Looking back

I had reason to go poking about for my online history. I stumbled back to this "blog", which now seems quaint when comparing it with the content creators of this day and age.

I had started two (2) blogs, one on the now defunct i.ph platform, and this one. I could have just folded both into one, seeing that both are unfocused. This prevented both from gaining any traction, and just dampened any desire on my end to write more. Without encouragement, I had simply stopped writing. It would seem that the stream of consciousness style (or random, uninteresting musings written pretentiously) does not have an audience large enough to live off of. 

I was younger then, and had dreams of creating multiple passive income streams, I wanted that sweet, sweet Adsense money. Unfortunately, I was younger and infinitely more foolish. Money, is a carrier of value, the previous owner parts with it in exchange for something that he or she views is of the same or similar value. People (or rather large corporations running online ad campaigns) will not part with their money if a) they see no value in your work, and b) if you have nothing to show in the first place. 

A family member and I recently spoke, the main take away of that discussion was that in certain societies, i.e., the US, you had to "put yourself out there". In our country, you have to not only be a "good" worker, but also someone who shies away from appearing too aggressive - I blame centuries of subjugation for that. The effect of this is  encourage an employee, rather than an entrepreneur's or creator's, mentality. Go to school, get a degree, find a good job, that was the path. It gave "security" but rarely satisfaction. 

My country is now entering half a year in lockdown. I had converted one corner of the house into an ersatz studio for videoconferencing, an old Samsung Galaxy into a webcam for Zoom, and a Pentium laptop into a productivity powerhouse. I had been using these to create value for my employer, but rarely to create for myself. 

I have had enough, I want to break free from this cycle of consumption, and transform into a creator. Even simply hammering out my thoughts, even if to others it makes no sense, is a form of artistry. Previously, I had written about catharsis in an old post. I hope to achieve that same feeling again by writing. 

And of course, get some of that sweet, sweet Adsense money.

Catharsis/Cathartic

A little over 8 years ago I met someone whom I consider a good friend. Somewhat morose, but otherwise level-headed. In perhaps the greatest adventure of our young lives, we set off to China.

Over the course of our stay in China we got to know the rest of the group better. This friend of mine told me, with his tongue loosened by alcohol, that he found it cathartic to run (in the rain, naked, or both I could not for the life of me recall which one). I, out of pride, and not wanting to appear ignorant quietly agreed. The rest of our stay was lively and eventful for we had seen and learned so much about ourselves and the world in so short a time. We had gotten drunk more times than we cared to admit, and usually from Tsing-Tao which was sold in the school cafeteria. We discovered what true friendship tasted like and it tasted like blood. I credit him for more than half a decade's consumption of cigarettes, as he, having drunken himself into a stupor, again managed to occupy one of our beds. Thus, I went out and lit one of his cigarettes in turn. Another friend of ours during that time remarked that we might no longer be friends upon our return to the homeland.

He was right.

We were a motley crew from varying age groups and backgrounds. We would find little to no time to see each other despite all of us going to the same school.

I gradually lost contact with all of them. Thankfully, facebook arrived and most of us were able to keep in touch with one another.

Fast forward to the present day, I decided to open my old e-mail account. As I sifted through spam e-mails, twitter and facebook notifications, e-newsletters, I felt a wave of relief passing over, flowing into, and pouring out of me. It was at that point I understood the meaning of catharsis. I felt, after ransacking the contents of my inbox for anything meaningful, as if a great burden had been lifted from me. I recalled all my blunders and victories, and how sweet it was to be alive.

FINISHED!

I'm done with school! Hopefully not dead done. Just done until the next semester comes done.

I'm going to write about big government and why it's so scary with what's currently going around.

