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.

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.

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

The Murder Of Gaea

The fast paced life in the city doesn’t notice the slow actual degradation of our environment. Technology has taken its toll on us. Of course we prefer comfort, who doesn’t? We shed trees for new houses that shelters families that builds their homes, no harm in that I say. But with more people coming to this world than people getting out, I say the trees are not enough to supplicate the needs. There are several solutions and innovations, all of them applicable and possible, the question is will we humans oblige? Will we stop our busy lifestyles and give back to mother nature? A few did (support groups, environmentalists…) but what they lack in numbers they make up in service and in deed. The plentiful few, I call them, those advocates who knock on your door, ask you to spare a minute just to listen to what you think is bullshit.

We are children of this world. We breathe the same air and lived the same earth. As our mother she fed us, watered, sheltered, and provided us with life while we the prodigal sons and daughters of this nurturing entity recuperate everything but  kindness. With her love we grew and with our new found life she dies. The vision of her coming to death pains me inside. If only flowers could weep and trees could bleed, it would at least reflect the madness that the prodigals imposed on them. Our crimes against nature will never go unnoticed. There will be  ramifications. There will be…There will be…We are all marked men of society. Nature has spoken and we are convicted. Let us reap the fruits of our actions. We are the proponents of our own destruction.

Poem: My Uncharted Life

   Behold my uncharted life
   Having walked this earth
   Bearing the eyes of the negative
   I faced the trials and tribulations of mankind
   Rejection and despection
   Cries and demise
   Hatred and madness
   Devastation and desolation
   Tyranny and cruelty of men
   They are true
   I lived them too
   Though my sinful heart begged me not to But much to my
   shameful ignorance
   of this event they call life There was more to it than what I
   have seen.
   I witnessed joy and happiness
   Acceptance and admiration Smiles and blissful cries
   Forgiveness, Selflessness,
   Sincerity, Friendship,
   And love, Sweet young love. You were the light at the end of
   the tunnel
   that I was so eager of catching all this time.
   Now that I had a taste of your light,
   turning back would never be an option any more.
   For you are now a part of me today,
   and for all eternity.

   2011©Agapin Edrayll

The Blame Game

When we don’t feel happy with how we look we blame our parents. When we lose our job we blame our boss. When our loved ones leave us we blame them. Even if  something is wrong with us we blame society. We were taught to blame our parents, friends, the environment, the situation, and even God. But we never place the blame upon ourselves. It was never our fault, though it always is.

People in all walks of life place the responsibility of their negative actions towards others so that they could overemphasize themselves. It could be in a way that a person would like to be perceived as theunderdog (so that he could gain pity) or the superior one (who would appear righteous). 

These persons who participate in the infamous blame game shows the prominence of themselves at the same time minimizing or lessening the effects of their negative deeds. Regardless of most reasons like revenge, selfishness, and even plain old laziness, no matter how many imperfections you found out about someone it will not change who you are. Pointing fingers may have worked to your advantage for now, but do realize this what you did was a temporary escape route of finding reasons to explain your frustrations in life that caused you to result in such action. When you thought you won this game, you thought wrong. This is a game that no one could win. You may have passed the burden and ease your shoulders by passing the buck, but one thing is certain and that is being still unable to change the hidden reason behind your unhappiness.

If sometime in the future we are dragged in this blame game, let us have the crown of responsibility placed in our heads with the ability to walk with dignity and not run away from it. We do not blame the neighborhood, the system, the society and certainly not God. We should take the responsibility of our own actions and in that way we are in control of our own destiny and our own life. 

On the cover: Y U NO? internet meme generated using memegenerator

Poem: The Treasure

   In this life full of uncertainty 

   Treat every waking moment as gift 

   Be it a blessing to treasure

   Make use of your life

   Live as if tomorrow you’ll meet death’s embracing arms 

   And learn the value of living 

   As if you were bound to live forever.

   2011©Agapin Edrayll

    Image: Heavenly Creatures, 1994