what we are not

earlier today, i rode the bus going to the university where i work at. i was looking at my watch every now and then, probably because i was running late. the trip is also the time when i gather my thoughts for the day's activities, preparing what approach i would use for the lectures.
i had a seven a.m. class. just ten minutes before seven, a girl about eleven or twelve of age sat beside me, she was also on her way to attend school based on the fact that she was wearing a school's uniform. before she sat she patted my shoulders signaling me to move a bit. i was a bit busy with thinking how my day would go. i looked at her and moved to give her some space so she could sit. while seated, i noticed she tried to look at me for several seconds and tried to look at the other direction. she was probably observing. after some seconds of silence, probably thinking if she should speak or not, she looked at me and ask in a very gentle and innocent tone: "padi ca po?"(are you a priest?). a question which i didn't really expect.
i did not have a ready answer so in silence i slightly turned my head from side to side to mean no. i did not see her reaction. after a few minutes she went ahead to attend school. while on the bus i contemplated on what could have made that girl ask that kind of question?

last sunday's sermon is somehow related to what had happened this morning. the celebrant talked about the real essence of a human being by discussing what man is not. he mentioned three important things that we are not supposed to identify ourselves with.
the first is that we are not what we own. we are not what we have. it is wrong to identify ourselves with our possessions or properties clearly because the essence of man is not only limited to tangible things.
secondly, we are not what other people say. the point here is to look at how we are living our lives, are we slaves of good reputation? do we always please people by acting according to what they want? again, the real self is not dependent on how other people see us and what they say about us. it's something more than that.
third, we are not what we can do. it is not right to equate ourselves with our talents, our job and even our achievements. there certainly is something more than the things we can do.

is it already clear to us that we are not to identify ourselves with the three things?
are we fond of looking at the things we have and boast about them? do we always pattern our lives to the notion that other people should see us untarnished? do we tend to please other people more often, to the point of false humility? do we claim that we are what we do? that the self is no different from our work or our talents? do we limit ourselves to these things?
half of the year is over but it's never too late to rethink the way we see life. the way we value ourselves. the things we identify ourselves with. we have to be aware of one simple fact: that we human beings were certainly made for greater things.

kairos*

Let me start today's reflection with a short story about two monks and a lady, here it is:

A senior monk and a junior monk were traveling together. At one point, they came to a river with a strong current. As the monks were preparing to cross the river, they saw a very young and beautiful woman also attempting to cross. The young woman asked if they could help her.

The senior monk carried this woman on his shoulder, forded the river and let her down on the other bank. The junior monk was very upset, but said nothing.

They both were walking and the senior monk noticed that his junior was suddenly silent and inquired "Is something the matter, you seem very upset?"

The junior monk replied, "As monks, we are not permitted to touch a woman, how could you then carry that woman on your shoulders?"

The senior monk replied, "I left the woman a long time ago at the bank, however, you seem to be carrying her still."

reflection:

several minutes ago i turned our calendar to what month it's supposed to be, half of the year has ended, i'd say very quickly. in about four or five months we will start worrying about the holidays. more than two weeks ago i went to an island called maculabo, i still  don't know the origin of the name but it sure was a great place. the trip was something "unplanned",  because it only took us less than thirty minutes to decide that we definitely have to go there.  aside from the beautiful beach, beautiful means white sand and azure waters in this case, we also trekked to see the rock formation on the other side of the island. it reminded me of the photos i've seen of batanes, windy grasslands and cliffs and the vast sea. i also had a chance to gain new friends (see facebook). different walks of life. different motivations why they went to the place. we drank cuatro cantos (ginebra san miguel),  and ate really good food except for the grilled liempo which was tough. i had a hard time chewing the meat.  i got to experience stillness in the middle of a mild storm inside a tent, which was dripping along with the rains. it wasn't waterproof, we just found out that night and accepted the hard fact that it just wasn't waterproof.

in about an hour i will be in front of my class and will start my lecture about the ten principles of economics by greg mankiw, an economist based in harvard. i will be talking to sophomore students, deciding what major to pursue, and i need to sound very convincing to entice them to take ageconomics as their major. talk about vested interests.

when asked what i am doing right now, i'd say i'm typing this while reflecting, and going back once in  a while to sip coffee. that's what i'm exactly doing right now, which in just a matter of milliseconds will become part of human history, part of the past. what's good about the future, i've heard, is that it's not here yet. what's good about the past, i'd say, is that it's not here anymore.
and the present? what can we say about the present? the present simply comes to pass in a matter of milliseconds.gone even before you think it is. so we never really own time. so we never really have the chance to hold on to our precious time. it's similar to writing about that island while i'm sitting inside my room.

sequential events. we look at the quantitative nature of time, for instance, how long it would take to write this without me being late for class. we look back and we look ahead. we are aware that it is finite. limited.

*the qualitative nature of time. definition

photo by ms. trish benitez

remembering blaise pascal

It was Blaise Pascal's 387th birthday last Saturday. His work Pensees is the inspiration of this blog. I encountered that book back when I was in high school. Until now, i still find time to read his brilliant piece of work. 

It created in me an awareness of the mystery of human life and even the existence of God, that in each of us- no matter how incomprehensible things are, there is this sanctuary inside where we can contemplate and reflect. 
Even if it has been more than 380 years, his writings on the nature of human life still applies.still observable.
Some things indeed never change. Here's to inconstancy, boredom, and anxiety.

on humor

Brother John entered the "Monastery of Silence" and the Abbott said,"Brother, this is a silent monastery; you are welcome here as long as you like, but you may not speak until I direct you to do so."

Brother John lived in the monastery for five years before the Abbott said to him, "Brother John, you have been here five years now; you may speak two words."

Brother John said, "Hard bed."

"I'm sorry to hear that," the Abbot said. "We will get you a better bed."

After another five years, Brother John was called by the Abbott. "You may say another two words, Brother John."

"Cold food," said Brother John, and the Abbott assured him that the food would be better in the future.

On his 15th anniversary at the monastery, the Abbott again call Brother John into his office. "Two words you may say today."

"I quit," said Brother John.

"It is probably best, you've done nothing but complain since you got here." *




let's leave politics to the politicians for now. we're still in that stage of being hopeful mixed with a certain degree of apathy. we are somehow hopeful that the new president will do something new or something redemptive and we are somehow apathetic since we tend to go back to that basic question, "what's new?" politics has always been and will always be dirty.

now on to that serious matter, i have been reflecting on how this blog has progressed or developed in terms of maturity and depth. i noticed that the flow has been that of a serious tone, an inclination to sound absolute given the inconsistencies of life. some entries have made me and the readers laugh, probably about ten percent of the whole blog. yes, i'm talking about humor or simply the ability to laugh. let's ask ourselves one basic question: when was the last time i really had a good laugh? if your answer goes like "i can't remember" or "it's been about a year" and you're asking why all things are going wrong and life has become chaotic. then you may be taking things too seriously or you just don't have any clear reason as to why you should laugh.

the word "life" is not and will never be synonymous to the word "problem". try to remember the time when you laughed, it simply made things light. it's quite clear that it's not the problems that come, they're part of the package for as long as we are alive, it's how we deal with them. cheerfulness is one way of coping with life's ups and downs. i seldom meet cheerful people, they sure have their own share of problems but they know how to handle them.

so laugh when there's an opportunity to do so. what's good about laughter is that there's no rule as to how you should do it. it comes naturally and with such spontaneity. there's no such thing as a bad laugh. be it the basic "hahaha" or simple "hehe". we should, however, be aware of the things we laugh at. it shouldn't be something out of sarcasm, bad jokes and even the misfortune of other people. the intention should be clean, it shouldn't be a cause of insult. other than the considerations mentioned, laughing is easy. it's never too late to laugh again.

one last thing, i have observed that laughter is contagious. i suggest that we start collecting humorous jokes and experiences. start sharing them. laughter is one of those contagious acts which makes other people feel well.


