We went to the Zoo a little over two weeks ago and came upon a young boy who was “losing his breakfast” while crouching over a bush by the hyena exhibit. I too tend to have this reaction to hyenas, but it was clear to me that this little guy was suffering from a common malady we see more than once a season here in Colorado: the stomach flu. I was surprised when we crossed paths with the same little boy checking out the gorillas over an hour later, and not so surprised when three days later, my son and I came down with a mysterious stomach virus similar to the exhibit we had witnessed near those mocking, laughing non-dogs.

None of this is bothersome or that off base for a family with three little ones who, especially when in public places, like to put their mouths all over things. While at Disney World a couple of years ago (waiting to ride the Flying Dumbos), I turned my back for a split second only to return my eyes to a two-and-a-half year old boy licking the chain that divided the mile-long line ahead of and behind us. That boy was my son, and his tongue was roaming over the world of hands before him like it was a strawberry slurpee soothing his rabid thirst in the triple digit temperatures we were blessed to have timed so nicely with our visit. I have witnessed similar acts of poor judgment in my youngest son, who seems to like the taste of shopping cart handles chased only by sips from the stagnant, stale water of random puddles (very hyena-esque, if you ask me).

Sickness is something you get used to and expect when you are a mother of school-age kids—except for when your pregnant sister, her toddler son and her husband come to visit for Easter weekend.

As one might have foreseen, when my sister and her family visited they spent the majority of Easter day benefiting from the gift of a little boy at the Zoo whose generosity in paying it forward knew no bounds. But what can anyone do? As I am human and make many bad judgment calls in my own life, my first reaction was to think about how the parents of that little boy should have brought him home. Then our Easter Sunday wouldn’t have been ruined. As I am inclined to do with many things over which I have no control, I looked for someone to blame.

But as I sat there on the couch, on the eve of my daughter’s sixth birthday—the lightning illuminating my solace in our living room and the crisp crack of thunder overhead, I considered the things I would want her to learn and practice this year’s birthday and beyond. The very first thing I want her to see is that we are all connected. As much as I want to find someone to blame for my own misfortune (most of the time for things on a much larger scale than a simple spring stomach bug), that little boy and his family are no more to blame for passing along germs that someone gave them, than my family is for passing along the Easter illness to my sister’s family. The choices we make in life have the power to continuously and eternally affect those around us. Not to mention that–the way one handles circumstances over which he or she has no control, is the true measure of a person.

Secondly, what good could possibly come from my judgment? I would like my daughter to learn what Atticus Finch so eloquently suggested his children take into account: You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it…Being given the gift of reason doesn’t mean we shouldn’t act like zoo animals when it comes to judgment. How often, each and every day, do we rush to assumptions about and judgment of those around us? Parenting techniques, color of skin, cars, clothing, someone else’s choices, behavior? Hi, my name is Karen, and I can be very judgmental. The best gift I can give to my daughter as she starts the next year of life is the gift of a home without judgment. I would like my daughter to steer away from joining this inclusive club that divides not only families, but groups of people everywhere.

I would like my daughter to continue to be a person who can sleep well at night (no matter the volume of storm) because she is okay with the choices she has made throughout the day. I would like to see this new place of non-judgment in our little bubble spread faster than any stomach virus, and I would like to know that my daughter has learned about her role in receiving, carrying, and passing along misfortune.

I would like to live in a world where her birthday wishes continue to be so simple.

I thank the boy at the Zoo for allowing this message of Springtime to be so clear.

This casual glancing is something we have become so accustomed to that we apply it to everything — that is, to people as well. To a certain extent, looking is more pleasant than seeing as it requires much less effort on our part. We are not called upon to imagine or conjecture when we merely look. It would be rather akin to reading the summary of a book instead of reading the book itself. A few details of what we look at may be so obvious to the eyes that one cannot help but notice them; but, anything that isn’t plainly obvious eludes us.

Even life itself is something that we oftentimes only see the appearance of. Some of us look at our lives with such a casual glance that only that which we cannot avoid noticing is a reality to us. Yet sadly, that which one blatantly acknowledges is often that which is least significant. We speak of looking within to understand ourselves, but what good is merely looking if we fail to see?

The world encourages us to race through life rather than savoring every moment. When we do take time for being instead of merely doing, others may well regard us as lazy. After all, what could be more slothful than doing absolutely nothing at all? Isn’t activity supposed to be at the core of living? Isn’t our life supposed to be mapped out, planned, managed as one might manage a corporation? Staying busy is what we must do. We must run to and fro all the time, remaining in constant motion. Otherwise we might have time to see ourselves, our lives, and the world around us. We might become aware of the dissatisfaction within us. And how would we cope with it once we came face to face with it?

