The morality of moving on

I don't usually pour my heart out to a blog as public as this, neither do I pour my heart out to anything. I am a bit cold as some people noted and I believe myself a graduate of this self-pitying habit; crying about oneself for his miseries as if the world does not understand him and that he is alone braving the hardships to come.

The above lines are not as unfamiliar as many would think. In their desolation they could have said exactly the same thing, and if not, probably thought about it. The thing is, people always feel sad at certain points in their lives that a simple pat on the shoudler or even a warm and affectionate embrace would not solve. It is not a feeling isolated only to an unfortunately select few, it is something that all of us have to endure. But why do I have to explain all this? Why now?

Something happened. Something happened on the supposedly the happiest season of the year that upset everyone. This year's Christmas is not as happy as it should be. Not that I'm expecting my Christmas to be happy, I never expected that. I expected my Christmas to be boring. But, as it tunred out, my Christmas was "depressing," "sad" if you don't get it. Don't ask me, even I don't know why. Strange, isn't it? You'd think that the person him/herself would know exactly the reason for what he/she is feeling. But in this case, no.

To my surprise (actually I was too sad to be surprised, I was probably more amazed and curious and very interested than surprised), I was not the only one feeling the same thing. Most of the people I encountered was not as jubilant as they were supposed to be, or as they were a year ago. What was wrong? Had Santa forgotten to sprinkle a little Yuletide joy on every house his raindeers passed? It will take a lot of time before we find the answer, and probably by that time, it wouldn't matter anymore. Or maybe we really just don't have to answer that question; the perpetual "WHY?" This is what my Philosopy Professor would call Gelassenheit (Letting be, letting go). Hayaang mag-meron ang meron.

That kind of takes the purpose of life away doesn't it. Fr. Ferriols and his baby Professors, together with the disciples of Heidegger would beg to differ. At least, that's what I think. So what then is a person to do if he/she feels sad? Wallow in self-pity, in his/her own sadness? A person must experience life, that's true, and he/she must be able to endure what life throws at him/her. But that doesn't mean that he/she should pause and get stuck experiencing only that fact of life because he/she is too cowardly to move on. If indeed we are to experience what it is that we want to experience, then move forth! Sure, cry over what's lost but be sure to stand back up and continue with life's journey. (I'm losing it, aren't I? I sound like an life experienced, angst driven teenager. I should stop here and return to normalcy).

And so now, I just found what I have written above as pointless. Since I was shying away from explaining every statement that needs explanation, and since I have abruptly ended with a confession that this is becoming absurd and too much a statement of a drama King, oh and reason caught up with me.

Reason, yes reason. To cry over your own sad life is pathetic, much worse, idiotic. It's too selfish you forget that you are in a lot of ways connected to different people. And forgetting that you are connected to other people is one way of shrugging away your responsibility towards them who needs you.

I find myself, often times, terribly conflicted between helping someone and leeting them be. I always tell myself that I could not help them. Let's put it this way; imagine a street child begging for alms on the, well, street. You have like only an exact change you need to commute. You really wanted to help them but you can't. How then would you help them? Some people would say, go back the next day and give him/her some money. Or buy him/her lunch. The wiser persons would say, let him/her be. If we give him/her alms then he/she'll be totally dependent on the sympathy if not pity of passersby. And we would have condemned him/her to that life forever. The rational solution was, teach him/her to work.

Now the question is, who would have the luxury of time to do so. So else would do it if not you who encounters him/her everyday. Who else would do it?

Our discussion therefore have brought us to the question of morality. should not a person care for another? But how would he/she take care of another if he/she cannot take care of him/herself? If that person is totally depressed then how could he/she help another human being? Difficult isn't it? But there will be times when we would be called to the that extraordinary good at the lowest point of our lives. It's a matter of choosing to do what is good over what is easy.

I am not, of course, saying that you don't have the right to feel sad about yourself when so many others are suffering far worse than you. But I am saying this; cry if you must, but move on after a while because many other people need you too. You are not here in this world for yourself alone, you are also here for others.

It is not immoral for a person to cry, but it is immoral for him/her to cry for the rest of his/her life, leaving those who needed him/her to suffer, die, perish, and be forgotten.

GrandFather

Goodbye GrandFather, the family's benefactor.
Without you I would never be where I am now.

Thank You for everything, thank you for caring...

I am sorry that I haven't been there at the last minute...

I am sorry I haven't thanked you for all that you have done for us...

And now, for all its worth...


THANK YOU!


may you rest in peace

To an Uncle

To an Uncle... the smartest of us all... an empty space in his memory...











May you rest in Peace

A Blank Entry

THIS IS A TRIBUTE TO MY FORMER SCOUT MASTER WHO PASSED AWAY.

Good Bye Scout Master. Good Bye Sir Velas...

Anti-Socialism

Anti-Socialism

I was waiting for 5:30 pm by the Kostka benches with two of my friends when someone approached us and was selling us a copy of KATIPUNAN. There was nothing offensive with the approach, and then she started asking us if we knew what the KATIPUNAN was and I answered that I knew it to be “a branch off” from the Guidon. I knew she was offended, and she replied by telling us that they are a completely independent organization. And then she offered us a copy of the magazine for us to browse, for some reason I did not browse the magazine. I just didn’t feel interested about it although I tried to redeem myself afterwards by asking them about their sponsors.

