The Framed 1’s Life

mylady_le (11/26/2005 10:17:54 PM): been a long time…
freymd1 (11/26/2005 10:18:00 PM): sure is, ma’am
mylady_le (11/26/2005 10:18:13 PM): how’v you been?
freymd1 (11/26/2005 10:18:23 PM): not too good
freymd1 (11/26/2005 10:19:15 PM): Ive just realized how much of a monster I’ve been. I’ve degenerated into a utopia-obsessed pedant whose desires had been driven by endless lust and illusionment,.
mylady_le (11/26/2005 10:20:52 PM): uhuh..and then…
mylady_le (11/26/2005 10:21:05 PM): has it always been like that or u just knew?
freymd1 (11/26/2005 10:21:39 PM): ummmm, I knew that I had the tendencies. But hey, I just basically spoke for 99.9999% of the human population, didn’t I?
mylady_le (11/26/2005 10:21:57 PM): u just did, kris.
freymd1 (11/26/2005 10:22:28 PM): Even the most stern Taoist/Buddhist have crazy notions on how the world should turn. And, as with everyone’s mind, they think its always for the better
mylady_le (11/26/2005 10:23:17 PM): good notion.
mylady_le (11/26/2005 10:26:16 PM): where have all the good people gone?
freymd1 (11/26/2005 10:26:19 PM): Its nothing people would really care about. Like right now, you could care less about what I’m ranting about. 
mylady_le (11/26/2005 10:27:25 PM): and vice-versa.
freymd1 (11/26/2005 10:27:46 PM): should we care?
freymd1 (11/26/2005 10:27:56 PM): Thats where democracy takes its powers from
mylady_le (11/26/2005 10:28:18 PM): sentimental fools do.
freymd1 (11/26/2005 10:29:12 PM): we are all sentimental fools
mylady_le (11/26/2005 10:29:25 PM): so they say

November 25, 2005. Black Friday.

Why Black Friday? Its supposedly the day when retailers in the US experience a return "on the black" on their balance sheets (some are even said to garner in as much as 50% of their profit from Black Friday ’til New Year!). Why is it momentous? Read on.

USD 378.00 HP Pavillion Laptop. USD 999 42" Viote Plasma TV. USD 250 JVC Camcorder.

Appetizing, isn’t it? So much so that people lined up all around US just to grab a slice of this awesome deal — approximately 2 million people all around the country to be precise. What’s amazing is that folks actually stomached the sub-zero centigrade temperatures of the Ice Queen’s Season. What’s more amazing is the line that grew out of proportion in the sleepy town of Sierra Vista — I laid witness to it grow myself — like a dragon feeding on a goldmine. Though the cold was mostly unbearable, the passion of grasping a few of the much advertised products make it like the Holy Grail is at hand, ready to redeem us from our lustful clamor for goods.

The prior night breezed by without a shutter of sleep. So did my cousin, Kris, and his cousin, Maureen. Walmart was scheduled to open at 05:00; and the "doorbuster" sale was supposed to last from opening time ’til 11:00 only. After much deliberation, and much assumption, we decided to queue up at 3:30 AM; good enough time to be at least part of the first 10. How wrong we were.

3:30. the Three Black Friday Newbies decide to go to the nearest Walmart.

3:45. The Trio arrived at Walmart, chagrined at the 400++ people line waiting for a piece of the Sale. People even started collecting carts in their anticipation of their purchases.

4:00. Already a part of the 1/4 end of the line, more people start arriving. Other folks queing are getting anxious and restless; some even professed to God Almight all hell WILL break loose when someone cuts in on the line. My half-frozen ear hears battlecries to protect the line from behind and the front from would-be barbarians that will arrive later.

4:45. THE LINE MOVED!!! The shockwave can be felt throughout the Belly of the Dragon. Fiery passion and rhetoric, as well as ravishing remarks about the holy goods keep the spirits high. Like tigers pumping with adrenaline, every muscle was ready to pounce and devour the sedentary boxes awaiting us.

4:55. Pandemonium. There’s no way to say it. The crowd was a waterfall being funnelled to a bottle.

5:00. Disappointment. Depression. Anger. Dissillusionment. The goodies were gone in a flash. An hour of freezing at 28F can’t be compared to those that braved the same cold since the day before. But still, the wait was very unsatisfying. Dissapointingly so.

5:30. Home. With regrets. To home with empty hands and lost hope. USD 378.00 laptops was Jesus’ grail. And we swear to Him he told us we had a right to it. It wasn’t so.

With heavy eyelids, and an even heavier crushed spirits, thoughts sped through my mind like a million voices. They were voices of dissappointment, of surprise, of a shock on reality. Capitalism. An amazing system of overt greed, insatiable lust, and an over efficient system.

Wow.

Damn turkey…

I’m off to cold-ass Sierra Vista today for Thanksgiving at my uncle’s! MMMMmmmmm…turkey.

The turkey, one of America’s locally domesticated animals and a good source of protein, was given to the starving pilgrims, together with corn, to help them survive. Little did the Indians know then that they’d be wiped out by germs brought by the white folks! I wonder, how was it like to be an Indian and rain dance here in the desert?

I just laid witness to the rage my brother released on the cats. He hasn’t changed after all these years. I’m terribly concerned of him.

Then again, its the same kind of rage that we are all subject upon.

