The Mirage

(October 2, 2010 Tumblr Post)

Me: Unsa gani ka year imong birthday?
Me: 1993?
Friend: 2010! Hahahaha
Me: Eeeeeehhhhhhhh
Friend: 1994. Nanu mnx?
Me: (After how many minutes) Kailangan nako imong birthdate kay giprocess nako atong papers.
Friend: LOLx
Me: lol!
Friend: pra mirage contract. hahahaha
Me: (Searches the meaning of mirage in Encarta Dictionaries... means something illusory: something that appears to be real but is unreal or merely imagined... thinks for a while... "I've never heard of that term... Mirage Contract.")
Friend: (Goes offline)
Me: (After 30 mins. "Bummer! He meant... Marriage contract! Ha-ha-ha-ha!")

Procrastination

(July 30, 2010 Tumblr Post)

I had my new Journal. I told you because you might wonder why I hadn’t visited this site anymore, or why I hadn’t posted anything for quite a while. I had my new Journal. I figured out it would be better to have immediate access like a notebook or somewhat, as ideas can be ephemeral and I could not always utilize the computer from time to time. With great ease, I am able to express everything in the new Journal, due to my not minding what words are proper or appropriate for me to say there. Unlike in sites like this, many might read and discover stuff that could be possibly used as a weapon to ruin my image or to shame my part. I could not say my new Journal would be safe from others, but a notebook full of records from a day-to-day interaction with the world is completely appealing to me; I don’t understand but its sight is beauty to me especially when it gets old and brown, it would be so classy. I don’t care if others might read it, but it would totally be pleasing to me that they could see a wondrous creation (well, that’s the other half of the readers’ probable reactions).

(I just had few things in my mind and I could’ve written them here, unfortunately I had that terrible deciding again not to because some people—-like my siblings/relatives—-might view this. I hate this. That is why I preferred writing in a notebook.)

This is not good-bye, totally. I will return when I have time being confident again to speak my mind here. This is funny. Hey, have I told some horrible things happened today? Yeah! You’ve got to know them. Uhmmm, you know I just had an awesome idea. I shall write my Journal here someday. Yes! I will.

The Plight

(August 18, 2010 Tumblr post)

Comparison is a great knowledge. It is knowing what you and others have in common or not. It is not to make faces fret, it is to make lips smile and people reflect; yet the ends of this knowledge are always dependent on the thinkers’ minds, whether they are set in optimism or grave envy (I wish in humongous hope, that you are in good set.) By this ability of seeing things, I discovered beauty and satisfaction; misery and frailty. These discoveries tend to amplify my young sympathy for others and having so several—or perhaps, infinite—encounters of people whom I regard as those in misery and frailty, I completely become saddened but spirited in reaching my own goals to provide help for the poor. Beggars (some with illnesses) everywhere in the city; mais vendors who roam different barangays, rain or shine just to earn; an old woman with a bad posture carrying a sack of bottles and cans on her back; honest sikad drivers, all of them I have seen and familiarized myself. How I adore them! They never resolved their problems with crime. And I am the one who longs for their own alleviation. I can envision giving them awards. If only I were wealthy, that vision would become so real in an instant. Their doing clean jobs in order to survive, simply conveys a matter so significant to all. When the minds of our own people were programmed with this ideal attribute, then how our country would prosper! And how our individual lives would be in eternal peace! That is, if that ever happened. But reality is thinking and accepting that the opposite of anything and everything is existent.

