Hickory-dickory-dock…

… the mouse ran up the clock
the clock struck one
the mouse ran down
hickory-dickory-dock!

Nah! Today’s rant has nothing to do with mice running up clocks… but, it is related, in one way or another, to clocks. Well, time, exactly.

You see, at the top of my pet-peeves list is the word AROUND when used in the context of time and schedules.

I’ll be there AROUND eight. What exactly did she mean by that? That she’ll arrive at eight, before eight, a little over eight, or waaaaaaaaaay past eight? More often than not, she meant the last one. I cannot fault her. We are so used with this system of ‘approximation’ that we actually feel a one-hour window is acceptable, since technically 8:59 is still within the realm of ‘around eight’.

Well, I’m sorry to burst your bubbles folks. This system is sooooooo foolish and inconsiderate. But since most everyone I know do this, it becomes — to a certain degree — ‘acceptable’ and not much of a big deal. Nah-ah! Not me! Never. I would always stick to my guns that if you give the time, you keep the time. If you’re meeting someone at eight, be there at eight! No ifs, no buts.

Ok, ok! I’ll allow some leeway… but at least we should be specific with the time when we set a schedule. We need to do away with the ‘estimates’ and simply offer an exact time, which both parties can agree on. Yes, we are not trains with calculated trajectories that can always arrive exactly on time (well, even trains arrive late) but we can always TRY and be early. If you estimate that you could make it by eight, allow some buffer and commit to an 8:30 schedule.

And then there’s traffic. IKR!

But traffic is already a universal constant in Metro Manila and its environs that it becomes a lame excuse for being late. One should ALWAYS factor in the traffic situation when scheduling. Saying you are late because of heavy traffic is as lame as saying that our lame excuse for a president has another lame excuse for his poor performance — you know, like blaming his predecessor for the social ills besetting this country. It’s lame AND ridiculous.

Gets?

Oh, before I forget, there’s another word (or phrase) that strikes a nerve: in a while. Next time someone tells you she’ll be there in a while, don’t hold your breath. Make sure you’re seated comfortably at the far end of the coffee shop with a good book on hand.

Enjoy your coffee!

Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice*

I was called out in the dark
By a choir of beautiful cheats
And as the kids took back the parks
You and I were left with the streets.

Show me now, show me the arms aloft
Every eye trained on a different star
This magic
This drunken semaphore
And I.

We are listening
And we’re not blind
This is your life
This is your time!

* If you seek his monument, look around…

It took 35 long years of hard toil before the magnificent St. Paul’s Cathedral in London was completed. When Sir Christopher Wren — the cathedral’s architect — died twelve years later in 1723, he was entombed inside, under a simple slab of black marble.

Wren’s son placed a dedication nearby, which contains the words: Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice. It means: Reader, if you seek a monument, look around you.

The phrase is generally used to describe a person’s legacy –- and can be taken to mean that what we leave behind, including intangible things like our childhood, which best represents our life.

Leia Ysabelle

I hope you will remember that I had caressed your face tonight. I hope you will remember that I touched your rosy cheeks lightly with my lips. I hope you will remember that I had softly kissed each of your eye as I went about the task to commit to memory the geography of you.

You are so beautiful, anak.

Memories are made, so I can keep you with me forever.

… put no trust in the morrow

What does ‘carpe diem’ mean? Simply, it exhorts one to enjoy the pleasures of the moment without concern for the future — literally to ‘pluck the day’.

During the 1st century BC, the Roman poet Horace wrote, “Seize the day; put no trust in the morrow.”

When we follow our dreams, we enable our selves to live with passion every day. We are at our happiest and most fulfilled when we are truly present in day to day undertakings, no matter how tedious the tasks may be. When we show heartfelt gratitude for the things we have in our lives, we see the subtleties life presents us and transcend beyond the mundane societal pressure forced upon us all.

The notion of living for the moment crops up over centuries of poetry, including in the writings of Shakespeare, Milton and Byron.

Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress,” written in the 1600s, has been called the ‘carpe diem’ poem.

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv’d virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am’rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp’d power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

– To His Coy Mistress, Andrew Marvell

We read here that the narrator urges his love to submit to his embraces before “worms shall try / That long-preserved virginity.”

Every day, indeed, has a purpose.

Live with a dream. Live with adventure in our heart. Live knowing that our enemies cannot stab us in the back if we have our arms stretched out wide in an embrace. “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

Dance, sing, explore, learn, love… hard and well.

‘Hanggang kelan ka busy?’

I have been the recipient of this question, as well as the ‘interrogator’, many times — ‘Until when will you be busy?’**

I know that being busy all the time, because it is necessary, is every man’s bane… I read from somewhere that: Work expands to fit available time. I believe it.

… but being busy all the time for the sake of it? THAT is madness.

Being continually busy, I am convinced, will eventually lead to stress, especially when your efforts produce minimal or no results. You see, it will get to a point where something has to give way. It’s like filling a balloon with too much air. Eventually no more air will fit inside it and the balloon will do the only thing left for it to do — it will burst. I must concede, though, that there are cases where it is advisable to have busy periods within the day, week, month or year. Does ‘an idle mind is the devil’s workshop’ ring a bell?

So, what am I driving at? You see, people who are continuously busy over long periods are those that have difficulty saying ‘NO’ to anyone. As what I always say, no matter how good your intentions are, you cannot be everything to everyone… and no matter how hard you try, you cannot save the entire world. Even superheroes have to team up to tackle larger problems. Avengers alert!

You should learn to say no in a nice way. Make a list of those who need and deserve your time. They are the one’s you should give priority to. Anyone else comes next — if you have the time to spare.

Try saying instead: If I get all my own work done, I will consider your request. What does that really say? It says your work is important. If you get it done you will help. Naturally, if you cannot get it done you cannot help. It’s a soft way of saying no. Usually the one asking will get the idea and go find another person to ask.

By saying no you actually help other people to grow. Imagine if you always said yes to tying up your daughter’s shoe laces. If you never said no she would still be asking you to do it for her when she’s 25. By saying no you make her learn to do it for herself. Remember the old saying about giving a hungry person a fish to eat versus teaching the hungry person how to catch their own fish to eat?

By saying no we can free up more time for ourselves and those who need or deserve our time the most. Do not become a slave. Learning to say no will allow you to perform the tasks you really want to do and really need to do yourself at a much higher level of proficiency.

In his book ‘All You Can Do is All You Can Do But All You Can Do is Enough!’ , Al Williams exhorts you to not worry about things you can’t change, instead, focus on making your part of the world better, because when they click your lights out for the last time, you can’t have any regrets.

Simple. Give yourself a break! You also need time to relax. Time to recharge the batteries. Again, you cannot save the whole world. Don’t waste your energy giving it the old college try.

We’ll end up numb from playing video games
and we’ll get sick of having sex.
And we’ll get fat from eating candy
as we drink ourselves to death.
We’ll stay up late
making mix tapes, photoshopping pictures of ourselves
while we masturbate to these pixelated videos
of strangers fucking themselves.

We are very busy people,
We are very busy people.

There’s crusty socks
and stacks of pizza boxes
making trails straight to the bed.
And when we’re done sleeping
we’ll stay busy dreaming of the things
we don’t have yet.
Well there’s a long, long list of chores
and shit to do before we play,
oh let’s just piss away the day.(piss away the day)
Crank call the cops down at the station,
just for friendly conversation,
requesting songs they never play;
Let’s hear the one that goes like:

We are very busy people,
We are very busy people;
But we’ve always got time for new friends.

