Friday, October 23, 2009

Pursuit of Happiness

I rarely watch movies nowadays, even on the cable, but one memorable movie that strikes my interest is the 2006 movie Pursuit of Happiness starring Will Smith. The movie is a biopic of a successful stockbroker Christopher Gardner. The story line is excellent and Will Smith’s performance in portraying a man struggling to get out of the misfortune of his life is admirable. Of course in the end, after a grueling array of challenges to stay financial afloat, jaded and almost defeated, Gardner/Smith is able to reach the point when he already bagged the job as a stock broker. And on that point, Gardner/Smith said the famous sweet line: this is happiness.

Now, I don’t want to ruin my readers affection to the said film. Yes, it is true story of human spirit prevailing against all odds that was thrown at him; the haste to gain a slot in a charity building so he and his son can have a good rest; the misfortune of having to sleep surreptitiously in a rest room in a subway; the agonizing frustration to sell his device known as Bone Density Scanner that malfunctions when he makes a demonstration. Yet in the end, the sweet taste of success after passing a six-month training period without pay as a stock broker comes. Success, happiness and live happily ever after then.

But this is a film that only summarizes the travails of a human being and getting out of the rot. Another thing is that the real Christopher Gardner is still living and, of course, still has to attend to problems that are connected with his success and his life as well. Live happily ever after, probably yes if money is our basis – though wind of misfortune can still fall the good man Gardner. We can never tell.

The human journey has many points of junctions. They may arrive there happy or forlorn or even defeated. Yet, all of these will have to be left again when one goes to the next junction of his life. And again, he may arrive there happy, forlorn or defeated. These are the many life cycles in a human life span. This is the play of form in a nutshell. Nothing last forever. Even if it last your whole life time, it will still have to end when you meet Death.

Pursuit of happiness, play wisely the unfolding of forms while taking a first look of what that box you are sitting on while asking for external happiness keeps. You try to find it out for yourself.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Time Travel, Parallel Universe and Einstein

Readers can mine my blog concerning this subject and validate what seems to be an imagination that is now on the brink of becoming a common knowledge in physics and science in general. I once wrote an unfinished story called Vigilante: Crisis Infinite Worlds. Growing up during those days when DC released a series called Crisis on Infinite Earths, I would say or try to consider that I got the title and part of the story on this classics series.

My story dealt about a corrupt policeman who used to be an idealist ready for the fight in the eradication of crime in the city. What happened to this idealist was the usual story of most of the police officers who get to be swallowed by the system. In the end the idealist police officer become corrupt himself. In the story, this policeman becomes obsessed by the recent vigilante killings happening in his territory and eager to know who was behind these. As the story when on, the police officer is able to track down a van which is a suspect for the vigilante killing. The twist of the story, after a myriad of car and cat-and-mouse chase, he finds that the one he is chasing is himself, the idealist policeman who put summary execution on criminals.

This story got stirred up in my memory bank when after watching a Nat Geo program. The topic was time travel. Throughout the program, theories after theories that surround the subject were discussed in detail. I knew already about the worm hole, black hole and space-time dimension. What was something new to me is the participation of gravity as one major key in time travel. The discussion got convoluted for some time as scientists explore what would make time travel possible. Then the question that time travel tinkers with our past becomes an issue. To this issue, the possible answer or the only answer that can become a catch-all theory to the problem is the existence of parallel universe.

This theory of a parallel universe seems to be becoming already a common fascination for writers like me, as seen by my writing a story founded on it. I also remember that Jet Li’s movie titled One also sits on the parallel universe theory.

But sitting for a while after I watched Nat Geo, it dawned on me that time travel has already been invented by future human beings. Time travelers has already tinkered with our history. We just don’t know it. One reason is that these time travelers travel only in small group. The right question is what are the things they inserted in our history that makes us more technologically advance. Can you imagine that Einstein can be probably one of these time travelers?

