In the scorched ground of the desert, one must walk not only having in mind the harshness of the blistering sun or the ever threatening sand storms that always brings havoc in the cold night. To journey upon the desert, one needs an extraordinary care for something that is often unseen yet the most fatal. It is not the danger of the scorpions or the treacherous snakes that I am speaking of but the lethal trap of a quicksand.

The man walking through the desert must watch out carefully for any hint of soft sand along the way. There is just no other way to foresee danger brought about by the quicksand except by the keenest of foresight. When one is caught in it, the fastest to any hard ground must be sought otherwise the sand would soon eat up towards the level of the knees. When the sand goes up to the length of the knees, others must throw a sturdy rope to the sinking man so that the sand may not reach the level of the waistline. If the waistline is already sunk into the perilous sand, a mule must be had in order to pull the man out of his quagmire. If the neck is already threatened even the might of a camel might not be able to save the sinking man.

Our sinful ways is oftentimes like upon a quicksand that the more we get sunk into it the harder we are able to pull ourselves from certain perdition. Like the man sinking slowly into the sand pit, the sinner must free himself at the earliest possible time for any wasted moment could mean the end of life.

This is the nature of our sins, they often start as trivial matters and ends up us grievous infractions. They are propagators of habit that the more we wallow into the irresponsible pleasures they afford us, the harder we could stay away from them. There are even those among us who thrives on sin that without sinning they become restless and impatient. It is most wise and ultimately the most prudent to anticipate every sin even when they are still farthest from us, that long before we meet could them along the way, we must change our courses immediately and evade them. It is of wisdom to be farthest from sinful ways even from the beginning.

When something wicked comes along the way, we turn the other way lest wickedness may abuse our weaknesses and we become wicked ourselves. If our eyes are threatened by indecency, we must cover our eyes for a little while until lewdness has already passed us by. We see no evil if we turn farthest from it. In the days of old, Jesus had once said that if one would look upon another person with one left eye and lusted upon that person, he or she has already committed adultery that it is better for one to pluck out the guilty eye rather than all the members of the body be thrown into the fire.

If men along the way shall speak something harsh, it is better to cover the ears for a little while until wicked tongue have already pass us by. We hear no evil if we refuse to hear or heed the words spoken by evil men.

If along the way, we at times feel the desire to speak evil things against a fellow man, it is better for us to close our mouth for a little while until the indiscretions of our emotions have already passed away and then we evade the inanity of gossips.

There are times that we become the child who drools upon a candy after gulping down a bagful, and our elders would reprimand us for our excesses. Thereafter, we would speak like our words become engraved into stones and promise not to take another candy. And yet, the stone cracks easily when no one is already watching and we break our promise as we go right back again into the forbidden ways.

At times, the sinful ways is like the huge ball of rock that Sisyphus had earnestly push towards the top of the hill over and over again only to fall back flat towards the ground every time he nears the peak of the hill.

For at times our sins starts like a ball of snow falling innocently from a steep Himalayan mountain until the kindly looking ball of snow gains more and more mass and weight and grows into a deadly avalanche.

There are grievous things that we do that started merely as daily errors. As we repeat them they grow into an avalanche. We often hear about the man of many small sins who one day finally committed the most heinous of all transgressions.

The thief would surely feel the heaviest of remorse the very first time he commits such grievous sin of taking away another man’s possession. The second time he commits the same wrongful act, the remorse may still be there but it becomes less and less in weight. When he repeats the act over and over again, remorsefulness would finally become a stranger to him that his conscience had already become stunted. Until the day that he takes the largest of all sum and feels no remorse whatsoever. He is the thief that is caught in the quicksand of his soul.

And so is with the grave murderer. The first time he commits the act of taking away another man’s life, he would turn in his bed until dawn comes and sleep would not visit him for a great number of nights. And yet, the second time he commits the same transgression the heart would feel a little less of remorse. And when the act becomes repeated over and over again, the remorse would fade away and become absent and his heart slowly becomes not that of a man but that closer to a wild beast.

And so is with fornicators and those who are adulterous in their passions, lavishing themselves in the irresponsible pleasures of the flesh. The man would wallow in lust for the first time and he would be like a child wounded in the heart and his eyes would be a little bit teary eyed for remorse would remind him heavily of his misdeed. But when the call of lust comes harking again, the man forgets his previous remorse and goes right back into the irresponsible pleasures of lust. When he becomes lustful at all times and always fail to heed the call of his conscience, remorse would become absent completely that committing these lustful sins becomes merely commonplace for him. He is already trapped in the quicksand of his bestial instincts.