So come on over and knock on our door,
it’s open whatchu waitin’ for?
We might be sprawled out on the floor,
but we still make lovely company.
Pull up a chair, I’ll pour some tea,
We’ll shoot the shit, ’bout everything,
till you get sick of politics,
and flip on the TV screen,
we stare at the TV screen.
That Donnie Darko DVD has been repeating for a week,
and we know every single word.
(Every single word).
I’ve got an iPod like a pirate ship,
I’ll sail the seas
with fifty thousand songs I’ve never heard-
And all the best of them go
Fa la la la la la…
Fa la la la la la…

We are very busy people,
We are very busy people;
But we’ve always got time for new friends.
Yeah.
Fa la la la la la…
Fa la la la la la…

– The Limousines, Very Busy People

** – How much time should we be spending together? Well, every couple is different, each with different needs. What works for some may not work for us.

Tormented life

I was diagnosed with PVC or premature ventricular contraction — in layman’s term: heart palpitations. The doctor said it’s nothing to worry about, but still, I went into a swivet and morbid images begin to haunt me. I would suddenly wake up at night “feeling” chest pains or some other discomfort. Occasionally, while walking to or from the office, I’d “feel” an onset of a headache or shortness of breath.  I am hovering the liminal space between hale and infirm. Or, am I just imagining these frailties? Am I becoming a hypochondriac?

With these questions continually badgering my consciousness, I revisited Bob Dillon’s The Hypochondriacs: Nine Tormented Lives. The book documents James Boswell’s English Malady, Charlotte Brontë as a Little Nervous Subject, Charles Darwin’s Expression of Emotion, Florence Nightingale and the Privilege of Discontent, the Exaltation of Alice James, the Delusions of Daniel Paul Schreber, Marcel Proust and his Common Sense, the Not-of-the-World Glenn Gould, and Andy Warhol’s Magic Disease.  Each famous personality looked at their “disease” differently — according or against contemporary thinking.

Most of us may probably be familiar with Brontë who wrote Jane Eyre; Darwin; Florence Nightingale; Alice James, famous for her diary on English life and manners in the 1800s; Marcel Proust, notable for his In Search of Lost Time (Remembrance of Things Past); and, of course, the eccentric Andy Warhol. I had to Google Boswell and Schreber to find out that the former is attributed as the “reinventor” of the biography genre, while the latter’s claim to popularity (or notoriety) was having his memoir on his mental illness analyzed by Sigmund Freud. Gould, meanwhile, was a classical pianist and conductor.

Anyway…

In his introductory chapter, A History of Hypochondria, Dillon wrote:

“You were well one minute ago, and this minute you are unwell. Your symptoms came on, and with them your fear, in a stray moment of solitude. Perhaps you and your body were alone in the bathroom, with leisure to examine your naked flesh, time enough for your fingers to find a lump where no lump should be, for the unsteamed mirror to reveal a rash or for your hand to pause as you reached for the soap, an obscure twinge dragging at your innards. Or perhaps it happened at night, while you were alone, or as your lover slumbered: on the verge of sleep a sudden sensation as of something shifting inside, a low waking in the dark as a dull ache intruded on your dreams, or towards dawn a more diffuse feeling that mortality was near.”

Many of us know someone we can describe as a hypochondriac — a relative or friend who is obsessed with confusing, and sometimes varying, symptoms. Or someone who hears about a new disease and instantly fears that they already have it. In today’s popular culture, the term “hypochondriac” is oftentimes uncomplimentary, and a “health-o-maniac” is commonly an object of derision. This condition, at times, is confused in media depictions with malingering or conscious “faking.”

Hypochondria, at one time, was considered the male version of “female hysteria”, a once-common medical diagnosis, made exclusively in women, which is today no longer recognized by modern medical authorities as a medical disorder. Its diagnosis and treatment were routine for many hundreds of years in Western Europe. Hysteria was widely discussed in the medical literature of the Victorian era. Women considered to be suffering from it exhibited a wide array of symptoms including faintness, nervousness, insomnia, fluid retention, heaviness in abdomen, muscle spasm, shortness of breath, irritability, loss of appetite for food or sex, and “a tendency to cause trouble”. (Wikipedia)

Hypochondria, however, is not always thought of as a psychological problem. The ancient Greek word hypochondrium refers to an area of the abdomen below the chest cavity. Abdominal problems, and sometimes ulcers, were once believed to be part of the “hypochondriac syndrome.” As medical science progressed, tangible causes of such maladies were soon diagnosed; and physical complaints with no clear cause were soon labeled “hypochondriasis.”