We have been taught that nothing can cure our dissatisfaction inside. Thus, to stay consciously blind to it seems to be the only reasonable alternative. But what does blindness give us? A temporary escape from ourselves and life? Perhaps, some of us lack the courage to confront things as we might have to if we truly saw them as they are. Maybe our illusions seem to be the only light in the darkness of our discontent. But if this light remains intangible, of what use is it?

Illusions may give us comfort but they will never give us truth. In fact, more often than not, they cast a  veil over the truth. And when the veil is removed — not by us but by life — we feel as if part of us has been destroyed. But has it?  If we were able to overcome the fear and the need for security that led us to create the illusions in the first place, would we not finally be able to see not only ourselves but everyone and everything else as well?

Those of us who continue to look without seeing are blind. But it is we who have blinded ourselves. Even if an outside force leads us to the point where we can merely glance at things, we are still the only ones who can alter this. For we are the only ones who have our particular set of eyes through which we can see the amazing world around us — if, that is, we choose to.

~Sascha

This essay and all written material at My Odyssey is written by Sascha Norris. (C) Copyright 2012 by Sascha Norris. All Rights Reserved.

We are the first to agree with the popular adage that everything in life is a choice. But to consider love as a choice seems almost blasphemous. Is it not something sacred, something divinely inspired? Well yes, it can indeed be divinely inspired, but it is the act of falling in love that we speak of when we talk of divine inspiration. Being in love is something entirely different. For to be in love implies a prolonged attachment to someone. However, the process of falling in love can end almost as soon as it began.

Where there is no recognized difference between falling in love and being in love, two people may believe that the lack of overwhelming passion and exuberance that was part of the former indicates that the latter is without depth or worth. Just as it is easy to mistake lust for love, it is also easy to mistake the process of falling out of love and into being in love with the end of love. At the same time, the process of falling in love can be mistaken for much more than it is. It can seem to be life-changing, but the alterations it brings into one’s life are transitory, at best. It reaches the heights of emotion with a rapidity that seems miraculous and makes one feel as if the world one lives in has come alive again.

In reality, a void within oneself has been filled — a loneliness and longing to escape one’s everyday existence into something magical, almost surreal. We imagine that the euphoria will last forever, and the person we love seems to be an angel or a dream sent down from heaven to fulfill our deepest needs. But another person cannot fulfill needs that are our own, and, in expecting them to do so, the process of falling in love will come to a halt, usually quite suddenly. Then, we will look around and ask ourselves, ‘What was I thinking?’

Yet if the process of falling in love makes a smooth transition into being in love, these doubts do not exist. For though being in love does not flow with the same fervor that falling in love does, it is the only experience through which a person can truly be transformed. But the state of  being in love takes time and patience to develop, and these are things that the world encourages us to forget. If we meet someone whom we think might be our ideal, we leap into the unknown, often falling in love in a very short time — a few days or even a few hours. In our minds this is real. Yet, alas, what we are in love with is not the ideal but only our image of the ideal.

How is this image created? By piecing together parts of the possible ideal that match up with our fantasies and disregarding those parts that don’t. We have created our beloved ourselves. He or she does not really exist. And although this discovery may happen gradually or quickly, when the realization comes about, we feel not only devastated but also betrayed. Instead of understanding that we betrayed ourselves by creating an illusion, we blame the other person for failing to be all that we hoped and imagined. As the process happens again and again, we begin to question love itself. If love exists, why doesn’t it ever seem to last? And why do people who have been married for two decades or more stay together when there no longer seems to be obvious passion or amorous excitement between them?

The answer is simple. We have confused the process of falling in love with being in love. We have confused feeling with an act of the will. We have deceived ourselves into imagining that the euphoria and bliss that falling in love brings must be present in every form of love.

~Sascha

This essay and all written material at My Odyssey is written by Sascha Norris. (C) Copyright 2012 by Sascha Norris. All Rights Reserved.

Those who seek something such as fame are really attempting to run from the loneliness in their own lives. They believe that accolades, success, and recognition will give them the approval that they are consciously or unconsciously withholding from themselves. But the attention and admiration of the multitude rarely present anything but momentary satisfaction. Why? Because down deep within ourselves we know that someone else’s opinion of us never changes what we think about ourselves.

If we but followed Socrates’s sage advice, “Know thyself,” instead of merely paying lip service to it, we would be on a journey of self-discovery instead of on an adventure of temporary pleasure and self-gratification. Perhaps, you say, it is impossible to ever completely know oneself. Well, even if it is, there is something admirable about the person who has the courage to begin this daunting quest for self-knowledge.