*from this site

ode to philippine poverty

yes, they all want to serve, them who are running for public office. and most of them are running in the name of poverty. the political ads of one presidential candidate, with that cheerful melody, tells us about the glory of poverty. the lyrics points to him as the one who is truly poor.
'mahirap'- poor.he was born poor.he was once poor, bathed in a sea of garbage, spent christmas in the streets.
another candidate is claiming that he also had his share of suffering, because he saw how his mom and dad suffered.'naghirap'-suffered.
lastly, we have a presidentiable who is 'para sa mahirap'- for the poor or pro-poor.

they are fighting against poverty.one is saying that if there's no corruption in the government no one will be poor.this is the same person who had been given a public position for more than ten years.the other one would like to eradicate poverty, given six years as the president of the country, how can he totally get rid of poverty? we're talking about millions of citizens here.
the question is, why only now? they were all there seated in the senate or congress and they've only thought of fighting poverty now.
it's funny, the elite trying to own or grab poverty itself.
they really want to own practically almost everything...even poverty!
now is the time to really think whom we should vote for.

it's certainly not the one who has highly praised poverty.
it's certainly not the one who's claiming he had his share of suffering.
it's the one who has served and continues to serve.
let's not just depend on conscience, today we have to be logical.
it's not much of what we feel, it's more of having a solid basis or reason why we should vote for our preferred candidates.

a parable on modern life

Here's something from Anthony de Mello's book "The Song of the Bird".

A Parable on Modern Life

The animals met in assembly and began to complain

that humans were always taking things from them.

"They take my milk," said the cow.

"They take my eggs," said the hen.

"They take my flesh for bacon," said the hog.

"They hunt me for my oil," said the whale.

Finally the snail spoke. "I have something they would

certainly take away from me if they could.

Something they want more than anything else.

I have TIME."

-You have all the time in the world, if you would give it to yourself.What's stopping you?

personal reflection:

what's stopping you? yes, it's also worth our time to reflect about TIME, it's one of the most important intangible elements in man's existence. so how do we spend our time?does it go to trivial things?or to where it's supposed to be spent?is it being consumed just to satisfy our personal interests?making money?does some of it go to the needy?the people who needs a bit of our time?or is it concentrated to fill our pleasure-seeking appetite?can we really claim for ourselves that we are using it wisely?or are we simply wasting it?it's very rare when we meet people saying they have so much time.it's always the case of 'i don't have enough time.' we can't add to what has been established as twenty four hours, we can't even deduct an hour or a minute from it. we simply have to sort things out. we have to identify what activities do not deserve our time, they are the so-called 'time-wasters'. i think everyone has them. we simply have to eliminate these time-wasters and devote that time to more productive things.

lastly, let us learn how to be more appreciative of this valuable

gift. time is actually how we often measure life.how we spend it can actually say something about what kind of people we are.

photo taken from this site

of accidents and gentle giants

inputs are welcome but my IT is absolute!-->first day
0900 - met Darwyn, Janice and Lee at Naga Van Terminal.left Naga for Legazpi City. we rode a van (150.00). we were supposed to meet at 8am but i arrived late because i had to attend an important event, which i personally understand to be a higher good.
1120 - Legazpi City Grand Terminal. there was a miscommunication as we were to meet Mel and Pompo in Daraga terminal. we just rode the van going to Pilar from the Grand Terminal, had two seats reserved and decided to pass by Daraga Terminal for Mel and Pompo. we also ate lunch before we went to Pilar.
1200 - van left bound to Pilar, Sorsogon (66.60). the two groups merged and discussed the miscommunication.I said I don't think the words 'shell' and 'church' were in the itinerary (and rechecking the itinerary after the trip, i was right).
1315 - arrived at Pilar Port (Sorsogon), the group asked around, we were after the fast craft which according to the schedule, left at twelve noon. we were just hopeful we could still catch that trip. given the situation, we decided to follow plan B, ride a snail vessel, in our case it was Gloria 10 which took three hours to reach our destination. after paying the terminal fee (5.00) the fare (200.00) we went to the boat.
1330 - travel to masbate.Gloria 10 had a capacity of 108 passengers, familiar sight was life vests tucked on the 'ceiling' and lots of pineapple at the back part. how did we spend the travel time? we played cards and took photos of the rock formation/islets (monreal island).some slept during the trip.
1630 - masbate port. we were in hurry since we were after the van trip to sha's place. we were informed that the trip actually stops at sun down (according to pompo). sounds really primitive but we were all looking at the sun. we rode the trike to the terminal and met joseph (sha's husband), good thing he was able to save some seats on the van. we left at 1700.


1700 - trip to cabitan. above is one of the photos i took while riding the van. the high speed ride and motion gave that surreal effect. this was taken at dusk.
1830 - arrived at cabitan, joseph was already there, he went ahead of us with his motorbike. we paid the fare (80.00) then rode the motorbike to sha's place (10.00)
1845 - after that long and winding trip, we finally arrived at sha's place,really cozy.after that warm welcome, she prepared dinner. we ate at 1930, the food was hearty just like how our host welcomed us. after dinner, we gathered for the reunion proper along with the videoke and the mixed brandy and iced tea drink. it was a recollection of old memories, about ten years ago there was our batch, jovellanos. 0130 - it was time for us to get some rest.


sh*t happens.-second day
0600 - with less than 5 hours of sleep, we woke up to prepare for the day's activities. ate breakfast and took a bath. sha told us that there was a bus bound for masbate city proper at 0700, we were waiting just outside the compound but no bus came. we decided to go directly to mandaon as it would mean longer waiting time if we decided to ride the van in cabitan. we rode the motorbike (40.00) and the travel time took almost thirty minutes.
0730 - left mandaon. van ride (100.00) took more than an hour before we arrived at the city proper. most of us slept during the trip to compensate for lack of it.
0905 - arrived at the van terminal and discussed the itinerary. there were three destinations that day. we omitted one (baleno)since we found out that it would consume a lot of time just going there. we decided to go to the nearest destination (buntod reef) and then mobo island at 1400 (later this would change due to some uncontrollable event). we've arranged the transpo for the afternoon event, rent a van to mobo.we rode the trike to barangay tugbo, place near buntod reef, we dropped by a certain resort and the drivers were informed to ask permission from the mayor of masbate. and so we went to the mayor to ask for his kind permission, the mayor told us 'you don't need any permit, it's open to the public'. we went back to barangay tugbo, the trike drivers looked for their banca (small about) operator contact residing somewhere along the road. after several minutes of negotiation we settled for a transpo fee of 600.00, back and forth.
1000 - left for buntod reef. it was a 15-minute boat ride.we didn't think much about the scorching heat of the sun as we were struck with awe.for me it was like calaguas the second time around. we took photos of the place. they swam. some parts were filled with mangroves.spent about two hours savoring nature.
1155 - on our way back to masbate proper, when our banca was just about five hundred meters before it reaches the shore, our puny banca capsized.caused by a big wave, an imbalance in the support and somehow my heavy weight. it happened so fast, all i can hear was janice shouting 'O! O! O!' and 'bag ko! bag ko!' (my bag! my bag!). luckily there was another banca passing by, signaled us that they'll come. when the banca was about to capsize, i already knew that it was certainly going to happen.my mind went blank when the banca capsized. i didn't know what to do. it was only after a few seconds when i realized that i was swimming to save my life. i tried to look for my bag, it wasn't there.maybe it sank. the functional banca brought us to a resort. there we stayed for a few hours to dry our things. after about thirty minutes, they retrieved the three missing bags. all soaked and drenched. yes. my cellphone expired because of that accident. i had it fixed but it's a hopeless case. while on the resort we had to share our personal experiences on what happened. we share the same thing: blank thoughts while the boat turned except for janice who was yelling because she was worried about her bag. we had a good laugh at what happened contrary to what we're supposed to feel as a normal reaction to what happened.
1540 - after drying our clothes and eating lunch with two bottles of my favorite cerveza we decided to cancel our mobo trip and left the resort to transfer to a hotel in the city proper. checked in at gv hotel (650.00 two heads/room, additional 250 for an extra bed. we occupied two rooms as there were six of us.
1630 - we prepared for a walk at the city proper, pompo decided to have his cellphone fixed, marilee and janice went to buy some clothes, mel, darwyn, and i joined pompo.we waited more than an hour only to know that they can't fix pompo's phone. after this frustrating realization, we tried to look for the souvenir shop selling cowboy hats, darwyn wanted to buy one. it took us about an hour before we found the place, and when we arrived the shop was already closed. most stores close at six in the evening.
1900 - ate dinner at odi's. we were all starving. we ordered bulalo and rice meals. pompo shouldered about seventy percent of the total expenses.too bad they didn't have my favorite cerveza.
2100 - went back to the hotel. i took a bath since the walk made me sweat a lot and the night was quite warm even with the airconditon on, probably because the walls absorbed some heat in the afternoon. we gathered at the girl's room since it was cool in there, we were able to do some post-event analysis/evaluation and came up with the resolution: texting while boating is really dangerous (from what janice experienced).
we also discussed the itinerary for the next day: wake up at three thirty in the morning because the fast craft to pilar leaves at four.
2200 - slept early because we were all somehow tired. paradise and accident all experienced within a day.



