A Personal Universe

We go about our daily lives unmindful of the conditions of people around us and carry on this obliviousness right in our own homes particularly in the midst of some very peculiar situations that need special attention. There is a tendency to assume that people are normal until signs that indicate otherwise calls our attention, often times at a stage where the relationship has reached irreconcilable levels.

It is unfortunate that we are distant from the very persons we need to be close to. If a matrix or planetary chart were to be drawn with you at the center surrounded by people, who would be closest to you? Farthest? Who do you know best? Least? What clusters would be formed?

It is fun to draw a chart like that but there is some care required in the process of doing so. When we describe people, it is difficult to maintain objectivity let alone consistency, as judgments, labeling and biases intermingle with objective descriptions. It can be as complicated as the variations of how we relate to people. Our choice of charts reflect how we size up people. It reveals the framework from where we begin to look at people.

We can have as many charts as the many ways we relate to people. Trust. Fun. Responsible. Intellectual. Humor. Emotional. Sensuality. Beauty, Fitness, Sociability, Etc. One’s place will differ in every chart. One may be closer to another intellectually but distant emotionally. An entertaining person can be the least considered when responsible behavior is required. It is fun to have a chart for every situation and when we superimpose the charts together, we see order in who is most dear or distant to us.

It is normal in considering a relationship to have preconditions particularly when an objective has been set as in looking for a business partner, employee, life partner (boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse), sports buddy, etc. We design a box and find people who will fit the dimensions and discard those who don’t. Seldom do we meet people without an agenda in the back of our minds and although it may be practical in some ways, such an approach in meeting people deprives us of the opportunity to see what others are all about. A person who failed a job interview may be the sports buddy we’ve been looking for. A colleague at work could be the source of emotional support. A failed romance could have been better off as a business partnership. The unassuming girl at the backroom could be the love of our life. We put people in boxes and fail to see who they really are. It’s like using wrenches as hammers and complain when it falls apart. Then we wonder why we don’t have any friends.

We also impose preconditions on ourselves with how we relate to people and how we behave. We are stiff at work and reckless at the gym. We have strict protocols and avoid spontaneity. We hold back our laughter in front of the boss or in public. We suppress our tears and opinions. We put ourselves in boxes and deprive the world from seeing who we really are. We make fun of everything and wonder why we are not taken seriously. Then we complain of being rejected.

I have found it to be healthy to get to know people first and allow others to know me before putting them in their rightful place in my “solar system” also hoping I am where I should be in theirs. To share our innermost being with each other without preconception allows a sense of freedom and integrity. To see someone for who they really are and not of how they affect or appeal to us is an exercise in honoring other people.

In my profession, I have developed a sense of altruism and often times catch myself looking for solutions and ways to make things better. In many ways this has been viewed as unwanted intervention and invasion of personal space…sometimes judgmental. Most people dislike being probed like a specimen in a petri dish or lab subject. Critiques after all, are seldom welcomed. The few who do appreciate it, find it exciting to discover what lies in their blind spots and laugh at the thought that one can be so unaware of something so glaring to others. For me, there is peace in knowing the order of my universe.

As a complex being, humans can only be described based on what they manifest regardless of potential. A lazy person’s burning desire to be more hardworking will not remove the fact that he’s lazy. Unless it is manifested, potentials remain just that…potential. The question is…what role do we play in someone else’s development? Do our actions encourage mediocrity or excellence? Do we reinforce current behavior rather than allow potential to manifest? Are we hopeful or skeptical of the future? What are we in fact creating? What people do we attract into our lives? Why?

It can be very difficult to draw a map of our personal universe. Life is three or ten dimensional depending on what you believe in. Regardless of how complicated our universe is, there is order once we take a hard look without the emotional blinders. Whether it appeals to you or not, the stars are where they need to be. Whether you like people or not, they will always be who they are. Does our own beingness repel or attract them?

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars -Persian Proverb. From the book, Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.

