Then, I enjoyed my job. Now I don’t.
Then, I was excited to sit on my desk. Now I wish the hour never comes.
Then, I was encouraged to do a good job. Now I’m not.
Then, I cared. Now I don’t.
The feelings are the same in my previous job. Is it because I’ve learned what I needed to learn? That’s fair to say. I also realized that growth is not possible in this situation, but I thought of that already before. I’d like to borrow Muymuy’s method and leave a password only I can decipher.
makahiya plant
October 2nd, 2008
I’m not exactly a music critic, but I’ll mention a few things about Rico Blanco’s album Your Universe and especially the first single, Yugto. I’ll call this album good. Blanco’s poetic abilities is still evident in this solo album. Yugto has an operatic feel to it trying to follow Freddie Mercury and Queen. The intro surprisingly sounds Eastern European which I thought was cool. I can’t imagine the Vikings in the Philippines. Blanco did not try to sound different from Rivermaya and I think it’s a better move because he was after all Rivermaya. It’s good that he did not attempt to escape. I can’t wait to see him perform Yugto live because the song has a tendency to be an awesome live act.
August 15th, 2008
Tomorrow I’m supposed to join the whole family to go out of town. The destination is New Jersey and the first stop is Six Flags. I haven’t been in the said theme park. This weekend is supposed to be my first time. We will be at the Hurricane Harbor because of it being summer and all. I’ll try to ride everything, but I’m guessing I won’t be able to handle it. I have a serious fear of height and most of the time not because I’m afraid of falling and dying, but it’s the fear that I might jump. I’ve always been curious of how free fall feels like. I should go sky diving, right?
Going away also means I’m going to miss the greatest performance night of Pinoy Idol. I’m really excited to see the performance because I saw Ram’s rehearsal and it’s amazing. I hope the weather won’t act during my absence so that the DVR behaves properly and I can watch the recorded show when I come back.
Today, I saw someone riding my Ducati bike. I really need to get my driver’s license before the summer ends. I’ll start reviewing so that next Friday I can take the exam for a permit. Then schedule a lesson at the end of August.
My silence starts here and I will end it with a recap of my weekend getaway.
July 25th, 2008
I never thought this would happen. While having breakfast in a cafe near our office’s building, a customer sat in front of me reading the same book I’m reading, Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. The same paperback version. I never thought that with the few different people I see in the cafe, I would find someone reading a philosophy novel. I often see people reading Sheldon’s or Brown’s or other contemporaries, but I never thought I’d see someone in front of me reading Ayn Rand, and the same title needless to say.
I guess I’d better say more about the book since I’m only a few leaves away to the end. I’ve alluded so much of We The Living and I believe The Fountainhead is much better than that.
In this novel, I’ve met a perfect hero that I can relate so much to. A villain that brings out most of my anger. I feel anger which means I’m not purely an Objectivist, not an egotist, but I’m working on it. I will loan the novel to Ate Lorie, so I won’t divulge so much of the characters. So far, I’m not too concerned of the plot in Rand’s literature because her characters are interesting enough. She develops her characters wonderfully and I can’t get over imagining these individuals.
The book is difficult to read not because of her diction, but because knowledge and emotions are only emphasized. The style makes the reader hurry up and wait for the characters to verbally confess. It makes the book not suspenseful, but rather plentiful of self discovery. The emphases on these knowledge ask the reader if he thought the same. “Are you thinking what he’s thinking?”
Why do I think that the hero is perfect? Because he doesn’t care about people, about what other people would think of him, of what he’s doing, of what he’s going to do. I guess About A Boy has to move down a notch.
After this, I’ll venture to Rand’s next book, the Atlas Shrugged. Hailed to be better than The Fountainhead so I’m also excited. Only after reading the last novel that I’ll decide what (not which) my favorite book is.
July 11th, 2008
I’m back in New York. It feels like I’ve been gone for more than six days. Now I’m in my comfort zone. I have nothing left to say, except a few pictures I’m going to parade below. Visit the photos page for more. I didn’t capture much. I’m a lazy bummer when it comes to photography.
The Rockies (British Columbia)
The Prairie (Manitoba)
June 28th, 2008
“We The Living” is about a struggle of three individuals in Soviet Russia. Ayn Rand claims that the heroin inherits all the philosophical ideas from her.
In the beginning of the book, Kira was my model. She did not care about anyone but herself. She walked the path which would make her happy. She denounced society because according to her, oneself always comes first. The highest reverence of man is himself. Selfishness is a virtue.
A few chapters later, I lost interest on Kira. She contradicted herself because she fell in love. Her love affair(s) is unconventional. So what? She attached herself to another and that created a “society”. This is the beginning of her downfall and she never rose back.
I have been attempting to detach myself completely from everything — emotions, society, etc. I had the opportunity to complete the task 4 years ago. I also had another opportunity 5 months ago. Both opportunities were shattered by an emotion that everyone seeks and what caused Kira her downfall.
Once a man is detached, he shall live life like a comatose. So far, I have devised three phases in order to achieve complete detachment: (1) detach yourself from blood, (2) detach yourself from love, and (3) detach yourself from dependence. I shall explain each one.
Detachment from blood means to extract yourself from your family and relatives. This does not mean casting out of the house (you will do this in the third phase). What I meant here is to not care what happens to the family. You shouldn’t feel grief, envy, jealousy regarding the family. This may be the hardest because you grew up attuned to this form of collective. It’s the basic form of society — family.
Detachment from love means to not be in love with anybody. This is difficult as well because the emotions playing here are very enigmatic. However, this is the only phase where you have to overcome something that’s not inherent. It’s injected. It’s poison to selfishness. Total self control is needed in this phase. Strong will to resist external temptation is a must.
Detachment from dependence is not exactly independence. Independence is the result, but is not the task. This is the most difficult of the three because you will have to abandon all connections. You will no longer depend on others in order to live. You will not have a job, acquaintances, connection to the world. You will be completely alone.
The first phase, I have partially completed. There are still stray emotions I need to sort out. The second phase, I should have the full control in this. For now, I can’t say I have this taken care of. Lastly, I need to save in order to accomplish the third phase. I have a long way to go… What about you?
June 1st, 2008
I feel cocky tonight, so I’ll present you with deceiving stats for this web site. I intentionally cropped the graphs to have 400px width so that they won’t mess up the layout of the web site. Giving, of course, the sample containing the highest peak.
If you see a graph, do not conclude immediately. You need more information in order to understand the situation — the behavior of the sample. Statistics is widely used now to give us false information. Every morning you will hear these information in the news. Researchers taking down stats and most of us make facts out of these samples. That’s why I hate the medical field so very much because of its dependence to stats.
Below is a Wordpress blogstat graph. Even though I’m showing a sample with the higest peak, blogstat shows that this is a typical activity for this site. That’s an average of 1000 visits. Blogstat does not compute according to a visitor’s uniqueness. So you may think that I’m bored every day and since I have no life, I visit the site 1000 or so times in order to see a graph looking like this.
You thought wrong! Below is a graph from Google Analytics. It’s really a boring graph because it’s nearly constant (almost a straight line). The graph below (the Y-axis has an interval of 1000 visitors) is showing an average of 1000 UNIQUE visitors daily. That proves the graph above to be legitimate.
Why then did I entitle this entry “Deceiving…”? Well, I intentionally omitted relevant information. The information I omitted do not affect the result of the graphs above, but they do affect the understanding of how the site is doing.
May 28th, 2008
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