sopfia, alot, dianne, sam, romel, elaine, nix, gena,
                                        reine, dani, kimi, monique, mich, joyce, shar, migo, lauren, marian,
                                                jope, kira, yahoo, gino, cesca, ed, prince, allan, chris, hub
                                                           My best!  I didn't even feel I was giving.

There are hidden messages in ordinary things which can aid us run the course of our lives.  Here are a few things I gathered:

(on the airplane seat) One need not look far, the answer to his questions is just under his nose.

(on the way to Davao) The sky is beautiful at early dawn.  Don't sleep on the things around you.  There are an infinite number of things you'll miss.

(in Samal Island)  Happiness doesn't come in cheap; every move has a tag. Yet no one must prevent others from experiencing their own brand of joy in the simplest of things.

(prayer session) One needs moments of silence by herself.

(JVP graduation party--80's prom) It's true, hang loose from time to time.

                                       (huling habilin) Share a laugh.

(JVP year-end goodbye) A volunteer needs a rest too.  And a hug.  And a pat on the shoulder.  And a friend.

(at the check-in counter in the airport) Take in only what will help you.

After much thought, I realized...

"Walang Diyos na naaawa. Ang awa ay nasa tao. Sa sarili niya. Walang kamay, walang paa, walang isip, walang katawan ang Diyos.  Ang lahat ng mga mekanismong kakailanganin upang maipamalas ang bagsik ng potensyal ay nasa kamay, paa, isip, at katawan ng tao.  Ano ang implikasyon nito?  Ang pagkilala at pagsuko sa realidad ng kamatayan ng Diyos ay pagtupad sa halaga at pagbibigay-buhay sa taong dati’y nakaabang lamang sa utos ng isang omniscient at omnipotent na Diyos. Ang pagkamatay ng Diyos ay ang pagpapakilalang muli sa tao ng kanyang likas na kapangyarihan na hubugin ang kanyang tadhana."

The radio "guesting" was moved to 4am today.  I didn't bother to get up since I heard me say what I said, the script was written by me, plus my 11 year old mini-component has a built-in record timer in it.   And so I rewound the tape at 8 am and forwarded-skipped most of the taped parts.  I'm no radio talent, I deserve another try.  Jovy, are we gonna have another radio gig?

Since I started the day just reading texts, allow me to quote excerpts from Everything is illuminated.  Jonathan Safron Foer writes,

THE ANIMALS
     The animals are those things that God likes but doesn't love.

OBJECTS THAT EXIST
     Objects that exist are those things that God doesn't even like.

OBJECTS THAT DON'T EXIST
     Objects that don't exist don't exist.  If we were to imagine such a thing as an object that didn't exist, it would be that thing that God hated.  This is the strongest argument against the nonbeliever.  If God didn't exist, he would have to hate himself, and that is obviously nonsense.

I agree.  God exists but we are killing him by keeping him alive, dear friends.  God needs to die so that we may live--the great irony of death and life, the glorious irony of Easter.  We have to let him die and bear the cudgel of our own crosses on our own now.

Two shades paint the essence of the Christian life.

The dark blanket of blacks, reds and violets is the season of lent.  It is a season of self-deprivation christened as self-mortification or cleansing. And truly, it slows down the fast-paced urban life as men and women of all-ages are impelled to quiet themselves in prayer and reflection.  This is when people face the fragility of their own selves peaking at the holy week of Christ's passion and death.  Here, they too die in themselves, left in the vast voidness of human indignity.

The white, on the other hand, is Easter Sunday.  It is the much anticipated end to the 40 days of penance and sacrifice Lent requires.  It is the white that pushes back all the heavy colors to the sides and regains the appropriate space for what is rightfully human's.  It is the celebration of Jesus' radical defiance of the rule of mortality.  It is the exemplary victory of man in the stand-off between love and death.  And if one regular man was able to triumph over the pangs of inescapable death, Easter reminds us that we too can win over our daily deaths if we follow the footsteps of Jesus.

It is in Lent men die and in Easter, born anew--the necessary circle of our being human.  We are an Easter people, propelled by the hope of being able to replicate in our own lives the example of Jesus.

