...After years of meditation on the true meaning of life, the now frail and withered wise man decided to drop his occupation, and just start to daydream...

While this game of statistics and "everybody is just a number" mentality keeps on invading my everyday life, there is at least still in me a part where every life is precious, and that every people I meet becomes special to me. And this part which values friendship and love and life do want to say something ---

Welcome home, Noelle!!!

I hope and pray your life will be so much fun,

that your life will be filled with love,

And that you will grow to be the beacon of care as your mother has always been.

Happy Birthday!!!

In light of the recent shooting in Virginia Tech, I remember what an academic/political critic once said. Our world today (or the American society, for that matter) has de-evolved into an atomized, fragmented society, where people basically just keep to themselves. That the current state of economic disparity and social apathy inflicts a certain degree of hardship, especially on working people (i.e. rich gets richer, poor get poorer, and the rich does not give a damn as to the plight of the poor). The resultant effect of this on individuals (like the Columbine shootings and illustrated by Pearl Jam's Jeremy) is the fact that there seems to be a growing anger, social in nature ---where, to put it simply, people are mad about something but they don't know what to be mad about. Hence, what you end up seeing are episodes, i.e. bursts of rage (like a shooting rampage), rooted from inherently social cancers we are currently in.

A little different point of view than what most of us are used to hearing, but I think it's a viewpoint that says more truth than most I've heard.

A man went to look for a wise man living up on a hill in search for the secret to happiness. He found him after a long trek, and upon seeing him, he was busy entertaining a lot of visitors around his house. The wise man told him he was busy at the moment, so he told the man to go about the house for a while but asked if he can carry a spoon filled with oil. The man then did as he was told. He went around but was careful not to spill the oil on the wise man's carpet. After a time, the wise man came back and asked him if he enjoyed seeing the beautiful landscape in his backyard, the fine sculptures filling his house, and the architecture of the house. The man said no, embarrassed, as he was busy concerning himself with what was on his hand. So the wise man told him it's a shame that he was not able to and told him to go around the house again and look. So he did, and he saw able to see all the beauty that was around him. When the wise man came back, he asked him what happened to the oil, and upon looking, the man saw that the spoon he was holding all this time is now empty. "Well, there is only one piece of advice I can give you [then]," the wise man said, "The secret of happiness, is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon."

In the same vein, "A shepherd may like to travel, but he should never forget about his sheep."

---from Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, paraphrased

I was walking with my friend earlier to lunch. We talked about how our worksite has degenerated into a whole corporate structure, with cut-throat mentality that, as he normally says, "Believe me, man. We work with a lot of people nowadays that in order to get some 5 cents they would not hesitate to step on you with your dollar." We talked about such realizations of work-life, and honestly sometimes I get so sick of it that I really just don't want to talk about it. I purposely divert our conversation into family, into friends, into marriage, into photography, into how it is a beautiful day! really. Today though, we talked about the long hours of work and how it makes one become so mechanical. One gets to be so robotic that it affects the way we treat our lives in general. We wake up to the same time. We get into much of a routinized work the whole day. When we come home, we zone into space and lord knows how we can think clearly because of exhaustion and the stuck-in-a-rut mentality. We can't even seem to visit our friends when we feel like it; we have to set up an appointment if and when we get the chance. And the more me nd my friend dived into scenarios, the more troubled we became. We continued citing things but it really got to a point where it is not funny anymore. I ended the conversation with a quote by one of my favorite pychologists BF Skinner. He said, "Why is it that we are so involved with creating robots that think like humans, when we already have humans that think like robots?"

Later on, when I was alone, I thought about the movie Virgin Suicides and the 90s. It got me thinking again about ennui, and senselessless in life, more like a societal (or middle-class) meltdown on the human drive to live. I started thinking, these people who have food to eat, who have money to go out and entertain themselves, who have essentially the proper resources to "live life and have it abundantly,"---why are they so dispassionate about their state? Why are they so listless? restless?! Then I said to myself, "Poor kids. While they have every means to live, the society is not set up for them to have meaningful living. They are trained to live a "proto-hedonistic" life, with not much of training on reflective living, and happiness on whatever is there." Such is the utter state of an object-oriented, goal-oriented society, where everyone is taught to achieve something in order to be happy (as opposed to just the thought of living-in-itself and proper attitude on things with a sense of morality and ethics but with room to be "mischievous" still --hehe!). Tsk! Tsk! Poor folks!!! These folks are really out of it, and a lot of it is really not their making, but rather systemic!!! Sad. Really sad state of current affairs... so I guess our current society doesn't just affect the real poor folks, huh? Unbelievable. Just unbelievable.

Someone told me once that there is a real problem with disparity in richness. He said, The problem is this: poor folks are worried abotu where to get their money, while rich folks are worried about poor folks taking their money away from them. There is a simple solution to this, you know. I will just leave it up to folks to think of what the solution might be.

I caught myself humming this song at work. I put on my ipod and blared the song on the speakers listening to the sweet sweet tune being played; while, however, half-joking my friends that I like the song because it reminds me much of 'desperate' love. Like something like "well, nobody's really there for me anyway, so I guess I'll just have to stick with you..." Meanwhile, laughing at the pun, while they start hating me for what I just said, and replying, "Wait! That's not what the song is about!!!" And I keep on laughing, more because I want to set a spirited atmosphere in the morning for most of us that despise being at work too early, but also, on a deeper, personalized level, because I think I'm starting to understand what it all means after all. .

.
...Because I know full well that the song is not about desperate housewives (hehe!)... I think I finally got it. It's not about being sucked into the world of last options, but rather understanding what love really means, and coming to terms with your own soul past all the chatterbugs that are nipping on it. And bringing one to fall on his knees, breaking all the chains of customs and norms, and be with who one really wants to be, with the pinnacling moment to willingly falling into the pits, to the person one decides to 'stick with' the rest of his life forever. After all, it is what life often beckons one to come to in order to comprehend its purpose, despite one's hard-headedness, and reveal the mystery that transcends one's own time.

