Dear Reader: Detach Me From Reality

Photo taken at Mayoyao, Ifugao

Oh please please take me far away from here. Take me somewhere where I'm surrounded by lush green trees while clenching the rough edgy stones with my fists. I want to run. I need to run. I need an escape. I deserve an escape. Oh dear earthquake, shatter this ground and take me away from this daily solitary routine. How can life be defined by staying inside a big box with doors and windows? How will these four corners make me feel alive and kicking? Work is of the essence but somehow we just have that occasional thug inside us to let loose and return to our primary roots.

Life should be lived out on the open field, under the vast blue sky, embracing sunshine’s warmth, shivering under rain showers, leaping from a rock to another, rolling over the green green grass, swimming in seas and oceans. There are beasts within each and every one of us. We can run like gazelles all throughout the horizon, be a beast and fight like jungle lions, pound the ground like big grumpy elephants. Some of us may even be dolphins living life carefree, or be silly like a bunch of monkeys having the time of their lives. But one thing is for certain, if only we have wings, then without a doubt we will be like eagles soaring the brazen skies.

Life has so much to offer than the confines of an office, answering calls and providing solutions, absorbing other people’s anger and frustrations. Stress is a huge boulder I cast upon my shoulders. A breakdown is not too far from where I am right now. Bearing it alone is not possible. A friend may come but soon they’ll pass. And in my quaint bedroom moments I cry, somehow it eases the pain. In tough cases screaming helps, find a rooftop and scream all you want. But rest assured most of the time ice cream never fails.

The Price Of Time

When the doctor informs you that you have a terminal illness and that your days are numbered, before asking how much an  operation or treatment may cost, the first question that pops in our mind is “How much time do I have?”.

To economists and business people “Time is money”. Life in general doesn’t seem that way. Finding money nowadays could be difficult but there are ways to earn it. Here are the facts: There are jobs all over the world. Businesses are sprouting in every corner. There are foundations and charities pledged to help people in need. Money can be obtained in various ways but the possibilities of extending time cannot be done. Oil is essential to our survival. Machines run on oil and in an industrial and technological day of age, I doubt that its in-existence wouldn’t go unnoticed. Prices of items in the market and transportation depends majorly on the price of oil. But as important as it is, we may still run out of it. The same goes to money. You may run out of all the daily necessities in life but you still have time, but if you run out of time you have nothing left.

Time is ticking. As each day passes by, time keeps on running. As much as we want our very own backspace to rehash the past, pause button to take a break, Ctrl-z to undo something, and reset to start afresh and anew, it is not possible. We cannot store it in a bottle to save for later, and slow it up during happy moments. We cannot buy a gallon of it in a grocery store or sell it to someone else who is in need. When we spend time, it is forever lost and unrecoverable and all that’s left to say is “What’s done is done”.

Mixtape: Chill Out!

Space Cowboy from hellodadasaur on 8tracks Radio.

In these lazy cold nights, you find yourself gazing at the vast concrete jungle. Gone are the trees and grass, they're now your local billboards and pave ways. But the beauty of the city is still a sight to wonder at for your thoughts that wander. The streetlights and lamp posts when viewed at a certain angle makes it look like an airport railway. Traffic when seen from above reminds you of the upcoming Christmas season and how it gives you the feeling of excitement inside. You want a break from all the stress being thrown out at you and you just want to chill-out. Be laid back. Don't be apathetic. Just care less now. Be CHILL personified. 

Dear Reader: Apathy, Your Only Friend

Dear Reader,

There comes a time when you stop caring about anything or everything really. So what if that's their perception of you. You just got tired of making people understand you. You just live the way you want it to be. Who cares if you're awake when they just tucked in to bed and sleep when everybody's about to wake up. The hell if you just spend your time looking at countless websites, rereading books you've already read, eating only when you're hungry, and whatever shit comes to mind. They remind you of things that you should be doing instead of bumming out but you just let it pass through the other ear. They keep on blabbering and your mind hums a tune you recently heard...and it keeps going on and on - the chattering noise and the humming. They are the constant reminder of reality. This time apathy is your ally, you are apathy personified. You don't know how long this would last, you only feel like it this moment, you're not a mean anti-social, its just a phase, give it a month then it'll pass. 

