Insights

Quote

2010-05-10T20:09:00.000-07:00

When you talk too much about nothing

you know you're only ranting

to try and prove yourself to the world

because deep down inside

you know you are just like every one else.

Insight 91: That’s the Way…

2010-02-25T00:27:00.000-08:00

A lot of people live by the rule of Celine Dion's song 'That's the way it is' or K.C. and the sunshine band's 'That's the way I like it'. In both extremes, one believes in fate while the other believes in control.

Sadly, people who stake their lives on fate usually are very unhappy people. All they ever say to themselves and others are their 2 infamous words, 'That's Life'. They put their hearts and souls in the hands of the divine and give up the thought of being ambitious and adventurous to remain as humble servants. They abide by a set of laws that govern their lives and hardly question its authenticity. In so many ways and on so many levels they are blinded to everything else except in what they believe to be life and death.

On the other hand, those who have their minds set on mastering their lives will go all the way to do what they must to reap everything from the earth because they feel they have the right to. From power crazed leaders to dominating individuals it's all about seizing the day and plundering the land.

Needless to say, both ends of the spectrum defy the joy of living. For those caught in between the two, life can be confusing and complicating, like how someone once told me he doesn't want to be too holy and yet he wants to be righteous.

First of all, whether life is an event of inevitable predetermined course or it is a multiple choice consequence, it is not living when there is no joy in it. Imagine finding out that you will amount to nothing much because your life has only one road to travel, will you willingly accept it and trudge throughout your existence to make it a reality? But if you feel you have the power to reign over others for your personal gain, how will you live with yourself when solitaire comes around?

Striking a balance in life is something everyone has to find on their own because everyone has a different degree of confidence, hope, compassion and love. There is no right or wrong method and there is no good or bad stratum to be on. We just go on to do what we do best and loving it with no guilty conscience hovering over our heads and no greed dictating our hearts. You don’t have to be one or the other but ultimately we travel down the same yellow brick road.

Insight 90: Vicious Energy Vampires

2010-01-17T17:32:00.000-08:00

You know you're an Energy Vampire when:

- you're ignorant. Your asnwer is usually 'I don't know' but the truth is 'I don't want to know' or 'I couldn't be bothered to know'.

- you tire and drain the people around you out. Your mindless chatter serves no purpose other than put others in a bad light when you bring up distasteful tales and awful rumors.

- you don't know what you want in life and refuse to take the trouble to find out more about what you can do. You rather waste your time than to listen to your inner voice.

- you look around your room, your house or your surroundings and find accumulated chaos. You think nothing of it but you know deep down inside that your life is a mess.

- you keep wanting to run away from something or someone. You want to leave the country to find greener pastures so that your life will improve and become better.

- you talk too much. You just talk and talk and talk about making things happen but never lifting a finger to actually doing it.

- you justify your existence with excuses. You love to call attention to yourself that you are born with a set of principles, values or non changeable attitudes.

- you are always angry. You prefer to shout and raise your voice because you believe that is the only way to speak to others who are not as competent as you.

- you are arrogant. You think you are better than everybody else by status, wealth or IQ but you are still an airhead after all.

- you are offensive and name calling behind your back is a norm.

- you lack self esteem and confidence in yourself and you want and demand respect from others because you feel you deserve it.

- you pick your friends whom you can lean on, depend upon or are just a call away to fill your lonely days and vacuous nights.

- you prefer to fight and pick up a weapon than to find a solution or a truce.

- you are frustrated and unhappy with yourself. You can't accept the person that you are, the way you look or the person you have become.

- you bring nothing but heartache, anger, confusion, fear and a series of upsetting emotions to others whenever you are around.

So what do you do when you are a vicious energy vampire? You suck the life out of everyone you meet, especially people who are optimistic, positive and sensitive. If you don't awaken soon you will lose everything and everyone because there's just so much one can give.

Insight 89: Nothing More to Say

2009-12-16T17:17:00.000-08:00

I've met a lot of people who seem to have the same disease everywhere I go. This disease, though not technically one, is the disease of unhappiness, and that's not the worst of it. The worst of it is how people actually want to be unhappy and stay unhappy. From a broken marriage to a dysfunctional family to a sexual identity crisis to all forms of dissatisfactions stemmed out of their very existence.

For those who believe that life on earth is suffering and the rewards are in heaven then to these believers there is nothing more to say. But to those who want to find happiness in this brief life of ours than what are you doing being unhappy all the time?

The common answers I get are 'it's too complicated even to think about it', 'the reality of it makes it impossible', 'there's just no way out of it', and the famous or infamous 'you don't understand'. To all the people who don't want to find a solution than there is nothing else to say.

This woman claims that her life is a mess because she has to work from office to home and be a mother, wife, lover and career woman at the same time. That man says he has to provide for the entire family from his parents to his siblings to his sibling's siblings because they can't provide for themselves. Then there is this boy who wants to please his parents and there are parents who want the best for their children. Of course not forgetting the lovers who want to get married with all the strings attached and the spouses who detest one another and want to severe all the strings. Don't they all have something in common?

What about taking it easy? What about simplifying your life with less accumulation and more compassion? What about communication over accusation? What about forgiveness rather than deep seated hatred? What about compromise? What about acceptance? What about change?

The concept of unhappiness was embedded into our heads from old teachings and traditions that one must take the bitter to get to the sweet. In many aspects, it's call learning or experience. But we tend to forget there is a sweet at the end of it. So many of us remain at the bitter and submit to it instead. So for those who know how to make a fast buck out a bunch of guilt ridden, depressed and pitiful people they will be the ones who claim power and possessions.

All these parasites have to do is to please you and distract you with objects of desire. But you know you will not find happiness even in the prescribed drugs and lavish entertainments, momentary hallucinations and 15 minutes of recognition, the perfection of love and ideals of being human. Ultimately, you can only find your own true happiness by taking the inner journey to get to know yourself. Knowing who you are, what you want in life and what your real passion is.

If you think this is all crap than there is nothing more to say.

Insight 88: Why is a bad day sometimes a good day?

2009-12-09T06:34:00.000-08:00

We meet all kinds of people every day and sometimes it happens to be a fruitful and enjoyable company but sometimes it can be repulsive in every way. These encounters usually leave us feeling like victims when it is unpleasant and embarrassing, especially if our demands are not yet.

I know an IJ nun who is the most good-natured and dulcet person I've ever come across and everyone take a liking to her almost instantaneously for the serene presence she brings. She told me once that an obnoxious bus driver, who almost served as the conductor, gave her a difficult time when she couldn't produce the exact amount of change he wanted. He continued to put her down and embarrassed her in front of everyone else as he rambled on. When this sister related the story to me she blushed sheepishly as though she was in the wrong. I couldn't help but get angry deep inside and ask the question 'How could anyone treat this sister so badly when she is the nicest person on earth?'

So why does that happen? Why must some people destroy your wonderful day by being nasty for no good reason? If you have read The Celestine Prophecy, James Redfield talks about energy and how we try to steal it from one another when we run short of it. In the case of the nun, she is brimming with optimism and inspirations most time I've seen her. So it's not unexpected if someone is always trying to snatch her light away.

But on the other hand, if you believe in the law of attraction then why did the nun get such this mistreatment in the first place? Did she ask for it? One of the things I can conclude is perhaps she did ask for it. Asking for something is usually not direct or blatantly obvious. For example, if she tells the universe she wants to help someone relief the fear or depression in them perhaps that was what she got. Perhaps when the man shouted at her in front of everyone there was someone in the crowd who could identify with this chauvinistic behavior and was the starting point to help her make a decision in life. In fact, the ugly scene would have affected everyone in their own way and the nun actually did more good for them than anyone realized. The driver himself might have had a chance to confront his conscience after working hours as well.

Of course, no one wants a bad experience or to be disgraced in the eyes of the public but sometimes these occurrences are what we have been asking for, unconsciously. Perhaps this is what we want so that we will open our eyes and be awakened from the stupor we have been living in. To snap out of the day dreaming we have been fooling ourselves all this time. Or maybe, this is our way to contribute back to people who need a sign, an inspiration to let them know that they are not alone and that it's okay to free themselves from their own imprisonment.

Insight 87: Being Spiritual

2009-12-05T20:51:00.000-08:00

It seems being religious and being materialistic at the same time is acceptable because I've heard hundreds of times affirmed by religious leaders and followers that it is all right. When I was a kid I beloved what the adults said but as I come closer to the age of reason this paradoxical concept confuses me.

Today, since I am more spiritual, I realize this two don't mix well. It is okay to be rich and have abundance but the question is why would you want so much of everything? Once you step into a different level of spirituality your love for nature and the environment heightens and you understand we are a part of everything which is energy and that evolution is inevitable. It's not about purchasing lands and properties, raking in the big bucks and having something to show to the world that makes you who you are. The self and personal discovery is within and has no price tags.

Working for a living is one thing but working to accumulate wealth is another. Although I have seen more people simplifying their lifestyles with less clutter in their homes but the majority still want to go to their place of worship and fill their houses with things. This ironic indulgence just doesn't make any sense when society, on the whole, just want abundance for the sake of having it even when they know happiness doesn't come attached to it.

Religion has always been contradictory in its entirety even since it was introduced. While teaching about the love of God they also tell you about the God of war. While saying 'money is the root to all evil' they also tell you it's okay to be rich and wealthy. They demand that you serve God but they put in the same demand that you serve man. They preach about forgiveness but sanctions the ideals of punishment. But on a spiritual level you learn to embrace all things great and small, to not draw a line between right and wrong because there is no need to and to be considerate, responsible and compassionate while religion teaches you to be tolerant, exclusive and sympathetic.

Spirituality is about clearing the baggage, not gathering them, simplifying the things we can, not complicating them, searching for the truth, not distorting it and sharing the journey with everyone, but not color coding or creating a social hierarchy with a set of commandments.

Here, as I sit and writing this, some religious ceremony is going on outside my apartment window. There are solemn prayers alternated with pop songs. I'm not sure if it is a part of the ceremony or being religious and secular at the same time helps deepen their faith.

And finally spirituality is about hope, not helplessness.

Insight 86: The Law of Abundance

2009-11-21T08:59:00.000-08:00

I have always been a firm believer of the law of abundance even before 'The Secret' told us about it and gave it a proper name. However, my kind of understanding about this copiousness is not external but rather internal. Everyone is always seeking abundance from outside sources from natural fuel to accumulated wealth, inspirational notions to conceptual arousals, unconditional love to humane compassion. Everyday we hear lamentations and read news about the maxim 'what if there is no more?' that haunts many of us when we fear losing it.

People sometimes forget how rich they can be from inside. Everyone is afraid of waking up one day to find that they have run out of ideas or resources externally from writers fearing they might come to a deadend for plots, artists afraid they may draw a blank from their reserves, developers who find there is no more lands to develop and industries that will come to a stall without alternative resources. Everyone is just afraid.

We spend so much time trying to gain the world we lose ourselves instead. And this loss is disheartening when we don't realize how much of potential we have. It's not what we accumulate on the outside that makes us whole or satisfied, it's what we can contribute from the inside that makes it worth the while. By reaping the abundance from within we need not be afraid of anything because we would be able to solve every minor and major problems that comes to us. And most of all there is no running out of material or answers because each time we spend what we set out to spend there will always be more we can extract from.

If each and every human being can come up with ideas to solve every imaginable problems the world would advance even faster than where we are now. It's because of the lack of faith in ourselves and disbelieve that we have more than what we need deep down inside we prefer to steal from one another to make up for the fear of none. Countries that go to war and individuals who start fights are basically sharing the same ideology of scarcity that they will not have enough to go round.

So the next time you come up short with something physical or tangible remember that the abundance inside will help you navigate your way out to find what you need. And there's sufficient to last you this lifetime and many many more.

Insight 85: Why do children want to hurt their parents?

2009-09-17T18:39:00.000-07:00

I've heard once too many times parents telling me it's always other people's kids that need help. And when they do that it is always obvious that they are subconsciously talking about themselves and yet they are blinded for the very same reason. I've also noticed of late that more and more children are literally out to get even with their parents way before their preteen years. This may sound alarming or intimidating but this generation gap has always been around and the only difference is it has evolved into something more apparent unlike those days everything was swept under the carpet. In other words, children are more open about their emotions and are more willing to discuss about things that bother them if they are allowed to talk about them.

The adage of 'times have changed' is also true as they are spoken from one generation to another because the human species do evolve and everything needs to rise to the next level otherwise we would still be in the Stone Age. When there is lack of communication there is also an absence of connection. Children, no matter how distant they are to their parents will still seek for approval and blessings from them. It seems like a natural thing to do. But if the parents have no time for their children the kids themselves will usually work out strategies and find ways to get the attention they want.

With more and more parents sorting out their own lines to have an epicurean life their children's welfare are usually compromised. Spending what little time after working hours in front of the idiot box and in shopping malls are no substitute for quality time. Listening to your children's experiences about school, teachers, friends and discoveries is a very important aspect in their lives. If there's no one they can talk to at home than they may seek out the next most available person or place to hang around with.

In the worst case scenario, if parents can only scream, scold or shout at their kids to get a message across than they can expect the same in return. And if it doesn't stop there the kids will go one step further to do everything they possibly can to irritate their parents to punish them for not being there. If it is still at an early stage a lot can still be done to salvage this rupturing relationship. But if you wait a little too long then things can get so bad everyone's lives will be affected by what could have been easily avoidable.

All the kids want is to be heard and comforted by a caring mom or dad and to be assured that everything will be alright. It's going to be hard for the parents, especially if they live by orthodox rules and regulations, to accept everything their children are going to reveal. But wouldn't it be better to embrace your children's hurts and accept them than to create a barrier that will only cause a rift? Would you rather be insentient related strangers than a loving family?

When people are free to express themselves to the ones they love nothing can stop them from being real and true to one another. And to get there one has to leave behind ego, pride, blind faith, old school of thoughts and basically ignorance.

Insight 84: Will you stop loving your Children?

2009-09-03T06:14:00.000-07:00

Will you stop loving your children because the authorities and religious leaders said so? If your sons or daughters find themselves in a dilemma about their sexuality would you ostracize them the way laws in some countries require you to?

It may seem like the right thing to do in the days when people were tortured for being witches and sinners but in this day and age is it even forgivable? Parents have loved their children and have been protective over them even when they turn out to be murderers and villains. How is it even possible that their love stops at the point when they discover that their children's sexuality is not heteronoramtive? Just because someone in power says it's a crime to be considered abnormal would you as a parent nod your head and agree to that notion and punish your child?

It's not even a new age thing that a child may grow up to be gay, lesbian or a transgender. It dates back to the 25th century BCE. In the 342 the first law against homosexual marriage was proclaimed by Constantius II and also Constans. And in the year 390 homosexual act was declared illegal by Christian emperors Valentinian II, Theodosius I and Arcadius and those guilty were burned alive in public. Another Christian emperor Justinian I also blamed homosexuals for famines, earthquakes and petilences. King Egica went to the extend of adopting laws of castration, hair shearing, lashes and exile to those who practiced homosexual acts in 693. France in 1260 sodomites lost their testicles on the first offence, their penises on the second and their lives on the third. Gay women were also mutilated and executed.

Is this what we want to hold true to the end of times? Standing on the sidelines and casting stones? But times have changed and more and more countries are amending their laws to include the lgbt communities to embrace them as their own. Yet, some other countries are still punishing their citizens for being different.

Would your children be anymore worse is they were gay, lesbian or a transgender? Would you love them any less just because someone tells you to?

Insight 83: Passion & Compassion

2009-07-04T01:42:00.000-07:00

How can one claim to have passion without compassion or compassion without passion or whichever comes first. To have passion without compassion is just an obsession that needs to be satiated. It's to fill your mind with the thoughts of desires and think that they have to be fulfilled to make you a happier person. And to have compassion without passion is to feel obligated to do something for the sake of doing it.

When you have passion to pursue a dream you don't discount the people who help you get there. You don't trouble everyone else and make life difficult for them just because you need to fulfill your own destiny, when you do that, at the end of your accomplishment you would still be a hermit crab with the largest shell with too much room for yourself. And you will realize if your dream is a selfish one you would have gained nothing but create an illusion of your own false image that is not the real you. In other words, you would have acquired the world but lost yourself.

On the other hand when you drive yourself with too much compassion for others, you are actually giving yourself away thoughtlessly and heartlessly. It can only last as long as it lasts until you are burn out, turn cynical or collapse from sheer exhaustion. You will come to a point of disbelieve and disgust because you feel you have done so much but nothing good has come out of it. Soon, you will be caught up in the politics of life and everything else will turn ugly the way you think it's meant to be.

But if your passion is simultaneously parallel with your compassion, you will never give up on a dream and at the same time you will bring everyone who is around you to a higher level of serenity as you achieve your own. You will always have a focus but you are responsible for your actions, considerate to others and patient with the long walk you might have to take with a friend or a stranger. You know no matter how distracting the journey can be sometimes you will still trudge along and help others on the way and allow yourself to be helped once in a while because that's how life is. That's how connected we are with the rest of humanity. That's how similar we are to one another. That's how accompanied we are if we don’t ignore each other who walk the same walk.

When you empower yourself with the passion or compassion sincerely the other will complement it because you can’t have one without the other. And know that everything you do now affects the future, changes the paths of others and sets your destination with every decision you make. If you seek wealth by destroying earth’s natural resources you will have to face the consequences that follow. If you climb all the way to the top by stamping on the unfortunate you will have to answer to your conscience when the time comes. If you work exhaustively to save everything you know to be true you will be snuffed out like a candle before you could take another breath. Find your passion in what you believe in and not what you think it is. Find your compassion in what you feel to be true not what the media or anyone convinces it to be.

There, you will find the balance of the two that will make the journey richer than you can ever imagine.

Insight 82: In Peace There Is No Them

2009-06-30T06:47:00.000-07:00

Wake up! Haven't you realized in peace there are no them? Why are we so fast at pointing fingers at others to make them the guilty, the blameworthy, and the enemy?

Since that time of good and evil everything has been blamed on the devil for being responsible for things that are considered bad. The so--called bad people are not a race or a nation on their own. They are people who have broken laws and done things out of the norm of what is believed to be good. But these days when priests become pedophiles, when businessmen become tyrants and politicians become murderers how can the line be drawn to separate the two. Where are the markers, what makes them them and us us? How does one cross the line?

It is ridiculous to measure a person's goodness by what he does in the public eye because what goes on behind the scene could be something completely the opposite. It's just as ludicrous to judge a person from the way he looks because you'll never know the purity of one's heart. If all of us give up this thought of 'us' and 'them' we would be able to move closer to a truce with everyone here on earth and find that peace we have been eluding ourselves about.

Somehow through misguided teachings we are always the good guys praying for the others, hoping to save them and consciously avoiding those who do not fit into a certain category we are so adamant about asserting. Doesn't that itself sound contradictory to our belief in the quest for peace and harmony?

So wake up! Look around you and ask yourself the big question of who is 'us' and who is 'them' because in the end we are all the same. We are all equal. We are all connected. But for believers who still insist that they are right I wonder if they should be considered 'us' or 'them'?

Insight 81: The Journey of your Life

2009-06-12T18:43:00.000-07:00

There's more than one way to reach your destination. If you believe you have to go through hell and shit you will. You will have a hard time with everyone around you from your family to friends to people who will bring you down to levels so low you'd rather give up then do anything about it. You will wake up every day and every morning to wonder why your life is so fucked up, why you are so fucked up and why the world is so fucked up. You will come to a point of your life where you will either change your course to something easier to achieve or you will continue striving. You may indulge in activities and habits that will harm you because you think it's the thing to do if you want to make it. You believe that there is no gain if there is no pain. Ultimately when you reach where you want to be you might look back and brag about your difficult past or you might have too many baggage to carry now because you never let go of the hurt and suffering cause by other people. But you forget that you made it on other people's account as well when you caused them anguish because you fucked up everybody else's life along the way. You may survive all these and live to tell about it. Then again, you might not. But if you do you may still wonder if this is what you really wanted.

The other road that you could look for is one that you stick to your passion while you still hold on to your compassion for the people and things around you. The journey may just be as long or trying but you don't have to hate everything and everyone to make it to your ultimate dream. You don't have to step on toes and fingers and heads. You don't have to have bad relationships with everyone to prove your point. You don't have to intoxicate yourself with uppers or downers, sadness or grief, hysteria or paranoia; you just do what you have to do. Even if there are people who get in your way or events that will detour you a little or a lot, you can still keep to your focus, keep to your faith that you will eventually get to. And because of this you would have inspired everyone else you meet along the way. Your determination becomes their inspiration. Your compassion becomes their strength. Your desire becomes their hope. And you may also survive all these and live to tell about it. Then again, you might not. The only difference is you would have already made it to your destination when you shared the beauty of your journey even if you did not reach the end.

Insight 80: The Good Life

2009-06-07T19:46:00.000-07:00

Did you say you want to have The Good Life? But do you even know what The Good Life is? What a lot of people tell me about The Good Life is to have everything they ever wanted and make it last forever. Money, health, family, love and everything that makes them smile is good to have.

