As We Digress: The Little Things in Life

To know: to possess knowledge or information about.
To realize: to understand/perceive (an idea or situation) mentally.

Fact: human beings are not perfect.

We all know that we are imperfect creatures; yes, we have intelligence and brains, we have the ability to think, to know, and to be aware of ourselves and all that encircles us, but this doesn't make you "feel bad". In fact, it makes you feel superior to others because you know all of these things, be them mundane or of utter significance. The fact is, the action of knowing makes them equal in value, because knowing, while important for us to realize truths, is not realization in itself, thus whatever information you may have in your possession is all of the same value because it does not affect you.

Fact: human beings take forever to realize things.

Realization on the other hand, is a more superior form of knowing. It is the step that comes after knowing. It is important to know in order to realize; without intelligence and brains, the ability to think, to know and to be aware of ourselves and all that encircles us, we cannot realize. Realization, unlike knowledge, can be hurtful. It's a process of knowing, realizing, getting hurt, taking action and moving on.

Once you realize you have done a mistake, well, let's not kid ourselves, we don't only make one mistake. When you have made quite a handful of mistakes you know of course what you did, we all know what we do, yes, we know, but we never, ever realize the magnitude (or triviality) of which from the beginning. We all need a wake-up call, a reality check, a slap on the face, perhaps several times, to actually realize this stuff, and it's hard, it's difficult to know one's mistakes, to be at peace with yourself after you've realized what you did, and the most difficult thing would be wallowing in both self-pity and resentment at once and then move on, making a promise to yourself that you'd never do the same mistake ever again, half knowing that the constant presence of a certain catalyst will always lead to constant same-mistake-making, forming a vicious circle.

Fact: the worst mistake anyone can make would be the one made against oneself

Making mistakes with other people, almost always has a solution, even if the parties involved choose to never talk again, it's still a solution. But making a mistake to yourself is just horrible: you are yourself. You can't stop talking to yourself, you can't resent yourself because then people would resent you, you can't judge yourself because your self-esteem would hit rock-bottom and no one would ever like you because even you don't like yourself, you can't split yourself into two entities (well you can, but that's another story for another day), and you absolutely cannot think that you don't deserve happiness because then you really don't.

You can always take solace in the fact that no one is mistake-free, especially mistakes made against themselves, but one should learn and one should avoid and one should help fellow human beings.

You can always take solace in the little things in life; the little smiles, the little nice songs you like, the little practices you do unto others to make them happy. I know one little thing about this: giving a massage to your favorite little person, with their little shoulders, little backs and little feet and their demand for more massage time, that makes them giggle with their little mouths and little eyes is absolutely one thing worth living for.

As We Digress: The Constant Need for Money and Affection

Of all the things that humans may feel, the various shades and colors of all things emotional, the most constantly-felt would be the need for money and affection.

The observation made above is the fruit of many months, days, and hours of noting this, that and the other and it has resulted in the association of money with emotion, well-being and self-respect. So while money isn't actually an emotion, the emotions we get when money is involved certainly are, making money an emotion by association.

The day money started mattering to us on an emotional level, that is money being so closely linked to our well-being and happiness, the world today has completely changed our values. Yes, the old saying is money can't buy you happiness, but the fact is money is able to buy you things that are bound to make you happy, upon all stands financial security. That is true. However, money is not supposed to enslave you, money isn't supposed to be such an integral part of our happiness and welfare because money comes and goes, sometimes it is more gone than it is around, so one has to learn how to be happy and satisfied with whatever one has. It's not easy, because it is a philosophy that has to come from within you, not imposed upon you. It's a conclusion you reach, not a lesson you learn. So, for once, I hope that all of us, rich and poor, or even those stuck in between, would reach that conclusion sooner or later for humanity's sake.

Financial satisfaction, or the better word would be contentment, has long been confused with sitting motionless, waiting for money to knock on one's door. I'm sorry, but what kind of a gullible bastard can one be to actually believe that they are being content when they are actually being passive? To earn the money you deserve to have is one thing, to allow yourself to be enslaved to it is another. Know the difference.

A good substitute to worshiping money would be filling your life with meaningful relationships that are bound to leave you emotionally secure and satisfied. The existence of which is a good antidote to the poisonous effect that money has on the world today.

Money is status, money is security, money is happiness, money is love, money is power...

Money is nothing.

The shockwave from possibly the hottest thing in nature meeting the coldest, like emotion and money -one being completely abstract and more profound on all levels, and the other being worldly and materialistic- would actually crack the Earth in two. And it's cracking. Those two have finally collided and now we have to live in a world of chaos where emotion and money are of the same value...

It's a sad, sad state of affairs... Very much like seeing people you haven't seen in years and see that they have not changed one bit. People, who in the first place, you so mistakenly thought would mature with time, but to no avail; they are still the same.

It is sad, because once you leave those people behind you'd think that life would teach them a thing or two. That the school they go to or the job that they have may actually save them from their miserable selves, but no, instead once you cross paths with them again you are only reminded of why you distanced yourself from that sorry act in the first place; you only see that only little has changed. And while you sit there listening to the same old, frustratingly repetitive babble, you wonder: "have you not changed one bit?", "you're still falling for the same type of guy/girl who always manages to fuck up something in your life?", "why am I here?", "grow up!", and "get over yourself"... No prospects, no ambition, no effort into a decent living, immaturity, stupidity... Those are the very qualities that possess the ability to fracture a relationship as such. Sometimes life is just too disappointing that one needs to take a break from being a human being.