Mixtape: Work Hard, Play Hard

With all the deadlines, bills, and drama on your shoulders right now, there's no way you'll enjoy this coming weekend. Work is tougher than ever but you have to work to pay off all the bills. You want to party so hard but the deadlines are holding you back. When you get home there's always this never ending drama bothering you. 

You just want to relax. Let go off the bulk on your shoulders. You want to break free and fly. A little drink with friends wouldn't hurt, maybe they need this too. Plan out a weekend escapade within or outside the metro. Have fun, drink, be merry. Take a pause from all your worries. Keep calm and party on! Show 'em those grooves you got. You've been working so hard and you deserve a proper compensation. A perfect treat to a day's hardwork.

 

Mixtape: The Soundtrack Only Matters

It really didn't sound that bad at all. After reading you got a little confused, you felt like there's something wrong, but you couldn't put a finger on it. Then came the movies, you might as well give it a try for curiosity's sake. You came out of the cinema, thinking of all the things you could have bought instead of being rooted on the spot sandwiched between blabbering fangirls. 

Years passed and installments came with them. It became a revisionism and mockery of vampire films in hollywood. Bram Stoker sure have had shit his pants to this. Fan bases multiplied by millions. You love to hate it, but the only thing that makes you similar to these self-acclaimed twi-hards is that you adore the soundtrack so much. 

 

The Art Of Killing

What defines the art of murder?  If there were monsters in society, they were not born that way— they were made to be one. Molded as they grew up to fit the perfect profile of a killing machine. 

But what makes killers killers? 
If hatred and anger are symbolic catalysts to these acts, then we are all candidates to commit it. All of us are potential murderers. Yes, even the most rational, religious, and sane person alive is also one to look out for. 

There are several reasons that people do it, some for self-defense, some under the influence of alcohol or drugs, some are just madmen, and some did it in their right frame of minds and fully aware of the consequences. Lately the juvenile killings are on the rise and the very disturbing thought is that they did it only for plain curiosity. According to Ted Bundy "Murder is not about lust and it's not about violence. It's about possession. When you feel the last breath of life coming out of the woman, you look into her eyes. At the point, it's being God." That's his reason for killing, because it makes him feel like God. I wonder in the back of your minds, do you secretly ponder how it would feel if you actually did it? If you actually kill someone. And would it also make you feel like a god?

Laws, religion, and morality set aside, our reason is the greatest ticket we have for being out of jail as of the moment. Weighing our options before committing anything is one of the most valuable process we take every single day. If we just depend on our feelings and let our emotions take the wheel, surely there will be a bloodbath out there.

We don’t know what would it take to make you a murderer. No one in this world was born with the ability or desire to kill. No one comes to this world full of hatred and anger. It is something  we learn and develop in time. And only time will tell when, where, how, and who.

Celebrating The Future

In this day and age, we have already achieved modernization with its peaks and troughs. We are entering a new era of more complexities and challenges that can now be easily resolved with a new intelligence in another form.

TECHNOLOGY RISING:

With the rise of technology as an essential form of service it brought vast changes to the world both constructive and destructive. Human inventions can ease burdens, uplift suffering, and even bring new forms of beauty into the world and to balance it out it can also create war as to what weapons are made for. 

MAN’S EGO and THE DEVALUATION OF HUMAN THOUGHT:

Man with all his pride, glory and ambition keep on trying to duplicate the brain’s functions and abilities to keep up and top what nature has given us that resulted to the rise of human-like thinking machines. Now we are still the highest form of beings but in a short time scale what is regarded as the Homo Sapiens race will be replaced by the Machine Sapiens by which are created by the human race itself. 

Children do research via internet, the problem-solving, the researching and connection making is performed not by the child but by the machine. The trend nowadays when you would like to learn something is to “google it”. Then there are websites like stumbleupon, pandora, snipsnap, and various sites that offer recommendations and suggestions to users by prediction of users’ taste and preferences for an efficiency and less brain in part of the human. In a text-editing software like MS Word, what we users do is merely input mountain of text and rely on the Auto-spell and Grammar check for proof reading and corrections. These in its simple forms are a degradation of human thinking.