Money that can buy them anything they want anytime without even giving it a second thought. Beautiful clothes, exotic and expensive food, sophisticated entertainments, all kinds of leisures and pleasures. To put it simply, to live like a King or a Queen. That's the good life? To be served and pampered so that you don't even have to lift a finger to do anything for yourself?

To separate suffering and joy is to believe that we are bound to heaven or hell while we exist here on earth. We have been taught that bad things will make you suffer. Our concept of bad is from the crime to the criminal, poverty to peasantry and sickness to death but that is the worst kind of misconception that will condition us for the rest of our lives if we don't heed the awakening.

People who have the means tend to eat more than they should, accumulate more than necessary and produce more wastage all because they can. So is the good life destroying everything from this planet to the bodies of those who can afford it? If this is not The Good Life then what is?

Did someone say to be happy? So what makes us happy? Abundance? There are so many books, movies, advertisements and ideologies that are thrown at us to remind us everyday that the more we have the better off we are. But ... and then what? So having a warehouse for a closet, food storage that can feed a small country and properties that line up from one end of the road to another will make us happy?

I guess in the end no one will know what makes you happy as much as you know yourself.

Insight 79: Why torture ourselves?

2009-06-07T19:45:00.000-07:00

Isn't it weird how human beings try to make themselves as unhappy as they can with jobs they can do without, with lifestyles they are not agreeable with and rules and conditions that causes them grief?

Why do people still think suffering is the way to go to achieve the ultimate goal that will make them happy? Such irony is and has always been haunting us to this day. Most of the people I meet are unhappy one way or the other. Some to the extreme of wanting out of existence and some prefer brood on the remaining days of their lives. I find this understanding, this perception ridiculous and at the same time astounding because everyone knows this but no one wants to do anything about it.

If you enjoy a certain kind of music, if you prefer to live with nature, if you like to be alone, if you love to always give a helping hand, then why not? If that makes you happy then why don't you just go out and do just that? But someone told me shopping makes her happy. Well, if that is your desire then you have to find a way to make the money so that you can shop till you drop.

Then again, our level of happiness changes with time. If small treats used to make us happy once I'm quite sure we would have grown out of it by now. The treats get bigger and larger as we grow older and then it comes to a point where we go back to the small things. The small things like sitting on a swing, walking arm in arm with someone you love, listening to the birds sing in the backyard, bringing joy to others and daydreaming lying on our backs looking at the clouds go passing by on top of a hillside.

We have to come out of the trance before we can realize that happiness and joy is a bigger deal than to torture ourselves for an entire lifetime just to enjoy them on our deathbeds.

Insight 78: Finding a way Home

2009-05-18T06:42:00.000-07:00

When you think about it seriously our entire life is based on one direction, one mission, one journey and that is to find our way home. No matter what we do or where we go we still head towards a place, a person or an ideal where we can feel belong. All the movies you're seen, the books you've read and the experiences you've had are similar in plot. You can break it down into the three major acts of the beginning, the middle and the end and they are exactly just that.

So what is home? Or where is home? Each of us has a different opinion and definition for it because we perceive life the way we want to. If you're read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho you'll know that in the end his riches were actually in his own back yard. But along the way he found everything else in between when he went to the ends of the earth. Cider House Rules has a similar storyline where Homer Wells too went to see the world but finds his heart back where he belongs. It's more or less the same for Cinema Paradiso and even Star Wars.

But even after you've made a home for yourself you might still feel restless and agitated with your life. You may have a mansion lavishly furnished with exquisite ornaments from all over the world but you can't feel at home, so why is that? Some of us get the impression that a home is a building with everything in it but if your heart is not there then it just isn't. Some of the best examples I can think of are people who go far and beyond to follow their hearts and build a home wherever they go. I remember watching Jacques-Yves Cousteau who sailed the seven seas to bring us amazing documentaries week after week about his adventures. You could never see a happier man with his ship the Calypso. The other prominent personage is Mother Theresa who literally and metaphorically built a home for the old and destitute in India. She may not have anything of worth in the world but she is worth more than any riches put together and that is her home.

Most people take the long way home but some manage to find it easier to return depending on their background and how they were brought up. The faster you get there the more at peace you'll be with yourself and with the universe. But what about those who don't get there at all? People who has not found their home are usually at odds with the world and angry with everything and everyone around them because they are dissatisfied with their lives. There are always opportunities to get out of a situation to begin the journey but if you don't want change and if you're still unhappy and disgruntled then you will have to join the rest of the people lost in their own shadows asking the same question over and over again.

Insight 77: Why the good guy always loses in the end

2009-05-05T08:07:00.000-07:00

It's not always good to try and be the good guy and hope everyone will like you. Some people go the extend of being extremely nice to the people around them or among their loved ones so that they will garner positive support from them. But in the end it helps no one. The person on the receiving end will learn nothing from the exchange and the person on the giving end will get more frustrated trying to be good.

The more important thing to do is to be yourself and not make a fool of yourself trying to be what you're not. The good cop bad cop routine is only in the movies and should be kept there for all times. To be the good guy you have to pretend to take everything in strife with the ones you fear and lash out again on the ones you love. When you think about it does that even make sense to you to even want to do that?

People who love you are usually the ones you can be your true self without the masquerade. So instead of trying to win votes from others who may or may not even appreciate your superfluous acting wouldn't it be better to lay out all your cards and not play games with anyone? To entertain people whom you need to satisfy may have been a requirement back in the old days to get that job or to win over that girl/guy's parents or favor from the bigshot. But do they need to happen at an age and time like this? Even prostitutes have gone a notch up to select their clientele.

Whatever it is falsifying your goodness is so easily identified and obvious and it can back fire before you realize you've become a laughingstock. People of today have more sensibility, intelligence and wisdom and the only person you can fool is yourself if you stick to your old school of playing goodness for goodness sake.

Insight 76: What's Happening?

2009-05-01T02:28:00.000-07:00

I feel so sad when I see the changes but not the people changing. I see how even the people who know so much about the truth are not able to wake up from their state of stupor to embrace it.

People are dying in all sorts of ways. They are killing themselves with anger and hatred and sadness but they are not doing anything about it. They just carry on with being unconscious and torment themselves unnecessarily and complain about it just to repeat it over and over. Day after day, day in day out, people are invaded by diseases they create from fear and ignorance.

You see them driving up and down the streets to chase something which isn't there. You see them cramp in tight spaces to justify their existence. You them scavenging in shopping malls looking for fulfillment through objects. You hear them talking and talking about everything under the sun except how to be happier people and improving their conditions. Everyone complains about one thing or the other. About that certain colleague who is obnoxious to the bones and should be fired. About the changing weathers that's killing them with extreme rain and snow and sun. About the terrible economic situation. About the escalating crime rate. About disgusting politicians. About the planet in trouble. And they expect someone else to run their lives to make sure everything if fine. Why?

Why don’t people wake up and do something about it? Change their ideologies of how life should be. Change the concepts about condemnations towards other ethnicities, sexual orientations, the unfortunate, the over-abundant, the weak. Change mindsets that only laws written by the government works. Change attitudes when you meet a stranger, a friend’s friend, a chance encounter because they may benefit us more than we can imagine. Change the way we live by means of better communication with everyone around us, spending valuable time to feed each other inspirations and hope and learning to be more sensitive to the world around us.

Where is the compassion that embraces consideration, patience and responsibility? 2012 is not the end of the world as we know it but it’s an evolution, a change that will sweep across the entire planet and everyone who is ignorant will be swept along with it. Wake up. Wake up!

Insight 75: Patriotism, are you kidding me?

2009-04-24T12:36:00.000-07:00

What do you mean I have to be patriotic?

To what? To whom? First of all you dictate my life with dos and don'ts on every step I take. Then you slap me with other laws and on top of that you expect me to pay the taxes, tolls and every single thing I touch. When I ask why, you threaten me with imprisonment and tell me some things cannot be questioned.

You treat us, your subjects, your citizens, with suspicion and as though we owe you big. Like we should be so lucky to be in this country because we are united, peaceful and prosperous. You tell us we are diverse in culture, impartial in tradition and charitable in humanity. But when I ask why you segregate us according to the color of our skin you intimidate us with your subtle persecution and your invisible brutality. You wait like vultures to seize your unsuspecting prey so that you can continue doing things underhandedly and surreptitiously.

Your hand is always opened like a claw to gag the media but you tell us we have the freedom of speech. But in the smaller print, you whisper to us not to say anything slanderous about you because there you say there isn't anything slanderous to say in the first place. Lies! You say. Lies, all lies! But you are so afraid that the lies might be transmogrified into havoc and chaos among the people because they are lies? You think everyone cannot distinguish the truth and a bald-faced lie if we see one.

You keep telling us it's for our own good but you don't tell us everything. You decide which movie or song or book we can see and read but you tell us you know better than us. Those deliberately created products are nothing but trash and you can prove to us it's no good because you have scrutinized through every one of them and you have no doubt about their damaging influence.

We apply for grants, permits or anything legal but you make it so hard for us to get what we need. You make us go on a wild goose chase and let us wait for hours and days and weeks. Sometimes just to find out that we got nothing back. And then we have to try again to reapply and hope to get you at the right time on a good day on your good side.

You claim to be the best in everything you do and achieve. But we all know that most things are either borrowed, stolen or plagiarized. When someone managed to dig up the truth, you hurriedly bury them again and tell us not to ever bring up that subject again, or else...

We want to help the country grow in every aspect but you don't want to listen to us. We asked for change but you want to be puritanical about everything. You send some of us to imprisonment because we said the wrong thing or wrote the wrong thing, not in accordance to your objectives and vision. But when we ask you what your objectives and visions are you let us know a glimpse of what you might be doing and leave us in the dark thereafter.

You keep reminding us about how good it is to call this country home but you deny people who are considered out of the norm in sex and sexuality. Yo easily label us as deviants and aberrant without taking your time to help us and understand us. You would rather ostracize us than give us the freedom of choice.

You mess up the whole country and call it progress. You spend millions upon millions to build a technological facade when there are still people who are uneducated, living in poverty and are needy. You shrug your shoulders and say it's the NGO's job. You take down pristine trees and jungles for the sake of the country but you forget the sake of unfortunate wildlife which is as much a part of us as anything else. There is not one piece of land that is spared for too long. Whoever sits at the position can sign off even the livelihood of the indigenous people without conscience. Not enough resources are spent on the social issues, humanitarian projects and education for the underprivileged.

When Independence Day arrives you expect us to hoist the flag so high up for the world to see but that kind of flag does not bear the soul of your people. We have come a long way but you have forgotten about us. We implored you to accept your citizens for who they are and what they are but you ignored us. You even bring God in to testify to your decision-making. When you look around you can see that a lot of things in this country are adopted and you make them your country's code of conduct.

The entire world already knows how you try to conceal the truth and it is none other than us who will suffer when you fall apart. Excuse me, so why do you force patriotism down my throat when you know what is happening to the country? If we were under siege by some invaders do you think we will fight for to protect a place which doesn't even accpet us? So here we are trying to beseech you to listen to us one more time then maybe it won't be too late to salvage the country while we can. Will you lay down your arms and open your doors and invite us in?

Happy Independence Day.

Insight 74: Working Out the Kinks in Life in 3 Easy Steps

2009-04-09T06:35:00.000-07:00

It's never too late to work out any kinks in your life as long as you are ready to see to it that you do. A long overdue apology, a lesson you've always wanted to take up, an adventure you always dreamed of but never did make come true. If you understand your mental power that affects you physically as well, you will know that nothing is impossible. Not even for a senior citizen as long as he has a youthful heart.

Some of us go through life as though nothing could be changed since tradition and the laws that govern us say so. But in this almost insignificant life that we lead, especially for those of us who go undetected on the radar of fame and fortune, we live in the shadows of many shapes and sizes. We believe that the system is the right device to control every step we take to make us better people to serve someone higher above us because he has all the power to overrule us. We believe in the creed written in books and parchments to dictate the rights and wrongs because we don't know how to differentiate them with our puny little heads encasing an even punier brain. People, in general, just accept everything as is because most of us feel inadequate to challenge anything we cannot define or understand. In the end, everyone lives miserably because that's the way life goes as they are told to the unfortunate ones. But is this all there is?

Most problems in people's lives remain unresolved because they don't feel the need to. It may seem easier to carry on living the hardships and difficulties but that is a notion as old as anyone could have guessed. Change appears to be illogical and troublesome at the starting point but if only people knew how much more it can improve lives, most people would opt for it than to trundle in the dark, groping for a common ground to stand on.

Any problems can be solved with considerable thought and minimal effort that can actually wipe out irritations, frustrations, anger and disillusionment. Take for instance a couple's dilemma of being married when they discover there is nothing between them that they want to hang on to, or a man's depression working in a dead-end job that is beginning to bear down on him, or a closeted gay's ultimate plight of coming out. The litanies, of course, don't stop there.

The most important thing to do to iron out the creases and wrinkles is to identify the problem. Even if it cannot be discerned at the beginning, a little hint or suggestion of what it could be may be helpful to start with. Once that is done, the next step is to find a solution for it. Our misinformed writ tells us if a problem cannot be figured out immediately then there is no solution for it but we fail to realize that everything takes time. Again, time is relative in terms of what we construe as long or short because ultimately it is our lack of patience and tolerance that excites us to react prematurely. After the resolution come the consequences. This is the hardest part to accept because it changes things, it changes our lives whether we like it or not. If you decide to divorce the man you never loved be prepared to be alone again to fend for yourself. If you want to steer clear from drug abuse you know the journey is just the beginning. If you are ready to live a simpler life then giving up an adulterated job would become easier. To be able to move forward you would have to take the third step of acceptance.

Accepting your inadequacies, your imperfections and defects is a good way to reestablish yourself as the person you've always wanted to be rather than ignoring what is so obviously glaring in your face. Shame or embarrassment isn't an option or an excuse for not owning up to who you really are without the frills of wealth, furor of fashion or flavors of a circumstance. At the end of it all you are really just dust, so what of it?

Insight 73: You Gotta Believe in the Fight

2009-03-06T15:14:00.000-08:00

Life can be an utterly boring experience if you don't have anything you are passionate about. It's just one long tedious journey with a routine you familiarize yourself with because you are bamboozled by the System. You believe everything the Authorities say but you still feel unfulfilled and unnourished, dissatisfied and frustrated with yourself and with the world. Why is it so?

If you've nothing to fight for all your life you may find yourself spiritlessness in a world full of adventure. Although there is no right or wrong reasons to do what one has to do some may go to extremes to make their life worth living. People who consummate themselves with their artistry find more fulfillment than most. It can be a race car driver or a chef, a thespian or a social worker, a dancer or a firefighter. So where does that leave you?

The old school teaching about holding down a job for the sheer necessity of it doesn't really make much sense these days. If you consider life as one long conformation after another than it would be a life less lived. If you believe that people should be segregated by gender, class and distinction you would always be living in a maze controlled by the wealth of others. True life stories have shown this not to be true when someone breaks out of the constraint mold against all odds. The difference between people like that and the rest of the world is their belief system, they believe in the fight. Fight may be a misnomer to describe a positive and optimistic action since it has always been associated with unwanted and unnecessary engagements but it still denotes the act of struggling or striving for a better completion.

One without the fighting spirit would soon be wasted among the human disenchantment and this will eventually lead to wars from homes to countries. Living a life filled with nothing but emptiness will either make you give up your ghost earlier or make you antagonize others who have already found peace with themselves. Worse of all it will consume you as bitterness invades you with mental defects which will show up in your physical and emotional form.

Loneliness, anger, worthlessness, fear and hate come hand in hand when you have nothing to pursue, nothing to fight for in your life. You can turn to things and issues to lay your life upon but if it is not your true soul's intention you would still be lost and insecure because you would be fighting someone else's battle. Trust yourself to know what it is that you want. What it is that will make you wake up with enthusiasm, with conviction that you want so badly to keep on doing it even if to kills you because ultimately that's the best way to go rather than lay in a bed of self pity, woes and remorse.

You gotta believe in the fight while you still can!

Insight 72: Happy is as Happy does

2009-02-15T16:43:00.000-08:00

What is it about being happy that is so much talked about and yet so undeniably hard to achieve?

When I was a kid, I used to be so confused about life that there wouldn't have been any way to be happy even if I tried. But the strangest thing of all is how I could perceive happiness through small wonders and little surprises that adults seem to ignore.

Being a kid, everything was a miracle to me. I could lay on the rock and watch the skies, animal life or the stillness of the taut surface of the pool. They were enough to make my day and I was happy without any justifications or reasons to be. Happiness were also the times when I used to cycle in the rain, run across fields of grasslands, climbing up to the hilltop to see the world, getting swept by the waves of the sea and laying in bed dreaming what dreams may come.

But like any other kids, I was told to shed off this frivolous and non productive activity and concentrate more on things that would get me by with a good life. The irony of it all is the pursuit for this form of happiness is nothing but distress, anger and frustration. There are so many people I know who could afford to live lavishly live miserably. Without an appointment for luncheon or an artistic performance, a night out with friends or a vacation, a check at the stock market or dissing the corrupted politicians, they would all be lost. Happiness for kids is as natural as their innocence but adults have to seek them out, with no guarantee, in order to find them. How bizarre?

At some point of my life I almost lost my happiness due to the peer pressure to search for it. And there's always this notion that we plant in ourselves that the more objects we accumulate the happier they'll make us. Back then when there were no technological gadgets to make me happy I relied pretty much on sand, water, trees, cats and dogs, critters under rocks and stones, stars, constellations and my imagination. That was all I needed and to this day I am eternally grateful that I still have them by my side.

You don't need anyone to make you happy. You definitely don't need things. You only need your appreciative heart, your open mind, your forgiving soul and your touch of love to find that elusive happiness which always resides within you. And because inwardly you have it, outwardly everyone and everything will be affected by it.

Insight 71: Where are the Answers?

2009-02-13T16:23:00.000-08:00

Out whole lives are based on searching for answers. Be it of the universe or about ourselves, we need explanations, descriptions and perhaps even justifications for the things about us that we don't understand.

Time and again we hear the same old adage that the answers are within us and yet we fail to grasp that idea or even know what to do about it. The saying, of course, has more truth in it than we want to hear. The only thing is, how do we extract answers from the deep beyond that is inside us?

If you've ever experience peace and quiet before this is the best way to know what turmoil goes up in our hearts and heads. This serene moment, even in the busiest of times in the city, can be found at the most unusual and unexpected places. Somewhere in between sleep and wake, there is always an instance where everything just winds down to a halt. This could be a contemplative moment for you if you chance to be awake, if not you could find another time and place when you are all alone like when you are in the washroom or traveling in a monotonous bus journey or when you are lunching alone.

It is always good to have a piece of paper and pen when you are looking for answers, though not necessary, so that you could jot down solutions and directions that come to mind. When you get used to this form of transcendence it will come back to you easier with practice. That precious time most of us overlooked can do a lot of good for us in the long run. Instead of avoiding the issues, drowning our sorrows with intoxication and burying ourselves with what we claim to be work, spending a little time away from everyone and everything except ourselves do help.

Just relax, free your mind and listen to the sound of your own answers.

Quotation 4:

2009-01-13T17:20:00.000-08:00

When you want to do a job do it great
or leave no traces

Quotation 3:

2009-01-09T15:36:00.000-08:00

There are only three sure-fire way that I know
that can make things happen.
You have to have passion, persistence and patience.

Quotation 2:

2009-01-09T15:32:00.000-08:00

The only thing to do is to try
with all your might and energy
and be patient.
That's the way of the universe.
For when it comes,
there's no stopping it.

Insight 70: Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

2009-01-07T18:49:00.000-08:00

What can I say? Steve Job's said it all.

Insight 69: Those Pretentious @#$%&

2009-01-03T08:34:00.000-08:00

As I grow older I find hearing pretentious people talk a terribly exhausting and torturous event. I can only sit for so long to hear them blabber and rant about everything disassociated from the heart, soul, mind and spirit. Sensing an energy vampire these days have become so natural it hurts my head if I don't move away from them before they drain me dry from my own existence. These are the kinds of people who relive old injuries, open up healed wounds, condemn others who are not like them and discriminates every other living thing on earth as though they are better than everybody else. I used to have the patience to sit through someone's negative and pessimistic lament about everything under the sun but I feel I don't want to be that person anymore. I've endured families, relatives, acquaintances, strangers and colleagues who dwell on this to survive, but enough of those nonsense. I'd rather listen to a beautiful song or music, especially Kissing by Bliss, and watch the leaves dance in the breeze than to put up with conversations that are offensive, abusive and intrusive.

Last night I was star gazing and I saw a shooting star darting past Orion. Though it was brief, it was an amazing sight to behold. It was magical to see a blanket of constellations hovering over my head, twinkling in the distant light years away while I was just a speck of mote that is no more than I am and no less than I could be.