I, myself, included. Beyond that, its the same fiery destruction that lays waste upon our flowery souls, leaving us no more than a barren desert of regret afterwards. Re-witnessing it all again, I know of my sin of indulgence in it. Its the same passion that burns me that comes out as a dragon of destruction at times, whilst it can also be that winged eagle of ambition, or that lamb-like clinging meekness of love. An enjoyable rush, but still ultimately destructive when unbridled by self-control.

Just a few weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to be Sanjaya and lay witness to the teaching of Krishna to Arjuna before the epic battle of the Mahabharata. In one of the dilaogues, Krishna mentioned the 3 kinds of men :

1. Men of Knowledge that knows what ought to be done and does it.
2. Men of Passion, committed to the pursuit of earthly fruits.
3. Men who are consumed by self-destruction or darkly inert.

Men of knowledge are those who lose himself in his Dharma or Sacred Duty. In this, when a man is even a killer, as long as he thinks of no "fruit" for himself and does it wholeheartedly, he is even said to be doing his Dharma and committing to it. Remember, its not about morality, but its all about balance. Just as in Zen and Taoism, Buddhism/Hinduism finds delineation of good and evil into seperate camps as "destructive" to outright "absurd". (Sorry guys, no bibliography here. Try and read "Hagakure" or "Book on Family Traditions on the Art of War" by Yagyu Munemori)

Going back, Men of Passion are those consumed by their incessant desire for pleasure or "fruits of their actions". To the eyes of Krishna, doing something with the thought of something at the end of it bears sin itself. Come to think of it, the Sufi records, even Zen ones, actually propagate a form system wherein even a "thank you" is tantamount to a trade — you do a service, you are thanked for it. The best deed of doing is doing something for the benefit of another without letting them know about it. This is termed as Karma-Yoga, I believe.

Lastly, there’s the darkly inert beings. Folks in dark inertia, that is — those that are on a highway to hell by their own choosing. Just as passion and knowledge, its a momentum that is a challenge to alter once it goes; its like riding a train to a destination, and the only way to disembark is to break your own ticket’s destination and consciously disembark at the next station to ride the next train.

So, what to do? What to take? Just live life and face what you have to face. Carpe Diem, as Westerners would say! Your path is yours and yours alone.

And I have to free my mind from these idealogies too. Its already installed locks and chains around me. But am I ready to be free? True freedom is to lose all thoughts, all idealogies, all. Perhaps I’ll never be ready for that. But hey, its a shot at Nibbana, right?

The day was not extraordinary in any respects. The desert Sun was up, attempting to roast the grounds as usual, and the Winter Winds pathetically but assuredly was able to envelope the one of the many McMansions scattered all around America and succesfully chilled its innards. Time flew by fast — too fast if you ask me, much faster than a hummingbird flapping its wings in flight — that my cyber time seemed like a few hundred years.

It was all but more than 6 hours already. Its 6:07 PM right now.

It was this time, this very snapshot of a million millisecond in different perspectives converging into one, that Depression crept up with his scythe and cloak, eagerly slashing my energetic heart to a heap of shaking leaves. With my MP3s clamoring salvation by anchoring tunes to the past — something to call upon me like the many Sirens serenading this sailor of life to a better world — it was yet another case of Nostalgic Helplessness. Really, there comes a point wherein sentiments such as this are a welcome addition to the camaraderie of emotional gatherings I always have. Hey, its great to alive, isn’t it?

Just as I was in the middle of my negotiations between death-like Depression and Jars of Clay’s Five Candles, a thought hit me — what if I checked out "whoamI.com" and see how others see themselves from their own magnifying glass. Like Enrique de Malacca about to embark on an unknown journey as told by a foreign master, my hands typed nonchanlantly.

W H O A M I . C O M

AS the countless electronic synapses translated the web address to its DNS name, the seemingly lifeless box blinked back a white screen. Together with the following words :

Hello, world!

It was such an outwardly, congenial, extroverted reply back to such an introspective question! "Hello, world!" didn’t just bring back a foolish explanation of this and that, and that and this, but simply itself.

"Hello" — that gesture of friendliness, of nonagression. A greeting in itself that neither tells of night, day; afternoon or dusk. Its a statement of power. "Hello" What power.

"World" — the capsule of our lives. The capsule of our souls. The blob of immediate reality for all of us; so big yet so incomplete. So vast yet so small. This table, chair, computer, and a kitty called Cuddles is my "World". Yet so is that thunderous roar of jet engines roaring overhead, or that notion that the airport is only 10 minutes away from me.

Hello, world!

There is no self if there’s no world. There’s no world with no self. We make the world; and the world makes us. It is not to look deep into the nether realms — to the zenith of the self — that we find us. It is in the world. Out there. Here. There. Wherever you are.

Hello, world!

Its like another set of enlightenment I’ll soon be unattaching myself from memory. Another one of those miny movie-esque episodes playing antiquated personal films. But I’d rather indulge on this right now like its the $5 7 layer chocolate cake from Bennigans. Or something. I don’t care. Its wonderful.

Hello, world!

I am here. You are here. Is there individuality like we claim we have? I personally don’t think so. The world makes us; conversely, we make the world by bringing a piece of it back to where we go to. There is no disconnection, only connection. And we are all responsible for our world. And, guess what? We have to act. This entry most likely will be posted as yet another monologue in the biliions of blogs out there. Do I care? No. But whatever. This is my way of saying:

Hello, world!

Cheers. And pass the Hello around.
Kristian