Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers in the world and I want to especially greet my wife Evelyn for being such a wonderful mother to our kids and you could say, me and the children could not ask for anything more. With the chicken barbecues she got with that special secret spices, there’d always be smiles and laughters in our home.

Of course, my greetings also goes to my Mom Darwisa who becomes stronger as each day comes (and goes), after my father had passed last year and remains a strength behind me and to all her children. To my mother-in-law Nanay who at 89 is the strongest mom that my wife could ever had, and probably the best she could ever have.

To my sister Rimaisa who had a grand wedding last January and would soon be a mom in the coming months (we hope) and to my cousins Rose and Fharrah who are great mothers to their kids also, as well as to their mom Auntie Nene, who is always there for her children.

To my aunt Naifiesa who remains a guiding light to her husband who is now running for mayor in our hometown down south in Tawi-Tawi. I hope she could be the driving and winning force this coming Monday and win it all.

To our helper and good neighbor Manang Mercy, who cooked the best so far among all helpers we ever had. And to our good neighbor Auntie Rose who has two beauteous and wonderful daughters.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of them.

Of course, I would not dare forget to greet all the wonderful moms online like Bing, Toe, Ipanema, Bambit, Teacher Sol, Ayesha, Nicehaert, Nao, Liza, Ms. Luchie, Ladybug, Ms. B., Evi, BokBok, Rhodora, and Jayred.

I hope I am not forgetting anyone. Happy Mother’s Day na rin to the wonderful single girls like Atticus,Curacha, Verns and Daphne.

What would this world be without the good mothers we all had? And how could we men imagine a world without the women in our lives.

It must be unthinkable.

I remember that in my college days in Ateneo de Zamboanga, I once had joined this exteporanoues speaking contest with the the subject of women as the main discussion point. I remember that when in the first stages of my speech, the crowd roared in approval and I had gotten the most rambuncticous audience response for my startling exposition of how women deserves to have equal rights as that with men. I forgot how exactly I had spoken in that speech, or the words I had uttered but the crowd did applauded me so well that even my English subject moderator was so up in toe watching me from the back of the hall.

But what I forgot to remember is that there is a major rule in that speech contest, where there was a time limit for every contestant and I was a bit unkindly to have wanted to go on and on with my dialogue and had wanted to tell the crowd about the story of Joan of Arc, about how she was merely a young women who had pretended to be a male indivdual, to lead the French soldiers towards a deafening victory against the invading English marauders.

When I started saying “Let me tell you a story….”, the bell suddenly rang and I was startled and so surprised that I could not believe my ears that very moment and the crowd went “aahhhhhh’, like they were very disappointed too. And I was there standing so shaken and couldn’t move, like a frozen cavemen, suddenly realizing that I had just disqualified myself. So I lost that contest.

But I think, I should have gone on telling the Joan of Arc story despite that I knew already then that there was no more possibility for me of winning.

The story of Joan of Arc is just too good and I believe in the story so well.

Frogs

It’s both startling and astonishing how the weather behaves strangely nowadays. In the initial days of March, when summer was supposed to be ushered in gradually, the rains came pouring in, like an unexpected visitor whom one does not know exactly how to receive—-had it came for a bountiful afternoon chatter over bristling cups of coffee or had just got to stop by due to a vital intent?

And now while May slowly loses its days to another month, the rains are hard to come by and the temperature rises even when night falls so deep into midnight, when it is supposed to be cool and breezy outside, and of course in the living room.

Strange weather, really.

So the ground are so dry nowadays that some afternoons ago I decided to weed out the backyard with unwanted growths, having no troubles whatsoever with muddy soil that get stuck in the slippers I wear. I had once popped the idea of landscaping the whole area with Bermuda grasses to my wife—-about a week ago—- but even I had scoffed when she mentioned to me that it would cost nearly ten thousand bucks to have it done by gardeners from the plant store across the highway. What do you actually call these establishments that sells plants and flowers in pots. I actually have no idea as of this moment.

So for now, the bermudas or carabao grasses would have to wait and I’ve got to contend myself of laboring towards manually eliminating the weeds for now (which can actually grow towards knee level when left unattended for so long) and my oh my, it was so painstaking an activity that my muscles ache all night long after that, and when I woke up the next morning, I could barely walk.

When I was scything the weeds, I had discovered that frogs were ensconced tightly in some nooks and corners of the waterless ground. I noticed this sight immediately for it was certainly a bit of an aberration to see frogs while water is so absent in an area. Frogs means water or rain. And rain means tadpoles and croaking reverberations in the night.

I then wonder how these amphibians can keep up with the arid surroundings even when I know that usually they soak themselves in cool water almost all the time. To be sure, it must have meant that frogs have developed adaptation schemes to combat queer weather situation and atypical habitats. Now perhaps there comes the answer to the momentary query of where do frogs goes when the rains haven’t come for a long, long time. They hide themselves in darkened nooks and crevices in the ground, behind and under mossy stones and shady plants, over misty soil where sunrays could not dry up thoroughly.

This reminds me of an episode of one of my favorite television show when I was a kid, Life On Earth. One unforgettable discussion there was this very strange looking fresh-water fish who can survive for months and months to come even when the ground become so dry that the soil is caked all throughout, like in a span of desert that is so cruel to any shrubbery.

I remember how the host Mr. David Attenborough—-he with the effervently musky voice—had dug about a couple of feet into the dry ground and grabbed a morsel of mud formation which he then dropped into a huge basin full of water. And then lo and behold, the pack of solidified mud started to move and slowly a funny looking fish swam away like it was just another day in the river.

It was so amazing how a water creature could survive for so long without water, breathing dry air and being stuck in cakes of mud like a frozen caveman; in order to wait for the rain to finally come and when the water rises again, the strange fish wiggles away into the world where it usually thrive on, and start another cycle in its life span.

Could you imagine a fish surviving out of the water for far too long, like half a year at a time? I couldn’t. But I remember that there was one fish that could actually do that. Therefore presenting an exception to that famous euphemism of being a “fish out of a water”, like I am so miserable now that I am like a fish out of the water.

Amazing survivability this fish has. And also those frogs in our backyard.

Frogs v.2

I have some thoughts that I haven’t had elaborated in my earlier post entitled “Frogs” and I can’t seem to get still without scratching this itch, these questions left in my mind. In that previous post, I have pondered on how frogs and other water-loving creatures survived when rains does not fall for a lengthy period of time; this upon observing that frogs actually deposit themselves in shady areas like spongy crevices underneath fairly size stones and behind leafy plants located in areas where the sun could not penetrate that much.

I see them frogs laying still and unmoving even if I make some hushing noise, apparently determined to hibernate as they read the climate so well—-no rains, therefore we stand still. Amazing tenacity they have for to stand still is to perish where to us humans, we need to move to survive, we could not stand still or else we fail to survive. But frogs could stand still and still survive. In this manner, they could be a better specie—-than we humans.

Now I kept thinking that the frogs I see on our backyard while the rains haven’t come are exactly of no use to me that despite the fact that they aren’t what we could consider as pest—-like locusts ravaging the ricefields or mosquitoes rummaging on our blood—-I had thought of getting rid of them completely, hauling them one by one from the shady places they hide themselves and throw them out of the fence.

Yet I felt that I could be completely unfair to them since they aren’t really a pest in the purest sense except that I do not like them leaping and creeping around the pathways when I am navigating the areas in the backyard. Their dark and slimy skin seems to be an odd sight to me.

I had pondered if in fact frogs are really of use to us human beings. They couldn’t be foodstuff except for some specie plying cleaner locations like ricefields and natural ponds. They can’t also be pets for only stranger individuals had kept frogs as pets; like the ones I saw on Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!

Although I know for a fact that they eat or lick mosquitoes in through their all-too-lengthy tongues and one can say they could help control or regulate widespread mosquito infestations in our environment. But why do we need them when we can just hie off to the nearby grocery store and buy Baygon insect spray or we can just light up a mosquito repellent that we can buy in the sari-sari store across the street. Maybe in the ancient days when the Germans hadn’t yet invented Baygon, that could have been the time that we needed lots of frogs in our surroundings.

But now, I wonder why they are here, croaking at rainy nights and serenading songs that we ain’t really pond of.

In our elementary days, we are given basic scientific lessons on the web of life. I remember that so well including those charts that exhibits different food groups that we need to consume in order to live a healthy and well-rounded lives; you know those rhythmic annotations that says “ang itlog ay pampabilog ng mukha”, “and gulay ay pampakinis ng kutis”, such and such thing.