When we begin to see ourselves clearly, we see many truths that are painful to acknowledge. We may see that we have deceived ourselves for as long as we can remember — that the deceit we thought we have perceived in others has actually been self-deception instead. We may also see that the hurt and pain we have caused ourselves far exceeds any hurt or pain that others have caused.

Ah, how easy it is to find fault with other people! Yet, how difficult it is to acknowledge the ingrained flaws within ourselve.! For, we must completely destroy our self-pride if we are to see ourselves as we truly are. We must stop listening to the compliments, the flattery, and the praise of other people because their words, though they are kind and gratifying, will give us a false sense of self-confidence that has no genuine foundation beneath it.

If we feel proud of a false self, what does this tell us about who we are? How can we be so deceived as to believe what other people tell us about ourselves when their conception of us is completely different from our real selves? Do we imagine that believing the flattery and praise we hear in some way elevates us as human beings? Can we not see the folly of accepting this flattery? To even accept it as sincere is self-betrayal. Yet, who can blame us? Who wouldn’t like to hold on to an idealized conception of himself or herself?

The problem is, self-pride cancels out humility, thereby making it impossible to peer clearly into our soul. But if we are brave enough to choose to look within not only with honesty but also with a certain amount of ruthlessness, we will see that there is no reason for self-pride. At the same time, there is undoubtedly every reason for humility. After all, we are all guilty of the sins that we condemn in other people. Each one of us is capable of committing crimes that we judge as horrendous when someone else commits them. We look at another person’s life and imagine how much better we would have handled their opportunities, challenges, and circumstances than they have. But how do we know unless we are living in their shoes?

If we continue to run from our true selves, there will come a time when we are no longer capable of distinguishing between the person whom other people praise, flatter, and admire and the person we genuinely are. Ultimately, then, we will have given up any chance to be authentic. For, we will have deceived ourselves to the point where even we no longer know who we are.

~Sascha

This page and all written material at My Odyssey is written by Sascha Norris. (C) Copyright by Sascha Norris 2012. All Rights Reserved.

Desire, when understood for what it is, can serve as an impetus to achieve anything one wants–whether it be a specific accomplishment or series of accomplishments or merely the ability to survive and thrive in spite of obstacles and tribulation. Without desire, life loses its color for it is no longer energized by passion. Thus, it becomes a humdrum existence where each day is lived mechanically instead of enthusiastically. What is there to look forward to, to work towards, to pursue, if one ceases to desire anything? In many ways, a lack of desire demonstrates an indifference to life itself. And living indifferently is not really living–it is merely existing.

One problem with desire being so frequently associated with sex and lust is that many people are afraid to talk about it. Instead of giving us more freedom, our sexually “liberated” society has represssed our freedom. Now that sexual messages are found even when they’re not there, desire is viewed with suspicion. How is it that more freedom can make us less free? Could it be because no society or culture or outside power can give freedom to those who remain enslaved to themselves?

If only we could curb our instincts to pick everything apart . If only we could cease trying to find darkness where there is light and evil where there is good, perhaps we might began to see things more as they truly are. For if one is too intent upon finding something, one will discover it whether it is there . . . or not. But the discovery will only exist in one’s own individual perception.

Perhaps, we need to redefine desire. Maybe, if we viewed it as being completely separate from everything else, we would be able to use it constructively. If we could see that it can be used to bring about radical changes instead of merely to stimulate sexual appetites, we would cease to fear or repress it and would allow ourselves to nourish it.

~Sascha

This page and all written material at My Odyssey is written by Sascha Norris. (C) Copyright 2012 by Sascha Norris. All Rights Reserved.

Are we only to feel grief when we lose someone precious to us? Is grief reserved for the loss of a loved one? Or can we also grieve when we lose part of ourselves or when our most precious, cherished dreams have been shattered?

We are encouraged to believe that grief is not an everyday emotion. It is not something one feels in the gloom of life’s “little” tragedies. It is only something one can feel while in the midst of life’s enormous catastrophes. We are allowed to experience grief when someone close — a spouse, a family member, a pet — dies,  but not when we feel a dying of our innermost selves. Perhaps, if grief were a more acceptable emotion to feel outside of the death of someone or something we have loved, we would be better equipped to cope with it. Perhaps, if we allowed ourselves to mourn the loss of our former selves, we would be better able to accept the people we are right now. Is not becoming entwined to the past to the point where we cannot break free from it often a form of grief? And might not what feels like sadness, disappointment, or even bitterness at the way our lives have turned out thus far be a form of grief?