yudisota!-third day
0400 - it's clear that we did not wake up according to the itinerary, just packed our things and went to masbate port. the fast craft has already left. a coincidence maybe, Gloria 10 vessel (200.00) was there and would leave at six thirty, we ate our breakfast of goto with egg (rice porridge)(40.00, goto with egg is 30.00 and since we ate egg there was an additional 10.00-we were all confused) and waited at the boat.
0630 - boat left for pilar, sorsogon. stayed outside the boat to view the rock formation and talk to a masbateno who happens to be a social studies teacher. also watched some dolphins and flying fish. the weather was fair. i spent almost 3 hours just watching and reflecting a bit.
0930 - arrived at pilar port(5.00 terminal fee again). bought some lanzones (Lancium domesticum) from Camiguin (50.00), sweet, no doubt it's from Camiguin. we looked for the jeep bound to donsol and found it passing just in front of pilar church.
0945 - rode the jeep to donsol (15.00)
1030 - arrived at donsol, rode the trike (20.00) to barangay dancal.
1045 - registered at the municipal tourism office. registration is 100.00 and boat rate is 685.00 per head with an additional 250.00 if you'd opt to rent their flippers and mask.

1100 - met sir gerry, our guide and 'life saver' along with the spotter (spots the whale shark) and two banca operators. for two hours we spotted about five whale sharks. my first and second attempt to go after the whale shark failed. the second attempt made me tired, i was swimming towards our banca which was quite far, i gulped about a liter of seawater, and i signaled for help. sir gerry swam and saved me.thanks to him i'm still alive. i rested on the third and fourth sighting. the fifth attempt was successful, the whale shark was just below my feet when i watched, serenely swimming. that's where they got the 'gentle giants'. gigantic yet serene creatures.

1300 - went back to mainland donsol.took a bath. drank a bottle of cold cerveza and bought some souvenirs.a nice way to end whale shark watching.

1345 - rode the trike to giddy's, a resto which the trike driver recommended. again, we were all starving. i'd say the food was pricey but wasn't that good.

1445 - road trike to van terminal bound for legazpi (10.00). ate halo halo at the terminal since we were waiting for passengers to fill the van.

1530 - van trip to legazpi (60.00). as expected, we all slept during the trip.

1630 - arrived at legazpi grand terminal. rode the van bound to naga(150.00). yes, we slept again.pompo rode the van bound for nabua to attend to urgent family matters.

1900 - naga city proper.parted ways. all tired but all satisfied with the three-day event.

third and fourth photo from yudi mel's camera taken by myself and ironmark respectively

2010:no new year's resolution

the first two weeks of the year usually starts with that great struggle to implement whatever resolution one has come up. it usually doesn't work.the third week is the beginning of what the year really will be. we know the rewards of our resolution but we do not necessarily impose punishments if we're not able to effectively do them. i decided not to make a list of resolutions this year, i had a long list last year and didn't accomplish anything. for someone who was not born yesterday, someone who already has gray hair at twenty six and still counting, i believe it's wise not to make such a list especially if it's already quite clear that it won't work after the second week. it's the case of the more you want to get rid of something, say a habit, the more you think of it.and the more you think or even contemplate about it, the higher the chance of sliding back to zero. it's the familiar game called snakes and ladders, it's just that we don't use any dice to play life's game. there's certainly nothing wrong with deciding to change a bad habit and making resolutions to do so. but looking at the nature of resolutions, they talk more of what we're not supposed to do. they usually start with 'i won't' or 'i'll never do this or do that again'.it may be the very reason why it's difficult.it's not that i got tired or skeptical of making that list, the main basis is nothing has been accomplished since the time i decided to make yearly resolutions. i already know what needs to be changed and it's not easy. my approach this year would be that of not imposing too much pressure, changing a habit not by thinking that i'm not supposed to do it but observing.watching.and gradually understanding.this i learned from a book entitled 'awareness'.it claims that the trouble with people is that they're busy fixing things they don't even understand. change actually begins with understanding. my goal for this year is to change with/by understanding. how do i go about changing old habits? it's also in the book, 'when there's something within you that moves in the right direction, it creates its own discipline.'

on gratitude

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person.
Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. - Albert Schweitzer

this year will not end without saying a word about gratitude. this is perhaps the best time to look back and reflect on the things we should be really thankful for. at the end of this entry, we should be able to answer these: "how grateful have i been?" and "how can i be more grateful?"

"give us this day our daily bread"...a line from the famous Christian prayer. we look at the fact that we have been provided with the daily necessities of life. from food to shelter. three meals a day and we never get hungry. our daily bread. 365 days of not lacking the basic necessities is one deep reason to be thankful. in reality, we have been given more than our daily bread, but most of us (this includes me) are still worried on how to have more. they say that human wants is insatiable, that we can never get contented once we have experienced a certain degree of satisfaction. we tend to want more and more of the things we believe could make us feel satisfied. from "give us this day our daily bread" to "just give me more bread". this is because we are not thankful for the things we already have or we have received, instead we focus on the things we don't have and how we can acquire them. we end up either temporarily satisfied or disappointed.

another reason to be thankful is that we were not created to live alone. we are surrounded by our loved ones, our friends, people who care for us. Albert Schweitzer, a philosopher and a theologian, has said it well, they are the people who provide the spark to rekindle our light whenever it goes out. they are those who console us in times of loneliness and despair, they are the people who are always willing to support and protect us whenever we feel weak. we know who they are and we know that they deserve our deep gratitude.

have we also been thankful for the 'not-so-good' things, the bad things, the trials and struggles of life?being thankful does not only include the good things but also things which may have caused suffering but have made us better people.

kariton heroism

A lowly "kariton" or literally a wooden pushcart could actually be an effective tool to reach the slums and educate the underserved Filipino youth. And that force which makes the kariton continue to roll is Efren Peñaflorida's passion to teach and help.

