Slabs (pages)

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

The Return Home


The Return Home
Originally uploaded by aknacer
nice pic..

Flickr

This is a test post from flickr, a fancy photo sharing thing.

jellyfish

Just a thought. What if memories and everything else that's crafted in the consciousness, what philosophers call the vital can float into air and be carried off by the wind away from the physical self (the mechanical)...
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My memory has been floating ever since I became aware of my existence. The thoughts pass me by every time. Oftentimes, my thoughts does not fit my necessity. There was this one time when what the thought that I needed was the time I spent in the river when i was a child, but what came was my memory of the distant future. it broke my cousins heart because she thought I did not cherish that memory at all and put it in the recycle bin, or worse, deleted it permanently. But it wasn't really the case. The truth is, I cannot find that specific thought of mine because it is literally floating in mid-air, occupying nothing of a solid state like a bottle perhaps so that i can just select the thought to think about.
i write my memory in the air. The sheets of the wind has been the fabric of paper I scribe my thoughts on. In windy days, I cry, I sob and write my saddest thoughts. I thought then that when the wind is strong, the memories will easily be taken away from me restoring my inner peace and tranquility. It also seems logical to think that the heaviest of the thoughts (the saddest ones) should be taken off the mind and put out in the air when it is strongest. Only then can I make sure that the wind has the capacity to carry the heaviness of the thoughts. But then the continuous surge of the winds makes the heaviest of thoughts wander around me even more. The hills at the back of our house witnessed my sobbing, the earth shook at every tremble as the thoughts enter my mind, as I gain consciousness of its emotions, as I start to manifest the emotions physically, and as I mechanically try to cope with its weight. it has been a process I cannot perfect amidst its predictability. it little thought creates a surge of blood different in intensity and pressure inside of my system.

During summer days, the thoughts are lighter. they float in midair changing in colors and dimensions. They look pleasing and the warmth of them gives me chill, a summer kind of chill you feel when you recognize the coldness of the apparent warmth. during lazy afternoons, i stroll down the boulevard downtown searching for new thoughts, images to fill my changing mind. I'd go inside a bookstore, scan some books and when a book captures my attention, search my wallet for enough money and pay for the thoughts to fill up my mind. I know they will soon depart from me like all the other thoughts, but pretty soon, in the least unexpected moment they will come back. They will enter other people's mind, remain there for a while until finally, as if destiny dictates, they will temporarily be stored inside my head. Selection is possible, so long as access is ensured. Conflicts arise when two persons at a time want to get hold of a thought. It's a disaster when this happens. but because of the enormous thoughts that are floating in the air, conflicts is not so much experienced.

The capacity of the winds to carry thoughts has diminished geometrically. In the past, the winds used to carry all the thoughts that the people can unload. In the present however, people started to create memory containers in order to lessen the weight of the thoughts in the space and to be able to maintain the speed of access of the people to this memories. In the near future, it is predicted that visions and other memories of the future will not be able to gain access to the wind. The solution that people have thought of doing is to excavate the land and and bury the past thoughts and memories so as to prevent the present and future thoughts from being taken away. At least people can still work out their beings in the past. I mean in terms of the degree of importance, past thoughts seem to occupy the thinnest level of importance of mankind. However, there seems to have problems implementing it because experts in memory and thought science says that the burying act will disrupt the continuity of the flow of thoughts. others even argue that the burying of the past thoughts will make it impossible for visions (the future thought) and consciousness (the present thought) to exist without the past thought (memory). To solve the problem, experts are working on the creation of underground tunnels, an archive of some sort to store permanently these thoughts and access to these will still be granted to the present and future thinkers. This I think is more workable and probable. They argue that civilization requires that there be a screening or filtering process of thought generation and thought accessing, which means that categories need to be installed. It's not just anymore a thought, it is categorized according to the time frame it existed. In the process of identifying however, experts find it hard to say whether one existed in the past, future or present. There are of course easy thoughts to categorize, those that present clues in terms of fashion, clothing, color, dimension, texture and the like. Hopefully, the project of the government to develop a technology to identify thoughts will be successful. the initial problem really is that these thoughts (most of them are not dated). You see the recording of history is very problematic since the personal has been altogether mixed with the social. another problem is the overproduction of thoughts, an unstoppable phenomenon. People cannot seem to stop experiencing things no matter how imposing the consequences are to them. Legal acts have been done actually in trying to minimize the production. There has been limits in the production. a person can only produce 100 thoughts a day, compared in the past when it is limitless. The prison cells have been pretty much over-occupied in the recent years because of the increasing number of violators. In this cells, a machine is put in all the prisoners head which qualifies which thought matters and which does not. The machine also controls repetition. Most of the time, when a person thinks to much, the machine reduces the number and permanently delete them for better mind efficiency. Lonely as it may seem, I guess, there is no choice for the civilization to continue existing but to control these thoughts.

