When I was younger, my counselor told me that I have the makings of a prophet.  I was complaining back then why people couldn't understand me when I'm trying to make a point about stuff we should or shouldn't do.  He said a prophet isn't always understood.  He said a prophet speaks truths which may not be in sync with the popular rationality and because of this, he is doomed to be unpopular.  He asked me if i was ready to be unpopular.

I got scared and chose the more pleasant path.  From then on, I gradually layed low culminating in a life-changing clash I had with my supervisor during my JVP year.   I opted to be on the sidelines if not the backstage.  I learned to pick my fights and to carefully discern where to direct my energies to.   I learned to rein my passions, to compromise and grow old.  I grew old.  I lost my leon drive for great things.  I shortcircuited my youthful idealism because I thought that was the right thing to do--be quiet and non-combative so as to retain the status quo and therefore, have a peaceful coexistence with others.

I successfully lulled the bear in me to hibernate until it was reawakened by an experience of unjust labor traditions.  I wasn't granted my job permanency after five years of meritorious sevice.  I was told to kiss ass first and play politics until I'm officially eligible to do my own thing.  The bear was unnaturally tamed until people took me for granted and treated me as an old joke.  Until I saw in my fiancée the unwavering drive to excel and the will to assert what's right which I once had.

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We had our 1st departmental meeting today.  It didn't go well for me as the plans my team so painstakingly prepared were shot down in a manner so similar to a thesis defense or a police interrogation.  It was not so much the concrete plans being slaughtered one by one that piqued me; it was the kind of questioning and the passing on of subjective perceptions as true which upset me.

When everything's so clear and real in my mind, and all plans are slowly gaining momentum, my balloons burst because others won't just believe that it can happen.  That we're just right on time.  That we can deliver.  That we are working hard for the event and will work even harder in the coming days.  For crying out loud, it's only the start of August; the event is still in January!

Why settle for the "more meaningful, more intimate, more quiet" when you can have the "most" in one big bang?  We are destined for bigger things.

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We are so good at shooting things down but we don't know how to replace it with something we deem better.  We are so good in trashing and purging things but we don't know how to build, create, and cherish.  We've criticized just about everyone's business, but have we done something worth anyone's attention?

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I still believe we are called to greatness because greatness is already being clearly spelled out by the armory of resources we have in our midst.  I will embark on this task even if I'm all by myself.  I will bring the images of your skepticism with me and promise to replace it with awe and wonder when the time comes.  I will never again submit to the wasteland of popular unbelief.  If you're not with me, I'm going alone.  This is my call--to be popularly unpopular.

And unlike before, I won't be afraid.  If I do, it's no different from me dying.

Kung minsan ang pangarap
Habambuhay itong hinahanap
Bakit nga ba nakapagtataka
'Pag ito ay nakamtan mo na
Bakit may kulang pa

Mga bituin aking narating
Ngunit langit ko pa rin ang iyong piling
Kapag tayong dalawa'y naging isa
Kahit na ilang laksang bituin
'Di kayang pantayan ating ningning 

Balutin mo ako ng hiwaga ng iyong pagmamahal
Hayaang matakpan ang kinang na 'di magtatagal
Mabuti pa kaya'y maging bituing walang ningning
Kung kapalit nito'y walang paglaho mong pagtingin 

Itago mo ako sa lilim ng iyong pagmamahal
Limutin ang mapaglarong kinang ng tagumpay
Sa piling mo ngayon ako'y bituing walang ningning
Nagkukubli sa liwanag ng ating pag-ibig

Nagkukubli sa liwanag at kislap ng ating pag-ibig

Will give up everything to keep you.  I love you, like it's the first time I'm saying it.

 (excerpts from the movie)

I think we should go to Chow Funs.

I thought we agreed we couldn't really talk at Chow Funs?

I know.

Are you saying Chow Funs because you can't face telling the kids? Because if that's why you're saying Chow Funs, don't say Chow Funs.

