You Can Never Go Back

What I miss from pseudo-courting my first crush was the pleasures of small moments: her compliment here and there, half an hour shared together, the discovery of common interests. That's not to say I don't have those small moments anymore--in fact, they're what I most look forward to--but the biggest difference is that the first experience wasn't tinged with dread or fear. These days, I feel like I'm walking on a tightrope, and a misspoken word or statement will cause me to tumble down. A part of me is expecting failure, complete with fireworks and all. So far it hasn't happened yet but the fear is always there.

I could easily describe my experience with my first crush as naivete. Be that as it may, I was embracing the moment wholly, with no thought of what might happen next.

Finding the Balance

I couldn't quite verbalize my dilemma but I finally figured it out.

When it comes to crushes, there are people who are paralyzed by their fears. Rather than doing something, they do nothing and let it slide. That's not my problem.

In the past, my problem has been the opposite: I act too forcefully. For example, I love to give gifts and I tend to go overboard when it comes to my crushes. And when they decline it, I used to figure a way to give it to them nonetheless. (i.e. leaving it in their bag, in their car, etc.) I've been learning to more restrained and less possessive (that's what it is).

Of course in the same scenario, I've also learned to keep my affections hidden. It's been my experience that once they think you have a crush on them, that's when they start rejecting you. But keeping it hidden doesn't work either. I tried to show affection to everyone equally and that only resulted in people thinking I had a crush on the wrong person. As for the person I was actually interested in, didn't really make a bleep in their radar since how are they supposed to know I liked them?

It's also too easy to make generalizations. One thing I have to remember that each person is different and unique. What might not have worked (or worked as the case may be) on one person may not apply to a different person. It leaves me just as clueless, but that's somehow more consoling than simply saying "I don't understand this entire courtship thing."

Positive Feedback

Here's a confession: I want to impress my crush. It's not just about looking good in front of her but rather hoping she'll take an interest in me. Right now I don't stand out. I'm an acquaintance at best, someone insignificant and uninteresting. The fantasy is that she'll fall in love with me but that's an unrealistic expectation. I simply want to increase my chances of me possibly asking her out on a date some day.

Dissonance

For the past few days, I've been depressed. Perhaps not in the way when I first experienced my first heartbreak which led me to subsist on one meal a day and wrecked my passion for anime/manga (and is responsible for me splurging on four dozen Dragonlance novels...) but there's that gloominess and dissatisfaction.

Now the dissonance is that while I occasionally make declarations that "Hey, I'm depressed!" over at Twitter, for the most part I don't like it. Being depressed doesn't stop me from using childish expressions like "yay!" or "huzzah!" And there's little to no trace of it that can be found in my regular blog, which is designed to be formal and informative.

This is an example of the roles of people. We can act one way and perceived in another. And there's several other things running in the background. When I'm at work, I'm all professional and serious (no time to whine and mope!). When I'm with family, I put on a different face. Sometimes, other roles surface (such as depressive me) despite the fact that another one is currently active.

This also brings me to the question of how well you know other people. Despite all your encounters with them, there's that aspect that you're not aware, the side that they don't show you. And when it comes to your crush-who-you-know-little-about, there's a bigger dissonance as you project your preferences rather than evaluate them for who they truly are (which is an enigma at this point).

Secret Journal

As much as it's tempting to blurt out to the world "read this journal!" there's something liberating about the fact that I haven't publicized this blog. I can spill my guts without asking whether this blog entry is useful content or not.

The truth however is that this is a public blog. It can be searched via Google and I've referenced this blog in the past. Its only defense is the fact that there's so much going on elsewhere in the Internet that why else would you read this journal?

So blogging here is this interesting dynamic between secrecy and the lack of it. I'm certainly more open here compared to my regular blog. My bleeding heart is in front of everyone to see. But on the other hand, when writing, I find that I'm censoring myself, or rather choosing different words and names than what first comes to mind. I re-read my previous post and there's an awkward moment where I try to be subtle instead of stating blatantly what I meant to say. And of course there's the name of my crush.

Not that I haven't divulged personal stories here before. If you look at my blog entries from a few years past, I've more than mentioned specific names and people. The difference is that what I'm currently writing is the present as opposed to the past which I've developed a certain aloofness. I've named my previous crushes before and in fact I saw my old crush just last month. But we've both changed and while there's a tendency to approach her and talk to her, there was no temptation. In fact, she was at the other end of the room blocked by too many people that I never got to talk to her (and didn't regret it).

In this instance though, there's some cloak and dagger involved. It might be something as simple as substituting Facebook for Friendster. Haha, I'm the unreliable narrator.

Predetermination

I have this feeling that all will not end well. The adage "expect the worst, hope for the best," doesn't really apply to romance. Most courtships, in my opinion, start out with the suitor thinking he or she has a good chance to begin with--or even the hubris that they're the exception that breaks the rule. I, on the other hand, work with a different paradigm.

One can call it an inferiority complex, or that previous failures have caught up to me, but rejection looms in my mind. Perhaps that's why the atmosphere of depression is pervasive around me, an energy-sapping void that drains my interests and passions. What doesn't make it debilitating is that while a part of me has accepted that this entire endeavor will most likely end up in failure, I won't detract from my course. If I were to suddenly have a vision of the future showing me how my actions will be futile, I'll still be going through the motions, not because I expect I'll defy fate, but because there's a minuscule chance that events will turn out differently.

