Before You Off Yourself

There are mornings I wake up and feel like there is a huge bag of rocks on my chest. The nostalgia feels like a mountain resting on me, the weight of the years almost unbearable.

Sometimes I wonder, how the rest of humanity can go along with the flow of life. Not a rockstar, not an inventor, not what you had set out to be. Not the life you wanted. Not the love you sought. Solace from your religion is what people usually say. Is it really contentment with your lot of the draw, or is it a choice between acceptance and utter dark desolation of despair?

Even then you wake up, however lost the years, the friends, the choices have been; however bleak the universe is; despite your trunkful of coulda, woulda, shoulda, you still have woken up. What happens when you don't? I am not sure. Cross the bridge when you get there I think. But I have woken up, as you have. It would be a waste to not try again. It may all end up in failure, since there is no proof there may be a win today. But - what if?

Brought back to my youth by The Avengers

Avengers Movie Website

After multiple disappointments with Marvel characters in movies, this optimist-pessimist decided that the scales tilted from Tortilla chips and burgers at TGI Friday's to a date with the Avengers movie. Well not fully, I kept some for insurance and had an apple slush and tortillas before the movie.

I kept the expectations to a minimum. After all the character surgeries done so the X-Men can be GP, what else would someone who grew up waiting for six months before one got a chance (chance being the operative word) to get the newest Marvel comic book, all the superhero movies felt something like a betrayal of our youth. It felt too sanitized, to get through the censors at which ever board had a say.

Boy was I wrong this time. My wife who is six years my junior, almost did not watch the movie as she was watching me. I felt like I was ten again, moving through the pages of an Avengers Annual, the one sent by a very loved relative from the USA. I felt as I did then, blood quickening as I had been so excited but needed to finish my homework and chores first before I could solemnly unwrap the comic book and start reading. I felt both torn and impatient at wanting to know how the story ends and trying to keep time frozen.

I laughed, I clapped, I cheered, I whooped (when the Hulk knocked Thor down on a whim). I went back to days when Ben Grimm battled the green monster in the city streets of USA. I went back to when it was cool that Dr. Blake was Thor. I went back from all the dreary, tiring grown up modern world I know now, this third world country I call home, and went back to being a child transported by the story tellers and artists of Marvel. I felt good, for the first time in a long time, about having spent my money.

Thank you Stan Lee and team. Some other hardcore fan/s would still find something lacking as purists would usually do. I'd say this time you've outdone yourselves. I met my childhood self today, and for that you have my gratitude yet again.

Barclays shareholders revolt against boss pay awards

Barclays shareholders revolt against boss pay awards

This makes one really wonder why Filipinos, who are not an illiterate race, are unable to rise to our potential and take control of our situation in this manner.

Folks, we are going to continue to get abused in all aspects of civilized life, until we get our heads together and make our leaders accountable for their actions and decisions.

I dearly hope people may listen someday.

34 Degree Saturday Morning

So I wake up and wonder if I set my thermostat wrong, as the room temperature stood at 24 Celsius. Good enough to not be uncomfortable, but I like cold balmy air. I don't think I can take Alaska, my preference would lie around autumn weather.

I go up and decide to take a leak, since I won't be able to start on my blog anyway, with the bladder screaming for attention. I open my bedroom door and - enter the airport tarmac.

Well that's how it felt anyway moving from 24 to 34 degrees. Darn it, I used to remember liking the summers here where I was born. Now it feels like the land is trying to suffocate you in summer and drown you in the monsoon. I may just be pessimistic, you can ask my countrymen how they feel about it, now since I haven't packed my bags yet again, I can say I'm mildly optimistic.

Note to policitians - you're stealing taxes, manipulating the economy to accumulate more wealth, so can you at least please leave some trees around? Pretty soon there won't be any of us left to abuse anyway, so it's a win-win situation.

I so want a Blackberry Playbook

Blackberry Playbook

Note to self:
"If the one who talked to Faust talks to you. Ask for the Playbook. And maybe a matching phone."

or

"Will work for Playbook"

The IPad is for kiddies. Grown-ups get the bb tablet.
Tee hee.

Philippines seeks US defence boost amid China row

Philippines seeks US defence boost amid China row

We've been called little brown americans somewhere along our history. It feels from the inside of this country that we've been trying to find our own identity but still try to grow with the United States as our primary model.

We love everything American.

So what happens to all those that campaigned so vigorously against American presence in our shores? That emergent bully does not play by the rules. Looks like we run to America after all, to protect our sovereignity that we've accused them of infringing.

Sigh.

A Fundamental Question

Are you a believer because you are, or are you a believer because you would go crazy in this chaotic world without that hope of something higher and better?

I found myself grappling with that question a couple of midmornings back, and I still haven't gotten a straight answer yet. Funny how one can delude one's self eh?

You see, hear, and read about it everywhere. First world citizens who have all the opportunities in the world living lonely lives; third world citizens living in squalor living lives where hope is hope itself. As one learns and goes out into the world the inevitable questions surface. Are we to live our moments in this earth purely in the way we were raised, or are we to define it as our own?

Life knocks you down, makes you cry, gives you opportunities to laugh, intervals when you feel invulnerable, and puts you in the dark, in those occasions of gnawing doubt. One should begin to wonder, with all the beauty of a rising sun, the nostalgia that arrives with the death of the sun and the birth of the moon, with how the sharp tinge of ozone brought about by falling rain on hot pavement can bring emotion to us, is this all there is? Is there somewhere we go to? Is it our vanity as an intelligent being that makes us refuse to believe that we just close our eyes, lie down and become worm fodder?

But... do we take it as is? The way our elders have handed it down to us? In spite of the hate all that supposed love has created? Or do we at least try to evolve as we grow in civilization? With all that, how can one believe as strongly that Someone is actually watching and guiding us?

I am still hedging my bets that there is a Supreme being. Just not sure yet whether I'm the former or the latter. Which one are you?