After the lady went away I just realized how rude I’ve been. And then I went to the library and saw some of my friends. I sat with them and relate to them what had happened. I asked them if I was rude, and they said “YES!” I was really bothered that I was rude to the lady a while ago, but I cannot turn back time and even if I can what would I do?

“Socially inept” (copyright@Enzoperez) that’s what my friends said that I was; and I had my time of reflecting and the more I thought about the incident, the more I found it convincing that I was socially inept.

Why is it that I was making a big issue out of this? Why was I putting this in my blog? Probably I felt guilty about the way I acted, and probably because I have offended another individual. Not only that, but this individual was a kindred soul; fighting for idealism they believe in. And what will I be when I start fighting for my own idealisms; will I get the same indifference that I showed her? It sounds like I care more about what will happen to me rather than caring about how I offended her. But I am conscious of what I did, and I am terribly sorry that I did it. I am terribly sorry for my indifference and rudeness.

Probably I have to educate myself about social etiquettes. Should it come out naturally, as when one person is expected to behave in a pleasing manner as the other expects him/her to be? If it should then I cannot understand how I deviate from that natural order. I don’t want to blame anyone that I have been raised this way and nor do I want to justify my actions. I have always wanted to be pleasing, and I have imitated a lot of people, most especially my good friend, and tried as hard as I could to be pleasing, to learn how to be socially acceptable. Not that I am not accepted in my social circles, but it is the instances like the one that I related to you which made me realize that all I have been doing was calculating another person’s attitude and relate to him/her somehow.

For me, it was not as natural as it would be for some people. Does it really matter that I learn? Does it really matter that I was rude? Probably to me it won’t, but to the persons I interact with, it probably does.

I’m sorry that I have been rude to you.

As for my social ineptitude, I would just hope that in my later encounters with other people, I would avoid making the same “mistake” that I did. Maybe this was simply teaching me a lesson, something I can’t read in text books, but something you’ll learn from not reading a magazine, offered by a young lady whom you offended because she was just fighting for her ideals.

Sand Castle

I was just rummaging through my old stuffs when I found this particular essay which was supposed to be my College essay to Fordham (which I didn't submit, thankfully enough because the english was horrible... HORRIBLE!) Anyway I haven't edited it so this is the thing. Although I very much like the ending.

Sand Castle

Once when I was at a beach building a sand castle, a kid told me that there was no use building a castle since it will be washed away by the tides (I was building near at the shore). The kid was right; the tides seemed to have destroyed my sand castle. Only molded spot stood there where once the proud castle was when I looked it up the next morning.

It occurred to me only now that the kid was not entirely right. Although the castle was destroyed, remnants of it remained and its spirit immortalized in the memory of its creator. This anecdote told me that it was the same in life; no matter how rich or how poor we are, no matter how famous or unheard of we are all subject to death (as what The Elegy Written in the Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray taught me in my 3^rd year High School). Why should we bother then to excel if we equally all die? But the thing is, we are remembered by what we did in our lifetime. We may be poor, but yet we may be remembered as one of those who fought courageously for the freedom of our country. We may be powerful, but yet be remembered as someone who plunged the world into the darkness of World War II.

So that is why, like the sand castle that I once built, I planned to make a good impression to my friends and to my fellow Bedans (Schoolmates). I ran for Student Council President and I won. This is the one that made me evolve into the person that I am right now. During my term as SC President I learned loads of stuffs, not only was I able to serve my schoolmates, I also made a lot of friends.

I learned how to trust correctly. I learned that being a leader does not just require leadership; there are other virtues that compose the essence of being a leader: wisdom, justice, trust, responsibility, belief in your men, and patience. Leading the Student Council is just like being a parent to your children. The pressures outside wasn’t difficult, it was the pressures within that I have to deal with everyday. There were oppositions, mediocrity, irresponsibility, and laziness. I have to keep them functioning for the entire student organization was at our hands. I made them understood that my duty is their duty. It was a difficult task but we were able to pull it through.

All those hard times, all those conflicts shaped me into the person that I am right now. I give third chances even though most people think it foolish to do so. I trust in people more that I believe in them so much; I believe in them that I helped them reach their limits… beyond that only themselves can help them. I’m totally different now, much more confident in myself and believe more in my capabilities.

I never knew that I was going to be this kind of person. Neither have I thought that I will be molded into the person that I am right now by a sand castle that I built when I was nine years old.

Alchemy: The Soul

My fascinations of alchemy has dragged me beyond the realm of transmuting lead into pure gold, and well beyond the realm of immortality with the elixir of life. Now I am more concerned about the "sameness" of earth and heaven as stated in the Emerald Tablet;

That which is Below corresponds to that which is Above,
And that which is Above corresponds to that which is Below
To accomplish the miracles of the ONE THING.
And just as all things come from this ONE THING
Through the meditation of ONE MIND,
So do all created things originate from this ONE THING
Through Transformation.

