Twenty Three BASIC TRUTHS

AUTHOR'S NOTE:


This POST has been authored by someone else and was passed on to me by a very good friend. Frankly I have no idea who I need to acknowledge to give credit for such a hilarious piece, but honestly, it is too tempting to pass on, it's criminal to keep it stale on my Inbox. If you chance upon this post Mr./Ms. Author, give me a holler, it's a great list!


Meanwhile back at the ranch, go ahead, have a little chuckle.

1. Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is. 

2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.

5. How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

6. Was learning cursive really necessary?

7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on # 5. I'm pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

9. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind-of tired.

10. Bad decisions make good stories.

11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.

12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blu Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.

13. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page technical report that I swear I did not make any changes to.

14. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

15. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

16. I disagree with Kay Jewelers; I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Light than Kay.

17. I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

18. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

19. How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear or understand a word they said?

20. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers and sisters!

21. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

22. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet everyone can find and push the snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds - eyes closed, first time, every time.

23. The first testicular guard, the "Cup," was used in Hockey in 1874 and the first helmet was used in 1974. That means it only took 100 years for men to realize that their brain is also important.

I don't know about you people, but #23 just takes the cake for me.

The Trouble With Hello Is Goodbye

It has been almost a full year, roughly, by the end of this month, when by forces of nature or fate or whatever you prefer to call it, that I chanced upon Google forum's THE COFFEE SHOP. The experience has so much influenced me that it was the first post I ever wrote on this Blog: The Day I Joined The Coffee Shop

January 2011 was a critical turning point in my life. My mother had an accident that required a total hip replacement surgery. As a consequence of worry and anxiety, this period started my many days, weeks, of sleeplessness, coming face to face with insomnia and my long-term love affair with the Internet-verse, Blogging and loving it. 

Perhaps most of you who read my Blog are part of this extended community in the Google-hood. And if you're not, damn shame, because whilst The Coffee Shop is still on its last stretch, how I wish you would catch it.  This is where in this virtual landscape, that I met the most incredible, diverse, interesting, wonderful, obnoxious, intolerable and lovable people that ever banged upon a keyboard! 


And then there's the Saturday Night Cafe' cum Bar cum Solace Nook. Where "souls" meet and sing and drink and dance or just pass through. Each soul carrying his own life stories; from the past, from the present and well into the future. A corner, practically a small dot in the Internet, where you get the chance to read about one's soul's search for meaning, relentless pursuit of true love, the start of a journey or the end of one, or simply, where one's soul speaks and another soul just listens.

Ay, there's the rub. You say goodbye, I say Hello. The thing about all good things and all bad things, they all come to pass. Pretty soon, if not right at this moment, the landscape will be changed. How things will turn out in the new landscape of virtual interaction is anybody's intelligent guess. Endings are commonplace, it's a given whenever there is a beginning. Some people would say it is the quality of the journey that counts not how it ended. Some people would say it is how you started your quest and why.


I prefer to keep whatever I have learned and built in the entire journey with me as I move on to the next, for very selfish reasons. I have met great friends and they will all be part of my life's treasures. And no one can take that away from me.


Someone did say something smart, sometime to somebody, "In the end we are all separate: our stories, no matter how similar, come to a fork and diverge. We are drawn to each other because of our similarities, but it is our differences that we must learn to respect." And this sums up my insightful experience in The Coffee Shop. 


American film director Orson Welles has a most logical quote about story endings: 

"If you want a happy ending, that depends of course, on where you stop your story."

And To All, A Happy New Year!

A very wise man once said:

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.  - Einstein

As we start our countdown to celebrating the dawn of 2012, I can't help but smile when I think about the thousand and one "meanings" we attribute to a new year.

For some people I know, it means a whole night of drinking in total abandon and spending the first day of the year in a drunken stupor or with a massive hangover.

For several, it means a little more sedate, like revisiting a tattered list of resolutions made in the past year, only to re-write them again, on a new page, under a different chapter, but pretty much the same list, albeit with minor editions.

For others, it means rekindling old friendships and building new ones. Or trashing old ones and choosing a totally different route. Moving on from past mistakes, making a vow never to take the same route ever. 

All of these, remains to be seen, remains to be lived. We don't know really, there are no guarantees in this life, new year or otherwise.

I take a more simplistic approach to a new year. Something I can wrap my fingers around. Something I can completely and honestly relate with. Here's a quote that sums up, roughly right, my new year dictum; from Anthony Robbins, a motivational speaker in the 21st century:

"Live life fully while you're here. Take care of yourself and your friends. Have fun, be crazy, be weird. Go out and screw up! You're going to anyway, so might as well enjoy the process. Take the opportunity to learn from your mistakes: find the cause of your problem and eliminate it. Don't try to be perfect: just be an excellent example of being human."

