One Month...
For always being there for me.
For always tolerating my foolish wackiness.
For being sensitive about my feelings and needs.
For giving me the space I need when I need it.
For never having forgotten any moments that we've experienced.
For being ever forgiving of my many eccentricities.
For listening everyday to my rantings and depressions in life.
For the patience and the valuable knowledge you've imparted.For staying sweet amidst the stressful life we're having.
For supporting me in everything I do.
For making me feel I am the luckiest person alive.
For making me feel special amidst you seeing my natural me.
For making me feel comfortable whenever I'm with you.
For the care, the loyalty and the kindness you've given.... Most especially,
For sharing your life with me... Thank you. This is a dedication. An occasion worthy of mention.
Mk says that it's on the 30th. I say that it's on the 29th. One month in the making... and all I can say is that we're growing stronger than ever. Schedule has never been a hurdle for us. We meet at our own comfort at our own pace. Often times, I dance and sing aloud, speaking my mind bursting my tensions away whenever I'm with you. You never hated me for those things. And it is with the small things that you do that draws me closer to you. It's with the memories that we shared on our first month (whatever date that maybe), that makes me want to share the many next months with you more..... and it is with you alone, that completes whatever has been missing from my life. You made my everyday worthy of living.
Some say it's destiny... I say it's magic.
For the care, and for just everything...
Thank you.
Here is one of the shot we took that night at Makati.. the place where we first met...
Resignation + Total Unconditional Apology = "OTOKORASHII"
Mistakes happen. Even "high people" have human failings which lead them to do foolishly reckless actions.
In this interesting case which happened five years ago, former Osaka Governor "Knock" Yoyoyama has both resigned from his lofty office AND took the courageous step of making a full, complete admission of his error.
What I find especially praiseworthy is that he made no "excuses" whatsoever to try to minimize his wrong actions. For me, such an abject, total apology is exactly the correct action to take when anyone, including me, makes a grave mistake.
As far as I am concerned, Yokoyama has now paid the full price for his crime and has effectively restored his honor, no matter what legal penalties he might have to suffer.
Sadly, I notice that Filipino political or business "leaders" almost never resign or never make unconditional apologies when their shameful actions are revealed. Instead they have a regrettable tendency to hire high-priced attorneys, make evasive statements and generally do
everything possible to conceal their misdeeds so that they can hold on to "power".
Whatever happened to "
HONOR"???
Ex-Governor Yokoyama is a commendable living example of honorable behavior when anyone is caught having committed grievous behavior of any sort. I hope that I will have the sense and the courage to recall his example the next time that I do something wrong!!!
Our country is in a state of depression
"Leadership is the other side of the coin of loneliness, and he who is a leader must always act alone. And in acting alone, accept everything alone"
-Ferdinand E. Marcos
The scandals that have wrecked our country has been going on for days now. The scandalous tapes, the jueteng payoffs..I never liked Arroyo even on the first day she took office. Her thirst for power, using the resource of our country to boost her image, never made her popular. i see her as someone who has a lot of pretensions. the philippines just had a president worse than the actors who run for public office. we have in here arroyo, a president who wants to become an actress.
everywhere you go, you'll see her billboard reminding people that "GMA Cares". At one point in time, she has transformed her image to that of actress Nora Aunor, doing press releases with actors and actresses, appearing in TV and movie commercials reminding people that she is the incumbent. that she too could be the "actress" that everybody should love. she has just placed the public office in an abyss putting any moral integrity away. She failed to give guidance to the people. The government is no popularity contest.. if it is, i might as well start advising my cousins to stop taking school and just be an actor. For being one would mean more chances of being the president of our country.
just how estrada charmed the filipinos, gloria doesn't seem to have that skill... last election, i could have voted for an actor, the late FPJ. A ruler doesn't necessarily need to have all the brains or education in the world. One could rule with common sense alone. Gloria, boasts of a Ph.D. in Economics telling the people that life with her as president would make life better, and yet, I could not feel the slightest sign of having an increase in the quality of life. Thousands of nameless people die everyday with sickness and yet have no access to medicine. Medical treatment has become a luxury so expensive that it went beyond the reach of millions who are still below the poverty level. Who would you rather choose, a president who wants to become an actor, or an actor who wants to become a president?
I believe what our country needs right now is someone who is not a politician. Politics has been killing our country. The culture of corruption can never be stopped if the person sitting up there is tainted with one. Corruption is inevitable in our government where the system of check and balance is flawed.
To give the opportunity of doubt, probably there's something wrong with our culture as well. The "crab mentality" is what I hate most. I do not see the joy in another person whenever their friends succeed. Everybody wants to pull everyone down. five years working in this country and that is what I observed. The culture of selfishness exists everywhere, and it is with this culture that our country also failed to succeed. Our Asian neighbors' sense of patriotism never fails to amaze me, people there works not for themselves but for a common goal. Japan and Korea are best example of people living for the society rather than for themselves. They work for the betterment of the society. Their love for their country makes them proud to be a Japanese or a Korean. They see foreigners in their street and they scornfully look at them. Filipinos see foreigners and they befriend them, thinking that they have all the $ to spare. The 1997 currency devaluation bought a lot of businesses down. Koreans went their own way and voluntarily sold their dollar savings and sold gold jewelries to neutralize the effect it has bought to their currency. We plunged deeper because people here, speculating that the peso would lose more value bought more dollars thinking of personal gain.