For sin is a like a deceitful serpent that approaches us from the back, under the cover of darkness, while the wind is very silent in the stillness of the night and we are deeply lulled into sleep. When we become caught in the promise of a sudden but temporary onset of pleasure, the kind that our sins could provide, we become like upon a moth caught in the spider web or a journeyman who is caught in the certain peril of a quicksand. If we do not become heedful and vigilant, the sand may go towards our neck and we may not be able to get ourselves back into harder grounds and our souls would meet its certain perdition and lose the promise of Eternal Life. We must repent while the sins are lighter still, for the heavier the sin the harder would be the road towards a fruitful repentance .

Read more on "The Voyage"

Goodliness is the absence of ugliness. It is the idea of the basic goodness of man, in order to attain a harmonious co-existence among men in this material world --- where violence and other forms of evil are ever permeating.

It is often said that to err is human. Indeed the man is said to be imperfect that it is almost impossible to see in your mind's eye the perfect goodliness of man. It is in fact upon these premise that I seek to push the idea of a mode of action I shall call now “The Democracy of Good Deeds and the Communism of Bad Deeds”.

It is upon the point of imperfection of man that we should find motivation to improve ourselves for indeed to be human is to be imperfect. Let us not tolerate however the idea that “I am human therefore I sin”, but rather “I am human and therefore I err”.

Is it human to err so gravely?

It is not that we should demand upon ourselves to evade every mistake (it would be unrealistic), but it is for us to deviate from doing deeds that are gravely wrong. There are deeds committed by men that are so grievously abominable that there is no room for reasoning out that they are merely mistakes or errors of judgments. It is purely evil where men take great pleasures from the indiscriminate lavishing of the flesh, without regards to responsibility and consequences.

Just as so to the very greedy businessman who takes all the wealth for himself disregarding the labour of his workers, to undervalue the fruits of another man’s labour, for a man may have hundreds of acres of land but without workers to help him produce wealth from such land, it is virtually useless to him—he might as well sell it.

Just the same with the government official who routinely steals money from the finances of the government; for the act of altering accounting records is not a mere error of judgment anymore.

The idea that I am promoting here is the concept that men should always be conscious and cognizant about every major action or words that he make in his everyday life; to be fully aware of its effects to himself or herself as well as to others; for every action has a two-pronged effect, that is, the effect on the self and the effect on others.

If I speak these words, how does it benefit me and how does it affect others? That is the basic question that should be inculcated in each and every one of us, as if to allow such mechanism of thought to be already a second skin to us, a habit that could not be easily broken—to have that perpetual questioning mind and heart, the very spirit of the inner workings of our consciences.
One may argue that this concept of constant awareness to every word or action may curtail the spontaneity of human interactions. We must not however be very particular about this disadvantage, for indeed there are many words or actions that we could do without the questioning heart and mind.

The act of drinking coffee or tea, whether to sing or dance, or whether to read or write--these are actions that do not demand proper guidance of the questioning mind and heart so that men could still flow with spontaneity in their daily conduct.

But whether or not to appropriate this money knowing full well that it is not yours is an action that requires proper contemplation especially when it is already of sizable amount.
Just like the act of whether to seduce this woman or not?

The same as to the question of whether or not to gossip against another person or not, just the same as to the question of whether or not to help a man with an empty stomach lying on the side streets. These are deeds that demand the guidance of our questioning minds and hearts.
The concept of the democracy of good deeds is easier to illustrate and understand if every one of us treats the self as a body of government. For indeed every government is democratic or communistic, proletarian or authoritarian. Either, or.

“So what is my form of government?” you might ask. What is best suited for me and most beneficial to me? What form of government could enhance my spiritual self?

A purely democratic government, where there is an unhindered flow of freedom, is not ideal for as I mentioned earlier, everything in excess is scoffing by nature. Absolute freedom results to wantonness and excesses.

A purely communistic government is at the same time not ideal for it would strangle us and prevent us from experiencing a meaningful life. A suitable government for the self therefore would be a well-balanced government, not purely democratic but also not purely communistic.
It should be a government that is situated somewhere in the middle of two extremes.

This form of government, if we relate it to the government of the self is what I call “The Democracy of Good Deeds and the Communism of Bad Deeds”.

It is a concept of self-government that in its truest form is the propagation of all good deeds and if possible the curtailing of all bad deeds. If this concept would be attained, we would attain a certain level of goodliness that exacts the very idea of how the Creator had intended man to be--righteous and enlightened—entirely fortified in his resolve to struggle against the piercing menace of evil, and then of temptation.

In the democracy of good deeds and the communism of bad deeds, it is ideal that man should propagate good deeds democratically, that is without hindrances in so long as it is possible while on the other hand, bad deeds are curtailed by a government with an iron hand, a communistic attitude towards mischief and waywardness.