The question I want to ask is whether this is predetermination of a sort or not. You know the future yet you continue to tread that path. There's some masochism involved here and a part of me revels in the injustice and the opportunity to portray a tragic figure. But I'm not here to find an excuse to lash out at the world. That's too easy. The end goal isn't to find sympathy. What keeps me going is the fact that nothing's set in stone and even if such a vision actually occured, there's always that unlikely chance that events will turn out for the better.

It's not false optimism or the idea that I'll be the one to upset the status quo. For me, it's the philosophy that ninety-nine heartbreaks is worth the experience of finding that one success. And you won't know unless you try. There are people who think that they can "game" the system, that they should hedge their bets towards someone they have a good chance of ending up with. Maybe I'm doing that unconsciously but as far as the conscious part of my brain is concerned, I'm not yet at that point where I should be compromising.

Having said that, the next few days, weeks, months, is going to be quite anxious.

Exhibitionist

For all my attempts at keeping this blog a quasi-secret (I don't publicize it), there's as part of me that wants to divulge the URL and garner everyone's sympathy. If I'll be honest with you (just because I'm honest with myself doesn't necessarily mean I'll be honest with my readers), the biggest temptation is this fantasy of winning my crush over by simply allowing her to read this journal. "Oh, how romantic!" or "I love your metaphor!" are statements that I imagine. Yet the fantasy and reality are seldom synchronized (remember the best-laid plans?) and what'll likely happen is something unforeseen. (If you're a pessimist, you'd imagine it'll scare her away.)

Here's another confession: I'm hungry for attention that I secretly wish she'll ask me why I'm depressed and it's the perfection excuse to reveal to her this blog.

I'm not proud of these emotions but they come naturally. You can call it the selfishness of being human. Admitting them to you already takes great effort on my part. Forget about reading between the lines (there'll always be space for that), let's call a spade a spade.

If there's any redeeming quality to me writing all of this, it's that it acts like a mirror. This is me, this is what I'm thinking and feeling. And at the back of my head, I'm deliberating "How can I use this material for my own stories?"

Secretly, I'm also thinking, don't these blog entries form a story of their own?

Escaping Shadows

There's only one way to free yourself from heartbreak and that's to cut them loose. It's as painful as setting a dislocated shoulder but from that point onwards, the healing process begins and you can get on with the rest of your life.

The dilemma of the suitor is when to keep on persisting and when to quit? If you're too stubborn, you might simply be wasting your time with someone you never had a chance with. If you give up too easily, you might simply be an attempt away from winning her heart. There's no objective answer to this question and the real solution is a case-to-case basis. Ultimately though, it's not a question of their temperament but yours. Do you still want to keep on doing this or is it time to stop?

Romantic obsession is like a shadow. It follows you around wherever you go and often preoccupies your thoughts when you're not busy. You might try to flee from it but it's perpetually one pace behind you and you can never outrun it.

Sometimes, you fall in love with the pain of being a tragic figure. Sure, it's weary on the heart, but you develop an excuse for whining. Mine was "I courted her for four years to no avail!" and in retrospect, if I was just going to use that as my reason for self-pity, the relationship ceased to be about her.

There's also an element of trapping the proverbial lightning in a bottle. When you're in love, your senses are altered. You perceive the world in a different light, even if it's from a heartbroken perspective. In the case of someone like me, an aspiring writer (I still can't manage to call myself an author), this is the closest I'll get to conjuring a muse. It's usually the extremes of emotions which fuels inspiration. And while ecstasy is preferred, you'd settle for depression over the mundane. The phobia of the artist isn't that they'll feel pain, but that they'll stop feeling anything. And when you're in love, falling out of it is akin to dulling your senses.

What needs to be done is to cut free from your shadow and fly away like Peter Pan. The problem is that the shadow takes on the form of a beautiful illusion and you're not quite sure whether you want to be free of it.

Chasing Phantom Constructs

It's quite a temptation to fall in love with the phantoms you create rather than the actual person. It requires little effort and you can pretend you're not lonely.

But the problem with phantom crushes is that they soon evolve into phantom girlfriends. You stalk their blogs, Friendster accounts, and Facebook status. You even expect them to immediately respond to your emails or text messages when they might otherwise be busy. And when they respond to someone who's not you, you wonder: who is he or she? Are they close friends? Or perhaps he's really her boyfriend? Rather than shattering the illusion of a relationship, such jealousies only reinforces the deception.

In the pre-courtship phase, you justify this obsession as "research." True, you're finding out more and more about your crush, but is all this time and anxiety really necessary? And there's a certain point where you cross the line as far as privacy goes and you're involving too much of yourself into their lives--even when your relationship with them at this point is just a casual acquaintance.

But just when you're about to give up, the phantom whispers into your ear and tempts you with something more. You know it's an illusion but you don't want to give up on the hope that she might be right. Thus the cycle is perpetuated.

This is all impotent action though. What use is research if you don't act on them? You justify that you're waiting for the perfect time to breach the subject but the perfect moment will never arrive. You'll always have an excuse why today is not a good day to confess or propose.

In my scenario, my fear is that whatever friendship I've gained at this point will be easily lost by my initiative. In this sense, I've become a ghost, trapped in a self-imposed stasis.