Monday, October 19, 2009

William Safire (1929-2009)

As I struggle to write nowadays, here’s a bad news late to my knowledge: William Safire, one of those writers and syndicated columnists used to be subscribed by the defunct newspaper Today of Teddy Boy Locsin, died at the age of 79. I used to read him in the mentioned newspaper. The knowledge only came to me when I chanced an interview of him in the program ThinkTank in the VOA on the cable. Before the credit rolled, there was it, William Safire (1929-2009).

For those who failed to know him you can check out this link: William Safire, 79

Vexation to the Writing Spirit

There was a time when I write about the advantages of having a career as an online writer. I have probably written a dozen of those ready-made articles proselytizing the benefits of writing and working in the comfort of your home. Though there is no doubt that there is a long list that can be included why one is better to work at home than struggling to get out of your bed every morning and travel an average of four hours a day going and back from office, the pang of reality that there are too some challenges working from home is still real.

First and foremost, working as a home-based writer or whatever field you are in (given that your work is possible to be done at home) is an alien idea or practice that can not be easily understood by common folks that do the daily grind of working in the traditional way. Nevertheless, that is not an issue that you have to contend with what if you are already fattening your wallet and bank account with wiretransfer and paypal paycheck (just don’t ask me where are my dough now –smirking).

The first challenge or obstacle, if you can call it that, is the distraction created by daily domestic chores presented by your very home, the comfort of your home as I have said. I remember once when my late father told me that the nature and utility of home is basically and purely for a place where you can sleep and that was it. Home is not your working place. Yup, very traditional. And yes, when my good mother said while I roamed the house looking for some kind of inspirational miracle so that I can write: who will pay you for your work. There is basically no boss or even an accounting department to hand you that dough present in the house: a phantom employer she probably was thinking. The notion of wire transfer and online payment was still vague as a muddy water for her.

As I have mentioned, the first obstacle you are going hurdle is the daily domestic chores, especially the surprise activities. When was that time when I was beating a deadline and my good mother suddenly started moving the dining table and other appliances in the house for what she saw as a need for a new arrangement of furniture in the house. The poor me, split apart and vexed all the way to the core of my writing spirit, could not do but leave my seat and the blinking cursor on my monitor to help out with her obsessive-compulsive behavior to give the interior of the house a new look.

Oh, drat! Before I blabber further let’s cut the story and the so-called vexation to the writing spirit short by saving enough for a pad (now, where’s my dough, shrug).

Saturday, October 10, 2009

The First Steps on a Long Journey

If would map the non-fiction books that made an impact in my life, I can say that there are basically five that speak aloud regarding my views about my so-called spiritual journey in this world. Though the third book, I would say, is not a book but a series of Dharma talks with translated text from the original Buddhist works written long ago.

The first is M. Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled, the second Carlos Castaneda Journey to Ixtlan, third the abhidharma(?) and other Dharma lectures, Don Miguel Ruiz The Four Agreements and Eckhart Tolle Practicing the Power of Now.

Now, the journey, borrowing from the terminology of Tolle, started with the problem and tackling of life situation. That is reading M. Scott Peck’s series of the Road Less Traveled. Peck dealt the subject of life on the perspective of western psychology and from there tries to define and give a form to something that is created by the mind and the issues it faces. Though the book is an intellectual discussion of life’s many facets, the genuine respect of M. Scott Peck to individuals who displayed an uncanny wisdom regardless of their religious background influenced, or rather, reinforced in me the reality that there is no race, religion or culture that has the monopoly of wisdom – that wisdom that looks life in a strange yet truthful manner. Since the Road Less Traveled is a western psychology that tries to explain life according on the expectation that what that can make us happy is external, the knowledge that I got from Scott Peck only convoluted the issues of life. It is as if there is an infinite need for formal studies and research for something that is an external phenomenon of life and how this can solve the wound of the human soul.