If we say that man is of no perfection as we all should admit, then we must recognize always the possibility of sin that in this context, man should be about ninety-five percent good in his everyday conduct and five percent bad, this five percent are for those mistakes that are committed unknowingly, a sort of a margin of error, for indeed no man is perfect.
Is this concept attainable? That is the million-dollar question. It is a question that every man should ask himself every day and every hour of his life.

For certain, if one would hold this concept of the democracy of good deeds and the communism of bad deeds as proper and acceptable guidance, one would more or less feel a sentiment of enlightenment and of awakening of the self.

I remember walking the streets of Manila one early morning so many years ago, heading towards my preferred destination that day when I chanced upon a sight that I thought only existed in movies and in the news broadcast that we see on television.

In a parked utility vehicle were two children of about two or three years old, perhaps brothers, playing giddily after waking up, as children always do when they wake up together with their siblings from night sleep. I had questions again in mind similar to the ones I had when was in the jitney with the old man wearing unpaired slippers. This questioning mind runs always in times like these.

Was it their vehicle that they were using as a roof in the coldest of the night? I examined the clothes they were wearing and they were dirty and tattered and the things upon them were likewise. They could not have possibly owned that costly vehicle.

Why would they sleep on the streets? Are their parents with them? I looked around and I could not see any older person around. I looked further and I could see a woman in tattered clothes also, about fifty years old in age, walking towards my direction and I proceeded to go about my concern. It was so early in the morning that the streets were not yet filled with people going about their daily chores and duties. As I walked away from the children, my mind was still heavy with questions. Why would they really sleep in the streets? The answer was of course very obvious--they do not have the proper roof on their heads. They are so poor that they could not afford to have a respectable shelter, so foolish of me then not to see this fact so quickly.

Deeper went my thoughts that I reckoned it is not merely the absence or presence of money that we ask why there are still people living in the streets. Why are they asserting themselves in urban areas when there are so many rural lands to settle and where there would be enough soil to grow food from and water is ever flowing in streams, and there would be natural materials to build a house made of natural resources, like that of thatches?

I could say that a house can be made of things that are made of wood and/or thatches and if money is more than substantial, you could build a house from concrete and steel, a more pleasant one.

Or you could build a house completely on thatches. There are materials that grow from the ground, the abacas and coconut leaves grow from the soil and this Earth has them in abundance. Soil is not like gold or platinum, minerals that are so rare to find. They are so common that in every step we make, there is soil. Where did all the soil go if there are people who could not grow their own food and harvest the materials to build a house? When there is soil to till, even if it comes in lesser mass, no one could go hungry. As the Chinese adage says, “I have one mouth to feed and two hands to feed it”.

Perhaps, many lands today (the arable and accessible lands) have become the dominion of some and not of the masses like they were centuries ago. We may castigate the poor for asserting themselves in urban areas—in languid and filthy slums, where jobs are scarce and life is too difficult-- just like the people living in the streets. But where would they go if all the lands were already of dominion of some merely, where a single person or family owns sometimes thousands and thousands of acres of arable land. Where there are those who call themselves farmers does not even have a farm of their own. The children I have witnessed sleeping in the streets were creatures of urban life that perhaps they would ask themselves “To where would we go if we leave the streets?”

In the days of old, in the era of many ancient tribes--of the American Indians, the Neanderthals and the Maoris--where the concept of land and plants and animals comes all as God-given, put there by the Creator for all to live by so that no one would die of hunger --- men hunted in packs. There was the hunting leader and there were the rest of the packs. They moved as one and reaped the fruits of their pursuits as one. They approach the prey like a pack of wolves or a herd of lion. They also plant in great coordination that they have developed an agrarian scheme that is so systematic that many scientists believe to this day that many of these ancient people had attained a high level of civilization during their times.

The Indians of Old America hunted in groups, to lead a herd of bulls towards a cliff, in order to harvest the most amount of red meat. And the bounty is brought to their camps where colourful tepees decorated the broad wind-swept grasslands, and aromatic smell of burning herbs emanated throughout the prairie lands that they had dominated once before. Their women, their children and their olds would welcome them with great merriment and celebration and paeans of songs and dances would grace the night in order to honour the cunningness and virility of their men--the hunters of the clan. Most of the old men who wait for them were hunters before but have retired due to weakness of body.

While they hunt in packs, the old members of their clans, the women, the children and the sick could still be able to eat despite their inabilities. The weakest members of the clan are being carried at the back of their more virile brothers. They hunt in packs so no one is abandoned and left to die on in an environment that were at times unkind and punishing.

And yet we say at times that we live today in the zenith of human civilization --- as men today are already able to conquer space and developed human-like machines. And yet we say at times that the Indians and other ancient tribes that have roamed this Earth before us were backward and uncivilized. Who is truly the more civilized is a question we should ponder upon now.

