dance dance dance

Ae passed away three weeks ago.

which is easier to love?

someone radiantly happy or someone beautifully sad?

which do you love longer?

yesterday na yung september 4, 2006.

i drank two large cups of sumatra coffee (equivalent of four normal cups). one decaf, one caffeinated.

i'm happy, nurtured and more content now. i don't need a lot of things to make me content. i can sit down and not worry about what i should do or what i could do to make worthwhile use of my time. i don't plan my days as much. i'm more relaxed. i seldom multi-task lately. i'm taking things slow. i can't wait to show my appreciation to people around me and communicate to them how much my life would be different without them (not in a needy sense). people like my parents, mike, my friends, joan, michelle.

i finally lied down beside Liz - i've already done a lot of things for the night trying to tire myself further to sleep: watch VCD, play the guitar, read the glass book, read another book, amongst other things - i was thinking about all those stuff.

Then i started thinking about AE. i was talking to her in my head, changing the events that really happened to things more pleasant. i accompanied her, took time to appreciate her, told her i loved her, went to luneta more often, watched circuses, held her hand, etc. Then i said to her things like, "sleep muna tayo ah. tapos gising pa tayo ulit." " dito ka lang ae ah."

i started sobbing. it became louder. i let the hurt out louder than i would usually when with other people 'cause i thought no one would hear since they were somewhere else in dreamland. dichi woke up and approached me. she asked why and i said in chinese that i was thinking of ae. perhaps she thought i was dreaming. it turned out she wasn't asleep too like me. she said she was thinking of ae too. she was comforting me and then went to the bathroom to get some tissue for me. i didn't expect that to happen - thinking about ae so spontaneously like that again.

and so here am i. on my way down to this room i was half-expecting to see AE's spirit or ghost. in my mind, i said, you can't see dead people. but i was half-expecting to see her, and half-wishing i don't. i might freak out.

When i lied down beside Lizzie i stuck closer to her than usual. i needed another body - just another warm body to feel my own, to feel my back. i needed someone to spoon me from behind tonight but the best i could do was stay close to my shobe - which is quite comforting after all. it must have been a harbinger to my sobbing.

another strange thing too is that, just after i lied down, i prayed. it's the first time i prayed for a very long time. i even clasped both hands and whispered ('cause i thought no one would hear - loud enough that dichi might have heard since she wasn't even asleep) a simple thanksgiving prayer for a bed and shelter to sleep on and under and also for a complete family. i even requested for a closer family bond especially between my parents. i didn't usually ask for those things before.

very intersting night.

i bought new books today.

Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite. 21 Indisputable Laws of Leadership. Art of Seduction and 48 Laws of Power (the big one). Apparently dlsu library has one. i can't wait to borrow some books this monday! i just realized that i would be saving lots of money by using the library. we have so many good stuff!

Reading an entire book really affects you even if you didn't mean it to. I bought 7 Bad Habits of Highly Ineffective People for fun and also for scorn. i despised the fact that a lot of literature meant to make you not like yourself. This one did otherwise. At first, i laughed with it. (if you want, i'd lend it to you.) i knew what i wanted to take in. The quotations are really good,while the text were contradicting each other (perhaps intentionally), magulo. Finishing it, it made a mess of my head. If not for the quotations, i think i won't pick it up again.

The book by Paul Arden is such a good read after reading 7 Bad Habits. It brought things back to perspective. I read it mostly inside Alice (our Toyota Vios) while parked in UP College of Social Work and Development a while ago.

I'm also reading Oranges are Not the Only Fruit. I'm now on page 76. i bought it at 20% less in powerbooks. i like the title so i pulled it from the shelf. (i should've bought Murakami's Dance Dance Dance.) i read mostly it in KFC Megamall.

I finished reading and skimming through Bohemian Manifesto.

I'm also done with Warm Glass and Flat Glass Techniques and can't wait to put it into practice.

Networking by Carole Stone is one book that's waiting for me to read.

By the way, 101 Things to Do Before You Die is another light book i've scanned and still scanning once in a while.

I've stopped reading Unbearable Lightness of Being. I'd finish it some other day.

I can't wait to open Sales Dogs, browse and leave it for a while.

