Death Is A Wake-Up Call To Life

A few days ago I spent some time at the wake of an Aunt, she was my mother’s cousin. She recently succumbed to cancer, a fight that sees more loser’s than winners. As I sat there, recalling memories of her from my life, and going as far back as childhood, a chill crept through me as I thought in resigned certainty, “there is nothing as inevitable and inescapable in life, as death”. And then I realized, to be primarily focused on our eventual end would be an even greater tragedy; simply reflecting on man’s inarguable fate, death; causes us to overlook the other single most important thing we possess and ought to be thankful for, which is life! Death indeed is a reminder that all.. come to an end; but instead of living in the fear of what we know will one day come, I guess we should look at the other side of things, and celebrate life as often and as gratefully as we can, in our own individual ways.

What Then...

In life's direness of times; In persistence of our folly. When nothing is left to pawn or sell; But dignity, esteem, soul or sanity. What then?

Random Again...

I like having this blog... not a lot of people know about this... but then again I might be wrong. My other blogs are too themed... and I guess it is my fault because instead of coming up with just one blog with a variety of genres or topic categories, I ended up creating various blogs which were specific to what it was I was interested in. It is quite a commitment to maintain one blog, this I heard from a friend of mine who has just started blogging... and I say to myself.. "you tell me... I have several that I maintain". I have a marketing blog, a music blog, a movie blog, other sorts of blogs which I have not even seen nor updated for the longest time. But I like this blog, simply because not a lot of people know about this, and not a lot of people visit this blog. When I first started blogging two or so years ago, I used to just write anything, somehow what was becoming annoying about it was, there were readers who were thinking it was them I was writing about. Since then, I have been pretty careful with what I say or blog about, but it kind of defeats the purpose of having a blog, since a blog is like your online journal or diary. So to this blog, which hardly gets read... and I hope I am right, I shall then randomly talk about things which would probably bore most of you. I do not remember being sick all year, as far as I know I have never been taken ill, or have come down with the flu. It is probably one of the most difficult things to go through, being sick and in bed and living alone. I don't believe I need to expound on that, if yo have ever been on your own, lived alone and found yourself ill... I am certain you know what I mean. It almost 4:30 in the morning, and I am still up... I have been napping on and off the whole day on account of my flu, that explains why I am still up. I was actually doing some work earlier. I don't know if it is wrong... but some people get into work mode which is 9-5... and any time outside of 9-5 they hardly talk or think about work. What is strange about me is I could work 24/7... I don't look at hours, I look at tasks and deadlines. When there is work to be done... I get cracking. But I do also reward myself though with an occasional R&R. I work at home, and I work online... you can imagine the kind of eye strain I get. The moment I crawl out of bed, the first thing my hands feel are the keyboard keys, they are also the last things I get to fondle before hitting the sack. I have had my hands full lately with all these projects, been sleeping late for several weeks... maybe my body just gave in finally. Like I said, I haven't been sick this year... until now. I would have wanted to stay home and rest, but I unfortunately had to go to band rehearsal, as it was necessary since we would not have any time to practice later on, we have a gig tomorrow, and we have an out of town gig on Sunday. After the rehearsal, made sure to grab something to eat, had a lot of soup, and interesting conversation with some friends. My eyestrain is getting worse; I better call it a night.

Missing

I miss.... Miss old friends, places, and times that have been... I miss too many things, where do I begin... They pass, fleeting like glances from inside a moving train... They fade, slowly like old pictures ... The images and the memory of which, not to be seen again.

Life Again

I had just posted a notice about my being unable to access my personal blog site and so, I am unable to manage or retrieve all the things I have posted in the last two years of blogging. Disappointing, but such is life I guess... it does hit you with a good number of disappointments. I have been disappointed in a few things, in a few people, in a few other things... ok maybe "a few" mentioned in a string of phrases cannot qualify for "a few"; alright I guess there are quite a number of things I am disappointed in. And when there is no one to blame, you can put the blame on life... maybe this is how it is supposed to be.

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Google Ads Now FREE?

