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4 March 2022

5:02pm
Better the devil I know, than the devil I don't. When did I get this cynical?

Just read on muscle testing, that dubious realm of applied kinesiology. Decided it fit what I wanted, to have this flow where I let my gut and body decide what I should do next. They've badly been put behind when it comes to this, they're rebelling.

9 March 2022

Today's reading is Psalm 93. It brings together my favorites. God and the sea. He is mighty and more consistent than waves crashing the shore. God is from all eternity; His standards remain the same for endless days. Not only is God powerful beyond the seas, He is constant despite time.

My God is beyond time. He prevails against it——not weary, worn, decaying or rotting. He commands it, weilding it perfect so that everything that appears wild and disorderly cannot be exempt from His gentle grace and that what comes to be happens in His time. His purposes may be unclear to me, but it is His intent that provides purpose so that what transpires has meaning instead of happenstance or randomness.

12 March 2022

Sometimes I am not sure if I have agency over my life. Remember how I realized that it's extraneous for the soldiers to mock Jesus, how it's luxuriously cruel but it still happened? Or how pharoah, whoever that pharaoh was (Ramses?) when Moses was alive was bent on keeping the Israelites when he was a leader acting in his sincere dignity?

It is you, but not you. You could make plans but God still determines how it would pan out.

Do I trust Him to make the best out of my life that appears to mean nothing and lead to nothing? The good fight was won. So I should be calm.

Left and right things are changing. I feel the pressure to not be alone. I feel the pressure to not choose wrongly because of the heartache and the trapped state of those who have married. I know better than anyone else my weaknesses that I capitalize on when I'm alone. I already am shamed for wanting something good and perfect for myself when I am not good and perfect for anyone. I am not consistent, persistent, diligent, responsible, brave or passionate enough for myself and I am expected to be for another because I expect and desire for another to be so to me.

It is more than possible to rise above the hurdles. To commit to a person though I am faulty, though that person is. Or isn't. But when I, by default, am not willfull, surrendering my fate to happenstance, how could I will to make it work? When am I to pursue my will and when should I let God's will be?

Where is the pride of your nationality now?

3 March 2022

Considering I was frothing at the mouth on the Ukraine debacle, I should write about it. I definitely am an insular creature, always relating occurences to my inchoate grasp of the world.

Much as I despaired the war on Syria, I related better with Kyiv's battle. Moreso after finishing Netflix's Winter on Fire. It was a civil war reminiscent of Les Miserables where they made ramparts from unplaned wood pillars and barbed wire and was rudiculously rebellious to the point of wearing metal colanders and pans on their heads.

I could relate because just recently, we commemorated the only real people power revolution my country had. That revolution against the 20-year Marcos regime that went on for 3 days. And, was purported to be among events orchestrated by more powerful nations as an experiment; an aftermath of the cold war in their incessant desire for world domination, no matter how subtle or shadowed.

Ukraine's revolution, if that documentary had not completely duped me, was really a presentation of united people of different backgrounds - in the face of interracial crime and hate - embracing their belonging to a place and coexisting as its citizens. Every last bit of them appeared heroic despite their rather easily offended sensibilities with statements, "No mother would raise their child to be like that" (I surmised that vein of thought does not apply to the Taliban whose young militia had their minds exonerating all acts to achieve their goals). Their rallyists were orderly despite the absence of ranks and decisions were not on the shoulders of the few prominent individuals but was open to contention from any member of the group——they were all under equal risks of harm. Not that our people power protesters did not risk their lives, but the number of Ukrainians and their diligence to stand in cold weather together and to go against snipers with plywood shields was memorable. Even their chanting as one was imposing.

I barely see protests go that way; the numbers alone, not to mention how unitedly outspoken they were. When protests become rife with tension, protesters become quiet. They do not call out against the berkut equivalents to go home to their families, to honor their parents or cherish their children. They do not voice their displeasure as one by repeating "Shame!" over and over. When guns are raised against them, protesters disperse and run for cover, not look around for weapons and attack as a unit using stones or raise thin boards as shields. Protesters do not remain as a mobilized unit  once leveled with guns. Protesters I am familiar with find safety in numbers and back away in the face of violence, not stand their ground even if they are alone in facing imminent death from and before their countrymen.

That must not be unusual for a nation, where 3 decades after, is on the throes  of electing as supreme leader the progeny of a dictator our ancestors deposed. Must be that having to read Lualhati Bautista's Dekada '70 nor watching Vilma Santos and Christopher de Leon and Piolo Pascual enact a movie rendition of how inhumane and atrocious citizens were treated under the Marcos administration, as citizens constantly living under mortal peril should the slightest shroud of censure slip their shoulders——neither was enough to instill the trauma to the collective subconcious of the Filipino people. It's pathetic. Where is the Filipino pride that brings a stillness on Pacquiao's bouts, that bated breath on pageant coronation nights or that bragging when personalities of Filipino descent make it as social media stars or talent discovery show-stoppers?