The Real Reason…

One of my motivations for blogging is to get romance off my chest. I wouldn't call it falling in love. There's an attraction, a crush, and a feeble hope for something more.

Since this is public, I will not mention the details. You won't be getting the setting where I met her or her name. And it's precisely because of that why this won't necessarily make a good short story. I want this to be about the emotion and my mental processes rather than a narrative that anyone can appreciate. Call me selfish.

One question you might be asking is what attracted me to her. I'm honestly past that stage where physical attraction is the only thing that appeals to me. Not that my crush isn't beautiful. Admittedly I've met prettier girls (and arguably women whom I have a better chance with) but what draws me to her is the entire package: the way she stands, the way she talks, and the little nuggets of information I've managed to glean from various sources.

The clincher for me is that she's a reader and a writer. Eight years ago, I would have wanted a partner who has identical tastes and aesthetics as I do. Today, I'm still looking for some common ground, but I don't want a clone or a female me (although in a certain sense, I think some people are looking for that--remember that Seinfeld episode where Jerry dates a comedian and proposes?). They don't have to read the same authors as I do (much less like them) but I do want someone who's passionate about the arts.

This is where the self-deception part comes in. I know some facts about her but that's it. The rest is filled up by my imagination. In a certain way, it's like falling in love with celebrities. You know some things about them and you think they're the ideal partner for you. But what you don't know about them might be what turns you off or makes you incompatible with each other. As long as those nuances aren't discovered, there'll always be romantic potential between the two of you--or so you think.

At this point in time, my crush--or your ideal woman as the case may be--will tend to be more appealing the less information you know about them. You project the qualities you want or expect unto them. When was the last time you imagined a trait that's repugnant or discouraging when thinking of your crush? It's an unpleasant idea that breaks the fantasy. If you're just imagining your perfect woman, why would you insert imperfections?

Of course I'm not the person who wants to perpetually live the romantic illusion. I want to meet my crush and get to know her more. What is she really like? What are her other interests? What are her goals? Finding out is a double-edged sword. What if you don't like what you uncover, and this is horrible to those who want to sustain the feeling of being in love. Personally, what I fear is that what if I like what I find out, but all my attempts end up futile?

I'm twenty-six and I've been single for all of my life, but not for lack of trying. I did try to court someone during my fourth year in high school and it resulted in my first heartbreak. During my entire college year, I did court another girl, although admittedly half-heartedly during the last two years mainly because I was already spurned and rejected in the first few months (which involved not speaking to me, slamming the phone on me, and tearing a letter to pieces). But hey, I'm aware that with success, there's always the threat of failure.

Right now, I'm depressed because I can't communicate with my crush. And that's horrible because, well, there's no flow of information between us. I honestly don't know her (and vice versa) and what I instead have is a fictionalized version of her.

Yet the heartbreak and mood swings are real. I'm being haunted by a phantom of partially my own making.

The Artifice of Online Journals

I miss writing personal posts. It's not necessarily material that's engaging reading for other people (and likely to be labeled as "emo") but there's a certain sense of relief when you write in a journal.

Publishing your journal entries, however, is a different animal from simply keeping a diary and never showing it to anyone. Your post is out in the open for everyone to read and there are some material you don't want to divulge to the world. It might involve the confidentiality of the office, a criticism of someone in your social circle, or outing your crush.

A juggling act is involved as the freedom of privacy and the responsibilities of public posting are at a constant war with each other.

The option to make this a private post and never reveal it to anyone is available--especially with the innovation of blogs in the past few years--but here's an admission that I've always known. I crave attention and I want to be read. I want to gain your sympathy, your praise, your trust. On a certain level, it's personal propaganda.

But another reason I'm writing this is so that a year from now, I can look back at what I've written and observed how I've changed (or remained the same). And I don't want to do it by going through obscure file names and folders, or have to deal with lost back-ups and outdated hard drives.

[Essay] Clockwork

I’m not a person who’s fond of watches, or rather, of wearing them. It doesn’t matter if it’s leather or plastic or metal. For one thing, me being skinny as I am, watches are seldom a perfect fit. But the real reason why I don’t like wearing watches is because it irritates my skin. I’ve received many watches over the years, but all of them gets lost from disuse. The only watch I remember wearing for any long duration was one of those gimmick watches that would speak out loud and tell you the time at the press of a button. Unfortunately, it got broken quickly, and I’ve never worn a watch ever since grade school.

Yet for someone who isn’t fond of watches, I’m someone who pays close attention to time. I’m the person who arrives at a meeting on the agreed upon time, if not earlier. During a long pictorial in the middle of the evening, someone asked the time and I predicted it within one or two minutes, and I didn’t even bother looking at a clock. Traveling around the metro, I can give an accurate estimate on what time I’ll arrive at the destination, factoring in the weather and traffic. Perhaps one of the stranger habits of mine is that whatever time I’d set my alarm clock on, I’d always (short of being extremely fatigued) wake up one minute before the alarm rings. There was even this weird phenomenon with one friend that whenever I’d sleepover (a sleepover wherein there’s actually some sleep going on) at his house, no matter what time we went to bed, we’d always wake up at 8 am.