Next in line is Carlos Castaneda Journey to Ixtlan. I have written a lot about this book and there is no need to state it again in this essay to drive my point. The only thing that I still have to say about this book is that it gave me the perspective of shifting my consciousness to something that is mystical. No, no. There are no esoteric powers or knowledge. Just the intellectual religious experience of life. And for the first time also, looking back, Castaneda taught me that the river of life is ever in a flux, nothing is permanent. As I said in my essay about the book, we are on a journey to our own Ixtlan but we are bound not to reach it because everything already has changed.

I can no longer remember where or from whom did actually my tendency to study Buddhism started. Before Jack Kerouac introduced me to the idea of Buddhism, the Dharma and Satori, I’d already the notion or wanting to meet the different buddhas in this present time and I think that wanting was written here in my profile. I cannot say that I mastered or learned Buddhiss. The belief or if it can be said to be a belief, showed to me something that I could not imagine was known all along 2.5 millennium ago. The power of the actual and scope of knowledge of Buddhist is just so awesome, intellectually nourishing and stirring. Yet, with all of these teachings, the most important thing is not the theory or dogma but the religious experience. Buddhism is basically an experiental religion. You have to experience it than merely knowing it. What is ‘it’ is something that you have to find and experience for yourself.

I have read a lot of book, mostly literary, but there is nothing that blew up my mind and woke me up to a certain degree than by reading and following the basics of Buddhist teachings. There was a time that I would remain silent in the company of my friends just watching the strange, dry an bare awareness of life unfolding before me.

Now, the next two books: Don Miguel Ruiz Four Agreements an Eckhart Tolle Power of Now and Practicing the Power of Now. These two books are to me a subsidiary readings to what Buddhism is preaching. The reader just have to be intelligent enough to put and understand the terms used in the book that correspond to the realities that were discovered long ago by Buddhism. Just to give an example, the first agreement in Ruiz’s book says be impeccable with you word. This agreement is on the eight-fold path (if I remember it right) where Buddha says that one should practice right speech. This teaching is the most hard for me to follow since I usually would blurt out unskillful words to the detriment of my relationship with my family, friends and acquaintances. Regarding Tolle’s Power of Now, this is basically what Buddhism is teaching and practicing. Be mindful. Be present. Be in the Now. Walk the narrow razor edge of the present Now: the only thing is what you have.

From these readings and books plus the actual practice of doing their guided lessons, life for me is better. I don’t mean financially better. But better in the sense that there is more joy that I continue to mine inside of me than totally relying on the external things to make me happy. And to those people that I have said mean thing, intentionally or not, and to those that I hurt in any way because of my actions, I ask for forgiveness as I already tried to forgive myself for those things.

And a trickle of water falls down in the bucket…

Thursday, October 08, 2009

You Know What it is Today

Today is a holiday. Special holiday… 7 years ago that would start from the taste of onion-flavored crackers and hot coffee in the plane going south to Cebu where for days a night would be spent in the stairs, hugging, caressing, and that tingling sounds of the bluish light of the tube showing Paolo Santos singing Moonlight Over Paris…. Love you Lil Feather… :-* (it’s not the song but the memory of it.)

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Pinikpikan's Kalipay: Arts and Music Day Festival on Peripatetic Mind

Since I’ve already posted the video Hey, Jack Kerouac of the 10,000 Maniacs live performance at the birth town of Jack Kerouac and there is a mysterious or yet mystical musicality pervading the house today I could not grasp but feel all the same, I thought of posting another video (two actually of the same song) to relay that celebration of words and music.

It just hit me when I woke up what I really want to watch on youtube. The history is a quiet one, alone and roaming Glorietta during those days of mine that succinctly immortalized by Dong Abay in his song Esem. Yup, roaming the commercial city with nary a money, just enough for a ride for a way home and two sticks of Marlboro to parry the attacks of hunger. Sniffing, looking around, and yes killing time as I waited for the arrival of wisdom. There were two places where I usually hang out at then, probably an hour at Tower Records checking newly released CDs at the corner where you can listen for free. I found there once the album of Pinikpikan but as I said money was short and I could not buy a copy. There too at Tower Records would I find cherished album such as Born Again a remixed album for the late Notorious BIG and was it there that I bought my only Public Enemy CD? The other place was Powerbooks of course (my private/public library – recent found were the works of Osho and Eckhart Tolle Power of Now and Practicing the Power of Now.)

