This year is half done.

Man.

I think I've come to some equilibrium with the company I'm in now. No longer jittery about coming in (for first timers, it's always a symptom). I arrive at the office right before the grace period ends.

10:15 AM.

There's still a lot of stuff I want to do at work. Try to teach some stuff about front-end and what not. But I'm just too lazy. I sort of prefer just sitting beside a colleague and pointing out what's wrong with the issue they're encountering.

Anyway, enough about work.

Hmm. So what do I do for the rest of the year? It seems like I'm losing interest in going about here and there. I just want to sleep, sleep, sleep. And maybe play some of the good stuff (which I do everynight).

I'm thinking about moving out of the condo. But it really serves no great purpose. Another hassle to deal with.

A new hobby perhaps?

Now I'm getting lazier even in thinking about something new to do ... woo. I need a shot of cocaine or something.

My Lakbayan grade is D!

How much of the Philippines have you visited? Find out at Lakbayan!

Created by Eugene Villar.

Just when I thought I'm at peace with the world, the idiotic me tried to test the balance.

I tried to confront my biggest personal demon -- I failed.

Regretted it. Regretted that one a lot. I don't know if it'll ever stop being that way. But hell, it would be long time before I do that again.

Fortunately for me, I think I've dealt with it better this time. Still a part of the old me underneath all the radical changes.

Somewhere out there, I must be sucking somebody else's happiness.

It's either good things are happening to me or I have become better at appreciating the stuff that's already there.

One reason I'm happy is that my second baby is on her way :)

Although I have to work lots more for days to come, this time around it's easier. And this time around, I don't have to be alone. I have good people here.

Hay.

Feels good to have achieved an accomplishment.

"Alam mo yun? Parang ang mga tao dun pinanganak para lang magka-anak."

That's how I went while talking to a colleague. I was describing my hometown. Where everything seems so still, and nothing ever really changes.

Well maybe a few home improvements ... and an increase in population every so years.

I surprise myself that it's a place I used to really love. And now, it's a place I don't want to go back to. Like an old shirt that will only rip apart if I try to wear it.

I try to say to myself, I will miss this and this, things that can only be found there. But deep down, those are just words. There's no feeling attached to it anymore.

I don't think I'm someone who dreams of making it big, that's why I couldn't find myself fitting in there. I think I'm someone who's looking for change. And perhaps, above all, adventure. Or in a bit of humor, I wanted chaos.

"E kung chaos lang pala hanap mo, e di mag-asawa ka ng tatlo-tatlo."

That was my humorous reply. Hehe. It's not that I wanted to create chaos to enjoy it. I want it where it naturally occurs ;)

Maybe when I get older, and I've had enough of it, I just might find it in my most serene moments of thought ... that I left a place where I grew up.

~~~

"Ako? Ako walang pangarap sa buhay ...", that's how another colleague went in one of those off-work conversations.

The dreamless.

At one point I belonged to this group. Just drifting here and there. Making it through a day at a time. Carpe diem in the utmost, narrow-sighted manner.

But, everyone needs to dream. Everyone must have something to drive them. It's one of the things that will prevent you from becoming a mere existence (not that it's an evil in itself). It doesn't have to be things other people have to know. It just needs to be your own fire.

Good thing it wasn't too late for me. I found my dream again ^_^ and ya know, that makes me tons happy.

I have always thought that I have different personalities depending on the language I speak. And this is not the first time I wrote about myself as having multiple personalitites. Heck, I think it's a circus inside my head.

(Prolly because of the super soldier experiment that was being done on me when I was a kid ... only, they got the wrong serum)

Like ... like ... Norb and Dag in the Two Angry Beavers cartoon in Nickelodeon.

~~~

I watched a rerun of Teen Titans, about an episode of a Russian super soldier experiment gone awry. I love the series btw, if not for the cool combination of anime-like resemblance and remarkable action scenes.

Anyway, that's not the thing that eats me.

It's about the Russian super soldier in the episode himself, called The Red Star. I'm telling it now but, it's one of the strangest places I get thoughts from.

Because as we all know, (ex) Soviet Russia had that military "Big Brother" feel to it. And well, I've always been at odds with military organizations. Nay, an ambivalent feeling towards them.

I hate the rigid codes, hierarchy and stuff like that. But I respect the duty which they take upon in themselves with honor.

What does that make me? Mmmmm ... in D&D terms, I'm what you can say as Chaotic Neutral. I do what I want in a whim and has a questionable moral compass -- I'm no gentleman.

Me: "It is difficult not knowing everything."
Alice: "That's why we have faith."
Me: "Heh, of all people, it's surprising it came out of you."
Alice: "Fuck you."

Yeah. Faith. I think it's one of the things that made us so different from every other living creature on the planet.

We have the capability to believe in something, to just let ourselves remove anxiety just like that. It's important because, with the minds we have right now, there are things that can break us, or more positively so, things that can make us.

I think faith is important.

We're no longer creatures who just acts on whim and instinct. We're all thinking individuals that we now have what we call mental health. And as limitless as our minds can take us, we're still mortals who are vulnerable to all sorts of malady that we can inflict ourselves, or worse yet, we create them.

So what to believe?

Maybe it is more appropriate if it is seen as a question on what to believe in. What makes you go on when all else falls down. What keeps you up when the most temporary of things have reached their shelf life and we can no longer count on them to sustain us.

Why do we believe?