It all began with my childhood. School has this uniform rigidness that when you look at it, is strangely militaristic. As anyone who’s been a student will tell you, everyone looks forward to the school bell signaling the end of a class. It could be they’re looking forward to recess, or perhaps right now it’s simply a boring subject, but everyone is unconsciously counting how long it’ll be before the lecture is over. Every subject, however, has the same duration: one hour. As a student, I had to go through one hour of English, one hour of Science, one hour of Math every single day. 60 minutes, no more, no less. In the beginning, keeping track of time was difficult, especially since I didn’t bring a watch. Instead, I mastered a technique which would later hone my stalking skills: I learned how to spy upon other people’s watches. It’s that moment where to others, you’re not looking at anyone in particular. In fact, it seems as if you’re paying attention to the teacher. But what is actually happening is that my gaze is upon a classmate’s wrist where his watch is wrapped around. Normally, it’s in reverse, and I have to flip the image in my mind. Sometimes, the classmate is farther off, either two desks in front of me, or two desks away from my side. But eventually, I would master the technique of telling time accurately with no watch of my own, thanks to my finely-honed spying skills.

Eventually, however, that wouldn’t be needed. Classes being uniform and spaced out evenly, it would soon be easy to tell the time based on feeling alone. Usually, the bell would ring an hour before the class would end, and I could sense when that moment was near. The teacher would see me packing my things early, and then the bell would suddenly ring, signaling the end of the session. Another sad fact is that school always started on the same time, namely seven thirty a.m., that I’d always wake up at six in order to get ready for school. Eventually, waking up at six was an unconscious habit, unless I had slept really really late the day before.

But perhaps what would hone my time-sense to a whole new level was traveling. In truth, I didn’t really go out much, but there were always distanced to be traversed, even if it was as simple as getting home from school. The moment I’d get into the car, I’d pay close attention to the time as minutes trickle away, either from getting stuck in traffic or waiting for my sister to get out of class. I was always in such a hurry because the best cartoons were usually aired just right after school. I’d make a mad dash for home so that I wouldn’t miss my favorite shows. However, various other activities would try to steal this time slot away from me: clubs, dentist appointments, group projects. And so my obsession with time began once more, honing it to a level that seems like clockwork.

These days, I tell time via my mobile phone. However, even then, I keep track of the variations. Time at my alma matter, for example, runs ten minutes faster than the time followed by TV stations. Time at work also runs ten minutes ahead, which makes it a pain to wake up early in the morning, but a joy to get out of work earlier than most people. I don’t travel much, so airport time is still a foreign thing to me, but I can easily estimate how long it’ll take to reach a certain area depending on the traffic and the distance. Perhaps what even disturbs the accountants at work is how I always leave the office at exactly six pm, thanks to the marks in my time card.

[Essay] The Perfect Job

Ever since I’ve been attending the annual Manila Book Fair when it relocated to the World Trade Center, I’ve been bumping into familiar faces from my alma matter. Two years ago, it was an upperclassman who was working for Scholastica books, trying her best to sell Harry Potter books in bulk. Last year, it was meeting an even higher upperclassman, an officer from the literary org I was involved with, and she was in charge of public relations for the book fair itself. This year, I ran into someone belonging to the same batch as I was. She was working at Powerbooks for barely a week in what seems to me is one of the coolest jobs ever: reading books.

In this world, it is of my personal opinion that there’s no such thing as a "perfect job", but there are certain occupations which suit certain people more than others. Unfortunately, the world being fickle and capricious as it is, few people land the jobs they want, much less the jobs they’re actually optimized for. Take me for an example. I’m sure it’s someone’s dream job to be working in a rock magazine, doing everything from attending gigs, meeting local musicians, and getting free CDs. Unfortunately, I’m not one of them. I hate listening to the radio, and I haven’t really gone out and bought a music CD in years.

My dream job would be something like my friend’s. Her official position is book buyer. She gets to pick what books the bookstore imports. Of course in order to make such an informed decision, you need to actually read the book before ordering it in en masse. Imagine getting paid to read books? (Even if it at times, it’s books you love to hate.) And you don’t even have to pay for your book purchases. (There’s also this aristocratic power to determine what books the public will be forced to read.)

Of course there are also jobs that seem glamorous on the outside, but just as gritty as any other job in reality. Take modeling or acting for example. Most people think these professionals are having the time of their life, posing all the time and getting paid huge sums of money. Well, in all honesty, it’s not that easy. Aside from looking hard to actually land such opportunities, you have to pose in front of the camera over and over again, all the while retaining the same enthusiasm, even if the forced smile is killing you. Not to mention all the time "wasted" wearing make-up and trying out the clothes the stylist has for you. And at the end of the day, there’s the usual hassle of collecting payments and following up on your fees. Did I mention paperwork and filing of taxes is hell for a self-employed citizen?

Of course I’ve also met some people who are more enterprising than most. Rather than wait for opportunity to knock on their door, they seek them out and grab them by the proverbial horns. Granted, there’s a big risk involved in such budding entrepreneurs, but most things in life come at a steep price.

[Essay] Broken Hearts

It is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. A very true statement, although most of us would prefer to have loved and won. Heartbreak, after all, enables us to experience two extremes: happiness and despair. To a person in love, all his or her petty crushes and naive attractions simply pale in comparison. It proves to them that they are capable of so much more, but like most epiphanies, it usually comes at a hefty price. Broken hearts are seldom mended so easily. There aren’t a lot of experiences that can much up to it, and to some, the only comfort is in forgetting…

Perhaps what causes rejected lovers so much grief isn’t losing the chance at love, but losing what they perceive to be as their only chance at it. It’s all to easy to imagine, after all, that such a rare occurrence may never happen again, much like catching a glimpse of a shooting star in your lifetime. What could be more elusive, more ominous? It’s not as if we could predict when we’ll fall in love again… if ever at all.

