Gesu nightshots

for posterity's sake. circa 2007.

bakit lagi akong na-e-LSS

"so far away...doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore..."

it must be echoing some deep-set sentiment, this song. bamboo's rendition gets to me when i listen to it. some old songs have that effect. you play them and they transport you back in time when that same song had some meaning to you. i'm not sure though what meaning it had for me for that hypothetical "then".

i grew up listening to "high school life" and "don't cry for me, argentina". i listened to these songs, brimming with emotions, profound feelings that surely a four or seven year old would not have understood. yet, i recall moments when i actually shed tears listening to Sharon Cuneta wax about high school when i haven't even reached grade one!

songs follow a logic of their own. so does the heart, as Pascal reminds us. it's quite a miracle when you have lyrics that perfectly match the melody. both these elements intertwine inextricably. you forcibly take one out and the song dies.

miracles also happen when you have songs that fill the gaps in your consciousness. these gaps are often the things you haven't really figured out that much. it cries out silently. it screams mutely. only the song soothes. only the melody assures.

and you just quietly sing along...

So far away
Doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore
It would be so fine to see your face at my door
Doesn't help to know that you're just time away

Long ago I reached for you and there you stood
Holding you again could only do me good
How I wish I could, but you're so far away

One more song about movin' along the highway
Can't say much of anything that's new
If I could only work this life out my way
I'd rather spend it bein' close to you

But you're so far away
Doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore
It would be so fine to see your face at my door
Doesn't help to know you're so far away

Travelin' around sure gets me down and lonely
Nothin' else to do but close my mind
I sure hope the road don't come to own me
But there's so many dreams I've yet to find

But you're so far away
Doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore
It would be so fine to see your face at my door
And it doesn't help to know you're so far away

i thought i was already going to sleep...

i'm going to sleep.

that's what i thought, at least, an hour and a half ago. there were times when i could actually fall asleep before midnight, and that didn't take much of an effort. all i had to do was lie down and i would just drift off into unconsciousness. exhaustion needs no motivation.

when i was younger, several thoughts would preoccupy me before i went to sleep. on certain nights, i would be thinking about a person. on other nights, i would be reviewing an event in my mind and fantasizing about possible scenarios. and then, there would be those nights when i'd feel troubled or dissatisfied. is it possible that someone tends to think a lot when one is actually lonely or sad? i remember what mr.calasanz said in my advanced phenomenology class. when you're happy, you don't really think much about "life". back then, that remark struck me. it seems that people who use their heads too much end up lonelier than most people. or is it because they are lonelier, in the first place, that they end up thinking too much?

i'm not really sure how i'd answer that. i used to think too much. but i didn't really think much about great ideas or great problems. mostly, i thought about the trivialities of my own life and my relationships with other people. really, i barely thought about what others really thought; instead, i thought about what i think others might be thinking about me. i have picked up from somewhere that all thinking is reflexive. somehow, whether you think about others in general, or about a particular person, everything refers back to you.

maybe that's why thinking is a lonely enterprise that produces an even lonelier outcome. while you may seemingly have "objects" of your own thought, the "objects" reveal more of the subject that thinks about it. in the end, you just end up with more of your own self, which is not really a bad thing.

maybe socrates might have meant it differently. while i believe that the unexamined life is not worth living, the overly examined life may not be worthily called a life at all.

hypertension

(the photo has no relation whatsoever to this entry. i just felt that i needed to comfort myself with pleasant memories of my sembreak vacation. hehe)

150/100.
no, they're not test scores. nor eyesight measurements.
lately, i've been trading blood pressure stats with some of the scholastics. there has been an outbreak of hypertension diagnoses, ever since I got a 140/100 a month ago. when my hypertensive condition was detected last month, some of the scholastics decided to have their bps checked as well, only to discover that i wasn't the only one with these fairly high stats.

earlier this evening, as we were trading jokes outside the oratory, I suddenly felt something snap in my nape. it triggered a sharp pinching kind of pain, and i immediately thought that it might have something to do with my blood pressure. ij and jhaw then told me to go to the infirmary to have myself checked since by that time i was already breaking into cold sweat. when we went to the infirmary, one of the nurses took my bp and informed me that my current stat was 150/100. of course, i became even more nervous. i didn't want to get sick again because it's so depressing to be confined to a room and find yourself suddenly incapable of doing the things you often take for granted.