What if water is already the dominion of the few? Would there be people living without water just as they live without land of their own? What if air would become the dominion of a few fortunate men?

The children sleeping on the streets drew heavily upon my thoughts that instead of proceeding with my own concerns, I took some time to pass by a bakery and fished ten pesos out of my pocket and bought six pieces of tasty bread. They were not so tasty but at a cheaper price, the bread came in larger sizes. It was the hunger of the children that was primordial to my mind in that situation and not their taste for good food.

I proceeded to the vehicle and slipped the bread into it while the two children looked back at me with the usual astonishment one finds in the face of children as they stared at a stranger who just came suddenly out of nowhere. If they were glad or not was not among the questions I had asked that morning; even after I had been able to slip the bread into the parked vehicle. It was enough for me to be rest assured that their hunger was satiated that morning.

It is no secret and certainly not a mystery to you anymore that the ten pesos meant so little to me. I am not rich but if I lose ten pesos or if they fell out my pocket, I would not mind them so much. I would look for it but would not despair so much if my search fails. But to the children who I found living in the streets, they meant the food on their breakfast table. I know how poor people are. I have been so poor before that the pangs of hunger have battered me before. I know their kind of hunger and I am familiar with the specie of hunger the poorest of the poor suffers. They ate on breakfast and sometimes their hunger is satiated until afternoon that my ten pesos would have been half of their daily need for food.

What is the worth of ten pesos to me? They meant my half pack of menthol cigarettes, my jitney fare for that day, my twelve-ounce soda, or a stick of chewing gums. But to the children and to the old woman, it was their food on the table.

Such is the worth of my coins.

( From my unfinished book "The Night of Angels" )

( A repost from April 13, 2007 )

I was walking the downtown streets some days ago, feeling a little bit restless for reasons unknown to me specifically, at least to the one or those that I could not pinpoint to with reasonable certainty. Perhaps this is one sort of a malady that I have read about once before in some old decrepit medical book stacked in my mother-in-laws deteriorating wooden cabinets, those that were partly eaten by termites, looking so fragile that a simple disturbance on it would let spew a handful of mashed-up and grounded wooden particles---which I find to be so repulsive knowing that they were the end results of some crawlers’ eating frenzy.

This malady is sometimes called depression or anxiety problems (they go by many names depending on the author of the medical book I read) and once in a while I retreat into this state and like water, I just have to let go of it for I could not rein it in my hands---no matter what.

I passed by the new barbershop just in front of the old Ever theater—one that had seen better days---and I thought I might get my hair done. I stared at a glass partition from a nearby store and had an inkling that my hair wasn’t as disheveled as I thought it was. I even saw it to be fitting to me despite the general rugged look and I had thought then that moviestars have lengthy hairs even if they were males, having that blown away look. I was a little worried that if one sports a blown away and rugged crown of hair and at the same time not being a moviestar, one might be easily taken for a madman walking the streets at high noon. But that sidewalk mirror was good to me and I felt that my uncut hair would be fit for a star. Some mirrors are good to me ; mostly they are not---especially those in my bedroom.

So I passed with having a quick haircut that day and hoped that the blown away look would be fitting enough for me for quite a number of days more. I then strolled farther down the city sidewalks and came towards a crevice full of DVD stalls and I felt a little blown away after seeing so many titles available and on a dirt cheap prices at that, considering that for 80 bucks, one can get a DVD disc that contains 8 to 12 movies in it, and most of them were blockbusters and of very recent release. Some of them were not even shown yet here in local theaters. That’s how tempting it was for movie aficionados like me. I could not say now that I haven’t had scored myself some pirated items before (I had been smoking a brand of cigarette smuggled from Hongkong when I was in college) and of course, it would be unthinkable for me to not have seen a pirated movie before. I had of course.

But while I was glancing on stacks and stacks of DVD disks, my mind was swinging between the forthrightness of not buying a pirated item and having a devilish pleasure on filling my hunger for movies at throwaway prices. I could always remember that video clip that goes with every movie I rent from video stores and the loud, thundering reminder that says: “You Don’t Steal A Car! You Don’t Steal A House! You Don’t Steal A Movie!”, and somehow my inner conscience is disturbed by such that whenever that clip goes in every movie I rent, I wanted to shout at whoever that guy behind the thundering voice and belch, “Stop It! I Heard You. You Don’t Have To Remind Me That All The Time. You’re Not My Mother!”

