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

I'm Still at Work!

Working late in the office is becoming more and more common lately... I really dont like it.

There was an article i read not long ago about some old marketing guru that passed away... his last words were about how people in his industry and how they bragged about how much time they spent at work... the family dinners missed, recitals of sons' and daughters' forgotten... how people sacrificed so much to make the deadline of a 30 second commercial or product launch. 

"it's not worth it" he said.

It's so hard to believe that... but its true... if you read the article, it makes sense... you can see how single minded these people were... spending 24 hours at the office to churn out business success while sacrificing everything in life... but when you're at work, working for a deadline or target... one can't help but dump your time  there... Drop work once the clock strikes 7PM; Easier said than done...

it's 11:11 PM on a Monday as i write this... i should go home

It's been a while

I treat this blog as a journal. It's a way for me to look back on my past self. To see what I was going through and how I felt about things. I could see how excited I was in some posts and how sad I was in others. I also used to talk in a very weird way on the Internet. I had this very cringeworthy way of writing... Like some kind of kid who just got a hold of Friendster. It's too embarrassing to describe it here, but you're free to dig through the archives of you wanna hurl from pre-jeje blogging.

How are things now?

My first semester is over. I'm now in my second. Taking a lighter schedule now. Though like before, there isn't as much impact to my MBA classes as I'd hope. I think I have to devote more of my very little time to this or it will all be for naught. I can start by being friendlier with my classmates I guess, I should start by talking to them more. My groups this sem aren't as "cohesive" or "stimulating" as the last semester's. maybe it's the mix of people, the topic or the sched... I dunno. I have to try to get more out of my classes and classmates.

Christmas went by quickly and quietly. It's sad that this holiday lost its magic so many years ago... Maybe it's the absence of a solid Christmas vacation or the fact that its getting harder to get friends together. These supposedly bright times aren't as bright anymore and they seem more like social and religious obligation than anything else... I think I'm a Scrooge.

I'm already trying to change my lifestyle bit by bit to curb my rapid weight gain. Already have a gym membership as Gold's Gym. I try to go twice a week. One workout session/treadmill day and one yoga day every Wednesday. Admittedly, I sweat more in yoga than doing the treadmill and chest press machines. Maybe I should try that cycling class on Tuesday nights... As for my diet, I'm ditching breakfast meats and garlic rice for wheat bread, tuna and bran flakes in milk. Better those than all the canned goods I used to eat every morning. I have a friend bring me red rice meals for lunch (for a small fee). I also don't eat dinner some nights. I only really eat a lot on week ends, but even then, I try to share my meal instead of soloing so that I can control my portions. Eating healthy isn't so bad if it all boils down to foods like these. It's just the availability that's the problem. The grocery list at the house has to change or I maybe should just buy my own food.

More stuff at work with more responsibility, friction, clashes and stress. It's a good thing in a way, just a struggles that's all. I still don't have any great victories under my belt yet. And this new responsibility is an even bigger albeit more difficult battle to win. I'm starved for any significant result from my work, for any positive impact on the business. It's a draining thought that visits me every day.

Google opened a Manila office earlier this month. No interesting job openings though. I find myself wondering a lot about what my next job will be like. I'm not resigning anytime soon, but I'm pretty sure my job now isn't the last job I'll be having a. Will I go tech? Food? FMCG? It's hard to think how I'll find new work, apply, get in and learn a whole new business. I don't know how fast and how well I'd adjust to different inustrt.

Those are my major concerns right now as I continue to push through life.

Til the next update then

Still tired... And overweight

I'm still inexplicably exhausted every morning when I wake up.

There are fewer idle moments. Moments I used to hate but now I crave.

I have just accepted the fact that I am overweight. I'm getting too fat too fast. Now what am I to do?

Eating has become more than just a necessity for me, it's a pastime, a celebration, a way to break the stress.

The unrelenting forward momentum of work, school and life always push me to the next meal. Eating is the like an aspirin to a headache. It relieves the discomfort, but the source is undeniably still there.

Life isn't slowing down. In my efforts to be "competitive" and yet still enjoy life, I've pushed and strained myself to my limits... That's when I eat.