Reunions and Transformation

I made mistakes and regret smudging the canvass of my life’s masterpiece. So I vow to be more careful, knowing full well that my record and reputation precedes me. It sounds easy to “fall, get up, wipe the dust off” and move on. Perhaps if I were alone, it would be that easy. But there is that unforgiving, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks world out there with a mindset that has the tendency to nail people to their past. The same world to begin with, that imposed its values upon me. A demanding world that was poised to reject me if I did not conform or be like everybody else. A hostile world I viewed as the threat to my freedom of expression and individual uniqueness. A cynical world that believes I did it and can do it again because it considers all beings to be the sum of their history. A threatened world now challenging the change I have become.

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This blog began as a biographical draft and turned out to be a discourse on self awareness. I thought I would get to know and understand what I have become after all these years and move on with the understanding that we are what we have become. And that is precisely the trap that conformity got me into. It is a trap that denies the miracle of change, of the human being’s malleability and capacity to transgress his present circumstances and evolve into a new specie within the same lifetime.

It is not as easy as I thought it would be to come out of one’s shell. To move from one mold to another and emerge like a new born baby. It is easier said than done because there are internal and external conversations that say the same thing: that isn’t me. The old me fights to protect its turf to prove it has been right all along and will not allow the new me to takeover. It stands in the way and cheers when the new me attempts to assert itself and fails to make its mark. It is a battle of a fragile seven year old against a sturdy forty eight year old. It is the ultimate example of bullying.

A great deal of courage and determination is required to bury something that has been with me all my life. Specially something that brought pleasure and excitement. A great deal of courage and determination is required to emerge through something that has entrenched itself far too long. It is like water breaking through stone. A great deal of courage and determination is required to see that which has never been seen. It is like the magic photograph that reveals a hidden image seen only from a distance or a squint of an eye or the ghosts that have always been there but we refused to look at them or even acknowledge their presence.

The quantum world view considers everything as pure potential until an observer with all his expectations, preconceptions, programs and judgments steps into the picture and a world ultimately of his own making is revealed. With these filters, the observer will be blind to anything outside the parameters of his perception boundaries. As co-players we bring with us everything we are capable of manifesting. As co-observers, we bring to the theater our own set of expectations. And with the fusion of both, commonalities emerge and we have physical “reality” in front of us and everything outside of this framework is thrown back to “mere” potentialities or illusions.

It is difficult to shake off impressions created by past actions and even more difficult to wiggle out of an observer’s fixations particularly if he is someone from the past or carrying some knowledge of the past with a tendency to bring back to life a personality trait buried a long time ago. It would take a totally compassionate individual to allow another to metamorphose from the hairy caterpillar to an awesome butterfly. But more importantly, it would take a totally committed person to keep his unwanted past buried and stand his ground, born again regardless of temptations by the present to resurrect the dead.

Reunions are great if it celebrates the excitement of a future paved by the present. It is sad when the dead is reincarnated by endless episodes of how we were rather than how we are and could be.

Take One

My worst experience in acting was doing a take 20+ on a line so simple, I swear I thought I was autistic. Even curing it in the dubbing room didn’t help much. In the beginning it was hilarious how someone can twist the words helplessly. Everyone was laughing their bellys inside out. After a while it had become so infuriating, some people left the dubbing room altogether. How different could it have been if all I was allowed was a take one? The line? Dalhin niyo dito si tisoy. I would go “dalhin niyo dito sisitoy”. How retard can that be?

That’s not what kept me from pursuing a career in acting. It was the waiting time. The endless hours of preparation for a minute shoot. In one instance, we had to wait all day for the set up, only to be aborted and no shoot. The saying in the industry is…actors are paid to wait.

Picking up from a previous entry, the generation and culture I’m surrounded with is so obsessed with life on the fast lane made convenient by microwave meals, instant coffee and noodles, fast foods, disposable products and…even relationships seem to fall into this category.

Youth can be a very impatient time where one year seems like forever and anything beyond that looks like eternity. Psychologists seem to agree that teenagers and young adults can’t seem to plan 5 years down the road. They simply want things NOW!

Looking back at the relationships I’ve had from friendships to intimate pairings along with the joys and heartbreaks that come with it, anything short of slow cooking over glowing coal was a recipe for disaster. Take a look at a person who goes from one friend or relationship to another, each time going to the deep end too fast, too soon and upon finding out it doesn’t work out, chokes and gets out. Sure the experience matters but that is all rationalization after the fact, to soothe the devastating effects of abandonment, rejection, pain and failure.