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Valentine Aftermath

... it was just a small private dinner with a few friends... we were looking for some respite from the Valentine hype going around... thank you Bing of Handuraw, who was able to fix us up a nice cozy spot on the second floor... the requirement of the group I believe was... absolutely no hint of anything close to the occasion, no hearts, no cupids and pink stuff, and all that crap strange.. as how the motif we try to avoid inevitably becomes the topic of the night, as each regaled the others of exploits, love and the loss of except me though, i tried as best to be quiet... however, as a significant part of the discussion revolved around relationships past, and letting go, and closing cycles (Paulo Coelho) and moving.. not necessarily in the relationship department... I'd like to post this for the group... I couldnt find it on my friendster blog anymore, i cant remember deleting it, but i must say, that is possible, and i did remember deleting the draft from the desktop of my pc, luckily and thanks to SoulCast, a blogsite which i rarely use, i found this piece.... originally penned by your wannabe writer hehehe --- WHAT IT TAKES TO BE HAPPY Happiness is a choice, and an attitude you can choose. It is not determined by possessions or dependent on conditions, and by no means is it triggered by material or situational prerequisites. This is one thing I have learned quite recently… "Learn to let go of the past. What’s done is done; what’s happened cannot be undone. You can choose to live in the past and be haunted by it or live each day remembering lessons learned from it. Let that faint picture of what or who you were before, fade away; as it wont make any difference today. You are today actually better than yesterday and the days before because you are today’s sum of what you have learned from all your yesterdays combined. Whatever opportunity comes around, a chance to do or experience something new, don’t hesitate or think twice... grab it! It may be gone before you know it and you’ll forever wonder what might have come out of it. So long as it isn’t something that leaves you missing an appendage, or losing your life or your sanity. Have a good laugh, boisterous and loud. Don’t be too concerned of what other people think. Don’t live your life gauged against other persons’ measures. Run, trip and fall flat on your face, but pick yourself up and run again. Love. Be loved. Lose love and yet not despair for you will surely find love again, if you allow it. Don’t dwell on things which you have no control over. Lets face it, we are not in control of our life or existence, we only like to think we are. So when things don’t turn out how you would have wanted them, let it be, let it go and look forward to the other surprise that life may have for you. Try to be kind or less mean, even if it does take an extra effort. You are unaware that the other may be facing a steeper hill than you. Be kind to your body, the better you treat it the longer it will serve you. Don’t be overly fanatical about it or go overboard in doing so, like trying to prevent yourself from ageing because ageing is just part of life and whether you like or not, it will run its course! You will grow old. You can fight it and be miserable, or accept it with a knowing that to age in acceptance is wise and those that do are bestowed the wisdom of experience. Be thankful for friends, for friends will disappear like the fading years that pass you by. Life doesn’t get any easier, yet the best part about it is you will always have people like your friends who will see you thru. If you can't help but be upset or be angry, go ahead and be so for anger is as normal an emotion like all the others. However, don’t be angry forever for it will consume you like wildfire in the brush until nothing is left. Be kind to animals and all other creatures who don’t mean any harm. Be thankful that you belong to the human race; a living being equipped with the intelligence and facilities to discern, and the ability to possess an awareness of your own existence; and not of a lower specie who’s actions are dictated by natural instinct. Be happy for another’s success, quite often someone else’s fortune, gain or advancement in life makes us resentful and we wonder “why him and not me”, and are bitter in the belief that we are not as lucky as others are. Appreciate the otherwise mundane or taken for granted. Stare and be amazed at clear blue skies in daylight and how they couldn’t be near perfect had they been black or red. Be awed by the countless flickering stars on dark nights and wonder about the infiniteness of the galaxy and how in its vastness, it would be remiss to believe that we had the universe all to ourselves. Live! And appreciate the life that you have been given. It may not be perfect but it’s a non negotiable lease that is non renewable upon termination. Above all, you have to admit that you can be happy, no matter how bad things get, how deep you have fallen or how low you may go. You may lose everything that you have, possessions, wealth, stature, health, respect, admiration or freedom. But unless you lose your mind, you will never really lose the ability to choose, and the capacity to decide to be happy… however ridiculous it may seem especially in worldly direness. It is up to you then to choose between being miserable or happy. So how do you choose?