The only true weapon we have is hope. Hope in either having another opportunity to win the love of that person, or hope in rediscovering love in someone anew. Defeated suitors and admirers despair because they’ve lost hope. We become so concerned about the present and the past that we’ve forgotten there’s still a future ahead of us. Memories of what has been and what could have been, however, haunt and plague us that it becomes too easy to succumb to sorrow.

But another way of looking at things is that a broken heart reveals to us how much more life has to offer. Before we can have our hearts broken, we must have a heart in the first place. It would perhaps be more painful to know that we’re incapable of loving, instead of simply falling in love and having our affections unreciprocated.

Some people, however, don’t feel that way. They think that they would have been better off not knowing the person who evokes such passion in us, or perhaps more importantly, better off not hoping. True, the pain would be less, for in this case, the salvation of hope is also a lover’s damnation. But that’s equivalent to choosing to remain ignorant of what one is truly capable of. It’s like catching a glimpse of paradise, and choosing to forget that such a place could exist in the first place simply because it’s unattainable. We forget that if it was truly unattainable, how did we get there in the first place? And sometimes, we think too little of ourselves that we let our self-doubts assail us with insecurities.

Yes, love is elusive, and there really is no guarantee that we’ll fall in love again, or better yet, someone will fall in love with us. Nothing in life, after all, is truly certain. Yet can we truly blame our predicament? Some people, after all, go through their entire lives never experiencing falling in love. Can we truly say that we’re better off not knowing what it is to dream, to hope, to love, even if such notions are unreciprocated?

[Essay] A Random Book Musing

Books can be a double-edged sword. If you own a book (or a bookshelf), it makes us feel smart. If we're not as well-read, however, we might enter a bookstore and feel quite ignorant because of all the books we haven't read.

Moral of the story? Stare at books you've already read before. You'll feel better.

But honestly, intelligence, and more importantly, maturity isn't about how many books you've read or know about. It's about applying what you've read and experienced.

Perhaps that's the beauty of children's books. There's no need to prove to one's ego that you need to read a thick book to read a good book. More isn't necessarily better. And sometimes, the message is clearer, simpler, and more concise. Wisdom isn't exclusive to complexity after all.

There's beauty in long, complicated narratives too. It challenges our self, our discipline, our perception, our cognitive processes, and our soul. It won't always be easy, but medicine didn't always come in sweet packages.

[Essay] A "Modern" Paradigm Shift

My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nine Papayas. That specific phrase was taught to me by my science teacher in grade school to memorize the nine planets of the Solar System. I hear that in other schools, the last word isn’t always papayas: Pasta? Peanuts? Pomegranates? Of course it’s now a moot point since as of August 24, 2006, there are only eight planets in our Solar System. Anyone up for a new slogan to help remember all eight planets?

Pluto’s demotion (and the promotion of certain heavenly bodies) is perhaps one of the biggest paradigm shifts I’ve encountered so far. Well, to my peers if not to me. I mean if you studied the history of the discovery of the various planets (and not just their name), humanity’s awareness of Pluto has only been recent, and its classification has always been ambiguous. It doesn’t really matter to me but I’m sure the change gave people pause and perhaps shock, not because it has a big impact on their personal lives (in the way 9/11 changed the paradigm of Americans, or the first EDSA Revolution for Filipinos), but because it’s something they remember being taught to them at school, etched as a fact in their text books not so long ago.

Unfortunately (for us), knowledge is seldom static. As new discoveries are made, old beliefs need to be disregarded and what used to be a fact is now simply considered historical. If that weren’t so, humans would still think that they live on a flat planet, or that the Earth is the center of the universe. Still, Pluto is far from the only outdated model we have of the world, much less the universe (or should I say multiverse?). I was taught that atoms and sub-atomic particles (protons, neutrons, electrons) were the smallest forms of matter but guess what, there’s quarks and I’m sure in the future, there’ll be something smaller than that. A friend also pointed out that Newtonian Physics isn’t exactly the most accurate, but is the simplest way (because we honestly don’t need to know the complicated stuff to move on with our lives) to describe the laws of Physics.

Of course the latest ruckus over Pluto (at least its name is still the same) also shows us that politics will always be present in every human endeavor, even in something as empirical as science. What was supposed to re-affirm Pluto’s status into a planet did the opposite when public opinion went against it. I’m sure there was lots of debate, cajoling, and coercion on both sides. And human nature being fickle as it is, the decision might be reversed in the future, or it might not. But the fact of the matter is that people decided whether Pluto was to be a planet or not, and people took sides. It’s based on scientific information, but there’s really nothing scientific about persuading others to agree with you, or to rally against those whose beliefs you distrust.

In the end, the issue really isn’t about Pluto. It’s about our concept of the world, and how we react when new ideas are put forth. Some will act as the vanguard of old ideas (and sometimes rightly so, because just because something is new doesn’t necessarily mean it’s always right), while others are willing to try out new ideas. We’re the same species, after all, that condemned Galileo, tried to appease Hitler, and voted for our politicians.

