maybelle victor

Full Steam Ahead, the book I’m reading, describes a company who is always on the go as “fully powered and moving ahead full force”. It however, also mentions that the idea may also mean a company becoming “reckless and blindly moving ahead in the face of danger.”

I think that an empowered company is one where each member finds “company” as fun and “work” as natural and effortless. It is where learning is a value and open-mindedness a requirement. It is a dynamic whole moved by its parts. What keeps it together is a vision. A dream that involves both the company as an entity and its members as individuals.

Thus, everyone knows where they are going. The destination is certain. But the journey is unknown. The good thing is, nobody has to face it alone.

They say that it’s not really the pain that makes it immeasurable, but the anticipation of pain. They say it’s not what hurts you that makes sense, it is the intention to hurt you. They say that it’s not really about the present, it’s about coping and what’s ahead.

It’s not the anticipation or the knowledge of what is to come that makes it real. It’s knowing it’s not… yet, it’s how you feel.

In Gaiman and Pratchett’s Good Omens, there was a group of kids named as the Them. It refers to the three other friends Adam had, a small gang of children, thus the name, Adam and the Them. This is one interesting book as Adam is actually the incarnate of Satan, or son of Satan, or the so-called anti-christ, who shall live to bring about the end of the world with the four horsemen (War, Famine, Pollution and Death) and the Them are actually normal people who simply believe in friendship, even if they believe in it for the weirdest reasons.  Believe it or not, these 4 bring about pain amongst themselves but manage to call it “playing”.  Maybe because they are kids or maybe because that is what they want to believe, in the end, it was this idea that brought about the end.   That the end means nothing but lone and silence and friendship means company, it never ends.

How can I believe in “us” if I am your “them”?

One of the things that Albom asked at Have a little faith is “What do people fear most about death?” And the Reb answered with a couple of answers including something else – “being forgotten”.

Maybe for someone as young as myself, this would seem a very far-fetched idea.  For example, if I were to die tomorrow, being forgotten will be the least of my worries.  I would be afraid if I am forgotten now rather than if I’m forgotten when I die.

I’m not a popular figure nor am I someone who can make it to the news on TV or the radio.  I am just an average individual, attempting my best to live a decent life.  I want to share my ideas and inspire other people to think and be insightful of their lives, only then can we truly understand the ways of the world and only then can we start on acting upon solutions that we can take part in.  If I am forgotten when I die, it will probably be because I didn’t do much or I didn’t do my part for the people, or for anyone at that.

I think people fear death because it is “unknown.”  Amongst the many things we can perceive with our five senses or those that can be experimented and theorized upon, death will always be something mystical and in ways, religious – something that can only be understood through faith.

I think this can be further explored as we feel an extra tug on our shoulders when we watch movies such as The Day After Tomorrow, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Knowing and the upcoming movie, 2012.  These movies graphically project nature’s wrath and claim on its land and waters, its alliance with death to harvest the over-ripened human race.  Some people (me included) reserve a skeptical eye against movies like this because it rouses “fear and panic” in exchange for little action and half-hearted awareness.  I know that it’s meant to stir feelings in any movie-watcher so that we can start taking action now.  This is where I take my lead.

I have faith in the human race, its capacity to study and understand what has been laid down in front of its eyes as well as what has been recorded for him/her to use as bases. I’ve read a lot of materials but that’s about all there is to it – the attempts for awareness and the movement towards solution.  I am irritated that the US has to be the first to promote such.

No matter what we do and how “globalized” we claim to be, our problems are limited to what is immediate to our needs.  We talk of global warming when we are still yet to fully implement the clean air act.  We talk of calamity funds when we are still yet to address the issue of corruption in the government.  We talk of modernization and development when our cities have become overpopulated, and we cannot even finalize a contraceptives bill due to faith issues.  We talk of acquiring investors to provide additional jobs when the number of people who are able to study to qualify themselves for such gets lower as the number of criminals higher day after day.  We talk about progress when the poverty base population increases as more people are born poor and the privileged few tightens and attempts to maintain control over a larger percentage of the population.

If I were to create a Filipino version of 2012 or such that shall claim death over Filipinos, it wouldn’t necessarily be something related to global warming for that’s something default, for everyone.  Nobody would want a calamity and science is here to warn us of that, I believe in Science and I’ll let it do its job.  More than the study though, I believe in people.

What I fear can result into our own destruction is a civil war – an internal conflict that shall stir the sleeping spirits of the masses and a communistic appeal of government, for those who have nothing else to lose but everything to gain are willing to risk all that they have to hold on to an idea of hope and change.

It is not really death that makes it fearful.  It is the unknown.

If there is such a thing, life is a conscious unknown but we do not fear it.  We embrace it with open arms and celebrate it to the fullest.  Death completes that circle, but until then, we persevere.

This isn’t a food recipe but in Have a little faith, Albom mentioned one of the most common situations involving mothers:

One time, as a teenager, he heard his mother talking to relatives about how, of all her children, Henry was the one, he had the heart and the temperament.  Her little boy was ‘gonna be a preacher one day.’

In Filipino, there’s this running joke about any son or daughter being the most beautiful creature in their mother’s eyes, no matter how “hell” they look for other people.  I can’t help but agree to the prejudice but am now driven to one point I can’t deny – we can never see what our mothers see when they look at us.  The closest we can see it is when we look at our own children ourselves.  By then, our mothers have found another way to see us, and still, it will be beautiful.

It’s like they’re always many steps ahead, as if you’re planting a seed and they see the harvest.  That while you’re in kindergarten, they see you succeed in a chosen profession.  That while you’re dreaming of who to become, they see you as who you have become.  I have nothing against fathers but I am just so inclined to think that the connection and “eyes” of a mother never fails – that the umbilical cord was not simply physically cut, but rather, made invisible by the removal of the object.

I think mothers are the most underrated  heroes in this modern age.  But that doesn’t matter because I doubt it if mothers ever want to be placed on a pedestal to be admired.

But I can’t help but do so.  I love my mom and this entry is my sort of pedestal for her.  I yield to what she knows and I am thankful I have her as my mother.

They genuinely thought they were helping the world, which might be true, but they had to pay for this with their own lives.

- Paulo Coelho, The Winner Stands Alone -

It’s quite funny to find yourself commenting on something so blatantly true.  Nothing is free and even if in some distorted reasoning, someone gets away attempting to explain why they spend too much time over something, there is simply one truth over it: it is a lie.

I’ve always believed that everything valuable has a price.  It may not always be monetary nor does it always have to be physical/material but there is always some way for things to even out.  I believe in karma.

In little ways, I abuse this fact and for that, I am really scared.  Little things, no matter how little, add up and deny it as much as I want, it’s definitely going to pile up and claim its price.

My dad has been reminding me continuously of the essence of time and well, I always listen… and keep it at the back of my mind.  I have been influenced of the promises of “quality time” – which has its own roots, reasons and actually, practicality.  But what good is that.

Maybe, there will come a time that I will understand.  There will come a time that I will “slow down” and be more “altruistic,” if it exists.  Or maybe, there will come a time that I can align whatever my dad is saying along the lines of what I am thinking and what I am doing.  But for all these maybe’s, I’d probably just finish Paulo Coelho’s book and then wait and see.