My inner conscience had gotten the better of me that time so I just slowly walk away from stacks and stacks of salacious movies and guilty pleasures. I then remember that a new Video City branch had opened just a block away and I headed immediately towards it. The moment I had gazed through the available movie titles, I felt an immediate surge of gleefulness inside me since I hadn't expected that the new video store could offer such voluminous number of titles, especially of recent ones. The video store where I usually get my dose of movies is so miserably lacking in inventory that I guess I won’t be visiting it from now on, except perhaps in some momentary lapse of reason in the future.

I felt like a child lost in a sea of movie titles and I almost picked up every disk that had caught my eye, until I reached the “Drama” section and there in front of me was a copy of Wong Kar Wai’s “2046” and I was excited to high heavens. It had been much talked about in the net world about how good it was and for a long time, I was trying to get my hand on a copy of it, and for a while there I thought I wouldn’t be able to see it for it would be unthinkable that it'd be exhibited in local theaters considering that it was released about three years ago. And I haven’t had seen any trace of it in every video rental store I went before.

I had anticipated this movie ever since I have grown a special fondness for oriental art films, especially those of the legendary filmmaker Zhang Zimou, whose film “Farewell To My Concubine” was so wonderfully entertaining and had primarily introduced me to other notable movies from China or Hongkong. Before that, ever since I was in high school, I had been delighted by the magic of Akira Kurosawa’s masterpieces like “Ran” and “Dreams”.

And so “2046” was about a writer who had become so engrossed about his own written piece that he saw himself being dragged into it, and feeling the pains and longings of the characters he had made himself. “2046” was a work about a train that once in a while travels towards the year “2046” and no one who goes there ever came back, except for one, the male protagonists. It is said that those who journey towards this strange destination are those who are longing for love, perhaps a kind that could not be found here at present, for how come they have to travel towards a point of no return just looking for it? What love is there out there that some have risk even their own mortal existence just to gain it? It was written by the writer that nobody actually knows how long for one to get to “2046”, for some it would be faster, but sometimes, to those unlucky travelers, it might take so long that they would start to lose their senses and sanity while inside the rain, having nothing to do except sit down and wait for the arrival time, one that is not definite and without any sign of coming. The main male protagonist in the novel had such kind of journey, one that was so lenthgy and seemingly unending that he fell in love with an android, an artificial human being stewarding the train.

The writer had his own life in the movie “2046”, a life lived sometime in the 1960’s where according to him “he just found himself to be in”. He earn his meals by writing columns and kung-fu stories for local dailies and billeted himself in a room with a door number that states “2046”. That was where he had sourced the title for his novel, a number which in his own mind had taken his fancy and unusual interest.

Along the way, he met a wife of another man named Bai Ling, who had runned away from her husband for having another woman and had rented a room just across his own. They slowly fell for each other and started a torrid affair filled with nights of passion and unhindered bliss. Until one day the woman asked him if ever he wanted to stick it out with him. But the writer wouldn’t agree to be exclusive to one single woman and stressed that he was seeing other women while he was having an affair with her. Bai Ling was furious and ended their relationship with tears flooding from her eyes and agitation painted all over her face.

They both started seeing other people and whenever they passed each other in public gatherings, they both pretend not to know each other and according to the writer, it was difficult to pretend and not notice her. It was clear that it was more difficult for Bai Ling to pretend and it showed so much in the utter sadness that found harbor in her teary eyes.

Six years later, the writer was in a relationship with a woman that had a similar name to a woman he had an affair so many years ago. It wasn’t Bai Ling, but another one who had resembled Bai Ling's general appearance, a circumstance that had led me to ponder whether or not Bai Ling and Su Lizhen was one and the same person. The new woman eventually left the writer for some undeclared reason for she said, “she just have to go away”.

And inside a car---drunken and weary---the writer finally realized that he is starting to lose 'the meaning of life'. He was thinking to himself and thought that six years ago, he had a chance to find the meaning of life when the beautiful Bai Ling offered herself to be his long time partner. But he had other ideas and now regretted it.

He met Bai Ling for one more time but the feeling was never the same aagain and it had seemed that in the end, he had entirely lose grasp on what in his mind was “the meaning of life”.

The movie “2046” eventually ignited in me the question about life and its meaning. I try to see myself in the writer’s own predicaments and evaluate if I had what he call as “the meaning of life”. Have I lost it? Or I am living it? Or perhaps, the meaning is just not clear at all.

One way or another, we all are trapped within the world we now dwell, sometimes embroiled in raucous routine everyday conducts, sometimes just swaying to where the wind blows, and often forgetting that at the end of the day, we might not be able to entirely grasp the so-called “meaning of life”. What’s in store for me when I grow old? Where am I heading? Am I happy or am I miserable?

Am I that sort of individual who would jump into a train and head to “2046”?