This morning, I am sitting and looking outside the windows to a garden filled with birdlife and flora against the backdrop of the hills and low lying clouds. With Brian Eno keeping me company and the gibbons whooping like faraway backup singers I sit and taste the mildly cool air to fill my heart's desires to be a part of beauty.

Now, there's a little spider climbing on the wall where I sit. The trees are swaying its foliage as though speaking to me. And the sun is gilding everything into gold. Life could be this simple and yet seem so rich.

Insight 68: Is it really the Pursuit of Happiness?

2008-12-21T19:30:00.000-08:00

The first time I watched The Pursuit of Happyness, based on Chris Gardner's rags to riches real life story, I was inspired and moved to tears. But as time went by I began thinking about how we sometimes associate wealth with abundance of any kind. If we can afford good food, fine living, jet setting lifestyles and global vacations anytime we want, we should be happy. I've met people who have none and those who have everything. But sadness creeps up on them just the same.

Being rich, or wanting to be rich is not something we should fear, it's how we perceive the idea of wealth that changes us for better or for worse. I heard of a woman who found a stash of cash and claiming it to be hers even when the man who lost it came back to look for it. There are those who flick other people's belongings when they are left unattended for even a split second. And then there are those who cheat for a few extra bucks to buy themselves something because they feel they deserve it. Is that what wealth is all about? Have we come to the level of humanity that we would do anything to grab that ideal of affluence so we could afford to have a better life?

We have been conditioned the moment we came into this earth by the doctrine of mankind. We were told how we functioned and how we should function for the betterment of humanity. We were institutionalized and molded into beings to follow a set of rules and regulations. But then, we are more than humanoids out to make a fast buck for a quick luck.

The irony of wealth is when we acquire the amount to pay off the bills of our properties, necessities and luxuries just to be happy. How does it even make any sense? Tell a passionate artist, novelist, poet, musician, actor, inventor to stop what he is doing because it brings no food to the table. Do you think he can? But tell a worker that he will not be paid his wages because the company is going through a bad spell, will he even come back to continue his job?

We have been duped into believing that acquiring abundance will make us better people in all aspects of being human and it's not the same as making a living to survive under the rule of democracy. We have yet to come to the stage where we will all share freely without conditions or expectations, but until then we have to realize where our pursuits will take us. Once, there was a millionaire who donated ten thousand dollars to a charity and everyone thought he was a great philanthropist and then there was a poorer man who gave his ten bucks which went unnoticed.

As we complicate our lives with more gadgets and wants we lose ourselves to the real pursuit of happiness. Of being together with families and friends without the distraction of contraptions and gizmos, of being in love with the person we choose from our hearts and not from the thrill of commercial appeal, of enjoying the little things like taking walks, sharing memories, having conversations and simply enjoying the sounds of nature where life actually is.

Insight 67: How Anal Can You Get?

2008-12-14T08:06:00.000-08:00

I hear a lot of people being referred to by others or by themselves as being anal. I never really paid much attention to it until I experienced this phenomenal tragedy because ultimately being anal will cause constipation. How scientifically true that may or may not be - I have no idea but I feel that could be one of the symptoms.

So what is being anal all about that even the bowels refuse to move? Well, for one thing, to be negative and pessimistic about life and the things around us is not going to make our lives any cheerier or rosier than what it already is. I sometimes come across people who just can't stand so many things in their lives it's a wonder they still manage to survive. It's a commonality to hear people kvetch about their bosses as though their employers are inhuman and are out to make life miserable for them.

With so many things to dislike in this world how can you go on bitching about them and not expect your own body, mind and spirit to react? You can despise a movie you have just watched, or abhor the food you ate, or execrate the crowd you mingle with and you can detest your in-laws, the guy next door, the girl in the street, the stranger you bumped into, stray animals, someone's pet, the weather, filth, or the world but it will get you nowhere. If you revolve your life around hate what do you expect to come out of it? Cancer? High blood pressure? Stroke? Heart Attack? Constipation?

Some people go to distances to make others suffer when they don't get what they want or have things go their way; it could be a served meal, a hotel room, an information or something as simple as an answer. Having our rights is one thing but exercising a massive onslaught for a piece of toast to come out the right color evenly is a little like breaking down a house to hunt down that mosquito that bit you. In our world that is made up of people in all forms and makes we can't expect everyone to be like us. Choosing to be narcissistic will bring on more anger and frustrations that will metamorphose into aches we never knew existed. However, to steer clear away from the ideals of a perfectionist doesn't mean one has to go to the other extreme. A good balance is far better than tilting either end of the spectrum to upset your life.

Letting go of things since they cannot be in your control or to your liking is the first step to a healthier life, a regenerated physique and a peaceful heart and a sound mind. Why bother to get anal when you can be free from vexations and encumbrances that will bring you nothing but a string of disasters in your fleeting existence?

What it actually boils down to is your inability to relax when the crockery doesn’t match or when you see someone behaving out of the norm, or when an opinion riles you up. In the end, as you and I know it, all these ideologies are stemmed from years of abiding by a set of rules set by tradition, which simply means: a practice of long standing. If you realize how absurd this is the next time you are uptight about something go to the nearest facility i.e.: a meditation center, a confessional room, a quiet place with mother nature or the secret chamber; purge everything that is upsetting your body, mind and spirit. Nothing like a good old fashion catharsis.

Insight 66: It’s That Money Thing Again

2008-12-04T19:38:00.000-08:00

I’ve been in situations and quandaries where money becomes a main concern in my life and I really loathe it. Although I know about the laws of attraction, Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad. Poor Dad, Napolean Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, Paolo Coelho’s The Alchemist and many other writers who delve on monetary madness and wealth in our human lives, I still get hitched by it once in a while when I get into the rut.
There was once when I didn’t have to even think or worry about where the money was coming from because there was plentiful in my banks and reserves. But when it was all spent and everything ran dry faster than I could scream ice cream, it was all gone and I was afraid for the very first time. I could identify now with people who have nothing, not a single cent, maybe a few, to their name. I knew what it was like to have none, nada, zero, zilch and wonder about expenses and bills. Since I have very few commitments I managed to get by with very little but then it wasn’t a solution. Living from hand to mouth day after day wasn’t going to get me where I want to go.

In that time of desperation, I tried to apply for all the wrong jobs and I unconsciously resisted everything that came my way. I ended up doing something which I have no passion for and everyday was like a self inflicted torment I made upon myself. On top of that I met some very pessimistic and negative people who whine and lament about money as though it could make them who they want to be if they had more. I was gradually spiraling down this rabbit hole without realizing I was heading there and was soon caught up with the idea of never having enough and always chasing after the elusive fortune.

Since I am not a factotum of distress I switched back to my sanguine mode and set out a plan with the basic understanding of The Art of War by Sun Tzu. I lost my sense of anticipation when I allowed myself to be dragged into the wearisome world of monetary blues where everyone is a victim and none come out alive. I tell myself I am better than this. I am better than being a burden to someone else. And I am better at anything I set my heart out to do.

Everyone needs to start somewhere, whether it is at the top or the bottom or somewhere I between. Everyone has to make a choice to walk on the roads of life and I haven’t been making mine since I let myself go with the flow, come what may, that sort of thing. I feel like a rat living in a rut scavenging to stay alive when I lose control of what I can change and ameliorate. The year is ending and everyone’s wrapping up with gifts and regrets but I will have none of those. I will begin by resetting my life, restarting my hard disk and get it right this time. The message I received recently from a disturbed sleep was ‘contentment kills’ and I’m going to do everything I can to move my cheese.

Insight 65: Screwing Up At Other People's Expense

2008-11-24T21:54:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, we get so disgusted with what people tell us to do we just want to screw our whole life up and claim our own victory and freedom of choice. It can be rewarding and self-asserting but if it is done at other people's expense it can be no better than an irresponsible and inconsiderate act centered upon our own ego.

Many of us follow a set of rules and regulations inculcated into us as part of a school's system based on traditional values. We do what we are told and we stick to it because that is the only one thing we know until we are exposed to much greater wonders in life. At some point, when we've had enough of conventionality and submissiveness we begin to rebel to start taking control of our lives. Although it sounds like an ideal step forward to metamorphose to higher plains it can only be achieved if we are clear from the beginning that the journey is personal to bear.

It's okay if we want to get ourselves involved with anything that might jeopardize our future but in the event of doing that no one else should suffer for our sakes. Not directly anyway. Since we are connected by an invisible lifeline to one another whatever we do will cause a ripple effect to the people closest to us. By deteriorating our own health in ways and means of addiction we should only succumb to these activities only if we are ready to face it all alone. No one should even come to our rescue and bail us out. For the want of independence and personal ambition go for it alone, make it real for yourself and pull through the worse to experience life the way you want it. But don't go knocking on doors of families and friends to beg them for help because you wanted to screw up in the first place.

We are all natural survivors even at death's door, we don't have to pack up our bags and go back to mama when times are bad. We don't have to go back into hiding because everything is falling apart around us. We don't have to shove the responsibility to someone else when we're in the mess we created for ourselves. There are only two ways, two roads, two options to take when we come to the crossroad of our individuality and conformity. We take the road less traveled all by ourselves or we go back to being one of the clones in the fields of assimilation.

You can shout at the top of the world that you are in control of your life but don't let anyone who loves you bury you when you fail. Don't let anyone pick up the pieces of your defeat. And if you really have to screw up your life because you believe you are meant to do it, go ahead and thrash it in isolation and be proud of it.

Insight 64: Stand Back & Look At The Big Picture

2008-11-22T20:35:00.000-08:00

There are times when we complain about so many things in life we forget it's the bigger picture that tells the whole story. We focus on our loneliness, scarcity, over abundance, inadequacies and inability to fit in like it is the only thing that matters in our lives. When our pockets are empty we wish we had more and hope to find ways to fill them back again. When we are diagnosed with the possibility of a health threat we spend every waking moment looking for a cure. When someone we love abandon us we crave for that person as if our lives depended on it. We could go on worrying, fretting, indulging in pain and pity but it will go no further than that. It's like a cut we had years ago that leaves a scar we frown upon whenever we look at it because that is all we've got to hang on to. Although it's the small things that matter, they are not to be agonized upon.

When a thread comes loose in a fabric we are reminded of a stitch in time, and that's like anticipation of a circumstance or situation but it doesn't remain there. Step back a little and you'll be able to see instead the Emperor's clothes to get a better view of life. The hurt, the wound, the unwanted abjection, the confusion are fragments of what we may be experiencing holistically. If we could only see that it all adds up to a larger whole we would be able to find a solution to the real cause.

Complaining about the weather, leaky faucet, traffic, bosses and the government spins like a runaway top that will one day skip out of its track, bring everything else down like dominoes, lose its momentum and then cease completely from existence. You can put a band aid on a gash but the trauma will persist.

Whatever you are experiencing and wherever your situation is at, looking at it solely to find the cause is like looking for a needle in the haystack. It would have most likely begun years back when it was all good and negligible before they started festering from ignorance and inconsiderateness. What we can do when confronted by a dilemma we did not expect is to take it in strive, understand it and stand back to see the masterpiece we have created that brought us here.

Insight 63: It's Not As Bad As We Want It To Be

2008-11-18T04:00:00.000-08:00

When a child falls down and hurt himself we tend to make such a big fuss about it that it frightens the child into a crying frenzy instead of helping him understand that getting hurt, physically or emotionally is part of experiencing life. If we hover over his hurt like it was the world's worst tragedy, the child will get indoctrinated with the idea that dramatizing a situation can get him the attention and affection he wants. This, of course, will not go down well as he grows older and begin life on his own as an adult.

The practice of exaggerating petty things into something devastatingly uncontrollable makes everyone a paranoid. And people who know this can twist everything to their advantage and reap riches from it. Put out a scare of a disease with only one curable antidote and everyone’s out to kill each other to retrieve it. Induce the fear of Armageddon and everyone’s ready to worship someone who can save their souls. Spread a rumor about the malevolence of a certain clan or tribe or an individual and the nation will arm itself with mass destructive weapons.

To give a wounded person an account of how bad things are will kill him faster than his injury can. It’s the way we make things sound so bad that makes it bad. Discovering that one is a terminal patient about to perish is nothing more than an inevitable stage we all have to go through sooner or later. To worry about the tumor in our body will only make it more malignant and accelerate its invasion. To maculate a criminal’s characteristic will not help the victim recover but only disgust and humiliate him even more.

Anything we do in life and have failed in is just failure by any name. It’s just a measuring yardstick that tells us how close we have come to meet a certain standard that our forefathers set from the very beginning of time. In school, at home, at work, we can only do so much and please everyone so far. Death may be the ultimate but it is not the end. Not even any forms of suffering that we feel are upon us that make life miserable. We always have the power to make things good, if not better. Pain is just another way for our bodies and emotions to speak to us, to wake us up from the suspended animation we have been in for too long.

Bad, for whatever infamous reputation it garners, is just a three letter word that is neither the beginning nor the end, and when you come to think of it it’s not so bad after all.

Insight 62: The Arcanum about Addiction

2008-11-10T00:20:00.000-08:00

We are all creatures of curiosity whether we like it or not. Getting addicted to something in life is more of a choice than a disease. If we could understand why we do what we do this to ourselves, addiction would be gone sooner than we can imagine. Obvious dependencies are drugs, alcohol, smoking, sex, pornography, computer games and the internet, while other less apparent ones could be anything that we do in extremity in our daily duties. Why we even subject ourselves to habituations that go out of our control with a string of consequences is no mystery, let alone is it a curse. We do it for the want of it.

One of the most common reasons why we indulge in self-destructive behaviors is dysphoria. The discontentment we feel deep within comes from an assortment of dissatisfaction, anger, frustration, displeasure and hatred that we have been nursing for much too long without a resolution. Getting addicted to something to keep our minds from the real concerns help but only temporarily. This form of denial will not make things any better, in fact by letting ourselves be controlled by substance abuse, common distractions and other people's trash will only lead to scenarios worse than we can expect. Being addicted to something is equivalent to losing one's self control over life.

Getting rid of an old recurring habit will only be effective if dealt with from the grassroots. To know yourself fully and understand your needs will give you a better insight about why you do what you do. One of the most difficult things for anyone of us to deal with is accepting who we are despite all our flaws and imperfections; the most common being our outlook. Judging our physical self against the world's standards of what beauty is, nobody wins. We don't come with damage control when we are born. We look the way we look. We could opt for cosmetic surgery when the time is right but it won't make any difference if we nurture a low self esteem of ourselves on the inside. Putting ourselves up against the gorgeous people on prints, billboards and the silver screen, we would never match up to them even if we try because they have been perfected by celluloid dreams.

Feeling disparaged for being who we are is a slow death we invite as we wither ourselves away. And to speed up the process of dying entangling ourselves with toxins of any form will make it even more agonizing. One other factor that makes dependency so delicious is the fear of being alone. Many of us dread the thought of loneliness that is associated with boredom, restlessness and bouts of our lives of non activity. And so the next best thing to do is to lose ourselves in time with fleeting pleasures.

Although hanging ourselves onto things we enjoy doing for as long as we can feels like a gratification we cannot do without, we have to be aware and conscious about the after effect, especially where health is concerned. If we are not careful, everything could vanish in a split second and slip through our fingers. The compunction that follows will be enough to wreck what could have been a wonderful life.

Insight 61: Feeling Good About Ourselves

2008-11-03T18:56:00.000-08:00

One of the most tragic things we do is to try and make us feel good about ourselves. Taking a vacation in the guise of pampering our needs is among the most common besides working ourselves to the bone to make money for ourselves or certain parties who hired us to make it for them. Everyone wants to feel good so that they can rest easy when they go to sleep. Reassuring themselves that they have done good for the day and done their best to make ends meet. But this synthetic dream that we aggrandize to feed our ego will not last. Or at least it will last as long as we can fool ourselves into believing it.

This urge to justify our waking moments with productivity can get us carried away for no good reason. That's why retired people and the elderly go through depression when they are deemed as being ineffective and unprofitable; just like injured horses. This feeling of not being able to contribute back to society has been drummed into us ever since we were kids and even from the moment we could make sense of things around us. From the perfection-seeking- teachers to the ever-zealous-parents who are supported by the overbearing government we learn from a very early age to be a part of the whole nation who works, pays and dies for the good of the country. Anyone not helping with the growth is labeled with all kinds of stigmas to be scorned and jeered at. So we work, from nine to five, sometimes longer, to please someone or ourselves into believing that money is a necessity to achieve the material things we want in life.

A housewife has to serve her purpose as a mother to her children, a cook to her family and a lover to her husband. A husband must be the bread winner, the provider and the man about the house. A child must study with all his might to be the best so that his future is secured with affluence that will give him more time to do what he enjoys best and less time to do what he dislikes most. We are all conditioned people who have come to the ultimate believe that we have to follow a set of path that churns out our existence in a systematic cycle so that life goes on the way it does. But does it really?

Of recent years, people are waking up and questioning everything they could ask. People are not happy being in offices, doing something they are forced to do that kills their creativity and the whole notion of being human. Traditional regulations are crumbling because they can no longer contain the unknowingness of the truth, the reality and the way we live. More and more people can't lie to themselves anymore following a routine that takes them to central places where they churn out things that make no sense to them. Feeling good through a series of mundane affairs are no longer viable. People are beginning to realize that to feel good, they have to do what they love to do.

For those who are distracted by technology, anything garish and elaborate, fast and instantaneous, sooner or later, you will come out of it when you've had enough. You can feel good without any devices or gadgets to gauge the level of your satisfaction. You don’t need to be told about how you feel towards anything. But to even feel alive, and that your existence means much more than a regular job with the other mandatories, you would have to first shed that skin of conformity and metamorphose into the being that you know you are.

Insight 61: Be The Soul Of Your Being

2008-10-28T19:36:00.000-07:00

Take charge of your life. If you've always been dependent on someone else other than yourself to survive, it's time to take a hold of the helm and begin your journey. It's good not to worry about anything that might trouble you but then again that kind of goodness is only temporary and misleading. Sooner or later you will have to make your own decisions, from the smallest and insignificant to the biggest and most relevant. Whether you have been through high water and high and caught between the devil and the deep blue sea with always someone around you to fish you out, then that kind of experience would have taught you nothing but fear.

If you have a backup plan that relies on other external support, it's as good as having no individualistic expression at all. Can you hold up on your own if you start from a scratch? If the answer is no then perhaps it's time for some self-dependency. Nothing could be worse than having our entire life merged with another person's like a sycophant. Anyone with some self worth would not do that kind of thing but then again, sometimes, out of ignorance, we forget our place on earth and we tend to stick to someone for all the wrong reasons. It could be our parents, a spouse, our children, friends or even strangers.

If we only realize how much of power and strength each and every one of us has, we could move mountains and scale the entire galaxy. Frightened into submission by one too many rules and regulations, traditions and cultures, politicians and religious leaders, most of us grow up to become soulless creatures with no more capacity to think for ourselves. We do what we are told because we believe that's how things should be and that's the way it is. Dictators have always known about this weakness of the human race. Scare them, divide them and you'll be able to conquer them.

If you can imagine your whole life being wrapped around the ideology of premeditated existence that needs to be indoctrinated regularly than you have become a slave to your own creation. Your mental capacity to comprehend the world and set out a path of your own would have been wasted because you believe in a system that doesn't make us creative or imaginative. You become the ultimate toady who needs instructions to function.

Many people only find this out at a point in their lives where company means most to them; death of a loved one, parting of a friend, severance of intimacy, disintegration of a foundation and loss of a belief, where sometimes it's too late. When you are stripped off your costumes and impersonations and when your comfort zone have been demolished, you may just give in without a fight, especially if you have never had the opportunity to be your own person. Before that happens, seizing the day and making things happen are all you have that you can call your own. Making connections with other people in the same struggle is not a form of dependency but a forging of likeminded people who wish for better things in life. Only timorous devotees gather together to wait for their own doom so they won't be alone when they have to face death. But you, if you are in control, you are the soul of your being and nothing and no one can make it any better or any worse for you.

Insight 60: The Kvetch Of Life

2008-10-20T21:58:00.000-07:00

You want the world to know that you are suffering,
because the world in on your shoulders
and life is unfair.
You want to wear your heart on your sleeves
because you want everyone to know
that you don't deserve it.
You ask yourself why your dreams won't come true,
why everything is wrong in your life
even though you try.
You want to wallow in the pit of depression
because you feel that's where you belong
and you cry yourself a river.
You tell yourself to give in and give up
because there's no point in carrying on
and fooling yourself.
But you know deep down inside, you know,
that all the pain and agony is fleeting
and things will surely get better.
You know if you pull through this time of affliction
there will be moments of joy
and your moment of truth.
You can throw it all in and lay down your life,
or you could fight the odds
and steer the helm.
You could keep asking yourself 'why me'
or ask 'where is this taking me'
and survive it.
You want to punish yourself and make it worse
but you know it'll get you no where
and this is your life
whether you make it
any better or any worse.
This is your life.

Insight 59: Doing It Now!