You Are Bigger Than Your Problem

All of us go through our mishaps, heartaches, and problems. No one is exempt from any difficulty in life, not even the actors, religious people, or kind-hearted persons, they also have their fair share of hardship.

The past can be cruel to some, most opt to bury it. Little do we know that the problems that we face and we will face come from our past. No matter how many feet they were buried underground those memories will always stay there. Remember when people say “Do not mind your problem, let it mind you”?  It is one of those comforting words we tell ourselves along with “This too shall pass”. But those who ignore their problems aren't living in reality, but they prefer to stay in their own fantasy. Your life is not a Disney fairy tale.  You’re not a Damsel in distress waiting to be rescued by a knight in shining armor. If you are placed in such situation how prepared are you to face such challenges? We should be always on the lookout for problems, do not go commando and find it, surely it will come to you someday and when it comes, don't hide and flee but face it front and don't let it overcome you. It is you that must overcome the problem.

Fact is problems don’t just bid goodbye when they feel that you can’t handle them, they stick around you, they don’t go away. Act on it the moment it arrives, deal with it immediately but always keep in mind that you don’t have to carry all that bulk in your shoulder, some problems you alone cannot solve. You’ll need help, don’t let your pride stand before you, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Do not try to change things that you cannot change, you might end up tired running in your self-made thread mill that will lead you nowhere. Life is not a fairy tale, problems are here and there, and after you finish one another will pop out. If you are tired of this burden, others can help but the final decision will always rest in your hands.

Image: Osmar Schindler (1869-1927): David und Goliath

Update: Featured article on Definitely Filipino

Mixtape: City Lights Awake

The sun came and went. As the night falls upon us, the city lights awake. The streets are absolutely full. Parents are on a frenzy, they can't wait to see their children. A group of women clad in their minis and stilletos walked passed by while discussing which bar to spend their hardly earned money to and behind them are a handful of men in tux eyeing them. A young couple accidentally bumped you while they were giddily walking hand in hand as if this night was theirs to own. People from all walks of life are here on the streets, living in their own world with their own priorities and goals in life. But for you work was no better than yesterday and all you're thinking is a nice dinner before crashing the couch and fall asleep.

Everything is a blur, you stop for a while and find yourself in a movie-like state where everything is moving fast forward while you're rooted on the spot. The city lights seem to dance and jump from building to building, to street lights, post lights, then to car lights. You never do this often, appreciate beauty in every aspect of life. It was trance-like. It felt childish, but you are amazed. 

Freewill

Somehow even how carefree we think we are we still adapt to certain beliefs and philosophies. Every individual has their own sets of beliefs and ideals, it may be acquired by the nature of his growth or the nurture of his being. I simply wonder how can I acquire or be influenced?

The system, as a body of legislation have the power even in the minds of people. Politicians and legislators speak out their voices and appeal to appease every individual’s vote or approval by instilling their ways of teaching. With the use of  print, tv, radio, and internet, one can easily be the influencer or influencee. The school, the second home we always thought of as a platform for our young children to gain exposure to the world, to know what is in the world, and a tool to be educated about life by learning what is to be learned in every corner of the room. The peers, little they may be on numbers or not they have the ability to influence us with their own way and in time unnoticed we are unconsciously living up to their ways. And must one not forget the family, the basic unit of the community, the primary people we grow up with, the very initiators of our thinking, the primes that mold us, shape us and eye-openers of the sets of our  ideals and thinking. We have thousands of choices and sub-choices ahead of us. Seeing that you are still reading this is a choice that you chose instead of watching TV. It is what we choose that matters most. 

Freewill is dangerous to every extent, but using it is when we fully utilize the power of our humanity, of our life. We are not bound to fate and destinies. We are what we make of ourselves. It is our decisions that will make or break us. So now tell me which is which? Does it matter given the factors of how can we be molded affect our thinking if we in our own selves behave as individuals asserting our freewill in every decision and choice to make. Ceteris Paribus it is not society nor the system that has power over us but us, we are the captains of our ships, the molders of our lives and the threaders of our fate.