Currently reading: last pages of Everything is Illuminated

meetjopeblack

There's nothing quotable about this paragraph from Chuck Palahniuk's Choke but I'll quote it nonetheless if only to acquit myself from plagiarism.  He says,

"There's an opposite to deja vu.  They call it jamais vu.  It's when you meet the same people or visit place, again and again, but each time is the first.  Everybody is always a stranger.  Nothing is ever familiar."

First movie that comes to mind is 50 First Dates starring Drew Barrimore and Adam Sandler.  I believe everyone has seen that movie and owns the movie soundtrack.  It's like Referendum or Cruisin' CD's; no one does not have any one of them in their CD shelves.  They're so common that they are easily by-passed when one is looking for a CD to play in an old granny's party.

Jamais vu.  More than a psychological state or a mere freaky occurence one catches himself into from time to time, jamais vu must be an existential experience of soaking one's self in a state of perpetual awe and wonder.  It is the Socratic "I know not", the resistance to be trapped by patterns and the "been-there-done-that" complacency.

A relationship will work well under a jamais vu.  No, you don't have to bang your head on the wall to force a dysfunction in short term memory (or long term?) and reenact 50 First Dates!  One must simply resist the urge to always deal in square terms all there is about one's partner or one's self or one's relationship.  There are a lot of things one learns about the beloved daily yet there are still unexpected twists, glitches in the matrix of the partner's, self's or the relationship's dynamics.  How many times has one planned for things to happen, with storyboards and shots wonderfully laid out in the head, but are immediately scrapped when the partner behaves in a totally outlandish way?

It's frustrating to not be in control of the situation, to be in limbo all the time.  But that's what makes love a romance--to not be rigid and formal about the whole love game, to just be dancing, swaying, gyrating without being conscious of the steps, to be on the lookout for new movements without being overly detached and objective.  Romance is to be in to do a jamais vu--to look at the beloved with new eyes, learn and love the beloved's newness.

Plugged into: Summer Girls
Currently reading: Choke

If there's one thing I love most, that would be my old worn and torn Amigo shirt.  It's been with me since I was 12 and I've been wearing it from that time on.  Cathy was appalled to see me wear it three days in a row not knowing that I have three of the same thing.  Yes, you heard me right. I don't know why I have three but I have three and I like it.  I should've gotten more had I known these shirts will last this long and would be this comfortable on the body.  What do I know at 12?

I love this shirt more now because it is frayed and gauzy.  It's no porma shirt; I can't wear it outside the house even if Mugatu initiates a derelicte fashion (see Zoolander).  This shirt is for my bed, my room, my house.  It's the shirt I wear when I'm home.  The shirt signifies my being my self at home--cheap, worn-out, washed-up.

That's home: I can be with my Amigo and be secure and at ease.  I wear my defects and hide nothing from no one.  I am me and I don't have to be tested for my worth and please others for affection.  If only Amigo can be a genuine amigo, life would be easy.  Unfortunately, the world has no use for old flawed unadulterated ugly scrap.  Is there still a place for amigos?

Chuck Palahniuk's Choke is "Fight Club for sex addicts" and true to the spirit of Fight Club, this book works along shallow banalities while touching on contemporary issues such as gender and gen-x ennui.  It saves itself from moralizing as ethical edicts are channeled through the deranged mother of the hero.  No one would dare take her seriously but mind you, she scores high in her lucid moments.  Her words make the reader push the book away and halt in deep pondering.

A sample of analect-like statements from the hero's demented mother.

     "Griping isn't the same as creating something," my mom's voice-over says.  "Rebelling isn't rebuilding.  Ridiculing isn't replacing..."  And the voice fades out...

      ...her voice is back.  "We've taken the world apart," she says, "but we have no idea what to do with the pieces..."  And her voice is gone, again...

     ...the voice comes back: "My generation, all of our making fun of things isn't making the world any better," she says.  "We've spent so much time judging what other people created that we've created very, very little of our own."
     Out of the speaker, her voice says, "I used rebellion as a way to hide out.  We use criticism as a fake participation."
     The voice-over says, "It only looks as if we've accomplished something."
     The voice-over says, "I've never contributed anything worthwhile to the world."