2008-10-16T18:39:00.000-07:00

Just as the song goes ‘Let’s start at the very beginning, it’s a very good place to start’, that’s the best advice for anyone who wants to do anything in life. And the starting point is here and now.

To start a career, find the path that leads you all the way to the right destination. With the internet at your finger tips, information and data at the blink of an eye, you can almost be anything you want to be if your inclination is fervid. Whether you pick it up on your own with existing tutorials or get attached with institutions the answer to getting good at what you do is to continuously doing it.

Likewise when parenting a child what you do to them construct their lives for the future. Bring them up with fear and they will be afraid of everything they experience. Distrusting them will make them grow with suspicion. Allowing them the freedom to do as they please with no guidance will eventually upset their lives with disorientation.

Beginning your own life with suicidal tendencies of doing things excessively will only bring you down to your knees when your health deteriorates. Everyone knows that but few want to believe them for what they are. And it all starts from the very first step.

Whoever you are right now and whatever the condition or situation you are in, it doesn’t end there, unless you want it to. Even in your very last breath you can make it good for yourself if you start now. Do your heart’s bidding and know yourself for what you’re worth and be contented with the small miracles in your life.
If you want to quit from something, if you want to make amends, if you need to patch up a relationship, if you want to make your dreams come true, there is not a moment to lose. There is only now, like another song that goes ‘No other road, no other way, no day but today’.

Quotation 1:

2008-10-07T20:06:00.001-07:00

When we choose to live in the past,
our present will be no more but an illusion.

Insight 58: Time for change

2008-10-05T20:16:00.000-07:00

To grow one has to change or transform or metamorphose. If the surroundings are constant and unchanging all the time, we will see nothing but nostalgic images that fade into oblivion. We will long for the forgotten. Ache for the unreachable and always yearning to possess things which were never ours. We could sit around pining and craving but that would not make our lives any better or edifying. And if we do that long enough, we get nothing but false consolation on rainy nights, fretful afternoons and indecisive mornings.

The world will seem like a bleaker place for us to comfort our restlessness what with all the madness that is driving the world to extinction. But if you realize the necessity of change and growth you will come to appreciate the insignificant, invisible and unlikely. And in the most ironic manner, the most inconsequential concerns are sometimes the most relevant. This, you have to identify.

In truth, every one of us has the ability to evolve, like how we understand day and night, but most of us are afraid. With that in mind we will not be able to move and we will become stagnant, and by the time we get older there’s just one more excuse to add on to our ever justified comfort zone.

Life is about journey, whether it works or doesn't, that take us to where we are going, what we are looking for at the end of the road.

Whatever you do, wherever you go, it will always lead you back to where you want to be.

Insight 57: Upon 40 and Beyond

2008-09-25T19:24:00.000-07:00

Before you hit 40 let me tell you about what to expect.

Everything Disintegrates
If you have bad teeth, bad back, bad headaches and bad health without constant care, trust me, everything begins to fall apart. You will find your precious locks falling like leaves, your supple smooth skin folding up like an accordion, your soles start breaking up in channels and ditches, your eyesight's focus goes berserk and your intellectual high IQ mind losing its grandeur. That's just to name a few.

Moreover if you have extreme habits like smoking, drinking, late night partying, yada yada, I don't even have to say what will come of it in the end.

Excess Baggage
For those of you with enemies, black-listed people, begrudged adversaries and bad blood foes, if you have not come to a compromise or peace treaty, imagine what it will do to you with all the antagonists waiting at your door. Not only will you have to keep track on your quarrels but also renew the agony that incited them the first place so you'll remember what you were angry about.

With so much wrath you have accumulated it will only lead to more frustration, irritation and aggravation and it's enough to for you to combust into flame if it reaches that level.

Personal Undevelopment
For all the things you wanted to do but never did, at the age of realization, you will be hit like a tsunami out of nowhere. You'll be wondering what the hell you're doing with your life. Whether you have already raked in your millions or its still underway or you have no intention to all of a sudden you will see your aged self in the mirror and wonder how fast time flies. You still long to be that youthful person that you were - so full of life and ideas, idealism and hopes, but where have they all gone?

Lying blatantly to yourself, you'll say that's how things goes and you force yourself to live in this reality millions like you forged to justify your emptiness. You wake up without the drive, without the motivation to achieve even the smallest of things and you continue to slave to the world's commandment or you just simply give in to a nervous breakdown. All you know is how unhappy you are with what you've become.

Missing Identity
With your given name or a self chosen one, you may or may not have made but you still don't know who you are and what you are looking for in this brief, fleeting life on planet earth. Nothing you do is right or satisfactory, you don't even know if you could be who you set out to be in the first place. That dream of racing a car, that dream of being playing the violin, that dream of writing a book, that dream of playing at the Olympics, that dream of traveling the world, that dream ... that dream ... is still a dream.

You sit and watch telly with your paunch as your companion. You have everything in life that could make a good living but you have nothing that will make you truly, absolutely exhilarated about getting up in the morning and want to take the world into your hands and mold it.

Miscellaneous Mismanagement
When you're forty and over you are either lauded for your wealth of experience or looked upon with disdain.
When you're forty and over you question your marital status whether you like it or not.
When you're forty and over you either have nothing or everything in your possession.
When you're forty and over you want to relive moments when you were twenty.
When you're forty and over everybody thinks you're too old.
When you're forty and over you begin to panic if you lose your job.
When you're forty and over you better get moving since nothing is ever too late.

Of course 40 is a relative number but some of you may experience them in your earlier years or some even later, but the truth of the matter is, everything converges into the same river of life the only thing is: Are not prepared for it?

Insight 56: Do You Believe In The Force?

2008-09-17T06:09:00.000-07:00

I used to be forced to do things when I was a kid and as I grew older I forced other people younger than me to do the same. And now, after a series of shocks and awakenings I realized it was really truly a damning thing to do to someone, anyone. Adults and the elderly do feel like it's their responsibility to guide and nurture children and youth, but sometimes what worked for them ten years ago may not necessarily work for the younger generation today. The problem is, many don't evolve with the times and the rift between generations will cause greater and greater divide between the two.

As more and more people realize this obsolete and unfeasible practice, they are beginning to turn back to one thing that has worked before and will work again till the end of times. Love and affection. As simple as that may be, it is the hardest and most demanding role anyone can play to give and take, to understand, to be patient, to be considerate and to tolerate. Although it does seem like a burden to bear to love someone without the conditions, it could also be as easy as love truly is.

What holds us back and make us weigh the benefits we get out of being compassionate and loving is that one undeniable defect we all have which is known as ego. The self-importance we place on ourselves overwhelm everything else we know. When our arrogance to be number one is blown out of proportion we become self righteous. We feel that nothing we do is wrong and can be wrong. We feel we have the authority over others. We feel like we are the omniscient who cannot be challenged or questioned. We love honor, respect and attention but we drive everyone away or up the wall with our attitude of hauteur. We feel the need to force others to do what we know because we know best.

No one can tell us we are causing more aggravation than goodness because listening has become selective to the one who worships his own ego. The only way a person with such a bloated personality can be struck down is by his own hand when his own life falls apart. When age catches on. When illness invades his body, soul and mind. When he is torn by agony which he used to instill on others. That's when his idea of his perfection crumbles and if he doesn't lose everything he will have to feed on the humility that is left in his life.

Like governments, political leaders, religious heads, parents, teachers and everyone else, if we don't evolve and come to a compromise with change we will eventually fade away like a forgotten tale. Someone whom no one wants to remember and no one wants to have anything to do with. But if you are still adamant about forcing people to do the what you feel is right in your eyes nature will have a way to reveal to you a mirror that may haunt you for the rest of your life.

Insight 55: The Case Of One Too Many

2008-09-07T20:17:00.000-07:00

Just the other day a friend came by and told me of his successes in his life. Ever since I knew him he was always the silent one with not much contribution to the dynamic conversations we used to have. Being the odd one out we considered him the dud of the gnag with not much prospects for the future. Now, many years later, upon meeting him again, he turned out to the most successful amongus all in his businesses and life. With curiosity and eagerness to learn about his rags to riches tale I listened intently as he reveals the story of his zero beginning where he started off with a nothing to lose attitude.

He literally had limited talents and skills and was subjected to only a minimal amount of attributes to take him far in life, or so I thought. He didn't speak very well, he was slow to respond, he could not keep up with the intellectual ideas we were throwing at one another and he was the one with the lowest IQ. Teachers used to put him down because of it and poverty painted his future that is bleak and disparaging. He told me he sat the the same room for three days and three nights thinking of what to do with his life and had only one direction, which was to use his only skill to help him succeed. With nothing else to distract him from his direction he toiled and labored at what he did best and eventually became quite a success, expanding his business as he went along and upgrading himself through courses and workshops.

I was astounded to see this side of him which I never knew existed. What hit me immediately was his sincere approach to the age old problem of asking himself what he wanted to do with his life, and because he is restraint by the little knowledge and educaiton he had he could only see one road, one focus and he took it. For many of us who are exposed to the multitude of things in our lives, being able to speak well, write, read, probably sing and dance, skilled in martial arts, sports, having moderate of high IQs and proficient in one too many things we may find ourselves overhwhelmed with choices. Imagine if you have the skills, talents and expertise of a professional in many different areas what will you do? If you are decisive and absolutely sure of what you want to do with your life and which direction you want to head for, the options will be to your advantage. Otherwise, you may take years to figure out where you want to go.

Today, with the advancement of technology and inexhaustible creation of one too many things for us to choose, from food to entertainment to gadgets to apparels, it makes it harder for the people who are indecisive. People today may be knowledgeable, intelligent and blessed with skills from all the schools they have attended but it doesn't help if they are perplexed by them. One of the most difficult endeavors in life is to know where we actually want to go and what we want to do with ourselves. For a person with nothing to lose there are only two options. To remain at the bottom of the rung or to climb all the way up to touch the clouds. For someone who has too much at stake, who is griping somewhere in the mid section, he will have the choice to go up, go down or stay where he is and tell himself everything is good enough as it is.

The idea behind this simple revelation to me is to:
1. Go and get what you want like you've got nothing to lose
2. Narrow down your choices and make a decision before you lose sight of your focus
3. Never fear
4. Don't spend to much time deciphering what is unnecessary
5. Don't go with the flow, make your own path
6. Listen to what people say and suggest, digest them and act appropriately
7. Believe in yourself

Insight 54: Aloneness Vs Loneliness

2008-09-02T20:33:00.000-07:00

No one can cure your loneliness. You can try getting a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a bunch of friends or a pet or bury yourself in business and entertainment, vacation and adventure, but the loneliness will always be with you when you allow it to be. To overcome this feeling of desolation you have to first discover what makes you feel it. What makes you such a jittery, loquacious and fearful person when you are all by yourself. Why are you so afraid of being alone?

Being alone doesn't mean one has to lonely. Loneliness can be felt anywhere even in crowded places and with a bunch of family members and friends. It is when you feel out of place, unbelonged, ill at ease and not being able to fit in anywhere. It doesn't matter what functions or festivities you are participating in because loneliness could as easily creep up on you as it can jolt you with a shock. This solitary emotional handicap is more like a plague when you are with pretentious company. The fakeness of togetherness invite emptiness much faster than when one is actually alone, making this sensationalised complexity even more pronounced. It exists unregulated anywhere it pleases. In nightclubs, hotels, parties, offices, homes and everywhere else that attracts insincerity.

Although one doesn't have to feel lonely when alone, it does come and bug us once in a while. What with all the media, movies, love songs and television suggesting and prompting the motto 'alone = loneliness', we can't hide from it unless we are completely out of touch with all these fallible media. Yes, it's always nice to have someone special close to us but not the way it's been advertised. It's not pink and rosy all the time, like how it has been portrayed by actors, books, songs and fantasies.

Even if you are with someone most of your life, you will still need your own breathing space. Some needs a little bit more, some needs a little bit less. No matter how delighted we are with company, we still need time off to be by ourselves. It's funny how a lot of people are afraid of spending time alone. The quietness of the house and the nothingness in the surroundings can drive some people mad. But if you are your own best company, being alone is not that bad.

There are so many things one can do and not just while the time worrying about it and watching the world go by. You could always catch up with your reading, art and craft, cooking, cleaning, sleeping, planning ahead and even good old relaxing. All these characteristic activities can be therapeutic in a way for us to revitalize ourselves from the noise and complexities we have created for ourselves. This is also the time when we can think and free our minds. Feel at ease doing nothing or something worth our while. Indulge in little hobbies and quirky things that we enjoy. But sadly, many people feel being alone is a taboo. They would rather plunge themselves into a frenzy with other people in a desperate act for company.

Everyone throngs at shopping complexes walking about aimlessly, or watching movies for the sake of killing time, or getting hangovers to forget burdens or burying themselves with anything to escape solitary moments. The fear of being alone is underrated and alarming at the rate people will take the trouble to avoid it. One thing's for sure, nobody wants to think too much. It hurts the head, it scares the soul and it is deemed useless when everything is already there for the taking. 'Let the rest do the thinking' is usually the live and let live motto. Nobody wants to do the dirty job of killing brain cells. And because of that everyone comes together to ask the inevitable question - what shall we do now?

That is how it is when you are with a bunch of people asking the same question and not knowing what to do about it. Being that indecisive doesn't help. It extinguishes the fires of enthusiasm and douse the flame of passion. So there goes a bunch of people meeting another bunch of people meeting yet another in a very crowded place to complain about being restless and listless and unclear about the future.

Spending time alone is also to recuperate all the broken pieces that we left behind while we were jamming into mobs to get where we were going for the entire day. Sometimes we lose ourselves when we label ourselves as one of the statistics. To take time off alone doesn't mean one has to coop up in a little rat hole with self-pity. It is the most misinterpreted visualization anyone can conjure. A man raking leaves in his garden is doing both his body and mind a favor. Another who meddles with his car engine to get them working better could be just as productive. Taking a slow drive to visit someone while gathering one's thoughts does wonders as well. By pulling ourselves together we see the world from a different light and out of nowhere we find ourselves filled with ideas and solutions for the things that has troubled us for while. All our senses will be acute to finer details that we never imagine ourselves to notice. But if we ignore the wonders of being alone we will find nothing but emptiness in a humongous hall in an unfamiliar terrain where we try to fill with everything but ourselves.

Insight 53: The Angry Life We Lead Will Take Us Everywhere But Here

2008-08-26T18:58:00.000-07:00

Some of us live an angry life for what it's worth. The anger just doesn't seem to go away no matter how we try meditation, vacation or any forms of relaxation. And to make matters worse, we don't even know what we are angry about sometimes. This anger can last for long periods of time of comes short unpredictable bouts, especially at the wrong times.

Why do we have them and why do they come? That is the question we hope to understand but most of the time the answers elude us. Anger can burgeon forth from almost anything from a simple squabble to a tremendous unexpected disappointment to a mere misunderstanding. But is that it? Is it that simple and frivolous to upset our whole our entire being? To be triggered by otiose matters that hardly worth our time to even acknowledge it? It could actually stem from something uncomplicated but yet very profound in character.

The issues that rile us up at the spur of the moment are usually provocations rather than anything of primary importance. It could be an onset influence by a hysterical crowd, a repressed outburst waiting to occur, a periodic event that is bound to collapse or an exhaustion inundated by other people's restlessness. And we all know anger does nothing but consumes us like a blood-thirsty beast that will leave us nothing but a scourge worst than death.

If examined closer the real truth of our anger runs deep beneath the still waters or seething blood for this matter. It all goes back to the aggravation and rage we confine inside a membrane of ignorance which we hope will go away. But as we know, nothing goes away until it is resolved. We can try to evade it or make happy faces in the mirror but we can't deny it's existence because like a horror story, it never goes away.

It is not easy to stay clam and clearheaded all the time when we are surrounded by psychoneurotics and pathological individuals. Incidentally, some of us might already fit comfortably in one of those categories, but knowing what it is that has been invading inside us is a much better solution than to go around blaming all kinds of everything that obstructs us from getting to where we want to go.

Insight 52: Procrastinating Without Guilt Will Not Make You Innocent

2008-08-26T01:09:00.000-07:00

Once we procrastinate the things we set out to do everything else gets affected and before we know it so do our lives. It could be something as simple as changing the light bulb or cleaning out the closet or returning a long overdue book. The idea behind it is so simplistic and uneventful we usually tell ourselves to do it later because it needs very little effort and time. But because the nature of doing it seems so unattractive we will put it off day after day until the need becomes too overwhelming or an urgency demands it. As more and more trivial matters arise and starts to pile up, there will come a time when we'll be swamped, irritated or troubled by them. That's when avoidance is not anymore an option.

The menial things in life can be taken lightly or seriously depending on how we view them and why we view them as such. Of course compared to changing a light bulb there are greater things to do with our lives. But if we ignore all the insignificant tasks in life, we might just find out that it's the little things that'll kill us. By not changing a shorted out bulb that lights up a pathway, we may not be able to see where we are going and miss a step and break a nail, otherwise there's always the alternative to tempt fate for a little longer and see if that happens.

Whatever the case, we need to list down our priorities and get them done soonest possible before it snowballs into an oversized labor. If we ignore even the smallest of things, it will lead to a whole lot more than we may anticipate. Everything has to start small like the light bulb and then there's no knowing what's next. The roof could actually right before our eyes.

Almost everyone that I know procrastinate a lot and so do I. The reason being? One of them is indecisiveness. Having one too many choices makes us go crazy with greed and in that short period of time we'll tell ourselves we'll leave it for later and come back to it when we are calm and relax and clear-headed. But how many times does that mindset come along? Because of this peculiar act we take for granted, many people suffer little depressions from it, which eventually gets piled up like a time bomb about to explode anytime. A couple who doesn't know what to do when they are together will end up annoying one another. A teacher who doesn't clear off the markings will very likely hate what they're doing after a short stint. A businessman who brushes off deadlines will crumble on his own weak foundation. All because of? The little light bulb.

The other reasons for us to push things forward is the sheer agony, the way we see it, of doing it. In other words, we really don't like doing it because of fear, boredom, distaste because we find them emotionally and physically non stimulating.

So how do we get out of this situation and not get entangled week after week, day after day and worry ourselves to death?

We could start by listing down the ten most important things to do for the entire week. It could be that small idea you've been having to clear out the garage, label items and index the tool box so you'll know what you have and what you don't. It could be filling up the little hole that you made when you hammered the wrong nail into. Or it could be the old promise you made, once upon a time, to the kids or family or friends that you'll take them bowling but never did. Once the list it out do it as soon as possible.

It's no good planning too much when you get nothing done. The world's not going to wait for you. It may be too late, someday, when you finally want to do the things you want to do and you find yourself incapable of doing it. If you can fulfill this short order, you will be able to make everything else happen in your life. Like going for the trip you've always wanted to make, talking to someone about your inner most feelings, sitting down and strategizing the direction of your life and taking the first step towards your financial freedom.

But remember there are two other evils that await at the door besides procrastination. One is greed because it makes us haste our lives while the other is indiscipline that slows us down. If you rush to make things happen, they won't. If you're out there working seven days a week to make that money you've always wanted, life will have a way to keep you and wealth apart through whatever means. In other words, you might strike it rich but you may not be able to spend them all the way you want to. By not practicing diligence on the other hand, you will not know what consistency is and why is it important as only a successful person does.

All in all, it depends on what we want to achieve at the end of the day. The equation is rather simple really, doing things we ought to now will make us productive and productivity leads us to a step closer to where we want to go to. And because of that we will always have things to do at the right time when we reserve and channel all our energies in making our dreams come true. In fact, there are still light bulbs that need to be change as I write, so I have to go. If you know what I mean.

Insight 51: Denying Your Children The Right To Make Mistakes

2008-08-12T19:44:00.001-07:00

It's great that parents are concerned about their children's well being when they are vulnerable and impressionable. But doting on them unrealistically can do more harm than help them build a character strong enough to distinguish the damaging lifestyle to the beneficial.

Children are told not to do a thousand and one things without proper discussion or communication about it and that makes them even more curious to find out why. What we, as adults, consider bad, may not have the implications of badness to children of the 21st century. That does not mean they are defiant just as we can be intransigent some times.

To keep a child away from television all his growing up years does not make him a better person just as allowing him to watch it doesn't make him an addict. If you are adamant to safeguard your child from the ills of society like pornography, smoking, drinking, promiscuity, sexual freedom and drugs, imagine his horror when he comes of age when all these exposure gushes into his life. More often than not he or she will fall into the exact same trap you have been trying to them from.

When you bring up your children up in fear, everything in life will be a phobia, if not a curse. But if you uncover the many facets of life gradually, not dictating to them what is right or wrong, but guiding them to the ideology of cause and effect, they will be able to grasp and differentiate what works and what doesn't for themselves.

Ultimately, your children will still choose their own paths that may or may not be agreeable to what you had envisioned. Those days, if you have been a victim of conformity that's the more reason why your children should not suffer the same fate. If you know what it's like to pretend to be someone you're not for most of your lifetime and ache to be your true self, then you will also know that this mental torture will send you into a self-destructive mode.