[Essay] My Best Friend’s Gay!

Perception on homosexuality has changed over the years. This isn’t about praising homosexuality, nor is it condemning them. This is merely an observation of my high school, and how that tiny microcosm is applicable on a macro level.

I used to be a student in an all-boys, Filipino-Chinese school run by Jesuits. The dominant attitude there, at least back when I was still a student, was quite conservative, as you’d expect from a school that would segregate its students based on gender. Running the statistics (much like calculating the chances that one member of a boy band is gay), there’s bound to be a homosexual in each batch, especially when you factor in our cramped learning environment (i.e. overpopulation doesn’t only apply to the country). Some schools in Metro Manila will develop a reputation for the tendency to have homosexuals in their student population (i.e. “this school has lots of lesbians, this school has lots of gays.”) but the school I went to didn’t have that kind of reputation. If anything, one of my schoolmates took pride in the fact that no one was openly homosexual during their tenure as a student. At least back then.

Not that hints of homosexuality was totally absent in our environment. It was always there, sometimes in the way you talk, or a certain effeminate quality you had. Whatever pegged you as gay, you got teased for it. “Bakla” (gay) was a very common insult back in my day. Of course while there were students we suspected were gay, no one expected them to act out their sexual orientation, nor did we expect them to admit that they were homosexuals. Denials were the norm.

That was the case for the longest time. My seatmate was clearly gay, although he never admitted it during all four years I was with him. It wasn’t until college that I heard rumors that he had come out of the closet, and that he even had a boyfriend. I don’t think anyone was really surprised (except perhaps my mom, who only heard him through the phone, and thought he had a manly voice and suggested I should be like him).

Whether you were effeminate or truly gay didn’t matter in school. You got bullied nonetheless. Me not wanting to be judgmental, I assumed that everyone was the former rather than the latter. I had a best friend (there I go contradicting myself f several years worth of blog entries) in what seemed like the interval between grade school and high school (yes, I know it’s called “summer break”) and while he displayed the symptoms of the stereotype gay guy (he listened to Mariah Carey songs, adored Sailormoon, and had a fashion sense), I always assumed he was effeminate. I even remember him talking about liking (but not physically attracted to) a certain girl when I was sleeping over at his house. And to top it all off, we did what most geeks, I mean guys, our age did: we played video games, video games, and more video games. Oh, and we slept over at each other’s houses, called each other up on the phone when a new book or anime had just come out, and played cards with each other.

It’s only lately that I found out he was gay (uh, reading it from a blog entry doesn’t exactly prepare you for it). It caught me completely off guard, although it’s not I didn’t see all the hints. But as Gerry wisely put it, it all doesn’t matter. He’s still my best friend from grade school/high school, and we can be our genuine selves around each other.

However, I’m sure there will be schoolmates with whom it won’t sit well with, and to them, the word gay will always be an insult.

Of course the stories I hear about my school nowadays have changed. More and more students are coming out of the closest just as they enter high school, not waiting to graduate before revealing to the whole world a part of who they truly are.

Personally though, I can’t help but ask, who else among my schoolmates were gay? Not that it’ll changed how I act around them, but I wonder how that one fact is so integral to their personality that they had to keep hidden, and how it would have changed them, whether for better or for worse.

[Essay] The Silent Conflict

It seems that with each generation, people rally to a certain cause or belief. In America, an example would be the discrimination against African-Americans. In more modern times, it’s a lot of things, from gender equality to tolerance for homosexuality to animal rights. There’s an issue though that’s closer to home, but isn’t in the limelight. It’s a battle waged by certain members of the Filipino-Chinese community, but ends up becoming the struggle of an individual, rather than that of a group. The lessons learned are seldom shared, and the fight is renewed once more with each generation. Granted, there are no legal laws prohibiting the cause these Filipino-Chinese fight for, but it’s a stigma pervasive in their community. What I am talking about is the taboo of Chinese marrying someone not of Chinese descent.

Its history goes way back when certain citizens of China decided to migrate to the Philippines. While it’s easy to claim that the Chinese were xenophobic, xenophobia is also a trait among Filipinos. Echoes of such fears and prejudice can be seen in today’s modern Filipino and Filipino-Chinese: the resentment of the poverty-stricken Filipinos against the seemingly better-off Filipino-Chinese, even if this land isn’t their native country, and the superiority complex the Filipino-Chinese have for their brethren and kin, with preference for their fellow Chinese associates. Suffice to say, the Chinese have tried to carve a place for themselves in the Philippines, and ended up isolating themselves (whether by choice or by circumstance) from the natives, hence the existence of a “China Town”.

Growing up in a Filipino-Chinese school where most of my classmates were of Chinese blood, I was always asked by the parents of my friends whether I was Chinese or not whenever I entered their home (or met them elsewhere as the case may be). The same thing would apply to my parents as well, as whenever I would mention a name, the first question they’d ask was whether he or she was Chinese or Filipino.

It’s not as if the Chinese community have been here only recently, or that their culture hasn’t intermingled with Filipinos. You’d think after more than a century of occupancy and generation upon generation of Filipino-Chinese, we’d be more open to accepting local paradigms. Yet in a certain way, one cannot blame the Chinese either. One could argue that the very same traditions and beliefs they hold dear is the very same reason why they continue to prosper. In a land of foreigners, the Chinese aid fellow Chinese. Perhaps the biggest problem is that the present Filipino-Chinese still see themselves living in a land of foreigners, and that everyone else is a hostile enemy.