Most medically recognized mental and physical ailments have likewise, at one time, been labeled hypochondria. What was considered hypochondria in Schreber might be diagnosed now as Cotard’s syndrome, or schizophrenia. The “complaints” Warhol had may today be called body dysmorphic disorder, a fascination with imagined flaws in one’s appearance.

However, Dillon’s The Hypochondriacs: Nine Tormented Lives, although analytical, does not support a particular approach to the disease or its treatment.

The ‘bone’ of contention

I have been meditating a lot lately.

I feel better, actually — at ease at the moment, with a few new emotions and thoughts spurring out along the way. Meg and Dia Frampton, and at times Noah and the Whale, are my constant companions in my soliloquies. I have quite a lot of time to get to know my persona more and why I am the way I am toward myself and everything around me.

Grounded for the week — by design and not by default — I was in one of those dreamy states when my attention was caught by this playful tune:

Deborah was a Catholic girl,
she held out to the bitter end.
Carla was a different type,
she’s the one who put it in.
Mary was a black girl,
and I was afraid of a girl like that.
Susan painted pictures sitting down
like the Buddha sat.

Reno was a nameless girl
a geographic memory.
Cathy was a Jesus-freak,
she liked that kind of misery.
Vicky had this special way
of turning sex into a song.
Kamala who couldn’t sing,
kept the beat and kept it strong.

Xylla was an archetype,
the Voodoo Queen, the Queen of Wrath.
Joan thought men were second best
to masturbating in the bath.
Sherri was a feminist,
she really had that gift of gab.
Kathleen’s point of view was this:
take whatever you can grab.

Seattle was another girl
who left her mark upon the map.
Karen liked to tie me up,
and left me hanging by a strap.
Jeannie had this nightclub walk
that made grown men feel underage.
Mary Ellen who had a son
said “I must go,” but finally stayed.

Gloria the last taboo
was shattered by her tongue one night.
Mimi brought the taboo back
and held it up before the light.
Marilyn who knew no shame,
was never ever satisfied.
Julie came and went so fast,
she didn’t even say good-bye.

Well Rhonda had a house in Venice,
lived on brown rice and cocaine.
Patty had a house in Houston,
shot cough syrup in her veins.
Linda thought her life was empty,
filled it up with alcohol.
Katherine was much too pretty,
she didn’t do that shit at all.

Uh-uh. Not Katherine.

Pauline thought that love was simple,
turn it on and turn it off.
Jean-Marie was complicated,
like some French film maker’s plot.
Gina was the perfect lady,
always kept her stockings straight.
Jackie was a rich punk-rocker,
silver spoon and a paper plate.

Sarah was a modern dancer,
lean pristine transparency.
Janet wrote bad poetry
in a crazy kind of urgency.
Tanya Turkish liked to fuck
while wearing leather biker boots.
Brenda’s strange obsession
was for certain vegetables and fruit.

Roweena was an artist’s daughter,
the deeper image shook her up.
Dee-dee’s mother left her father,
took his money and his truck.
Debbie-Rae had no such problems,
perfect Norman Rockwell home.
Nina sixteen had a baby,
left her parents lived alone.
Bobbie joined a new-wave band,
and changed her name to Bobbie-sox.
Eloise who played guitar,
sang songs about boys and cocks.
Terri didn’t give a shit,
was just a nihilist.
Ronnie was much more my style,
she wrote songs just like this.
Jezebel went forty days
drinking nothing but Perrier.
Dinah drove her Chevrolet
into the San Francisco bay.
Judy came from Ohio,
she’s a Scientologist.
Amiranta here’s a kiss,
I chose you to end this list.