As the world evolves at a terrifying rate it doesn't mean everything will collapse and society will go berserk with anarchy. If that is what you anticipate so it will be to you. If you deny yourself the sanguineness of the change why deny your children of their future?

Insight 50: Growing Older And Losing All That Luster

2008-08-10T22:53:00.000-07:00

As we hit the numbers like a countdown to our demise, we begin to feel our world disintegrate right before our myopic or hyperopic eyes. One look at the mirror reveals someone who is not the fairest of them all but someone who has rounded up at all corners and corrugated from taut exteriors.

This is not what I used to be, says a very disillusioned 'I'. Those who do not have a phobia of physicality will look away and continue with life as we know it but those who are plagued by it will start a descend into the spiraling gloom of mortality.

You may wonder why you have suddenly put on too much weight, which is unhealthy and unsightly to say the least. All you can do is to negate at your image and hope to get back what you lost along the journey of your regimented life.

When everyone of your friends start to gripe about how old age makes you grumpy and debilitated, you agree. You lament to them about your aches and agonies and you really truly believe that the doctors will diagnose something chronic if you let them probe you with their exorbitant devices.

But then you shrug it off for another day. You continue spending your diminishing youth with everything you've got to make it last but you frazzle out twice as fast even before you could begin to party.

When you finally hit the jackpot of your reality, you wake up into a panic mode and begin to search for the elusive fountain. Most of it is dried up and the rest just trickled away.

You look at everyone younger than you and wonder where the best times of your life have vanished to. To free yourself from guilt you sign up to every club and center to preserve your well-being but you know, as much as I do it's all a state of mind.

Growing old is not about hanging on to the past. It's not about giving ourselves excuses to make our physical form any worse than it already is. It's not about preserving beauty when beauty is a collective deception we cloak ourselves with. It's not about the lethargy or the inability to compete with the unpolished generation, or losing the shine we once had, because no matter how old we get, the energy is still inside us. The fire never dies. If you think you are older, senile and cumbersome you will be in a wink of an eye, but if you know there's still that part of you that is beyond all those wrinkles, folds and ghastly manifestations, there's not even a moment to waste.

Insight 49: The Phobia of Physicality

2008-07-28T20:32:00.000-07:00

Everyone is affected by it except the blind. People are generally attracted to beauty instinctively just like any other animals. Birds are the most flamboyant creatures when it comes to strutting themselves for attention while other animals look for the biggest, boldest, strongest and most powerful when it comes to mating.

Yet, how does one define beauty in his or her naked eye? If nature intended the best looking to be dominant over the others what would happen to those who or which are considered ugly?

If you have ever felt ugly before, I'm talking physical not the psychological being beautiful inside kind of a garbage, yes, the looking real ugly in your reflection ugly, does it make you feel mortified? Well have you? If you have felt ugly all your life probably watching extreme makeover will help boost your self-esteem. But if you have not been ugly, may be average all your life and suddenly one day you turn ugly, that is quite an awful punishment don't you think?

If you have everything intact according to society's standard of pulchritude then you will be most affected when you gradually lose it. If you are the kind of person who cannot live a day without looking at the mirror scrutinizing for a blemish, a flaw or an imperfection then you have been sold. Everyone wants to be beautiful and pleasing to the eye to the point of perfection but is beauty natural when it seems so perverted? Should one try to correct it? Is plastic and cosmetic surgery questionable as opposed to accepting oneself the way we were born? To each his o her own.

Like it or not, we are by products of ourselves when we allow the phobia of physicality determine our lives. Too fat, too thin, too short, too tall, too everything will never be right as long as we hold the mirror and believe what we see in it to be the truth of ourselves.

While the advertising frenzy of cheating nature's deterioration of the humankind from age becomes a hysteria among the people, there will always be victims who can never be among the gorgeous and the appealing. But who's to say what beauty is? If all of us were blind can we still find the ones that we love? If we were blind do we need to impress, dazzle and amaze others with the way we look? If we were blind would we still be as beautiful?

Insight 48: Why do our plans go wrong when we feel so right?

2008-07-23T19:34:00.000-07:00

Every now and then our plans go haywire and off tangent for whatever reasons; the vacation we booked months ahead, the party we organized with precision and the career strategy which we thought would bring our lives one notch up the scale. So why is that?

I used to think it was a clear and blatant sign that it wasn't meant to be when things don't work out the way I wanted it to. But when I couldn't get my mind off it, I knew I had to try again and again to see it through and make it happen. And it did. So when do we stop fooling ourselves and when do we persevere?

There were many times I interpreted signs to be bad when they turn out good and vice versa. Finally I came to the conclusion that signs are signs and they are neither good nor bad. They are in fact relative to the situation, the issue and the person.

But then again why do our plans elude us when we have our hearts and souls invested in it? Why don't they work even when we are so careful and meticulous in the planning?

Sometimes we self sabotage ourselves unconsciously without realizing it because we are not ready. We could be doing everything to fool ourselves as though we want it so badly we'll put our heads on the block to make it materialize. But in truth we are just not prepared to undertake the challenge and would rather shelf it for the time being. It could have been peer pressure, expectations from others or an unrealistic deadline we force ourselves to engage in yet deep down we know it will never transpire.

Related to that is another fact that we fail to realize when we are in a hysterical rush is the timing. Just like a launch for a campaign or product if it is pushed into a hurried endorsement it might not be the best moment to do it. This applies for everything else in our lives from relationships to purchasing a property to emigration.

When things go wrong, life could also be showing us the direction we are heading towards is not the right path. That there is another that will lead us to where we will transcend from this level to the next. Though it may not seem like an ideal or assured track, it may be the one we actually need to go through to emerge with a clearer vision.

Whenever we encounter a hurtful experience or an agonizing one in life we usually associate them with misfortune and bad karma. But like Shakespeare put it 'There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so' from Hamlet. Sometimes we refuse to see things for what they truly are and make an uproar about it because we are the ones enduring this ill-fated circumstance.

Life is fleeting and death is not the end. As simple as it may sound, we tend to make things more complicated than they genuinely are and then we claim nothing works for us and the world is a bad place to be. The whole idea about making plans is to make them so we know we are taking a step closer to the direction we are heading to. We would never know what works and what doesn't unless we test it out and try it out.

After all, would you rather plan, fail and be shown the correct path or go with the flow that keeps you safe but takes you round and round in circles for the rest of your life?

Insight 47: Do Televisions Dream Of The Human Sheep?

2008-07-21T20:48:00.000-07:00

Time and again I hear remarks people make about how TV can be bad for us. The violence, the illogical drama, the recurring senselessness can make one into a junkie with a lackadaisical attitude. Be it as it may, TV is still striving with highly powered and greatly energized programs that demand unadulterated dedication from the fans. TV, as a medium of connectivity in this world has done wonders as well as harm. So does TV really have a bad impact of society?

To comprehend that we have to analyze the way TV is said to ruin our daily lives. First of all the habitual homo sapien who are drawn to the fabricated illumination and gathered at the scheduled times seem very much like moths attracted to the light bulb. Why is it so? Are people really sheep that needs a shepherd? To be told what to do and what not to do?

In some ways, people are like sheep. So how can an intelligent being who has landed on the moon, built mega structures over all terrains and made communication the blink of an eye be an insensible animal driven by survival instincts?

People who are heavily addicted to television cannot live without it. With cable TV, one's life is literally depended upon it to survive the everyday drudges of life. TV, on the whole, can be a very unhealthy dependency because it curbs all other things in life for better use of the time. But TV, being an invention, just like motor vehicles, computers, furniture and weapons are nothing but constructed objects with no value in them until we decide that they have.

It is what we do with them that makes them destructive or productive. TV, at the beginning of its creation, served as a means for news transmission, light entertainment and disclosure of relevant information. But when people realized they could also make economic sense from it there was a sudden boom of advertisements and programs that are profit driven.

Like other forms of media, television is just one of them that can either be influential, persuasive or inculcating. So where does one draw the line when watching a TV show? Must everyone watch only educational programs like the National Geographic, the History or Discovery channel? Must people watch only family oriented movies produced by the Hallmark Entertainment and good wholesome shows on Disney? Can people really decided for themselves what's good and not good for them?

To begin with, nothing is really good or bad. Watching too much TV is just another pastime when one doesn't have other vital project or objective in life. For those who have something they want to achieve to make themselves better TV is not an issue because to them its just another form of distraction.

The hostile, the asinine and the whimsical programs on TV are nothing to a person who knows his time is precious and there is much he wants to do and little he wants to waste. So basically all it takes for a person to know to get off their butt is to find meaning to their lives. A passion. A precious something to pursue. A lifetime achievement he or she wants to actualize. A change of attitude is all it takes for a person to see that the television is not to be blamed. Because ultimately, even when the TV is taken away, a person with no course in life will still get addicted to other forms of distraction. A video game. Gambling. Promiscuity. Drugs. In fact, anything tangible can be made into an obsession.

Kids, at their tender age, with guidance and education will know the difference between leisure and enslavement. Given the opportunity to choose rather than being barred they will grasp the idea of beneficial products from the detrimental. Once every child knows this distinction, one day there will be no more cause to worry about insignificant things like watching too much television, playing too much video games or indulging in drug abuse because there is no more need to do anything as desperate as these.

Insight 46: Requiem Of A Young Man

2008-07-17T19:08:00.000-07:00

The frustrated young man thought it would be wonderful.
But when he grew up he realized everything does not glitter like gold.
Getting a job is the least of his worries when finding the right one was the issue and staying with it was another.
On one hand he wanted the world that is made out of branded goods that will make him look slick, suave and debonair.
Made out of gadgets that are cool to own but hard to maintain.
Made out of fast cars, fast lanes and fast lifestyles.
For the good life he has to sacrifice his youth and then caught up to his neck with debt.
That's the way it is, everyone tells him, but no one told him when he was a kid.
With all the chic attire and shrewd education he possesses he still can't find the girl he loves.
She is always the wrong one who comes along making it hard for him to believe that there is such a fairy tale in the midst of reality.
He used to be fun loving, footloose and fancy free but now he has to wear an image for success, or so he's been taught through bad experiences.
He makes himself everything that he's not and gives everyone else who is not like him a hard time because they did not suffer as much as he did to get to where he is going.
When night falls, when he is away from his overloaded occupation, he catches the last hours of entertainment to keep his mind away from the troubling politics everywhere he turns.
His sleep is unrested. He tires easily. And his love life is a sham.
Just when he picks up all the pieces to make a clearer picture of his life his friends and families wonder why he hasn't continued the life long tradition his forefather has set for him.
So he begins his journey to acquire assets and liabilities and finally pick a woman to close the chapter of his solitary life.
Finally, he makes it to the top and has everything he has every wanted but he feels like the uninhabited rooms in his gargantuan house.
He feels a little ill and stumbles on the photographs of himself when he was a boy who had dreams and adventure to aspire.
He sits in his lush and prominent chair and console himself that the past is the past.
He is jaded from chasing something he never wanted in the first place.
Maybe his children will do better. Maybe his children will have dreams they want to make come true.
Then again, maybe not, because that's the way it is.

Insight 45: Why is the truth of our nakedness and the naked truth so hard to accept?

2008-07-08T07:39:00.000-07:00

It's terrible the way we try to hide ourselves away from the world with our nakedness. From the openness of the sixties people today are withdrawing themselves away from the dawn of the new century to a time when dressing codes and conducts were necessitated for respectability and decency.

In the seventies, sex and the human body were exploited to the max in the movies, magazines and all forms of media. The beauty of the physique was regarded as sex objects to pornographic material to artistic depiction of our humanness.

But today, the two factions of believe that the body is the work of the devil and a work of art is still being debated, especially the female anatomy. Between man and woman, the female structure has always been deemed as evil, diabolical and demeaning to the orthodox society and sensuous, seductive and elegant to the artistic. How have we come to this state of awareness? And at both extremes. Why are women regarded so lowly by so many creeds and cultures that they have to pay for being female? Is it really some kind of a curse?

Nudity is such an embarrassment to many of us unless it is associated with sex workers, smut movies, birth and death. Not many will look at it as beautiful without having sex on their minds. Again, how did we derive from our uncovered shameless ancestors and evolve into bashful beings? Why do we feel so troubled by a flasher, a peeping tom, a spy cam, an exposé of illicit behavior related to nudity? Do we still blame the apple that the serpent offered?

Some use it to achieve fame while others use it to wreck another person's life. But in the deep pristine jungles where modern persuasion has no influence yet, natives are still walking around butt-naked and insouciant about what they wear or not. We can refer to them as uncivilized or as uncultured, but I wonder who deserves to be referred to as that more.

A very righteous man once told me that art need not have nudity. That we don't need to see a naked body to appreciate it or to paint it. That it is only an excuse for lust. I raised my eyebrow and nod my head before walking away and never to bring that subject up again. I used to grow up thinking flesh is a very sinful substance to have, that they bring all kinds of reprehensible acts which has no place in our God-fearing lives.

Some married couples are so caught up with the idea of nakedness they are even embarrassed to be that way in each other's presence. If the body is so offensive why bother to share your life with someone whom you want to be intimate with? It is not easy to like yourself if you have been subjected to deprecation all your life. If the thought of looking at yourself stark naked in the mirror repels you than you may find a lot more things in life obnoxious.

The worse case scenario of someone who cannot accept his or her own physicality and has an aversion to it will only lead to a denial and rejection of his or her own existence. If that is so, the truth of our nakedness and the naked truth will be the hardest thing to accept.

Insight 44: What People Say Don't Make Us What We Are

2008-07-04T18:48:00.000-07:00

Time and again a lot of us fall into the trap of what other people say and drive ourselves crazy. It's not easy to turn a deaf ear to something unpleasant someone said about us. No matter how we try it will still hurt even if we have gone through similar experiences prior to that. So how do we save ourselves from the pettiness other people thrive on?

To begin with, we have to ask ourselves sincerely if we are one of the mongers who go around making snide remarks about things and people to get the attention we want. Once we can establish this first and foremost fundamental honesty we can then go about to continue spending more time constructively to heal ourselves. For those who cannot control their own tongues from flagellating others to death the best thing to do is to observe silence. By saying and talking less, there can only be less mistakes one can make. When we know how to avoid making an incident any worse than it already is, we would soon learn how to make things better.

Secondly, by ignoring what is being said about us and what is being told to us does not take away the fact that someone mentioned it. How much truths or how much lies are blended into it won't make any difference. So the best way to alleviate ourselves from it is not to close our eyes, mind and heart to it but to embrace it and let it go. Turn the worst and most distasteful utterances into an artistic expression, be it art or literature or an abstraction that is beneficial to us. With enough practice, this will be a joy to discover in the midst of ugliness.

The next step you could take when in this dilemma is to free yourself from the restraints of narcissism and ego. They are nothing but false implications of ourselves through a magnifying glass. We are merely molecules that will disintegrate when the time we have chosen for ourselves comes. The idea of making our own graven image so that others may revere is a wonderful social requisite in this life. The indelible mark that we are so adamant to leave is all but a brief interlude that will be gone sooner than we think. We do what we want and what we feel good about not for the recognition or praise but for the love that comes with it. This, however, is easily forgotten when the applaud begins, and will trouble us again when the party is over. By realizing that nothing is forever it will help us cope with the unsavory much better than keeping them out of sight.

The next time you hear something hurtful about you just remember whoever is saying that will one day lose his or her bearings and turn the tide against himself or herself because conscience is like a terrifying lover who will never let you go.

Insight 43: Nipping Things At The Bud or Get Kicked In The Butt

2008-07-04T18:43:00.000-07:00

My lifelong believe to avoid problems is to nip it at the bud before it blossoms. Although not everything can be done that way, like the problems that are way out of our jurisdiction and reach, most of them could be easily plucked. The attitude of anticipation, not paranoia or psychosis, will help aid any would be hitches that comes our way. Knowing is one thing, but doing something about it is another.

A simple lesson in life is to avoid the unbeatable traffic jam during rush hour. They are so many ways to outsmart this predicament but few find the solution to overcome it. From staggering the hours to leave the office to moving closer to the work place to changing the job altogether with less traveling or to consider a life changing decision to move away from the city are some of the options. But of course, when the root is deep, nothing is possible.

Just as a homemaker is about to discover the drain is getting clogged or a student who knows she is better off doing some other courses or a lover is beginning to question his promiscuity, everyone knows when to call it quits and turn the tide to their advantage. But do they want to?

A gardener knows when he should be nipping the flower buds to keep the plant from growing wild and unpredictable. In life, we have to take the helm and steer but the journey with the seven seas will still go on. To allow ourselves to drift away may sound adventurous, but it will get us nowhere and it will find its own end when it's gone wild and unpredictable.

Being prepared is not like being anal. It takes one more courage to make life smooth sailing than to leave it to a set of rules to govern it through.

Still, many times do parents ignore the signs that their children are in need of help, many times do the children ignore their old parents' need for love, many times do the government ignore her subjects plea for change and many times do we all ignore a situation and murmur under our breaths, 'It'll get better. It'll get better soon', while we distract ourselves with everything else except the problem that is staring us straight in the eyes.

Insight 42: Looking For Love

2008-07-04T18:40:00.000-07:00

I don't believe in dating. It sounds so technical and traumatizing. It's as though one has to sign a contract with all the dos and dont's just to spend time getting to know each other.

Dating, like how most people understand it, is a ceremony to find the perfect person for you to consider spending the rest of your life with. In the first place there is no such person. In the second place no one can fulfill your dreams and desires other than you yourself. Thirdly, falling in love is different from interviewing candidates for that position. So what is dating? And why date?

Influenced by media and handed down from generations of rituals and customs that someone must have started to make life difficult, dating is the first step to an eventual coming together of two lives into one. A conjugal consensus to copulate and multiply. That's what dating is all about or at least in the minds of those in favor with the parochial ideology. But today, the dating game is to check out potential partners to bed, to shop with or to watch movies with. in other words, to find someone who is more than a friend, less than a spouse and a great lover in between.

People are so caught up with the speeded up lifestyle in the 21st century few want to go through the motion of the good times and the bad times in the long run. Today, most would opt for instant gratification than to tolerate a lover's imperfections for an extended period of time. Before you know it you will be hearing him or her yelling, "Next!"

And what it all comes down to is this; it's neither good nor bad as the people with old school of thoughts might perceive it. It's that time and age where no one owns anyone else like how it was before. The credo of ownership doesn't apply anymore so the commitment in a relationship has become somewhat of a taboo to independent individuals. So how can two people living together without obligations work? And why not?

Love has always been missing in the communion of a couple but if you have that you will know that anything is possible.

For those who know, being friends at first meetings will ease a lot of paths to be taken in the future. You could always love a good looking dude or a gorgeous dudette but whatever is superficial will ultimately come to an end. If you can find a partner who is an intimate friend, that will last longer than you can imagine. With no strings attached, no liabilities, no pledges and promises that will take you to contracts, love will carry you far, much farther than lovers and paramours, husbands and wives.

The last and final question now is, "How do I find that kind of person?" To answer that you have to know yourself first. Because unconsciously we are all looking for someone whom we want to be with and grow old with. Not someone to call our own, to possess or to fill the empty spaces in our hearts. But someone we love unconditionally and who reciprocate the same beliefs. Someone we can let go of anytime he or she wishes to go and yet at the same time will be with us forever.

Insight 41: Can we exist without money?

2008-06-14T19:13:00.000-07:00

I've always loved the idea of having no concerns about money and doing what I most want to do in life. But at the mention of this insane notion everyone, well most everyone, would go ballistic and demand that I keep my feet on the ground and wake up to smell the coffee, which costs about twelve buck a cup these days.

Being inspired by Star Trek, especially Voyager, and the way they go about exploring uncharted quadrants and unexplored realms, I've always been curious to the possibility becoming our reality someday. Why not? Why can't we have a technologically enhanced society who devote their time to what they are good at and pursue it with their greatest ability?

If we could have a community that lives in a technologically engineered environment without having to toil on menial and unnecessary tasks wouldn't that community progress faster and better than what we are doing now? We could leave the daily chores to machines and go beyond the boundary of our imagination, artistry, adeptness and creativity.

Instead of asking ourselves what we want to do during holiday seasons and erratic breaks, we wouldn't have to rely on a calendar to guide our lives the way it is doing now. And jobs? They'll be a thing of the past. The new generation can be taught to contribute according to their forte without the threat of financial woes, be it music, writing, designing, inventing, cooking, building, caring and making this world everything that we've always wanted.

What about people who are lazy and who doesn't want to work? I doubt that will happen if everyone does what their hearts set out to do. It's like asking a pianist to stop playing or a writer to stop writing or a mechanic to stop fiddling with the car. People who has put their hearts and souls into the passion can never be stopped.

Of course if we even begin to think about eradicating monetary values that we tag on our existence a lot of careers and lifestyles would have to be changed. Accountants will have to account for themselves. Bankers will have no choice but to bank their lives on other alternatives. Businessman will have no business being here in the first place. Millionaires and billionaires, well air is still free. And the list goes on forever.