Do you cut the inside out of your pants pockets so you can masturbate?--a question from the sex addict checklist.  I never thought of plowing that extreme and would never plan to.   But this book is not about making one want to try out things or to scorn at senseless perversions around.  Rather it is an invitation to question why one does the things he does and why he does not do the things he is zealously avoiding.

Only right after the questioning is doing (questioning not criticizing!)  By being aware, one can take pride in the things he does (and will yet have to do) no matter how disdainful they may be to others.  This confident trust in the self is the start of smart and wise choices necessary for effecting change in the world.   Without the conscious choice, acts are ejaculating fertile juice on barren ground--just self-stimulation, worthy of being hidden under the covers of holed pants.

Plugged into: Natural Anthem by The Postal Service

"Walang kinikilingan, serbisyong totoo lamang"--GMA network's News and Current Affairs tagline.  In news reporting and covering of events, news programs should be bias-free.  As much as possible no emotion should be displayed in the delivery of reports, no comments on the side, no giveaway demonstration of preferences.  That's news.  They're just a presentation of facts as they happened when they happened (where they happened is a bonus!).  But of course, this is not an absolute statement.  Persons give the reports and the reports cannot be separated from the judgments and preferences of the persons covering and delivering them. However, a straight-forward objective account of the story should still be in order.

Have you seen GMA News and Current Affairs' TV spot?  In it are splices of testimonies from the minority slash opposition slash marginalized people  (Erap, Susan Roces, even the president herself who marginalizes herself in a ridiculous way by holding on to power? but that's another story!) saying that GMA's giving an even-handed coverage of their story.  That GMA is truly "walang kinikilingan."  That GMA does not blur facts or lead people on.  They even have ABS-CBN's Maria Ressa, their arch-nemesis' head honcho for News and Current Affairs, declaring that GMA's coverage of the ULTRA tragedy fair. With more quotes from commentators affirming GMA's impartial treatment of the tragedy bolstering their claim that they truly are for service even transcending network rivalry boundaries.

Wait.  Pause.  Let's rewind that part. 

If it were truly for the so-called "Serbisyong Totoo," what is the spot for?  If the ULTRA-tragedy-sympathetic-"let's forgo of ratings and network wars first"-coverage really real, why include it in a plug whose purpose is to accentuate their noteworthy dedication to straightforward unbiased truth-telling?  Why use the ULTRA tragedy coverage as basis for their commitment to truth and service?  By using it, it stomps down the rival network by harping on the latter's folly for a spin to win more respect and confidence rom the viewing public!  We then begin to wonder what the ULTRA tragedy coverage really was for?  What is their siding with the minority really about?  What is the real score behind "Serbisyong Totoo"?  What is the real motive for such acts of so-called "true service"?

Ah, might it not be that the plug is really only [I rephrase the sentence above] to win more respect and confidence (slash ratings) from the viewing public using their acts of "service"?  This in Filipino is what you call, "ginigisa sa sariling mantika."  "Service" now becomes a vehicle for  entertainment, to draw up the ratings.  This is news making its own news!  This is the story-making body making story about itself.  A sham. What a shame!

News reporting however objective can never purely be bias-free.  Worse, because it too is operating along the rules of the ratings game, news reporting will not just be a race for who gets the inside scoop first or the exclusive to this and that or the best and most comprehensive depiction of reality, News and Current affairs shows are no different from reality TV shows whose only objective is NUMBERS! (ratings, that is) by banking (pun intended) on the true experiences of the real people under the guise of "serbisyo" qualified by a hypocritical use of "totoo."  News and Current Affairs becomes not a repository of facts, figures, and information anymore but a farcical narrative of real events concocted to suit the mass's taste with a tinge of light or heavy drama (depending on the projected story), action, and comedy narrated by actors whose facade is that of an angelic social worker.

What then is news?  What is the truth?  What is service?  What is "Serbisyong Totoo"?  News covering and reporting is not for service, it is the media's task, for crying out loud!  We don't owe anything to GMA  or to any news group for that matter; it is their professed responsibility to (and for) the nation!  "Service" it isn't called.  It is a responsibility which seeks no adulation.