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.