Books i like to buy using my own money: No Smoking, hmmm i forgot. i had a list in my phone. maybe i wasn't able to save it.

it was before. oranges used to be the only fruit i ate. now, i eat grapes, pineapple, apple, melon, watermelon. those uncomplicated fruits. no bananas please! i've only just started loving kiwi.

i finished the fruit, i mean the book, sunday morning. very quick read. it's beautiful.

i just watched brokeback mountain last sunday too. it's beautiful - too.

Cassie Cartwright: [on the verge of tears] I don't get you, Ennis del Mar.

Ennis del Mar: I'm sorry. (pauses) Was probably no fun anyway, was I?

Cassie Cartwright: [crying] Ennis, girls don't fall in love with fun! (walks away)


----

"Do not adjust your mind, there's a fault in reality."
-ALan Fletcher

reality is really the way you view things. it's as simple as that. whatever other people might say. it's just is. ergo, i'm gonna "interpret" - no, reality is everything less self-defeating thoughts and less others-defeating, if possible.

energy energy. positive chakra. haha charing. so bading. galing!

what waz that? haha

i'm gonna start living aloud. forget regret or life is yours to miss!

i realize now that i like him a little bit more than dilana and lukas. lukas is such glam. ryan is so yum. it must be the rock piano arrangement REM's Losing My Religion.

books read:
1. reaching for the invisible god
2. secrets of the vine
3. prayer of jabez
4. weird christians I have met
5. the gospel according to peanuts
6. beyond reasonable doubt
7. radical christianity
8. spirit-controlled temperament
9. the passion of jesus Christ
10. the encounter
11. desiring god
12. jesus I never knew
13. god, that's not fair
14. the bible
15. the purpose driven life
16. the invisible man
17. ben singkol
18. 12 kuwentong pamasko
19. the body of the goddess
20. jc and dd
21. photo-imaging
22. color photography
23. the fused glass handbook
24. photographing people
25. albert einsteinâ??s vision
26. the da vinci code
27. baby blue comics
28. calvin and hobbes comics
29. the wizard of oz
30. the alchemist
31. 7 habits of highly effective people
32. oranges are not the only fruit
33. 101 things to do before you die
34. bohemian manifesto
35. tell-tale heart
36. cashflow quadrant
37. 7 bad habits of highly ineffective people
38. the tao of pooh
39. poems new and collected
40. color harmony
41. letters to a young poet
42. winning with people
43. how to win friends and influence people
44. 48 laws of power
45. world greatest salesman
46. the art of war
47. your roadmap to success
48. rich dad poor dad
49. secrets of the millionaire mind
50. born to fly
51. wave3
52. your first year
53. getting past no
54. by the river piedra - i just borrowed this. forgettable.
55. who moved my cheese pa pala - though the time i read it i didn't understand a thing!
56. other photo books in da dlsu lib and play anthologies in the Filipiniana section...
57. catcher in the rye pala

not in any particular order. i may have forgotten some. made the list by copying the books arranged in my shelf. the first few ones are in my top shelf. the middle. the lower ones are here in the office.

apparently i've read more non-fictions than fiction. it's only just lately that i start to appreciate fiction.

Life is bigger
It's bigger than you
And you are not me
The lengths that I will go to
The distance in your eyes
Oh no I've said too much
I set it up

That's me in the corner
That's me in the spotlight
Losing my religion
Trying to keep up with you
And I don't know if I can do it
Oh no I've said too much
I haven't said enough
I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try

Every whisper
Of every waking hour I'm
Choosing my confessions
Trying to keep an eye on you
Like a hurt lost and blinded fool
Oh no I've said too much
I set it up

Consider this
The hint of the century
Consider this
The slip that brought me
To my knees failed
What if all these fantasies
Come flailing around
Now I've said too much
I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try

But that was just a dream
That was just a dream

-losing my religion, r.e.m.