Rainy Days Mixtape

Here’s to the nights when you come home from a hard day’s work. The rain starts to pour hard and you get irritated by the raindrops knocking on your window pane. Suddenly it's cold and freezing yet surprisingly calm and relaxing. The rain keeps knocking over and over, scratching the window with its pointy ends, as if calling you to come nearer.

You come closer and sit beside the window. You were mesmerized with the pouring rain. Suddenly the window sill became a shoulder to lean on. You begin to look back on what you did that day, and the day before, and the day before that, then weeks, and years before that. Then it got touchy walking down on memory lane, so you start to think of the future. What would happen tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, and the day after that, and years ahead. It was even more tiring thinking of things yet to come. Now all you want to do is keep your mind blank and enjoy the scenery of mysterious patterns provided by these raindrops.

Keep Growing, Keep Living

They say life happens when we step out of our comfort zone. Having an educational diploma does not guarantee satisfaction. Life doesn’t stop after college. It keeps going on even after marriage or your 40’s. Life is an on-going process. You may be roaming this earth for a long time and feel satisfaction and contentment. But don’t be deceived life isn’t what you perceive it is. In this day in age we discover new information everyday, every hour, every minute. There are new fashion trends, newly found diseases, new actors, new scandals, fresh picks in the market. Learning doesn’t stop at school. Everyday is a learning day. Every minute is a miracle. Growth isn’t just how much you weigh or how high you are. It’s more in the inside of you, more personal. The 13 year old you is a lot different than the present you today. A lot of things have changed, the way you speak, your humor, your style, your attitudes... But as a person you evolved to maturity. You now see the world in a different perspective. Even if you’re 40 or in your 80's life isn’t done with you.  

People who feel okay and stay their ground all the time are the most uncooperative people. They just stay where they are, where they feel they are safe. They stay in their comfort zone because they are too afraid of the world ahead. Do not stick to the one that is just safe and sound for you. At first change could be hard but it could be for the better.

Image: Journey 2

The Price Of Time

When the doctor informs you that you have a terminal illness and that your days are numbered, before asking how much any possible operation will cost, the first question that pops in our mind is “How much time do I have?”.

To economists and business people “time is money”. Life in general doesn’t go that way. Finding money nowadays could seem difficult but there are every ways that it can be done. Here are the facts: There are jobs all over the globe. Businesses are sprouting in every corner. There are foundations and charities pledged to help people and even beggars earn through out the day. Money can be obtained in various ways but the possibilities of making more time cannot be done. Oil is essential to our survival. Machines run on oil and in an industrial and technological day of age I doubt that its in-existence wouldn’t go unnoticed. Prices of items in the market and transportation depends majorly on the price of oil. But as important as it is, we may still run out of it. The same goes to money. You may run out of all the daily necessities in life but you still have time but if you run out of time you have nothing left. 

Time is ticking. As every day pass by, time keeps on running. As much as we want our very own backspace to rehash the past, pause button to take a break, ctrl-z to undo something, and reset to start afresh and anew, it is not possible. We cannot store it in a bottle to save for later, and slow it up during happy moments. We cannot buy a gallon of it in a grocery store or sell it to someone else who is in need. When we spent time it is forever lost and unrecoverable and all that’s left to say is “What’s done is done”. The funny thing is when you’re enjoying your life the most, it is when time seem to go on and pass by like a gush of wind. When we are in our downtrodden moments and it is when we really need time to speed up but it just wouldn’t. Life as uncertain as it is, should be cherished. Every moment of your life, may it be those simple lazy days or those momentous days of our lives, should be cherished.

Procrastination and idleness won’t do you any good, it will only diminish your productivity. Do not be slaves to time. Take the lead and beat the clock. Time is every man’s opportunity. Opportunity to help someone in need, to reach your dreams, to fall and to rise once again, the opportunity to love and to be loved, the opportunity of living, and be able to experience all the wonders that life offers. But these opportunities don’t last for long. In economics there is a law of supply and demand and it can be summed up as ‘The more scarce something is – the more valuable it is’. If oil supplies are vast as the ocean and can be found anywhere then it will be sold at a much lesser price. We will not value time if we will not die but unfortunately we do. One piece of advice: Carpe Diem. A moment never last a lifetime.

