the forgotten

because we all have to come to terms with the inevitable: that one day, we will be forgotten



somewhere in the old downtown cebu city, october 2012

in memory of the man with no face

somewhere in the old downtown area, cebu city, october 2012

a cruel fate

after a well-fed life spent in their cages, the chickens are finally taken to market



the chickens gaze at the wide wondrous world outside their cage



only to see the cruel fates that would befall them, ending up as either tinolang manok...





... or chicken joy



... or their bodies chopped up and skewered on a barbecue stick





if you were a chicken with a choice, how would you rather end up?

pictures taken around carbon market, cebu city, may 2010, and carcar market, october 2010

buying time

if only it were as simple as choosing a watch from a display on the sidewalk. hmmm... story idea?



near colon, cebu city, april 2010

on faith

organized religion can make one so cynical nowadays...



all these people bent on imposing their version of morality on the rest of us



and with these modern day pharisees trumpeting all their rules, rituals, and restrictions, it would seem like salvation is something beyond the reach of us mere mortals, something to be looked at from the outside, and not to be reached...



then i remember that religion is also powerful tool of subjugation and oppression, with the threat of eternal damnation if we dare disobey...



and when you see that it's so obviously about the money, one's cynicism can only get worse



religion is going to the dogs, one might conclude...



yet with all the reasons to be cynical, most of us go with it anyway. in the face of an existence that can seem so meaningless, or perhaps the fear of death, or the troubles of today and tomorrow...



in the hope that there really is someone out there, watching our backs...



thus inspite of the confusing cacophony of priests, preachers, and prophets all brandishing their renditions of truth, some of us still try to find our way, listening intently for that still small voice...



and hold on to what little bit of faith we have, however shrouded in uncertainty



i guess that's why it's called faith in the first place, "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

fences

are the fences there to protect us from him... or to protect him from us?



near colon st., cebu city, may 2010

growing old

so this is what it means to grow old: to sit beside open doors as if they were already closed, when chairs become prisons and we are reduced to becoming mere spectators of our lives...



but the greater tragedy is when some of us become too old too soon...

sitio cantipla, baranggay tabunan, cebu city, june 2010

keep walking...

when it feels like the world is squeezing you in a tight spot, keep walking...



mandaue city, february 2010

malata

fresh orchids in the trash, mandaue city, february 2010

in the hidden corners of the world

you'd be surprised to learn that there are people sitting in hidden corners of the world, people that you never knew were there as you passed blissfully by, people that, as far as you're concerned, don't really exist. but they are there. you don't see them. but they see you.



banilad, cebu city, september 2010

a man said to the universe...

A man said to the universe:
"Sir, I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."

- Stephen Crane, War is Kind



better viewed large :) click to view the large image

an old photo from my archive, taken from atop the marcelo fernan bridge overlooking the mactan strait, september 2008

because we are all passing shadows

near cebu city hall, may 2010

the way to salvation?

taken on yet another morning walk around tacloban, february 2010

a divine win

another thought.

after the san miguel beermen's miraculous win over coca-cola last sunday, eric reyes interviewed coach siot tanquincen about the win. he asked coach siot, "what were you thinking during the game?" to which coach siot replied to the effect, "you just don't give up on situations like this, and you leave everything else to God. fortunately God blessed us with this win."

it occured to me, does God meddle with sports? does He decide who should win, or does He just leave it up to the players to win it? do we REALLY have free will?

beer and the meaning of existence

published 04/21/07 in the blog plug section of sunstar cebu's weekend magazine

#################################

my soul may just have died, i think, and it's all because of beer.

it happened like this. after months of unbroken sobriety, i finally had my first drink of beer last weekend. an officemate, marlon, was holding his despidida because he found another job in singapore, joining an already numerous group of former officemates working in the city state.

i actually had reservations on going. i knew alcohol would be involved (it always is on all of my officemates' despididas), and i just had a surgery 2 months ago. but my doctor did say that i could now go back to my old lifestyle, and my old lifestyle did include a measure of beer every now and then, especially on special occasions. so if he says it's ok, then nothing should go wrong with me (i hope). so off i went.