These are just questions and I hope that this momentary bout with depression would vanish like thin air. And then I’ll have in my full grasp the so-called “meaning of life” by then. Whatever that means.

This is a very interesting tag from Gypsy and it’s about ‘Honesty’, the one that is not an easy word.

But hey it’s the 21st century, we can be as honest as much as we want to be.

Before anything else, here’s some rules for the tag:

Can you fill this out without lying (it's not hard)? You've been tagged, so now you need to answer all the questions HONESTLY. At the end, choose at least 8 people to be tagged. Don't forget to tag me!

To do this, copy this entire message, then go to "notes" under tabs on your profile page, start a new note, paste these instructions in the body of the note, delete my answers, and type yours. Easy!

Next, tag people and list their names at the bottom. Have fun!

1. What was the last thing you put in your mouth?
Macaroni salad and mushroom.

2. Where was your profile picture taken?
Cebu – the one on my Facebook profile.

3. Can you play the guitar?
Pretty well. I was in a band when I was college.

4. Name someone who made you laugh today?
One of my student.

5. How late did you stay up last night and why?
About midnight. Watched television.

6. If you could move somewhere else, would you?
Yeah, I would like to. Somewhere where there lots of fresh rural wind.

7. Ever been kissed under fireworks?
Not yet. Is it possible?

8. Which of your friends lives closest to you on Facebook?
Uhmnnn….Veepee Elago.

9. Do you believe ex's can be friends?
I could not imagine. Haven’t tried it before.

10. How do you feel about Dr Pepper?
It taste like medicine.

11. When was the last time you cried?
About last week.

12. Who took your profile picture
My wife.

13. Who was the last person you took a picture of?
My kids.

14. Was yesterday better than today?
About the same.

15. Can you live a day without TV?
No.

16. Are you upset about anything?
Yes.

17. Do you think relationships are ever really worth it?
Yes. Otherwise, I won’t be in any relationship.

18. Are you a bad influence?
No. I don’t think I am.

19. Night out or night in?
It depends.

20. What item(s) could you not go without during the day?
Watch.Clock.

22. What does the last text message in your inbox say?
We are on the way…

23. How do you feel about your life right now?
Just okay.

24. Do you hate anyone?
Er…sometimes.

25. If we were to look in your Email inbox, what would we find most?
Facebook updates.

26. Say you were given a drug test right now, would you pass?
Yah. Right on.

27. Has anyone ever called you perfect before?
I think once.

28. What song is stuck in your head?
Halfway To Crazy by Jesus & Mary Chain. I just listened to it after along, long time. It was one of my most fave song from college days, and perhaps of all time.

29. Someone knocks on your window at 2:00 a.m., who do you want it to be?
A lotto representative…lol.

30. Wanna have grandkids before you're 50?
Well, if my kids are pretty stable by that time.

31. Name something you have to do tomorrow:
Wash my car.

32. Do you think too much or too little?
Too much.

33. Do you smile a lot?
Not so much or I’d be insane…

For this tag I am tagging Buffwings, Wileyes, Hazel, Bambit, Sam, Miss Luchie, Splice and Barrycade.

(An edited version of an article I wrote some years ago, a discussion on 'freedom'.) 

A slab is a piece of slab. You run your hands through it and you would know very well that it is a piece of slab. You would feel the contour, the roughness or the smoothness of the surfaces.

And then you smell it and to be certain it would have the same wooden aroma of any piece of slab you have ever hold.

But freedom to us is freedom without the sense of sight or the sense of touch. Freedom is never always freedom when it is not susceptible to a very particular sense or meaning, but always floating in the air. You would never smell it nor touch it. You would not be able to see it also.

It is invisible to the eye and what is invisible is always a mystery. It is aside from the forces of our senses, even outside the power of our wills.

Freedom has gained its own masters and its own set of philosophers-to be defined and classified in so many words and terms-- and yet it remains that men kill and die for their own kind of freedom as against another man’s freedom for the freedom of one may not be the freedom of another. For at times the freedom of one man means the detainment of another.

There is that kind of freedom that is harbored by men of ardent philosophies-adventurous and complicated-to reason out that man should be left alone to determine his or her own fate, to be responsible for its own action, to be independent of thought and will, to the extent that they defy not only the norms of man but even the dictates of our God Almighty. Free will had become their sole reason for being and being for them is merely to lavish themselves with the dictates of their instincts-to the most mundane and to the basest. And further on, they trample upon every reason in order to free themselves of natural inhibitions and lavish themselves in improper pleasures of the mind and of the flesh, for they say they should be left alone; for they say man is born free. They are blind to the nature of things.