Public Office is a Public Trust as the 1987 Constitution puts it. Government is there to serve the people and be accountable to the people. There would be no government were it not for the people's will.
I recently had my car registered in one of the LTO branches. Though, the current service is not something I could pick on, there was still a palpable air of corruption hanging around. The LTO was ranked as one of the least corrupt government agencies, as it so states in LTO TV. I spent just an hour in the LTO. You just have to have the complete set of papers at hand.
Government can work efficiently if it chooses to. However, as I mentioned there was still a stink of corruption hanging about. In one of my classes, it was said that corruption is good because it means progress. There are people who can pay the officials off to facilitate things. In my opinion this is generally true, but if the government will be more pervasive then I think that progress will be restricted.

As I was exiting the office along with my aunt the stencil guy came over and was asking something. I didn't pay any attention to him knowing that he'll just be seeking a reward. It is his job to go on the ground and stencil my car's body number. Why should I pay him more for services he'll already be paid for.

It would be okay to pay if you got some additional benefit from his services. If for example you're assured of a 30-1 hour waiting time for the release of your registration why pay more when you can wait it out? The release time will be the same anyway. The attitude of the stencil guy is what makes me afraid of Philippine government getting bigger. If I'm supposed to pay all the government officials or employees I encounter for something that they're supposed to do, then I might as well not register any vehicle, any business or any property. If I do register with them and I have to pay off each and every employee at every step of the way then what'll be left for me?

I have no qualms about Big Government. The main problem right now as espoused by my father is the fractured system brought about by the Local Government Code. Instead of the LGUs coordinating with each other, each one is trying to do something they're not good at and end up stunting the whole region. Every barangay, municipality, city and province will be trying to outdo each other, instead of coordinating their development plans and goals each will be competing with one another and each will be implementing their own ordinances that would cause great confusion with transients and residents alike. There must be some form of central plan that will not leave the LGUs room to be at odds with each other. One LGU must be a residential area and it must maintain roads and railways on its end, at the other side of the border another LGU must maintain the roads and railways on its end matching the effort by the other LGU.

Take a look at all the infrastructure laid out in communist countries. The streets are wide, the parks spacious and green and the landmarks imposing. Look at our roads, railways, parks and landmarks? Ours are pockmarked with neglect.

Another drawback with big government will be the time it takes to get things done. If with the current system you find that it's taking too long, imagine if you have to centralize everything. Again if you're going to have to pay people off, having a centralized system means that fewer people to go through although it will take longer because not everyone might get a piece of the pie they feel they deserve. Further government intrusion and regulation into the daily lives of the public will expose the people to more chances of being extorted.

Big government will be inefficient and clumsy. The current system was meant to meet the needs of the citizens in a given locality. Having a central body responding to the needs of the people even in far flung areas will greatly increase reaction time. Having to project their presence through several thousand kilometers where they might not have enough resources ready will slow down a government agencies ability to react to contingencies. A possible solution to this would be putting people on the ground.

Which leads to my last point (hopefully not) on the matter. A quote I keep hearing whenever I play civilization IV is "The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy". It means that as government involvement expands so too must the mechanisms that government employs. If an agency will employ an additional 10000 people then that additional 10000 people will have 10000 people's worth of files in the CSC, GSIS and other agencies that they will be forced to go through before being able to work for the government. It would create a very unwieldy apparatus for running the country. It will strain government resources that could have been diverted to other projects.

Going small and fractured versus going big and clumsy will each have its concomitant pros and cons. Though there is no pending legislation or action anywhere to change the system I think it would be best to give a second to the idea of changing the apparatus.

The rat

A large rat crawled from the refurbished portion of our yet unfinished house into the old part. It went in like cowboys enter saloons, swaggering, bristling for a fight.

Normally, I would move to ignore such creatures of God as they invade my space. My thinking is if they let you be, you leave them be. As Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and National Geographic have shown us for the past years, animals are more often than not portrayed as vicious by the media and by our imagination but are more than ready to flee than fight.

This rat possessed not the meek subservience that other creatures of God show when confronted with homo sapiens. This one entered sniffing about, probably suffering from all the cement and concrete powder billowing about in our house. This one was different, this one was waiting to get its ass kicked.