There are rumors about Nikola Tesla, the founder of alternate current and inventor of many others, finding electricity that is free for everyone to use extracted from earth itself, a fantastic washing machine that doesn't need detergent or water, automobiles that run on environmentally friendly resources which will never cease, and on and on. But are they just urban legends? What do you think?

If you read or watch the news today it's basically all about money. From corruption to crime, from court cases to domestic quarrels, from ominous catastrophes to tragic calamities they all have something to do with dollars and cents. Why is it so? Have the people of the world not come to a point where enough's enough?

Perhaps there are like minded people out there who knows what I'm ranting about and perhaps not. But reluctant to believe that we cannot achieve greater heights of living standards without taking advantage of other people or situations, I know the human kind has never turned away from a challenge.

All this may sound like communism or a backward community living in the sixties or even a barter system, but it doesn't have to be that way. It can be everything workable extricated from all forms of understandings and lifestyles to make it viable to everyone. The first step is to educate the young about the possibilities and the second is to reeducate people with the old school of thoughts. And the third is to come together to make it happen. But it's up to each and everyone of us to see it through. Abundance doesn't mean an accumulation of wealth for one's own benefit, it's the idea of sharing that makes it richer. But if we make abundance a standard measure for monetary gains than it would have already defeated the idea of plenty in the first place.

More and more people are simplifying their lives because of the overblown cost of living while the avaricious are developing ways to complicate life as we know it. When you think about it, living an average life span up to about seventy will fritter away in the end to zero, that is, unless, you want to have one final indulgence on the most expensive coffin known to mankind.

But for those of us who are passionate about progress and development we know that day will come.

Insight 40: Drama Kings and Queens

2008-06-12T00:21:00.000-07:00

Here I was sitting in the quiet of the daybreak with the fresh morning air and absolute serenity when all hell broke lose. Someone, in the neighboring house, was screaming his lungs out in an inaudible horror in successive bouts. I heard it the previous night before and I thought since it was the football season people usually go insane but I guess this was not the case.

His wails and screeches were heart wrenching as though he was being tortured and beaten to death. It went on for a few more minutes and I considered calling the police to check it out. But when I realize how dramatic we all can be, I relented.

In a way, if we don't want something to happen it never will. But if we choose to exaggerate and sensationalize an incident we can do that too. I remember watching a couple arguing like there's no tomorrow in an alley for everyone to see. I also witnessed two girls fighting over a guy while I was having a late night supper. A drunk challenging his friend to a fight, lovers acting out scenes from Shakespearean plays and families turning to tragic endings for a final exit.

Why do people do that? Why do they make a scene? It's as though something erupted from their peacefulness or something finally gave way from all their suppressions. So if we trace back the anger it actually boils down to self denial and ignorance. I've always believed that the root of all problems need to be nipped at the bud but not everyone agrees with that notion.

Self denial is when we refuse to believe things for what they are. And ignorance is when we choose to push it out of our sight so that we don't have to see it. But like any kind of anxieties, they come back.

There could be no love between two people but they hang on in case they could find something to salvage. Every family member knows when a child is spoilt but everyone convinces themselves it will pass and continue spoiling him. Some people turn away from what they truly are and what they want in life to oblige and satisfy everyone else who is running their lives and walk around like a time bomb.

People are generally expressive by nature in all forms of arts and sciences. Their need to invent, create or construct is in their genes. From a fashion designer to a chef, from an architect to a toddler, from a gardener to a homemaker, we are all imaginative people who need to communicate through our own manifestations. But if we are taught to repress them and conform, sooner or later our individuality will retaliate and cause even more damage if we are not in control of it.

To live with someone who is angry all the time is not a healthy lifestyle. But today, we all have the choice to leave. It's not like back then when we were told to give the respect, follow the tradition or stick to the culture simply because we just must. It's enough of disorganized organizations, irregular regulations and hypocritical conventions that dictate our lives. It's time to take charge of our own lives and build the dreams we believe in and let go of all the suppressions we have been holding back. But if you still want to be that drama king or queen, there is nothing else anyone can say to change that. It's your stage anyway.

Insight 40: Why me? Why me?

2008-06-01T20:18:00.000-07:00

Self pity is a horrible disease. No one is spared from it. It can invade anyone just the same regardless of ethnicity, status, gender or age. And when it comes to take you it comes to annihilate everything that you are, you stand for and you wish to be. It is merciless, ruthless and vicious. If you can't ride with it during the infestation period you will sink into your deepest nightmare and may never come out of it alive.

Where does it come from? And how does it materialize? Why is it so hard to fight this invisible plague? Although there are symptoms, there are no medications, and this ailment can come and go as it pleases, and can last as long as it wants to. So what in the name of God is this?

The rudimentary understanding of this concept is pretty simple and straightforward. It is the narcissistic approach we have to life that distorts our consciousness to the idea that we are not alone and that we are all connected. When we are obsessed with ourselves there is always the danger of being overwhelmed with perverted imaginations of who we should be and what we deserve. When this fabricated veil we weave for ourselves is drawn away from our eyes we would suddenly fear the unknown that is reflected in the mirror.

A series of lamentations usually follow suit when we've accumulated sufficient pathos to grief about. That's when we become dramatic thespians orating monologues and soliloquies with the notorious interrogative adverb 'why'.

The only solution that I can think of is to just go about your daily life achieving what you set out to achieve and spend more time finding solutions than building problems. But most of all if you try to be a little more selfless it would be a great start. For once, may be you could just stop talking about yourself.

Insight 39: Just how much truth are we willing to tell, just how much truth do we need to tell?

2008-06-01T20:17:00.001-07:00

No one could or ever will be able to tell the truth and nothing but the truth at any one time. First of all truth is a very subjective matter and secondly we all have the tendency to exaggerate and go off tangent no matter how careful we are. Finally, nothing is what it seems. What we perceive as could-have-been could be nothing more than what actually is. Of course this does not include the blatantly our-right, bald-faced truth that stares us in the face.

Our tendency to artfully add on or absentmindedly leave out some minor details is such a wonder when it comes to saying what we have to say. A person who has been swindled tens of thousands of dollars may claim that he was hypnotized to give up his wealth. Another who killed someone may confess that he was acting out of self defense. A child who broke a precious item in the house may deny whole heartedly that he has anything to do with it. And these are just some of the examples of how truth can be manipulated to suit our circumstance.

Sometimes the whole naked truth is too overwhelming for anyone to grasp, especially if that person is not ready to hear what he or she wants to hear. Telling the truth is like revealing the deepest darkest secrets which we are not proud of. And to tell it to someone who will use that against us is not a very welcoming idea either.

Someone asked me once if I would tell a lie to save a country and I was dumbfounded by the question because no matter how small a white lie is it is still considered a sin. But today I would gladly say yes. Again, my comprehension about sin has changed throughout the years when I realized no matter how genuine our intentions are truth is still something no one wants to hear too much of, especially when it involves themselves.

Ultimately, what is true is based on what we discern as our reality and what we believe in. When people claim that the truth will set you free, they are absolutely right about that but it doesn't mean we have to expose our secrets lives in an open book for everyone to view. It simple means we just have to accept the imperfect beings that we are and know our truths without having to self-justify ourselves to the world.

Insight 38: Are You Sure?

2008-05-22T19:53:00.000-07:00

Everybody goes about their daily lives rushing, following schedules, beating the clock, slaving to reality and making every minute count. But in the end no one knows what all this is for.

We are never certain about life. That was the understanding I had when I was younger, but I didn't want to believe it even though I was taught it.

A lot of people are convinced that they can never sure of anything in this world, not even of themselves. But being the radical that I was, still am, I didn't like the idea of conformity and blind faith, but of course I kept to traditions and culture and all forms of incarceration out of respect and naivity. But suffered though I did, I would never give up a chance to ask questions from anyone wise enough to tell me that there is more to life than mere observation of a set of rules and regulations.

From the time I was a kid, before my preteen years, I already knew, to a certain extend, that I wanted several things in life. One of them was to be a writer. The other was to find my freedom in the pandemonium of what we call existence. But along the way of my certitude I was nevertheless obstructed by that thing known as 'reality'. I have had more than once been told to come out of it, to get real, to join the rat race and shed off all those silly notions of dream weaving.

Sometimes when we get so caught up with the world, we lose ourselves in it and forget who we are and what we are doing and where we are heading to. We become another unconscious being drifting in the sea of flotsam and jetsam and keeping up with the world's standards only exhaust us more.

The only way to be sure of what we want is to walk away from it all and follow the path less traveled. Take some time to hear your inner voice and it will help you focus better and concentrate more before anything can become lucid.

Some people may be doing what they've been doing for donkey's years and claim that they are still not sure of what they want in life because, ultimately, knowing is a very scary place to be when you are not ready for change.

Insights 37: The Spoilt Brats That We Are

2008-05-16T21:28:00.000-07:00

We are all brats. One way or the other. Really. Truly. Terribly. Brat is defined as a badly behave child, so was there ever a time we acted like one and demanded for things because we just wanted it? I'm sure there has been. Being a brat also spills over to our adulthood and we get promoted to being called the grownup version, which is a bitch or bastard, evidently meaning the same.

I used to think only rich kids become brats because they are spoilt rotten by their overabundance of possession but then I realized it's not always true. Most of the time it's how they are brought up that makes them who they are. Any child who is given anything he wants or having his way with things will eventually get out of control so it is not the fault of the child but rather the adults, who should know better. But as for adults who choose to be spoilt because they never had a chance when they were kids, there's only so much respect anyone can give to them.

The worst thing for spoilt brats is when they grow up in a world where no one likes bitches and bastards. They will suffer in every facet of their lives finding friends, lovers, associates and colleagues. Most of the time they are ostracized, cold-shouldered and shunned from social gatherings. Other times con artists will have a field day with people like them, especially so if they are rich.

So why do people stick to being irrational, difficult and obstinate when they know for a fact that exercising the traits of a brat will bring nothing but loneliness? Why must it be that things must be down our way or the highway?

Ego plays such an important role in all our lives. When we think of ourselves and put ourselves before others chances are we will come out more of a beast than an angel. In other words, everyone wants to be first. And the trouble is, once we're first we will always want to be there and when we're not our entire existence falls apart.

Everything in our lives today demands for number one but everyone knows it will not last. One moment of victory may bring happiness and pride but it will soon be forgotten. Where has the greatest joy of doing something out of love, compassion and sincerity gone to? Where indeed?

Insight 36: Your Future Past Tense

2008-05-16T20:27:00.000-07:00

When your future finally arrives you will know why your past occurred.

If you have the patience and insight to discern the preceding events of your life you will be able to take on new challenges and find new meanings to it. But first, you have to want to know.

Being optimistic about the mistakes you have done is only the first step to better understanding the direction you could be taking. You can categorize whatever you feel embarrassed about as bad but they don't have to stay that way to be mortified upon as your dark past. What good can come out of it is for us to resolve and extricate. You may choose to bury it or you may choose to confront the face of death.

Our future is like a set of events made up of the past. They are connected by this invisible string of incidences that make us who we are and what we want to be. Sometimes, some undesirable things happen to us that may take years of acceptance to undo. But every circumstance is a lesson to be learned. And if we are not ready to acknowledge it no comprehension can be derived from it.

If you look back to the days you fell sick, was bullied, you stole, lie or cheat or done something exemplary you may get a little perception of why they transpired. Your experience in life and the wisdom you obtained along the way will help you unravel your background for more clues as to where you are heading.

And by that you will get more out of your life than you can imagine.

Insight 35: Building A Case Between Paranoia And Premonition

2008-05-12T19:47:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wonder where to draw the line between paranoia and premonition. I used to be paranoid in my early years while I was still growing up, much to the influence of fear I was doused with from everyone I know. People were, and still are, very much afraid of so many things in life it's hard not to share their grievances and trepidation when you come into contact with them.

Horror stories of robberies, break-ins, rape and murder are just some of the highlights we get everyday in the media, email attachments and word of mouth. Everyone's talking about the rising crime rates due to the escalating cost of living in almost every part of the world. When the devout collectively says money is the root to all evil, they are accurate to a certain degree. And when the new age spiritualists say money is not the cause of our unhappiness that is true too.

But the world is such today that everyone seems to be preferring the perception of a persecution complex rather than look at the abundance the world has to offer. Thus the delusions are manifested in our everyday situations as a monster from the deep.

Paranoia comes in many forms from the food we eat to the friends we make, to the strangers we bump into to the stories we hear. But in the end they only drive us crazy.

But for those who are sensitive to their surroundings, sometimes there is more than just a fit of hysteria that you are experiencing. Everyone of us has that ability to pick up signs and hints about something before we are even aware of it. It's been called many names from intuition to gut feeling to hunch. So where do we draw the line?

The trouble with these two is they share the same thin line of emotion, which is fear and that is the main cause for the confusion. There is not sure-fire way to apprehend either one because of the gray areas that they both possess.

The only way one can take control over them is to react constructively. Be it paranoia or premonition, to lose our heads and adopt associated phobias is the fastest way to the drive ourselves to the verge of insanity. Life, as we know it, has full of mysteries and surprises, and there's no telling what will be next.

Insight 34: The Laws Of Distraction

2008-05-04T20:10:00.000-07:00

Some people go through their entire lives being distracted and complain about nothing right ever working out for them.

The thing about distraction is it serves no purpose other that cowardice. Most importantly we have to realize that we choose to get distracted. Taking away our concentration, focus or center of attention towards something disconnected is an act of fear to confront what is true and real to us.

We can bury ourselves alive with other people's anxieties and predicaments but that won't solve what is agitating us in the back of our minds. There's this guy who claims he has to do everything in the office because everyone else is incompetent. There's this girl who despises everything her boyfriend stands for but she still keeps hanging on. There's this mother who blames the world for her spoilt son but she continues to do nothing about it. There's this father who blames his wife for having a miserable life and the beat goes on.

The fundamental equation to this vicious circle is fear creates distraction, and distraction breeds allegation. Allegation generates frustration. And frustration becomes self destruction, which in turn is fear all over again. If a country is run on those criterion it is only too obvious how it will end up, what more if we do that to our lives.

The Secret was such a buzz recently. The people who saw it either completely overhauled their lives with it or lambasted it with their weapon of mass destruction. When someone told me The Secret was a scam I asked him which area he was pointing at to be fraudulent. He didn't know for sure but he said everything. So I told him the central theme of the book and documentary was the laws of attraction also known as the power of positive thinking or can be regarded as faith as in ask and you shall receive. Is that what you don't believe in? I asked. He ranted and raved about it for a while and then concluded that it was all a matter of bull. Fine, I said, then don't believe in it. But he still could not accept the fact that most people he knew were convinced by it and it made him really furious.

He went on to say that he wanted so many things in life but he doesn't just wished it out a genie from a bottle, he has to work very hard for them. I didn't want to spend my time arguing and so I left him with his nitpicking his laws of distraction and wished him well. I mean addressed him with a commonly spoken salutation.

Insight 33: Be Still And Be Conscious

2008-05-01T22:01:00.000-07:00

Once in a while we get up in the morning and feel restless, aimless and frustrated. We despise everything that is going on in our lives and yet we don't know what it actually is.

We could bury ourselves in work, volunteer our services for every known charitable organizations, schedule our waking hours for appointments, meetings and rendezvous and yet nothing is enough to fill up this emptiness we feel.

There will come a time when we're afraid to even want to know why and this agitation will not go away.

Many people have the same answer when asked: what do you really want to do with your life? I don't know, is the collective answer. Or they may give you facts and figures which don't add up.

Does anyone really know what they want to do and where they want to go in life? For some people it seems evident. But what about the rest? You can claim that some people are gifted, talented or born with it, but if you noticed the people who have this certainty they all share a common attribute. They go after their desire with undying fervor.

How did they know what they want? That's a question no one can answer except for themselves. But what we can do to help ourselves is to practice one of the simplest exercises to receive this illumination. All we have to do is to be still and be conscious.

If you realize how we live our everyday lives talking the talk, walking the walk and clocking the clock you will know that most of the times we are in a daze. We don't know what's happening to ourselves when we stuff food in our mouths, pick up habits along the way and follow a set of routines because we think it's what we have to do. As we continue doing this day after day we begin to lose ourselves and soon we become anesthetized.

If we don't wake up of the sedation everything will seem bleak and despondent thus taking us further and further away from ourselves and what we truly know.

The best clues to discover what we want in life is to remember ourselves when we were children, doing what we most want to do without persuasion, influence or intimidation. But for those who never had that moment, just be still and be conscious and all the answers will come.

Reccomendation: The Girl With Magic Fingers

2008-04-20T23:08:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phL0RLKL8bc

What could be more beautiful and astounding than a 5 year old sight impaired girl who plays the piano by ear? Absolutely stunning and will move you to tears. She is one of the true heroes of today.

Insight 32: Who Is Thy Enemy?

2008-04-15T21:21:00.000-07:00

I remember those days when I was a staunch Christian I was told about the enemy. The Devil. It used to intrigue and frighten me. The Church talked about him almost all the time when there was mention of sin. We were so caught up with it we thought everything bad we did was influenced by the unseen enemy. We were so afraid to sin almost every thought, gesture or speech had to be filtered from our mind, body and soul. Growing up a teenager in the 70s and 80s with the devil on our backs was the hardest thing to endure. We sometimes lose sight of ourselves and wonder where to draw the line of what we actually did, what the devil did to us and probably where the angel intercepted from. For many years most of us grew up as guilt ridden adults for the many things that we didn't do, or did.

But as the Devil begin to take a back seat in the Church, or at least the direct mention of it, we were redirected to the enemy which was known as Communism. We were told how religion is denied to the people, Christians are martyred and everyone is forced into believing a system created by fallible human beings. It became a duty for us to even pray for our enemies every chance we get to convert them into God fearing people.

Again Communism disintegrated before our eyes and celebrations were thrown in honor of freedom. Now that there was no distinct enemy they started a new one about the political system which subtly persecuted us. And that, by the grace of god, crumbled too. So what's next? I remember a whole list of enemies we used to have from pornography, wealth, credit cards, TV, selected songs, unacceptable sexual inclinations, bohemian lifestyles, the internet and so on and so on. There was always nothing sacred in the eyes of the Church and there was always an enemy.

But today, like any other day, who or what else can be our enemy? I was just wondering why we spent so much time hunting down foes and fiends and making ourselves feel blameworthy and then being apologetic about it when we can spend the same amount of time doing things which are productive and worthwhile. Like helping a neighbor for example. Saving an abandoned animal. Sharing our time and abundance. Visiting an unloved person. And all that makes us unique and wonderful inside as well as outside.

After a while I walked out of the building that claims to be love incarnate because I feel I don't have an enemy after all that I want to forgive or pray for or fear. There are still people who does things which do not conform to laws and values that we so highly adopt in our lives, but they are human after all. Just because we don't understand why they do what they do, they are not our enemies, much less to be feared.

Insight 31: We Are All Characters From Our Books

2008-04-07T19:28:00.000-07:00

When we dislike someone we are actually judging them for what they are or how they look and not so much who they are. It is not easy to have a neutral stand when we are faced with a variety of people who come our way through the neighborhood, schools, colleges, workplaces, friends and other chance encounters. Every now and then we hear people, especially celebrities, chanting that lovely catchphrase 'I can't please everyone and I can't make everyone like me'. In the first place what's there to like or dislike about a person? Why spend so much time deducing this discriminatory act and make things harder for ourselves?

One look, the first impression, usually makes us judge and jury of other people. We loath or love them for their physique, constructed features or the way they present themselves. We are all very good at making instantaneous decisions as to whether we want to continue seeing that person or avoiding him for the rest of our lives. Imagine if we could make quick decisions like that on other things in life, we would be more productive than we ever would by sitting on them for fear of making the wrong choices. So why is it that we are so sure of ourselves when it comes to befriending other people than making sound decisions on things that are more important and relevant? That's another story for another day.

From my experiences of sizing up people with prejudice when I was younger and being so easily swayed by sensationalism, I now find that unique and individualistic characters are more fascinating than before. Sure you can't make friends with everyone you meet but you can sure learn something from everyone of them. They can be inspirations to your world if you are creative enough to extract their essence, perhaps somewhat like a vampire.

For me I love to hear stories that people tell. Things that they speak from their hearts especially. My mind slips back into time when I hear someone talk about an experience, an incident or nostalgic stories of love and hate, and I can hear the fire crackling from the campfire if the tale is recounted by an amazing raconteur or raconteuse. I call it my Stephen King moment if it's a horror account, my Sidney Sheldon moment if it's about travels with a touch of mystery, my Jacques Cousteau moment if it's an adventure, Paulo Coelho moment if it's inspirational and Neil Gaiman moment if it's fantastic to the point of being unbelievable.

Visually when I see someone physically standing out from the crowd I would imagine if they would fit into my world of Star Wars or Star Trek characters, or maybe Heroes or Desperate Housewives and that gives me so much more pleasure knowing my fellow beings.