Of course, we already know that the world doesn’t want to see our tears. We are supposed to be sensitive enough to cry at the “right” moments (whatever these are — and, yes, generally they are chosen for us). But to weep when, to the outside world, we have no viable reason to do so, is unacceptable. If you’re alive and have your basic needs met, why should you grieve? You shouldn’t, of course. Rather, you should be grateful. Ah yes, forget about the beautiful, exhilarating dreams you waltzed to when you were a child. That was before you understood how the world works. To aspire towards being or having more than what has been allotted to you is mere foolishness. You must be satisfied to read about great men and women in biographies and history books. As for eternal, everlasting love, if you believe in that you must surely have read too many fairy tales when you were growing up.

Self-help gurus tell us that we have the power within ourselves to be whatever we want to be – that the “seeds of greatness” are within us. But, in the real world, life steps in and snatches anything we get that might seem “too good to be true,” as the saying goes. And since we are to focus on all of the blessings we have, acknowledging our grief over any lack that exists in our lives is, we are told, a form of ingratitude. Indeed, it is egregious of us to grieve for that we don’t have or what we failed to achieve when we have so much more to be thankful for than so many other people.

Sadly, though, telling those who are grieving that they must be grateful doesn’t seem to do an enormous amount of good. I know when I am grieving that someone reprimanding me for not being grateful enough doesn’t seem to help. At the same time, I find that in addition to grief I begin to blame myself for my lack of gratitude. Granted, the self-blame only makes the grief more intense, but to those who have so kindly pointed out my folly (i.e., ingratitude) I assure them that they have done their part.

The thing about grief — and those who have genuinely experienced it know this — is that there is no magical remedy for it. You can’t find pills of happiness somewhere or bottles filled with joy. And even if you could, who imagines that joy or happiness will eradicate grief? In many ways, one can experience joy and/or happiness at the same time as grief, for one can feel joy or happiness about one aspect of his life while simultaneously grieving for another part of his existence. Joy and happiness seem, to me, at least, to be far more ephemeral than grief. Joy flies on sparkling wings like a gigantic, bejeweled butterfly, and happiness beams down upon one like a dazzling but fleeting morning sun.

But what about grief? Grief neither flies on wings nor does it give forth light. Grief creates a dark tunnel inside the center of ourselves and burrows deeper and deeper until it strangles all other emotions with its tenacious grip. Grief is the weed that kills the most glorious flowers in the garden of our heart. And yet, its effect can never really be explained, can it? If we try to, we either sound ridiculous or, at the least, melodramatic. So, those of us who feel it often become quite reticent about it, using vague terms like ”dissatisfaction,” “sadness,” “despondency,” or “depression,” even though these words do not begin to define the essence of grief. If we are more honest about expressing our feelings, we may say that we are in “a state of despair.” But oft-times, the kinds of explanations that must be forthcoming when we make such a confession make it seem scarcely worth the trouble. And even though grief and despair may be close cousins, they are not the same thing. They may be garments fashioned from similar materials, but they are different.

So how, taking all this into consideration, are we expected to bear grief? Should we smother it with petty worries or suffocate it by staying busy? Should we stab grief in the heart by focusing on being grateful? Since grief cannot be killed, all of these so-called solutions are useless. What one can do, however, is allow oneself to experience grief — to even embrace grief with love rather than attempt to cast it aside with hate. For sorrows, like joys, are given to us for a reason, whether we fully comprehend that reason or not.

~Sascha

This page and all written material at My Odyssey is written by Sascha Norris. (C) Copyright 2012 by Sascha Norris. All Rights Reserved.

In a matter of months Brittany and I would step onto the Iowa State campus for the last time as students. We would soon cross the threshold from students to alumni. We were entering the grown up world, the world carrying far more responsibilities. The world where life goes by faster and faster and gets more and more complicated. We would enter the world painted with hues of gray instead of the black and white we thought about as little kids. We would soon be working a regular 40-hour week job as new engineers.

We wanted to get a head start on everything. We wanted to have a direction and an idea of what our new life would look like outside school. That’s why our dreams now dangled from the ceiling on colorful little sheets of paper.

When we are done we just kind of stare. It’s strange seeing your life spread out on the ceiling like stars in the sky. Pretty soon I hear a knock at the door and some of our engineering friends stroll in. They look curiously at all the post-its hanging like colorful cobwebs. To make any sense of the words they turn their heads this way and that.  They focus on each one, still confused.