And in the web of life, we are taught that every creature is of importance to nature and to earth’s existence, that trees could help strengthen the soil and thus prevent erosion, snakes could help minimize rat infestations in the fields, plants spew much-needed oxygen into the air, birds and butterflies can spread seeds for them to grow in a more widespread manner, anteaters help plow the ground in order that seeds could easily grow, fishes give food and nutrients to mankind, and mankind….and mankind….oh by the way, I forgot how mankind could be beneficial to nature; I hope someone could remind me.

And so that’s how the web of life goes; and intermingling process of creatures that could be helpful to each other and to nature in general; that could be conceptualized also in that lesson we are taught as “food chains”—-frogs eating mosquitoes, snakes eating frogs, eagles eating snakes, man eating eagles…such and such thing. I wonder how eagles really taste. Must have been just like chicken.

Now let’s go back to frogs—despite that they could help minimize mosquito infestations, we all know by now that Baygon could be better regulators. Have frogs lost their importance in this world? Are they the vestiges of an old and obsolete web of life, that now we have a new form or web?

Snglguy had once stated that frogs are good barometers of our environment. But what if man could one day invent highly-advanced equipment that could monitor our environment with razor-sharp accuracy, like missile guided Tomahawks that George Bush have? Then, frogs would simply lose every bit of reason to be croaking ugly night songs when the rain comes. Maybe modernity have started to creep into the web of life as we know it, that machines and equipments is starting to dictate another form of system in this world we call Earth that just like in the movies we see, machines could one day rule the world.

It is a scary thought sometimes. But it is just a thought.

Pretend

I was just watching the opening segment of the The Tonight Show With Jay Leno and I couldn’t help but let out a rather loud chuckle when he had quipped about the subject of “pretending to be a student”. He had opened the joke by plaintively stating how this famous guy (the rockstar Tommy Lee I think) had complained about how tough or disagreeable it was for him to be pretending to study for eight months—-referring perhaps to the television reality show “Tommy Lee Goes To School” that he starred in.

And then Mr. Leno said that Tommy Lee was just complaining too much and being a sissy for he (Leno) himself did not pretend to attend school for only eight months, BUT for four disagreeable years. And then I laugh so hard inside me and bented out that loud chortle.

Who really says school is fun? If there is anyone out there who think it is, please raise your right hand.

I am not saying that attending 5 to 8 classes everyday (as it is in college) is such a disagreeable activity. I know some of us here are educators and wouldn’t take it quite so well if somebody else says they hate it to be within your area of practice or occupation. For the record, I didn’t hate attending college. But at the same time——just like most of the population—-I was not exactly very fond of it either. Maybe just somewhere in between; liking to be at school half the time and being lazy at some other time. Maybe this was the reason why I haven’t got “A” grades in my college years—-unlike in my elementary and highschool years.

Education is really mostly of motivation. What drives the student to thrive harder in school? What’s their incentives other than still a mostly mythical success in the future?

I have seen some of them excelling almost all the time and I thought I should have reasonably equal intelligence quotient with most of them, maybe even higher at that, but somehow I was just not so industrious to be a wunderkind in the classroom.

There were many times back then that I had daydreamed about the day when finally I would be free from classrooms and all those mushy blackboards that was in front of me almost on a daily basis. At that time, it was nearly a utopic idea for I was still planning to take up law after my accounting degree.

I had wished then that I should be like a bird (with wings of course) and fly away from all the lazy afternoons that I got myself stuck in classrooms that could be so eerily silent—-especially when the respective teacher was a known terror—-when all I wanna do then was take a nap. But one could not just say to oneself “I shall take a nap” when one is in a classroom with a bespectacled teacher holding a long wooden rod, ready to whack one’s butt if one make the slightest mistake. I know that there aren’t no more whacking in college; but I just felt that some of my college teachers were so much inclined to harm us physically—-especially when almost everyone had blank stares, not being able to fully absorb the lessons she or he had blabber-mouthed all afternoon.

So there I was, trying to hold off sleep in some lazy afternoons while attending accounting classes full of “income statements” and “journal entries”. There were times that I just could not listen to the lessons being given for my mind was so windy and fragile, like I wanted to be somewhere else rather than inside the four corners of an electricfannized room. I believe that I had passed all my accounting subjects by mostly self-studying at home, not really listening to the lectures in classes I have attended but merely cramping up in my solitary room when the night comes and read the lessons taken for the day all by myself or read future lesssons in advance. I like it that way. I was more comfortable with that self-imposed learning system and luckily, I passed all my accounting subjects—-the hardest subjects for me—-and did not repeat any of them. That was some feat I realized by now.

So mostly when the lazy bug had hit me then and I found myself stuck inside a classroom and the class is often more than an hour—-like one and a half hour or sometimes for straight three hours—-I just sit at the back of the room oh so quietly and open up a thick textbook (or maybe some other book) and pretend to read and then giving stares at the teacher blabbering in front once in a while, and pretend to listen.

You know if anyone thinks that studying hard is so difficult, then he or she hasn’t tried “pretending to study hard”. It was just so bad and thorny, like being held by a Gestapo officer and tied to a wooden chair.

Now I ain’t downgrading here the value of education or boost up the crazy comfort of laziness. Education is so important for all of us and I do realize now that If I weren’t so lazy then, I would have had a better occupation by now, and have more money in my pocket. So kids, if ever any of you happen to read this, remember to study hard and don’t imitate Major Tom on this aspect. And also, always remember that smoking is always dangerous to your health.

Gaining that accounting degree in the end wasn’t so easy for me. It was tough and rigorous especially when at times I got too bored with numbers and statistics, having nightmares. I think numbers was just not for me. But there was I, by some circumstances, studying how to count other people’s money.

And it was not easy counting at all. You could count bills from one to a million and that’s easy. But in accountancy, we got to learn to count the monies by using hordes of yellow-colored and very wide worksheets and must know how to balance some balance sheets (they ain’t balanced all the time especially if one didn’t study too hard) and got to reconcile bank statements almost often that at one time, when I got so freaking out tired of all the numbers, I had wanted to ask my accounting teacher why the bank statements won’t better decide to patch up their differences and stop fighting with each other, and be reconciled? Why the hell did we have to reconcile these bank statements by ourselves? But apparently that was a very brainless question, so I didn’t ask anymore.

Oh, I had meant this initially to be fully a humorous post. Now I think it had gotten a little too serious and stern.

But honesty is a virtue. It was hard for me to study. But it was even more difficult to pretend to study. That I have learned before and Mr. Jay Leno could joke about this for all I care.

This post by the way reminds me of this REM song“World Leader Pretend” which is to me the most politically sarcastic song and comically brings and raise up the tragical state of our present global politcs……This is my world… Michael Stipe sings, “…And I am world leader pretend..I sit at my table,
And wage war on myself. It seems like it’s all for nothing…. Listen to it, maybe you’ll like it. Like I did and made it one of my all-time fave rock song. See complete lyrics here.

Five Songs When I Was Eighteen

Ipanema has answered this entirely original tag over there at Under The Canopy and had read through it, reminding me as a result of how the song Endless Love by Lionel Ritchie and Diana Ross was so melancholic and affecting that even I had admitted (in my comments there) that I too was one who hadn’t had escaped it’s very sentimental tune.

So now it’s my turn to list down Five Famous Songs When I Was 18 and say something about them. I have scoured through the net and found this timely site listing the hits of the year 1990 (the year when I was about 18—-when I was still never been that and never been this). I realized that in that year, there were so many memorable songs that I could have listed even to as high as twenty but I just got to name five. So now perhaps, I may just list the five songs that I may not necessarily be most fond of (since there were lots of songs that were so popular that year) but those that I think I can say something most of. So now, let’s do this.

In no particular order:

1. It Must Have Been Love by Roxette—-Who could forget this very sentimental lament of a brokenhearted individual. This is one love song has a very famous movie that goes with it (Pretty Woman remember?). Before I saw Richard Gere riding virtually on top of his limousine, with roses in hand, I have already heard this song played—-either on the radio or on a record I had bought then. The first few lines of this song told everything about it, “Lay a whisper, on my shoulder”, of how melodramatic it was and was in fact so sad and lonely; where a love had apparently gone awry when in the first place “It should have been love, but it’s over now. It’s all that I wanted but I am living without.” How tragic can love and affection become? This song’s lyrics remind the listener that love or relationship could really be gone like whispers in the wind—-very fragile and fleeting; like feeling so near and yet so far; like a free ride when you already paid. Or rain in your wedding day.