If I am correct to assume that all heaven and earth came from the One thing, then it must be possible that even the soul of a human being comes from that One Thing. I will not analyze the Emerald Tablet just yet, for I lack the knowledge nor the understanding to actually grasp the concept of the Tablet. However, I understand that there is a ONE THING from which all things came from, earthly and divine, which is the reason for the "sameness" of the Above and the Below.

I have seen from the Azoth of the Philosophers a triangle with the symbol of the sun, moon, and the celestial (probably pertaining to mercury). The symbol of the sun is called Anima which means soul, the moon is called Spiritus which is spitrit, and the celestial is called corpus or Body. I cannot tell yet the difference between the three but just this sudden realization compelled me to write. What if the soul of a human is actually an atom? Or maybe we go to something smaller, an RNA. I could go smaller to strings but I do not yet fully understand the characteristics and behaviour of the string. What ever it is, it is tangible. Well not really tangible as in tangible but I mean something that we can see although we can't really see it with the naked eye. It's like looking at the floor, and even though you cannot see the dust particles you know that it is there. Therefore, for this article, I will refer to that particle, the human soul as the Atom. Whether it be quarks or strings or RNAs, let us call it an Atom, for the purposes of this discussion.

Now why do I suggest that the Human soul is actually an atom, well the concept of the ONE THING (if I had interpreted this correctly) tells us that all things come from this ONE THING, and naturally that ONE THING will leave something of its essence on all things (which have changed through the passage of time); and what is it that resides in all things except for the atom. But first let us understand what the soul means. The soul, according to a dictionary, is the "essential part of a person's identity." What is then the person's identity? Would identity be personality and physical features? If that is so then the human soul is indeed the atom, for it is the atom that comprises the proteins and cell structures which make our physical attributes, and the very chemicals responsible for our psychological make-up or rather the chemicals which influences our behaviour.

The bible constantly motivates us to reconcile with the Divine. It yearns to find, to be filled with the graces of the Divine, and I can only wonder why it does so (I cannot know why the soul wants to be united with the Divine and my only guess is that it is incomplete by itself. Christianity taught us that pure happiness can be achieved when we rejoin God in the heavens.) That very atom is what connects us to the ONE THING, well actually, that atom is the very thing that connects us to everyone. If I am correct that the atom is the Human soul, and since that atom is what comprises everything, then not only is it the Human soul, it is the soul of the universe, of all that is created.

The soul's yearning to reconcile with the Divine then is nothing more than a yearning for the death of the person which carries the soul (or probably which is the soul, the bodily composition itself as being the essence of a person), for with death the body will turn to dust and once again reunite with the universe. And now with this notion we are presented with two most important concept. 1) The Law of Conservation of Matter and 2) Reincarnation. According to the Law of Conservation of Matter, Matter cannot be created nor destroyed. In this sense, if the SOUL is actually the ATOM, which is physical and takes up space just like all Matters, then when the person dies, the body is not actually lost, the SOUL which is every Atom in the body, which is to say, THE BODY is actually reunited with the universe. Because the atoms of the body is not destroyed but carried by the winds to other parts of the universe to take up a new form. Taking up the space it hadn't lost in the first place. On Reincarnation, simply put, when the atoms takes up a new form and becomes another thing, then it is simply the reincarnation of the soul of that dead person. Because his soul took on a new form and became the soul of another thing.

The Soul is possibly the Atom, but if we accept this realization as the fullest truth then it opens up more questions. Answering the question of what the Soul is, is like cutting off the head of a hydra. When one head is cut off, two more takes its place and even fiercer than before. This realizations opens a whole knew set of questions and some inconsistencies with the Emerald Tablet. But It will be my quest to fully comprehend this. Probably, this understanding is the Philosopher's Stone.

Chapter 6: The Avengers

I am writing the darkest chapter of the story, more than 3000 people get killed and only one person killed 3000. Is it really bad to write something that just happened in your head? I begin to re-examine my morals, was it right to sacrifice my story for the sake of the lives of 3000 fictional characters? Was it even believable that one man will be driven by vengeance to kill over 3000 unarmed warriors? It is a powerful thing being a writer, you play "god" you control the lives of the characters you've created and somehow you cannot control what they do. You know what they will do, which is to say that you know their future. But somehow, they have their own free will, something that you cannot control. And they would do things that you, as a writer would at one time regret.

3000 men die at the hands of a vengeful warrior. Is it even possible? Could a man be driven by this very strong emotion to just throw away his regard for human life and slaughter those peoples who have less to do with his loss? It is fiction I know, but how does it reflect on the person who writes this gruesome and cruel, fictional reality? Do I have the same disregard for human life as the warrior who killed the 3000? Of course I will defend myself, that although it is very evil that I write, I do not think it reflects my morality. From the very first time I have taken up a pen rather than a sword I have sworn like all writers do, to tell the truth, to write what is, and what will happen. The story of the 3000 killed by one man is what was supposed to happen, I wrote it because it was how my pen has directed me to write it, and it was what my character had decided to do. Free will!

I hope that in writing this, I would take note later on of what I have written and what my characters have done, I hope that later on "playing god" would teach me more valuable virtues.