Being alone

It seems to me, nothing scares most people more than loneliness - being alone. Being alone with your life, your thoughts and your beliefs - it's so scary to some that they tend to compromise/change/sacrifice their beliefs, their inclinations, their likes and dislikes just to be accepted by somebody or by a group of people to whom they wanted to maintain company. This is probably why most wanted to have and maintain a relationship, a family or a religion. Nobody wanted to live alone, eat alone, worship alone.

For me however, being alone once in a while is a bit of a necessity. No matter how much work I have on my plate, I usually take time to be put everything behind. This is probably how I seemed to rise above the daily grind of work (people think I'm so stressed with my work, but I'm not). It's kind like a morbid game I play starting with this: I just died. I assume I'm dead and I'm just now a spirit. Now that's funny because I don't believe in spirit, soul or ghost. But it's just a game anyway so here I am, a consciousness without a physical attribute. Thus, I can't pick-up that laptop nor that book  and of course, not even my iPod. With a situation like that, you have nothing to do but observe and think.

It was during one of those games that I realized that that most important thing a dead man can leave behind to those he really cared about is not wealth but ideas - his beliefs and the lessons he has learned in life. Of course, money would be very important to the young people who are just starting to build their lives. You need  money to educate yourself and get that necessary credentials to make a living. But beyond that is pure luxury which will not help make you a better person - and that's an understatement. I've seen too many children (and spouses) destroyed by the wealth they have inherited or about to inherit from their parents/spouse. I've seen it in my neighbors and even in my uncles. Would it be possible for Raul Songalia to be wealthier now had he not had an hacienda to inherit from his parents? Could the lives of Tio Guily and Tio Esen be even better if they don't have Lolo's fishpond to fall back on? They could have been like me many years ago - doing my best to find a job, any job and never wanting to lose my job - never wanting to return home because there was nothing for me to return to.

This idea that inherited wealth is destructive to person came to me while I was being alone - observing, ruminating on the events that I have witnessed. That's why it helps to be alone from time to time.

Iniquity of the fathers

Exodus 20:5: ...for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me.

I am an agnostic but if this God exists, I will tell this to him:
Sorry Mr. God, I do not negotiate with terrorists.You screwed on the Creation thing that's why we have earthquakes and tsunamis and floods and droughts and volcanic eruptions! The body of the man you created is inherently flawed, can fail by itself and open to attacks by the viruses and other microorganisms you created.
Jealous? Punishing the children for the sins of their fathers? Have you not heard about this thing called Justice? For Christ's sake grow up!

That's why agnosticism is, to borrow a word from believers, a blessing. If the existence of an evil creator or supreme being cannot be proven, then there is nothing for me to despise. I can live with equanimity knowing that everything happens by chance and we all have to live our lives as we find it, rejoice in our victories and mourn our defeats and misfortunes until the day we die.

Neil

My daughter's wish

My daughter just published a poem in her blog today. It contains her wishes and hopes that things would not be   the way they are. With her permission, here it is:


I wish
(by Natasha Luna)


I wish life was full of laughter
So happy,very happy
But nasty people wreck it
They stomp it, hurt it, made it into sadness.
They are damaging it
People dont care


I wish life was full of smiles
that light up the way to a good place
If it wasn’t for people who made it frown
People are now sad and down
I wish those people never existed


I wish life was full of kindness and sincerity
no bullies, no criticism, no black-mailing,no two faced people
No people that say mean things are good
No people to harm you


I just wanted a kind world
where people have positive attitude
where people have smile
where people experience happiness
where people doesnt know any bad things
and where people are safe


If anyone could understand this message
This is the message that people want to tell you
a message that has meaning to it
People dont want negative but want a positive life
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Equanimity

There is only one last thing that I would like to have before I die. If I can have that, I am sure that I will be happy and contented for the rest of my life. No, it's not a high-powered sniper rifle (I already have it:) or a yacht (I do not have the time anymore to use it if I have one) or to become the dictator of the Philippines. All I need, I realized,  is just EQUANIMITY.

As sure as the sun rises every single day, good news and/or bad news in varying magnitudes will come to me. If I do not have this equanimity to deal with them, I will be like a cork  bobbing on the waves. I do not want to be a cork - I want to be that boulder in the beach. The boulder is not completely immobile - it will may shudder, topple or break when the strongest storm wave hits it. But it's not like the cork who dances and floats around like crazy. Sure, the life of a cork is definitely more exciting than that of a boulder. The cork floats around, dancing with joy as the waves lift it up and shuddering in fear and screaming when submerged or smashed against other debris.

If I can have equanimity, I will still have ambitions and still would want to work harder to achieve them. But the excitements and anxieties will be drastically reduced. I can stare God in the face and say "Bring it on, you miserable, egoistic and narcissistic being!" He can do to me what He has done to poor Job (or worse, kill me) and I can tell him, "You're sick, why don't you spend your unlimited time Creating and doing something significant rather than toying around with a passing speck of dust like me?".

If I can only have equanimity, God will learn to respect me - and that is all I wanted from him.

Nasudnong Awit

Nasudnong Awit


Yutang tabunon
Mutya nga masilakon
Putling bahandi
Amo kang gimahal.


Mithing gisimba
Yuta s' mga bayani
Sa manglulupig
Among panalipdan


Ang mga bungtod mo ug lapyahan
Ang langit mong bughaw
Nagahulad sa awit, lamdag sa
Kaliwat tang gawas.


Silaw sa adlaw ug bitoon
Sa nasudnong bandila
Nagatimaan nga buhion ta
Hugpong nga di maluba


Yutang maanyag, duyan ka sa pagmahal
Landong sa langit ang dughan mo;
Pakatam-ison sa anak mong nagtukaw
Kon mamatay man sa ngalan mo!