2. All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You by Heart—-This one got me thinking if at all, reasonable censorship do occur in our country, or in America (where the song emanated from) for that matter. Aside from its very catchy hooks, the one that had really occupied my mind whenever I was listening to this song that fateful year was it’s unusual lyrics.
   
   

   I had thought then that it was not really normal that one should hear on a very public manner about “ all I wanna do is to make love to you”. We all know what that means. It means that the singer merely wants to have carnal knowledge (as we law students refer to it back then) with some guy with handsome blue eyes. I don’t mean to be so tight-assed here but at that time, I just found this music’s message to be so unusual and blatant for comfort that I thought the government should have kept it away from the kids, or else they would gain some dangerous ideas you know. Of course, I am aware that Air Supply had been singing about “making love” previously in a so very popular way yet I just could not help but think when Heart’s song went on to say “please, please understand I am in love with another man. And all that he couldn’t give, is the one thing that you have.” What the hell did that line mean? It escapes me.









3. Don’t Know Much by Linda Rondstadt and Aaron Neville—-This is one song that I thought had came from the 70’s when I got to hear it initially back then, and even just hours ago if not for this tag that had gotten me researching about music. It has that very old-fashion feel and sound and I mean this in a very good way. It is so simple and relax as Neville’s icy voice floats into the ears like a popular eucalyptus candy, so soothing and calming. The song says, “I don’t know much, but I know I love you. Let me be all you need to love”. If love and loving could be so simple and uncomplicated like this love song, then I believe the world would be a better place by now.








4. I Don’t Have The Heart by James Ingram—-Mr. Ingram is one of my most favoritest singer of the modern times (as aside from the era of Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennet), along with Peabo Bryson and Lionel Ritchie. And when he had this unexpected hit in 1990(he recorded this when his popularity had already been waning from his peak in the 80’s), you could say I was pleasantly surprised and felt so good that James Ingram has still something good going on with him.
   
   

   Yet, despite the breezy voice of Mr. Ingram and the beautifully unique melodies of this song, the message it got was of despair and tragedy in love where he sang “I don’t have the heart to love you; but I don’t have the heart to hurt you; It’s the last thing I wanna do.” Gee, I wonder to whom downtrodden woman did he sang or made this song for. It just breaks my heart. Sigh.







5. Another Day In Paradise by Phil Collins—-I should not be forgetting about this one because it has very distinctive and catchy intro—-beating drums with killer keyboards. This song had been so captivating that during that time, and even through years ahead, I just couldn’t seem to pull it out of my system. The tune was so very fresh and excitable that it felt like Phil Collins was a genius scientist who had invented a new way of making music. It was really one good tune. A classic, I dare say.
   
   

   Although later on, I had a discussion about the song with a friend and he had informed me that the song was about poverty and hunger among the street people in America, that it was in fact a very socially-relevant tune from the former drummer and singer of the legendary British band Genesis. As I read through the lyrics (albums mostly already had inserts of lyrics at that time), I did realize that it was really a song about the hardships felt by the marginalized sector in America. It had taken me aback a little upon knowing what the song really had meant and wondered how an ultimately radio-friendly song—-one with so very catchy melodies—-can be about a very serious social problem.

So there goes the five songs that got so popular in the year that I was 18. In return, I’d be naming five other bloggers to list five songs when they were that young and say something about each one of them.

1. Snglguy—-I am so well-aware how he loves music that I am so anticipating his kind of list.








2. Eric of Wish You Were Here—-He was once a music industry executive and I am so certain he knows his list all too well.








3. Buffwings—-I would be so curious about the songs in his lists.








4. Myepinoy—-He is also music savvy and I am sure we’d enjoy his retelling of five memorable songs when he was young.








5. Abaniko—-He has done lots of cool tags before except a musically-inclined one. It’s time that he must let the world know the music of his younger days.

A Good Conversation

I wonder if some of you have already read this book I am holding right now while of course most of us have already came to know about it’s publication through the buzz it had created in the Internet. Consider this, “Conversations With God” had been in the New York Times bestseller list for 137 weeks or about two-and-a-half years straight. Now that’s an amazing feat for a religion-centered work. And accordingly, it had been considered as a “publishing phenomenon” (see this Wikipedia article).

I myself have already learned about CwG (Conversations With God) some years back from great acclaims it had garnered from several local blogs that I have been reading during that time. The praises it had gotten then were so astounding that now, as I leaf through it’s pages, I am not anymore surprised.

I was not initially sold out by its popularity I must admit and thought that despite it’s astronomical volume of sales, it might just be yet another religious book with a unique irresistable trait, but just another individual’s thought about God and religion. For all the while, who is really interested in religion nowadays? Perhaps, none except those that are extremely pious in spirit.

But now—-by some good fate—-I have this wonderful book in hand. Thanks mostly to my bestfriend Major Victor Loon for sending me a copy all the way from Manila and all my greatest gratitude goes to him. He reads this blog once in a while and I hope the message goes to him. He is a real police major mind you and not merely a major wanna-be like “Major Tom” and at the very young age of 35, he heads now the formidable Eastern Police District in Metro Manila. Success is in his hands and to be sure, more would come in the future.

CwG is certainly one amazing book with some phenomenal things going on within it. According to its author Neale Donald Walsch, all the conversation that had been written in this book—-and on succeeding eight other installments of it—-had started when one day he had decided to write a letter to God and let out many of his resentments in life. And suddenly, a voice coming from his left shoulder spoke to him, and after that, a book had seen its birth.

Mr. Walsch had averred that in writing the “conversations”, he had felt feel his hands moving on its own as he was writing the first pages of this book; as if it had a life by itself. If he is to be believed, then God must have really spoken to him. Of course, I wouldn’t take this claim hook, line and sinker but in this often-strange world that we live in—-that might just be possible.

I often wonder if I myself could speak with God like Mr. Walsch did and then God talking straight back at me like a “burning bush” of the Old Testament. To be sure, I would have lots of questions to field. I wonder if the Lord can have time to spare for a wandering soul such as I am, always questioning, always inquiring.

Once when we were so much younger, Major Loon had presented this question to me asking, “Do you want to meet Satan?” I answered that he was just being ridiculous. I wouldn’t want to meet the demon I said because to be sure, I would just be drown by enormous fear, imagining how fearsome his façade would be—-horns on his head, fangs on his teeth, fiery red eyes, with a huge dark cape heavy on his back.

Then Major Loon asked me once more if in fact I believed in the person of Satan. I said that I could not be so sure—-since no one could be so sure about a guy that we only could see in our mind—-but I told him that mostly, I felt that if God exists, then Satan must be possibly an existent being; that the existence of the demon would in fact become a venerable proof that God exists. That if there is light, then there must be darkness, for how does one know the fact of light when there is no darkness that could be compared it from? How do we know righteousness if there is no such thing as wrongfulness; or good deeds from sin; right conduct from misbehavior; dry from wet; red from blue; sky from earth.

I had a thought then that in order to see Light in the mightiest of splendor, one must at least have a certain awareness of Darkness.

All in all, I have enjoyed “Conversations With God” even though I might not say I believe entirely that the author had really spoken with God. It is a well-written work and so filled with original and mind-opening insights. I bet that if Mr. Walsch was a fiction writer, he would for certain be an exciting storyteller.

Be warned that the idea of speaking with God might be mostly a blasphemous claim. But take it with enough grain of salt and read beyond the facts and see its wisdom in general terms. You would enjoy it I am sure.

Butterflies

Last Sunday was Father’s Day and I was thinking of a particular father’s day post I had in my mind that time but was so busy I couldn’t put thoughts into words so fluidly. It’s two days later now but I thought what the heck, despite that it might be delayed, it would still feel right to write about these thoughts.

On Sunday morning, a huge brown butterfly hovered into our front door and settled on the door’s reddish cortina. The kids had noticed the flowingly elegant butterfly coming in and went to approach it. Perhaps disturbed by the sudden surge of movements and sound, the brown butterfly quickly went of and flew by our window outside, as I watched it’s low flight, so full and grand.

Eric of Wish You Were here had once written about the mystery of dark butterflies and what they had meant, and what folk belief speak about it. I too was so mystified by this and the very coincidence of it. I am here in far southernmost city of Zamboanga and Eric is in bustling Manila and yet, the notions about huge butterflies suddenly appearing become so uniform and general to my own (pleasant) surprise. Eric had proffered then the idea that these sudden and unexpected butterfly appearances do have supernatural connotations where those butterflies personified or even carried the spirits of dead loved ones who for some reason, came to visit the living.