I've read in the papers about two days ago that Peñaflorida's international acclaim is an indictment of the government's failure to provide education to the poor. I find the article's claim as something very agreeable, if some politician would help the needy they have to have the media for the public to know, it's as if to brag and shout 'look here! i'm helping the poor!i'm helping the poor!'. Now almost everybody wants a piece of Efren Peñaflorida and most of them are politicians, they still believe in the power of transferability of fame/popularity as one columnist said. If you are close to someone with a very honorable reputation and people see you with them, people would believe that you are somehow as good as them. Like some former mayor joining a famous boxer's welcome parade or a president giving an award to a famous boxer. The funny thing about it is that sometimes the concept of transferability doesn't work as recent surveys showed that the president's popularity went down.

So much about politicking these days. Let's go back to the kariton hero, I would also like to believe that there is still hope. Efren Peñaflorida is the Manny Pacquiao of educators, his fight is against poverty and moral deterioration. He absolutely deserves the CNN Hero award, for someone who probably thinks that these awards are just secondary to what he's after. This is one good reason to be proud of being a Filipino, that we could still have high ideals and that we still have the ability to actualize them. One thing is probably clear for someone like Efren, it's the fact that he didn't need the government to help the needy children in the slums. Helping other people doesn't have to be that grand, we could help even without the financial wealth, we have ourselves and our kariton- our time, talents, and treasure. Let me end this with something from Efren himself: “When people regard me as a hero, I always tell them that they should look inside them too because I believe that there’s a hero inside every one of us and all we have to is just to open our eyes wide and feel what’s going on, then let our hearts be willing to accommodate the needy, the desperate and the hopeless simply by extending our hand to them, and there you will unfold the hero that is in you.”

The challenge is, are we ready to push our own kariton?

image taken from this site

GNH

Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) defines Gross National Product or GNP as "a measure of the country's output of final goods and services for an accounting period in terms of its market or purchaser's value. When valued at constant base year pesos, GNP at constant base year prices provides an overall index of the physical volume of goods and services produced by the economy over the period."

In simpler terms, GNP is a measure of how good a country's economic performance is in terms of income and production or output. In the case of the Philippines, our GNP in 2008 was T 8,250, 249 Php , what does this value tell us? Clearly GNP is only limited to the country's final output and income, it does not show how income is distributed and how it affects every individual's well-being or quality of life. It is not a reliable indicator of true progress, even economists recognize this fact. It is not an assurance that people are actually better off in a certain country if it attained a high GNP value.

Recognizing this fact and that GNP should be channeled towards happiness, the 4th King of Bhutan (in 1972) came up with the concept of Gross National Happiness or GNH making him the author of the exact phrase. Traditional indicators tend to focus on the material sense of a country's economy valued in monetary terms since this is perhaps the most objective way of measuring performance. GNH, though quite subjective and even an ideal concept, focuses on what the traditional indicators failed to measure; this includes culture, psychological well-being, education, good governance, etc.

If we apply this concept to the Philippines, would our GNH be positive? We'll probably have a positive value as recent surveys show that we're one of the happiest people on earth. It's quite clear to us that money can't buy happiness. Even in the midst of material poverty, we can still be happy. I guess we don't have much choice but to be happy. In a culture where the word "government" is almost synonymous to corruption, inefficiency, and rottenness, happiness can still be seen in fiestas and gimmicks, in the very simplicity of celebrating life. Isn't real poverty all about being unwanted? That you may have all your material wants but still lack the feeling of being liked or even loved. We all have to deal with life's great "trade-offs". One economic principle puts it, "the cost of something is what you give up to get it."

image source: http://idealistik.joueb.com/images/mask.gif

a blind man's cloak

it's a sunny but windy afternoon here in my place, reminds me of summer only that it's happening on an October day. talk about erratic weather brought about by climate change. i just finished watering the plants, some of them withered because of the heat and the wind. humidity isn't that high the fact that the soil dries up quickly. siesta's perhaps the most appropriate thing to do but the weather's just perfect for an afternoon reflection.

about two weeks ago, one of the books i'm reading entitled 'Reflections on Augustine's Search for God' talked about blindness in the second chapter, it says there that Augustine 'believed that sight was the most precious sense power that we humans possess.... better by far to be poor and seeing than to be rich and blind'. just imagine living without our sense of sight, complete darkness, we only get to hear what other people see without us truly understanding what they are saying. i remember last month, my grandma organized and went on a field trip for the differently-abled people including the blind to legazpi, albay. i asked her, with that familiar skeptical tone, how would the blind appreciate the majestic mayon volcano? how do you explain the almost perfect cone shape of the volcano? she replied, 'they just know.'

last Sunday's gospel was Mark 10:46-52, a clear coincidence that this was also discussed in the second chapter of the book i mentioned earlier, it's about a blind man named Bartimaeus (literally means 'Son of Timaeus'). he is actually one of my favorite biblical characters, he was one of those who did not give up hope, who showed so much faith in the Master and because of that, he regained his sight.

since Bartimaeus was blind, he had to beg for a living. blindness and poverty. i would've given up hope if i were him. the priest, in his homily last sunday, focused on the significance of Bartimaeus' cloak, the only possession he had. saving him from the day's heat and his source of warmth during cold nights. the cloak is similar to our so-called security blankets as the priest said. these are the things or persons which we believe are the source of our sense of security, that is, we feel secured in their presence or when we have them. it could go from the literal sense like a child's security blanket he likes a lot he can't just sleep without it or to 'greater' things like possession of wealth or power. some are at the point of worshipping these things, they have become their idols in other words. the very hindrance in seeing the Truth. the priest continued his homily by asking, 'what makes us feel secured? is it money? is it power?'

clearly these things just come and go, fleeting so they say. everything temporary.

there is certainly nothing wrong in trying to attain that sense or feeling of being secured but we have to know who or what is it that we depend on. would they last? or would they just make us idolatrous?

what Bartimaeus did teaches us a great lesson on what should really be the source of our sense of security. security is something more than the possession of great wealth or power, for we could still grow unhappy and be full of discontentment even in the presence of these things.

Bartimaeus, after hearing the commotion and after he found out that the Master was passing by, throws off his cloak, rose up and approached the Master. In the Old Testament, as the priest mentioned, throwing off one's cloak is to let go or to cast off an old way of life and embrace a new way of life. He didn't need his cloak, his only possession, for he has found his true source of security.

on idle words

i got this from a book entitled 'the spiritual exercises of st. ignatius' which i bought almost two weeks ago. though it's a spiritual reading the practical side of it is very useful in day to day living especially in a world dictated by words and noise. here it is:

'no idle word should be uttered. i understand a word to be idle when it serves no good purpose, either for myself or for another, and was not intended to do so. hence, words are never idle when spoken for any useful purpose, or when meant to serve the good of one's own soul or that of another, of the body or of temporal possessions. nor are they idle because one speaks of matters

that do not pertain to his state, for example, if a religious speaks of wars or of commerce. in all we have mentioned, there will be merit if what is said is directed to some good purpose; there will be sin if it is directed to an evil purpose, or if engaged in for no good end. '

an Deus sit?