Born this way

And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever."
                                                                                                         - Genesis 3: 22 (NIV) -


The Lord God said it himself - I am capable of knowing both good and evil and I was born this way. Now as to the tree of life, He can take it and shove it some place warm and tight - I do not want to live forever!

Reading

I learned to read when I was five. The problem is there wasn't a lot of reading materials in the house which, by today's standard, suitable for a child my age.  I read whatever I can get hold of - Bisaya magazines, newspapers, etc.
Unlike the kids of today, I did not went through prep and kinder. I went straight to Grade 1. School was very exciting at first. I remember there was this thick Cebuano book which Mrs. Ybanez (my teacher) lent me and I finished reading it within a few days. After that, I found the Grade1 class so boring that my mother has to drag me back to the classroom. They should have promoted me to Grade 2. Instead my teacher made me tutor for the slow learners to keep me from fooling around, while the rest of the class was learning ba-be-bi-bo-bu. Maybe the teachers back then are so ignorant (or simply unconcerned) of how miserable I was being made to do the job which should have been done by my teacher.  It was of course, a public school and my classmates were not the kids of parents who know better than my teacher.

I simply loved reading. During my free time, when I was not made to do household  chore, I always escape into my grandparents house nearby where Lolo Pacio has a cabinet full of Reader's Digest old issues(1960's to 1970's). I think it was the easy format of RD which made me love reading. The articles were (and still are) short and stories are narrated with minimal effort to the young reader. It effectively introduced me to book stories which are condensed in a few pages. We had no TV at that time and my mother discouraged me from playing with neighbors - it's all work for me. Reading became a respite and opened me to new worlds, new ideas.

During high school and college, I spent most of my spare time in the libraries. Encyclopedias, magazines, books on literature, biographies, philosophy, politics, etc. It simply amazed me how ideas from people who have died (some hundreds of years ago) can be conveyed to us by such a very simple device - book. Forget God and his heaven, this is the real immortality - dead people speaking/arguing from their graves - Plato, Darwin, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Machiavelli, Veblen, etc. Simply amazing!

I don't think I am a talented individual. If I was, I would have excelled in literature, academics, sports or other activities. I simply loved reading and leveraged the knowledge and information I gained from it to get what I wanted.  Knowledge is absolute power and nothing can be as priceless as a piece of information that is known and understandable only to a few individual.

Why do I love reading? I don't know. The closest explanation could be because I am an introvert and a bit anti-social to boot. Reading is an activity that effectively shuts off social interaction. Don't get me wrong, I hate being an introvert and anti social tendencies should be discouraged from young people. But it's my nature and sometimes, I can't help it.  Reading a book excuses me from talking to the people nearby. It educates you on human nature without having to interact with humans. Reading makes you understand the general qualities of man/mankind without being distracted by those of individuals close to you. Most of the people close to me are friendly, fair and mild mannered but I know people can be violent, unjust and vicious. Most of the leaders I knew are seemingly friendly and altruistic - but Machiavelli said otherwise and I believed him.

The present is a paradise for all those who love reading. Most of the written works are digitized and finding a book/piece of literature has never been easier and cheaper. Now, you don't have to go to the library or  bookstore to read the book you wanted to read. Everything is in the internet and can be extracted in a text or voice format (ebook or audiobook). Reading (or listening to books being read to you) is just a click away.

This is the reason why I provided my daughter (and those dear to me) with devices which I believe will enhance her capability to read and gather information crucial to her life and her future. Some people simply call these "gadgets" - laptop, iPad, iPod, smartphone. To me these gadgets are today's electronic libraries. If my daughter is not smart enough to realize the REAL uses of these devices and the value of reading, then she has nothing to blame but herself.  I have provided her what I believed to be the most important tools/facility she can have at the most important period of her life. It's not wealth/money - it's information and the ability to access it by READING. A father can only help up to a certain point.

Trad thinking

Nothing draws me faster into an argument than hearing people imposing their trad (traditional) thinking on me.  Trad thinkers are people who expects other people to do things simply because everyone else is (and has been) doing it. Their reason is, you should be like this or do something like this because (in their narrow perception) that's the way things are. No reasoning, no application of logic, not even a cursory investigation if such practice is reasonable or even just.

Here are such examples:
1. Trad think: You should not fold your pants. You (Neil) are the only one in the world doing it and it looks funny. Now, I do fold my pants for the practical reason that a waving part of garment near my feet are likely to be snagged to something and sometimes reach the ground. Pants you bought of the shelf are naturally long because they are designed for the ones with the longer legs - those with shorter legs can just have it trimmed by a tailor.
2. Trad think: You should be driving something a brand new SUV not that old pickup because that's what people in your position are driving. Oh yeah? But I do need a pick-up because I sometimes carry pipes and heavy cargoes. How would you fit a 4" X 3m steel segment inside an SUV or a goat that I carry from my farm? By the way, although my pickup is more than six years old, it is still presentable and in good condition.
3. Trad think: You should get married and have children. And what make's you think that doing so will increase my current level of happiness, I retorted? Well, (trad thinker replied) it is the right thing to do! And why is it the right thing to do, I persisted. And we drifted towards a heated argument about religion and morality where I soundly defeated the trad thinker. What a self-righteous prig!

more trad thinks to follow...

Mt. Kalawitan

25-26Feb2012 - I climbed it. Within this beauty, the sight is worth everything - the hours in the bus and the jeepney, the sweat, the cramps and the throbbing muscle pains! Where shall I start? :)

The trouble with hello

My daughter's visit after more than 2 years.
Arrival: 4am, 11Dec2011 (her 14th birthday)
Departure: 8am,  23Jan2012 (43 days later)
Next visit:  ? years from now

Nat's departure for NZ (23Jan2012)

For those who know me, this picture is worth a thousand words.