While foot-binding and arranged marriages have already been forsaken for more modern customs, some practices are obviously harder to shed. As I mentioned before, it is taboo for a Chinese individual to marry someone who isn’t Chinese. There will be exceptions of course, such as if the suitor is extremely rich, or has great influence (whether political, economical, or social). There is even more consideration for a Chinese person to marry a foreigner, so long as the person they are marrying is not Filipino. Nonetheless, for the most part, me and my classmates were discouraged from dating, much less marrying, someone not Chinese. One of the most severe threats I’ve heard was disownment, while some fathers settle for leaving their sons and daughters out of the inheritance. Again, there will be exceptions, but like most things, double standards as well. There have been Chinese, for example, who have successfully rebelled and married Filipinos without cutting off their ties to family. But the Chinese being descendants of a patriarchal society, it is easier for men to get away with it than women. Even more lenient Chinese families allow their sons to marry someone not Chinese, but forbid their daughters to do so. One of the most hypocritical situations but prevalent nonetheless is when a parent is Filipino-Chinese, but the other isn’t. You’d think they’d bestow upon their child the freedom to choose their significant other but no, the same restrictions still fall into place: you must marry someone Chinese.

Individual Filipino-Chinese have rebelled against their families, some successfully, others not. But unlike a group united by the same cause, the attempt merely ends up being a personal struggle rather than one that concerns the entire community. Worse, it’s not as if the public is totally ignorant of this prejudice, yet it is tolerated and accepted. So what if you have successfully convinced your family to let you marry a Filipino? It doesn’t help the other Filipino-Chinese residing in this nation. It’s not even a matter of waiting for your parents to pass on to the next world. Others will take up their cause: your relatives, your siblings, even your friends. They will all pressure you into doing (or rather not do) what they think is appropriate.

I do not speak of this because I will directly benefit from it. I am bringing up this matter because it is a freedom which has been withheld from us Filipino-Chinese for so long. By no means is it impossible to attain, but every step taken forward is an uphill battle, and all for the happiness of an individual rather than a community. I do not speak up because I intend to marry someone not Chinese, but I fight for it for the mere possibility of being able to marry someone for love, irregardless of race or stature.

Not that such prejudice is without its benefits. Such a dilemma probes into the hearts of every Filipino-Chinese as they ask themselves, is this all worth it for the person I love? Such a marriage entails risking everything for the person you are to marry. For both parties, it’s not just marriage with each other, but a marriage with adversity as well. But at least your significant other will be certain of your feelings, if not your bank account. And who here doesn’t fantasize about having a Romeo & Juliet love story?

But in the end, romance need not end in tragedy. Until people are willing to speak up and rally under a common banner, even the most hard-fought cause will fade into silence.

[Essay] Sleight of Hand

When I was in college, there was this girl I courted for my entire stay as an undergraduate student (well, more like tried to court her for a year, and spent the next three years trying to get back into her good graces). Needless to say, my intentions were transparent to nearly everyone, from the girl’s blockmates to her friends from other courses. This story isn’t about her though. While me, my blockmates, and my crush had some overlapping classes, my blockmates never suspected (short of me blatantly telling them, and even then…). Instead, they thought I was attracted to someone else, someone closer to home. They thought I was in love with a fellow blockmate.

As a freshman student, my heart had just got broken, and I had given up my flirtatious ways after knowing (and lost) true love. However, that didn’t mean I couldn’t the same techniques I used to woo women to gain new friends. It was also a time when I would fall in love once more, but this time, I was a bit more cautious. If I were to do favors for a certain individual, I had to do favors for everyone. Suffice to say, I was still lacking in experience, and the love of my life shunned me.

Enter my sophomore year, still heartbroken but a little wiser. With no individual to focus all my energies on, I had decided to simply dedicate myself to making as much friends as I could. I was in this writing class and my classmates varied, some were blockmates, while others belonged to different courses, or even a batch higher than me. It was on that occasion that one of my upperclassmen caught my eye. I admit I was attracted to her, but not so much as to detract me from giving up on my crush (in other words, my intent was a platonic relationship rather than a romantic one, although I was sorely tempted). By chance (or strategic positioning), she was my seatmate and on our second class or so, she happened to ask me for candy.

Asking for candy is a common occurrence. People will ask it when they suddenly have a sweet tooth, need to get rid of a foul taste in their mouth, or simply for the sugar rush when you’ve had a really bad and tiring day. If you’ve seen me in real life, you’ll also notice that I carry this really huge bag that seems to contain everything from masking tape to staplers… except candy. On that day, I vowed that the next time she asks for candy, I will have some ready.