On that morning two days ago—-on Father’s Day—-the huge brown butterfly came hovering oh so suddenly when in fact I haven’t seen any butterfly in our area for quite a long time now, like in several years. There ain’t really no butterflies here I must assure you (at least not within our immediate area); for reason perhaps that our location in the city had become so dull of nature, what with all the gregarious human activity that surround us, with industrial fumes conquering the vicinity, making nature less abundant and therefore the absence of natural occurrences like often pernicious butterflies and dragonflies drifting through weeds and flowerings.

This butterfly incident in fact had starkly reminded me of one very unforgettable day when I was a young lad. Just days after my beloved grandfather Unih died, a huge dark butterfly came into the sala of my Aunt Nene’s sparkling bungalow and stayed there even when we kids had tried to drive it away. An older cousin—-perhaps Ka Bebot or Ka Boyet—-uttered that we should not disturb it for it might be the spirit of a dead relative who came visiting. That’s the first time I heard about this butterfly notion.

In this ultra-modern world we live in—-the so-called post-space age or computer age—-it would be so trite for me to patronize such butterfly notion, purely supernatural and simple-minded. Yet I felt that the butterfly who came hovering on Father’s Day might just be a supernatural visitor from another elemental space and existence. Who could that elemental visitor be and whose spirit? Maybe that of my own father who died suddenly on that one fateful August morning last year. Or maybe that of my father-in-law’s who passed away eight years ago. Or perhaps that of my beloved grandfather who had once visited me in a very memorable dream when I was still so young.

I could never tell. Just like I could not tell exactly why the sun revolves around the Earth in approximately twenty-four hours; why the moon appears so full on some nights and disappears in some others. What forces of nature could be so exact in one way and at some other time could be so unrhymed?

Such perhaps, is just the ways of the world.

Dreams

Tonight I felt very tired. My body is in a state of general malaise. Maybe I was exerting too much effort in the past days—-driving the kids to and fro from school and then blogging vehemently when nighttime falls, staying so late in the process, and then attending to other family concerns. Yesterday, an uncle died and I was in the funeral along with my mom. The weather was scorching at that time and so while we laid our uncle to the ground—to where he would be bound—-I was sweating profusely that a cousin could not help but notice how sweat had embodied me so well that afternoon. May his (my uncle’s) soul rest in eternal peace.

So instead of watching television till past midnight tonight, I just put on some music and tried to relax. I put on Sting’s The Soul Cages and felt so relaxed and my mood was efficiently smoothened by the sublimity of the music, especially the melancholy of this particular record—-allegedly made as a requiem for his dead father and judging from all The Police and Sting records I have acquired over the years, it is to me the best ever recording made by Sting; either as a member of a band or as a solo artist; and could be one of rock music’s all-time best.

In one song (When The Angels Fall), Sting was singing about dreams that he said “perhaps the dream was dreaming us”. I was wondering if actually a dream could ever dream by its own—dreaming a dream while it is a dream in the first place. Could that be possible and logical? Does it make sense at all? Yet I know that in lyrical songwriting and as well as in poetry, there is no rule to language, there is no restriction to language or composition. One poet or songwriter can say what he want and write what he intends. He could even say, “perhaps the dream was dreaming us” and no one could complain and say that it is of no cause or propriety. That’s why every poet is a free spirit and this is possibly be the freedom of language that we wish to be similar with human conduct; freedom from limitations and from every inhibitions.

I am a guy who always dream of dreams. Some of them I have narrated here—-quite starkly. Some believe that dreams foretell of the future. Some said they explain what had happened in the past. But there is just no telling.

I do believe in dreams. In dreams, we live another life, living within another elemental existence and despite the complications and surrealism they present, dreams could mean so much to us. It is a manner of communicating into our inner self, and even towards another level or dimension of existence. Dreams alone are supernatural by themselves. To this day, not even the brightest scientist could explain fully the nature of dreams and what they all mean to us. But we—-as ordinary individuals—-know that they do happen and occur, and recognizes it’s existence as a way of life.

In dreams, we are introduced to another form of existence and another world and in dreams we become not merely ordinary occurrences but also supernatural beings. And therefore dreams are so significant to our lives that Sting should be excused and was probably right when he wrote that “perhaps the dream was dreaming us”.

So dream a little and do not complain.

Naked And Sinful

On early morning Friday, I was naked. How it all happened, I am about to narrate now. No, I did not suddenly become a pervert and enrolled in a shirtless and pantless club, like they have in the states. But it was one morning—-about nine o’ clock in the morning approximately—-when the main street just beyond our northern fence was still silent from occasional passersby and the vehicles that used to pass there were still intermittent. And so there was a general silencing of the air around our vicinity, so heavy like a spread-out giant cloth shrouding the whole area.

My body felt so warm all over that morning—-too warm in fact that bristles of sweat appeared on my skin like a constant rain from the sky. I then desired water immediately, fresh and cool water that would be poured all over me. I imagine the Niagara Falls and I wanted to dive in it, like a thirsty fish into the water.

I grabbed a towel hanging from a nail hammered into a wall near the kitchen and went straight into the bathroom. I took off my clothes and opened the faucets. The water gushed in and my mind was cooled after hearing the sound of the rushing water. But my body was yet to follow. I went to scour for the usual soap and shampoo to be applied on my tempering body but alas I found nothing there. I opened the bathroom’s door once again and immediately climbed the stairs towards the bedroom on the second floor; to look for a fresh new pack of soap. On the corner of the room were groceries that were yet unpacked from the plastic bags that usually carry them and I unearthed a new pack of soap from it. I have always adored the smell of brand new soaps that are newly-opened from their nifty carton box containers, their fragrance so fresh and virginal, like a wildflower in the jungle. And their contour feels so smooth and silky in the hands.

I traveled the stairs downward towards the gushing water that had awaited me and I suddenly realized that I forgot to put on the towel back on my waist when I left the bathroom. I was actually naked navigating the distance from the bathroom towards the bedroom upstairs. Good thing I was alone at home at that time, or almost alone because my two younger kids were watching cartoon shows on the living room just a few steps away and if they had noticed me, they would have surely teased me and mocked me to no end, for being a pantless and shirtless dad at home. Luckily a dividing wall left me unnoticed from there. But what if the maids had suddenly blurted in ( as they were outside at that time doing chores I am not particular of at that time) and see the compromising situation I had then or if some passersby would suddenly gave a very keen gaze towards our house, looking through jalousies and from glass walls in the northern segment. Those glass walls are not too dependable as cover from outside views, that if the cortinas weren’t as neatly placed that particular morning, anyone could have easily notice a grownup guy navigating the stairs naked, with no covering whatsoever on his. But luckily, population on the streets just outside us wasn’t yet as abundant (as what could be often when afternoon comes) that I got away being naked on open spaces and not being stared at. You know what people think of grown up men being naked while not alone, or not in a private situation like in a bedroom or the bathroom. They would surely have some strange ideas about me.

I finally poured water on my head and down towards my whole body, to quell the steady heat that had affected me that one Friday morning. While I was feeling the water enveloping me that moment, I was thinking a little deeply, when I was supposedly be humming or even vocalizing a Sinatra tune, as I am wont to do sometimes when I am in the bathroom.

I was thinking that it wasn’t really usual for me to be suddenly absentminded and be ever naked in opener spaces, walking upstairs and not be so aware of my nakedness. I just forgot that I had no shirt or pants on—-for this one time only. And that was enough for me to deliberate this unusual situation. I’ve never been naked before except in the bathroom or in the bedroom. Perhaps when I was so little, I would have been naked, walking around the house and not be mindful about it. But as a grownup, I never was. Until that Friday morning.

We are well aware that crazy people—-or some crazy people—-goes naked even in the streets and not be so mindful about it. I became worried a little for thinking about this between nakedness and insanity. I just have to reassure myself that for certain, I could not be crazy as that.

Aside from insanity, what came to my mind at that time were the idea of Adam and Eve and the fact of sin, or of original sin. Maybe Adam was comfortably numb about his nakedness when he and Eve were still legitimately habituating the Garden of Eden, unperturbed by observers and onlookers. Perhaps nakedness could be summed up by sinlessness that before that momentous moment when Eve had grabbed that sinful apple, sin was still inexistent and nakedness is not an issue yet. But when finally Adam (and Eve) had bitten a chockfull of that silly apple, sin finally became a first time incident, and nakedness became finally shameful and Adam had to cover himself for fear of being seen naked and unrobed, outside the Garden of Eden. Whereas before, he wasn’t perturbed by such nakedness.