this photo was taken circa 2008 somewhere in pasig. it tends to answer the old latin question from St. Thomas Aquinas' 'Summa Theologiae', 'an Deus sit?' which literally means 'is there a God?'. we reflect on what could have made that person write it on the wall. was the person an atheist? the first thing i could think of is that the person would like to say something definite, 'there is no God' in the absence of proofs. the same way when someone expresses an emotion. it's simply, as i see it, what the person feels. goodness is something attributed to God, maybe the person doesn't experience goodness so he/she concludes that there is no God. the person may have so many doubts or unanswered questions or is going through a lot of sufferings and goes by dismissing the notion that God does not exist. it is somehow easier to prove that He does not exist than disproving that He does.

let's not go very far to explain this, Ondoy(Ketsana) victims would very well explain what i'm saying. the floods didn't filter those who are innocent from those who are not. it simply passed, not having any notion of who's good or who's evil. and for those who have obeyed or even religiously followed God, they only have one question, 'what did we do to deserve this?'

it's not really easy to believe in God, first of the reasons why is that we cannot see God. we call it 'faith' when we believe in the 'unseen' existence of God, His invisibility. second reason is, there is so much evil in the world, most of them uncontrollable and if they are controllable they still continue to happen. it makes me think that some people derive great pleasure from doing these things. it's difficult to think of God in the midst of injustice or if we think of God all we can do is blame Him for allowing us to suffer.

going back to what that calamity has brought us, did it really come from God? or was it simply caused by urbanization? God surely did not cut those trees that were there before villages or subdivisions were established. we're simply beginning to reap the consequences of what we've sown. this answers the question, 'what did we do to deserve this?' and God isn't much of a factor so as to cause that calamity.

my uncle's house in pasig was submerged in flood of about 6 feet when Ketsana passed by. i wasn't there when it happened but my housemates were there, my best friend was there, some of my things were there. i only got to visit the place after four days. ghastly. that's the more appropriate word to describe what i saw while i was on my way to our place, the thick mud the flood left, the stench of rotten rice, piles of garbage, and hopelessness felt looking at the people trying to recover what can still be saved. when i arrived at the house, a pile of trash outside greeted me, what caught my attention a guitar, only the front part was there lying on top of the trash. 'things fall apart' is the title of a book i've read back in college and it best describes the whole scenario just looking at that hopeless muddy body and the broken strings of the guitar. i went inside the house and just near the main door were some of my things, papers, books, rare cd's, clothes, etc. i didn't get a clear picture of what really happened and how it looked like until i saw the place myself. they even told me that it was cleaner than the first day they transferred to the house. they actually evacuated to our neighbor's house which was two-storey, ours is a bungalow. it was difficult to accept the mess the calamity created. it was a mixture of awe and frustration. but compared to what they've been through, those who were there to meet the floods and save themselves, starved for two days, waited...what i was feeling was nothing compared to what they've suffered. looking at what they have experienced,what is clear to me is that if you're given that situation, that calamity, what you'll actually save first, is yourself and some food to keep you going for days, and the remaining valuables you can carry and you find necessary. it certainly wouldn't be a grand piano, except if one is given the luxury of time.

what is also clear to me and this also serves as a lesson, is that we only begin to see who are those we can really depend on in times of need and that we become more aware of what really matters in life. it's certainly not the things we own which has accumulated for years, not our properties, and not even the precious things we have kept safe or even secured. we begin to see our true value when things fall apart.

we continue to pray for the victims of Ondoy (Ketsana) and Pepeng (Parma). we pray for those who are in great need. for those who have died because of the said calamities. our prayers may be the most effective way of reaching out to them even if we don't have the material means to help them.

photo: red candles from my aunt ina

lomi cuarenta y cinco!

the last time i talked about how i've really enjoyed the food i ate was when i went to calaguas (calaguas getaway). this blog appears to be from someone who doesn't eat at all, an ascetic maybe, i say it's the opposite, food is something i simply enjoy. now that i'm staying in the province i have access to bicolano food and one of my favorite restos which we'll talk about in a bit. yes, i've gained a lot of weight but that's another story. another reason why i don't discuss much about real food is that this is not a food blog, it's more of a 'food-for-thought' blog. i'm thinking of creating a food blog, but i'll probably start next year. this entry is a recollection of a place called 'new china'. a restaurant. it was established in the late 50's and it looks really old now. the name of the place is a clear contradiction/contrast of how the place looks like. the restaurant has always been like that, the sitting arrangement, the familiar furniture, and the mirror that covers half of the wall to make the place appear spacious and perhaps to see who doesn't pay the bill. i've heard that the place has become dirty but i didn't notice, that's what i've always been hearing anyway. it's a chinese restaurant in the first place. i go there once a week to eat my favorite lomi or chopsuey rice. as you enter the restaurant, a waiter/waitress approaches and takes your order. in my case it's lomi, the waiter/waitress then approaches the kitchen area then shouts 'o lomi cuarenta y cinco!' or 'lomi forty-five!', it means lomi, single serving. same old way of getting orders and passing it to the kitchen. no mics and loud speakers. just the old and high pitched voice of the waiters and waitresses. it hasn't changed except for the tiled floor.

i remember my parents would usually bring us there on sundays after attending the mass. i was probably six or seven , i simply didn't like the place, it's a place for old people. it doesn't have a mascot and if it had one, i don't know if i'd like it. they didn't have happy meals or kiddy meals. that's what a resto was for me, mascots, happy or kiddy meals, children playing on some corner and a smiling lady at the counter. food wasn't that appetizing, vegies and more vegies. i was a food ignoramous then. it was in that resto that i learned how to eat real food and eat really well. it probably goes with age, tastebuds metamorphosis.

let's go back to how they serve the food, after yelling the order to the kitchen area (it's probably a requirement there that cooks have good functional ears to hear those yells or shouts), the waiter/waitress goes to a bar-like area to get a glass of water with some ice, the utensils, and a saucer with a lemoncito (Citrus sp.). while i wait for my order, i do the familiar ritual of making a dipping sauce of lemoncito (Citrus sp.) and soy sauce. it really doesn't take long before they serve your food, in about five minutes, it's ready. my favorite lomi cuarenta y cinco is served on cracked, faded, old chinese bowl. hot, thick egg-based soup with their own house egg noodles of fine strands, vegies, and tender meat. it's really good for merienda, quite filling too. and looking at it from an economist's perspective, it's worth the price. the place is more than a half century now, and it isn't dying. many people still come, mostly old people accompanied by their grandchildren, passing on a tradition of good food to the next generation.

a day in the life of a kristo

earlier i had a 'for-the-road' session with my uncle, five bottles of my favorite cerveza and an interesting tale of a certain kristo. if you've read my previous entry (of metal talons, spurs, and kristos) , i may have committed a mistake in saying that kristo's take bets in the cockfighting arena when they are actually the individuals who bet, they act as the 'middlemen' or even the 'representatives' of their boss. here's how that kristo's supposedly lucky day went:

his boss or 'manager', as kristos usually call their boss, was quite lucky that day, it was a 'big time' derby. his boss finished early and gave him Php 1,500.00 as his tip. he thought that since his boss was lucky why not try his luck as well. the kristo decided to bet all the money his boss gave him and from that amount it became Php 44,000.00. it made him happy. his long-time plan of buying his own motorcycle would finally come true, not to mention that he still could spend a big amount to celebrate his luck with his fellow 'sabungeros' or kristo's. his friend, also a kristo, served as his kristo. it sounds a bit confusing, a kristo having his own kristo. just to make a clear distinction, he was the lucky kristo, where would someone get that amount? Php 44,000.00 in just one day. the lucky kristo was ready to take home his big prize when his kristo-friend tempted him to bet another Php 5,000.00 and he did. what's Php 5,000.00 anyway? guess what happened to that supposedly lucky kristo? from Php 44,000.00 he went back to zero, literally. the kristo, having nothing, ended his day sitting on a corner of the arena covering his face with his hands.

true story. what do we get from this? it's quite simple, if you're a kristo, never trust another kristo no matter how big your prize is. kristo's are 'trial-and-error' analysts. the lesson is obviously more than what i've said earlier.

i clearly have nothing against kristo's, i'm quite interested with their 'job title'. i'm even thinking of the possibility if there's a hierarchy in their field. could there be a 'head-kristo'? a 'junior kristo'? or 'apprentice-kristo'? this could be a profitable business, make an institution responsible for the formation of future kristo's. yes, a kristo school.

let me end with another story, this is about a proud boy who was asked by his teacher what he wants to be in the future (i hope that this is just a story) :

'when i grow up, i want to be just like my father.'