Hinihintay kita. hinihintay kitang magsimulang maglakad.

you keep looking, searching, wandering.
your life is THE art!
there's no tomorrow. just now.
who do you want to take along with you?

your religious upbringing trained you to have a perfect counter-argument for anyone who would question the faith. you have a perfect counter-argument for everyone and everything! even for me! you have an anti-thesis for your visions. your artistic experiments confuse me and make me uneasy about myself because you're so restless. all i could see is restlessness. i could not see what's underneath.

you always have a reason why something or someone needs some more, it has to be less, it's wrong, it could be better. good enough, that's not what you want. that's not what i want either. but i want to belong.

i don't tell anybody to stop but with you i'm thinking twice. now i get it, maybe i should tell you to start. prepare yourself for what you have now. it's good. caress.

Pabayaan mo na sila.

love the way you are now. now. stop playing dead. it's for dogs. now i've said it. you are not dead. i can see you blink.

stop saying you're busy. i hate it when you say maybe or perhaps. so full of scorn.

i'm waiting for you. she's waiting for you. while we're still young. well 32 still is young. but do we have to wait until we turn 32. 12 more years. let's go.

ang aking kinatatakutan
buhay na karaniwan

lalayasan
lalayasan
lalayasan ko

ikaw


na lang

ano ang susunod
dito

ako ang susunod
dito

sayo

my first time to watch a sigur ros video.

damn where did he get that voice of his?!

it looks like they're in a state of worship. reminds me of old days. it's magnificent.

here's the video. there are better ones but i'd share this nonetheless. tabulas doesn't support you tube so here's the url:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Xc9Z2rkcJH4

another one.
hoppipolla

http://youtube.com/watch?v=PDxMQaMqsig&mode=related&search=

i can't believe it! grabe
with my two year slacking in school, yung Cumulative GPA ko kaya pang maging honorable mention! hahahaha

of course hindi na dahil sa 0.0 from sibayan. bwahahaha!!!

God suddenly became cool yesterday. the IN thing if i may say.

"i can't make you laugh yet, but i know i could make you happy cause i know you want me."

just smiled.

how can i be faithful and absorbed with just a few?

someone teach me.

i need focus.

happy hour at san miguel dusit hotel. sarap ng kinilaw!hihi

well really interesting

3 grown up men in their late 30s and early 40s plus toni rose. they talk like grown people and they advise me to marry earliest by 29.
grown ups talkin bout grown up stuff. i was there to talk to them about a dreamer's dream using grown up words.

they talk about barcelona and some stocks and investors and real estate (which i talk with some mfi friends with but not barcelona though i wanna study there so i could board and socialize)

we listened to some house band. monet had his gaydar up n knighted the house band though overlooked me. he's married just three years ago and straight by the way, or so i think. he's cute

mutual idolation with paolo. maybe they had a thing in their past. they admire each other's alive-ness.

john was cool. he looked like bart guingona. had another kid with another woman, besides his wife with 2kids. and now he's with toni.

secret

quite tipsy already. as i usually am. but i guess its natural already.

parang mga boss na ibang klase na gusto mong i-french connection uk. hahaha

Why Heart Beats Talent Every Time

It is my belief that talent is one of the most overrated attributes when evaluating what is required to be successful. Although talent is very important when it comes to performing, it often times has little to do with how success is achieved and who becomes successful. The world is filled with talented people, yet why is it that so few people live and achieve their dreams?

What does it truly mean to have heart? Heart is the intangible; the invisible ingredient that is difficult to explain and measure to the average person. Heart is the magic, the juice, the stuff, fifth gear, the overdrive that great achievers in life tap into when challenges and obstacles appear. Heart is making a conscious choice to live an exceptional life rather than an average one. Average people (about 97% of society) let events shape their lives, while exceptional people are able to change their perceptions of challenging events and overcome them.

Heart has little to do with size, weight, color, creed, education, intelligence, I.Q., bloodline, where you grew up, or most of all, talent. Virtually everyone has raw, untapped talent. The problem is that most people never get out of their talent. Instead, they hide behind it, too afraid to take risks, to be vulnerable, and most of all, to risk not being perfect. Fear and procrastination (unwarranted perfection) becomes the opponent. Taking the risks to get out of your talent is where having heart begins.

