family thanksgiving

happy thanksgiving to everyone!

having been born and raised in the philippines, i was not familiar with celebrating thanksgiving. but now i'd say it is my favorite holiday. that and new year's eve celebration. in retrospect, i love the idea of  family gathering to celebrate and give thanks for being a family.

the love of family has a lot to do with much of the best in all of us. it gives us our sense of loyalty and belonging and a measure of our stability. that's why the family is important to a human being.

that's why i'm so thankful for my family.

wouldn't it be wonderful to have it celebrated as an international holiday?

how well do we (or do we really want to) know our kids?

lately, i've been amazed at how "growed" up my first four kids are--Kristine, Joel, Krystel and Jenna. and i was fascinated by how much they have changed from when i knew them as kids. even though for much of their lives, i have been an absentee father (something i'll regret for the rest of my life). but perhaps that made it easier for me to accept how they are now much more readily. it's like i'm just getting to know them.

there are those who really think and believe they know their kids very well. up to a certain point in time that is.... once they have flown the nest and set sail on their own, then they quickly evolve into beings we really can't recognize from prior knowledge even if we see them in front of us.

for good or bad it's nature's way. our effect on their existence is about as influential as a driver's ed course. we teach them the rules of the road, the dangers that we know of to avoid, the protocols to observe with other drivers, going forward, backward, parking etc. etc. like it or not, in simplistic terms, this is the major part of our stewardship of our children.

unless they continue to live under the same roof, our influence on their life diminishes to the point of almost nothing. and that's not saying it's bad. it just is. we say a prayer and we hope they carve a life of consequence on their own.

on a different note, i've always wondered when at the point in their lives that they try to reconcile the many lies we told to them when they were growing up--do they resent us for it or smile and accept the difficult aspects of parenting. personally speaking, i know that i only started to appreciate what my parents had been counseling me about when i became a parent myself. it's all about perspective i think. unless you see things from the same point of view, you won't really see it the same way. and even then, chances are you won't see things the same way.

life gets its way and change happens....

instructions for life

i want to reprint this here so that i can have a record of it as constant reminder to me. if i were to leave instructions to my kids when i pass from this earth, the following words pretty much sums up everything that i'd want to leave them with. and that no matter what, i will always love them.
1. take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risks.
2. when you lose, don't lose the lesson.
3. follow the three r's:

• respect for self,
• respect for others and
• responsibility for all your actions

4. remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. don't let a little dispute injure a great relationship.
7. when you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. spend some time alone every day.
9. open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.
10. remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. live a good, honorable life. then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. a loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. in disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. don't bring up the past.
14. share your knowledge. it is a way to achieve immortality.
15. be gentle with the earth.
16. once a year, go someplace you've never been before.
17. remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
19. approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.
20. don't be afraid to take that first step. and the subsequent steps will magically appear.

self-love?

i feel compelled to talk about this subject because my oldest daughter believes in this new paradigm of relationships: self-love--it's this idea of loving yourself before you can love others. if it sounds familiar, you're probably recalling the ultra-popular song that proclaims, "learning to love yourself...is the greatest love of all".

i believe it stems from people who place the blame on themselves for the failure of their relationships. was i too needy? too suffocating? too cold? too jealous? why? the blame apparently, lies with not having enough self-respect, nay, "self-love" in order to learn to love "the right way".

now wait a second--if i don't already know how to love the right way to begin with, how on earth do i know then that i'm  loving myself the right way--as in a "non-narcissistic" manner? newsflash: all normal people are inherently narcissistic and selfish. and we do not handout medals for that. but we honor and venerate the heroes who give their lives for others.

personally i believe that loving oneself is an oxymoron. love does not go in the inward direction. only outward. you can not love yourself because it ceases to become love once you do. and there is no wrong way to love, there are only only people who call love's perversion as love. and self-love is a perversion of love. because the only way to experience the glory of love is in loving others. it's that feeling that you get that can't be described. only love can do that. give and give and yet get back a thousand fold in a different way.

and which you don't ever get to feel  or experience in loving yourself. that alone should be enough to convince you that self-love is not really love.

