Choices

Choice is something every one wants. Its a basic human right, it's what FREEDOM is all about and It's about expression and individuality. As once said in BioShock "... we all make decisions  but in the end, our decisions make us...". 

Choice is all the rage nowadays. Flavored Yoghurt? Mass Effect? Globe My Super Plan? Subway? iPhone, BlackBerry, Android or Windows? Everything and anything is all about choice and the celebration of individuality. You choose what you want and what you want is your choice. Are you an ordinary and conservative vanilla? A bad ass renegade vanguard? or super techy and trendy user? Healthy wheat bread eater? or a hipster with an iPhone? You could actually be all of these at the same time. How would you look like as a whole? 

A Health Conscious yogurt and wheat bread eater that instagrams subway sandwiches and Fro Yohs with their iPhone they got with some super expensive post paid plan while secretly wanting to be a bad ass instead of the skinny and lanky white hipster that he really is.

I'm not that person, i'm just trying to make a point. There are so many choices and decisions made in one's life. All are a reflection of who he is today but their choices can define who they are tomorrow. A righteous person will choose justice, and by choosing justice, makes him righteous. if taken one decision spectrum at a time, who you are to begin with starts with your first choice. Then you keep on climbing (or digging) the same direction for the rest of your life. An angel would choose to do good, by doing so, makes the angel good as well and the cycle persists because the angel would constantly reinforce their alignment to the good and good aligned characters will continue doing good (D&D style). 

The complexity of human character comes from the fact that there is a near infinite spectrum of choices and decisions to make. And several of which are not mutually exclusive, they affect each other. Like choosing how much devotion you have to your Religion and the spouse you choose. A Highly devout Christian would never marry outside of their religion while those that aren't as devout couldn't care less what the religion of their spouse would be. Upon first glance, you would think the first is a blinded devotee that doesn't think for himself and the second an unfaithful hypocrite that doesn't practice what has been preached. But they are more than that. What about the spouse they chose? Schools they studied in? Good deeds that they done? All of which are pushing and pulling each other in several dimensions, some of which can nullify the initial personality assumptions we had for the two. 

Which in the end means that man is a summation of every choice they have made (as one famous philosopher once said, I don't know which one). You could kinda map out a person like a radar chart (google images), except instead of a flat 2D chart, imagine a multi-dimensional chart with a near infinite number of axes (plural of axis! LOL). You cannot judge a man because of the senator he voted for or that one violation he did. You have to see him as a sum of his choices, and from that judge what kind of choices he will make in the future.

Your radar chart can somehow predict how you will decide on future choices. Which brings me to my next point : Do people really change? 

Will the Filipino people keep on voting for the same kind of politicians? will the Politicians keep on doing what they do to stay in power? They probably will, they've made those choices before and keep on making choices in a similar manner for almost everything else. Is there hope for any change? And the much deeper and personal question : Do people change?

One of my friends always (literally always) used to tell me that "PEOPLE DON'T CHANGE". He was cynical then, and his cynicism caused him to make the choice to believe in that statement which made him more of a cynic.Ironically, over the years, he changed. And now he believes that people do change. And conveniently enough, he is no longer a cynic! How did he break the cycle? What was the C-c-c-c-combo breaker? What wrecked his radar chart and made him change?

I never really found out (did i create too much build up there?). But i do have a theory or two on choice and people changing. 

I talked about spectrums and radar charts and how each decision plotted on the graph could push and pull another. Keep on doing bad things, and you push yourself further and further down the bad spectrum. But choosing to do one small deed of good... Does that make you good? Nope, not in the slightest. You'd have to do enough good deeds consistently to pull yourself to the other end of the bad spectrum : good. Two wrong things do not make a right... But does doing one right thing does make man right in himself? So while it is possible to choose decisions contrary to your previous alignment, you'd have to commit to it if you want any real change. 

An easy example : eating and dieting. One end of the spectrum is that you keep on eating and become fat, the other, you start dieting, commit to it, and hopefully become fit. One slice of wheat bread today won't help against the unli rice meal dinner you'll have this weekend. 

It's easier said than done. How can one steer himself into a complete 180 when every action prior has molded him and somewhat committed him to another trajectory? Is there such human will strong enough to break a lifetime of natural human molding and shaping? 

The choice to change is a continuous choice. You cannot change yourself overnight. One momentous event cannot define your life unless you follow through with it. Don't bring up Jose Rizal or Ninoy Aquino. One may argue that their deaths are the defining moments in their lives. A "one time big time". Look closer, look at their lives. All the roads they took lead them to their great sacrifice. It was not their death but their life that defined them. And the same can be said for anyone else. You don't have to die for your country to be a hero, you have to live for your country. 

True change is only wrought from a lifetime of effort. And while one lives, one may continually change as long as they posses the will for it. Death is just the final dot, the "scope of limitation" to judge if a man was good or bad, just or corrupt, fat or thin. (This looks like another paraphrase from another philosopher!)

So how about me? How am I? How's my radar chart?

After 3 years of work in my first job, I didn't like how my radar chart looked. I saw how my choices I made when I was younger made me who I am today. And from that, you could predict how I'd react to things and situations. This is a talent your close friends have because they've seen you mold yourself throughout the years and therefore can really claim to "know" you. 

I was a shy kid. I never wanted to be the center of attention and I hated talking to people. Why did I choose this kind of demeanor? 