Thanks to but unlike Wordsworth, i call these moments of utter vulnerability and helplessness, my intimations of mortality. i'm still young and being sick like this makes death less of a possibility; instead it becomes as real as my own Damocles' sword. I know death would eventually come but its own random timing scares me. My situation reminds me of Heidegger's insight on being-towards-death. my most individual and extreme possibility is death. no one can experience death for me. i alone will experience it. it is what individuates me and at the same time, unites me with everyone else.

Heidegger cautions against inauthentic living--a kind of living that denies this mortal destiny. and yet, here i am, afraid of dying as if i am not going to die at all. on second thought, maybe it's not death i'm afraid of, maybe it's the pain that comes with sickness. in my case, the physical pain is only secondary. the pain of being incapacitated is even more painful, i think. to be fully conscious and yet unable to to act out one's conscious thoughts, i surmise, must be a really painful experience.

yet maybe, these kinds of pain are birth pangs of an emergent spirituality. recognizing my own limitedness can be a real blow to my ego. but perhaps, after the self that i had been holding on to has been shattered, when the dust of confusion settles, i would begin to see myself and my life more clearly. i am not in control. i am merely clay in the potter's hand.

talon set

dahil gusto ko lang i-test yung slow shutter, nakalimutan ko tuloy na mas masarap magtampisaw sa tubig,, ganda kasi parang pang-wow philippines... tulad nung isang album, tinatamad na naman akong pumili ng pics. kaya upload na lang lahat..

Loyola School of Theology at Dusk

post-sunday apostolate. bit exhausted. needed some "fresh" air. took a walk along the "Titanic" and took some shots of LST's landmark,, since picking the pics i like would be more tedious, i just posted them all--wholesale.

btw, if you guys could help pick out the shots that are worth keeping, help me trim down the set. my HD is already getting bloated,,

cognitive bias

i chanced upon an article in Time (or was it Newsweek?) that explored the psychology of the human mind and the experience of the paranormal. according to that article, the mind had a propensity to fill in the gaps, to make sense of patterns, to find "figures in the shadows", so to speak. to some extent, it was like saying that imagination--even the quest for meaning--was hardwired into our physiology.

i just had a similar experience of pattern-recognition. as i was reading through etty hillesum's "an interrupted life", i began to recognize the particular genre of literature that has molded my mindset. i think i have a predilection for mystico-existentialist literature. i have googled my memory for the authors who have been my personal mentors--rilke, heidegger, frankl, clarke, dostoevsky, thoreau--and i begin to see coincidences that are meaningful.

well, this is not really a big deal for most people. but this fills me with strange delight and i just feel like i have to record this.

Scenes from Mt Gulugod Baboy, Batangas

mountaineering again. in spite of hypertension.





mountaineering again. in spite of hypertension.

Villa @ the former leper colony island of Culion

spent three days in culion for the sembreak villa.

'Fisherfolk' exposure

naisipan ko lang kunan ng litrato yung mga mandaragat. naalala ko kasi si hemingway.

Villa Time @ Coron, Palawan

2nd day of our villa. went swimming in the twin lakes and in cayangan lake.

My Bro: Darwin

darwin is my adopted brother. he has cerebral palsy. half of his body is paralyzed. he can't walk, talk but he can communicate using hand signals which we had taught him before. oh and yes, he can smile. he's one of my inspirations.

this album will mostly be pics of darwin.






darwin is my adopted brother. he was abandoned by his foster family even before he turned a year old. we found him in one of the DSWD centers when he was still a baby. and we borrowed him so that we he could celebrate his 1st bday. we never thought of returning him since. now, darwin is already 14 years old.

darwin has cerebral palsy. half of his body is paralyzed. he can't walk and talk but he can communicate using hand signals which we had taught him before. oh and yes, he can smile. he's one of my inspirations.

since he gets excited over being photographed, i'll post his pics on this album.