Did I felt sinless? Did I feel sinless that Friday morning that I was mindless and somehow feeling comfortable with myself while being naked like Adam was in the Garden of Eden? Oh, I’d really like to think that way. We all want to be sinless and of without fault, don’t we all?

But sadly, the reality is I am of sin—-many of them in fact—-and in matters of fault, I have scores of them. Therefore I am or was unlike Adam in the Garden of Eden, being naked and loving it.

I was just a little absent-minded that warm and humid Friday morning that I became naked for some moments…when I should not have been.

Caveman 2007

By tomorrow or a day after that, as I am estimating in my mind, I might be packing my bags and bundle some important things as I would be heading for some place else, somewhere that I have been to before but somewhere not many have seen yet or have known previously.

I have decided to leave the city for good. This plan had been in my mind for sometime now and I must assure you that this very drastic move on my part is far from being hasty—-in fact it is to be done with very deep contemplation and scheming that I have etched in my mind for so long now.

I have learned before how to drive nails effectively into wood and I reckon now that I have learned such task fairly well. My grandfather used to do some carpentry work and I used to have observed him so closely doing woodwork when I was so little, putting in mind every phase of the activity, from handling so tightly the wood to be nailed and towards the part when finally the nail is about to be hammered with reasonable precision, or else the hands would be greatly harmed.

Some of my uncles are pretty good too at this kind of work that I would have no doubt that I could do it by myself, hammering nails into wood. By that, I can safely assume that I’d be able to put up a small wooden shelter all by my lonesome when I get to the place that I am planning to go as of this moment. I’ll have thatches as roofs because many have opined how it would help ensure a cooler indoor environement, especially in rural environment. Having thatches as roofs is also one situation that I have been in before, right about the time while I was so young and our family could not then afford a better place to live in, as my father then was just earning his take as a humble mailman. My mother used to tell us stories how my father—-who is a native of the far away Province of Tawi-Tawi—-couldn’t articulate so effectively the local chavacano (a broken Spanish) dialect being spoken here that in some days, while he was still learning the tricks of delivering somebody else’s letter to somebody else’s house, my mother would come along with him for she was far more proficient in the tongue spoken here and therefore could communicate more easily with the mail recipients and also was more familiar with streets names and baranggay locations here.

Now let us go back to this plan I am presently having in my mind—-no reminiscing for now. I really do have a particular place in my mind, one that is far from the honky-tonky noise of the city streets. It is a place near or at the heel of a very prominent mountain known here as the Pulongbato, a stony mountain whose façade is so majestic that it could be seen from any point in the city, from east coast and west coast, from south side and perhaps in some part of north side. It is so strong and mighty like an honorable beast that have decided to sleep for a thousand years and still sleeping as I write now.

Below this mountain is a gushing river and a forest so lush that when years ago I was trekking this area with a number of friends from college, I have almost stepped over a striped multi-colored snake, climbed two small waterfalls, fell from a low cave wall and fell into cool river water, trotted into knee deep gushing water to reach a giant stone in the middle of the river and smoked to my heart’s delight as twilight had enveloped the forest, while the trees slept hummingly like old warriors, and had even eaten eels we caught from a calmer area of the river. Nature is so varied there, and so abundant too.

I reckoned that while I am there, I would ensconce myself in the warm embrace of Nature as Nature would show me a beauty that I have seen before but still looking for since then. I won’t go thirst there for the river that runs through it is so crystalline like diamonds in our hands. And I won’t go hungry either for even sweet bananas—-as I remember all too well now—-grow so wildly and I bet the rich riverways contains fishes that becomes so scrumptious as roasted on a brimming campfire, and the smell coming from it would just be gorgeously sublime. Out there, there’d be no time to keep up and catch up with. Industrial fumes are of no issue and the crazy sound of rushing vehicles won’t bother me no more. Could this plan of mind work? What do you think?

I had wondered deeply if ever my family would follow me there even if things wouldn’t be as easy in a sense that there’d be no school there, no fastfood to drive-by and order hamburgers and fried chickens. There’d be no education to attain there, and then no occupation to profess. And there’d be no roads to where we could drive our humble car. So perhaps, that small car would have to stay undriven for so long, or for eternity most possibly.

Could I say to them that we could have our own education there? That we can be teachers and students by ourselves? Nature is by itself an education and I can sense that it’d be an education that is similarly worthwhile, if not more propound. But I don’t think I could explain this to them efficiently and sell them the wisdom hidden beneath this idea.

And the air, yes the air there is so fresh that once I had thought of putting them in a bottle and sell it as pure purified mountain air, just like what they do to water nowadays. I have read once or had seen in a television show how in some part of Japan, air or the purified version of it had been contained by some enterprising souls there and had raked in some money for it.

The noise there could be so minimal that often, the chirpings of birds and the momentary shrieks of monkeys coming from tall shrubberies far beyond becomes calming to the senses and it is certainly the best anti-dote for stress and worry that most urban dwellers suffer and that for sure, it is a situation so ideal for those who long for peace of mind so desperately and to those who seek ultimate freedom from anxiety. Long walks in the mountain side would be a luxuriant activity and sipping hot coffee beside a cool rushing water, while the sun is just about to set into the horizon, is not a far-off idea anymore.

Ooops, I just heard City Hall’s siren wailing and it’s about time for me to go and bring my third son Yuri to school. And by the way, I was just daydreaming a while ago and none of the plans narrated here is to be carried out any time soon.

Hate

Bing of Warmstone asked me the other day about the things I hate. I’ve been asked about the weirder aspect of my being and the things that I adore and I soundly responded to them in this blog. But on things or circumstances that I HATE, I have finally become a bit tentative realizing that hate and anger are never superlative emotions and are meant to be hidden and tucked underneath carpets and behind closed doors, to never ever wash dirty linens in public’s view—-as some anonymous guy or gal once advised.

Come to think of it, the feeling of hate is so extant and pronounced in our daily lives that we could not help but recognize it as one fact of life that we could never ever escape from, like the wind we breathe. Without hate, we are nothing. Just like love.

We all know by know that love—-as against hate—-is one that this world needs, and one that makes the world go round, according to not-so-anonymous guys and gals like John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Boy George, priests, evangelists, imams, monks, rabbi, teacher, lawyer, hermits, bike riding hippies, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates when they were still hippies without bikes, presidents and head of nations, freedom fighters, prize-fighters, poets, essayists, storytellers, sages and pretenders alike, DJ on the radio, the comedian on a late TV show, actors and actresses, madmen and scientists and of course, each and everyone of us, such as I am, for I believe in LOVE and LOVE does make life much more bearable than what it is.

And then of course, by prophets and messengers—-most of all, by the Lord Jesus Christ who have pronounced so well to “Love one another like I have Loved you”.

Then it comes now for us to inquire that like the feeling of LOVE, did God have designed HATE to be so part of us and be that profoundly inevitable? Why it is to be and to what purpose or benefit does it brings us? Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a world without hate and anger, and to love and have loved all the time?

On deeper thought, love, love and everything love could make our world such an unusual place to live in—-people always smiling, always laughing, always caring and condescending that eventually, there’d be a time where we would often ask strangers, “Are you talking to me? Are you sane smiling at me like that all the time? Why are you smiling at me of all people?” Get the hell away from me!

Hate eventually becomes a fact of life that had been inculcated in us in order to usher a more balanced and normal existence; to put things into a viable fulcrum, like a man trodding a narrow bridge, to have balance from left or right because too much of weight on the one single side would make him fall into the muddy water below. Just like night and day, without night, Nature would wither by constant warmth, or without day, Nature freezes into complete depletion.

I realize all to well that the existence of HATE in one man or woman allows others to be of caution when interrelating; in order to realize that every man or woman has hate and therefore one should not easily trample upon him or her, to spit on his or her face, for that man or woman has some form of emotion called hate or anger, that if such insults would go unmitigated anytime soon, some repercussion would entail. I have HATE, therefore be of prudence not to ever spit on me. I have Hate, therefore I am.

Of course, Hate is not one sentiment that we should harbor like a child, to ever encourage it, for unreasonable and irrational hate would lead to self-desecration, self-destruction even. We have seen how the hate of one man, multiplied into thousands of blinded soldiers or armed men (women) has caused so much trouble in our world. Perhaps like LOVE, too much of it is certainly an unideal proposition. But if you ask me, I’d rather be loved too much—-much too much if possible—-than be hated so entirely.

Now let’s go back to Bing’s tag about the things I hate and sadly, I do hate, like the following:

• 1. I hate laggardly men and women who do nothing worthy.
  




