first off, im sorry i dont update regularly. nothing much has been going on. i havnt really done anything that i could possibly meditate on and share here. i'll bring you guys up to speed i. lifes been going great. school is definitely challenging, but i guess its manageable if i set my mind to it. im trying to live up and embody all the things i say here. commitments, vision and all. i dont want to go overboard, i just want to strike a balance. i chose this. i chose to go to Ateneo. i dont want to feel like im in over my head. i do want to carry on and someday graduate and bear the name. i love the school and studying theres pretty much a bragging right all in its own.

i guess my lifes pretty much the same. i guess i can say ive really embraced life. im getting to know people but im not really looking into relationships right now. im talking like relationships come easy for me. hahaha. im kidding, but still, im just not really into the possibility right now. i just want to be a real good friend first. i used to hate that "friend" tag and it does have its cons but this is what i want. i have to learn to really be a good friend first. i believe companionship means more than courtship. companionship builds on friendship, i dont think forcing issues and putting your best foot forward amounts to much. i most definitely think girls are better than that. i dont understand it with guys and their courtship "strategies". i know how that line sounded. im a guy through and through, its just i kinda go against the herd here. i cant really speak for the rest of the species. yeah for girls i guess the feelings pretty great to have a guy doting over you, to have his attention focused on you, requisite romantic gestures, flowers, candy, the occasional letters sometimes more grand in scale than others. its nice, yeah, but i guess its not for me. id rather have a really great conversation and really get to know someone over coffee or something. whats intangible is what really counts for me. i dont want to buy someones affection, no matter how things end up, i just want them to be real.

when it comes to this subject i guess my views are indeed pretty different. because im different. in a good [?] way. slightly off-kilter, unconventional, myself. that i guess i could try elaborating on next time.

im currently searching for an inspiration. no, not those cheesy love-related inspirations. i really need someone i can look up to. someone who gets things done. someone who can pretty much do it all. a jack of all trades. someone who keeps thier stuff together. but not too together that theyre boring. 

someone that can inspire me to aspire 

you dont know how much i need you right now.

im currently trying to mend. im starting small. trying to keep things in mind. even the little things make a big difference. keeping my mind on things. trying not to forget things. in some way im trying to gain control of my life. i can see myself doing so much better in alot of things. i could be a better student, a better musician, a better writer, a better gamer, a better friend, a better son, a better person. i settle for mediocrity in so many aspects of my life that mediocrity has become my life.

i dont really go for help books. because i dont really like being dictated on how to live life. but i really could use some help. get me on the right track, anything.

i hope i meet you soon. or maybe ive met you already and i just need to realize it.

procrastination could possibly kill me. i tend to quit the games i play. i lose focus and eventually weasel out of doing things. i'v noticed it. its like a habit. even before, there'll be a time where ill really focus on one thing. like when i was a kid. i wanted to get this scooter for my birthday. it was pretty much all i could think of. all i ever talked about. in the end, i never really got the scooter and right now, it doesnt really matter much to me anymore.

im the perpetual "ningas-kugon" i hope i spelled that right. when i start something, ill be totally eager to do it. but then as it goes along, ill eventually lose interest. things come and go. passing by, letting them slide. i put things off until i eventually forget about them. even this blog, i used to post things here every other day. now entries come once in certain stretches of time. i thought, what good would this be if i was losing the drive, the inspiration? and it feels like it.

im losing the eagerness, the drive, vision, purpose and direction. 3 words i practically preached not too long ago. those days seem so distant now. i have to come to terms with things before i can truly, fully mend. interventions come before rehabilitation. procrastination is the proverbial poison in my blood. no matter how much i supress the effects, it runs through me. i want to reach deep down, drag it out and kill it. a mental detox, if you will.

i feel if i carry on, im going to let people down. i dont want to waste hopes, prayers and the faith that people have in me. i know i can do a whole lot better. i need to appreciate more. find my vigor, a renewed aura. i will always be searching. always.

whats holding me back?

this is my stop-start neurotic behavior at work.

How many sides are there to a person? I think theres two sides. one being who you are. the other being who you want to be. i want to be the latter. but whats holding me back?

its like a superhero complex. more like a spiderman complex. where the two identities are diffrent from one another. like when the mask comes on, peter parkers all brave, heroic...which is the total opposite of his personality.

if only wearing a mask were the solution. hahaha.

there have been so many times in my life where i wish i could have did more. said more, listened more, spent more time. always incomplete. living in discontent. always wanting more. more memories out of those experiences.

times where i didnt really sieze moments. i couldve, but just didnt. now its hanging over my head. like im constantly holding myself back. ive been thinking about this and trying to get around this.

this might take some searching.

i dont want this hanging over my head anymore.

another war. im sure you've heard of the war going on between Israel and Lebanon. more fighting, violence, destruction. all brought about by war. and people now are calling for peace. world peace. at this point, is it even possible?

as long as we have the ability in our free-thinking minds to hate, there will never be peace. as long as theres a tiny speck of hate in ones heart, there will never be peace. in this day and age, there will always be unrest. there will always be a struggle for power. minds corrupted into doing evil deeds. discrimination, profiling, creating a divide. little by little we are undoing ourselves.  

with the world seemingly caving in, what do we have against it?

