Of Individualism

If there are a million people saying blood is blue and there is only one person that says it is red, does that make him wrong and the rest correct? Would you stop breathing just because people say that the air is dirty and it would kill you? What are they breathing in, in the first place? Water? Would you be afraid to travel by sea if people tell you the world is flat and you would fall off the edge if you wander too far? If i cut myself, who bleeds? Is it proper to alter your moral judgement just to accomodate ignorance, double standards and most people's warped sense of right and wrong?

There was once a farmer and his son who were walking home from the field alongside their trusty carabao. On the way, they heard some people saying, "Look at that farmer letting his poor son walk with him when he can let him ride the carabao." The farmer looked at his son and said, "They're right." So he let his son ride the animal. Some distance away, they heard another group of people saying, "Look at that ungrateful son riding the carabao while his old father is walking. Has he no respect for elders?" The son immediately got off the carabao and allowed his father to be the one to ride the beast. A few meters ahead, a number of people saw them and said, "Look at those two idiots taking turns riding the carabao when they can both ride it." Hearing this, the farmer and his son both got atop the carabao and continued home, now riding the beast. A short distance away from their own house, they passed another group of people saying, "Look at those two ingrates riding the carabao after they had worked it on the field all day! Have they no pity for the poor animal?" The farmer and his son looked at each other and in exasperation, carried the carabao through the remainder of the way.

Who is foolish?

Everyone is gifted with intellect, judgement and a conscience. Each of these is not in perfect proportion with the others but each person definitely possessing all three. Thus, everyone is capable of making their own decisions for themselves. They do not need others to do it for them. If you get burned, learn from it. Seek advise for sometime, but not always. Follow some advise you are given, but not all of it. Life is a lesson. We can't have others learn it for us. Others can show us the way, provide guidance, offer some help, but it is we who would walk it, we who would live it.

It is true that people are social beings by nature. Man is inevitably connected, one way or another, to others. From the moment we are concieved from the intimate union of our parents, to the time the doctor pulls us out of the womb, to the time we encounter our first childhood friends and sweethearts, to the fulfillment and disillusionment of our dreams, to, even, the silent mourners by our deathbeds, we are social. As such, our actions have social repurcussions. Society judges our actions by the measure provided by norms, mores and values laid down by eons of experience and co-existence. There are instances that written laws are not needed to determine the validity of certain actions. This is a generally accepted fact in human society. It is one of the basic foundations of sociological structure.

Yet, this is not absolute.

Man has a weakness. He is not infallible. No amount of experience, technology, knowledge and power can change the fact that man is not, by any stretch, perfect. Thus, his standards also are, by no means, absolute. Fact is, that all accepted norms of behavior started out as an extraordinary act. History teaches us that not because we don't understand something, makes it evil, not because we can't do something, makes it impossible, not because people say something is wrong, makes it so.

Yes, man is social. But he is also an individual. Truth of the matter is that the individuality of man defines the quality of the social structure. the diversity of human beliefs and motivations, purifies and characterizes any given society.

What is the point, then?

One can not live his life in the perpetual shadow of another's existence and beliefs, much less the society's. He must live out his life as an individual in an interconnected society. He must follow societal rules, only as far as his own individuality dictates. He must never compromise his own standing on issues that would nullify the veracity of his own intellect, judgement and conscience. Bandwagonism, gossip, malicious intrigue and singularism are the enemies of individualism and, in effect, of defined social structure.

Let a man live his life. Help him if you may. Guide him if you can. Offer advise if you have it. But let him live his own life. If he gets burned, let him, and hope that his scars would remind him of the lesson he should have learned. This is not abandonment or exercised apathy. This is the essence of applied democracy. In doing so, not only are you keeping yourself in your proper place as a peer, but you are also taking part in the process of strengthening his character, like gold tested and purified in fire. On the other hand, never compromise what you believe in to be true, just to give way for meddlers. Stand for what you believe is true, and dear and pure. If you fall, accept it, learn from it and stand and move on. Never let your individuality be unnecessarily clouded by false exhortations of what is socially acceptable, and morally upright. Half of the people saying this don't even know what those terms truly mean.

We all live interconnectedly in this world, but our interconnection ends where another persons right to live his own life, begins. After all, you wouldn't want others to tell you how to live your own life, nor would you want to be the singular authority on how people should live their lives, right?

Sad Song

Ah, music floats like leaves in a puddle. Rippling the tears from an unsolved riddle...

IF by Rudyard Kipling

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,'
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

DUST 1.2.3

Man marches for victory. His mind justifies war. Payback must come, thus, leave him back. Tests loom. Cares rise. Be unswayed.

Intelligence

The biggest mistake that an intelligent person can make is the hasty assumption that he is better than the person next to him.