'what's your father's job?', the teacher asked.

the boy innocently answered, 'he's a kristo.'

epitaph

"...loved you in life, much more in death."

this was the inscription of my grandma's (mother side) tombstone. everytime i visit her grave

the first thing i do is read her epitaph and it never fails to make me smile, of all the epitaphs available, why did they choose this? and until now i still don't know who thought of it. the inscription could mean two things, the first is quite funny, we loved you when you were alive but we love you more because you're dead or simply we're happier because you're dead and the second meaning is how we're supposed to interpret it, we love you more even in your death, we will never forget you.

yesterday i was asked to give my comments on the landscape design of Raul S. Roco's grave in preparation for his birth anniversary. i'm no landscape artist but i did have some background when i took a subject when i was in college. i didn't know that he was buried here until i saw his grave. it was gray and it was made of granite tiles. my friend, the city librarian told me that his (Roco's) death anniversary was last August 5, the same day when Cory was laid to rest, he told me that he was the only one who came to commemorate the senator's death anniversary.

i told him that you can't complain when no one's visiting you when you're dead no matter how powerful you were when you were still alive. i think it's quite humbling. when the senator was still alive, he was famous for fighting against erap's cohorts in the impeachment trial. he even ran for president twice in the 1998 and 2004 elections.

the grave cannot boast about these facts anymore all it can give is its eternal silence. the name, the date, the memory the dead person made, and the epitaph which tries to speak to the reader but doesn't make a sound at all. its silence is a reminder that we are mortals and we're all gonna go there. there's no way we can escape.

i'm beginning to think of what my epitaph would be. the late senator's epitaph was quite moving,

"I met death, and he said 'Live on!'"

I think my epitaph would probably be, "Get off my lawn!"

yellow redefined

August started with a sad news. She's gone. Learning from history books, Cory Aquino was indeed an icon of democracy. She's what every poilitician should imitate. I want to focus more on how she changed the meaning of yellow. I'm not quite sure how she chose yellow as her political color/motif, I'm thinking it's from the old song 'tie a yellow ribbon'. I personally don't like yellow, it's too loud, and the meaning of the word is another reason why. 'yellow' means cowardice.
I've always thought that Cory was a cowardly woman, it made me think that women are really weak as presidents. Yellow really fits her. This impression came from a story I've heard when I was still about ten, they said Cory hid under her bed while there was a coup attempt outside the Palace, it was a 30-hour revolt. I just found out the other day that this was not true. Her ex-chief bodyguard related the story that when he tried to warn Cory, still the president that time, that there has been shooting outside; he found the president combing her hair, preparing for the media later that day. Cory filed a libel suit against the columnist and the publisher responsible for that 'hiding-under-the-bed' rumor, showing her room and proving the fact that it's not possible to hide under her bed since it had a mattress-to-carpet wooden base.

I was ten and perhaps wasn't too interested to know if the information I got was true or not. I just believed and made my own judgments on what kind of president Cory was. I even shared that story to some of my friends. pardon my ignorance. i was still ten. Now that it's clear to me that she wasn't a cowardly woman and that there are a lot of reasons to believe that she was indeed a brave soul, here, we don't have to go very far to prove this, she was a simple housewife before she became our leader or even the mother of this country. She has, getting it from what she did and how she did things all for the name of democracy, changed the meaning of 'yellow' to courage and bravery.

What did I learn from Cory? I heard a bishop say in his final commendation earlier at the funeral mass, 'thank you for teaching us how to pray'. We would all agree that Cory was indeed prayerful and at the same time vigilant of what's happening in the country. She watched, prayed, and acted. May her fight for freedom be not wasted. With her, let us continue to watch, pray, and act.

of metal talons, spurs, and kristos

it was an arena of jeers and shouts almost done in unison. it sounded like a chant of about a thousand men anxious to win. it was my firsthand experience of what a cockfighting arena was, of what really happens in a cockfighting match or simply 'sabong'.i was with my uncle when i went there, he served as my 'sabong' guide. there was a registration fee/entrance fee, Php 100.00, probably for using the facility/building. at the cockfighting match proper, you get to choose between 'llamado and dehado', 'meron o wala' in the vernacular. i didn't quite get how the betting part works but how the game works was quite simple, even violent, the name of the game itself tells us what occurs in the match. two poor creatures are set to fight until their death or (seldomly) injury. by attaching spurs or metal talons on one of their feet, serving as their weapons of death. the blades were too sharp, just one strike after a clash makes the fight quite bloody. before a match begins, the bell rings, to signal the placing of bets among those who will join. and the chanting/shouting begins, 'wala!wala!wala!', 'meron!meron!meron!', 'siete dies!' siete dies!', 'dies!' 'dies!' 'dies!' making bodily gestures while shouting, the scenario is similar to what happens in the stock market. time is of the essence.ranging from a minimum amount of Php20.00 to probably about Php200.00. a match lasts for about a minute, the 'sentenciador' or referee raises the winning creature. this is also the time when bets/wagers are settled by handing/passing the money to the person involved in the wager. the transaction is quite fast, in a matter of three minutes the arena is ready for the next match. i won the first four matches, i forgot how many matches i betted in, but i didn't spend a single peso. i got to take home Php 200.00 just by choosing which creature could win for about 3 hours. i spent the money to buy 4 kilos of good rice and half a kilo of fish. what did i learn from that experience? it's quite simple, if there's an easier way or if there's a short-cut to double one's money, even if it's a gamble or a game of chance, people would try to bet. gambling is just as normal as the day.i didn't find the experience a potential addiction or a possible vice for me. another reason why i went to check the place was to see what 'kristo's' (christ's) do, sounds really biblical, but their role is to take bets, they are like middlemen/brokers in the arena. and i heard it's not difficult to become a 'kristo'. it really sounds interesting how they made the word, it's not even close to whatever the real Christ did.probably the same when it comes to the human aspect but quite far from what they do. i thought there's only one kristo in every arena, but i just found out that there a lot of them. i thought they were some sort of prophetic characters, i thought they have the answer as to which creature will win the fight. since cockfighting is a gamble, there is nothing redemptive about the 'kristo's' there. there is nothing redemptive......