.

.

Stickwitu

by Pussycat Dolls

I don't wanna go another day,
So I'm telling you exactly what is on my mind.
Seems like everybody's breaking up
Throwing their love away,
But I know I got a good thing right here
That's why I say
(Hey)
.
Nobody gonna love me better
I must stick with you forever.
Nobody gonna take me higher
I must stick with you.
You know how to appreciate me
I must stick with you, my baby.
Nobody ever made me feel this way
I must stick with you.
.
I don't wanna go another day
So I'm telling you exactly what is on my mind.
See the way we ride in our private lives,
Ain't nobody getting in between.
I want you to know that you're the only one for me (one for me)
And I say...
.
Nobody gonna love me better...

"I am not obsessing over you, my dear.

Obsession carries the weight of the need to acquire you.

I really don’t need to acquire you...

I just wanted to show you I care."

-What Narcissus said to the clover leaf

A little something for the beauty I find today waking...

.

.

Now the parking lot is empty
Everyone's gone someplace
I pick you up and in the trunk I've packed
A cooler and a 2-day suitcase
Cause there's a place we like to drive
Way out in the country
Five miles out of the city limit we're singing
And your hands upon my knee

So we're okay
We're fine
Baby I'm here to stop your crying
Chase all the ghosts from your head
I'm stronger than the monster beneath your bed
Smarter than the tricks played on your heart
We'll look at them together then we'll take them apart
Adding up the total of a love that's true
Multiply life by the power of two

You know the things that I am afraid of
I'm not afraid to tell
And if we ever leave a legacy
It's that we loved each other well
Cause I've seen the shadows of so many people
Trying on the treasures of youth
But a road that fancy and fast
Ends in a fatal crash
And I'm glad we got off
To tell you the truth

Cause we're okay
We're fine
Baby I'm here to stop your crying
Chase all the ghosts from your head
I'm stronger than the monster beneath your bed
Smarter than the tricks played on your heart
We'll look at them together then we'll take them apart
Adding up the total of a love that's true
Multiply life by the power of two

All the shiny little trinkets of temptation (make new friends)
Something new instead of something old (but keep the old)
All you gotta do is scratch beneath the surface (but remember what is gold)
And it's fools gold (what is gold)
Fools gold (what is gold)
Fools gold

Now we're talking about a difficult thing
And your eyes are getting wet
I took us for better and I took us for worse
Don't you ever forget it
Now the steel bars between me and a promise
Suddenly bend with ease
The closer I'm bound in love to you
The closer I am to free

So we're okay
We're fine
Baby I'm here to stop your crying
Chase all the ghosts from your head
I'm stronger than the monster beneath your bed
Smarter than the tricks played on your heart
We'll look at them together then we'll take them apart
Adding up the total of a love that's true
Multiply life by the power of two

.

.

Indigo Girls

The Power of Two

Who understands you, sister?
With secrets you keep?
The sun rises and moon replace
Yet feelings remain to keep

Unearth the soul, the stigma
And wrestle once more then retreat
Hide the truth, the shame, the slander
Then live your life again

How long will it last
How long will you have to suffer
Must your happiness surrender
To committed crimes to your heart

Of dreams long gone
Of once future thrown in mud
Of pretentious dimensions of a severed path
Of being an orphan of the past

I sympathize, sister and I wonder
How can you survive
When all your efforts hide
But your soul from me?

It is time to dance ---dance!
With a soul that carries the juxtaposition
Of fixtures in time
While you carry the power of life...

Carry it with love...
It is the only way
Carry yourself with love
Carry it to the power of three.

Well, here I am. I'm up to just had it with working. Putting up hours at work like crazy. Can't seem to see the light of day when it comes to figuring out, "am I gonna make it this month for my bills? for uncle Sam?" Life seem to take its toll on everybody. Well, that may be an understatement. Or maybe a misconstrued phrase. Because what I'm finding out is that the more I work, the less I can emotionally feel. And to a psychologist like I perceive myself to be, it begs the question of "how can one move to action when without emotions, there is no drive (or motivation) to function?" Emotions play a pivotal role in human activity. Sensory stimuli trigger certain sets of impulses (or motivation) cognitively arranged to produce a series of action. Once you get rid of the motivation, you eliminate the perceived need to act (or react). A classic case is found when Lithium is injected into a manic-depressive patient (Lithium is an emotional depleter or "baseline regulator" as stated in scientific literature); such patient seems to not function at all because there is no emotion to govern his/her behavior. Well, finally, I have discovered my own Lithium regimen...

...And I don't like it! I have a lot of things I need to uncover, a lot of things I need to do, a lot of things I need for my future...

I got into this mode of numbness once when I degenerated into a workaholic. Frankly, I had some issues I needed to deal with but in order to escape those I found work to be a pleasant way to not do what I had to do. "Great work! and "Good job!" came as a way to reinforce my attitude towards "more work and fu@# life!" But that was then. Today is now. I don't want to revert to that kind of attitude again because for one, I found my life to be not much of a life worth living at all and two, I hurt my loved ones in the first place by becoming the senseless being that i had become. And I don't want to repeat that again. I seriously don't.

So when 3 o'clock hit the clock, I zoomed right out of the gates. I'm off. I need to. I need to find my way into the world. I need to reflect. How did that saying go again? An examined life is a life worth living ---?

Now I'm here. I don't have to do anything for some time. That's good. Maybe, rather than dealing with what I have to do next at work, I can deal with who I want to call now.

History should never repeat itself. I like my life now.