Learning to live in the moment, the present, is also where heart begins. This means making your move before you are ready, challenging yourself and the beliefs that limit you, standing tall in the face of adversity, and taking on life's challenges without having to prove that you are good enough. Having heart means you possess a quality called courage, which there is always a market for and never goes out of fashion. Exceptional people tap into their courage when faced with adversity and step immediately into the solution, even when the solution takes them into unfamiliar territory. Average people typically choose to remain in the problem simply because it is familiar and they fear being vulnerable when facing the possibility of not performing perfectly in the solution.

When stepping out of what is perceived to be comfortable, it is often uncomfortable in the beginning. These early tests are where you really get to learn and grow from adversity and to gain insights and wisdom to the causes and effects that stop "want to be success seekers". When we are being tested is typically when we are about to learn our greatest lesson.

Heart can be looked at medically through microscopes and surgery, but cannot be measured by typical eyesight. Heart is about feelings and emotions rather than thinking and contemplating. This means being outside of yourself, your head, your ego, and being inside your heart and loving the process, the evolution of change. Having heart means being able to take any ball in life and saying, "Follow me! I don't know how we are going to get there, but we are. Just give me the ball." Heart is what separates the average from the exceptional.

Heart is what separates the average from the exceptional and I have learned in life that heart beats talent every time. Show me a man or woman with heart and I'll show you a way to overcome someone else's talent. We all have talent, talent on loan from God, more talent than humanly possible. That guy or that woman has so much talent it's unbelievable. Look how much talent he or she has. They are loaded with talent. These are all statements that refer to how much potential a man or a woman may have. We all have this; it's God-given. Unfortunately, not many people really get outside their talent, instead they hide behind it and they stay in it. They stay in their ego; afraid to reach their human potential; afraid to risk and be vulnerable; afraid to become the person they really deserve to be.

Now, "deserve" is a very interesting word and it is a word that keeps many people from becoming who they really could be. What the word deserve references in Latin is "de servire" which means day of service. When you have self-esteem issues or don't feel good enough, you send a telepathic mixed message in a business situation or in life that says things such as, "Please join me, but don't follow me because I can't lead you." Or "Please reject me, because I'm not lovable." Or "Don't go out on a date with me because I wouldn't want to be on a date with me either." Or "Please send me money, but don't send me money because I'm not comfortable with it. I have an emotional resistance and I want to keep it away because I don't deserve it. I was born on the wrong side of the tracks."

This is how many people stay in their talent, afraid to take a risk. Any kind of success is going to involve risks and average people resist taking risks because they believe that they have to stay comfortable. The average person's comfort zone is really a miserable zone and you have to get uncomfortable, you have to get out of the box, you have to be moving into the present to become the person you deserve to be. This is where youâ??re going to have to take some risks. This doesn't mean you jump off the Brooklyn Bridge on a dare, but start to take a bigger calculated risk than you've typically been comfortable with. This is when you really begin to stretch and grow and become the person that you really are. Risk is really a perception. And sometimes the biggest risk is not taking one.

Changing isn't nearly as difficult as you perceive. You already are a brilliant person, you're a masterpiece in progress, and you have the ability to design your life rather than make a living. The people who stay in their talent stay in their safety zone. They're not excelling; they're being stuck, procrastinating, using money as an excuse, and using perfection as an excuse. When your excuse becomes believable to you and you become the excuse, constant reminders of how talented you are don't help much.

Stepping Outside Your Talent
Now, let's take a look at what it's like to get out of your talent and some of the feelings that we have when we truly take this step. Being outside of your talent is the hands-free zone; it's a state of flow; it's a relaxed state of consciousness; it's playing like a child.

People ask me all the time, "How do I get into flow?" A better question is, "Why do you ever get out of it once youâ??re in it?" I ask people to smile and laugh. When you see anyone who is laughing, they are in a state of flow. They don't have to try to be in flow.

The average person spends too much time trying to achieve, rather than just being. If you're being, you're in the moment, you're in the now and that's where you can really tap into your heart consciousness. This is the highest level of consciousness where you really attract the people, situations and opportunities that you are seeking. When you are outside of your talent, you are who you really are. You're riding a bicycle with no hands. Success becomes you and it comes to you rather than you chasing it.

Being out of your talent is when you are present; then you unleash your full potential. You begin to transmit, telepathically, your thought waves through the universe from a position of peace. It means you love who you are so you can love what youâ??re becoming and doing.