Listening in rapt silence to every line of 88 Lines About 44 Women by The Nails, I can’t resist the temptation to reflect on my own philandering ways. While in the song the ‘Bohemian lover’ has already found someone to ‘end his list’, here I am still wishing that I have already found mine.

You see, as a man, I toil to accept the fact that men and women are equally sexual, and that monogamy is the logical and sensible state of existence.

Most times, however, I find myself uber phallic-centered, and realize that men crave, consider, cajole and hunt sex. The funny thing is that many women love it. Men, given the proverbial chance, would do everything in his power to be the sheik of his very own harem, equipped with virginal grape feeders and a full-time oral sex goddess at his disposal. Women want their soul mate.

This, I accept is a bone (pardon the pun) of contention between many sex — Ok, Ok! — RELATIONSHIP scholars. A debate amongst bar hoppers and an issue popularized in such shows as Sex and the City.

Of the women I know, a nice ass is a very special asset for a guy. But let’s face it, 99 out of 100 women will mention beautiful eyes and a cute smile in their description of men. Most men won’t. Show me a man who will say, “She had such a delightful tilt to her neck” and “I was so seduced by the one-sided smile she makes”, like that very adorable star in Transformers. In truth, I would say that — but I’m the 1 of the 100. I have a mother, a stepmother, step sisters and a daughter. I am a feminist, at times, effeminate.

Most men however, will just not describe women that way. They check out to see if she has a nice jumpable booty, and breasts that they can suck on from now until the cows come in, and a ‘cat’ that tastes like a lush fruit plucked directly from its source.

We are indeed from different planets, perhaps cosmos. Men are from suck-my-big-dipper-bitch planet and women are from yes-massage-me-right-there-yahoo-right-there.

However, there exists a blip of a minority of women in our society who would leap into the bed of every man who sexually intrigued them. I know this as a fact, as I have chanced on some of them, convincing me to believe that some women are indeed sexual. Recent reports support my inference, revealing that many women even think more often about sex than men; but I also accept the fact that women have different needs than men within the sexual context — a man will plant his seed anywhere while a woman will spoon.

To validate my statements, ask a lady friend what she fantasize about. I’ve done this, and after interviewing a couple of women from various crevices of our society, it seems that women most often fantasize about the classic Harlequinian dream of being swept off their feet on the beaches of Bermuda, by a faceless man. No doubt, bed acrobatics and some serious tongue action or a menagé a trois make a showing in those fantasies -– but sexual activity IS NOT the key component. Romance is. Love is. The fantasy is one in which women want to be physically satisfied but very often WITHIN a relationship, or a safe haven draped with beauty, such as rose petals. Romance is Queen.

Men? Stick him in a garage with his mechanic buddies, smoking and swearing like sailors, and he’d still manage to ‘stick’ a woman day or night. The ambiance is insignificant. Consummation is number one. Romance seldom enters the picture.

If I were to dream about sweeping a woman off the beaches of Bermuda, the story would go as: I swoop down and lasciviously take her in my arms and carry her off to my cottage. As we come through the front door, I hungrily tear off her bikini, lay her down on my duvet, and enter her orally, vaginally and any other way, which Penthouse, Hustler and Masters & Johnson has taught me. I don’t believe I have ever fantasized about snuggling and cuddling.

Men breathe carnal desires, and if physically able, would fuck all day — in staff meetings, at the dinner table, in the backseat of his 1979 Lancer. Women? They contemplate something more holistic and personal -– sweet butterfly kisses and feather touches, and a warm strong hand massaging the balls of their revered feet — hahahaha! I know you were expecting a different set of ‘balls’. Kiss me, hold me, massage me and make love to me. This is the female sexual mission statement. Take me to ‘heaven’, again and again, and then spoon me. That is the sexual story line of the female novel.

The man-woman dynamics is and has always been different and was likely structured by God Himself, or the Big Bang theory and its roving evolutionary strategy, to ensure that the species, as dysfunctional and bizarre as it is, will perpetuate itself.