maybe i'm just getting caught up in terminology. you can call it by any other name but love. yet still i don't believe that "liking" yourself is the remedy or cure for why your relationships fail. relationships fail because in spite of love, people are not perfect, so they manifest love imperfectly. you can "love" yourself all you want but being imperfect, chances are you'd end up just being so full of yourself and still alone.

because love in and of itself is all about sacrifice, kindness and compassion. all living things are born with the innate will to live and survive, mostly at the expense of others. as such all living things including us, are inherently selfish. our first reaction would be to take care of number 1. but what makes us different from other living things is our inherent capacity to love. what for? it's to give our life meaning and purpose. it's our transcendental quality. it's our God-like attribute. and it's only meaningful when directed to others.

to me it's less important that my relationship fails as long as i gave it my best effort. i don't blame anyone because no one is perfect. i do not love in fear of losing or failure because i realize that permanence is just an illusion. instead, i take losing or failure as another reason or chance to love again. because in the end loving is all that matters....

the rest my dear Kristina, is all just New Age psycho-babble.

of weasels and people

the average american prevaricates some 200 times daily!

weasels. equivocates. or just plain lies....

this was surprising even to me.... it has been the most important thing in my interactions with people now--i catch someone in a lie once, i tell them right away--twice and i cut off any further connections. if i couldn't because i have to work with them, i just treat whatever they say at face value or with a grain of salt.

the liar in your life: how lies work and what they tell us about ourselves

surround yourself with as many honest friends as you can find. it's more important than money, or fame or glamor. have the strength to walk away from dishonest people, specially those who "honestly" believe their own lies to be the truth. it should be the #1 factor in living your life.

it's difficult to balance believing the innate good in people with protecting your best interest and keep from getting hurt emotionally. but as with most things, practice makes perfect. walk away. disconnect. vamoose. once you make it the rule, you'd be alright.

this much i have learned--that nothing destroys character more than dishonesty.

reflections on getting older

Getting older does not seem to be quite as bad, and it isn’t, it just takes some getting used to.

You lose hair from places that you don't want to lose it, and grow hair in places where you don't want them to grow. Every part of your body gets stiff except that one part :-) You sleep less, wake up too early in the morning for the rest of the world, and fall asleep while sitting on a chair at any time of the day. It takes pulling some muscles and breaking some bones to realize that you don't have the same reactions and quickness while playing sports like you used to; and you learn pretty quick never, ever keep up with the kids on the ski slopes--unless you want to end up like Sonny (Side-of-No) Bono.

Other than that, the taste buds seem to have gone gung-ho, and everything you hated when you were a kid, becomes a 'delicacy' all of a sudden. You get a little bit more emotional when watching movies, and you find yourself alone a lot of times because the kids are always gone doing their own thing. But there are a lot more things that you understand--and you are more patient in tolerating the terror that those little kids dish out.

Over all, you are more sure of yourself, and your perspective of things has stabilized, a sure sign of slowing down, and becoming "set in your ways". You like staying home more often, and a vacation is being able to read a good book within a couple of days instead of a couple of months. And when the kids start calling you "gross" for finding delicious humor in "breaking wind" in front of them--you know you have gone past the top of the hill and on the flipside on your way down.

The only question that remains is whether you ought to decide to take your time going down, and take in the view while you still can, and coast on down to your final resting place. Where I hope that you realize that life is nothing more than finding order and beauty amidst chaos, that the very struggle is what gives meaning to the happiness which everyone seeks, and that it only follows that the more struggles, the greater the happiness. And that giving up is death.

So this here is my toast to life! It's been a wonderful journey for me so far, well, at least not boring, and I take all the sad and happy memories, for in remembrance, we taste a little bit of immortality.... And that "...the greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love, and be loved in return...."

so let the blogs begin

EVER since I woke up from a nightmarish dream to find myself back into the world of the 'single being' or 'being single', one of the few 'pleasures' which couldn't wait to outlive its welcome is TIME. I remember bitching often, about having no time for anything else--to take a vacation, to read a good book, and much less time to explore something new--like learning the workings of the Internet and 'surf the Web'. In spite of having spent 20 years in the information system industry, I was dangerously ignorant of (what was then, and still is) a quickly emerging technology.

Sooo....

As a way to combat the boredom that I suddenly found myself in, I decided to explore the workings of the internet by creating a personal website. I found a lot of tools which made the effort a breeze, but my problem was deciding on its content. Then I stumbled on this fascinating phenomenon on the internet that seems to be affecting a lot of people.

If necessity is the mother of invention, I'm sure boredom must play a major role in the re-inventing of one's self....

It was simply amazing.

As businesses were scrambling to hang up their own 'virtual shingles' and e-commerce storefronts, I found a growing number of individuals and/or families who are publishing personal diaries and journals online. Proud “here-i-am-itude” entries on their web pages—openly talking of love, anger, humor, or pain to an eager collective and faceless audience. What they hold so dear in private have now found a niche, and taken on a new cyber form, infused with the creative energy and fascinating personalities of its authors, the 'netizens' who comprise its .

Another equally fascinating part about it, is the seemingly positive-contagious feelings of camaraderie and quiet-subdued rivalry that hold these participants—authors and readers alike. There is an honesty which pervades it, an openness which is oblivious to mockery and rejection....

In these days of studies and polls and surveys, I have yet to read one, which tried to address this intriguing phenomenon. The nagging question seems to be: “WHY?" What emotion stirs and motivates these people to rip open their protective facade and feel compelled to bare open their hearts and soul to just anyone?

Who cares?

The reasons are as different as they are personal. So given the subjective meaning why even bother to find out? For me personally, I am curious whether there is a common pattern--even some underlying force that attracts or compels a great many people to share very personal experiences openly.

In trying to explain my reasons, I couldn't help but draw from two years spent studying various philosophical disciplines in college as taught by Jesuits. Of those, I felt closely identified by the ideas of Socrates ("the unexamined life is not worth living..."). And having been brought up in a deeply religious family, the profound writings of French Christian existentialist Gabriel Marcel, which centers around "The Mystery of Being" and the phenomenology of primary and secondary reflection, were particularly influential.

I have spent a lot of time in serious thought and reflection of my experiences. Most were like a "post-mortem analysis", a term I used not for its morbid implication, but more for its objective of finding "cause & effect" and "lessons learned". I never really understood before just what Marcel meant in describing the process of secondary reflection, but my post-mortems are clearly what Marcel refers to as primary reflection. Some were loud, talking-to-myself thoughts. Most were quiet, soporific meditation. But a few seemed like whispered, from without as well as within, sort of like that of a still, small voice.

What I also discovered was that when I wrote them down consistently, they were not as easy to forget. Perhaps in writing them down, I have given them some form. In trying to articulate them, I have made them available for further debate and examination. Someone referred to it as "writing letters to myself", and it helps me to make sense of things. It enables me to keep things in perspective, and it helps me attain my mental balance.

So then, this would be why I am here.

I am joining the cast of thousands in this drama of life playing on this new venue. I am joining the thousands of people who wear their hearts on their sleeve in this brave new world. A kind of world I only dreamed about as a kid growing up, or the kind that existed only in my mind, or my imagination--a virtual world just like the World Wide Web, the cyberspace, in which we find ourselves today....

I know it feels a little weird at first, but when you start to realize what this new world is all about, and the kind of freedom it offers, (or at least an escape to self-imprisoned souls), then perhaps you too, can find some measure of fulfillment that such a voyage of self-discovery can provide....

can one really go back?

i don't know....perhaps it's just coming back full circle.

after being away from my birthplace for more than half my life, i suddenly find myself back where it all started for me.

leaving this hometown was not really a matter of choice for me. but coming back is. in retrospect, i had always known that i would come back. it was my intention all along to learn whatever i could from such a progressive and prosperous people half a world away so i could pass it along to my poverty-stricken one. but along the way, good intentions become rationalizations. any remaining traces of guilt are slowly covered by a life of comfort. besides there was always enough time to do it later. too much time in fact, for do-overs.

and slowly, you get accustomed to a life spent trapped into the rat race. a vicious cycle of competition to get ahead of everyone--except there is no finish line....

i have been wanting to start a web log or blog for some time now. i guess it was also just waiting for my return home. this way, it feels like i am writing letters to all the parts of myself that i have left scattered all over the world. maybe just a feeble attempt to stay connected...or perhaps an attempt to pass along my point of view, my perspective...maybe this is how an old man rambles in this virtual world....

who cares? who knows?