• 2. I hate doing nothing.




• 3. I hate those who are shoddy in their task and duties.




• 4. I hate those who covet the possessions of others.




• 5. I hate those who are highly of unethical conduct.




• 6. I hate having no money (do I have to say this?).




• 7. I hate being harassed.




• 8. I hate being fooled around and cheated.




• 9. I hate noisy people—noise without purpose that is.




• 10. I hate having to do something not of principle or of bad deed.

Perhaps, there are many other things or facts and circumstances that I hate or perhaps some of those listed above could not really be of hate as we know it, but merely by aversion and dislike.

I can list many other things I am sure. But please be assured, I have more LOVE than HATE. At least, I’d like to believe it to be that way.

So what are the things you hate?

Weird Me V.2

Five Feet Flat—-web designer and chic girl—-tagged me for a tag that I have already done before; asking what’s bizarre about me. I’ve done such tagged before ( see this post ) but I won’t be bringing down a sassy girl like Five Feet Flat so I am gonna do a “weird tag” once more, without peeking at my previous “weird tag”. I feel like I’ve got more weird stuff to share. So here it goes:

1. When I was young, younger than the 28 years I’ve lived an earthly life…35 years if I am honest—-I like climbing trees that at about 17 or 18 years of age, I had spent afternoons hours and hours atop a ratiles tree, and I felt like I was at home in such high places. My mother once scolded me for this. “What do other people be thinking? My son is an asshole? No, not that way. Is my son a monkey?” I just kept my mouth shut and thought foremostly why should other people care about me climbing trees all the time. It’s not an immoral act and God does not forbid it and besides, why would I care about what other people think? People are people.






2. I drink coffee a lot like I have a love affair with that stuff. In fact most of the time, I kept daydreaming that one day I’d drink that famous coffee that comes from the bowels of a civet cat. Civet cat’s waste as delicious—-now that’s weird.






3. I loved Chinese soup almost all the time. At one point in my life, I’ve gone all over the city, even in Manila, savoring every Chinese soup offered and they come in many different names like balbakwa, Soup No. 5, special mami, bulalo, and such and such things. I actually visit frequently this downtown restaurant that had offered what to me is the best tasting beef mami of all time. But you know, I’ve learned through snglguy that in Binondo, a real Chinese soup is offered that I had regretted so thoroughly why I haven’t visited that area when I was there. That now, I kept on putting in my mind, that one day, I’ll have myself a real Chinese soup.






4. I don’t talk too much. I must have probably stated this in my previous “weird tag” but this is the most prevalent unusual thing about me. My father once told me that I am an introvert individual and from that day on, I have exerted enormous effort to be an extrovert person because my late father’s tone—-when he was saying that—-was a bit in disgust.






5. I love Metallica as well as Billy Holiday—-both in the same breathe. This must be weird I tell you.






6. I drink alcoholic stuff a lot. This should be weird for I am aware that decent men and women shouldn’t drink that way. If only there’s Alcoholic Anonymous in our midst. But sadly, there ain’t.

Now the rules say I’ve got to tag other bloggers for this. Culprit? Five Feet Flat.

So Abaniko, Annamanila, Snglguy, Ipanema, Vic; you got to tell us the weirder part of you. I know most of you have been through this. I have been too. So, no exempting justification for all five of you. And remember, you got to tag five other bloggers for this; and you’ve got to let them know you’ve tagged them one way or another. It’s fun I assure you.

Know

Know one’s self. Know thyself. I have heard or read about this saying, principle, advise, or guiding words a myriad times before yet this afternoon, it was one main major point of discussion that I had with a friend that had came over this morning, and the conversation lasted till early afternoon that I felt like it was old days once again. Family life and work had somehow stave away extra time from our routine like for example this friend who had been camping in a tent for nearly half a year now somewhere in the mountains, about 400 miles away from here, supervising over a harvesting of Gemilina trees that his olds had planted several years ago.

Tony is pretty sharp on these things, ruminations about facts of life—-just as I am perhaps when my mind is clear.

The way to unravel the secret and happiness and contentment he said is through “knowing oneself fully” and then being comfortable with it. The others become a mirror of the self that in every moment that one speaks or interact with another individual, there lies the reflection of the true identity of the converser and thereon—-through this mirror effect—-is the means to find the true self.

If one carries a lively disposition when one speaks, the other communicator becomes lively as well—-most of the time at least. If the first speaker interacts in a lonesome manner, the other person becomes forlorn as well. This is the mirror of the self, according to him. The individual becomes the reflection of the other, and by this means, one would be able to find the true self.

When you are happy, I am happy as well. If you are down, I am down as well. So therefore, he says that if we find ourselves in the other people that we speak to, they become a reflection of our selves and therefore lies the path towards “fully knowing ourselves”, a one good step or means to unravel the mystery of our own being. For in fact, even in high school we have been inculcated with the “four windows” principle of the self, where one window is the “self” as the individual himself/herself knows it, the second one as the “self” that others know about, the third window being the “self” that everybody knows about, including the individual himself or herself, and the fourth window being the “self” that no one really knows, not even the individual himself or herself.

I for one had conformed to this idea—-to know our true selves wholly in order to gain happiness—-even when I believe that the pursuit of happiness is never-ending because for one, how would contentment persist if one does not know one’s real self in the first place. Who am I? What do I desire? What do I intend to attain? Where am I going?

Yet, I digress for a while and have forwarded a countering thought to this idea of “knowing oneself” in other to gain happiness because in the first place, happiness is a very relative fact. Rich people are happy but they can be unhappy also, perhaps for reason not of lack of things, but by lack of meaningful activities.

Poor people are often thought to be full of discontent but they could be happy and contented as well even if they have lack of things, for they might have more meaningful activities. And happiness I said to Tony is a force or fact of life that could not be put under the control of man, that not even the brightest scientist would be able to get a full grasp of it, and state empirically and powerfully that “Voila! Eureka! Omigosh! I finally found the formula for instant happiness!”

Unlike instant noodles, happiness could not really be had by just adding hot water into a small plastic contraption and stir it gently until the noodles are soft and tender.

Sometimes I said, to know our true selves even becomes the instigator of discontent. If I know myself, myself wants this and that. My real self wants to drive a Jaguar in the stony streets of Zamboanga. If you ask me really what I want, I want to have a huge dollar account and be sipping piñacola in Bahamas all day, all night—-all year round. Of course, this is superfluous and I am just half jesting when I say this. But if you survey the population, perhaps 90% would respond that their idea of happiness is to have great fortune and then have great meaningful activities—-like sipping fruit juices in a Caribbean shore.

So it’s better that I readjust my knowledge of my real self so that I could readjust my aim for happiness. At times, we need to shove our real selves under the carpet or kept inside a cupboard, to be taken out when needed.

But hey, if I’ve got to readjust the level of aims I need to have, I need first to find my “true self”.

So therefore, Tony is right. To know oneself is the way to contentment and then have happiness. Not exactly. To know one true self is “one” way to unravel the secret of happiness. There might some other way, you know.

Out Of Mind, Out of Time

What is a mind? It is not yours; therefore it is “mine”. No, not the right term usage here. Sorry.

Is mind synonymous with brain? Sometimes, having a brain does not necessarily mean one has a mind, like for example when one could not even count from one to ten or spell the word “photosynthesis” (many thanks to the gritty Microsoft spell check for helping me with this one).

Where is your mind? How come your thirty-five years old with four kids and your just sitting there infront of the computer all day long doing God knows what you’re doing with that square contraption in your face? Now that’s my wife with her usual vitriolic tongue aiming and shooting at me and observe carefully how sometimes she thinks I am completely of no mind.

We all know what mind is. It is something within the brain that is impalpable and ethereal, having no physical form. It is the one thing that controls another formless fact of our being, consciousness. See also how consciousness is as formless as mind and examine circumspectly how we all feel it and know it but just could not see it or touch it. Yet we know it is there, our consciousness, like a timeless shadow.

Any old guy with a whiff of something between his ears would surely realize this, that we are a being mostly dependent on consciousness for every movement or act that we make, even those we do without intending like breathing or blinking our eyes, for they just become automatic and routinely. It is like Sting—-watching us with ‘every breath we make’ or ‘every vow we break’.

We have all gotten so extremely familiar with consciousness—-so familiar in fact that we hardly give a thought about it most of the time. If it is true what many says about familiarity breeding contempt, then we’d be trashing and elbowing and smacking-down our consciousness like hell by now. This despite that it is probably the most startling reality of our own being, and perhaps the most important of all.