Insight 30 - Do We Really Need To Fight For Our Survival And Kill Ourselves In The Process?

2008-03-31T22:35:00.000-07:00

Do you ever ask yourself why people raise their voices when they are angry or frustrated or when in an argument? From what I gather, through experience and being told about it, the louder someone's voice is the better it is for them to get heard. It seems everyone wants to give a piece of their mind away more freely than to accept someone's else's in return. In other words, everyone wants to be right. Everyone wants to impose a little bit of themselves onto others before they can be truly satisfied. And it's about winning all the time.

Collectively, no one wants to be a loser because it implies fear, weakness, and hopelessness and those are not the properties of survival instincts. If scientists, biologists and psychologists are accurate to corroborate about the human nature's need to be the best, like in the animal and plant kingdom, then what happens when man wants nothing of that sort anymore? Men used to be the aggressive, dominant and a powerful provider and women were docile, timid and a fragile homemaker, but it isn't so today. Is it unnatural for men and women to switch roles to continue to survive?

In the animal kingdom, from hyenas to bees and ants to elephants it is the matriarch rule that overrides male supremacy, so wouldn't it be common if homo sapiens emulate the same? But what about homosexuality, celibacy and birth control? Aren't these inclinations against the very core and concept of the survival of the fittest? Whatever is going to happen to the theory of go forth and multiply when people stop reproducing for the love of God, nature and mankind?

On top of that people in the twenty first century are turning away from eating meat, destroying their own kind plus other species and more and more are sacrificing physical cravings for spiritual enlightenment. What is to become of the human race if they don't pick up their spears and hunt, conquer and annihilate their rivals and trample on everyone else just to be king?

Could the hypothesis of the compulsion to live be misconstrued and misinterpreted and ingrained into our minds with the romanticized version that it is good to be the victor, omnipotent dictator and master of the universe? Could it be that man was not meant to be that way? Or is he just meant to be a mere loving creature who is one with nature and at peace with all existence?

There are still far more people who believes that procreating is the cycle that we should perpetuate to keep the human race alive. But deep down inside we are also becoming more aware that making children to carry on a legacy of impoverishment and inferiority is not something we want our children to inherit. If this hypothesis catches on with the rest of the world, will human beings be an endangered species some day? I guess we'll just have to wait and see, and in the meantime when we raise our voices again in our next bout of rage it would be wise to remember if our need to survive exceeds all sacrifices.

Insight 29 - How to stand the test of time with the person you can't stand at any given time?

2008-03-21T03:57:00.000-07:00

There are just some people we don't like in this world. You can conclude by saying that we're being judgmental or bias or psychologically influenced but the fact remains that there are people that we just don't like for our own personal reasons.

The hardest thing to do to is to try and like someone, not love mind you, despite the sagacity we think we have acquired through the years. We could have come to a stage where we could honestly say 'nothing bugs me anymore' and then this person appears out of nowhere and bug the hell out of us. I'm not going to go into how to learn to like someone the spiritual way or in three easy steps or by using the nincompoop's guidebook. Let's just leave it at that that we dislike some people for a string of reasons and not argue about it in this insightful article.

What I would like to talk about is what we could do to make it easier on us when we have no choice but to see this person regularly by some cruel twist of fate. And if he or she is part of the family (sigh in 50 different languages), what can I say? So what could we do to have get through the day when we know that awful person is going to be there to upset it with his or her despicable presence?

Someone wise taught me to ignore the person that I didn't like as though he doesn't exist. It worked so well for me I managed to stay on top of things and carry on for many years to come by doing just that. There was another one I was told I could try, which is, to talk to that person. Get to know him or her. And I tried that too. The person whom we all loathed to the marrow of our bones became quite fun to be with for me when I got to know her. She wasn't everything she projected about herself to be but no one knew this because they avoided her like the plague. The third method I used was to leave that person be and acknowledge him with no reservations. A nice hi and bye can be good enough without the angst. There is also one other technique that you could try which is to stay out of the way and go about your daily chores.

In the end, of course the best way to settle this is to change your perception about people and blah blah, but if you are not ready, because some people are just irritating as hell, then these steps might just help ... for a while.

Insight 28 - The Disruption Of A Destination

2008-03-16T21:42:00.000-07:00

Why do our plans go awry? We could have laid out every single itinerary, structured all the schedules and packed accordingly for an awaited journey but something prevents us from embarking on it. The car breaks down. A friend calls up to upset the flow. The weather, without warning, becomes violently crazy. Why do these things happen?

There's got to be more than coincidences and bad timing and one of those unfortunate times that detours us even before we could ignite the engine. At times like these I usually like to sit back, take a little time off, dig my feet into the ground, put on a little Colbie Caillat and think about the events that caused the disruption.

Very importantly, to remind ourselves again, it's how we perceive a situation that makes it bad or good. If we are coming from fear everything will seem bad or ugly, if we are coming from love or hope we get a clearer picture and a better understanding.

The people, things and circumstance that prevent us from getting to our destination may be, in a way, helping us refocus and redirect our choices and paths. It's a time as good as any to redefine our strategies and look forward to the change instead of sulking over the unexpected throw off from the intended orientation.

First of all no one is at fault. Secondly, disappointments are temporary and can be alleviated. Thirdly, in the long run, light can come out of even the darkest hour. In other words, a plan's a plan if we look at it from a broad perspective and they are bound to be altered at any one time according to a number of factors. When some things are out of our control it's the universe at work with a greater scheme and a larger picture that will make sense only when the favorable time comes.

So do we continue our travel even if everything goes off tangent at the most inconvenient time? Whichever direction we decide to take, with a calm disposition and an optimistic approach, we will know what is best for us at the point when our world rips at the seam. If we anticipate our journeys in life with a wide angle lens it would be easier for us to handle whatever's coming our way. In a manner of speaking it's like the aphorism 'expect the worse but hope for the best'. Just remember not to take it the other way round and besides, the end of one journey opens up another when we are not blinded by sulking and fretting about the change in direction.

Insight 27 - Asking For Tomorrow But Questioning Yesterday

2008-03-09T22:49:00.001-07:00

When something happens to someone, if it is bad, we say he/she deserves it, but when it's good, we say he/she is just plain lucky. But in a world where there is no bad or good, when something happens to a person it's because he or she asked for it. No not deserve it but ask for it. I know it sounds terrible when a child or mentally or physically challenged person is at the unfortunate receiving end, but I don't want to talk about them for now, let's talk about the strong and sound minded individuals like you and I.

Many times when we feel elated or troubled by an occurrence in our lives we try to associate it with things and people around it. It can some times lead to blame if the consequence is not what we anticipate or don't want to acknowledge or it can lead to praise when it is within the range of our expectations.

But if we realize, like in the laws of attraction, those events in our lives, especially the negative ones, are what we ask for consciously or unconsciously then perhaps it would be easier to find a way out of the recurring nightmare.

The thing to understand here is the ask ourselves why we want what we want. It is not the event per se that we should be examining or scrutinizing but the repercussions that comes with it. As we know, everything and everyone is connected, so whatever happens to us, the people involved are a part of the phenomenon. We all want something out of a similar episode.

It is ultimately true when we say everything happens for a reason because the choice is still ours in the end.

Insight 26 - Shut Up & Listen is Good Enough for Most

2008-02-27T21:24:00.002-08:00

Someone asked me how one meditates. Of course I spent some time telling him about having a quiet personal time listening to oneself is a good start. One can actually be embraced by nature, be immersed in total silence, alleviated by music or be lulled by affirming thoughts to experience the power of regeneration. From the relaxation of body and mind, one can then hear what the heart desires where all truth and passion reside. But even as I speak to him with these imagery in mind he interrupted me before I could finish my sentence. Not once, not twice, but whenever he could put a word in it.

After having had that session with him I realized all I should say to a person like him is SHUT UP AND LISTEN. If he doesn't know what to listen to he's not ready for change anyway. Some people
want to find solutions, a direction, a clue or a pointer to their complicating lifestyle and complex relationship with the world but they don't want to listen. How can there be change when one is not considerate to the rhyme and reason of the soul?

Insight 25 - Diverting Our Daily Demons

2008-02-25T21:57:00.000-08:00

Every day as we wake we try to make sense of this life, occasionally questioning ourselves about what we are doing and where we are going. Some of us may have great paying jobs or careers while the rest of us trudge through work we could do without. Whatever the case, we follow the routine that keeps us distracted long enough so we wouldn't have to question too many things that will trouble us and rock our simple foundation of truth.

Like clockwork, we practise the ritual of being human with that one single thought of survival. Day in, day out, we plan our lives to make our existence richer and we compare it against the human standards of how riches are defined.

Influenced by everything around us we start making choices, sometimes regretting making them and sometimes regretting not making them. And then when we reach a certain level of maturity the various versions of truth begin to frighten us. We learn that what we has always known as the truth could be a lie and what we regard as a lie is actually the truth. In this time of confusion we become desperate and we cling on to things that we can understand and ignore the rest.

But life is such that sooner or later things that have not been resolved will come back to haunt us. An unforgiving heart, a displaced love, an angry condition, a deliberate act of cruelty, they all come back.

As if it isn't bad enough, in this state of bewilderment, the questions about other things in life begin to pop up as well. The more we are bombarded with our conscience they more we tend to choose to get ourselves distracted by any means to avoid from being completely awaken.

Imagine for a second there is no more distractions in your life, what would you do?You don't need to work to make money to survive, everything is free. There is no internet, no TV, no no clubs, no music, no movies, nothing at all. Will you feel lost? Will you find it hard to pass the day? Will you create trouble to keep yourself sane? Or will you give up and go insane? Or will you look for some direction find a reason for pursuing it?

Insight 24 - The Hand That Rocks The Fragile Cradle

2008-02-21T20:48:00.000-08:00

We all rant and rave about how this is a man's world and that women has very little say or do in it. But did you ever think about how each and every women contributed to make it such as well? I don't think men alone can make the world completely his without the strength of the women but how did it all begin?

First of all, like what William Ross Wallace says - The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world - and how true it is too. Parents' influence on her children is far greater than anyone else's in the entire family. If a mother chooses to teach her children well about the equality of the genders, her children will understand the necessity of impartiality and respect. But if the parent dotes on the son like a little emperor he will well be that when he is a grown man and the cycle keeps on turning. It also goes back to how girls allow themselves to be treated by their boyfriends. If they submit themselves to the 'man' to make the decision, to tell them what to do or to dictate everything else in their lives, then wouldn't that be giving this boy a chance to be the 'man' to dominate because he can? Why should the husband, the son, the brother or the father be appraised anymore differently because they are phallic by nature? Does the male organ generate power for the entire world to run on to sustain life? Then why this discrepancy? Why do women give themselves into situations of being manhandled and then complain about it?

It is not to say that women should put men down for their weaknesses for not being able to behave like the 'man' that they should be. This is nothing but a sexist filth used to undermine a person by being bitchy. All the 'shoulds' and 'should nots' criteria about what a man or a woman has to be is as irrelevant as the battle of the sexes. The more we plunge into the dramatics of how each and every gender should behave the more death traps we set for ourselves. If lovers and spouses want to be at logger heads with each other to prove the superiority of masculinity over femininity or vice versa then the world might as well be separated into two divisions of the male species and the female species. It doesn't matter what sexual preference one may have but these two genders still need the essence of the other to evolve.

So as a woman, a girl or a feminine creature, what part do you play to make this earth a man's world? And as a wife, a sister, a daughter and a mother how would you rock the cradle of egalitarian so that one day, some day there will be no more injustices inflicted upon the opposite sex?

Insight 23 - Being a damsel in distress

2008-02-20T23:18:00.000-08:00

Playing the part of a damsel in distress is one of the major roles girls reenact to get the attention from guys. It may seem like a fine and dandy thing to do, especially if it was a Broadway musical where a girl can't get a man out of her hair or when she can't help but love that man. This game has its moments and its quirks but it only remains as such until the thrills and chills have gone. After the dating stage or marriage scene, very seldom do we see a damsel in distress getting her way with things. This form of entertainment is not a very ideal way to start a relationship since it won't even last until all the love songs are sung. Both genders have the capabilities of looking out for one another so what does a damsel want to be rescued from anyway? To dump this load of responsibility on men alone is just as bad as women allowing themselves to be treated incongruously.

Boys were taught to be gentler with the fairer sex ever since they were kids and girls were taught to be fair and gentle to get that kind of treatment from boys. Although attributes of guys and girls vary in degrees, the fact remains that they are already segregated with this first lesson of sexism. If there is ever going to be equality that both men and women of today seek, then an early education for kids to understand this status should have already been inculcated in them. The list of dos and don't for being male or female should be spoken with care and concern so that the growing up children will not demarcate themselves according to this erroneous class of distinction. The argument on who's better and stronger can last another century but the fact that both the sexes should be encouraged to perform better should not be restricted by their gender. To tell a girl she shouldn't play football because it's a boy's game or to climb a tree or take up motor mechanics is damaging to a child's mind. She would not understand the concept of alienation from something she likes other being born as a person with more limitations and less tolerance. She may even come to hate her status due to the fact that she has to be subjugated and domesticated. Thus, this is where girls are led to believe that they cannot take care of themselves without the help of their male counterparts. And so begins the making of the woman in chains.

It is only when the girls become women in their later years that they discover that there is no truth in this fairy tale of the knight in shining armor who comes to sweep them off their feet. She would be lucky if the guy she marries her treats her as a coequal. Feeling like a helpless schoolgirl all her life, a woman's journey is only the beginning when she starts her career in the dog eat dog habitat. She may find that playing the role of the weaker sex will not get her anything but overbearing males with animalistic intents. At this point, she has two options: to carry on being the unprotected species that needs to be saved or to stand up and discard all forms of misconceptions that were put in her head. Either way, it's no easy task to bring things back into perspective. If she had been known all along as the frail kitten who has nothing much to be concerned about except for the color of her nails no one would take her seriously. If she is regarded as the infuriating tigress then that will be another level of lifestyle to uncomplicate. And to think, all these are stamped from one miscalculated fallacy of being an epitome of the helpless woman.

I suppose to the woman who chooses to be rescued by her chivalrous hero she can continue idolizing men on the silver screen. But with the world spinning so fast these days she may just remain in the hole she has dug for herself and be a lonely distressed damsel in the end. It's not about standing behind the man, it's not about standing by the man, it's about standing side by side with him that makes more sense to boldly go where no man or woman has gone before. Equality goes both ways. Most men are not cut out to be those dashing, swashbuckling, ass kicking, muscle ripping hunks who has only one mission in life anyway so it's good to leave some things, like the popcorns, at the movies.

Insight 22 - The Day God Split Adam Up Into Eve

2008-02-20T00:02:00.000-08:00

If you spend so much time trying to figure out what the tell tale signs of a man or a woman are then how much time have you got left to live like a decent one? Is it even important to tell apart what a man or woman like physically, mentally and emotionally? Does it serve any purpose if you get to know your partner, friend or lover under these circumstances? When you truly love someone, minimizing a person to the constraints of his sexuality will do nothing more than harm your relationship. How many times have we heard axioms like 'she's a woman, she can't help herself from being insufferable' or 'he's a man, he'll always have sex on his mind.' If this concept of marginalizing ourselves just because we look different than it's as good as going back to the caves where we once lived in fear.

Putting aside the obvious distinction of what a man and woman is to each other, at the bottom of it all lies more similarities than anyone wants to admit. Sure you could count the ribs and compare the brain activities, but ultimately we all hurt the same. You could still map out the way females and males handle pain but where is it going to get you? Further and further away from each other until the distance is too vast to reach out anymore, that's where it will get you. By measuring up to one another about how much or how little either one contributes to life and existence, living harmoniously will be out of the question. Believing that every man is a potential rapist is like believing that every woman is a potential slut. Either way, nobody wins. As long as there is the battle of the sexes, there will always be casualties.

There will always be disagreements between two persons regardless of their gender because everyone is wired uniquely in his or her own form. We are not clones and we don't function with one rule that says how to be a man in ten easy steps or how to be a woman at a glance. We live, we learn and we pay the price for what we believe in. Sooner or later, like it or not, whatever we leave behind in ignorance will catch up with us and shock us in the face like an old ghost from our secret past. Deal with it now and there will be no more dirty little secrets to unearth. If you meet someone you enjoy spending time with, what's a little stain where both of you could help clean up.

If you are so caught up with quantifying your love against someone with a set of criteria you will only forfeit you future with a string of repeated delusions, and worse if passed on to the next generation. Some times society, that includes us, place so much of expectations and assumptions on men and women it's frightening for a person to even want to grow up. The list of things of dos and don'ts can be quite intimidating. Men are expected to be the provider, the protector, the problem solver and the women are expected to be the family maker, the comforter, the sustainer. Of course those are just some of the requirements that are often spoken about but however you look at it, it is still bias in every sense of the word.

The thin line that is drawn between genders is evaporating rapidly with the change that is brought about by technology. Sooner or later everyone will realize that there are a lot more things, which we once held so high in our beliefs, will mean nothing more than just a thought that is easily forgotten. It's not because we are losing sight of the grandeur of chivalry of men or the fairness of women, but the evolution from being uppity and anal-retentive is taking us to greater heights where everyone is noble in their own way. That day will come when we could all sit back and laugh at the good of days when women were women and men were men because some good old folks said we should stick to this segregation for the good of all mankind.

Insight 21 - Dialoguing with existentialism

2008-02-17T22:26:00.000-08:00

"Women don't behave that way."
"And what way is that may I ask?"
"They don't use foul languages, they don't snort or grunt, they don't guffaw but giggle at most and they have to be demure and coy when they are spoken to."
"Since when did that happen?"
"About the time from the beginning of mankind."
"What other criteria must one have to be a woman?"
"She has to learn how to cook well, sew the curtains, cushion covers and basic clothes for the family, be easily mesmerized by shiny objects such as jewelries, learn to raise children, be ready to support the family when the man is unable to, be loving most of the time and also be good in bed."
"Wow, that's a lot of demands."
"Being a woman is never easy."
"Then why are women not equal to men?"
"Because they are made that way. To serve men. Remember Eve?"
"But is that story even true?"
"There you go, how could you be a woman when you start asking questions like that? Proper women don't ask they just abide by the rules and regulations set for them to follow."
"Phew, it's a tough decision to make."
"That's a good sign."
"What is?"
"Being indecisive. It's a woman's trait."
"Really? How did you come to that conclusion?"
"I'll answer you this time, but once you've decided, no more questions. It's the hormones, it makes them fickle, indecisive, hypersensitive, temperamental and erratic."
"Good grief."
"That's the price to pay. But look on the bright side, you get to wear all kinds of makeup, don on any kinds of elaborate clothes, be pampered by beauty products, salons, and men. You'd be taken care of by some rich guy who wants you for himself."
"But..."
"But of course that's only when you are beautiful or drop dead gorgeous."
"But..."
"But if you are not, you'll have to end up working menial jobs to make a living for the entire family. You may have to wake up as early as five in the morning to get the kids ready for school, take the public transport and wait for hours to get to your work place, pick up all the mess other people make and come back home in time to pick up all the mess your family makes and cook dinner for everyone. You won't have time or much else to spend on and that's fine too since you won't be able to fit into any designer clothes, have the right skin texture to exhibit to the world or a face that needs any makeup because they won't help anyway."
"But..."
"But if you work hard enough, you can afford to shape up a little more with the right cosmetic surgery so that you will pass for somebody pleasant and you may get a better job behind the desk or something."
"I feel sick."
"That's how you'll feel if you get pregnant. But if for some reason nature plays a cruel trick on you and you can't conceive, you'll be the talk of the in laws. And you'll envy the other women for popping out children like spring bunnies when you can't even have one for yourself."
"Can I exchange myself when I get tired of it?"
"You can't. It's against the law. It's abnormal and it's gross."
"But..."
"But you'll start looking like a man after menopause anyway, so why bother?"
"When do I have to decide?"
"Now. There's a long queue waiting."
"One last thing. My love life..."
"You shall love only one man and one man only. Anything out of this normality is considered illegal."
"That's very limiting."
"There's a small clause that says you become a woman at your own risk. You cannot hold us liable should anything untoward happen to you. And that you will be treated as such according to the place of your birth."
"What does that all mean?"
"Nothing much really, just that you have to be aware of the possibilities of sexual assault, intimidation from certain parties and be controlled by some conventions. That's all."
"But..."
"No buts. Yes or no?"
"But..."
"Yes or no?"
"Yes."
"Sign here and move on to the next level."
"If..?"
"No more questions. Now move along. Next! Who wants to be a woman?"

Reccomendation: The Secret Gift

2008-02-17T20:23:00.000-08:00

Something beautiful, mesmerizing and emotionally inspiring. From the makers of The Secret.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phL0RLKL8bc

Insight 20 - Misconstruing The Minutiae Of Life

2008-02-12T20:38:00.000-08:00

What can be misconstrued as
persistence could be annoyance,
perseverance could be stubbornness,
romanticism could be foolhardiness,
leadership could be dictatorship,
faith could be ignorance,
love could be sympathy,
fate as desire,

or

gullibility could be sincerity,
low self esteem could be humility,

and only the person acting out
knows which is which.