That's not why I'm saying Chow Funs. I'm saying Chow Funs because we are an "us." There's a history here, and histories don't happen overnight.  You know, In Mesopotamia or Ancient Troy, or somewhere back there, there are cities built on top of other cities, but I don't want to build another city, I like this city. I know where we keep the Bartine and what kind of mood you're in when you wake up by which eyebrow is higher.  And you always know that I'm a little quiet in the morning and compensate accordingly.  That's a dance you perfect over time.  And it's hard.  It's much harder than I thought it would be.  But there's more good than bad and you don't just give up! And it's not for the sake of the children.  But, oh God, they're great kids, aren't they? I mean, God, we made them.  Think about that! It's like there were no people there and then there were people.  And then they grew, and--I won't be able to say to some stranger, "Josh has your hands," or "Remember how Erin threw up at the Lincoln Memorial?"  And I'll try to relax.  Let's face it.   Anybody's gonna have traits that get on your nerves.  I mean, why shouldn't it be your annoying traits?  I know I'm no day at the beach, but I do have a good sense of direction so I can at least find the beach, which is not a criticism of yours, it's a strength of mine.  God, you're a good friend and good friends are hard to find. Charlotte said that in Charlotte's Web and I love how you read that to Erin and you take on the voice of Wilber the Pig with such commitment even when you're bone tired! That speaks volumes about character! And ultimately, isn't that what it comes down to, what a person is made of? Because that girl in the pin helmet is still here.  Bee boo, Bee boo. I didn't even know she existed until I met you and I'm afraid if you leave I may never see her again, even though I said at times you beat her out of me, isn't that the paradox? Haven't we hit the essential paradox? Give and take, push and pull, yin and yang, the best of times, the worst of times!  I think Dickens said it best--the Jack Sprat of it-- 'he could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean,' but, that doesn't really apply here does it?  What I'm trying to say is, I'm saying Chow Funs because... I love you.

I love you too.

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Isn't this the moment where one of us is supposed to say: Look, this is ridiculous, we love each other, all couples go through this, let's give it another try?

The exercise brings me back to my center whenever I feel lost and confused.  I suggest you do it before making a huge decision especially in times of desolation.  It does help.

Thanks to my spiritual director, Eva Galvey and the Emmaus Center for this guide.

Because it was the kind of party I wanted to have in my house, I got so excited and forgot to take pictures last night.  Here are the few I got.

(Sorry to Nanay Nette, Tatay Siso, Marie and Joey, I wasn't able to get a souvenir photo of you.)

Thanks to all who came and celebrated with me my last year as a bachelor.  The party was so much fun, are we doing a repeat anytime soon?

Thanks to Cathy for planning this with me and helping me entertain the guests even if she wasn't feeling very well that night.

Thanks to Ate Belen, my nanny, for washing the dishes and frying lambchops the whole night.

Of course, how can I forget my mom and dad who did all the shopping, preparing, cooking, and cleaning before and after the party.

Pictures of the aftermath.

So are we doing this again next week?

meetjopeblack

My car's a 1982 box-type Mitsubishi Lancer. It has a few scratches here and there but it has working parts.  Well okay, the right side windows can't be opened and the locks are difficult to wind.  The windshield too is rusted that when it rains hard, water drips at the center just above the rear view mirror.  My car stereo has only one speaker working and its buttons need a thumping to scan channels.  When you strip it off paint, perhaps the hidden signs of depreciation (or decomposition even) will be seen.  Blackie's old and needs retiring yet, it continues to serve me well.  I can even race new cars with it.  It can still hit 110 kph at the freeway without too much drag.  That's probably why I find it sentimentally hard to sell it.  I've spent a fortune maintaining it and blood and sweat and sleepless nights thinking of where to get the money for repairs.  It is also a witness to many memories.  Memories of romance and fights, and wild and lonely nights are etched in its interiors.  No car can replace what secrets I shared with Blackie.