This reality I have not seen yet. Not in actual. I only have seen them on TV or heard on the radio, and they affect me but not to a degree so high. Being ordered by my sister to acquire something from my aunt who worked in the Hall of Justice, I felt much incredibly enthusiastic possibly because I always have been in the house for many months with only a few getting-out-of-the-house. Doing this is a plight I could say— even though it gave me slight gladness— due to the very small number of Carbide jeepneys in the city that I had to wait for hours. But thankfully, one came by the moment I stood to wait in front the Cathedral. A commonly small vehicle, I had to squeeze my legs for there was a fish vendor who brought at least 3 big pails of fish. I painstakingly avoided the touch of the containers for I am considerably disgusted by raw meat. Minutes later with the vendor already gone, the jeepney was already turning right away from Poprock. As the driver continued on that direction, he passed a van and I saw this boy of age not older than me and not very, very young either. At my first view, he was seemingly ordinary. I decided to scrutinize him and to my disheartening surprise, I learned he was holding right to his nose a brownish, translucent bottle with a fulvous liquid inside. He was smelling it… sniffing it. My eyes contracted and probed. I had not extinguished my hunger of investigating him yet. I scrutinized still, and I believe he had glanced at me once but I mattered to him not, peradventure. The vehicle moved farther as I pondered. It was bad. I saw it with my own eyes. And unbelievably, I felt a strange sense of accomplishment seeing him. Nevertheless, I told myself he must be hungry, he must be miserable, he must be lost. His mother might be sick, or he might have been abandoned. Whatever reason a person has, resorting to such an act is inexcusable. Was he influenced? Was he desperate? Does he seek attention? Is that all he knew in life? I tried to put myself in his situation but I cannot picture it out. I would cry, seriously, in thanking that I was not born to be him. I was glad that I have wisdom… enough wisdom to know how to handle downfalls… enough wisdom to be content. It was the feeling greatest of all, I certainly claim now. To have ever seen him is most touching. I urged myself to believe that he must be captured and brought to an institution that could forever change him. Soon he was out of sight, and I stared blankly at the bright, blue sky. Indeed, my journey this day was never a plight.

Introduction

Such a mentality do I have for a very young age. But I do truly guess that my vision of my environment is a gift i should be treasuring. As a secondary school student, of course I have an inclination to juvenile activities; yet also, I am aware, more aware, of the prospects, the vision of tomorrow, to me which indeed is exciting. I am living, I do think, in constant reverie; I had therefore concluded that my mind's content is never that ephemeral, for in every other moment that rushes through, I still think of those endless prospectives. They never pass out in a single rotation of the Earth.My mind travels through various places and times, which is very astonishing for I can really prove the tangibility of my illusions. My hours are spent with infinite stories of fabulous creatures. And I, as an outcome, see that every time, my mind increases in breadth. If I would have strong tolerance of the distractions of man, I could've lived inside my own mind, with no limits in superiority, no limits in all imaginable.But I do realize that it would be my complete madness if I let my psyche be forever floating in the vacuums of space.I believe that the strong voices of my family, which irritate a lot; the orders of the commander-in-chief, that boil my blood to the nth degree, keep me alive in the reality. Fantasy is, perhaps, the reality that I could never experience then.The moderate flow of the water on the creek, the view that I could see from the balcony, acutely entices me to propel my imagination.But to my misfortune, I grow with the attachment of a hypercritical quality. As I sit on the balcony and scrutinize the passers-by, who are of different yet frolic attributes, my eyes couldn't seem to avoid being that detailed as the owl's, every motion recorded in my highly defined, natural image-recording device.

Speak!

We Homo Sapiens and our tongues!
I am absolutely grateful that these were not deprived from us, though some of us have impediments. The other ones speak of nothing, speak of the wicked. And those do not escape from my ears. I am always in continual guard from the mind-poisoning, imbecilic remarks of the witches and warlocks who bewitch the very hearts of the vulnerable innocent, like the flies that, without knowledge, land on the leaf of the pitcher plant and end up being trapped and digested.

Sonnet: God and the Perfectionist

I have made this sonnet as a form of memento from the discovery and realization that I've had a few days prior. This shall serve also as my thanks to God for His never-ending Guidance and Love. I hope that you will obtain the message inside this sonnet.

It is through imperfections of man
That bring thy minds into perfection.
Thy bodies undo the rest; la'er be done.
Thou seek for best possible: thy mission
By the ends, give satisfaction to thee,
And to the heart's content, flaming desire
Thy feeblest mind finds dessication, be
whatsoever befalls even the dire;
whatsoever hath awaited betwixt,
Hither still craves for desideratum
God, He hath restored, my core hath He fixed
Prithee, aid my entity from the doom
Henceforth, I shalt durst to be dauntless; No more
shalt I fear of evil, His might I adore.