1. Most of the things I like doing are solo things (like reading a book or watching TV). I don't like people watching me as I do my thing or put me in a spotlight I didn't ask for. I just want it to be me and the thing. I don't like the whole room listening to my answer in class when the only person that needs to hear it is my teacher, because she alone can (supposedly) give me the best feedback. She is an expert after all. Same goes for everything else. 

2. I don't like talking for the sake of conversation. It's so unnatural and makes the initiating party either seem really fake, or just desperate. A conversation is only worthwhile if there is genuine interest of all involved parties. If this is not mutual, don't talk. 

3. I find it hard to be conscious of everyone else. About how to act and talk in ways that are correct around the right crowd and in the right context. People can get really touchy about things like this. I find it really stifling. 

So I chose to keep to myself and pursue "solo" endeavors like reading goosebumps, animorphs and Harry potter, playing single player video games, and drawing a lot in my kid years. I "refused" to do "popular" things like play basket ball and follow Survivor, American Idol, Heroes, Lost and HIMYM. 

I was the quiet shy kid (reason 1 and 2) but I was really nice as well (reason 3). Looking back, it's strange that I thought that way back then. I think it was because of the saying "do onto others ..." And Santa Claus. 

I was consistently like that. Aloof and alone, but in the way that I liked. I could do the things I wanted to do and I couldn't care less of what others thought of my pursuits and interests. 

And I became the nice guy you know, but never become close to. I chose to be socially detached because I hated dealing with people. I knew and met so many people, a lot of which are still Facebook friends even after the social deaths of Friendster and multiply. But I never really talk to most of them. They add me, I accept since I know them from somewhere and that's it. End of story. Unsocial on a social network. I chose this, and cause of my molded radar graph, the decision is almost automatic. Keep people out so I can do whatever I want... but acknowledge their existence because that's the polite thing to do.

What kind of person did I grow up as?
1. an opposite of a team player, I preferred "soloing" it.
2. I didn't trust people, they were like minefields... you could be the best of friends but one wrong turn (or even word) and they blow up and hate you forever.
3. I had a cynical side, I tried my best to tip toe around the land mine people but the other didn't do the same. My distrust was sometimes turned to disgust and hate.
4. I only trusted a few people that I spent a lot of time with... Because I know where their landmines are (though new ones could be laid or previously unknown ones discovered... this risk never really goes away)

The pressures of "fitting in" in College were the greatest social pressures I've ever experienced. So great in fact that I couldn't understand it. I couldn't understand why it was so important to hangout in bars and get drunk on hard drinks, party in the Clubs, go on "spontaneous" road trips to Tagaytay and to scream your heart out in Araneta. Those activities never really gave me any real joy yet that was what everyone did, and in so doing  founded friendships that would last a life time. But due to my radar chart, I refused to submit to such a model of college life. I found it too fake for me to join in activities just to find friends. My radar chart never trained me for such an environment. Arguably, in my elementary and high school days, all us boys were just the same. I wasn't friends with everyone, but it wasn't hard to make friends with people you were stuck within the same room for 9 to 10 months at a time. But College was different, more open. My early forays into the outside world as a high school student wasn't the same as the "freedom" of college life.

I didn't fit in so much, but not in a bad way. My circles were built around "anchor points" I've made in elementary and high school : Friends I were already comfortable with. I relied on them as starting points into newer social connections. I've made only a few "real friends" in college. Those are the ones I hold most dear, the kind of friendships "that would last a life time". What made them different? They didn't care if I liked or followed the so called "model of college life", what mattered was we were the happiest we could ever be just by being together (not in a Gay way). I could speak out and do the things I liked, and I was accepted and even appreciated for that. There were no land mines, or they didn't hurt. I feel invincible with them. And I hope I make them feel the same way.

In high school and college, I slowly started trusting more people. I still saw a lot of them as land mines, but the list of people i trusted, and the experiences I shared with others expanded. But my radar chart still had its hold on me. I'm not great at meeting new people, my shyness and lingering distrusts puts me on a "wait and see" stance instead of aggressively breaking the ice. But at least I made more friends, and people liked me because I my "un-strong" personality. I was easy to be with because I never imposed anything on anyone nor made them feel small or insignificant.

I was "mabait". It seemed like a moniker, a title, I WAS the living  embodiment of "mabait". Or at least that how I was made to feel from all the praise and "he said, she saids" about me. "Mabait" means "nice". I was the "nice" guy. But I wasn't particularly generous, overly polite or very helpful. I was "nice" because I was safe. All those years of tip toeing around land mines has made me an expert of "not being offensive". Friends came easy, well "friends" as in "Hi Hello" friends, But it was fine. No one needs a ton of close friends, I had enough and had no reason to complain of the shortage. It felt good to walk around campus to say hi and chat (as in genuinely chat) to someone about something. These friendships were safe enough and some of them blossomed into relationships I treasure to this very day.

But did I really change? Not really, as the people I met matured around me, "nice" people were nice to have... safe and harmless. Ironically, I was safe and harmless because of my distrust, or maybe even fear of people. My radar chart did a full 180 on me, but I liked it... and I didn't want that to change...



This post is long enough already... it's been sitting in my drafts for months... so I think I should end it here and post again later as I look back at my life to try to understand my radar chart and the path of what kind of person it is leading me to become...

Here are some of the BIG CHOICES IN MY LIFE that I should think about in future, I'll write about them when I have the time...

NICE or NOT
FIRST JOB
NB or LOY

MBA or NOT

STAY or GO
FRIEND or FOE