Hope.

greek myth told of pandora, out of curiousity opened up the box that contained all the worlds evils. so all said evils were free to wreak havoc. but hope was in that box as well. hope is there to give us some comfort in dire times. im not saying that you should buy into the story rather think of what would happen without hope.

hope is what separates the optimists from pessimists. idealists from realists.

i remember this thing i used to hear about us filipinos. filipinos, no matter what tragedies befall us, we still have it in us to smile. its not about making light of the situation, its about hope. we're some of the most hopeful people around. though theres always something going on in the philippines, theres no reason not to smile and hope for better days.

but lets go about this another angle. from a more realist point of view.

if all you have is hope, it'll get you nowhere. we have to put in work to have higher hopes. if you're living pretty good right now, you have to work in order to make it better. in order to have a higher amount of hope in making your life better. we cant just sit around waiting for things to happen. this is the one thing wrong with us filipinos. there are those who have high hopes yet are doing nothing to make these hopes tangible.

stop waiting for miracles to come your way.

the only miracle i know of is in all of us. we have the power to make this miracle work. what im talking about is having hopes and making these hopes real. why is it a miracle? its like alchemy. a hope is the thought of things getting better. think of it as the only salvaged scrap from a tragedy. and alchemy is about turning scrap into gold. the process is work. working towards making things better. realizing hope. then and only then will you have turned the scrap into gold.

be your own alchemist. be your own miracle.

they say the only thing constant is change. yet thats pretty much everyones common knowledge already. when people tell you to "stay the same" or "dont ever change", when you think about it, you'll say "yeah, i wont". little do we know that change will come, it will happen. like it or not.

to stay the same person throughout is to limit oneself. closing the door to possibility, to potential.

routine will get boring. you have to mix it up sometime. like sit in a different place on the bus. have something different for lunch. talk to someone you havnt talked to or havnt gotten to know that well. who knows where these things lead. these things can and will affect you. since life is constant change.

looking back, i wasnt the same person i was before. most probably you arent as well. the infinite amount of possibilities change has is downright scary. we can change our appearances, our beliefs, our outlooks, our interests etc. we could even be the total opposites of what we once were. imagine, we could one day become what we have always hated. isnt that scary?

self, lets concentrate on self. we will meet so many new faces and experience new things over the years that its impossible to not let these things be factors in eventually defining who we are.

isnt it almost always shocking to see an old friend after a long time of not seeing them? like how much theyve changed and all in appearance and traits? why is that? because of memory. we have fragments of time in our minds that remind us of how they were, how things were. you see time and change working here. you see how long you've had that imprint of who said person was and how much theyve changed since then.

i know ive changed over the course of years. in terms of appearance and beliefs. though there are things i'll always have with me, i know im not the same person i was back then. then again, maybe in a few years i might not be the same person i am now. odds are, you'll have changed as much as i've changed. either on opposing ends of the spectrum or maybe even more alike. who knows? we can try resisting, but in the end all we can do is accept it and let it take us where it takes us.

thats life right there. uncertainty in the highest sense.

i heard this line from the priest over at the church in greenbelt. no vacation from vocation. what makes up a vocation?

vocation:

1. any particular occupation, buisness or profession ; calling.
2. a strong impulse or inclination to follow a particular activity or career.
3. a divine call to a religious life.
4. function or station esp. a religious life to which one is called by God.

so we can establish that a vocation is a calling. an impulse. an inclination. in its own right a commitment.

i remember the priest was telling a story of when he was still in the seminary, he was working this job at a department store. his coworkers invited him over to go to some beerhouse. he saw one of his said coworkers taking off his wedding ring before changing.

i remember the priest saying the man was taking a break from being a father if he had kids and a husband to his wife. just by taking off the ring he did all that. but isnt marriage a vocation as well? a calling of two to become one in the eyes of God. so vocation neednt be necessarily a religious calling.

its plain commitment.

commitment to work, to love,to friends, to family, to spouse, to life etc. we should look at everything as a vocation. so we dont forget about our commitments to people. making a promise gives the person who you promise to to trust in you. commitments are longterm promises and vocations lifelong commitments.

after months of on and off reading, i finally finished Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "Love in The Time of Cholera". and i have to say the idea of unrequited love withstanding the test of time sounds really beautiful. really great. imagine, loving someone 50 plus years. not married, not even committed. just love. and how everything was written and described, you could feel the passion by just imagining.

does unrequited love still exist?

i put up a review of the book on my multiply  and i read a comment a friend of mine made about it. and she had a good point. in this day and age, its not humanly possible to love someone with such passion that endures and transcends the test of time and not be loved in return. these are the tales of martyrs. people move on. people move forward. we cant allow ourselves to wallow in the past. take it in as a chance for growth. experience. dont deny it happening. dont kill yourself over it.

but lets talk about love.

sure if you go by the book, theres alot of different kinds of love. physical, erotic, filial etc. take em out of the picture for the moment. love should transcend all things superficial. in the sense of crossing boundaries. disregarding age, race, social status and for some maybe even gender. as cliched or as overused as it may sound, its the connection that matters. it should be strong enough to go forth, to blossom amidst all the shortcomings, obstacles etc. only then i guess can you call love true.

sure we all have our types. our preferences, our ideals. we all seem to be chasing after images of what we desire. what we envision in terms of both looks and personality. dont get me wrong, if its looks, then i like lots of girls. LIKE. same goes in terms of personality. why dont i pursue any of them? its cause i want to find out what i can learn from people. things taught to me both directly and indirectly. things that'll make me look at life in a different way. a person who, in a bad time inspires you to make your life better. not make you go through life under the impression that its getting better when the crap you're in gets deeper and deeper. and the person that when you're lifes going good, they make you inspire to make it better.

its not about what we want. its about what we need.