Light kisses on ear lobes will not ensure that humankind, as we know it will hop, skip and jump well into the future. Quite the opposite. Romance and a sexual affinity for one women and/or one man, will squelch our survival and slowly decimate our existence on this earth. Monogamy has never worked and quite likely will not be in vogue as we move toward a more global world.

Sociologists everywhere, psychologists, and the clergy, spew off tirades about our inability to love correctly — to commit and to be loyal. Speeches and articles on the prolific beauty of ‘loving one man’ or ‘one woman’ constantly besiege us. The Bible reiterates that a man is a half a person, if not married and that women would rather marry a humpback than be alone.

Bullshit. Remember, many couples are getting divorced — or in the Philippines, just ‘go their separate ways’– these days. We crave, both men and women, for diversity and creativity, and are entirely aware of the many different levels of sexual creativity, which can only come out to play when we go outside our personal box and hurl ourselves into the playground of worldly options.

Failed marriages, or broken relationships, will continue as it is or even sky-rocket even more so because the men of our species continue to crave for sexual emancipation and endeavor to plant their seeds everywhere. It is primordial. Natural. It is inherent to existence and perpetuation of the species — survival.

And unless you were raised in the boondocks, you will notice that the women of today are also becoming far more provocative in their style and sexual disposition. Mainstream media show this to be true, even to the extent that younger generations have subconsciously and without responsibility begun to idolize Lolita* once again. What appear to be 14 year olds are now shown in ads and billboards strewn with little but lace and sheer silk. Even though romance continues to be a key need of women, that too, is evolving and represents a changing need.

We are returning to our roots — our basic instincts. Men need to sow their seeds and women become coquettish. Sexually aggressive sex is in. Clark Gable-type gentlemen are out; Jude Law-ish Alfies are in.

Three years ago, I wrote this:

When I was 16, I got a girlfriend, but there was no passion. So I decided I needed a passionate girl with a zest for life.

In college, I dated a passionate gal, but she was too emotional. Everything was an emergency, she was a drama queen, cried all the time and threatened suicide. So I decided I needed a girl with stability.

When I was 23, I found a very stable girl but she was boring. She was totally predictable and never got excited about anything. Life became so dull that I decided I needed a girl with some excitement.

When I was 25, I found an exciting woman, but I couldn’t keep up with her. She rushed from one party to another, never settling on anything. She did mad, impetuous things and flirted with everyone she met. She made me miserable as often as happy. She was great fun initially and very energetic, but directionless. So I decided to find a woman with some ambition.

When I turned 32, I found a smart ambitious lady with her feet planted firmly on the ground so I moved in with her. She was so ambitious that she dumped me and took everything I owned.

I am older now and all I’m looking for is a WOMAN! PERIOD!

In conclusion, I admit that much of what I wrote here is hyperbole and meant to shock. But I did that for a reason. We, as a society, are changing so dramatically and establishing different norms, so often that it becomes difficult to say what is normal. We therefore need to think about the changes, and how they are affecting us and will continue to do so. I’m surprised now when I meet a kid and his/her parents are married. What does that mean? We have become a single conscious society. Or at least I have.

My guess is that we tried monogamy for a number of centuries and it failed. So let’s try something else, what most of the world is doing anyway, what we all scoff at — tri-ogamy, if there is such a word. Let’s marry en masse.

Let’s extend our families so that cousins are brothers and neighbors are lovers. Isn’t that where our psyche is taking us anyway?