Sounds simple enough, but tougher than you think. Being human, characterized by compassion and kindness is fundamentally tough and a stretch for most of us. For me, in particular. I reckon I start from somewhere based on birthright, year on year. And I continue to be a work in progress. The Dalai Lama is right, absolutely everyone in the universe, regardless of race or faith, can not survive without human affection.

If only for a day, or a week, or a month in 2012, people can see and act on an opportunity for kindness for other human beings and other forms of life, then who cares if the Mayans are right? The sun can explode on a universe of mankind that shines brightly in a sea of compassion.

So my dear friends, here's to making an end, a new beginning! My wish for you and yours, a wonderful New Year ahead! Cheers y'all!

HATE ON THE NET

The age of technology has paved the way to fingertip access to information; e-buying and e-trading; e-reading; bridging distance via web-based communication; facilitating simulated and vicarious learning; among all the other attendant consequences of the Internet Universe. As I write this post, someone would have likely invented a gadget more powerful than what either of us are using now to read this.


It is however unfortunate that for every breakthrough humanity is given, we almost always naturally destroy its inspiration as we ascribe power to ourselves to use these advancements as an edge to further improve our skills on hating, bullying, segregation, bigotry and worst of all, increase our cowardice as we hide behind the comfort of an electronic tool to commit these acts of inhumanity by judging and ridiculing other people, trusting that we are protected by some distant, geographical servers.


Do you really matter at all? Or what you think? Or what you say? I mean, seriously. Do you believe all that is possible just because ...?


In real life terms, there are very few people in this world who really matter to any one other person. In the same way, for anyone to matter a great deal to someone, all the time, is rare and far between. 


The downside of the Internet community and the social networks has unfortunately increased man's capacity to delude himself by completely fracturing his mindset to think AND believe that the total number of Friends that like you on Facebook or Follow You on Twitter or play games with you, are in any way a good substitute or equivalent to warm-blooded, tactile, present and real-life friends and loved ones, living right outside of the dark closet of your laptop or PC.


It's sad, no, I correct myself, it is tragic. People have grown accustomed to the "home-ness" of the little black (or white or alien) box, and the relative ease in using one of the most abused 3-letter word on the keyboard ...DEL. Delete, my dear friends, is not considered homicide.

The sky is blue, the clouds are white, and the air we breathe (as the last time I checked) is still tax-free.  The world to date has 7 frickin' billion people. There are around 100 billion galaxies and approximately 30 sextillion stars in the observable universe. And here is something I hope everyone who would chance upon this post would appreciate and feel humbled - an entire galaxy is seen as a small bright dot, a speck.


If you happen to love and be loved by one other real-life person in this magnanimous galaxy, consider yourself lucky.  Otherwise, you don't matter. Nor do I. Or anybody else. 


I can't, for the life of me, explain all the hating and judging, whether in cyberspace or in real-life.
I can't simply rationalize why one person can feel so superior over another.
How can one race be more intelligent?
How can one creed be more righteous?
How can one gender be considered more fortunate?
If your preferences differ, how can you think your preferences are better than anyone else's?
Wealthy and affluent? Who the hell cares? You're still smaller than a dot.


Now, (getting off my soap box), I am fortunate enough to have found a handful (emphasis on the handful), of online gems and another handful of loved ones and significant others who make my little speck in the universe glow with spectacular brilliance.

"It is better to be hated for who you are, than to be loved for someone you are not."

DYING YOUNG

It took quite a lot of thinking for me to write this post, but I figured it was something worth writing about. I really don't want to be dampening the holiday spirit but anyway ...


I remember a time in my life when I thought myself to be immortal. I drove fast, hell, I raced. I practically drank everyday and if there was no reason to drink, I will invent one. I love taking risks and daring the devil and found myself in situations when I look back on it today, I still cannot imagine how I managed to get out of it unscathed. Maybe some bruising and wounds, but aren't they supposed to be battle scars?


I remember those great fun times and I remember them.


She was envious of the coming out party of a friend.  So we said we'll make hers even more fabulous. The theme would be rainbow colours because she loved them all. That night, we all left the party irresponsibly drunk, but we had a driver. She was left behind somehow, so the next best thing to do to catch up with us in the Club we would hit was to ride in a bike. Vivian was really tall, statuesque even, because I remember she towered amongst us girls, and to call her a stunner was an understatement. Something went terribly wrong that night. The bike she shared with her cousin skidded when he tried to maneuver away from a big rock on the road, and she flew out of the bike and hit a tree trunk. We were laughing hysterically over nothing in the bar when the news hit us. On the day of her burial, we let go of a 1000 rainbow coloured butterflies.  She never made it to 18 years old.