What you do becomes a game rather than a job. You develop touch, finesse, you glide, people want to touch you, be with you, become you, you become what is called a people magnet. You vibrate from a level that says, "I'm very comfortable with who I am and who I'm becoming." You vibrate from a position that says, "I am the leader you are looking for."


isinulat ni Jeffery Combs

agree ako. sa negosyo, sa sining, sa bawat sandali...

the fleeting condition of thought makes it so alluring
thinking a thought is spawning life and slaying it simultanously
its melancholic when its over
like saying goodbye
and you're alone

-----

when we listen and read and watch and touch and taste
when same things stimulate us
when same things motivate us
when we like the same things
do we feel the same things?
do we see the same things?
do we hear the same things?
do we think the same things?
what exactly is it that we feel, see and hear?
what makes us - really?
what makes us us?

"we're all so different and we're all so the same."
is it as simple as that?
that's pathetic

----

i want to know what's important
i sometimes know what's important
though i want what's interesting
what's important is interesting
no, only when death is considered
what's interesting is important
but not urgent
so it takes time
until i get it
or not
maybe i'll be one of 'em looking into the mirror saying:
maybe this is not for me
i wasted my time
but it is for me
i know
well, the future regretful me knows
i want to know what's important

so what is important?

----

you fascinate me
and im happy being a spectator
she doesn't
and im unhappy being just a spectator

patronize me

---

brush of skin to skin to skin
beer with tongue and tongues
tolerate smoke rings
drums and bass rings

----

big things small things
details and sketches

nothing that lasts is ever seductive
is there?

you only seduced me
when you left
and stopped
when you returned

they say you can't seduce those who are too busy
because there will be no room for you
in their imagination

you knew i had a place for you
always always
so why did you come back?

-------

cool
that's what my life's gonna be
why gonna?
can it be now?

"life is risky.
yes, you'll never gonna come out of it alive"
-start living and take all the risk we could take

I saw you this morning.
You were moving so fast.
Can’t seem to loosen my grip
On the past.
And I miss you so much.
There’s no one in sight.
And we’re still making love
In My Secret Life.

I smile when I’m angry.
I cheat and I lie.
I do what I have to do
To get by.
But I know what is wrong,
And I know what is right.
And I’d die for the truth
In My Secret Life.

Hold on, hold on, my brother.
My sister, hold on tight.
I finally got my orders.
I’ll be marching through the morning,
Marching through the night,
Moving cross the borders
Of My Secret Life.

Looked through the paper.
Makes you want to cry.
Nobody cares if the people
Live or die.
And the dealer wants you thinking
That it’s either black or white.
Thank G-d it’s not that simple
In My Secret Life.

I bite my lip.
I buy what I’m told:
From the latest hit,
To the wisdom of old.
But I’m always alone.
And my heart is like ice.
And it’s crowded and cold
In My Secret Life.