Even scientists are far from certain where consciousness comes from or how it actually permeates from the material brain. They have already uncovered the minutest element of the brain and had discovered how the cells inside it emits varied and myriad of electrical pulses that allow the whole human body—-and being—-to function as it is. But how this happens exactly is what they are at a lost. Perhaps like a computer’s central processing unit, the electrical pulses send commands and programmed codes in order to move the hand, to instill feelings, to smile or frown, to cook, or blog, to ride a jeepney or eat a budget meal, to love and hate—-such and such things.

Now scientists have actually delved into an in-depth examination of the consciousness, as neuro-scientists in Chicago have deduced how out-of-body experiences are not so outlandish afterall, contrary to popular belief. By using virtual computer technology, they have observed how subjects put under a virtual mindset have actually felt their virtual selves being threatened as they were beaing approached at (virtually). I am not so particular at how the experiment really went but generally, it was reached as a conclusion that even in mind—-without physical structures of the body involved—-human beings would react positively to non-physical intrusions or introductions and thereon bolsters the probability that out-of-body experiences might just be a probable human experience. Read this very concise discussion on consciousness and the attempt to uncover it.

Easily, this could be set aside as merely the result of extreme imagination for the mind could imagine possibly everything and when it perceives a threat even just in mind, the body reacts accordingly—-physically and mentally.

Yet despite of this major loophole, the study abovementioned is a major headway into the investigation of the human consciousness and then, ultimately of the soul.

Previously, information on out-of-body experiences have been collated solely through accounts by those who have experienced traumatic experiences, mostly by those who had cardiac arrests, as they gain full consciousness after being declared clinically dead. We must note very well how in every such experience, it is extremely startling how every account of an out-of-body experience consists of one very unifying theme, that of seeing tunnels and a bright light at the end of it. As an empirical basis, these testimonies from those “who have came back from the dead” are generally weak and undependable, but as a circumstantial evidence, it is pretty strong and establishing; for how could one effectively explain the astonishing similarities in those accounts despite that they have came from different people living in different geographical locations, having had no contact with each other, and those traumatic incidents being separated by years in occurrence.

When I was so young, way before my highschool years, I was once told a story or rumor by older cousins about how a woman in Subanipa (my grandfather’s hometown in Olutanga Island just south of Pagadian City) died and was about to be buried (probably in the islands before, when one dies, embalmment would be so inconvenient that sometimes those who died are buried on the soonest time possible) yet the woman suddenly rose up from where her cold body was laid and just walked away from the vicinity. Everyone present at her wake was startled to no end of course. As the rumor goes farther, she went on to tell everyone that had inquired about the circumstances of her amazing ressurection how she had seen a long dark tunnel and a bright light at the end of it, so bright in fact that the light was so bright and she had to adjust her sight because of this, but the light she said, had been very comforting, and very pleasing to the senses that she had felt a joy she had never felt in the living world.

Now—whether this story was merely fabricated or not—-this account of an out-of-the-body experience approximates what were collated all over the United States throughout the years and it had happened when our world does not yet communicate as effectively as now, no Internet or cable news yet, and that was way before I have started to read similar accounts on Reader’s Digest. Those who had been an ardent Reader’s Digest reader over the years would surely know what I am saying.

For certain, it is not possible that those who have out-of-body experience in America have heard about this rumored woman in Subanipa and replicated her story about death and dying.

Such is how startling these out-of-body experience accounts—-we have heard many of them every so often from time to time, through those who have gone thru very traumatic physical incidents and had read or heard how they all had testified to the same circumstances, of tunnels and light, and yet whether we like it or not, we could not just as easily believe this as an incontrovertible truth.

Like how we can always believe that there is a sun circling above or below us, but we just do not know exactly how it came to being or what actually consists it.

Men & Women

I do not usually open forwarded mails especially from those I am far from familiar with, just popping virtually out of nowhere. But ever since the ADZU Highschool Batch 89 Yahoogroup was formed sometime last year, forwarded emails become more and more familiar and I’ve got to open them up or be a killjoy in the net. (Don’t you feel sometimes obligated to open semi-spams just because they’re from someone you know?) At times I felt that way but you know generally I feel gratified just to be mailed at, often straight from America, especially when the emails get funnier and funnier by the day.

Here’s one funny forwarded email from Egay Bayabos—-a highschool batchmate who’s now in Florida…errr….Virginia….No, Texas I think….Oh what the heck, it’s not important where he is right now coz I get confused often. There’s just so many of ‘em Batch 89 members who are in America right now….migrated or migrating.

Here’s how the email goes:

ABOUT MEN:

• 1. Men are like …….. Laxatives …… They irritate the shit out of you.






• 2. Men are like …….. Bananas …… The older they get, the less firm they are.






• 3. Men are like …….. Weather ….. Nothing can be done to change them..






• 4. Men are like …….. Blenders ….. You need One, but you’re not quite sure why.






• 5. Men are like ……. Chocolate Bars …. Sweet, smooth, & they usually head right for your hips.






• 6. Men are like ……. Commercials …… You can’t believe a word they say.






• 7. Men are like …….. Department Stores ….. Their clothes are always 1/2 off.






• 8. Men are like …….. Government Bonds ….. They take soooooooo long to mature.




• 9. Men are like ……. Mascara …… They usually run at the first sign of emotion.






• 10. Men are like ……. Popcorn . ….. They satisfy you, but only for a little while.




• 
  11. Men are like ……. Snowstorms …………. You never know when they’re coming,
  
  

  how many inches you’ll get or how long it will last.





• 12. Men are like …….. Lava Lamps ….. Fun to look at, but not very bright.






• 13. Men are like …….. Parking Spots . All the good ones are taken, the rest are handicapped.

ABOUT WOMEN:

1. BEHIND EVERY
   SUCCESSFUL WOMAN
   IS HERSELF.








2. A WOMAN IS LIKE A TEA BAG…
   YOU DON’T KNOW HOW STRONG
   SHE IS UNTIL YOU PUT HER
   IN HOT WATER.












3. I HAVE YET TO HEAR A MAN
   ASK FOR ADVICE ON HOW
   TO COMBINE MARRIAGE
   AND A CAREER .








4. 
   

   
   

   COFFEE, C HOCOLATE, MEN.
   SOME THINGS ARE JUST
   BETTER RICH.













5. I’M OUT OF ESTROGEN
   And I HAVE A GUN.

The Road To Australia

You may dish me like how many did Jim Paredes—-pop icon and music legend—- about several months ago, and if I am famous enough, as I wish I am that much, I might be flooded with scornful comments for this, and vitriolic emails too, yet I dare say that the road to Australia begins.

So one might ask what has gotten to the head of Major Tom this time that he have finally decided to head for the Land Down Under? Had he failed to love his homeland that much that now he becomes too unpatriotic to migrate to a foreign soil?

Wait a minute. Who says about migrating? Nobody’s migrating here.

I just thought that since last Saturday, my eldest son Sef-Sef was selected by his school to represent in a mathematics contest conducted by the Math Teachers Association of the Philippines (MTAP)—-one among 12 in his grade level, I thought that maybe, just maybe, he could be so good at it and end up an international competitor one day. And I for one know that most often, international math competitions are held in Australia. I don’t know why but Australia seem to have become a situs for math Olympics and I am not sure why but students from Zamboanga, particularly from Ateneo de Zamboanga and Chong Hua High School, as well as City High, have often done well in such competition. It is one for the books I guess. There must be something in the diet of Zamboangueños that make them good at numbers. Or perhaps the environment has some influence on the mathematical mind—-I do not see anything unique in the local environment though, so it remains a mystery.

So last Saturday, me and wife went full force, along with all the kids, to the posh and gleamingly new highschool building of Ateneo de Zamboanga in Tumaga in support of Sef-Sef, hoping and wishing that he would do well enough.

And perhaps Australia is well in sight—-hopefully. Parents do go along with their kids don’t they when they go to Sydney…or Melbourne…or Wales (Is Wales in Australia?). I have to inquire on MTAP about this.

Traffic In The City

For three days this week, from Monday till now, I’ve been stuck in heavy traffic one way or another, mostly on intersections even when it was not the usual peak time for motorists to be on the road, like 3:00 in the afternoon, when the streets are supposed to be a little sleepy and clear of traffic—-or 10:00 in the morning.