I consider Blackie as my extension.  It is my alter-ego, the incarnation of my flamboyance and my insecurities combined.  So while I drive Blackie with so much attitude in the busy streets of the metropolis, I'm not too comfortable having people hitch a ride with me because Blackie's not your trophy car.  But I resent anyone not respecting my car.  I take offense when annoying flyers are not clipped on my windshield while the other cars beside me rake in all the brochures for condo units, phone numbers for delivery service, and other low-cost ads from small-time entrepreneurs.

It was a slap on the face when while waiting in traffic, the usual streetboys who kill me with their version of pathos to beg for alms day after day after day, strategically avoided my car and picked on newer ones for their drama.  It was infuriating to see those boys act hungry and spaced-out everyday but more infuriating to see them now with a plan which seem to have been hewn from a thorough study of their "market."

I was discriminated against by these two boys because my car didn't look as if it will or can give money.  I was waiting for them to go back after they passed me over so I can give them a knock on the window and a forceful nay, but they didn't.  I would give them no coin anyway but don't they have a small amount of courtesy to acknowledge Blackie's presence?

I don't give them alms because of a principle--that is, to not reinforce the emotional leeching they're doing to hapless softhearted pinoys.  What's their reason for ignoring Blackie other than business and effective marketing?  I am right then; they have turned this into a career.  They've found a science even in begging, and poor Blackie's not one of their prospect clients.

Blackie's got a face too, you know.

meetjopeblack

My students ask me why God created an imperfect being in us.  They say if God is perfect, that is all-powerful and good, why did he design a substandard creature like man?  To make an imperfect creature puts the perfection of God in question.  This god doesn't seem like the almighty and good god that we know.

For one, everything we can know of God is highly speculative.  God is too much of a god that his nature is unbearably unfathomable to us finite creatures.  However, this does not mean that we cannot talk about the god-ness of God.  We can in so far as logic can permit us:

1. God cannot create another god equally powerful and whole because that would be a contradiction within himself which is not coherent with his god-ness.
2. God₁ and god₂ need to have something not found in the other to assert their individuality otherwise, they'll be just one and the same and hence, a replication of the self will not be necessary.
3. There cannot be anything in God₂ that God cannot have.  God is so full; there is no nothing in him.  There is only one God.
4. The limits of the god-ness of God does not make him less of a God.  Rather, his limits are limitless and his limitlessness is limited to goodness.  That makes him a god.
5. As to the question, "Does God have a bias?"  I submit two answers, yes and no.  If by bias we mean, God is bound to the good, then he is biased.  But if by bias we mean, he favors a certain set of beliefs, that would be a resounding no.  God in his being personal also remains to be a distant God.  He cannot uncontrollably fancy only a particular; he will not be god that way.
6. Man has a beginning and an end.  He is finite.  God has none of the two; he is infinite.

With the aforementioned reflections on God, we assume two things:  God is a person and we relate to him .  This assumption cannot be ascertained without faith at hand.  Reason gives us logical explanations of a certainty on God even in the face of dubious precepts on the essence of God and illogical dead-ends in the quest for a deeper understanding of God.  Ultimately, God is an article of faith and all our knowledge of him is always only on the level of "might-not-be's":  God resists containment in human categories; he makes himself known through revelation but always as a metaphor.  God is perfect and man by virtue of being created will automatically be imperfect.  Yet, imperfect he may be, God still saw that he (man and woman) is very good.

We are imperfectly perfect and perfectly imperfect.  Our design gave us the chance to be what we have been since the creation of man and to actualize what we ought to be--that is, to be perfect like God.  Our perfection lies in the paradox of the reality of our deep-rooted imperfection.  We are made perfect by our imperfections.  To be perfect is to be God; to be perfectly imperfect is our gift; to be imperfectly perfect is our call.

meetjopeblack

Do I really need to footnote every thought I speak?  --every idea I borrowed from somebody else?  But that would be tantamount to not speaking as I'd be busy superscripting every word I'd say.  And that would mean not footnoting because I won't speak anymore anyway.