Olivia had always been goofy looking, but don't let that fool you, she was tops in the Vanity list and her physique was deceiving. We played a mean tandem in the volleyball team. I stopped and tossed, she spiked them hard. She's the only one I know who goes to a parlour before a volleyball match.  Win or lose, she was properly coiffed. She loved life and everything beautiful about it. She always said she had something wrong with her blood, but in those days, who believed who? Everything was said in the spirit of jest and good times. One Saturday, I was told that she was rushed to the hospital, yet she was fussing over her manicure. Apparently, she refused to be ushered into the Emergency Room with her manicure colours cracking. We realized then, that her congenital cerebral disease was truly fatal. She died 2 days later. It was quick, too quick. We missed her spot in the Graduation Ball in High School. She wore her prom dress in her wake. She was vain till the end.


Carol and I are speed freaks. We have a need for speed. We both raced in the Circuit. And Carol was a damn good driver. Carol's family is half-Chinese and extremely superstitious. They believed in signs, stars, numerology, astrology, name it. I guess when she was a young kid, Carol always had an illness or was accident-prone during her birthday month. Her parents always managed to tie her down when she was much younger and kept her in detention before she further harms herself every month of September. Some Chinese I have met believe August or September to be the Death Month. She wasn't supposed to drive, but that day, my big brother had the car and he promised to drop me off wherever we would hang out and collect me back when I wanted him too. We needed one more car, Carol, of course, volunteered. It was one more week before her birthday in September.  Anna, Frieda and Lourdes rode with her. She was not even driving fast, but the truck driver that hit them from behind probably was. Her car toppled twice and hit the side of the road landing on its top. Anna recalled Carol's voice asking if everyone was alright. Everyone was alright but Carol never made it to the hospital.  She died on the spot. She was going to be 21 years old.


I was doing my internship in my graduate school in Psychology when I chanced upon one of my Mom's closest girlfriend, Bernie, in a shopping mall. I have known Aunt Bernie since her kids were babies, Claire and Anton. Anton is a boy genius and I have been cruel enough several times to use him as my lab rat when I was doing my Psychology papers. Claire and I shared a lovely bond, so she took up Psychology because she wanted to be something like me. Aunt Bernie and Claire was out shopping that day, which was the usual time-killing hobby of the people that I call, have tons of money to burn. Claire had just turned 18 and she had a new sports car as a present, and now she wanted to join me in the Special Children's Clinic I was doing internship in, for a paper she had about Autism in her Abnormal Psychology Class. I told her to come over to the Clinic the week after as I will endorse her intent to the Head Clinician. That was October. I never saw her which then I thought was rather odd because Claire sounded so enthusiastic. When December came, one afternoon when I got home, I saw my mother's face fresh with tears and I asked what was wrong. She shakily told me Claire had passed just under a week ago due to some rare viral haemorrhagic fever. I was shocked to say the least. I told my Mother of the brief encounter I had with Claire and Aunt Bernie just a month ago and Claire looked so lovely and healthy. It was completely unbelievable, I said, they lived only 2 blocks away from a good hospital. Apparently, she never took her recurring fevers seriously. (I could swear she felt immortal) By the time they took her to the hospital, she was bleeding in all the holes of her body. I was stumped and completely in denial that the following weekend I drove to their place to check on Aunt Bernie, Anton and Uncle Alex. A caretaker met me at the gate with a Guard. The family had flown to an unknown destination. They left the house, the cars, everything they owned, intact. I was told they just flew with the clothes on their backs and the caretaker has not heard since. I dared a peek and I saw Claire's brand new red Corvette parked in the huge garage along with the other Beamers, Benz and Volvos. So much money and they couldn't save the life of their only daughter. I can only try to feel the agony of being in so much wealth and yet so helpless in the time of death of a loved one. Claire was 18 when she passed and I still remember her bright eyes and very charming smile.

Today, I don't think of myself immortal. I just think I'm blessed and lucky to still be around to enjoy whatever is worth enjoying in this transitory existence. I remember all these girls I have shared my life with and now they are gone; constantly reminding me that I should live my life fully as any time and in any way, it can easily be snatched from my hand. I have so grown up to consider everyday is a day of Thanksgiving. I am thankful I am still alive and whatever it is that is out there I still have to conquer, I will, whilst I still have the time and I still live. Call me foolish, but to everyone who will read this post, Happy Thanksgiving Day!