But as the days go by, I could sense how gradually the number of vehicles running on the narrow roads and avenues of this city had increased in dramatic terms (mostly Innovas and Fortuners and some Sorrentos, and a lot of Vios and second-hand Sportages) that I feel so strongly that the city government need to open up new roads or streets in order to counterbalance the increasing numbers of vehicles running, cutting straight into wide span of empty lots that are situated in between major street ways, mostly spreads of rice paddies while the others are just empty lots.

One major roadway was in fact built some years ago, threading into a vast vacant lot, nearly two square kilometers in proportion and is now popularly known as the Nunez Extension, nicknamed after the small street from where it had connected from (while it’s official road name is Maria Clara Avenue, after the late congresswoman and mayor of this city). It took so long to built that wide road and very costly too, wrought with legal problems, as owners and the city government went into a lengthy deadlock on the question about the right fair market value of the lots involved. The Nunez Extension experience merely bears out the inherent difficulty of building more new roads as not only it would entail a huge amount of government money—-money that is not easily found—-but also besotted by numerous strife such as lot ownership and the right price to sell or buy.

To be sure, if money is only sufficient, the city government of Zamboanga should by now excavating and digging holes into the ground, from every location of the city, from north to south, paving the way for more and more roads. But such is not the case. They say that constructing a kilometer of road today cost about several millions, in cement and labor and then on procurement of the lot from where it would be paved on.

So now, the traffic situation in this 3rd class city continues to worsen everyday. This must be the price of progress. Everyday, huge cargo trucks slither their way into contracted intersections and crawl into narrow streetways like a giant turtle, stagnating traffic and for every driver caught within it, it is like as if time had stood still and every driver in such condition would surely wish that the prices of hand-held TV’s would radically go down, for they would badly need one in such situation. Maybe 7.3 % GNP growth means more and more cargo trucks snaking into narrow streets, transporting more goods, from port to warehouse or vice-versa. To be sure, I was not seeing those huge trucks in the past on dead hours like 2 o’ clock in the afternoon or 10 o’ clock in the morning, at least not as often. Often, I would be so grumpy being stuck in a stagnated traffic caused by these giant mobiles, cursing them at times, for them being there, for navigating roads that are usually full of cars going home from school or offices. I would blame them incessantly—-sometimes by talking to myself while driving and being stuck in such heavy traffic—-and wondered out loudly why the h*ll they don’t get their own roads and navigate it away from the common transports. I thought those companies owning those trucks or of those cargoes being transported, should be obliged to built their own roads and not be a nuisance to the public commuters. But in reality, they would go bankrupt if they’d be required to build their own roads from port to warehouse, considering the cost of 1 kilometer of road today. And besides, our economy would suffer if goods and commodities were not transported on time and in the right amount of volume. So it’s a Catch 22 situation. I hate the trucks threading the roads, creating slow traffic—-very slow traffic to be precise—- but at the same time, the cargoes they are transporting might just contain my favorite cigarette brand or my kids favorite snacks, and if they ain’t on the stores by the time I get there, I might be cursing the trucks for not delivering them on time.

How I wish we were such a First World nation, like Germany or South Korea. By then, the city government of Zamboanga would not only be able to build new roads and avenues, but also install those nifty overpasses and underpasses, curving elegantly and circling gracefully thru major intersections, making the city a sight to behold if one stares at the city streets below from an airplane while above the sky, flying on a low elevation, while departing or arriving.

But such is not the case. Sigh. One Big Sigh.

Eight Random Facts

Pining over there at Hinaing Ni Pining had me tagged for this one. Looking back, I believe I have done a similar tag or tags before—-such as the weird things about me. But this one is about random facts, about those circumstances on me that may be true (as facts) but not necessarily weird. And since it’s “random” and not calculated, I am listing 8 facts here that comes to my mind as easily, and not with deep contemplation. So here it goes.

1. I am a big basketball fan. I’ve been watching Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) games ever since Atoy Co was still a lanky cager shooting ball from beyond the arc—-on a very delayed telecast basis back then and every time a player throws a free throw, I could remember all so well how the Traders Royal Bank logo always appeared on the screen with the player’s name and points made so far. Like “Ricky Brown. 19 pts.”. I’ve been watching NBA games since Magic Johnson was throwing those semi-hooks, where one of them was a buzzer beater and broke the heart of Larry Bird and made millions of Celtics fans cry for the 1989 NBA World Championship.








2. I love golf but I haven’t got to swing even a single wood. I loved tennis also even though the only time I played it—-back in my law school years—-I was always hitting air and not the tennis ball. I was always cursing, “Damn that invisible green yellow ball!” although only in my head. I got so frustrated that I sold my second-hand tennis racket the day after.








3. I am not so tall, not so tan, and not so…nevermind.








4. I was once a TV reporter—-about a decade and half ago, right after I graduated from college. In a small town like Zamboanga, news are hard to come by then so most of the time, I had to “invent” news like going to offices and looking for Regional Directors or Officers-In-Charge and “invent” an issues like “C’mon there must be something real bad about the garbage situation in the city.” I would start a conversation with the head of the garbage collection agency of the city for example and I would end up with a story how the Japanese government had donated second-hand trucks to be delivered at the end of the month. Since then, the garbage office was my favorite place to be when I am out of news story at the end of the day.








5. I smoked a lot more than what is necessary and as a matter of fact, this alarms me now that I am writing about it. My first brand was More. Then for a long time Marlboro. Now it’s Phillip Morris when my pocket is full and Hope when the budget tightens. I think I must quitting this habit at the soonest time possible.








6. I wanted to be a rockstar but the rockstar lifestyle never wanted me.








7. I only had one girlfriend. And she is now my wife. Of course, I have only one wife.








8. I love watching Jay Leno and David Letterman and I watch them every night. And if I am not so sleepy near midnight, I go forth and watch Conan O’ Brien. These guys are so funny that I just couldn’t get enough of them. I am thanking the Lord for funny guys like them, they make my day everytime…I mean my night.

So there you go, eight random facts about me. They may not be weird, but they are random.

I am not tagging anyone this time but if tell me something “random” about you when you comment on this post. Thanks.

What’s Your Middle Name?

This is another tag. If you are not a tag kind of guy or gal, you can stop here and take the nearest detour and click on to the next webpage please. But since tags are surely fun, you’d better stop clicking away and read on.

This one’s from Ipanema just about a couple of days ago. It’s about one’s middle name. Here’s the rule for specific details:

1. State your middle name. If it’s too long or not sounding so good, then think about the name you wish you had as a middle name. And use that, of course.






2. For each letter of the middle name stated in Rule #1, write a specific trait or characteristic of your person and elaborate reasonably.






3. If you had five letters in such name, tag the same number of bloggers. Like if that name has seven letters, then seven other bloggers. If such name has one letter, then tag that one single blogger. Now wait, I don’t think that middle names—-or any name for that matter—-could probably have one single letter on it. But who knows, some names might just be like that, like Mr.X, or Mr.Y. We got a lot of names like that back in my accounting subjects in college, Mr. M owes this much, Mrs. Q earns this much, and so on and so forth.






4. There is no Rule #4 so might as well go on.

In my case, my real middle name is too long for comfort that I would be hard-pressed to ever think of a great number of traits or characteristics so I decide to state and use “UNIH” here as the name of the hour. As you know, Unih is my beloved grandfather’s name and if you ask me what name I thought I would like to have, then “UNIH” must be it.

Now, here’s the main tag:

U-I am understanding. At least I like to think myself that way. And also because I feel and believe that I understand a lot of things.

N-I am nurturing. I am so kindly to my kids that I could say I am a nurturing father.

I-I used to be insomniac about several years ago, when I was still single. I could be awake till the early hours of the morning and amazingly wake up at about 8 or 9 in the morning not feeling groggy at all. But now that family life consumes me all day, I would feel so sleepy right before midnight that as a blogger, I had wished to be insomniac again so that I could focus on the content in my monitor in the silent hours after midnight, but this just wasn’t the case, so I do my blogging on daytime.

H-I am Happy. At least that’s what I want to believe for myself. And also because I can be happy and pleasured with so many simple things that happiness would not be such a problem for me if ever I’d seek it. But of course, I am entwined in the usual difficulties of life, like lack of money, emotional distraction and disturbances, stress and anxieties; but I could be happy just watching a flock of elegant birds passing by, which can occur in the sky above our vicinity once in a while, watering the gardens and watch them bloom in deep green and reds, and oranges, and lavenders, like a fishbowl of colors, especially in the morning, when the sweet early sun rays start to kiss the ground.

There you go.

For this one, I am tagging Intsik, Wil, Singkopipe, Gypsy, and Momoftwo; for no other reason except I have not tagged even once before.