Insight 19 - The inability to be open windows and doors

2008-02-11T21:56:00.000-08:00

Year after year some people talk about the same thing, complain about the same problems and resurrect rehashed worries out of their bag of troubles. And at the end of the year they make a pact with the year end with a resolution, a promise or a commitment to do something about their grouses. The new year comes and fly by day after day, month after month and everything remains unchange. Before you know it, the holidays are here again and that time of the year to start anew is celebrated with booze and parties. And the cycle goes on for another fiscal calendar with unfulfilled dreams and inextinguishable frustrations.

Many people wait for the right time to act and yet react all the time hastily while waiting. It's not about watching an inspiring movie or reading a good book, although it helps, that changes a person's life for the better. It's about opening windows and doors to look out for opportunities to take a step further from where we are that's important. It's not about meeting a quota or optimizing our productivity that ends our journey of success.

Once we've done what we set out to do, we move on. We go to the next level. We improve what needs to be improved, we rejuvenate what needs to be rejuvenated, we reinvent what needs to be reinvented. We don't retire. We may slow down a bit, or work at a leisurely pace but we don't pack it in and call it quits. There's always another door, another window for us to unlock to find the mysteries and adventures ahead.

The time to do anything is not the end of the year, not in terms dictated by politics, economy or religion. The time is now, if you would just walk to a door or a window and unlatch it to see beyond your comfort zone. If not now, when?

2008-02-10T21:06:00.000-08:00

Being an independent person doesn't mean you have to discount everyone else and refuse a helping hand when it is offered.

Insight 18 - What’s it to you?

2008-02-05T06:23:00.000-08:00

The more afraid you are the more negative energy will attract to you and pile on you as though you deserve it.

There are only two things in the world - love and fear. Choose love and everything is beautiful, choose fear and everything is ugly.

Some people try to prove others wrong when they are challenged with the sheer simplicity of happiness because they prefer to have it difficult before they feel they deserve it. It's the way they are taught to understand the logic, which is, with pain and sorrow comes happiness and joy.

We have been taught to feel guilty about the good things in life because of the suffering of others. But is there even an ounce of truth in it? Suffering, again, is relative. Some people's tolerance to pain is greater and if they are optimistic what is pain to them after all?

If you love something enough to want to go ahead and do it, the passion itself will alleviate all forms of distress and physical affliction. So what's it to you?

Insight 17 - To The Journey Of Your Direction

2008-02-05T06:06:00.000-08:00

In life we get confused with the idea of wanting something so bad that we have to have it for the sake of having it. And when we finally get it, we grow tired of it faster than we first wished for it.

But if we listen to the inner voice and the call of the universe we will realize that it is not where we want to go but where we’re needed most that will make sense to us when the time comes.

Once you’re progressing or making life works for you and the people around you nothing can tear you away from the richness you have found and the joy you have encountered.

And when you have completed what you are meant to do you will know that it is time to move on to the next level of bringing your presence to the place you are needed most.

Insight 16 - Decide Your Destiny

2008-01-15T19:45:00.000-08:00

There is no right or wrong, only people who know and people who don't, people who are ready and people who are not.

For those who are ready - connect, for those who are not, leave them alone.

Insight 15 - The Good Book & Other Misleading Tales

2007-12-23T19:14:00.000-08:00

Controversial times are here to disrupt our ignorance whether we like it or not. Secrets that have been kept hidden hundreds and millions of years ago are being unearthed by technology and laws that have gone unchallenged are at the mercy of the sweep of new age philosophies.

Everything that we thought were steadfast and constant is now being brutally turned inside out to reveal its erroneous content. Famous personalities with impeccable back-stories are also exposed to the world about their misdeeds and misdemeanors. Religious sanctities are being questioned and the holy scriptures are being disputed and God is on trial.

The controversy on who wrote the Good book has always been in the back of skeptical, atheistical and even God-fearing minds alike. All the Good books, apparently written by God through man, is making more waves about how we, as human beings, should live rather than how we could progress. With that self-deprecating concept troubling us more and more people are awakening from a slumber of blind faith, unconditional subservience, cultural conventions and traditional persecutions. People today are asking why?

Gone are the days when God will strike a person down when he or she asks the wrong question. Gone are the days where men who claim to be God's messengers can have a run of his totalitarian regime to deceive his people. Gone are the days that distinguish good and evil in a twisted light. Gone are fabrications, counterfeits and concocted cocktails of disparity.

People of the world have a choice now to choose between making life a difficult adversity or an illuminating and edifying journey.

And it's about time...

Insight 14 - The Insidious Pestilence

2007-12-16T21:30:00.001-08:00

Anger is an insidious pestilence that few people acknowledge and talk about because it seems easier to ignore it after it goes away. Or at least that's what people think. Anger has caused more physical, emotional and psychological damage than anyone likes to admit.

From anger other sorts of emotions can arise subconsciously without even trying. Frustration, hate, revulsion, retaliation, hostility, vengeance are just some of the turmoil that can churn out of the human system when provoked by this little stirs up the storm.

To understand where this malevolent nature comes from we have to dig deep within ourselves to discover the source of this crippling attribute. Anger cannot be created without the consent of its owner. So where does it reside and how does it propagate?

According to psychologists anger stems from the very core of our being which is instinctive, cognitive and idiosyncratic. In other words one is for self preservation another is a perception and last is merely an individual trait. Whatever it is and however one wants to embrace it, uncontrolled anger can lead to disastrous ends if not handled appropriately.

Anger is the result of provocation that may seem like an external consequence but it is more likely that a person will not be affected by it if he or she is dominated by a wealth of serenity.

When we are angry at the world, we are actually angry at ourselves for not being able to live up to the standards or codes we have created to measure ourselves against. And all these human made ideals of principles, morals and ethics are justifications to the doctrine we are taught to accept. Ironically we thrive on the pursuit of perfection but then again perfection is a state of mind which has no foundations. In other words, instead of fulfilling our natural rights to become what we perceive ourselves to be we suppress what is true to us to satisfy someone else's written word. And if that doesn't make us angry at the world then I don't know what will.

If we see anger as part of our daily consumption, then we will always be devouring the kind of food which will eventually take its toll on us in forms of sicknesses and diseases. Still, the larger extend of humanity is willing to partake in this epidemic which plagues society then to confront the very core of its existence.

Books That Will Change Your Life ... if you want them to

2007-12-10T19:50:00.000-08:00

1. The Alchemist - Paolo Choelho
2. The Celestine Prophecy - James Redfield
3. The New Revelations - Neale Donald Walsch
4. Future Shock - Alvin Toffler
5. The Secret - Rhonda Byrne

Insight 13 - Love Is...

2007-12-09T22:05:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking. If you are not in love with the right person, or to be more precise - to be with the one you are meant to be with, will you always have this sad empty feeling like there's something missing in your life?

Insight 12 - Molecularly Disturbed

2007-12-05T21:23:00.000-08:00

This friend of mine misread a label which said molecularly distilled to molecularly disturbed. We had a good laugh over it but it dawned on me that a lot of things in life go back to the minuscule
version when you really think about it.

We are made up of 100 trillion cells which are known as the building block of life. And every cell contains 46 chromosomes and they are storage units for DNA. The chromosomes are then organized in 23 pairs of DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid) strands that makes us who we are (if a DNA is pulled from a single human cell it is 3 meters long). In that distinctive double helix form, the rungs of the DNA molecules are encoded with alphabetic instruction where 'A' is paired with 'T' and 'C' is paired with 'G' which in turn makes up the gene. And gene as we know it are the instruction manuals for our bodies.

When we get frustrated, angry, disgusted, humiliated, hurt, elated, exhilarated and even at peace what happens to every single cell in our body? How molecularly disturbed will we get when we behave erratically or sensibly?

Although I'm no scientist I can imagine how our body react to the things we do or don't do in our rituals and routines. Most of us cannot escape the rigors of the everyday trials and tribulations and even if we conclude that we are clear of any pent up anger or bottled up grudge, our bodies will know better, which is to say, right down to the very molecule of our being.

When we hurt ourselves by indulging in self affliction one way or the other physically, mentally or psychologically we are obviously damaging the very core of our existence to speed up the cause of our death. By living a life full of hostility and tension the human body is bound to breakdown faster than any cell can regenerate itself. The sad part of this degeneration is the remorse that comes with it at a point where nothing else can be done about it.

Sicknesses or diseases don't manifest themselves without the assent of the sufferer. One has to fight it or to fan it. Still, for all those times that we've known it and all those times we're aware of it we usually ignore them until there isn't time to do it anymore. If we could imagine the marvels of our human body and they way it functions, how much more would we appreciate that knowledge and make this life worth living than to be petty with rules, regulations, cultures, traditions, discriminations and that artificial thing we call individuality.

So now you know when the days are bad or not going your way, instead of asking what's wrong, you could always ask how molecularly disturbed are you?

Insight 11 - Your Attention Please

2007-11-27T21:36:00.000-08:00

This girl told me she doesn't get the attention she wants from guys. I asked her what kind of attention is that and she says the kind where they dote on you and make you feel as though you matter to them. Reading between the lines, she wants to be treated like a Queen perhaps or a superstar in a man's heart.

Although I loath insincerity and false imagery we give one another and pass it off as love or even friendship I couldn't help but ask myself if that is an important feature to make our lives worth toiling.

As a writer I would want to move my audience and gather them as a collective known to me as fans who adore me for what I do. As a lecturer I would want my students to hold me dear in their hearts now and forevermore. As a woman in love I would want my man to have his eyes only on me and me alone. And as an insatiable human being I want to be looked upon with greatness and envy from my fellow earthlings.

But for an artistic dreamer in the light of being an idealist who doesn't seek for approval what use would that be for? The are writers who write for the love of it, teachers who contribute their lives without asking anything in return, lovers sacrificing everything without having to say a word and people who do great wonders and still live a frugal and unnoticed existence.

I told her if she is deliberately looking to be noticed then it will elude her somehow. What she doesn't realize is the depth of wanting more than just plain and simple attention from a man. She actually longs for his affection, tender loving care and most likely his company.

So how do you make someone like you the way you want to be liked? There is no quick and instant answer for that. It takes time to like someone even more so to love someone without conditions. You can pretend, you can be blinded and you can be logical about it but if you don't think so much about the 'me, me, me' perhaps someone else will do it for you because he or she wants to.

Insight 10 - Bored To Death In My Jaded Genes

2007-11-19T18:59:00.001-08:00

Why do we get bored?
Being bored is basically having nothing to do. Nothing that interest us anyway. When we are bored we are aimless, restless and useless in every sense of the word. Once we have lured ourselves into this lair of mindlessness we start imagining things and distort our perception of situations and circumstances. We think everyone is out to make our lives miserable, we think they're laughing behind our backs, we think they're planning a conspiracy against us and we really truly think ourselves crazy.

Then again, how do we get out of apathetic doldrum? As far as I know they are only two ways to counteract on this undesirable emotion. The most popular is what the majority of us practice because it seems easier than the alternative. Distraction. You name it we have it.

Getting distracted is a notorious right we give ourselves because we feel we it's a constitution we have been endowed with. But is this beguilement a good way to understand and overpower our feeling of displacement? Even asking this question is already answering what we know deep in our hearts. It does work for a while though, but it won't last.

When we really think about it being bored is taking our attention away from something we don't want to confront and acknowledge and the worst possible scenario is how it will resurface again in the most inconvenient moment of our lives. Anything and everything can be a distraction if we allow them to be. Patronizing entertainment watering holes, lazing about with slumber, dissing everyone we know for the sake of conversations and filling our emptiness with antagonizing dramas as just some of the ways we disfigure the simple representation of life. We make things bad when we have nothing else to do.

So what's the other option you may ask. It's just that thing you do that gives you a sense of fulfillment that will take away the blues, and any other colors of your disillusionment. I have seen mothers cooking up a storm for their children with so much love in the food they'll sweep you away with its aromatic affection. I have watched artists who spend ageless days working on their canvasses just to bring out the beauty of their imagination. I have heard of writers who incarcerate themselves for years to bring your the most poetic and magnificent verses and proses. I have witnessed engineers, dancers, mechanics, chefs, social workers and even husbands, wives, children and lovers doing the same. What they all have in common is the love and passion for what they do. The magic of determination and devotion to the one thing that brings them back for more, again and again. These are the people that don't have the time to mull over the idea of detachment and listlessness. If you ever meet them, they'll tell you there's so much to do and time is of the essence to do them.

Some of you might still wonder what is that thing that is missing from your life that keeps making a hole in your heart. This is your journey, this is where you begin by taking the first step.

Insight 9 - The Ballad Of The Lonely Traveler

2007-10-23T19:40:00.001-07:00

How does one cure loneliness?

Is it even a disease to start off with? Recently I came across people who were troubled with this thing called loneliness and I was a little dumbfounded as to what could be done to help them get out of this dilemma. I, for one, have felt it before but never really got deeper than I usually do. Once I am bitten by this virus I try to reflect on my life, my direction, my interests and focus my passion on to what I love to do most. Nearly all the time I get out of it unscathed and rejuvenated. Only once in a while do I drag my feet so long as I want to drown in self pity just for the sake of it.

Sometimes I think we want drama in our lives because it makes the story much more intriguing and heart wrenching for others to see. A well-paved and trouble-free life may not be as memorable for some.

From what I gather, being lonely is an act of creating a negative world for ourselves to escape the truth. We tie loneliness to our work, families, friends, lovers and situations. The thing I notice about lonely people is the common language they use to describe their solitaire, most of which expresses disorientation. "I don't know what to do. I am so bored. No one wants to be my friend. I am lost." These are just some of the aphorisms dedicated to loneliness.

Would it be as simple as having a drive toward a direction, a focus on a project or an attention to a certain issue that will expunge this sad and melancholic disposition? It seems like an easy formula to exercise but then again it's better to give it a go than not.

Some things are hyped up for what they really are. The media tells us that being alone is traumatizing when in truth being alone can be therapeutic, revitalizing and self defining. Instead of thinking oneself to death about how lonely one can be, take up a challenge and see if life is much more than just what we wish it to be.

Insight 8 - It's the small things

2007-10-17T19:28:00.000-07:00

I saw a man washing a huge rock this morning and couldn't help but smile at the unusual sight. I wanted to know why he was cleaning it with a scrub but I didn't ask. As awkward as I wanted to inquire about his past time it would seem just as awkward for him to respond with a simple answer. So I left it at that because a simple act of pleasure already says so much about who we are, what we are and why we are.

Insight 7 - The uncomplicated solution

2007-10-10T02:15:00.000-07:00

Every problem usually has one and only one simple solution. It's hard to believe that sometimes but it is true. It's the main root system that is the cause so to speak. Whether the people have addictive habits, temperamental swings, or suicidal inclinations, they all come back to one point of provocation. If we can find the cause, the rest will be easily dealt with. And most surprisingly the origin is so simple that it sometimes gets overlooked because of that.

Children and adults who self inflict themselves could very well be seeking for attention from others. Or it could be a cry for communication, connection or love. Although it is easier said than done, if ego is kept aside a lot of things can be solved almost instantaneously. The measure of anger and frustrations can be made to calm down to a level where they become non existent, and accusations and blames can be wound down to nothing but mere misunderstanding. But to do all this, one has to have the courage of a warrior and the strength of a hero and yet it could be just the innocence of a child to make it all go away.

When children inherit their parent's negative energy about everything they know, it will take a while before they can find their out of the maze they have been thrown into. These confusing times of finding one's identity get worse with other influences that give out more opposing vibes. Most of the time, everyone just wants someone to listen. Be it a rant, a litany of sorrows or matters of the heart we all need to feel that we are not alone in this world. But the more we want to speak our heart, mind and soul the more people will shy away from us because the world is already too noisy as it is.

One of the best ways to help ourselves is to take time off to know ourselves through and through and bask in our own silent presence as and when we can. The funny thing about all this is the time we learn to listen is the time we learn to communicate better with everyone else. And when we do there will be less to misunderstand and more to appreciate. And the calmer you are, the more visible is the solution, which might be gazing at you all the time.

Insight 6 - Parents Were Children Too

2007-09-27T00:17:00.000-07:00

Parents can be such bad influence to their children. Not all parents are but the ones who are inefficient parents are the ones who cannot seem to take care of their own children and will not allow anyone to give them a hand.

For all the years that I have seen my students come and go from teenagers to becoming adults, most of them are the kind of children most parents would be proud of. But the sad thing is, when they are back home, they become somebody else in total contrast. The two extremes are a complete shut down or loquacious outburst. Either way it's not a very healthy choice.

Parents have to realize that it is not because they are bad that their children turn out unpleasant. It's usually a combination of things that make them what they are. From the environment at home to the neighborhood to the family's lack of communication. If you know you are not doing a good job disciplining your children then it is better to find a solution before the onset problem gets any worse.

All parents want to be proud of their products but they have to come to their senses and embrace the idea that they may not be able to nurture their own children all by themselves. Solutions are plentiful but to the ignorant people there is none.

Raising a child is usually more than any one person can handle. There are so many aspects parents themselves cannot cover and may not be right to instruct. Yet many parents still feel that it is an embarrassment if they can't fulfill a simple thing such as this. It is quite an impossible task to single handedly teach a child everything under the sun but would you, as a parent, believe that is it true?

For your children to change, some times you've got to change as well.

Insight 5 - The Art of Claiming Ownership

2007-09-17T19:29:00.000-07:00

Everyone wants a piece of the pie and call it their own.

When I was younger and easily influenced by cinematic and television experience I used to think relationships were all there was in life. You find someone to love and be loved and everything else will fall into the right place and plan.

To call someone your boyfriend or girlfriend was such a beautiful act of love. But as films became bolder and more true to life, the idea of being owned by someone became repelling. Not that it's not great to be loved but to be hounded by it, by someone, is not as pleasant as anyone would like to have it.

The possessiveness of the first singular pronoun is attached to everything that we eye (lame pun). I want this. This is mine. My house. My friends. My lover. I want to make that piece of land mine. I will convert you and make you mine. I am your savior.

When you think about it, this egocentric claim is nothing more than a personal vendetta for greed. Even when we all know that we come with nothing at birth, we, well most of us anyway, want to take something with us in death.

Creating such a ludicrous demand only makes slaves of ourselves.

Of course it's not to say we can't use pronouns like these to make sentences but it's how we say it that makes a lot of difference, especially when we are referring to a living thing. Sometimes we've just got to listen to ourselves speaking before we know how disgusting we sound like claiming the treasure troves which are never ours in the first place.

People can't belong to people. Sure we all come from some form of families but we are not bound to one another for the rest of our lives. Hell, if you believe that the universe is one and everything and everyone is connected by an omnipotent force than the thoughts that we have are not even ours so to speak. But I won't go there ... yet.

So the next time you insist that something or someone belongs to you, you may want to consider rephrasing the word just be kind to yourself and not let the narcissistic beast devour you up.

Insight 4 - The Woman With Horns

2007-09-13T02:29:00.000-07:00

There's this woman in my neighborhood who honks each time she comes back. And in one day she comes back several times. Be it morning, noon or night, she'll just pump the horn to get the maid to come out to open the gate for her, to take something from her or to bring something for her.

I've been wondering what her legs are for. A lot of people that I know refuse to walk that little bit from their car to their destination if they can help it. They would rather risk getting summoned, screamed at or cursed just to park the vehicle as close as they can get to where they are going.

People like these don't read horror or scifi stories I guess. They never heard of the man whose legs turned into wheels, or the woman who became a slug and that sort of thing. Maybe it's fiction as we know it, but fiction is where fact gets realized sooner or later.

But people in this time and age rather drive everywhere and then spend time running in a gym. I can already imagine what kind of a story that will lead to but I will save it for a rainy day when all the people have no more legs but sit where they are and read what I write.

Insight 3 - Oh To Be Blinded By The Sight

2007-09-07T21:47:00.000-07:00

Ignorance is such a lovely concept when one wants to do nothing to make sense of what is true to them. It is so easy to turn away and close your eyes to things you don't want to know, see or hear. Life is always easier when the thoughts are avoided and distractions are inserted.

Don't think of tomorrow, don't think of the problem, don't even try to make the world a better place because it's not possible. These are the usual litanies we bring ourselves closer to when darkness approaches. Things which are not considered normal, according to the unanimous vote of the majority, should not have a place to be there. Anything out of the conformed lifestyles of the community should not be regarded as good.

The distinction between good and bad is clear cut and there is never a doubt about it. When questioned, everybody inhales together and say they are just the way they are. Bliss is better than individualistic understanding or interpretation of the world. There are way too many philosophers as it is.

Living life with the inability to decipher the complexities of existence is much better than to go through a series of mind boggling sessions. Utopia does not exist on earth and everything will be fine when one dies and go to heaven to receive all the wonderful things which are waiting for them. Nothing could be better than this.

But what if you are waken up before you die? What then?