i didn't really drink that much in the party. the beer wasn't enough to make me puke on the street and turn my brain to mush, just enough to loosen us all up and make the party a jolly occasion. but i used to have a low regard for people who drink alcohol. the resulting euphoria was not real in the sense that it wasn't derived from thought and experience, but chemically induced. and following that, i saw no difference between beer drinkers and drug addicts. but discovering the joys of drinking later on, let's just say i've changed my position on that matter.

so the night wore on, and eventually the discussion reached the topic of the weird effects of alcohol.

alcohol has different, sometimes weird, sometimes funny effects on people. some become so jolly that when sufficiently soused they will laugh for no reason at all (that's me). some suddenly become all quiet. some start speaking gibberish like it was a foreign language. some get violent (w/c in bisaya is called 'mauy'). we have this office mate who is a quiet and mild mannered guy. but when he gets drunk, he's like bruce banner suddenly transforming to the incredible hulk, a green imposing mass of pure rage. some can even take a piss anywhere they feel the urge to do so (i remember another officemate...). it's like in that song by the eraserheads that goes: 'CR mo ang buong mundo'. thinking about all that, that's when it hit me.

it's a strange thing no, when your mood, and by extension, your outlook in life and your way of thinking, can so easily be altered by some substance or drug. it somehow runs against the proposition of man being a spiritual creature. how can there be a spirit, or a soul, or whatever you call it, that is supposed to be separate from the one's physical nature when it can be influenced by one chemical or other?

there are actually some religious groups, like the rastafarians, who commune with their deity by smoking marijuana. the oracles of ancient greece were known to be exposed to mind altering fumes, and the resulting gibberish from their mouths the priests interpreted to be messages from the gods, like in the movie 300.

we already have pills like uppers (to make us happy) and downers (to make us sad, or at least less happy), both easily prescribed by our friendly neighborhood psychiatrist. but imagine having a pill for, say, passion, or excitement, or romance, or contentment, or even peace of mind. do you feel depressed? take a pill! you've lost passion for your job? take a pill! you no longer love your wife of 40 years? take a pill! you feel that your life is a hassle and you want to end it all by jumping off a bridge? take a pill!

scientists are now beginning to understand the workings of the brain, albeit slowly. they've already mapped which parts of the brain function for emotion, and behavior, and sensation, and basic motion. and using an MRI to scan the brain, they can even read (sort of) what thoughts are going on in your head by measuring the blood flow in your brain. once science has fully understood the brain, the possibilities of what we can do scares me.

and when that time comes, the essence of humanity, of what it means to exist, is reduced to that of being a machine. we will be nothing more than living, breathing, thinking machines, no better than robots. it somehow robs us of a reason, of meaning, in our existence. we just happen to be here because we are here, period.

even sentience has a price, and it isn't cheap. my thoughts are beginning to scare me.

that must be why i get so envious of my cat miming every time i see her get her siesta. all she does is eat, sleep, and hunt for mice and roaches. and she doesn't have the facility to torture herself with thought. i'm starting to think we humans actually got the raw end of the deal.

but what do we do about it? do we despair over it and ruin our day?

i say, let's just swallow the possibility, believe whatever you want to believe, and get back to the business of living. we happen to be here, we might as well enjoy the ride.

some of you philosopher types may now be punching wholes in my line of thinking. but either way the debate ends up, soul or no soul, doesn't make our time here less precious. and the prospect of having no soul actually makes it even more so. if we have no soul, and it follows, no afterlife, then our time here is the only one we've got.

now, if they only had a pill for hangovers, then that would be really great...

everything is meaningless

this is supposed to be from the bible. imagine that, the bible!

############################

"Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."

What does man gain from all his labor
at which he toils under the sun?
Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which one can say,
"Look! This is something new"?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
There is no remembrance of men of old,
and even those who are yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow.

Ecclesiastes 1:2-11

############################

my point exactly...