Unfortunately, before I could grab the nearest broom and whack it, it had disappeared. I reported the incident to my mother and she reminded of the old stories with rats, snakes and other animals.

If you don't kill it, it will come back for you.

Not just come back in the sense that it'll be physically present. It will come back and pop caps up yo' ass! These creatures she says seem to possess the ability to remember who or what attacked them and exact revenge on them. So it should be killed in one deft stroke, or several amateurish but forceful and violent blows.

Inertia

Google define: inertia

inactiveness: a disposition to remain inactive or inert; "he had to overcome his inertia and get back to work"
(physics) the tendency of a body to maintain its state of rest or uniform motion unless acted upon by an external force
source

The disposition to remain inactive or inert. Much as a rolling stone will not gather moss so too won't a person who is always up and about turn to seed.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, so the saying goes.

I have had the same experience, and I am afraid I keep having it.

Back in college I took a course under the Leadership & Strategy section of my university. My teacher had for our final examinations a group oral exam. We were all tasked to sit down and chat with our teacher Fr. Candelaria, S.J.

My group went on and on about leadership, the proper way to prioritize, the pareto method and other subjects. Fr. Candy's blue eyes then went over to my side of the room. He began to ask me what is your plan after graduation? I was 3rd year then and on schedule. I wanted to make it big in business and in society in general, I wanted to make a difference and donate schools and build churches and houses and all of that jazz. I thought I had a well defined plan, I was thinking too far ahead it seems. You have a goal, but how do you get there? asks Fr. Candy. You see you are like the other college students, you all have goals but none of you have plans. You have the abilities to make it big but have no idea on how to do it.

This entry is about first steps, but in order to have a meaningful first step it must be put down in a plan first. In college I had as yet no plan, I saw the world as an oyster, it existed only for my pleasure. That is the problem with having no plan and having done nothing. There will always be too many possibilities for you to consider all of them and move on the best one. A person who buys nothing will have the worst buyer's remorse.

The plan makes the first step meaningful, and the first step sets the whole thing in motion.

A day in the life: Bro. James Dunne SJ

I entered high school in 1999. I went where the winds took me, I applied to, at least two schools. I guess the winds really weren't blowing that much then. Actually, I applied to three but the Philippine Science High School rejected me because I wasn't among the top 10% of my graduating class. The other science high school, QC, put me on a waiting list. The third, the Ateneo High School accepted me outright. I took the path of least resistance and went right into the AHS. I was amazed at how "big" the Loyola campus was. Big because I was 12 years old when I entered high school. My brother went there too, he was about 4 batches higher so we never really crossed paths in Ateneo.

Anyway, I was still very young when I had to meet him in school. I was along the corridor near Big Boy's desk (a huge man-mountain/gorilla-volcano, he was also smoldering like one with his cigarettes). Out of one of the random doors that dotted that corridor (they're all gone now) emerged this old white male. Beside the door was a small vehicle used for personal transport. He looked all wrinkly and mean, like Palpatine or something. I was shocked that he would appear out of nowhere like that. He was using a cane to walk to his small vehicle (his Rolls-Royce as we would call it). He unfortunately, dropped his cane and couldn't bend over to pick it up. He looked at me with those old eyes (I have really bad eyes and I can't see really well so I can't describe him) and said "could you please hand me my cane." I froze for about 5 seconds I was afraid that once I go near him to hand him his cane he'd drag me into the darkness that the door withheld. I nonetheless picked it up and handed it to him. "Thanks" "You're welcome" and then I ran off. That was my first encounter with Bro. James Dunne of the Society of Jesus.

As I entered high school in '99 I found out that it wasn't really his Rolls-Royce, the white 4 or so wheeled vehicle that moved him about, it was called the Bro-Mobile. He would always say bobo or stupid in Filipino. He being unaccustomed to how its pronounced would say "bow-bow" So it would be *some random question* *some stupid answer by a student* "It's Jesus bow-bow!"