(image from natgeo)

juana change

Today is always the result of actions and decisions taken yesterday. Man, however, whatever his title or rank, cannot foresee the future. Yesterday's actions and decisions, no matter how courageous or wise they may have been, inevitably become today's problems, crises, and stupidities.- Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive.

yesterday's paper mentioned juana change, i thought it was some sort of gimmick written on the front page (juana change pdi article). after reading the article i went to the website and clicked on the youtube link and checked the videos. almost all the relevant issues especially political ones can be seen on the videos. most of them are funny, the way the actress and the characters portray what's really happening in the Philippines. my first reaction was to find the videos hilarious but watching them again made me realize that they are more than spoofs, they are in fact what the country is facing and is suffering from.

juana change as mentioned in the article could mean two things:

it could be read as 'wa na change'- simply dismisses the country as a hopeless case of corrupt and morally rotten people.

or the other way of saying it is 'wanna change'- the strong desire to change our old ways in achieving both economic stability and real freedom.

in addition, i think the third way of putting or reading it is 'wanna change?'. in a form of a question, and for each citizen to answer, i think everbody does want change. question now is, what are we doing to achieve that change?

here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/user/JuanaChange

expiry date

i've read in the papers earlier that the world's oldest man died yesterday, a japanese, he was 113.or simply put it, a mortal with an older-than-usual age just died yesterday.next to 113 or no matter how old, we don't know exactly when, is death. unscheduled, unexpected most of the time but clearly inevitable. we do not have a definite expiry date as compared to food products like canned goods and perishable goods. we will perish without any notification like our monthly bills. and perhaps the most feared aspect of dying is that we do not how we are going to face it, it's not death itself but how we are going to die. majority or almost all would prefer a peaceful death, who wouldn't want that anyway? i share the same desire. death, as peaceful as can be.

the very thought of death, as i've observed and even experienced, drives people to be good and do good. goodness comes out everytime one realizes how short life is, how one has wasted so much time on useless and senseless things, yes, the very thought of death temporarily makes an individual resolve that he has to make use of his time wisely. it's temporary, let's not forget that man is a forgetful being. forgetting is the only thing he doesn't forget. man may be aware of this fact but he, as expected, forgets. as soon as man forgets the reality that he is mortal, he goes back to his old ways. it's a vicious circle of forgetting and realizing that this life is full of limitations.

was Rizal ambidextrous?

let us give some time to reflect on freedom as we commemorate Philippine independence.

i started early today, for morning exercise, biking and jogging. i passed by Naga City Hall, it's near our place, outside the main building is a statue of Rizal with an enlarged right hand making a gesture. The hand wasn't there about ten years ago. i remember we had a good laugh at that statue way back, i was with my grandma and she noticed the unusually big hand newly installed on the right arm of the statue. it doesn't matter if he was right-handed, left-handed, or what do we know? he probably was ambidextrous. i saw paintings where Rizal is writing using his right hand. let's just assume he was right-handed. trivial as it may seem, the point here is that he wrote and by what he wrote, fought for freedom and died for it.patriotic martyrdom as we call it. the absence of his right hand is somehow symbolic, it's more of a call for every citizen to be his right hand, to continue to fight for sacred freedom.

a question arises, for more than a hundred and ten years, are we really free as a nation?

or are we merely enjoying freedom in the nominal sense?

can we gladly claim that we are experiencing actual freedom?or do we just hope for an ideal one and find it impossible since it's becoming a hopeless case as time passes? what is real freedom?

now with Rizal's enlarged right hand, he'd be slapping our faces for what we have done.

freedom is clearly not doing whatever we want or whatever we like to do. for if this is the case, this country would be suffering from chaos. it's happening though, corrupt politicians and various scandals exist. it has always been a struggle for power and different forms of abuse after attaining it. after attaining power, the person experiences unexplainable hunger for more, it's what we call greed. is there any freedom in greed? i don't think so. i remember a cabinet member, who's also an excellent economist, instructing one of his subordinates: 'moderate their greed.' this is already coming from what i believed as a man of good principles. greed or even corruption as an acceptable activity in the government. where the people's taxes go.... moderation of some politician's greed. we can't blame that  economist. the one at the top knows this very well, and probably tolerates greed in moderation. 'Do everything in moderation', as Aristotle would put it, but clearly, not greed. Greed is in itself something you cannot moderate for the fact that it is  greed! Wanting more when one already has enough. But then again, let's not just focus on the government, let's look at individuals, ourselves, and how we apply our shallow understanding of freedom, it's as simple as throwing our trash anywhere we want to. i saw this a lot of times. indolence and making reasons why people can't land a good job. anyway, 'it's the government's fault' is a very handy answer.

'freedom is not doing what we want but what we ought to do.' i believe this is from the late Pope John Paul II. since people/citizens makes a country, we have to work from the individual perspective. if each individual has a clear understanding that the price of freedom is indeed responsibility, we won't have to point our fingers on who's fault is it. it's ours anyway, it was collectively done. this country wouldn't be like this if we didn't permit it to be so.  

for us to truly attain freedom, we have to have an awareness of what it really is and what it entails. and it just doesn't stop with awareness, we also have to act.

a 30-minute entry

this month would not end without writing another entry. i decided to give the activity about 30 mins. and work with the randomness of human thought. i have nothing much to do today, perhaps read,  the family business just closed yesterday...for good, yes, i really think it's for common good, summum bonum for Aristotle. i felt sick last night for taking a lot of my favorite beer and also a lot of food. now, what's my next plan? i'm thinking about the academe, probably teach part-time, i can't work full-time with a boss babbling everytime one commits a mistake. 

i've been reading the papers lately,  main events include a sex scandal and a deadly disease spreading in the country. this has perhaps become a country of disease, literally and figuratively.

is there any cure to these? the politicians are doing all they can to get a big share of popularity from these events.

i have probably reached, just like any other citizen, point of indifference. i know what's happening but what's new?i've grown cynical, whether one does something good or not, it's always distrust for them. save some of my known good friends. ah, we have to make exceptions to balance things. isn't it a clear case of hypocrisy? probably, but it isn't a great case. we all have peter's and judas' inside us. 

finally, i'm thinking about voting on next year's elections, another exception.  indifference or active awareness and responsiblity tells me that i may need to vote even if the elites choose to  play with our sacred ballots or so we think it is. i say it's not just the government's role to change the face of the country but every citizen involved. so much for clean ideals. 30 minutes has elapsed. short passing of time and my random thoughts.

moth of time

I was checking our shelves for some books two days ago and found this. It's a book entitled, 'A Stone, A Leaf, A Door', a collection of poems by Thomas Wolfe. I tried browsing the book and found a long poem, it consumed eleven pages of the book. Here it is:

This Is Man

by Thomas Wolfe

For what is man?

First, a child,  soft-boned,

Unable to support itself on its rubbery legs,

Befouled with its excrement,

That howls and laughs by turns,

Cries for the moon 

But hushes when it gets it's mother's teat ;

A sleeper, eater, guzzler,

Howler, laugher, idiot,

And a chewer of its toe;

A little tender thing

All blubbered with its spit,

A reacher into fires,

A beloved fool.

After that, a boy,

Hoarse and loud before his companions,

But afraid of the dark;

Will beat the weaker and avoid the stronger;

Worships strength and savagery,

Loves tales of war and murder, and violence done to 

        others;

Joins gangs and hates to be alone;

Makes heroes out of soldiers, sailors,

Prize-fighters, football players,

Cowboys, gunmen, and detectives;

Would rather die than not out-try

And out-dare his companions,

Wants to beat them and always to win,

Shows his muscle

And demands that it be felt,

Boasts of his victories

And will never own defeat.

Then the youth:

Goes after girls, is foul behind their backs

Among the drugstore boys,

Hints at a hundred seductions,

But gets pimples on his face;

Begins to think about his clothes,

Becomes a fop, greases his hair,

Smokes cigarettes with a dissipated air,

Reads novels, and writes poetry on the sly.

He sees the world now

As a pair of legs and breasts;

He knows hate, love, and jealousy;

He is cowardly and foolish,

He cannot endure to be alone;

He lives in a crowd, thinks with the crowd,

Is afraid to be marked off from his fellows

By an eccentricity.

