become overtly exaggerated cases of insolence and stupidity. And with such a workforce, you are bound for stagnation.
I guess, being young and noticed for my contributions, I began to push myself to this point of physical, mental and perhaps emotional atrophy. A person can only have a certain degree of economic utility before he crumbles down into an absolute pile of garbage. In a sense, I am struggling to keep the balance. So with this scenario, let me highlight the two kinds of people I see - the overworked and the complacent. It is only recent that I've attained the overworked status, of which, I initially was very grateful for. As time progressed, I find that it was more than I bargained for, and I fear, there is no one I can request a share of load with. Everyone seems preoccupied with their little tasks and personal dramas and unspoken enmities.
At the expense of my social life and health, I have sacrificed a good deal for my work - and all for the sake of ambition. The thought hits me though, should any ill fate befalls me - what would happen? The company will merely get another ambitious creature to fill in my shoes and BAM! I'm as good as another folder in the cabinet. Thus you ask, how much should you give?
As I've found in the internet, quoted by Pearl Bailey, "A man without ambition is dead. A man with ambition but no love is dead. A man with ambition and love for his blessings here on earth is ever so alive." and Frances Burney writes, "A youthful mind is seldom totally free from ambition; to curb that, is the first step to contentment, since to diminish expectation is to increase enjoyment." There is nothing wrong to be ambitious, it is the dream that we build for ourselves in realizing who we can become. But once it begins to overstep one's personal space, binding you away from things that can make you alive - alive in the sense that your senses are heightened, that your love is free to wander and your soul is at its peak in unveiling life's mysteries - then perhaps that ambition is meant for the dead.
Ambition should aid in the achievement of independence. But quite contrary in our present modern lives, our independence seems to be at the mercy of ambition. And in certain cases, we realize too late that they are two brothers helping each other out - not a father and son tandem. They exist simultaneously, and the overindulgence of one can mean the loss of the other.
Despite the special celebration of this non-working holiday, I find myself tied down and boggled with an enormous work load that refuses to take its weight off my chest. My brain feels like a shapeless mush being zapped and resuscitated with whatever will power is left in my person. Honestly, I am mentally fatigued and emotionally stressed. I guess this little experiment has gotten a bit out of hand, and the results I have wished to achieve from these measures seem to have deviated from my expected outcome. Draining myself into exhaustion, though for a period, has successfully stopped me from dwelling too much on my emotional combats - has backfired and inundated with me a whole new set of chest-gripping fears and nauseating symptoms. I have tried to avoid emotional crashes prior to sleeping, but overworking myself has merited me less sleep, laden with a jumble of work-related, list-making dreams. In my wake, I find myself curling into a ball and struggling against an intangible pair of hands around my throat. And I say, when I've regained my composure, all for the love of life and work.
Thus I begin to question if this is truly the thing I deem right for myself. With work, you'll have money and with money, you can buy independence, and with independence, eventually happiness. How much independence is there in a situation where you zombie-ly drag your feet to the office, cajole frustratingly with colleagues who 90% of the time think you're a bit too alien for their comprehension, massage your brain with an overload of information until you realize you've practically bruised it black and blue and then in the late hours of the night, scrape yourself off the pavement onto a public vehicle to commute home. Rinse and repeat. And when you get your paycheck, you realize that you don't have the time to do the activities that you want. Sacrifices have been made for the sake of ambition. I say, let's raise that flag of independence high enough so everyone can see. I am a working woman. I get paid. I have money. Honestly, right now, I just feel like a whore.
In the streets, there just seems to be a hundred signs reminding people to say "No.". Say "No" to drugs. Say "No" to abortion. Say "No" to oil hikes. Say "No" to graft and corruption. But these are the bad things. How about your dreams, little girl? How about making it big, little girl? How about saving up for that rainy day, little girl? And this little girl was taught to say "Yes", because I am ambitious, because I want to experience new things, because "there is so much more to life than" what I got right now. And the cycle continues. Not fully digesting the fact that too much of anything can be detrimental until its too late to turn back.
Often times, I've been told to find the balance, not to bite off more than I can chew, temper your ambitions. I guess, right now is the time that I ought to learn that lesson. My boss, a practical though sometimes devious man, has one special reminder that I try to keep to heart.
B: Expectations from you? I only have one. I want you to wake up every morning with a desire to come to work. If you want to come to work, you'll do your best and when you're at your best, that's when the results come in.
I wake up everyday, with an optimistic thought in my head that I can contribute much to my job. And because of such, and because I've finally found him as an ear to hear out my suggestions, I felt empowered to take on my day's work. But I guess, ambition is usually the strong point as well as the weakness of the young. Once you've progressed into a longer, less fruitful tenure, you realize that you're at a dead end and that life will just flow in and out like clockwork. Nothing will change until the battery finally dies out on you and someone else will be hired to take your spot.