I’ve likened relationships to the the planets in our solar system where except for earth, the rest either came too close or stayed too far from the sun to make them uninhabitable. We need to know how close or distant we need to be from another person in order to live harmoniously with them. Get too close and we burn, stay too far and we freeze.

It would help to take relationships one step at a time. Start with observation, move on to acquaintance, familiarization, assessment and then commitment. It’s like going window shopping before making a purchase with the only money you will ever have. How different would our shopping habits be if we had an endless supply of money compared to a one time purchase? With the former, the ability to do it again and again encourages impulsive and reckless decisions, while the latter encourages making intelligent decisions.

My relationships are a continuing process of positioning myself against others to preserve mental, emotional, spiritual, social and oops…financial health. The proximity is never the same. There are intimate days and aloof ones. It frazzles people around me why I carry on this way.

In my mind, life is a take one. You either blow it or make the best of what you’ve got. I have squandered my time and resources when I was younger. Regrets? Maybe. Lessons? Plenty. Would I go through it again? NO! Would I do things differently? Yes.

The lesson? Relationships is all about growth. Mutual growth. Feed on each other. When it becomes parasitic or one way…cut the cord. If someone into a relationship forces it with someone who is out of it, it becomes toxic and volatile. Relationships have shelf lives and expiration dates. Go beyond its usefulness and it becomes poison. Relationships are prescriptions for one’s growth. Some are meant to be a one shot deal, others long term. A two-second glimpse at the mall or an hour of exceptional conversation may be a shot in the arm and that’s all it may ever be. Don’t press your luck by trying to prolong it. You can OD on a relationship. A lifetime partnership may be what it will take before the high kicks in in an otherwise rocky start. Be patient. It will take all 7 dosages for the meds to work. Anything less is money down the drain. Can you imagine walking out on a relationship when the best is yet to come and missing it altogether because you simply flaked out? To confuse one for the other can be a deadly mistake. Discernment is the key.

If you had only a take one for a relationship, how would you make a decision? If it was short term could you let go when the time is up? If it was long term can you hang on long enough?

What is the gauge when a relationship should be where its at? Ease and Balance. Health >Mental, Emotional, Spiritual and Physical. Things just happen. No need to force it.

Let’s face it. Unless we have the same calling as Jesus , Buddha and the rest, we are here for our own selfish needs…that is…stay alive and grow without having to kill the other person.

Lights…Camera…Aaaaaakshon!

9/52 Fathers and Sons (Part 2)

He would often relate how he was stupefied as a six year old when the Spanish executed the Filipino intellectual Jose Rizal in a park surrounded by wealthy neighborhoods. A childhood marked by revolutions and colonial domination nurtured the prevalent ambitiousness of his generation. He recounted stories of how he proudly served both American and New Commonwealth masters because of their discipline and adamant penchant for excellence, how the war unnecessarily ravaged the rustic mountain city he helped build, how it rose from the ruins, regaining and eventually losing its grandeur as the Summer Capital of the Philippines. Relating those stories was an exercise that paid off in his senile years as I would fill in his narratives when his memory would fail him.

Being landed did not always equate to being wealthy. Such was the circumstance that my grandfather was born into that he had to walk in slippers more than 10 kilometers every week to a boarding house whose mosquito infested basement room he had occupied while studying by candlelight to be a doctor. He also walked the school route with precious shoes in tow as slippers were cheaper to repair or replace.

As one of the early graduates of the State Medical School, he was entrusted with many prominent responsibilities including the directorship of the Benguet Hospital in Baguio and serving as the personal physician of the President. He made his rounds on horseback servicing the medical needs of the mining towns that flourished in the early days of the Summer Capital. As a representative in the UN and holding various key positions in the pioneer and post war era of the city, he made a name for himself and engaged briefly in politics until he realized the growing graft and corruption would swallow him body and soul.