Lunch break and merienda are welcome events that "pause" the work tasks of the day and dinner time is the climax.

The thing about dinner time is that's the meal where there is no time limit. It's not like breakfast where I'd be in such a hurry to get to work, or lunch where I have to eat in an hour and a half or less. Dinner time at the end of the day has no succeeding event save for sleep. I take my time and indulge in the home cooked meal before me. That's where I gain the most weight: eating 'till I'm about to burst then going straight to sleep.

I don't set aside time to exercise regularly anymore. Going home late from work discourages any sort of activity at night. The weeknight jogs I used to take are now a thing of a past as staying in the office way past 7 has become the norm... No one is forcing me to stay most of those times. I guess I have to learn when to stop working, to stop pushing myself to do more at work.

I have to stop this weight gain and get some more exercise. The workout might help with my constant tiredness too. So here's what I'll try to start doing.

1. Go home early. If its past 7, it can wait 'till tomorrow.

2. Eat heavy breakfasts and light dinners. At least on weekdays. Saturday and Sunday are cheat days.

3. Exercise! Simple exercises in the morning and ab ripper few times a week. Jog once in a while and contemplate getting a gym membership.

4. Watch what I eat. Less carbs, sugars and deep fried food, more vegetables, fish and lean meats

5. Sleep early. Never stay up past 12 (except for Saturday nights!)

I should print out this list and hang it somewhere. I think I have to remind myself of this.

Going to try eating fresh lumpia for lunch alternating with "Che Che" food and baon and let's see where it goes. That's the easiest thing to start with.

Already squeezed in an an ripper routine tonight, I'll try another one after tomorrow.

And now it's late, so I should sleep. Only had one serving of dinner at 7 and I've been holding myself back from eating the entire night! This is the hardest thing to do on the entire list!

Lord grant me strength! Operation diet!

Very Tired

I'm always very tired lately.

There's always a lot of things to do and a lot of things I want to do... But there isn't enough time anymore.

I want time to myself, time to do nothing at all... But that would be irresponsible... It's either I'm spreading myself out too thin or I'm not that great at life. Or this could be a health concern, I don't really know.

Work is getting more demanding. That's a good thing actually.

But school is just becoming tedious, I'm starting to remember how much I hated school back in college. I guess I just don't find it as exciting or as meaningful... Yet. And I guess that's what makes it so tiring. I spend the good half of my Saturday at school, effectively forfeiting my weekend. The only thing I get to do is eat dinner.

I really have to lighten my schedule next semester.

My legs are always aching and my head gets really heavy sometimes. But the worst feeling I get is that I'm always hungry.

At church last Sunday, the reading mentioned something like " if your hand causes you to sin, then you must cut off your hand...".

Maybe I should cut back on something?

Abandoning the Social Networking Ship

Multiply finally released my content. 

I'm downloading all my photos as I type this entry and I just finished exporting my blog posts to this new blogger site. I'm actually thinking of re-posting some of my older photos on facebook... just to remind people of how carefree things once were.

Feels weird exporting everything and then importing them again somewhere else. Its like getting on a lifeboat and rowing away while looking back at a perfectly good ship in calm waters. Pointless and "necessary" at the same time. Pointless because multiply isn't really sinking that fast, the captain just drilled a hole in the hull; Necessary because I *have* to make sure I preserve everything. The previous generation had scrap books... I have multiply.

Kinda makes me wonder when and how facebook will face the same fate.

Why would facebook die? hmmmmm....

1. a new layout so "radical" it would make timeline look as good as the original FB profile. It would be soooo bad that people would just jump the boat and get on twitter, pinterest or even *gasp* tumblr

2. hack of the century. passwords, photos, personal info... ALL of it hacked, bastardized, deleted and scattered across the web. The combined complaining power of the world's facebook populace would spawn  a GLOBAL court hearing : The people of Planet earth vs Facebook

3. It just stops working and no one knows how to fix it. The ghost of Steve Jobs rumored to be seen in fb data centers around the world.

