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Been wanting to write but whenever I come to my account, I suddenly feel depressed with all the unpublished and unfinished entries I've written over the years. And it also tires me to think that I have to double check everything before publishing just so that I wouldn't be repeating entries- something I'm too lazy to do right now so I guess cleaning out the "draft" box would have to wait.

I'm still working on the Bonifacio Graphic Novel. I don't know if I'll be done with it this year as I would have hoped but I'll try my best to have some kind of tangible output before the year is over. In many ways, it's almost as if I have no choice in the matter.  By that I mean this thing I have with this story is an affliction. I'll elaborate on that on another day perhaps.

This is probably the year that I would earn the least amount of cash and have the least amount of days spent in Cebu (my birthplace). It's weird but I always had this strange feeling that I "regenerate" whenever I go back home. Manila life is quite different as to how I grew up and it takes a lot out of you. It's not like I don't miss family, It's just that the things you miss can't be restored and it's harder when you are around the things you miss when they aren't the things you miss anymore -if that makes any sense. I guess it's also cos I'm a bit different now. My beliefs and vocation are quite difficult to blend with the circumstances that are there right now. Things have certainly changed for that little kid who rode his bike on weekends dreaming of soccer-filled weekdays, looking for adventures that dealt with supervillains. Compared to dealing with the intangible tangled dilemmas of adulthood, supervillains would have been a walk in the park.

I've been thinking of letting go of a few things. Life is weird like that. It's not like you have much to begin with, but to change you have to give up things, hopefully to make room for better things...or most probably just end up just making more room for even worse things.

Thank God for God.


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"The worst solitude is to be destitute of sincere friendship."  -Francis Bacon

Doubting the Map

I thought I would be more free. But I feel I am not. It might be poor judgement to let feelings be the meter of progress but I am just human.

I encountered a story where a former jock eventually grew up to be angry at his father for making him feel like he was better and more "special" than everyone else. To him, it would have been better to have not been fed the notion of his supposed superiority, then maybe he would have coped better with a world that does actually give any hand outs.

It is a hard place to put your identity with God. It just seems so abstract. Church folk do not help with their words so much, sometimes it is all just semantics and empty recycled babble-forgive me for thinking so. I feel like one standing on Sand though I know I am on the Rock of Jesus. I just wished I wasn't so convoluted and complicated these days- looking here, going there, seeing this, thinking that.

But I still have hope I should remember. "I may not be where I want to be but at least I'm not where I used to be."

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“Hope is both the earliest and the most indispensable virtue inherent in the state of being alive. If life is to be sustained hope must remain, even where confidence is wounded, trust impaired.” -Erik Erikson

Superior Pursuits

One cannot find all the answers to all the questions in a lifetime. God after all is infinite, we cannot contain Him as much as we try. But there's a joy and adventure to that, I can have a question now and go out find the answers. And as soon as that's done, rest assured there will be more questions to ask.

It's always something new, something bigger- that's what growth is. Looking for God is growth. To surrender to a life of sin (apart from God) is not quite as fulfilling. The spectrum of discoveries are repetitive and often times dulling. What's more is that to get to the 'high' you want, you need larger doses of that thing further on just to get the same effect. It's a downward defeating spiral and not at all the freedom it claims to be.

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“Perhaps the biggest tragedy of our lives is that freedom is possible, yet we can pass our years trapped in the same old patterns.” -Tara Brach