—

* Lolita is a nickname for Delores. It is also a term used to describe a prepubescent or adolescent girl who is attractive and sexually responsive. She lusts after older men, and is lusted by them in return. The term originates from the Vladimir Nabokov novel ”Lolita” which told the tale of the love affair between middle-aged Humbert and his 12-year-old stepdaughter Lolita. It became a popular term in the 90′s when the teenaged Amy Fisher who shot the wife of her older lover Joey Buttafauco, was called ”The Long Island Lolita”. The term was also used a lot during the controversy surrounding the 90′s remake of the 1962 film version of Lolita directed by the late Stanley Kubrick. The film which starred Jeremy Irons and was directed by Adrian Lyne, had trouble finding backers due to the controversial subject matter. 14-year-old Dominique Swain played the title character, and the fact that a child actress was playing an underaged character involved with sex with adults fueled the controversy. Lolita is also used as a euphemism for child erotica, child porn, or barely legal adult porn.

Women like being desired

The melancholy of youth.

‘The Art of Getting By’ is a contemplative film — complex and entertaining. It’s a great film to view and discuss later. I believe most of us would recognize depression. The lead character in this film is paralyzed by his fears and resistance to adulthood, as most of us have been.

My favorite quote from the movie?

Women like being desired. Just throw her up against a wall and start kissing her. Chances are she’ll kiss you back, and if she doesn’t, at least you tried. You’ve got to do something or else you’ll lose her. — Dustin the artist, played by Michael Angarano

The Art of Getting By (2011)

www.imdb.com

Believing the quote that you are born alone, die alone and everything else is an illusion, George doesn’t see the point of life, school, or homework. Then he meets Sally and he now has a reason to go to school and make friends, even if he’s not ready to admit to himself or to her that he likes her. The school’s principal and art teacher introduce him to an alumni, and successful artist, Dustin, who can help guide George along life’s path, but other distractions start surfacing, and George might not even be able to graduate from high school. 

A wet reverie…

Nature has many forms and scenes — sunsets and sunrises, mountains and plains — each different from the other ; all beautiful in their own unique way.

Rain in its many moods,
rushing with great anger to sweep the earth clean of all in its path or
settling on one’s face like a damp kiss.
Rain is the planet’s great cleanser.

But the rain is the most alluring of nature’s many facets. Be it a soft drizzle or a heavy downpour, the rain is easily one of the most beautiful moments in nature — a gentle reminder of the many blessings God has showered (pun intended) upon mankind…

… and, in the middle of summer here in the Philippines, a welcome respite from the scorching heat of a midday sun. Indeed, the rain brings about a real cleansing and refreshing feeling.

I love the smell of rain. It soothes me — when it pitter patters on the roof, runs down the eaves and trickle on the ground underneath my bedroom window. I fall asleep so much easier when I hear the soft tapping every raindrop make on my window pane.

Rain makes a good conversation topic, too, especially when you are feeling uncomfortable in a group with strangers and don’t know what else to talk about. Have you ever been in a situation where a deafening silence engulfs a room and everyone seems to be preoccupied with something? The subject of rain steps in and fills up that void. You can just nonchalantly comment about having too much, too little or just enough rain that day or any day. It may not be a super stimulating conversation, but an ice breaker nonetheless. Unless of course, you are in a room with a bunch of meteorologists who know everything there is to know about weather and you just become a spectator in the middle of a big debate about the rain’s usefulness versus its downfalls (this time, no pun is intended!).

I used to hate it when it rains. Sure, sunshine keeps us happy and upbeat, but too much of that can be a downer too (as it has been in the last couple of weeks with temperatures reaching the 36 C mark!). Think about how you would feel if there was no rain to keep our yards green, the trees looking lush and our waterways flowing. Wouldn’t the world be a barren and depressing place?