The chaotic roads of our country also seem to depict that idea. Everybody is in a hurry, but you'll never imagine people cornering others at the whole stretch of EDSA because they want to move ahead. Because they could not forgive themselves if the other drivers (who of course also wants to arrive to their destination at the soonest possible time) went ahead faster because they want to be number one. They want to pull others down. They want to always move ahead even at the expense of many others. If Filipinos just think not of their own self but of the bigger picture of letting others go ahead for the benefit of the traffic system, then there won't be any chaos in the roads anymore. If only bus drivers would think about the greater good rather than their own profit, maybe they should stop loading at the middle of the highway and let people learn to walk a little bit. Maybe we would not be implementing a lot of crazy traffic schemes anymore.
If the same thing happens all over again, maybe, our President doesn't really care about her image anyway. for in the annals of our history, Macapagal Arroyo would best be remembered in shame. Someone who wants to be always right. Someone who thinks of personal image and has no sense of direction. An honorary president who disregards HONOR. History and the people could always hold her accountable for her action. and the country suffers with it.
The problem in our country of having too much politics is already there and has never been resolved. Perhaps we ought to look at ourselves now, change what culture we have to work hard not only for ourselves, but for the people around us. Think about the GREATER GOOD. I think we ought to start thinking about the bigger picture. because time waits for no one. and before we know, it might be too late.
We should start thinking about others, our neighbors, and our society, before we can even start thinking about the world.
"There are many things we do not want about the world. Let us not just mourn them. Let us change them." - Ferdinand E. Marcos
P.S. I'll be uploading the tapped conversation between the President and Garcillano for you to judge this afternoon and update this posting as well.
The Sublime Beauty of the Absurd
Dear Blog:Often I write posts and no one answers. I would be extremely grateful if someone could comment this one and in doing so enlighten the conversation.Do you see everything is relative to something else? Why do others fail to reasonably see that in our socio-cultural system?I know you're already tired of reading my endless rants about nothingness about existence and all those philosophical stuff. But I personally cannot escape my own profound sense and understanding of two distinct realities for example a reality which "is". This reality being the sublime beauty of absolute order in the World and Cosmos, a Cosmos filled with meaning, where as Plato proclaimed, the force of good in this order moves us to be orderly and good, recognition of order bringing order, recognition of the good drawing us towards it. Then there is the reality that man has, in mind, created, a disenchanted World and Cosmos, filled with angst, dread and ultimate chaos.Could things be going really well for me? I doubt. Since one cannot opine the true meaning of "real". We can only conclude that these form part of the "real" (eternal - real in present/past/future). Any "one" of these circumstances, lets say "health" could change in an instant and with this change, the collectively gathered created images of the good are seen to fall into the abyss. If you are told you have four weeks to live all else seems hopeless and in chaos. Consider that scenario.In the following four weeks you'll experience the absolute torture of angst, dread and chaos. However, while facing death, you also experience the outpouring of "love" from others But.... you don't die. Instead after several weeks you are sent home from the hospital for the weekend. Filled with a new and differing sense of optimism and hope you are wheeled out of the sterile world of the hospital and you "see" a different reality, the blueness of the sky, bluer than you remember, hundreds of differing coulors in nature itself, and the sublime beauty of the world and the Cosmos.As the months pass, you are slowly drawn back to the other reality. Slowing the outpouring of "love" comes to a halt and you are back in a world governed by the principle that "everything is always relative to something else; it always comes down to - whatever particular vantage point seems most reasonable to you (now, today); and who has the power to enforce their own agenda", where in confronting this reality you once again "feel" a sense of angst, dread and ultimate chaos.Having had felt this experience, there is no doubt that there exists two realities: a reality which "IS", this reality being the sublime beauty of absolute order in the World and Cosmos, a Cosmos filled with meaning, where as Plato proclaimed, the force of good in this order moves us to be orderly and good, recognition of order bringing order, recognition of the good drawing us toward the good. The other one being a man-mind created reality which blinds the eyes, alters instinctual behaviours which in turn renders a disenchanted World filled with angst, dread and ultimate chaos.Several years ago, I read a work by Nietzsche saying:"Men wear masks to cope with the chaos of Nature, but the true Master acknowledges he wears a mask and continues to play. Within Nature I need wear no mask, for Nature knows her own and mirrors the reflection of my own being, these images allowing me to touch the very core of 'I', my soul. Choas lies not within Nature, but reather within the mind of Man."
As the Buddhist says "Nothingness is NOT Nothing". Man, in mind, has given his own meaning to what he now perceives as a disenchanged world, yet this temporally constructed meaning has created a reality of angst, dread and ultimate chaos. However, if man abandons this reality and its meanings, he may be flung into what he perceives as nothingness, yet as he gives up his struggle against this nothingness he experiences another reality, the absolute of sublime beauty, the eternal. We struggle to come into the world, life appears as a struggle, we struggle to avoid death, But.... I believe that as we refuse to struggle and allow to be, we discover the eternal and it is one instant's experience of sublime eternal perfection that gives us hope, dreams and aspirations for that we may not "see", yet know to "be".Patrick
in progress...