Shopping and Finding the One

This is the way I shop. I go to the store (mall, shop, whatever). I pick-up the item I want. I take it to the cashier and I pay for it. The item is packed and I take it home. Straight home. I don't hang around the shops or the stores after buying something, lest I find something that looks better and/or costs less than what I have thus, ruining the entire "shopping experience". Sometimes, I can't help but notice another item that looks better than what I just bought. If this happens, I don't pay attention to it and I just ignore it. After all, there would always be something that would seem to look better than what I have. There's no point in looking for the best because the best is, at best, relative. I was once asked, "How do you know when you've finally found the one?" The answer is you wont. Hearing bells ring or hearing music or feeling like the heavens opened or feeling touched by an angel or any of that crap is not true. You'll never know when you've finally found the "one". What you'll feel is that you are in love with a person and that's it. "If that's the case then, how do you know when it's already the right time to tie the knot?" To answer this, ask yourself, what if your partner, right after marriage, gets in an accident that leaves him paralyzed and a vegetable. Would you be willing to take care of him day after day after day for the rest of your life? That includes cleaning him up when he soils himself, bathing him, making sure he's comfortable and everything - everyday - regardless whether your partner would do it for you had the situation been reversed. Sounds cynical. Maybe. But then, that's what marriage is. That's precisely the reason why you promise to love each other "for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do you part". If you can answer it with an honest "yes" without hesitation, then, you're ready. Otherwise, you're not. "What if you did tie the knot, and then somewhere along the road you simply realized that you were not meant for each other and/or you met the person who was meant for you?" First of all, if you really believe in the myth of predestination, then, there's no doubt that you will meet the one "destined" for you and there's no point in discussing this further. The mere fact that you are entertaining the possibility of making a mistake in making the decision already, in itself, denies the truth of predestination (which, in case you hadn't noticed, comes from the word destiny - an event or a course of events that will inevitably happen in the future. The operative word being "inevitable") If you contend that you simply realized that you were not meant for each other, then you (or your partner) might not have answered the "paralyzed-for-life" question honestly. This is where my shopping practice comes in. Once you've bought what you want, that is - chose to tie the knot with someone, don't linger on the store. Go home and enjoy what you bought. Always remember why you fell in love with her/him in the first place and relive it everyday. If you happen to "accidentally" see something that you think is better than the one you bought, ignore it. The more you expose yourself to questions about the wisdom of your choice, the more confused you will be. Most of the time, the things that we think make another thing (or someone else, for that matter) better than what we already have is just illusory. You're just being blinded, distracted and sidetracked by an imagined flaw of that which you already have. Besides, if you go for the new one, what assurance do you have that this entire cycle wont happen again? And if it did, what will you do then? Drop what you have and pick up what's new? How many times would you do it? Will you ever be content? No matter what you do and no matter how careful you are, you really can't have a contingency plan for everything. You can't prepare for everything. You can't have the perfect criteria for all your choices, be it a shopping item or the person you'll spend your entire life with. There's always something or someone better than that which we already have. I say it again, there's no point in looking for the best because the best is, at best, relative. The secret is to learn how to be content and to learn how to always go back to our original reasons for doing things. Just be honest - most of all, to yourself and you'll see what contentment is. After all, you wouldn't want to be the object of the same confused thoughts, right? Why demand perfection when you're not perfect yourself? Nothing is perfect. All we can do is to give our best and expect nothing in return. Sounds martyr-like. Not at all. It's called "living life at the best that you could".

Folly

It's amazing (and saddening) how our attention can sometimes be caught and held by the strange, the odd, the unusual, the vain and the vacuous, but readily shuns away the natural, the logical, the normal, the truthful and the virtuous. Our interest is roused by gossip and fiction but it is piqued by logic and fact. We dismiss the arcane and readily embrace the inane.

Technology was meant to make life easier and work lighter. That was, practically, what Prometheus wanted when he stole fire from the gods and gave it to men. In ancient Greece, technology was employed in farming and industry so that there would be more time spent in philosophy and in other activities that required the use of the creative and logical mind. They knew that the biological is second only and even is subservient to the philosophical, and that the purpose of sensory perception is not just pleasure but, ultimately, understanding and enlightenment. Let the average modern person choose between watching a movie and reading a book of the same story and he will readily choose to watch a movie.

At this age, man has been greatly reduced to shallowness and superficiality disguised in the seemingly labyrinthine and complex world of technology. Technology is not evil. But humans have greatly misplaced it in the heirarchy of what is true and pure. Civilization, as we describe it, has advanced - or has it? What is the single most profound philosophy of our age? Is there? If we truly have advanced, there should be more people engaged in the quest of further unlocking truths and realities of the world and existence. Or is everyone busy trying to beat each other in the development of the next generation of supercomputers, of which more than half of the world would not even see, much less understand?

There is a reason why humans, of all creation, have been granted lordship and domain over the world. It is because we are able to think. We are capable of logical and coherent thought. When was the last time that we truly used that? No matter how profound and precious a gift is, if unused, its essence diminishes. Or are we expecting enlightenment to jump right at us from our computer screens?

Theory on Human Perfection

"Perfection lies in being one with nature. Since man is, by nature, imperfect, his perfection then lies in his imperfection."

Love's Perfection

"The best thing about loving and being hurt is that you get to know what true love really is. For as gold is tested in fire, and so will love be perfected in pain."
Marvin Jay M. Torres

Attitude

Attitude affects learning as much as intelligence does. Those who are willing to learn will learn and those who think they know enough are doomed to mediocrity.