leonard cohen

chapters include the following

prologue - "we are no more than god's curiosity about himself" (Thomas Mann)
culture - "by means of the sign man frees himself from the here and now for abstraction" (Umberto Eco)
creativity - "creativity is the defeat of habit by originality" (Arthur Koestler)
wit - "humour is the enemy of authority"
improvisation - "I work with things left over from other things" (Julian Schnabel)
colour - "colour is the place where our brain and the universe meet" (Paul Klee)
dreaming - "it may be those who do most dream most" ( Stephen Leacock)
ideas - "an idea isn't responsible for the people who believe in it" (Don Marquis)
synchronicity - "snap"
mutation - "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" (George Santayana)
learning - "if I don't know I know, I think I don't know" (R.D. Laing)
noise - "the bark is the song of the dog"
paradigms - "fish are the last to recognise water"
automation - "the hen is only the egg's way of making another hen" (Patrick Hughes)
intelligence - "curiosity is the mother of intelligence"
brain - "I am my brain's publisher" (Phillip Starck)
mind - "the mind can also be an erogenous zone" (Racquel Welch)
senses - "the soul has no secrets that conduct does not reveal" (Chinese proverb)
thinking - "thinking is drawing in your head"
problems - "if you don't know where you are going, all roads lead there" (Roman proverb)
chance - "if you want to get lucky, it pays to be ready" (Michael Bierut)
imagination - "a person without imagination is like a teabag without hot water"
visualizing - "the man who can't visualize a horse galloping on a tomato is an idiot" (André Breton)
alphabet - "music has seven letters, writing has twenty-six notes" (Joseph Joubert)
seeing - "the hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes" (Goethe)
places - "its always better to be looked over than overlooked" (Mae West)
perception - "realism is a corruption of reality" (Wallace Stevens)
stereotypes - "I had always assumed that cliché was a suburb in Paris, until I discovered it was a street in Oxford" (Philip Guedalla)
value - "good design is good business" (Thomas Watson Jr.)
illusion - "who are you going to believe, me or your eyes?" (Groucho Marx)
paradox - "I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous" (graffiti)
future ground - "the answer is yes or no depending on the interpretation" (Albert Einstein)
symmetry - "symmetry is static - that is to say, inconspicuous" (William Addison Dwiggens)
reflections - "a mirror has no heart but plenty of ideas" (Malcom de Chazal)
pattern - "pattern, the fruit of design, cam be seen as the measure of culture" (William Feaver)
camouflage - "interpretations of interpretations interpreted" (James Joyce)
economy - "I like a view but I like to sit with my back turned to it" - (Gertrude Stein)
measure - "man is the measure of all things" (Protagoras)
composition - "music is noise submitted to order by wisdom" (Puccini)
leys & lines - "to you, to me, Stonehenge and Chartres cathedral are works by the same Old Man under different names: we know what He did, what even He thought He thought, but we don't see why" (W.H. Auden)
aesthetics - "I do not feel I have wisdom enough yet to love what is ugly" (Stendhal)
taste - "as flash as a rat with a gold tooth" (Aussie observation)
style - "god invented the giraffe, the elephant, the cat... he has no real style. He just goes on trying things" (Pablo Picasso)
perfection - "there is no such thing as a pretty good omelette" (French proverb)
meanings - "the person you love is 72.8% water"
symbols - "every status has its symbol" (advertising slogan)
numbers - "take from all things their number, and all shall perish" (Isodore of Seville)
typography - "typography is a beautiful group of letters, not a group of beautiful letters" (Steve Byers)
skill - "the end of all method is to seem to have no method" (Lu Ch'Ai)
perspective - "perspective is a ghastly mistake which it has taken four centuries to redress" (George Braque)
space-time - "whatever exists is in a place - therefore place exists - therefore place is in a place - and so on - ad infinitum" (Zeno od Elea)
figuring - "...my name means the shape I am - and a good handsome shape it is too. With a name like yours, you might be any shape, almost" (Humpty Dumpty)
language - "if a lion could speak, we would not understand him" (Ludwig Wittgenstein)
rhetoric - "all art is propaganda; on the other hand not all propaganda is art" (George Orwell)
design - "whoever said pleasure wasn't functional" (Charles Eames)
process - "gold mining consists of shifting three tons of rubbish for each ounce of gold extracted"
copying - "many a scarecrow serves as a roost for the enlightened crows"
words - "words are pegs to hang ideas on" (Henry Ward Beecher)
imaging - "seeing is forgetting the name if the thing one sees" (Paul Valéry)
pictureplay - "pink is the navy blue of India" (Diana Vreeland)
wordplay - "a pun is two strings of though tied with an acoustic knot" (Arthur Koestler)
handedness - "crime is only a left-handed form of human endeavour" (Louis Calhern)
pictograms - "many tongues - one eye" (Navaho proverb)
scripts - "writing is the knife and fork of the mind" (Gnomic observation)
letters - "letters are signs for sound" (Eric Gill)
identity - "did Beethoven look like a musician? No, of course she didn't" (Tony Hancock)
names - "a child is made known to itself by its name" (Karen Blixen)
signatures - Hancocks
insignia - "insignia: marks or tokens indicative of anything" (Oxford English Dictionary)
trademarks - "I never forget a face, but I'll make an exception in your case" (Groucho Marx)
writing - "writing is the geometry of the soul" (Plato)
protagonists - Bios & credits, etc.