Try to imagine being young in the company of pessimism. You hear them chatter, "So what if I give my best, I will never get anywhere anyway.", "I am not of the "promote-able" race. If only I have chinky eyes, maybe that would make all the difference." And although you know they mean well in aiding you, you also acknowledge the disappearance of initiative and drive in themselves (especially seeing your youth with more years to taste and run and experience). At times, this can be very contagious.
In school, I've often felt the barbaric mental race to get to the finish line in one piece. You battle your way through sleepless nights, piles of reading materials, and maybe a whole pitcher worth of caffeine. And when you finally make your case, presenting them to your judge and master, you take that sigh of relief and wait fidgeting for your grade. And when you receive that passing mark, you would feel an overwhelming sense of relief and success envelope you like its one of the most remarkable achievements in your life. At work, it becomes a completely different scenario. Or at my work, to say the least.
With little promise of a promotion and an assured pay every month, employees eventually would lose their battle spirits. Their battle scars are for naught and complacency is the best medication for such troubles. Dealing with onerous and painstakingly meticulous details become burdensome and somehow should be omitted out of the equation, if possible. Little issues become overtly exaggerated cases of insolence and stupidity. And with such a workforce, you are bound for stagnation.
I guess, being young and noticed for my contributions, I began to push myself to this point of physical, mental and perhaps emotional atrophy. A person can only have a certain degree of economic utility before he crumbles down into an absolute pile of garbage. In a sense, I am struggling to keep the balance. So with this scenario, let me highlight the two kinds of people I see - the overworked and the complacent. It is only recent that I've attained the overworked status, of which, I initially was very grateful for. As time progressed, I find that it was more than I bargained for, and I fear, there is no one I can request a share of load with. Everyone seems preoccupied with their little tasks and personal dramas and unspoken enmities.
At the expense of my social life and health, I have sacrificed a good deal for my work - and all for the sake of ambition. The thought hits me though, should any ill fate befalls me - what would happen? The company will merely get another ambitious creature to fill in my shoes and BAM! I'm as good as another folder in the cabinet. Thus you ask, how much should you give?
As I've found in the internet, quoted by Pearl Bailey, "A man without ambition is dead. A man with ambition but no love is dead. A man with ambition and love for his blessings here on earth is ever so alive." and Frances Burney writes, "A youthful mind is seldom totally free from ambition; to curb that, is the first step to contentment, since to diminish expectation is to increase enjoyment." There is nothing wrong to be ambitious, it is the dream that we build for ourselves in realizing who we can become. But once it begins to overstep one's personal space, binding you away from things that can make you alive - alive in the sense that your senses are heightened, that your love is free to wander and your soul is at its peak in unveiling life's mysteries - then perhaps that ambition is meant for the dead.
Ambition should aid in the achievement of independence. But quite contrary in our present modern lives, our independence seems to be at the mercy of ambition. And in certain cases, we realize too late that they are two brothers helping each other out - not a father and son tandem. They exist simultaneously, and the overindulgence of one can mean the loss of the other.
24 May 2012
Please, God.
God, please send me an angel of comfort with swift wings and is on a double espresso high.
Just Saying..
Honestly...
There is a difference between getting through and getting over something.
Take your pick.
There is a difference between getting through and getting over something.
Take your pick.
Robbed
Car farts assaulting up my nostrils
As the uncouth engine of the jeepney whirred noisily
waiting to be aggravated into motion.
Radio was clamoring
"I like how it feels, oh-oh-oh-oh"
A lanky boy of maybe, nineteen
Slender and clean shaven
In his after work clothes
of a polo shirt and slacks
climbs onboard this clankity disgrace of a vehicle.
I like how it feels, oh-oh-oh.
He sits in front of me.
An innocent curve upon his lips
as he pulls out his fare pay
and cellular phone.
Giddily, it seems..
He presses away on his machine,
letter per letter
Eyes fixated on the text being birthed
onto the small glowing monitor.
With a final tap, he sends his message.
An unbridled scream of joy bursting from
within that innocent curve upon his lips
Awaiting intently for a response.
I like how it feels, oh-oh-oh-oh
To be young, and foolish and inlove.
"Para"
I called and got off the jeepney.
To be young, and foolish and inlove.
I like how it feels, oh-oh-oh.
Sigh.
04-30-12
23 May 2012
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start
If only the secrets of life and all that pertains to it, can be deciphered through some sort of Konami Code that would allow me full access to all the potential shortcuts to get what I want, then that would be..
a boring, un-challenging life.