But it is sad, most of all, because we have given up on trying to change the world we live in, and I mean this in the least idealistic manner possible. I don't mean to say that we should all diminish the hunger and disease, the wars and murders that take place each and every miserable day of our lives as citizens of this ever-deteriorating world we live in, I simply mean to say that we have given up on improving our own lives, our own values and our own well-being, and that is precisely why we are going down and we are taking down the world with us. So cheers to whoever wanted to watch the world burn, because here it comes.

As We Digress: Sometimes I Get Scared

In our formative years, most of us are unaware that they are actually our formative years. The years that sculpt and define who you are, what you are, what you want and where you want to go in your life. These are scary times. The unawareness of them is a lot better than the awareness of them; when you know how much these years will affect you in the future you stress on the importance of them all the more and end up screwing up one thing or another.

Things like leaving the home you lived in all your childhood and most of your adolescence is one of these things. Friendships you make or break. Things that fragment your heart (no matter how small or big: broken puppy love or the death of a close one) are also among the things that affect the final product that is you. You have to keep one thing in mind at times like these: if something affects you so deeply, emotionally and mentally, then it's probably worth it, no matter what others tell you to make you feel better. Belittling one's dilemmas as a way to help one recover is one of this century's hugest flaws in dealing with emotion and intelligence together. To stay emotionally healthy, one must deal with their emotion intelligently. Easy.

The more arduous journey would be the one you take when you're almost done formation. You will have experienced all these things that sculpted the new, more mature you, you will have probably equipped yourself academically and professionally as well, but after that you need to decide what to do next. Yes, the task gets harder as you grow. Overwhelming.

At that point the prospects seem infinite, the possibilities of what you can do and what you can become are so vast that you cannot make up your mind, because each option offers a different future. Try and make up your mind without feeling lost before; the impossible dream. Just remember that on your way to wherever you will meet people who either:
A. Know what you're worth well, and would take advantage of your skill and talent by faking interest in what you are and what you aim to be to keep you on their level, or worse, below them, making you believe that they actually want the best for you by under-appreciating you so; AND/OR
B. People who will hate you for no reason, or for a million reasons, and who will wish you failure, but just because they wish you failure doesn't mean you will (the existence of these parasites has plagued our world since the dawn of time); AND/OR
C. Older people who see themselves in you and who would like to direct you to one of two ways: either towards the goals they themselves failed to achieve when they were your age, or towards places where you can realize your full potential; a true form of vision and wisdom; AND/OR
D. People who know what you are worth and help you realize your full potential with no ulterior motives whatsoever; a rare existence, but still plausible.

Of course there are those you have known all your life, it goes without saying that those select few are your backbone; those who have been there at all times, in your success and failure, your times of beauty and ugliness, times of love and hate, they were there and they helped you on your feet when you faltered (yes, rather cheesy, but true). And there comes a time in your life when you question the existence of whom in your life, only to realize that the very thought of not having them there scares the light out of you, and you would do anything to keep them happy and satisfied just as they did for you. So hold onto those, their existence in your life has, is and will be a source of comfort and happiness forever and always: living, loving, and sharing - the values that make our lives worth something.

Your future need not be so confusing, when the opportunity presents itself to you, after tiresome days and nights in search of it that is, you will know what you were meant to do. But until then, sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride, whether life be here or elsewhere, it will come to you, and you will go to it, just be patient.

And stay away from self-help books.

(Untitled Poem)

I'm seeing stars.
The sea is dripping blue ink on the sky,
And that's why it's so blue.
Like tree leaves
She was all in green,
Sitting there on a branch,
And then shower more strawberries
On her pretty face.

As We Digress: Photograph at the Studio

This experience never ceases to revolt me each time I'm at a studio for a personal photograph; this time, it's a graduation photo. Those trips depersonalize the whole beauty of a portrait of you. You're there with a complete stranger who wants to make you look good the way he/she wants. A beautiful photograph should capture the essence of you, not capture the way the photographer thinks is beautiful.

A photograph is the still you, that's why the photographer should know you personally, and that's why the most beautiful photographs are those taken by people who know you intimately, or by someone who knows what you're like. At least that's the case with me.

So, since there's graduation-photo traffic (because the university only gives the graduation gowns to one specific studio) I had to leave a studio-full of students yesterday (a minimum of 75 students) and come back first thing in the morning. 8 in the morning is not the best timing to have your photograph taken, because not only have you just woken up, but interaction with a complete stranger with a camera just wouldn't get you anywhere.

So there I am, with make up on (the very least possible, only enough to define the sleepy eyes) at 8 in the morning, sitting in a dark room, with the photographer asking me to change about 3 different gowns because none of them zip well, and I ran out of patience trying to fix the stupid zipper when it finally works. I sit on a stool, and the photographer holds the camera and says: "okay, now smile" without one drop of emotion spilling out of his voice, and I throw in my very shy smile, and he takes 8 other shots, asking me to tilt my head to the right, then to the left, then give him a bigger smile, to which I obliged hatefully (it completely showed on my face as I viewed the shots later). After he finishes he asks me if I need to throw in other poses or props, to which I hastily replied with a sharp no. Ok, it was sharp in my head, but came out nicer. The reason I'm against the whole photo thing is the following story.

These graduation pictures are supposed to go on the year book, which I wouldn't really mind had not this thing taken place. A friend of mine had her picture on there too, and on a summer day her mother got a call from a lady claiming to have pulled out their number from the directory. The reason of this call was that the lady's son wanted to propose to my friend. A complete stranger wanted to visit her in her own home with his mother tagging along so they can ask for her hand, out of nowhere. This, my friends, is the reason I don't want my photo on there; not because I'm afraid people would call me up and ask for my hand, as freaky as that might be alone, but it's the mentalities of those people viewing this year book, which is supposed to be a book with the main events of the academic year of 2009/2010.

Eventually, I went for the very first shot the photographer took of me. I wonder how it's going to turn out.