Mixtape: Official Dressup Soundtrack

Here’s to that lazy afternoon when you just feel like dressing up in front of the mirror, mix matching tops with bottoms, shoes and accessories. You just want to know what goes with this and what goes with that. For no apparent reason you just want to dress up even though you have nothing to do all day and night.

Or here’s to that well-anticipated date night with your high school crush and you need some bootylicious advice from Beyonce while choosing between a casual or a sultry dress. Listen to Madonna while putting on some blush on your cheek. And finally to wrap up your prep why don’t you let Janet Jackson teach you grooves straight from the stereo to back you up. 

The Juxtaposition Of Living And Loving

If living meant loving and loving meant hurting then why do we have to love in the first place, and most of all why live? If we are so self-cautious, why let it happen? Why not prevent it and put a stop before anything devastating and painful happens. So they say “Prevention is better than cure” if it is so then it is more suitable not to love to prevent the pain or much better to end life to prevent everything hateful and harmful at all. So many whys so many sighs. We live, love, and laugh, and this triumvirate are the glories of life. But in every aspect there’s lies a juno, a yang, a black swan, always an evil twin exist. 

When we love we become happy but at the same time we also feel pain, sorrow, and grief. They are inevitable, they walk side by side juxtaposed with the other sometimes one getting past the other. But if we don’t live we wouldn’t learn love, and if we don’t love we won’t experience pain, and if we don’t feel the pain then we will not be open to the fact that the world does not only offer smiles but also and more often that not deceitful wiles. 

Pain is inevitable and it was never a choice, but suffering is an option and we choose to live with it the most. Do not be imprisoned in your own shadows but get loose and welcome a life of many tomorrows. Pain is not always negative or destructive. If one day you had a trip down to memory lane don’t be bothered with the tears and even a tinge of pain for even if we surpassed those hardships and moved on, we are only human and we still mourn. We need to be hurt for us to grow, and when we grow we will know that the pain we once had is now a learning we could always look back. True enough life is a bed of roses only those roses are showered with thick, long, and pricking thorns. If we once prick ourselves with these thorns, don’t feel shattered not even demise for sometimes we have to feel the pain to open our minds to the greater beauty of life.

Image: The Notebook

Back To The Start

"In the eyes of a child there is joy, there is laughter, there is hope, there is trust, a chance to shape the future for the lessons of life there is no better teacher than the look in the eyes of a child"

- Air Supply

Life was simple back then. No but’s, no if’s, no how’s, no why’s. Every emotion a child express depicts no tint of deception nor a hint of lie. A smile is joy. A tear is sadness. A scream is anger. Laughter is happiness. If adults gave us these expressions we will entirely doubt the genuinity of these emotions. Is it real or is it just a facade for further hidden agendas. There is pure innocence and complete sincerity in what a child does. Why is it when we grow up we lose that innocence?

Tabula Rasa, John Locke’s theory is that all of us were born with a clean slate. They say when we were born we are free from pain, hurt, and problems that this world contains. We have a fresh mind similar to that of an empty balloon waiting for air, waiting for reality to dwell. And as that balloon is filled up with air,  the child is taught how to live life, grow up, and slowly learn tha harsh realities of this world. They possess this undermined brilliance beyond their simplicity. These children are in nature driven by fantasy and dreams. They are full of aspirations that borders beyond reality. This is what we lost in adulthood, dreaming. We lost it in the sense that we are too swallowed in this game of survival called life that we forgot to dream. But in order to make things a reality, to succeed on something, we must dream about it first. 

Their vague knowledge of the world is their greatest possession. As people grow and live, as we learn and know things in life, we become overexposed and saturated. We are a generation of skeptics, cynics, and pessimists. Too much information kills. We impose rules to protect our children, such as don’t touch this and that, don’t talk to them, don’t do this and don’t do that. The more rules we impose, their world becomes smaller, their moves become more limited. Sometimes in my quaint bedroom moments I wonder is ignorance really bliss? I say maturity is overrated. It is okay to act childish once in a while. Live life and have fun while living that moment.