By the way, my thinking of these thoughts made me one of the many prisoners inside an underground facility where millions of people are in right now. I just hope our number will not increase ANY LONGER.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

so what's my life plan? :short term


Let me establish my present situation in order to further build up the life I want ahead. I'm currently a graduating student of the BA Communication Arts program, major in Speech Communication, in UPLB. My graduation (I'm claiming it) will be sometime in April. I don't like the idea of doing routinely job as in office-based ones. I want to be always in the field discovering and experiencing for myself things I have not seen or done before.

With these facts about me, I figured i should just study more. Maybe earn an MA degree in political science, or international relations/studies, cultural studies, speech communication and the like. Maybe while having an MA, I can teach in college. I can teach in UPLB or maybe outside. It has always been my dream. To become an information-sharer an "imparter" of pieces of knowledge to people who're hungry for it.

Or maybe I can apply for a job in media. Media jobs have always been very exciting, unpredictable even. It would go with my hope not to stagnate and do things habitually and predictably.

I can also apply for law school already. It's one thing I always wanted. Law and politics have always been a twin tower that overshadows all my other interest. Hopefully, I'll be able to pass the exam and have sufficient funds for me to enroll in the law school. The tuition fee nowadays seems to have increased dramatically even in public universities and colleges.

But, if I think of short term, what I really want to achieve this year is to have a teaching job. A vocation I've always treated to be noble and fulfilling. Hopefully, the universe will conspire for me to graduate on time, have my diploma earned and have all the courage to face panels of interviews and demos to be able to teach.

These are the things running in my mind at the moment. These may change depending on the situation but I'm hoping they won't. So help me God.

photo from: http://scoop08.com/files/images/obama%20teaching.jpg

An attempt at an inquiry into the nature of life plan


Life plan, as they call it seems to have a special recall during the start of the year. This may be because of the feeling that a new set of calendar would also mean a new timeline to start over, get back to the line, get up from a fall, get over someone, move on from the past and the like (as if the past is only made up of bad things, miseries, sorrows, sad things). positively though, it brings a little optimism into the down-trodden hearts and minds of people across the globe. its a perspective by which nature in the oh-so-cliche natural process of light and dark (in a day0 extended into months, years, decades, and lifetimes. Life plans creates a failure-success pattern of waves that seemed become normal in the mindset of the people.

Well, enough of criticism of life plan. I'll try to think of it the positive way. Rebutting the above mentioned statement: no matter how negative the past seem to have been because of the "proposed changes' i ones being and becoming, it still gives a leeway for someone to engage in an introspective moment. An almost only once in a year phenomenon people engage in in order to assure their self of control over his/her being. Introspection: almost the same with reflection (the only difference is that introspection connotes more of the internal while reflection connotes more of the social self) is a healthy way by which people recognize their existence in a vacuum they call world and being. Other say vacuum is impossible, I say (in the most postmodern sense) that everything is a vacuum(a vacuum we think exist and is tangible.) What I'm trying to say is that introspection is a process of looking at oneself being as empty, as nothing. It seems so complex but it is actually very simple. You reconsider truth and its meaning 9if it really has one) you look at yourself and look at the truth inside of it, and you find that truth can only exist in emptiness, in the vacuum self you thought to be full.

Now, what does life plan do to the empty self? it serves as a coping mechanism of the self to assure the existence of a being. Plans, the intangible thoughts of the future are then translated to someones destiny, someones physical and almost distinguishable phase in one's life which is illuminatingly real, even if at the moment, it only exist in the middle of nothingness and emptiness of the self. This atom of a plan radiates a massive light of hope gradually filling up the nothingness; thus self is filled with expectations, with bright dreams and wants and the like. It's a process by which a bulb (a tiny object run by electricity) which, when connected to a powersource fills every reachable corner of the room it is in the center of. The being does not care whether the outside of himself is dark or uncertain, for as long as his inside is filled with light, the path of the uncertain will always be an easy path. So long as he/she sustains connection to the powersource, his direction is clear.

Well powersource could be anything at all. Anything that makes a person follow a plan. Cult members find their powersource in the "truth of the words of their leaders and savior," a student's powersource is anything that makes him/her certain that knowledge and truth emanates,(it could be books, teachers and other sources) pagan and nature believers' powersource is the pattern of being that exists in natural world, scientists powersource is the belief in an objective knowledge that can be observed and can be manipulated according to their needs and wants and a believers powersource is God, the unseen being that guides each and every action that the man does. Without such powersource, the purpose of his/her existence goes down the drain, steals him/her of his life, brings him/her to his original empty, useless self. Without the powersource, he/she lose the reason behind his existence.

Life plan then is a tool by which a person directs and maintains the being that he believed he is purposed to have. Consistency plays a major role in it. A zigzag path would only mean an uncertain self, almost good as nothing. A clear path would mean a life planned and destined for something (almost always expected to be bright and good.) Life plan is one way of ensuring life amidst the death that surrounds it.