Ugly day,
Let me make you beautiful.
When the skies begin to cry,
I will give you a reason to smile.
Splashing in your flood of emotions;
let me make you beautiful today.
You blanket yourself,
Ugly day,
in a puffy shroud of gray.
You cannot see beyond the fog you have created.
You are crying way too much;
and I do not condemn you for it.
You put a frown on everyone’s faces
as they smirk at your tears in disgust;
but I walk out of the warm comfort
of my shelter and dance to the rhythmic pitter patter
of your beautiful tears.
Drenched from head to toe,
I continue to spin,
like an angel in a shower of grace.
Dance with me,
Ugly day.
You are not ugly at all.
I woke up under your shadow
this morning and smiled.
The sun is hiding away for once,
and I am not the one who has to hide.
Today, I am not judged for who
and what I am.
I walk past the dirty, wet windows,
and the people smile and say
“This is his day.
They pair so well.
This is his beautiful day.”
I take in your scent,
and a rush of pleasure waves over me.
You smell so good,
for your tears have washed away
the uncleanliness of the ground I walk on.
Today, the sky and I walk hand in hand in the gray.
God is smiling upon me today.
Today, all things die,
and are reborn brand new.
Today ugly things are made beautiful.
I’m coming home
I’m coming home
tell the World I’m coming home
Let the rain wash away
all the pain of yesterday.

I stand by all the misstatements that I have made

gaffe, noun \ˈgaf\

1: a social or diplomatic blunder
2: a noticeable mistake

This week, I survived Word War One. The battle stemmed from a single word: prudence… and escalated into an argumentum ad nauseum. I was not about to back down from the conflict, but my better nature prevailed on me, thus I waved the white flag, leaving me to fight another day. Was I amiss in the battle of semantics? Let’s leave that for another day.

For many reasons, admitting one’s mistakes is difficult. An implied value in many cultures is that our work represents us — if we fail a test, then we are a failure. If we make a mistake then we are a mistake. However, we can only learn from a mistake after we admit to making one. As soon as we start blaming other people (or the universe itself), we distance our self from any possible lesson. But if we courageously stand up and honestly say “This is my mistake and I am responsible”, the possibilities for learning will move towards us. Admission of a mistake, even if only privately to one’s self, makes learning possible by moving the focus away from blame assignment and towards understanding. Wise people admit their mistakes easily. They know progress accelerates when they do.

In my 40 years of committing one gaffe after another, I have learned to categorize mistakes as such:

• Stupid: Absurdly dumb things that just happen. Stubbing your toe, spilling coffee on your keyboard or poking yourself in the eye with the pencil you are holding.

• Simple: Mistakes that are avoidable but your sequence of decisions made it inevitable. Having the power go out in the middle of your party because you forgot to pay the bill, or running out of beer at said party because you didn’t anticipate the number of guests.

• Involved: Mistakes that are understood but require an effort to prevent. Regularly arriving late for work or a scheduled trip, eating fast food for lunch every day or going bankrupt at your start-up company because of your complete ignorance of basic accounting.

• Complex: Mistakes that have complicated causes and no obvious way to avoid next time. Examples include making tough decisions that have bad results, relationships that fail, or other unpleasant or unsatisfying outcomes to important things.

I’m leaving all philosophical questions about mistakes up to you. One person’s pleasure is another person’s mistake: decide for yourself. Maybe you enjoy shooting your neighbor’s cat with a BB gun, who knows. We all do things we know are bad in the long-term, but are oh-so-good in the short-term. So regardless of where you stand, I’m with you. However mistakes are defined in your personal philosophy, make sure you learn from them.

Remember, the kind of mistakes you make define you. The more interesting the mistakes, the more interesting the life. If your biggest mistake in life is not wearing matching shoes and belt or buying the wrong energy drink, you’re not challenging yourself enough to earn more interesting mistakes. Oooops… I’m not encouraging you to err just for the fun of it. What I am driving at is that you should not fear making mistakes (provided you’re smart enough to learn from them). And since there isn’t much to learn from simple and stupid mistakes, most people try to minimize their frequency and how much time we spend recovering from them. Their time is better spent learning from bigger mistakes. But if we habitually or compulsively make stupid mistakes, then what we really have is an involved mistake.

As what then President George ‘Dubya’ Bush once quipped in one of his more famous (or notorious) gaffes: I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future. The future will be better tomorrow.

So, don’t just stand there. Go out. Make your own mistakes and learn from them. I assure you, you’d come out wiser. As for me, I believe that the peace I am enjoying right now is just a momentary cessation of a word war.