Valentines is Christmas All Over Again But in the Middle of February

Traffic will be bad.. Restaurants will be packed... if you haven't yet made your reservation and taken extra measures to secure your table, your screwed. Cash graphs will show a spike in sales, actually it might have begun already this week... Love this love that... Before I forget, motels will be packed, amusing how the lines of cars waiting their turn to get a room extends past the motel's gates and they're all lined up along the road. Except probably for that last item about motel's, everything else have tell tale sign of Christmas... yes... Valentines is Christmas in February, and the Grinch in me, Christmas or no Christmas... is not amused. Tell me something, have you ever paniced... maybe weeks before valentines because your single, or dont have a date for that one night in Feb? Have you ever been so harassed at a store when everybody else seems to be in some sort of mad rush to buy a present, more often than not, it comes gift wrapped in pink, with ribbons and all. Have you ever been worried that you dont have enough money for valentines... or are you even now desperate to find a restaurant that can seat you. If you feel all of those above, then well my friend, you've been bitten by that bug. What bug you may ask? Nope, its not the love bug... its the same bug that bites you on the approach of Christmas. Its the Capitalist bug. Your brows are probably furrowed, or your maybe staring out withi this visibly big question mark above you head wondering... what on earth is this guy talking about? All the hype, all the build-up, all the PR, all the specials.. dinner specials, all the sales.. discount sales, all the treats, all the advertisements, all that is actually just effective marketing.. getting you to spend money, buy something, eat somewhere, check-in someplace. All these are the maneuverings of effective marketing, the work of the the bright boys of the enterprising proletariat. No I am not against capitalism, neither am I a communist. I believe in democracy, free trade and equal opportunity and all... and I am amused at how a lot of people seem like robots coming out of an assembly line that do the same things everybody else does just because ... sort of like running on the same program... I was a bit annoyed when before I started writing this blog, i wanted to know how Valentines is defined on the internet, so getting unto wikipedia i search for valentines and it says "Saint Valentine's Day or Valentine's Day is on February 14. It is the traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other; sending Valentine's cards, candy, or donations to charities, often anonymously. It is very common to present flowers on Valentine's Day." Ok, so there you have another capitalist tool to further cement into your heads the concept of valentines as defined by those who stand to make a buck out of it. Its more than being about lovers, or relationship. It's also family, and good friends, and people you dont really know so well but do you a favor.. they could be little things, they could be big things, but they are things that you never really expected, nor asked or even considered that person to ever do a thing for you. In the same way Christmas, which also is themed in the same el-oh-vee-eeeh, espouses the same. Why does it take for a holiday.. actually two holidays for us to make a reason to show or tell someone... can't you just say it everyday if you really do mean it? Does it really take all the commercials, ads, sales, promos, and restaurant specials to remind us...

Closing Cycles: A Paulo Coelho Discovery

No. it is not about me. It is about a few friends of mine I was hanging out with last night, and they were talking about writer, Paulo Coelho. I told them about this thing I read, sent to me by some one, but darned it I couldnt remember the title, all I could think of were the words "moving on". Hehehe, missed by a mile. I knew I blogged about that piece some years ago, and so I started sifting thru my old blogs. It took a while. Do you know how many blogs I have in my archive? Well, nevermind, you dont need to know unless your bored enough to really start counting. Anyways, here it is. Thank you Kookie for sending this to me some years back... you have no idea how many times I have cashed in on it, hehehe... what I mean is, I have sent this to many many more as well. ------ One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters - whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished. Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents’ house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden? You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened. You can tell yourself you won’t take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that. But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister, everyone will be finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill. None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we cannot forever be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who has gone away and has not the least intention of coming back. Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away. That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home. Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts - and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place. Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood. Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else. Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the “ideal moment.” Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person - nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important. Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust. Stop being who you were, and change into who you are. <$BlogItemTitle$>