A tough childhood must have driven his ambition for himself as well as those for his children. He bestowed a particular favor on his eldest son whom he had named after him. As an achiever and gifted child, grand plans and foundations in business or law were laid before the scion but it was not to be so. The priesthood had a stronger calling for a man who stood his ground to follow his destiny. It was only much later through memoirs that I found out that he sneaked out twice to enter the seminary and with gun in hand, my grandfather demanded his release. Failing in that, he sued in court and likewise failed. He only succeeded when the President and an influential general drafted him to the Army and again only to lose him to the Jesuits after the war and finally losing him completely to a brain tumor soon after.

Just before puberty, my grandmother died and I was relegated to his flat to keep him company during meals, recreation and visiting construction sites. I took his daily blood pressure readings, did errands and later drove him around town and down to the hot springs. Although as a growing boy I lived in my own world, the subconscious/subliminal effects of my grandfather’s environment influenced much of how I would perceive and relate to the world.

While my mother and siblings had to make do with the best that my father brought home, I enjoyed country club meals, snacks and a library, long walks at the golf course, hot showers and massage, healthy dinners and long games of chess intertwined with glorious stories of the pioneer days of the mountain city. I was like a pup trailing his parent as he went by his daily business allowing me to observe how a man of stature related to the world around him and experienced what being privileged was like. There were no lectures, apprenticeship and indoctrination. It was simply hang around, see and do. With his soft hand that allowed me to imbibe the fruits of good living, I began to aspire to become a doctor just like him and not some traveling salesman whose face and arms were burnt from too much sun and had very little to offer except an iron hand that kept me focused on the hardships of life…or so I thought.

Although the life away from my family was more comfortable, there was an air of discomfort for being different. My parents had become my guardians and my siblings became more like cousins and I an only child, which propelled my individualism to an irreversible extent. It was difficult to live like a have not in a have environment or a have in a have not. There was a sense of duality that swung my personality to extremes. Was I or was I not? Living in one roof with two separate worlds that had very few common denominators in what mattered to me would make me question my loyalty and belongingness especially when one would attempt to invalidate the other. I was confused on whose side I should be on. Was my emerging multiple personality a survival mechanism? It doesn’t require much to imagine what happens when I switched on the wrong one in a particular situation. Switching invalidated the other and making a stand pit them both against each other.

Caught in the conflict between two worlds of kinship and fearful of losing my identity, if not my sanity, there was only one choice…step back and move out thinking perhaps, my absence would calm the storm. I once had one father, then conveniently two, and finally none. The adventure had began.

Workshops of Love

I attended an emotionally draining workshop where one of the exercises was to freely express in whatever manner what it was we felt to anyone in the room. In particular gratitude, appreciation, love, forgiveness, etc. Perhaps anger, resentment, jealousy, etc. There was this girl I had an attraction to and wanted to tell her how much her awesome beauty struck me. Apparently, I was not the only one as many lined up to express themselves to her. Rather than be obvious, I spent the time to express myself to others while waiting for the right opportunity to come. Meanwhile we would catch ourselves glancing at each other.

As everyone scrambled to express themselves, the facilitator stopped the exercise to the disdain of everyone who needed more time. I in particular felt so empty that I had not expressed myself to her. The feeling seemed mutual as we kept looking at each other (Uiy). We all demanded (haha) for an extension, got one and spent a great deal of time until everyone had expressed themselves to each other. Lovely isn’t it?

Before we got the extension, it was explained that life is like that. We never know when the time is up. We gingerly procrastinate and hesitate and wait for the “right” moment. We gallantly let others go ahead and we linger around feeling the air. And sometimes that moment never comes. (True but don’t take this literally. It doesn’t apply to everything and not everything is urgent, sometimes timing is crucial. Tactful discretion always works best).

Thank you to everyone who commented, emailed, called and texted re my post Fathers and Sons (Part 1) (210 hits in one day!) Yes my father and I never got to reconcile our differences and I regret not having been able to tell him how much I deeply appreciated what he had done for me (us), ask for his forgiveness and make up for lost time. Indeed, a child sometimes only gets to profoundly understand his parents when he becomes one.

Go express whatever brings happiness before it’s too late.

Condolences to the family of Tim Russert, Meet the Press