Brittany explains we were putting our future lives on the ceiling on post-its or at least what we hope our future lives would be. Next thing I know we add red, orange, and yellow post-its to the ceiling in between the green and blue ones. The orange ones are for Alex, red ones for Logan, and yellow ones for Adam. Now we have a tapestry of dreams and lives and characters in our living room.

Every day I come downstairs and there is a reminder of what my life consists of and what I want in the future. Those colorful words tell a story just waiting to be realized. They hold hours of my Saturdays and Wednesdays and every other day in Seattle, my future home.

Like all other dreams these reminders need to be maintained. The adhesive on the back of the paper begins to give out. After a while our dreams, like with all dreams, start to sag. They are pulled down by the gravity of this world. They begin to loose grip and reality sets in. I put tape on one side of the post-its to keep them from drifting to the floor, but pretty soon the stickiness gives out and I have to tape the other side up too. Every week I look at the ceiling and tape my dreams up. Every week I try to keep them from falling from the heights I set them on. I try to keep them from landing on the floor so they won’t get trampled.

Those colorful pieces of paper with my dreams and my friends dreams etched on them still hold on for dear life. They are like road signs to keep drivers from getting lost. Without them, life takes the wheel and tosses its passengers to and fro inside the car. These signs need to stay up. They need to be seen.

Every day I tape them up and make sure they don’t fall down.

          I found myself in a place that every corner, from wall to ceiling, everything is covered by an artist masterpiece in terms of arts. I felt dizziness when I saw those beautiful and magnificent works of arts. I also envy him, Kublai Millan, because his gifted with such wonderful talent. At the time, I imagine myself standing in the center or the world surrounded by my own masterpiece… How I wish I were!… Happiness, enjoyment and amazement filled me is those crafty, cunning work of arts filled the hunger of my dried imagination.

At second destination, I found myself standing in a world where  modernization wasn’t establised yet, an “ancient world” for others. I’ve learned many things about the history of Davao City in the most artistic way. It made me realize that a man should know the informations  of the history of his own city, country and land. Appreciation, amazement and stonishment overflowed within me as those words of wisdom occupied my roomy room of knowledge.

All those feelings filled me for just one day, 14th of January at Kublai Millan Hotel and Gallery and Davao Museum.It made realized that day, that one should appreciate arts and history eventhough they were not gifted and didn’t had sufficient knowledge in terms of these field.

Everything around us can be  a wondrous work of art and possessed its own story behind its own story behind its history. Be an open-minded person and always open a room for change in your IMAGINATION…

p. s.

    Happy bonding with friends(UR12)!!! didn’t mis the  HALF OF MY LIFE! Happy memories shared with my good friends treasured an unforgetable experience!!

“Ang taong mangmang sa kaganapan ng kasysayan ng kanyang lupang tinubuan ay walang pagmamahal sa kanyang sariling bayan”

“Art is the literacy of heart“

- Elliot Eisner

Angelica A. Abregana

လြန္ခဲ့ေသာ သံုးလခန္႔က ျဖစ္သည္။ ညဦးပိုင္း လက္ဖက္ရည္ဆိုင္ေရာက္ေတာ့ ခ်ိန္းထားသည့္ သူငယ္ခ်င္းမ်ားက မေရာက္ေသး၊ အတြင္းဘက္ ဝိုင္းမ်ားတြင္ လူုျပည့္ေနသည္၊ အျပင္ဘက္ သစ္ပင္ေအာက္တြင္ ခံုတန္းရွည္ႏွင့္ ကၽြန္ေတာ္တို႔က vip ဟု နာမည္ေပးထားသည့္ စားပဲြတစ္ဝိုင္းသာ ကံေကာင္းစြာ လူလြတ္၍ ေနသည္။ ခါတိုင္းေန႔မ်ားဆိုလ်င္ ထိုဝိုင္းတြင္ လူျပတ္သည္ မရွိ၊ ေလညွင္းခံရင္း လြတ္လပ္စြာ ထိုင္၍ ေကာင္းေသာေၾကာင့္ ျဖစ္သည္။

ကၽြန္ေတာ္က ထိုဝိုင္းအနီးသို႔ သြားကာ “ဒီဝိုင္းက ဗြီအိုင္ပီေတြ ဘယ္ေရာက္ကုန္တာလဲ” ဟု ေျပာေျပာဆိုဆို ဝင္ထိုင္လိုက္သည္။ ထိုစဥ္မွာပင္ လမ္းတစ္ဖက္က ကူးလာေသာ ပတၱေရာင္နယ္ထိန္း ရဲႀကီးက “ဒီမွာေလ”ဟု ေျပာကာ ကၽြန္ေတာ့္ေဘးတြင္ ဝင္ထိုင္လာသည္။ မထင္မွတ္ပဲ ထိုနယ္ထိန္းရဲႀကီးႏွင့္ ကၽြန္ေတာ္ စကားေတြ ေျပာျဖစ္သြားၾကသည္။ စကားရွိန္ေလးလည္း ရလာေတာ့ … “ညီေလး မင္းစဥ္းစားၾကည့္ကြာ၊ ရဲလည္းလူ၊ လူလည္း လူပါပဲ၊ ကိုယ္ေတာ့ လူပီသေအာင္ ေနတယ္” ဟု သူက ေျပာသည္။