They are the ones who would travel the ends of the world just in order to unearth every loophole in any man’s law and that of the laws of God. They would scream and shout invectives if they are caught upon for they deify freedom like a religion and their religion is merely their own will and that of no one else. They are like beast in the wilderness that, once caught in their own traps, would gnash with the most ferocity at their captors, frothing in the mouth, unyielding and defiant.

They do not overcome their own will, they let it flow unhindered and spoil their own souls. They open the floodgates of excesses that they do not only become merely excessive but they take pleasure in wicked things. They introduce themselves into conducts nearly bestial and diabolic. They wallow in the flood of lust and violence; truly they are wickedness reborn.

Indeed, man was born free, to be able to have volitions and independence of thought and action. Freedom is the greatest gift of God to man. He is born free so that he would savor with delight the beauty of life here on Earth and yet freedom was not given for man in order that man should defy Him. Freedom is for man to live an eventful sojourn in this temporary world.

Even as a child grows into adulthood, he realizes that he has the power of self-determination, to steer his mind and body towards the ends that he desires. And yet, he also realizes that despite the independence of his will, there are many things that he could not do. He realizes that he is susceptible to many limitations---both seen and unseen. He is hindered by the forces of nature just as when he could not stay dry when a storm pours down on him while he is walking on an open field. He is also hindered by other men, that he could not for example take anything in sight lest his possession be at risk of being taken.

Despite of freedom, he could not be underwater for long less his breathe is sucked out of his breast.

Despite of freedom, he could not lift himself above ground like birds do.

Despite of freedom, he could not spit on another man’s face lest he be at risk of danger.

He could not do violence less he be violated himself. He could not take lest his possession be taken also. He preserves his things. He could not as easily speak against anyone less he be spoken also in the darkest of manner. He could not kill for he would be at risk of death himself.

Man therefore has freedom but he is not free to do all things. There is no freedom absolute.

And yet many deify freedom like a religion. They cry freedom like they were in battle and their lives were on the line. In the name of freedom, they lavish their flesh in strange lust and in violence. It is false freedom that they speak of.

Let us see the man who simply walks the streets and then he meets another man walking towards his direction. For this man, it is freedom for him to just pass by and ignore completely the man he meets. It is freedom for him not to address him nor offer comfort to that other man even if that man would be dying of starvation. There would be no law or ordinance that he would violate. It is also freedom for that walking man to greet the other man, feigning a pleasant façade, to welcome him and give him comfort even if he is at the least of discomfort. There are just a lot of things that the walking man could do in such a situation, a lot of space for freedom.

And yet despite freedom, that walking man could not just spit into the face of the other man for he would invite havoc and mayhem possibly. He could not kick or trample him unless he be trampled himself and kicked towards the ground. It is not freedom for him to shout invectives and insults and accusations lest he be insulted himself.

Men may do many things but there are things they could not do.

Freedom is beauty to mankind and yet its unhindered use is dangerous. It is like upon salt that a pinch shall add taste to the viand but a horde of it shall suffocate the eater.

Would you be the one who is impatient and to wallow in the muck of wickedness and in temporary pleasures, only to lose everlasting peace and blissfulness in the Afterlife?

What would you gain if you gain all the treasures in the world and yet to lose your salvation when death comes calling?

Would you be the rabbit who sought pleasure first and let pass his destination for long?

Or would you be the turtle that labors with every step and be the one to reach destination first?

Do not be impatient and overcome your will against the temptation of wealth and of the flesh for the rewards of the righteous is enormous-an Eternal Life in Heaven-while the punishment for those who defy shall be the torment of the Unending Fire.

The beauty of freedom is for us to savor the beauty of life; to breathe the breezy air; to welcome the warmest of sunrises and sunsets; to bask in the most effervescent of daylight; to be enthralled by the flowers in the garden; to be endeared by the singing of robins in the summertime.

They say to love is freedom. That freedom is love and that love is freedom.

But a man loves the whole and not merely the superficial. To love is to give and not to ask. It is to love the wholeness of being and not merely the superficiality of things.

To love is to seek the person as a whole and not merely a part of him or her.

To love is never merely to seek the flesh for it is never to love when lust is the primary purpose of adoration--it is an abuse of person. For it is to love to seek the gain of the other and not merely the benefit of the self.

Many seek love in the name of freedom that they result into excesses of the flesh.

They say it is freedom for man to seek the flesh for man is free and so he is free to be blissful. They seek wickedness if they only know this, for man is created apart and above those beasts in the wilderness.

These are men and women who see another person as merely objects; as merely tools and weapons in order to pursue their selfish and improper intentions.

Let us seek the proper freedom so that we may be guided towards the Light, towards the goodness of things and not to wallow in wickedness.

Those who are excessive shall never sleep tight in the night for their own shadows shall bother them and they always realize these things too late.