And just as expected, the next class we had, I had chocolate with me (because you can’t go wrong with chocolate, unless you’re like me and have allergies to it). I thought why settle for simple candy when chocolate is even better? Who knows, the recipient might actually fall in love with me. Anyway, not waiting for my seatmate to ask for candy, I offered her the chocolate, stating her craving the day before. As can be expected, I get the “that’s so sweet” response. Of course I know that if I kept at it, it would seem as if I was courting the girl. Which I wasn’t, nor did I want to project the image of. So I applied my rule of doing favors for everyone. I gave her seatmate, another upperclassman, chocolate too. And then by chance (an inevitable chance), a blockmate of mine passed by. The chocolate, by then, was too late to be hidden. So I offered her chocolate too. And then that caused a commotion as my other blockmates wanted chocolate too. I was hesitant at first, but then one of my classmates said “why are you only giving chocolates to xxx (xxx being my blockmate and not my seatmate)?” At that point, I realized I had the perfect smokescreen as everyone else thought I was pinning for my blockmate rather than my seatmate.

To make a long story short, yes, I gave chocolate to everyone. And I didn’t stop there. These days, when I run into a batchmate acquaintance and I ask them if they remember me, they say of course, and then associate me with giving chocolates.

Moving back to the story, my smokescreen unfortunately worked too well. Even until the very day I graduated, all my blockmates continued to think I was attracted to a fellow blockmate (honestly, she’s not my type and never found her pretty), even when I was obviously courting someone else. And so it happened that when I met my crush’s friends and blockmates, I’d get teased about my crush, but when it gave to my block, I’d get teased about my fellow blockmate.

Well, it did prevent my blockmates from teasing me about my actual crush. But it’s funny the wrong assumption carried on for several years (actually to this very day, until one of them reads this essay).

[Essay] Evolution

It’s human nature to cling to the past. To many, it’s a comfort zone, an idealized world of what things were like in “better” days. We have many words for these kinds of people: conservative, traditional, old-fashioned. Not that these traits should always be viewed in a negative light. There is virtue in the past after all, just as there are vices.

To some people though, there are sacred cows which appear to be unassailable by time: history and language. Yet nothing can be farther from the truth. All things change eventually, even if at times they will revert to a previous incarnation, for change is still present in regression. It is too easy to forget that history and language are tools of humans, and human beings are always in a constant state of flux.

The historians might ask how can history change if it has already happened? A valid question, to be sure, and the cynical might reply that we build a time machine. But one is not needed. We must remember that history, in the end, is about perception, and there are many illusions that can fool the senses. There is an old saying that it is the winners who write history, and there is probably no truer statement than that when you look at the past few centuries of Philippine history. When the country was under Spanish rule, who do you think was the hero that was praised in the history books? For a period in time, Filipinos praised Magellan for “discovering” the Philippines. It wasn’t until the yoke of colonial rule was broken that Lapu-Lapu was hailed as a hero in lessons taught to children. Or take a more recent view of things. Emilio Aguinaldo, the country’s first president, was again hailed as a hero during his prime. What few people realize is that his betrayal of Andres Bonifacio was easily omitted, until election time came once again, and the nation’s first president pitted himself against one of the most political-savvy presidents our nation gave birth to: Manuel Quezon. Did the facts change? No. But the perception of the facts did. In fact, some of the facts weren’t even known depending on the circumstance. Fossil fuel, for example, might be a boon during the industrial age, but who knows what generations from now will think of it? Poison, pollutant, or power perhaps?

But while there is politics involved when it comes to history, how can something as benign as language be affected? It is tempting to isolate politics from language, but the two are more entwined than most people think. Again, one merely needs to look at our nation. Who determined our national language? There must have been an arbiter to declare that the indios of this archipelago spoke Tagalog, and would later change to Spanish, then English, and finally Pilipino. But one might argue there is a change between languages used, and that for the most part, a language remains the same language as it was. What one must realize that language is just as living and evolving as history. The only language that has ceased changing is Latin, yet people can always find new idioms and metaphors for the so-called dead language. Just look at English. There’s no word that has mutated as much as “nice”, for example. From its etymological roots meaning stupid, it’s now used as a compliment. Other languages are more blatant in their adoption of change. The Japanese, for example, have an entire alphabet called katakana which is used for words borrowed from other countries: terebi for TV, oisuki for whiskey. The Chinese spell non-native words either through their literal meaning, or by how the word would sound in Chinese. And Filipinos are always speaking in Pilipino-English (or Taglish) that the line between what is English and what is Pilipino is getting blurred. And these past two decades alone has given birth to several new words in the English language: Internet, anime, blog. And there are several words that have taken the place of their more generic counterparts such as “Xerox” popping up more frequently than the word “photocopy” for example. Or words that have taken new and additional meanings, such as the word “gay” being more than just a synonym for happy.

Yet people will always insist that what they think is true to be the only truth in the world. As if change is a word that is merely spoken, but never applied to themselves or those around them. Not that constancy is a bad thing: if everything was always changing, we’d be in constant state of chaos. People would have no basis or common ground for their history, and communication would simply be ineffective if we continued to speak in varying levels and meaning. But taking that into consideration, where does that leave us? Are we to love change, or loathe it?

One of the most beautiful and frightening things about being human is that we are walking paradoxes. We struggle against change, but we eventually succumb to it. We try to experience new sensations, but old habits are difficult to break. To resist change absolutely is to die, for only the dead ceases to evolve. But to embrace change wholeheartedly is similarly lethal, for we have lost our identity, if not our physical self. Both elements are warring with each other in the human soul, sometimes one side overcoming the other more frequently. But that is not to say we should always be resisting change. As a person greater than me once said, there’s a time and place for everything.

Constancy can be part of memory, while change is something we might aspire or hope for. In the meantime, the present has room for life, whatever life means to you.