“ဟုတ္တယ္ဗ်၊ လူ႔ဘဝမွာ လူပီသဖို႔ အေရးအႀကီးဆံုးပဲ၊”
ကၽြန္ေတာ္က ဘာရယ္မဟုတ္ အလိုက္သင့္ ေထာက္ခံစကား ဆိုမိသည္။

“ကိုယ္ ဖတ္ထားဖူးတာ ရွိတယ္၊ ပိုက္ဆံ ေနာက္ခ်ည္း လိုက္ေနတဲ့ လူဟာ လူအမ်ားရဲ႕ ခင္မင္မႈကိုလည္းေကာင္း၊ ဂုဏ္သိကၡာကိုလည္းေကာင္း ဆံုးရႈံးရလိမ့္မယ္ တဲ့၊ ကိုယ္ေတာ့ ဒီလို မျဖစ္ခ်င္ဘူး၊ လူပဲ ပိုက္ဆံေတာ့ လိုတာေပါ့ကြာ၊ ဒါေပမယ့္ အၿမီးက်က္ အၿမီးစား၊ ေခါင္းက်က္ ေခါင္းစား လုပ္ေနရင္ လူဘယ္ပီသေတာ့ မလဲ၊ ကိုယ္ကေတာ့ အခြင့္ရွိတိုင္း မလုပ္ဘူး ညီေလးေရ၊ ကံကို အားကိုးၿပီး လုပ္တယ္၊ သူ႔ဘက္ ကိုယ့္ဘက္ၾကည့္တယ္။ ပိုက္ဆံေတာ့ ေဖာေဖာသီသီ မရွိဘူး ေပါ့ကြာ၊ ဒါေပမယ့္ စိတ္ေတာ့ ခ်မ္းသာရတယ္ကြ၊ ကိုယ့္ကို ခ်စ္ခင္တဲ့လူေတြ ေပါတယ္လို႔လည္း ခံစားရတယ္။”

မွန္တာ ေျပာရလွ်င္ ကၽြန္ေတာ္က စစ္သားတို႔ ရဲသားတို႔ဆိုတာေတြကို သိပ္ၾကည့္ရသည္ မဟုတ္၊ ဒါကလည္း ငယ္စဥ္ကတည္းက ဘဝအေပၚ ရိုက္ခတ္ခဲ့ေသာ သူေျပာသလို လူမဆန္သည့္ ပံုရိပ္မ်ား ေၾကာင့္ပဲ ျဖစ္သည္။ ထိုနယ္ထိန္း ရဲႀကီးကိုေတာ့ သူ႔စကားသြား သေဘာထားမ်ားေၾကာင့္ ကၽြန္ေတာ္ ေလးစားသြားမိေၾကာင္း ဝန္ခံရပါမည္။

(၂)

ယခုအခ်ိန္တြင္ေတာ့ “လူပီသျခင္း” ဟူေသာ စကားလံုးကို ဥာဏ္မီသမွ် စဥ္းစား ၾကည့္မိေနသည္။ လူပီသျခင္းဆိုတာ ဘာလဲ၊ လူသားတိုင္းကေတာ့ သူ႔ကိုယ္သူ လူပီသတယ္၊ (သို႔မဟုတ္) လူပီသေအာင္ ႀကိဳးစားေနထိုင္တယ္လို႔ ထင္ေကာင္း ထင္ေနႏိုင္သည္ပဲ ျဖစ္သည္။ ကၽြန္ေတာ္တို႔ အားလံုး ဘဝမွာ အေကာင္းဆံုးပံုစံႏွင့္ ေနထိုင္ၾကတာပဲလို႔ ကိုယ့္ကိုယ္ကိုယ္ ထင္ေနတတ္ၾကသည္ပဲ မဟုတ္လား။