But at least, I'll win every time...
...or not.
Sadly, there is no cow level..
22 May 2012
Goodbye, Love
Roger: Who are you to tell me what I know, what to do?
Mark: A friend.
Roger: But who, Mark, are you? "Mark has got his work", they say "Mark lives for his work and Mark's in love with his work" Mark hides in his work.
Mark: From what?
Roger: From facing your failure, facing your loneliness, facing the fact that you live a lie.
- Goodbye Love, Rent
In an attempt to drain myself to the point of mind-numbing exhaustion, I've volunteered my weekends (my, perhaps, only salvation to physical respite and mental defragmenting) to a seemingly overindulgent series of activities that would eventually merit me the burnout that I've, theoretically, deemed best for my present state of mind. High dosages of stress, both work related and otherwise, have already caused me a waning appetite for food and conversation, and I wonder how much further before I finally submit into the realm of complete withdrawal and depression. I guess my purpose for this seemingly self-destructive exposure is to drown out the annoying humdrum of my emotional confusion. In the state of tiredness, one is permitted the luxury of a peaceful rest, of a silenced mind, of a numbed-out soul.
During one of our midnight conversations, I've confessed to a friend my theory regarding feelings that subtly creep in the backdoor of your mind and go boogieing senselessly throughout the night. I've often wondered how in the light of day, I am mostly confident of myself, my abilities and most importantly, my decisions; but as the day kneels down to be blanketed by night, my steadfastness and confidence begin to shrivel into an abhorrent ball of self-pity and self-doubt. I begin to question the legitimacy and soundness of even the most logical of my decisions and at times, would act completely against my agreed mental terms (with myself), appeased disappointingly, though hopefully not regrettably, with a weak emotional justification. In the end, recognizing this to be a weak point, I've tried to keep my alone time as occupied as I possibly could, to detour my thoughts into other, less emotionally fueled workings - lest it be some creative work.
If only I can fashion a different and better approach in curbing this emotional avalanche from causing unspeakable destruction, believe me, I would've tried it.Lying in bed, surrounded by pillows and unspoken (and perhaps unrealized) emotions, I slowly become consumed in some of the craziest fantasies that often would prove impudent had it been conceived in the lucidity of day and clear headed contemplation. I begin to question my motives, my feelings and my decisions. I question my life and my achievements. I question reality, or the one that I seem to be existing in my physical state of consciousness.
It is in these moments, I feel the weight of being alone. My life is mine alone, and so shall all decisions that shall pass through me. I shall bear the burden of all my choices, and that is mine alone to comprehend and mother. In the absence of sleep, while everyone else have so happily succumbed to their rest, I struggle to achieve the same rest in vain, and this I would have to deal with alone. How often I have reached for the warmth of a hand to comfort me in my distress of insomnia, and how often I grasp an unresponsive one - increasing my frustration over my isolation, despite the presence of others.
Funny how people keep saying that no man is an island, for no man can be complete without the aid of others. But similarly, no man can depend upon others, as each one would go through the motions of his own personal tribulations - carrying his own cross, with all its weight and sentimental meanings, of which no other can completely share.
I wonder when this inexorable crush that's been choking me and thwarting my sanity will eventually subside. I wonder indeed. Until then, I shall be submitting myself in the service of my many niceties - smiling and praying that this internal loneliness shall too pass.
16 May 2012
All Things Will Unwind
Coming back from my non-blogging sojourn, I realized how neglected my little epiphanies on life have become. Stagnating at the bottom of my brain, decomposing hardly into anything that can be passed off as fertilizer to fuel more healthy, provocative thoughts.
I must admit, since the past year, I've encountered several turns in the wheel of life. Quite a handful of devastating, heart wreaking incidents have crippled me for some period, but somehow tempered by equally enriching and uplifting surprises from both friends and loved one, and on some occasions, from myself.
In the past few months, I guess I can be proud to profess that I've successfully cancelled out several items on my bucket list; gaining a few more though to hopefully slash out in the future.
Despite how everything seems to be falling apart for myself at the moment, I believe that in due time, everything will fall into their right place. Incidentally, I've been hooked on to a particular song by My Brightest Diamond, an indie sort of band that have twisted opera, rock and maybe some cabaret music together into an interesting blend of sound that seems to give off a Bjork-like impression on my memory. All Things Will Unwind, so far, is my favorite. And as the chorus would beckon, "Everything is in line, all things will unwind".
I am optimistic that this post will be the first of many others since an almost year long disappearance from the blogging sphere. Giving a written body to my thoughts, with hopes of immortalizing them in the confines of my internet-based ramblings wall. Pray, this goal proves sustainable given my present conditions.
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