It's almost a circular argument in itself. And unfortunately, there really is no clear answer. We believe because we have to, and for the sake of our peace of mind, we need to. Maybe some sort of evolutionary step has to take place to answer that question.

We're all simply at awe with the workings of this world. We just couldn't fit it all in in our little cranium.

Perhaps that's the beauty in it. It's not our job to know everything that happens next. We're like in this X-game tv show where we teeter on the edge of a towering obstacle. It's either live or die, and as extreme as we get, we voluntarily expose ourselves to it. And we don't have to die screaming. I guess that's another job for faith.

We just have to believe we could make it.

And if we didn't, well ... faith makes us put it in ourselves that we did our best til the very end.

A glorious way to die.

I have many interests, and one of them is in the realm of pyschology.

One that I am currently into is researching on depression. Why? For the purposes of treating myself. I think I've developed certain bad mental habits which could affect me in the long run.

Scientifically, I look at it in the most objective manner. The thought itself does help alleviate much of my condition. Yet, I still have a lot to learn. While in an unfortunate circumstance that I may not be able to effectively treat it.

In any case, the fascination is there. So I dive in nonetheless.

One interesting factor is that it can be physiological, i.e. runs in the family. Ofcourse, environmental factors are also important.

Which leads me to another observation: I am causing my own symptoms. With a tendency to isolate myself from the rest of the world, I am indeed prone to depression. Good news is, I'm not that introvertive enough to warrant a reason for having clinical depression. Which is, uh ... bad?

Additionally, besides medical conditions, even dietary and sleeping habits have effects on depression. Reduced levels of omega-3 and poor sleep quality are causes themselves.

Hmm.

Looks like I need to eat more tuna and avoid sleeping late. Besides, nothing's really good in cable these days. And I'm getting tired of the MMORPG I've been playing.

Now that I have a better view of the situation, time for treatment!

- Robert Frost


Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference


Sitting on a road with my trusty staff with +1 to hermitness

Today I've sent hope.

The first step of the longest journey has begun.

I cannot stay too long anymore. And I know there's still a lot of time that has to pass still for this is a beautiful exile. Be time brings me pain or euphoria, I'll welcome it. All I need to realize is that I'm moving on.

And if fate be kind to me, I'd see you in my sky again. Who knows? Lightning could strike.

Back when I was in college, I remembered debating with my then roommates as to who can invent the most powerful superhero.

We were all arguing inside our dark, dingy room, spewing out reasons why "my power is better than yours".

I, on the other hand, chose the power of time-travel.

And I would go on like, even if you had super-strength or speed, I'd go back in time and anticipate when you'll have them. Or if you were born with them, I'd scar your childhood and you will never be able to use your powers against me >:D

So we went on and on and on, each one of us believing we outdid the other ...

Hah, those were the times.


Ghetto Stan, uh uh

Yeah, it just feels like that.

This June, I'll officially start preparing for my exile. No, exile is too negative a word. I must not stay here. I can't. I just can't.

If there are people afraid of change, I am the reverse. I am afraid of NOTHING changing.

I need adventure. I must look for something to excite my numbed senses. Because frankly, I think I came to a point that nothing really surprises me.

~~~

And there's a thing that troubles me. Well not really, but an itch I couldn't scratch.

I don't miss anyone. Is that a bad thing? Does that mean that I don't give a damn to people who give a damn about me?

Am I a jerk? (Well yeah, I still remain as one in a way)

The complacent side of me says not to worry. It's okay. It's normal. It just so happen that, I just don't. I cannot choose what I feel, that's what I always say. It's not a fault, but a part of my character.

Anyway, enough of the melodrama. Oh wait, there's more.

~~~

There's also the thing that a friend told me once.

That I wanted a complete reboot. New place, new stuff, new everything. I never was satisfied with my life here.

I've achieved a lot than the average Juan. But, I only had temporary things. Correction, I don't have much love for anything. Tried to meet new people, make new friends. Yet in the end, they just trickle like water in a sieve. I don't have a place I can call home anymore. I just couldn't belong anywhere. And worse, I don't mind losing what I have.

Like Guts in Berserk, I felt like I was born outside of fate.

Cuckoo. What am I talking about?

~~~

I know what I lack. It's there but I don't mention it. Like a dyslexic trying to grasp a new lesson, I fumble trying to achieve it.

And now that my deadline to get it is over, I have to move on without it.

Interestingly enough, I'm too proud to claim it's caused by my stupidity about the matter.

Let it go.

I'm trying to sink that into my thick skull.

I need to rearrange my priorities. I don't want to do those things for that anymore. I'm not a good sport. Happens that I'm also a sore loser.

~~~

Now you may ask, where's that optimistic, life-loving pansy side of me went?

Oh, he's on vacation.

Right now, only the mean side of me is here. Typing. Angrily. I'm writing words here that's the stuff of great books. Woo! Right.

Unfortunately, I choose the people who'll listen to me, just so I can have their sympathy. Yeah, I'm that pathetic. Well, better admit that than a thousand other blogs that scream with coying hypocrisy that sounds like:

Look at my blog! I'm an attention whore!

Then again, I'm not simple. I'm no one-celled microorganism that lurks underneath the sink.

I laugh whenever people describe themselves with that word whenever I come across those website ads for dating that seem to infest every which website. YOU ARE NOT SIMPLE YOU DIMWIT. You're a human capable with more than 4 terabyte storage in your brain! Unless you threw a gene away ofcourse, and babble with a drooling face >:o (no offense to the afflicted)

~~~

Aight. Time to wander.