Be free and yet be patient.

Let us be reminded for all times that a man without his prayers is like an ant lost and wandering in the middle of the Saharan Desert. He is alone and grasping for direction, he has no compass in his hands and the road ahead does not tell any clue about his destination. He has no map in his keeping and the path that he threads is dark and winding that no signposts would assist him in his journey towards Eternal Life.

Our religion and our practice of faith are part of our spiritual life that without the benefit of its ethical codes and guidelines, we would meet the hardest of times in coping with the disputes of the modern life where in every corner we turn, the temptation to sin and to do wrongful ways are ever threatening. Our faith is the sieve that shall purify us out of our impurities.

When daylight comes into view, we must remain before Him in thoughtful prayers for a new day is about to come and we need the beacon of his never-fading light, His ever-permeating wisdom and guidance. When dusk appears, as we ready ourselves in bidding farewell to another passing of day, our prayers shall be in gratitude for the wondrous gift of life.

While we know in our hearts that faith alone could not save our souls, it is of no wisdom to dispel completely our practice of faith and to disregard the power of our prayers. We must conform to the habits that give meaning to our pleadings before the Lord. We petition Him in many ways and our faith shall provide us the avenue for our supplications. Faith and works shall go hand in hand like hammer and nail for without the other, one alone would be fruitless at most.

We must seek the calmness of the churches and the temples at least once in a month so that we do not forget faith. We must establish regular prayers in the conclaves of our homes for to forget the practice of faith would redound to forgetting the Lord God and the things He desires us to be. We must not harbor apostasy for the flames of the unending fire shall await those who procrastinate.

Our act of faith is also our language of obedience. As we attend the ceremonies of our churches, we are declaring in effect that we are in full obedience to the Lord. How else could we show Him our greatest of faith if we just sit in the corner of our room, without prayers and without seeking the harbor of the churches and the temples?

Our path towards the Kingdom is often fraught with the many traps of sins and errors that whomsoever says he or she is without need of the churches is one who trek the perilous road, without a map in his or her hands, without a lamp that shall light the ways.

Without our prayers, the heart becomes inundated with discontent and sorrow that Satan knows always when to take the proper opportunity. When we are at our weakest, it is the very moment that the demons come to disturb our minds, and take advantage of our human frailties, to examine and study carefully our desires and wants, and then to reward these desires if we commit folly and mischief, upon their commands and biddings. When we are the weakest, our hearts desires the most things, even the things that we should not desire.

The demons come into us like water into a vessel. The moment they notice a man whose spiritual conviction is weak, they tempt him like a child reaching out for a candy. They would notice a desirous soul miles and miles away, like snakes in the mountain who seek their prey in hills miles and miles apart. There is the imbalance in a man that makes him an easy prey to the demons, and makes him fall on the wayside, and that would be the end of his spiritual balance. When a soul moves farther and farther away from the churches and from the harking of the priests and the preachers, the soul languishes in neglect of faith and becomes the slave of wanton desires and would be the most fragrant prey to the snakes in the mountains.

When the demons come, we often do not notice them for they come in the name of deceit and their masks are not easily uncovered. We only realize their grievous influence when it is already too late, when remorse finally fills our hearts. If they come often because of our lack of faith, there would come a time that the hearts does not feel remorse anymore that the soul and the demon becomes already one and the same, and salvation of the soul becomes the farthest.

We must shield ourselves from the snakes in the mountain for even if we are miles apart, we could become prey to these demons if we are the least in faith. We fortify our stronghold through our habitual practice of faith. The more we become closer to the men of God we become shielded the more. We must hear the preaching of the knowledgeable ones, and we must strive to fill our hearts with the verses of the words of God and be strict in our obedience. We must read the words frequently for they are like balms to our wounded soul. We must gain our shield against the menace of the Darkness and we must fortify our faith. In daily prayers, we are brought into the most righteous path and we shall not be like a lamb lost in the wilderness.

Religion, and the practice thereof, is like a sieve upon sandy water. It sieves away the materials that make our hearts impure. We go on sieving the water again and again in order that that the sands may not stain the water we drink. Is it not that the more we sieve the water, the more it becomes pure?

In our journey towards Eternal Life, we must be vigorous in sieving our souls, to chase away the many impurities that haunt the spirit. No one escapes sin and therefore no one shall boast that he or she will need to sieve no more. Our acts of faith are our compass, the maps in our hands. If we are without the signs that lead our voyage, we are easily led astray into the darkness of sins and soon our path would lead to the lake that burns with an unending fire.

We have faith that is why we do works. We should have no faith alone or works alone. We must have both faith and works. We must do both for the two must come like hammer and nail.

(This is part of a work-in-progress work in the past.)