Now before I get lost of what I am supposed to do, here’s the two videos of Pinikpikan (the other one just shows the cover of the album and the other one a live performance). The air has a tinge of chilliness in it and I can feel as if I’m in an Arts and Music Festival somewhere in this globe. Music and words.



The live performance (a little bit pixilated):

Sunday, October 04, 2009

Cheers Once More Jack Kerouac

To the writer who taught me how to yak, speed-type as my mind drove me mad as if chased by bugs; to the writer who wrote about Big Sur that I eagerly read at the last seat of an air-conditioned bus from Cubao; the writer who told the dizzying love story about Leo Percepeid, Mardou Fox and Yuri Gligoric; the one who brought to me the idea of Buddhism, the Dharma and Satori (was it Satori in Mexico or Satori in Paris as if Lovers in Paris (guffaw); schoolmate? of Thomas Pynchon or was it Richard Farina? Thomas creator of Gravity’s Rainbow and the marvelous characters like Tyrone Slothrop, Captain Blicero, Roger Mexico and Tantivy… drat! I’m drifting here… here’s once more Natalie Merchant and 10,000 Maniacs’ song for you:

Lost Drive, Dangers and Lessons Concerning Mafia Wars

I used to love playing Mafia Wars on Facebook. I would spend a straight 12-hour playing spree clicking on the mouse doing jobs, beating rival gangs, and marvelously robbing other mafia players who are probably half-way around the globe playing in the comfort of their rooms somewhere in the United States or Europe maybe. The last time I checked the stat on my profile, I did jobs for 31 consecutive days. I would not dare say that I got hooked on playing the game but it was a swell of a time just easing my way up the ladder from the bottom where I usually get whacked and robbed by other players up to the point that there hardly any player attempting to beat the crap of me because I did my out-of-the-game strategy of recruiting more mafia members.

As I write this, I already have a couple of series of posts breaking down the macro-programming of the game. I don’t mean I tinkered with the program code of this successful and popular game of Zynga, but rather I was able to make a whole picture of the game and what are the effective ways on how to get on top of the game particularly if you are playing as a mogul in the game. After I wrote Mafia Wars: Strategy and Perspective, I felt that I was ready to leave the game since there is no point to continue when you know how it works. This realization was even more reinforced by the fact that Zynga removed the robbing option in the game. Right now, my playing time is solely focused on the effort to take my daily earning revenue from my properties which I use immediately to buy more properties.

Last night, after two days of taking time off from visiting my Facebook account, a member of my Mafia family had sent me a link to his blog where he wrote about the danger and the waste of time in playing online/offline games.

Now, with my nature of always trying to see the glass of water as half-full rather than half-empty, I dare say that this mafia family member of mine has a point. You will surely waste your time playing the game one way or the other. Yet, I want to give the perspective that there is no time spend wasted in any effort that you toil yourself into. This perspective though can only be understood and fully appreciated if you will learn the practical or spiritual lesson of an alchemist.

Alchemists usually try to turn raw metals into gold. And this should be the state of mind that we have to imbibe within ourselves. As a rejoinder to the blog post of this mafia family member of mine, there will be a time when he will discover that all the effort, time and sacrifice that he did for playing the game has a use for him. It can either be for practical purpose or even spiritual purpose.
Nevertheless, that time will come. The structure of this ‘reality’ we live in is strange and cannot clearly be defined so I will just say that the wind of mystical force can blow unexpectedly to your benefit.

Do I still find excitement in playing the game? A little. But gone are the days and sleepless night when I would intensely hunt down rival mafia players to ice and rob them. It is time to move on and take care of some basic needs and responsibilities.

But before I do that, let me take first my revenue earning for the day so I can buy a mega casino to grow my mafia empire.