ဟိုးအေဝးက အတိတ္သမိုင္းေတြထဲက ကိစၥေတြ ခဏထားလိုက္ၾကပါစို႔၊ မၾကာေသးခင္က ကၽြန္ေတာ္တို႔ ကိုယ္ေတြ႔သမိုင္းမ်ားကို ျပန္ၾကည့္မည္ဆိုလွ်င္ ၉/၁၁ ကို ဖန္တီးခဲ့ေသာ အိုစမာဘင္လာဒင္၏ လုပ္ရပ္၊ လူေပါင္း ၉၀ ေက်ာ္ကို သတ္ျဖတ္ခဲ့ေသာ ေနာ္ေဝးလူသတ္သမား ဗရိုင္းဗစ္ဆိုသူ၏ လုပ္ရပ္၊ လုပ္ပိုင္ခြင့္ အာဏာကို အမီျပဳ၍ သူတစ္ပါးတို႔၏ အက်ိဳးစီးပြား၊ အမ်ား၏ အက်ိဳးစီးပြားကို လ်စ္လ်ဴရႈကာ လုပ္ခ်င္သလို လုပ္ၿပီး အမွန္ဟု ေၾကြးေက်ာ္တတ္ေသာ သူတို႔၏ လုပ္ရပ္ စသည္ကို လူမဆန္ေသာ လုပ္ရပ္မ်ားအျဖစ္ ကၽြန္ေတာ္တို႔ သိရွိ ခံစားခဲ့ၾကၿပီး ျဖစ္သည္။

(၃)

သိုု႔ျဖစ္လ်င္ လူပီသျခင္း ဟူသည္ မိမိႏိုင္စြမ္းသမွ် သူတစ္ပါးအက်ိဳးကို ေဆာင္ရြက္ေပးျခင္း၊ စုေပါင္းပါဝင္တတ္ျခင္း၊ သူ႔ဘက္ကိုယ့္ဘက္ ၾကည့္တတ္ျခင္း၊ အမ်ား၏ ေကာင္းေသာ ဆႏၵကို လက္ခံႏိုင္ျခင္းဟု အျပန္အားျဖင့္ ယူဆရမည္ ထင္သည္။

သို႔ေသာ္ ထိုလူပီသျခင္းဆိုေသာ စကားလံုးသည္ ထိုထက္မက က်ယ္ဝန္းနက္ရႈိင္း ေပလိမ့္မည္။ သူေတာ္စင္တို႔၏ လူပီသျခင္း၊ ပညာရွင္တို႔၏ လူပီသျခင္းႏွင့္ လူသာမန္တို႔၏ လူပီသျခင္းတို႔မွာ ကြဲျပားျခားနားႏိုင္သည္။ ထို႔ျပင္ လူသာမန္တို႔ေသာ္မွ တစ္ဦးခ်င္းစီ၏ စြမ္းေဆာင္ရည္ကို လုိက္၍ လူပီသျခင္း ဟူေသာ ေပတံမွာ အတိုအရွည္ မတူညီႏိုင္ဟု နားလည္ မိသည္။ “လူပီသျခင္း” ဆိုသည္ကို တေျပးညီ စံတစ္ခုတည္း သတ္မွတ္၍ တန္းညွိရန္မသင့္ဟု ထင္မိသည္။

စင္စစ္ “လူပီသျခင္း” ဆိုေသာ စကားလံုးသည္ပင္ အေရာအေထြးဆန္လွသည္။ ထင္မွတ္မွားမႈတစ္ခု ျဖစ္ႏိုင္သလို၊ အစစ္အမွန္လည္း ျဖစ္ႏိုင္သည္။ တစ္သီးပုဂၢလ အျမင္ႏွင့္ ဆိုင္ေသာ စကားျဖစ္သလို အေပါင္းအစု ဗဟုဝါဒႏွင့္ ဆိုင္ေသာ စကားလည္း ျဖစ္ေနျပန္သည္။

မည္သို႔ျဖစ္ေစ ပတၲေရာင္ နယ္ထိန္းရဲႀကီးကဲ့သို႔ လူပီသေသာ လူမ်ား (သို႔မဟုတ္) လူပီသေအာင္ ႀကိဳးစားေနထိုင္ေသာ သူမ်ား ကၽြန္ေတာ္တို႔ ဝန္းက်င္တြင္ မ်ားမ်ားစားစား လိုအပ္ေနေသးသည္ကေတာ့ အမွန္ပင္ ျဖစ္သည္။

It can also be purchased as a print paperback.

Walking With Cthulhu: H.P. Lovecraft as psychogeographer, New York City 1924-26

On the other hand, Rizal was a polyglot conversant, prolific poet and essayist; his most famous works were his two novels: El Felibusterismo and Noli Me Tangere which inspired and helped the Filipino community to realize the sacrifices and betrayal during Spanish regime.