Update: Featured in Definitely Filipino

Mixtape: Chuck TV

It was really sad NBC had to cut Chuck off because of low ratings. I have no idea whatsoever why I keep diggin' this show even though the story plot fails sometimes. Maybe because of the pretty chicks & handsome agents, maybe because of Jeffster's humorous comic acts, or maybe Captain Awesome is just too hot to handle, but what really got my attention is their cool mix of music. They distanced themselves away from the mainstream hit charts and found their musical choices on the indie scene. 

A Massive Dissection Of The Master Of The Wand

“I was fit only to possess the meanest of them, the least extraordinary. I was fitto own the Elder Wand, and not to boast of it, and not to kill with it. I was permitted to tame and to use it, because I took it, not for gain, but to save others from it.”- Albus Dumbledore 

I really feel sad because Harry Potter has to end. I wept so hard in the theater especially when it was about the Prince’s Tale. At my back I can hear the bickering of two girls who probably didn’t read the book because they were sooo clueless! They kept asking about the Elder wand and who’s mastered who. I was controlling myself real hard to give them a lecture while the film was on going. JKR wasn’t definite in answering fan questions. So this is me at my most generous. This is really complex if you don’t read the books and relied only in the movies.

The Elder Wand is a part of the hallows they say was given by Death himself to the first Peverell brother, Antioch Peverell. After defeating a wizard that he once had a quarrel with, he bragged about his invincibility with the wand that “he snatched from death himself”. In his sleep another wizard crept inside his room, stole the wand from him, and slit his throat, making that wizard the new master of the wand. After several generations the wand was handed down to different masters and finally toGregorvitch, who boasted that he will duplicate the powers of the wand. He was stupid enough to boast that he had it in the first place. When Gellert Grindelwald knew about it, he stunned  Gregorvitch and stole the Elder wand from him, making him the new master. Grindelwald and Dumbledore had a battle, the latter won. Now here lies the dilemma, how could Grindelwald be defeated if he had the most powerful wand of all? It is a fact that the wand had been handed down by overpowering the incumbent master. How can one be overpowered is also a question. If stealing the wand from the master is counted as overpowering, then that would be the case of Grindelwald and the man who stole the wand from Antioch. They say the elder wand is undefeatable but in my opinion that if a wizard is stronger, skillfull, and more superior even with an inferior wand, that person could defeat the master of the wand. The wand is only and object, the one who helms it must also fill it in.

Snape: Hero or Villain?

Snape is a complicated man.  He’s bitter. He’s … spiteful.  He’s a bully.  All these things are still true of Snape, even at the end of this book.  But was he brave?  Yes, immensely.  

Was he capable of love?  Very definitely.  So he’s— he’s a very— he was a flawed human being, like all of us. 

Harry forgives him—- as we know, from the epilogue, Harry— Harry really sees the good in Snape ultimately. I wanted there to be redemption and I wanted there to be forgiveness.  And Harry forgives, even knowing that until the end Snape loathed him unjustifiably. it’s totally, totally unfair that he loathes him so much but anyway.

JK Rowling, Today Show

There are always two sides within us, the good and the unlikely. As JKR stated, he was a flawed individual just like us. But what he differs from Voldemort is that even when he started with the wrong decision he acted on doing on what he seem is right to correct it, and what he chose to act upon is humanely beneficial to Harry(which was motivated by his selfish and possessive love for Lily). People say that “A hero lies in the eye of the beholder”, we have our own definitions and standards of our ideal hero. 

At first Snape’s loyalty is towards Voldemort but after learning that the prophecy that he shared to Voldemort resulted to Lily Potter’s danger, it made him realize the consequences of his actions. He confessed to Dumbledore the danger the Potters are about to face after being denied by Voldemort when he pleaded that only Lily be spared. So we see he is not that good of a hero to be looked up for, his motives are self-motivated. We learned that Snape was a double agent for both the Order and the Death Eaters, and his brilliance and skills are enough to keep his allegiances intact. People until the very end question Snape’s loyalty to both parties and here are some proofs to Snape’s good side:

Snape’s loyalty to Dumbledore & Dumbledore’s unwavering trust to Snape: