Fight or Flight

Life is a seed of dichotomies--of good and evil; of beautiful and ugly; of euphoria and melancholia; of love and apathy. So that, every second of your lifetime you are conftronted with two choices. You are naturally forced to take side. Whatever your choice is, one leads to life; the other to death.

Case in point. When faced with a dilemma, you find yourself standing on a fork in the road bewildered over which route to take: FIGHT or FLIGHT.

Most people tought of taking a FLIGHT as the easier path. To FIGHT is a road to perdition, thus a less-travelled one.

Some oiled people travel around the world to run away from their problems. Sometimes, they do space travel when they wanted more air. Other people spend money they don't earn to buy things they don't need to please people they don't like (one of these people is himself or herself).

When money does not come handy, some people go up the mountain and hide in the caves. The whole idea is to be incommunicado from the rest of the world. (Later on, they decide to come out and proclaim to the world their new fashion statement.)

In my case, when the sailing gets rough I go for "inner self-torture." I fight. I face my enemy, seen or unseen, squarely. I fight and struggle to wring off the evil's ugly head. I bleed, I get cuts and bruises in the process. No pain is ever more painful than the invisible sting that comes with fighting for what I believe is the truth. Superman has found an ally in me when he proclaims: "no pain, no gain". It pays to stand up for the truth. There is nothing more liberating than setting oneself free from the bondage of "what ifs" and "buts". I don't rest my case until all sides are heard, understood and valued, until everything that lurks in the dark is brought to light.

In the battlefield, victory is only achieved when both camps decide to raise the banner of peace.

In love, the lovers need to fight for their love. The relationship is going nowhere if one fights and the other takes a flight.

So, if you happen to be the flighty type, here's my one cent: Don't just give up , baby. 'Coz love never fails.

Why I Am Not Spending A Cent For The Da Vinci Code Movie

It’s not that the cost of a movie theater pass these days can feed two hungry street children and put a huge smile on their mucky-faces.

It’s not that the unconformist in me would just try to go against the tide sweeping over 40 million people worldwide who have buried their noses on the Brownish book. It’s not that I don’t admire the acting qualities of Tom Hanks; in fact I consider him as one of the exceptional actors of all time.

It's simple. The means never justifies the end. That’s the very reason that I will never spend a cent for Dan Brown’s work of art. Brown has amassed wealth at the expense of distorting other people’s image of God, of attacking my faith in Jesus Christ who is my Lord and Savior. For me, that’s a glaring violation of God’s commandment: “Thou shalt not put the name of the Lord they God in vain.”

Ron Howard, the film director said the movie was made merely "to entertain". If Jesus Christ were here, I suspect He will utter the same prayer He said while nailed on the cross: "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing."

If the Da Vinci Code were created out of other religion, they will surely make their stance agonizingly clear.

I am blissful to be a Catholic Christian and this gives Brown a lot more reason to be happy. I don’t have to slash his face for portraying that Jesus Christ was not an immortal God. I have been taught to forgive and have compassion.

Capitalizing on proving that Jesus Christ and St. Mary Magdalene have a child is an offense more than literally turning the image of the former into a cartoon strip. It’s simply blasphemous.

I am offended. And I have all the reasons to feel that way.

(Published @ Sunstar. Cebu (Speak Out).June 2, 2006. "I Snubbed Da Vinci Code". All Rights Reserved.)

Dark night of the Soul

One thing bothers me for a quite a time now. It's like a bug that gnaws the inner circuits of my existence. It wants to prowl its wings to measure up its worth only to be caught by the cobwebs of doubt rooted in the bones of darkness.

Sometimes, life puts you in a helpless situation. Then you start to sense your fallibility, your mortality; your nothingness. And you realize that the power within you has a corporeal life of its own; it doesn't have to exist as you do. Sometimes, it's long been dead, buriend inside a frame which utility has been reduced to waiting for its annihilation.

But just as when you see that all scheme of things is a starless night, a tiny streak of light flicker from an infinite distance.

I hate blogging because...

Waxing random thoughts is one thing that keeps my sanity (well, if I have it?) intact. And since I happen to belong to i-Generation, blog spheres such as this readily come to arrest exploding gray matter . But this kind of unloading is not just something which makes you sing "ang gaan-gaan ng feeling". Conversely, it is a near-death experience. Part of the self dies when the internal dynamics of what it is to be human are enfleshed into words and made public. In the case of the latter, such dying is intensified. When you publish your thoughts, you allow others to pry on the things that dwell on the recesses of your soul and provide them a glimpse of what you are made of . Your so-called privacy is lost. That's why: I hate blogging*%#@!

But someone's just too late a hero.

I am blogging because....

I didn't want to wake up from a beautiful dream, but it's Monday and Sir Alarm Clock says it's time to drag my arse to work...

My mind is sleeping but I can see my body in my work station...

I am physically tired, I have an aching back (maybe crying because it's being taken away from its "crib") and I want to have a back rub...

Sleepyhead strikes again but I had to buy my bread and butter...

I am bored watching the same world go by...

I just want to gaze at a blank wall without batting an eyelash but I just can't without giving my colleagues a hint to bring me to a shrink...

I just can't do anything worthwhile at the minute, Ms. Gray Matter is taking an absence without leave (maybe on space travel)...

I want to swirl nosedive and sommersault in between to wake me up inside but office decorum says I just can't...

Well, I can go on and on and on....

But don't I have enough reasons not to blog?