Rizal was well-known not only from his essays, novels, stories and poems but he was also famous in terms of his attitude. Furthermore about his existence, he was seventh of eleven children of a well to do family in Calamba, Laguna. But still, he remain his feet on the ground and never attempt to criticize nor look down other Filipinos in spite from their status in life who are classify as a middle or low society. When he was eight years old, Rizal was known as” Pepe”.

Actually, he wrote a poem which entitled “Sa Aking Kabata”. This entry was dedicated to the hope of the Motherland. It really helps to awaken the silent though and innocent vision of the adolescence regarding about the manner of possessing love for our country. Another composition that he had made was entitled “A La Juventud Felipina “, a poem which was translated In English as “To the Filipino Youth”. Rizal wrote this when he was eighteen years old, encouraging the youth to develop themselves and serve the country well. The long run of Rizal’s life brought different behaviors which really esteemed and still applicable in these days. But suddenly some of these values gradually vanished. There was a question that really bothered me and that was, “If Rizal Had Been A Blogger, What Would He Had Blogged About?”

In these modernized world, technology were part of human being that gives an advantage in terms of communication processes. Like blogging, it’s easy to publish different articles about the current happenings, histories, discoveries, innovations and even personalize entries. Blog is an ideal way of reaching people. Therefore, if Rizal had been a blogger, he would blogged about his teachings to his fellow-country men. In line with this, there was lot of good manners in which Rizal possessed. One of his manipulated attitudes is being patriot. These brought his towards a good service for our country. As a result, it helps us to escape from the foreign people who want to invade our land. But this manner was gradually forgotten by our youth. In spite of that, Rizal would never stop from reminding the young ones to pursue his teachings and to follow his steps. Through his piece of writing, he had a fortune to influence and to converge the heart of the reader by the means of having a blog. Another thing that he would blogged was heroism. Rizal was named as the “Philippine National Hero” by the Philippine National Committee because of his inimitable way of hostility for the freedom of our country. Nowadays, there were still Filipinos who act as “hero” in their own simple way. One of these was a boy named Muelmar  Magallanes –a hero during the tragedy of Bagyong Ondoy in Manila City. He was powerful swimmer who bravely faced the strong flow of water floods just to saved more than thirty people. He never thought of saving his own material possessions instead he saved others life who were taken by the flood and almost near to death. But he ended up by sacrificing his life in a last trip to rescue a baby girl who was swept on a styrofoam box. Like Rizal, he fought and ended up by sacrificing his life to be able for us to experienced   and to feel how to lived to the fullest in a free country.

Also, Rizal would blogged about the manner of respect to the elder. In these days, most of the youth do not show respect even to their own parents, teachers, friends and other government officials. Since Rizal was born and part of a well mannered family, he had numerous schemes about this issue. By his articles posted on his blog, it was possible for him to convince one’s heart.

Generally, Rizal would blogged about the decent approach in which a laudable Filipino should possess. Through blogging, he will keep his eye on reminding the Filipino predominantly for the young ones to bear in mind about his teachings in life.

“Rizal makes a desperate sense to build-up a nation with a great defense”. His initiative to share his knowledge through a blog would be the effective remedy for our wounded nation. Since these days, the manners were gradually deteriorating.

I’m experimenting with giving it away free, for a limited time. Yes, that’s right the whole book for free, at least in PDF form. In exchange… please consider putting a web link on your blog, mentioning it to your Facebook friends, or just tapping out a quick tweet?

A good haul of new discoveries! Including two new possible sources for Cthulhu. All heavily referenced and footnoted. Dig in…

Download it free (PDF, 4Mb) — or buy a new paperback copy here! Kindle user? It’s also on the USA Kindle Store and the U.K. Kindle Store.

CONTENTS:

Timeline of Key Dates.

Introduction: A Walk in New York.

SURFACE: Walking the Streets of the City:

1. H.P. Lovecraft and the psychogeographers.

2. H.P. Lovecraft’s night walks in New York: psychogeographic techniques

3. The nature of the New York streets.

4. A note on H.P. Lovecraft and immigrants.

5. H.P. Lovecraft’s New York coffee houses and ice-cream parlours.

UNDERGROUND: On the Monstrous, Occult, and Hidden:

6. H.P. Lovecraft and the subway.

7. It emerged from the subways!

8. On mystical and occult New York.

9. On H.P. Lovecraft and Franz Boas

10. New York as R’lyeh, sunken city of Cthulhu.

“Nyarlathotep” annotated.

Bibliography.

Index.

Please note that ‘free’ does NOT mean ‘Creative Commons’.