The Perfectionist

"Striving for excellence," according to Harriet Braiker, "motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing." Truest quote that explains myself. But still, i was puzzled what he meant of excellence and perfection.

Perfectionism: a disposition to regard anything short of perfection as unacceptable. I never knew this was a latent character that i have in my personality. Some situations have told me that it really is existing in my blood. I have inconspicuously been seeking perfection for the last years of my life. That is why i am having a very hard time appreciating the works i have done and am doing.

I have written many stories as i aspire to become a great writer. I have read some of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories, and i admire all of them. He, as well, motivated me to do my own and in my mind, implanted that I too can reach what he had. I started to think of unique ideas that will surely hit up to the readers and pondered of every word that i would write. At the beginning, i worked with ease and corrected every mistake, altering every statement into a more appealing one. Many days and nights made my head baffled with what to do next for as i go on, my work became as common as any other literature and has long gone down my standard. I read and read others' and compared to mine but still, it was hopeless. I have had many unfinished works and all the concepts i've had were squandered in time. My papers slept...kept and eaten by the dust on the shelves. They had not satisfied me.

In school, many of my classmates were aspiring writers and i get a chance to read their works. I have observed many mistakes but of course, my sensitivity to others' emotions made me a silent critic. Although i was not that pleased with some of them, i somehow grew envious that they had accomplished many tasks. If only they had my strong sense of flaws or mistakes, then i would've admired them to the level they deserve. And i would willingly give it to them. Yet i did not appreciate my own self as i sought for the perfect one. I maybe am a neurotic perfectionist.

I evaluated many people of the way they do things, some of them i vocally expressed, some were just thoughts of mine. Because of my noticeable criticism, a classmate of mine during my third year in high school, Christian Roy, told me that i am too much into perfection [not the exact words]. I was surprised for he was the first ever person to say that. I told myself, "Am i really that kind of person?"

As i write this blog, i am also reading all about Perfectionism according to Psychology. They were right. All of the descriptions have fitted me.

• Perfectionists may be workaholics who cannot relax; people who reproach themselves for days after the smallest error, such as a word out of place; the person so intent on finding the perfect mate that they never settle down; the procrastinator; the finicky person; and so on. Perfectionists tend to be exceptionally sensitive to criticism.


• Perfectionists often exhibit some or all of the following personality traits: emotional guardedness; a need for control; fear of making mistakes or errors; thrift; need to be above criticism; tendency to be stubborn or confrontational; and so on.
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfectionism_(psychology)

Many events have i observed myself develop this personality. As what i have told you earlier, i had been procrastinating my works until i know the 'right thing' and the 'right ways' to do them. Seeing many people in disappointment is a fear that i have lived through these years. I have made excuses of my failures...tried to escape from challenges to avoid the feared outcomes. I feigned to be someone else and hid my negative attributes.

Perfectionism can be a deadly disorder. Sculptor of the Statue of Thomas Hughes at Rugby School, a perfectionist who was suffering from depression, was said to have killed himself due to his failure; he crafted buttons on the right hand side of the statue's jacket but failed to make the corresponding buttonholes on the left hand side, the omission which was pointed out to him.

Although i am certain today of the stability of my mind, there is a small probability that i might become a danger to myself. This characteristic is perhaps still a small portion of my whole being. Yet i shall ask God of His guidance during the upcoming trials that might possibly test my strength and endurance.

Now, i understand the difference between excellence and perfection. I shall slog for what i see is the best for all, nevertheless i will reassure myself that i will not come to the point where i attain for the best possible. And maybe tomorrow, or the other day...years, will i be able to change what i have discovered within myself. But knowing this characteristic somehow contents me as i've found a new piece of me.

Excellence: the state or quality of being oustanding and superior.

Perfection: the quality of something that is as good or suitable as it can possibly be.