He joins clubs and is afraid of ridicule;

He is bored and unhappy

And wretched most of the time.

There is a great cavity in him,

He is dull.

Then the man:

He is busy,

He is full of plans and reasons,

He has work.

He gets children,

Buys and sells small packets of everlasting earth,

Intrigues against his rivals,

Is exultant when he chaets them.

He wastes his little three-score years and ten

In spendthrift and inglorious living;

From his cradle to his grave

He scarcely sees

The sun or moon or stars;

He is unconscious of the immortal sea and earth;

He talks of the future

And he wastes it as it comes.

If he is lucky, he saves money.

At the end, his fat purse buys him flunkeys

To carry him where his shanks no longer can;

He consumes rich food and golden wine

That his wretched stomach has no hunger for;

His weary and lifeless eyes

Look out upon the scenery of strange lands

For which in youth his heart was painting.

Then the slow death,

Prolonged by costly doctors;

And finally the graduate undertakers,

The perfumed carrion,

The suave ushers with palms outspread to leftwards,

The fast motor-hearses,

And the earth again.

This is man:

A writer of books, a putter-down of words,

A painter of pictures,

A maker of ten thousand philosophies,

He grows passionate over ideas,

He hurls scorn and mockery at another's work,

He finds the one way, the true way, for himself,

And calls all others false-

Yet in the billion books upon the shelves

There is not one that can tell him

How to draw a single fleeting breath

In peace and comfort.

He makes histories of the universe,

He directs the destiny of nations,

But he does not know his own history,

And he cannot direct his own destiny

With dignity or wisdom

For ten consecutive minutes.

This is man:

For the most part

A foul, wretched, abominable creature,

A packet of decay,

A bundle of degenerating tissues,

A creature that gets old and hairless

And has a foul breath,

A hater of his kind,

A cheater, a scorner,

A mocker, a reviler,

A thing that kills and murders in a mob

Or in the dark,

Loud and full of brag surrounded by his fellows,

But without the courage of a rat, alone.

He will cringe for a coin,

And show his snarling fangs behind the giver's back;

He will cheat for two sous,

And kill for forty dollars,

And weep copiously in court

To keep another scoundrel out of jail.

This is man,

Who will steal his friend's woman,

Feel the leg of his host's wife below the table-cloth,

Dump fortunes on his whores,

Bow down in worship before charlatans,

And let his poets die.

This is man,

Who swears who will live only

For beauty, for art, for the spirit,

But will live only

For fashion,

And will change his faith and his convictions

As soon as fashion changes.

This is man,

The great warrior with a flaccid gut,

The great romantic with the barren loins,

The eternal knave devouring the eternal fool,

The most glorious of all the animals,

Who uses his brain for the most part

To make himself a stench

In the nostrils of the Bull, the Fox, 

The Dog, the Tiger, and the Goat.

Yes, this is man,

And it is impossible to say the worst of him,

For the record of his obscene existence,

His baseness, lust, cruelty, and treachery,

Is illimitable.

His life is also full of toil, tumult, and suffering.

His days are mainly composed

Of a million idiot repetitions-

In goings and comings along hot streets,

In sweatings and freezings,

In the senseless accumulation of fruitless tasks,

In decaying and  being patched,

In grinding out his life

So that he may buy bad food,

In eating bad food

So that he may grind his life out

In destressful defecations.

He is the dweller on that ruined tenement

Who, from one moment's breathing to another,

Can hardly forget the bitter weight of his uneasy flesh,

The thousand diseases and distresses of his body,

The growing incubus of his corruption.

This is man,

Who, if he can remember ten golden moments of joy

        and happiness

Out of all his years,

Ten moments unmarked by care,

Unseamed by aches or itches,

Has power to lift himself with his expiring breath,

And say: "I have lived upon this earth

And known glory!"

This is man,

And one wonders why he wants to live at all.

A third of his life is lost and deadened under sleep;

Another third is given to a sterile labor;

A sixth is spent in all his goings and his comings;

In the moil and shuffle of the streets,

In thrusting, shoving, pawing.

How much for him is left, then,

For a vision of the tragic stars?

How much of him is left

To look upon the everlasting earth?

How much of him is left for glory

And the making of great songs?

A few snatched moments only

From the barren glut and suck of living.

Here, then, is man,

This moth of time,

This dupe of brevity and numbered hours,

This travesty of waste and sterile breath.

Yet if the gods could come here

To  a desolate, deserted earth

Where only the ruin of man's cities remained,

Where only a few marks and carvings of his hand

Were legible upon his broken tablets,

Where only a wheel lay rusting in the desert sand,

A cry would burst out of their hearts

And they would say:

"He lived, and he was here!"

Behold his works:

He needed speech to ask for bread-and he had Christ!

He needed songs to sing in battle-and he had Homer!

He needed words to curse his enemies-

And he had Dante, he had Voltaire, he had Swift!

He needed cloth to cover up his hairless, puny flesh

        against the seasons-

And he wove the robes of Solomon,

He made the garments of great kings,

He made the samite for the young knights!

He needed walls and a roof to shelter him-

And he made Blois!

He needed a temple to propitiate his God-

And he made Chartres and Fountains Abbey!

He was born to creep upon the earth-

And he made great wheels,

He sent great engines thundering down the rails,

He launched great wings into the air,

He put great ship upon the angry sea!

Plagues wasted him,

And cruel wars destroyed his sons,

Bbut fire, flood, and famine could not quench him.

No, nor the inexorable grave-

His sons leaped shouting from his dying loins.

The shaggy bison with his thews of thunder

Died upon the plains;

The fabled mammoths of the unrecorded ages

Are vast scaffoldings of dry insensate loam;

The panthers have learned caution

And move carefully among tall grasses to the water-

        hole;

And man lives on

Amid the senseless nihilism of the universe.

For there is one belief, one faith,

That is man's glory, his triumph, his immortality-

And that is his belief in life.

Man loves life,

And loving life, hates death,

And because of this he is great, he is glorious,

He is beautiful, and his beauty is everlasting.

He lives below the senseless stars

And writes his meanings in them.

He lives in fear, in toil,

In agony, and in unending tumult,

But if the blood foamed bubbling from his wounded 

        lungs

At every breath he drew,

He would still love life more dearly

Than an end of breathing.

Dying, his eyes burn beautifully,

And the old hunger shines more fiercely in them-

He has endured all the hard and purposeless suffering,

And still he wants to live.

Thus it is impossible to scorn this creature.

For out of his strong belief in life,

This puny man made love.

At his best,

He is love.

Without him 

There can be no love,

No hunger, no desire.

So this is man-the worst and best of him-

This frail and petty thing

Who lives his day

And dies like all other animals,

And is forgotten.

And yet, he is immortal, too.

For both the good and evil that he does

Live after him.

Why, then, should any living man

Ally himself with death,

And, in his greed and blindness,

Batten on his brother's blood?

When I read the whole poem, it wasn't difficult to understand unlike poems  made by other poets like Shakespeare, Cummings or Frost. It sounded more like a reflection in verse form, the way it was written gives value to every word. Words tend to be heavy basing it from the structure of the stanzas...every line gives a strong emotion. The part where the poet said that man is just a 'moth of time' but that 'he is great, he is glorious'  really struck me.  This is similar to what Pascal said that 'man is a reed...but he is a thinking reed.' Clearly paradoxical, puny but great, weak but strong, almost saying that man is himself a paradox. The poem sounds existentialist, the center of meaning is in man's very existence. If Descartes said 'Cogito ergo sum.' (I think therefore I am.)

An existentialist like Unamuno would say 'Sum ergo cogito.'(I am therefore I think.)