4. Facebook data grows so fast that it outpaces the production of digital storage. People will start getting "failed" messages on every status update, like and poke to the point that the data centers around the world just explode. Afterwards, people step out of their houses for the first time in decades.

5. Facebook decides that other Social Network sites are becoming more popular due to focused and/or niche services. They then decide to go a) SEARCH ENGINE b) ONLINE PHONEBOOK/DIRECTORY c) WEB HOSTING d) PROFESSIONAL NETWORK ala Linked in e) ADULT DATING SITE

6. Zuckerberg retires early, he makes so much money that he realizes he can just quit now and live with all the earnings he got. Company culture then spirals out of control as he is soon followed by senior employees leaving facebook to be run by a bunch of interns resulting in either one (or all) of the above

Would they let you back it up?

1. probably with some kinda cool shit like XMLAsdvha69 or something. you can even export to friendster, reddit and 9gag

2. Just for $199.68, you can buy a facebook tablet that has ALL of the recoverable data from your account. Its basically just a tablet that shows your timeline and you can click the stuff on it. Its waterproof, dirt proof and solar powered. It can act as your digital tombstone for when you finally log out from the world.

3. ... or maybe they'll take all your data and sell it to some stalkers, pedophiles, perverts and telemarketing companies to pay off for whatever debt they accumulated and to pay for zuckerberg jr's college fund.

I should really be sleeping now, i've got work tomorrow and midterms on saturday. LOL

hello first Blogger Blog post! hope you dont leave me too soon! lololol!

Farewell multiply

I can't sleep, it's always difficult to sleep every Sunday night. I'm in bed now, typing on my phone while I think about what's going to happen to multiply.

I never thought multiply would take down the social side of their site. It was the thing that built up it's popularity: virtually unlimited photo sharing. It was a big deal back then, point and shoot digi cams were becoming cheaper and people took literally hundreds of photos at parties. Multiply was the best way to share those photos and "extend" the experience with comments and replies. Facebook limited photo albums to 50 at a time back then, that was something multiply had an edge on. Multiply even had "faceboxes": the precursor to facebook photo tags. You could box the face of yoir friends in photos not unlike facebook tags today. It just never really caught on back then, unlike the way tags are done now

Then it didn't innovate much from there.

There were new "shareable" media things. Like links, blogs and videos. Then you could share audio. I remember a time you could download songs from multiply, people would rip their CDs and post their favourite songs. Then it became an illegal way to download music. Some copyright dodging later, multiply made it so you could not upload certain types of audio files.

After photo sharing. There was the market. People started selling on multiply, using photo albums to display their goods. Multiply just formalized it with the marketplace we have today by organizing vendors, certifying some, improving fulfillment etc. But it's all just "cosmetic" for me, its the users that made that. Not multiply.

Then there's multiply premium which was an early form of a cloud service. It allowed users to save and download High res photos. You had to pay extra though. I don know the exact price, but it was fairly affordable as a lot of people subscribed. I'm not a fan of the "freemium" model. With people as price conscious as Filipinos, most of them will abuse whatever they can get for free

Now it's all going to be gone soon. Memories from late highschool to early college are going to be taken offline. What about all those fun conversations with my friends? How about my photos and blog posts? It'll all be gone. It just saddens me.

I hardly ever log in to multiply nowadays. In the end, it's not personal preference that drives people to a social networking site, it's popularity. The more of your friends are on it, the more likely you'll go there.

Facebook now owns the "general" SNS pie with twitter a close second while niche sites like instagram and pinterest (even friendster) try their best to find their place in the ecosystem. Multiply is just commiting social suicide ( no pun intended)

Multiply is my scrapbook of my teenage years. It's also a place where I write to let go of my feelings and inner conflicts. With multiply killing the social side of their business. Where will I write?

I hope they make a way for me to export my content to a blogspot or something.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'll miss multiply. It's a reminder of the joys of simpler times and an online haven I retreat to. I just wish multiply would have done something to try to revive it instead of going all "marketplace" on me. There aren't enough people like me left I guess.

I'll miss you multiply, I hoped youd be there forever. But we cant have everything, right? Thank you for all the joy and relief you've give me in the past 6 years. I'll always remember you