He would honk at students who mill about aimlessly along EDSA walk (the huge corridor that used to link the Art Pavilion all the way to the cafeteria and science labs). His office was in a bat cave between the 1st year wing and 3rd year wing. It was called a bat cave because that space was unusually dark for such a sun-drenched high school campus. There was another area near the ITC I forgot if it was also called the bat cave.

I will never forget Bro. Dunne not because of his Bro-Mobile nor his Multiple Sclerosis nor his invigorating retorts of Bow-bow or idiot or whatever. I will always remember Bro. Dunne for Days With The Lord. Bro. Dunne used to run DWTL, after the year that I did Days he stopped I think for health reasons. And I don't know if he was able to go back to running Days before he died.

Out of my DWTL experience with him I recall one story of his. The story of his mom and bread rolls (or sticks) in a fancy restaurant. The premise of the story is that it all happened a long time ago. He was a young man, I think he got his paycheck or something then. He brought his mom to a fancy place in the city . After they ordered their dinner his mom got the free bread and started putting it in her bag. He felt so ashamed that he had to call his mom out on it. "Mom stop it!" "Why? we could eat it tomorrow for breakfast!" "Only poor people do that!"

Normally it would elicit laughs from the listeners. At first I got a few but after further reflection why did he really do that? Did he have to? Was his mom doing something that was out of place or so unmotherly? If your mom did that would you be ashamed? Should you? These were the questions that haunted me plagued my mind that night. Even to this day I sometimes find myself asking these questions. Why? Simply because I forgot how his story ended. I forgot if he ended up regretting it for the rest of his life.

I find it really hard to answer the questions I raised. What if my mom really did that? Was there something to be ashamed of? We'd just be eating the free bread that's all! She'd be doing something that would fit perfectly with her being a mom, she would be looking out for her family by preparing their food for tomorrow tonight.

Of course, what if I did that? Heck I do it all the time! Its part of what I paid for! So restaurants that offer delicious bread sticks or rolls don't stand a chance (unless of course I really really really have to behave).

There are several other Bro. Dunne stories out there. I think I have some more stored in my hardly used brain, I just have to find them. I am honored and happy that I was able to meet Bro. Dunne before he died. I was able to enjoy his guidance for the whole 4 years of my high school. I believe there was a section that he moderated (or was that Fr. Holscher?).

On Well-Being and being well

A spa serves to relax and calm a person. But can it also cure him?

It depends on the idea of a cure. If a cure is a pill, a capsule or a tablet then the relaxation of one's body will not be a cure.

My university advocated many things but one I remember more "Mens sana in corpore sano" A sound mind in a sound body. I believe that the mind, the will can do great things. Mind over matter it has been said. But once the body breaks, the mind can no longer do.

So back to the idea of a spa. Or therapy, or treatment or whatever which way you choose to designate it. As long as you can relax, it will be good for you.

I posted in my other blog A friend of wisdom an entry about ENIT or Etheric Nerve Impulse Therapy. I find that its really a good experience I recommend checking it out if you're in the Philippines. It is not magic nor the fusion of science and belief that I think differentiates ENIT from other forms of relaxation. In fact I don't think ENIT is different at all.

The main concept behind such therapy is the appeasement of a troubled mind through calming of the body. The main cause of our aches and pains is usually stress. Stress cannot be felt by the body, it is the mind that feels the stress and the body must feel sleep-deprivation, unhealthy diets, lack of exercise etc. ENIT strives to go after those aches and pains by releasing the symptoms of stress and at the same time calming the mind, through Nerve therapy (i.e. really good massage)

In sum I think there should be a holistic or at least pragmatic approach to fighting stress. You go after the pains of the body so you can calm the mind. I think it would be good to mix and match different styles, whether its a massage you're after (like what you'll get in ENIT) or you're looking for hours to be alone and reflect, it depends on what you want. Whatever it is you do to relax your mind and body keep in mind the Latin phrase "mens sana in corpore sano" a sound mind in a sound body.