What is original?  I am conjoined spiritually with humanity and its history.   Everything that will come out of me are dust particles of the earlier "source."  I may not know I'm speaking in Plato's tongues or Augustine's or St. Thomas' and they in their brilliance may have unwittingly borrowed too from their unrecognized and unpublished mothers or friends or neighbors.  The point is, we are but a footnote to somebody else and that makes us unoriginal somehow some way.

There's no infinite number of words and combinations thereof.  Every utterance will so soon become just a repetition of what has already been said.  Yet while utterances converge in inevitable similarities they, for some cosmic power, remain to be distinct.  They will always be delivered by someone from a different milieu with a different context answering a novel question.  Words, phrases, statements acquire new meaning each time they are pronounced by old people in new nuances.  True that there's  nothing we say which haven't been said before, yet to be unoriginal doesn't mean one did not give considerable effort in processing one's experience and articulating his convoluted thoughts out.  To be original does not prevent us from borrowing.  We cannot help but borrow or steal even.  That's the only way to keep the thought or memory from being lost to the blanket of the world's forgetfulness.  The goal of communication is to sustain one moment already lost in the passage of time and footnotes are there to retrieve what has been indexed in the graveyard of library shelves.

You see, it is in the library where the most noise happens.  Peoples and worlds are immortalized in books and their thoughts are sustained in their pages.  Alone, they mumble incomprehensible words as they are cramped together in shelves; together they create a deafening blare no one can hear in the marketplace such as the library.  It is only the librarian who is aware of the dead authors' clamors because she is wedded to them in spirit.  She insists on silence so that one can hopefully notice the chorus of defiant men and women in books, resisting the summon of nothingness.

To footnote is more than just intellectual honesty; it is keeping afloat what has already sunk in the abyss of our consciousness.  Footnoting is an affirmation of the oneness of humanity in their quest for answers to age-old questions recurring perpetually in new guises.

I failed to get us tickets to the concert.  I'll regret this til the end of my life.  Shame on me for missing  Kamikazee, Spongecola, Sugarfree AND adding salt to injury, Drip(!) do covers of APO classics!  Darn.  Now, I have to make do with the CD.  I downloaded some but I want the real thing, the limited edition!  Does anyone know when it's coming out?  Jim Paredes said it'd be released this week.  Any exact dates?

Support original pinoy music! OPM rocks!

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Read the article on the concert in INQ7.net: http://services.inq7.net/print/print.php?article_id=16024

meetjopeblack

I googled (alas, I gave in to the temptation!) my fiancée's name one restive night and found an entry from a certain girl of the same name about love.  It says, 

"Being in love is a wonderful feeling, but being loved and appreciated in return can be the most wonderful experience that can happen to your life."

I asked her about it and embarrassedly, she sunk down her shirt for posting a trite entry sometime in her youth.  "I was a sixth grader then," was her excuse.  I can't stop laughing.  She was so cute firing blanks to buck off the shame.

There are things we say that remain afloat until archives have been cleaned or the receivers suffer a memory loss.  I have had enumerable jests that I wish I could take back because although I meant what I said, they are just inappropriate.  Like ranting to an unknown about work-related gripes or professional disagreements in opinion or personal grudges.  I, tactless that I am, have been very candid about my thoughts and feelings about everything and anything to anyone and everyone.  I should be more wise and prudent and ethical in pronouncing my opinions.

I won't go into details anymore--can we just be quiet about what I said?  Can I trust that we keep those things to ourselves?

Like my fiancée, I may have posted/opined on things too much too soon, I don't know how to delete them from the cyberspace and the public consciousness.  Our only difference is that what she posted is harmless while my comments are unkind and spiteful.  Even if they were all true and even if I feel so strongly about them and even if I am ready to fight eye for an eye for the things I said, they will do no good to anyone.  They shouldn't have been said.

Truth hurts and there's a time to bring it out to the fore.  Time is not yet ripe for my truth.  My truth will have to wait.   But since I've said what I said, how can I take it back and undo the damages done?  Unfortunately, there's no way to do that and I'll be damned until everyone forgets.  I'm sorry.

Plugged into: Time After Time by Dilana