11/1/24
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Accidental Heroine

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True story:

Eons ago, when I had become a very bad person in a very bad place, I was out to “outbad” the bad people.

In a twist of ironic fate, a frail old man who was being taken advantage of by the bad people I was trying to “outbad”, mistook my bad actions for an act of heroism.

Thinking I was a noble heroine, the old man gently cupped my face with both of his palms, looked me straight in the eyes and said, “You’re a beautiful creature, what are you doing in this place?” I was startled by the gesture. What an unusual thing to say!

Although I could not see directly for myself what he was seeing, his expression revealed the gist of it. Then, as though hypnotized, I walked away from that place. Not because of a sudden wave of guilt, mind you—but because that “beautiful creature” he saw, that I saw on his face, told me “I’m better than you”. So I said, here, hold my beer.

I’ve been trying to “outbetter” that bitch since then.

#DeiahEra #MyDeiahDays

08/16/24

A moment in November 1999

I wearily returned to Manila from Bicol province, enduring a grueling 9-hour bus journey that left exhaustion etched deep into my bones. As the stormy night unfolded, I dove into the demands of work, the chaos around me reflecting the inner turmoil I felt as I applied makeup and changed into my skimpy outfit.

Another eight hours dragged on as I fought to stay awake, listening to the off-key singing of drunken karaoke patrons in a dimly lit bar adorned with string lights, its air thick with the smell of cigarettes, beer, sweat, and cheap cologne.

Exhaustion weighed heavily on me as I skillfully fended off the hands reaching to touch me. The smile plastered on my face was a facade, revealing how easy it is to fake emotions when you feel nothing. I was neither happy nor sad, just numb, like a blank canvas waiting for a purpose, a reason, or an explanation.

Come morning, the storm, as if exhausted by its own rage, began to wane. I found myself wondering if storms have a place to rest when they’re weary, for I had none. Driven by desperation, I made a humble plea to a co-worker. She took me with her. Her neighborhood was not one of comfort; it was a waterlogged tableau near Araneta Village, a squatters’ haven by the river.

Typical slum, squatters area in Metro Manila, Philippines

In that inundated expanse, a malodorous symphony of sewage tainted the air, and the landscape morphed into a desolate sea of discarded dreams. The so-called houses, more semblances of shelter than abodes, were patched together from discarded relics of urban decay. Yet, amidst the squalor, a paradox of wonder unfolded.

As my senses were assaulted by the stench, my heart remained resilient, a stoic witness to prolonged impoverishment. The once-sensitive nose became immune, but my mind is still sharp. Amidst the squalid reality, I stood awestruck by the inadvertent engineering marvels and the ingenuity of the destitute.

These ramshackle structures, cobbled together from society’s leftovers, stood as defiant monuments to resilience. In the aftermath of a storm that sought to sweep away the remnants of their existence, these humble dwellings persisted, a testament to the unwavering spirit that defied the odds.

As I stood before these humble dwellings, it felt as though they were looking back at me and without saying a word, countless stories were told. A profound connection stirred within me, as if I were a student standing before an old, wise master, humbled by the resilience etched into every crevice of these simple homes. In that moment, I was overwhelmed with admiration for the indomitable spirit residing within these structures.

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Tears glistened in my eyes, not from sadness but from a profound gratitude that surged within my heart. Even amid such hardship, Beauty had revealed herself and smiled upon me.

Unaware of the moment I was experiencing and perhaps thinking I was upset, my co-worker gently patted my shoulder and said, “Ayos lang yan” (Everything is going to be okay). I smiled and nodded in agreement. Two months before the turn of the millennium, who knows what lies ahead? And yet I knew, I felt it, everything will be okay.

07/24/24
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Invincible

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Walls and tough shells are for the weak

When you can fall gracefully,
And shatter like dandelions in the autumn, Allowing the wind to carry you.

To welcome the winter,
Savoring darkness as connoisseurs do fine wine,
To rise up during the spring.

And bloom again in the summer,
Without fearing the coming of fall,
Only then, you’ve become invincible.

01/20/24
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What they deserve

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Everyone is pretty loud, clear, and in agreement about what they deserve. But no one wants to be that for anyone.

“You do it first.”
“No, you first.”

Then they all die waiting.

Then there are those very few who realize they must become what they hope others would be for them. But they too, die waiting and become the saints and the ghosts that haunt everyone’s TOTGA shrines. (TOTGA = The One Who Got Away)

So, which comes first—the chicken or the egg?

But the farmers know: regardless of what you start with, whether it’s a chicken or an egg, you end up with both as long as the conditions are right.

If you nurture a tree, it will produce seeds that will also become trees that produces seeds that become trees.

And so they say, “You reap what you sow.”

But this I have observed: No one wants to be a farmer. And the few who understood they need to become farmers– farm alone. But everyone is present during the harvest season. And everyone feels entitled — loud and clear about what they “deserve”. The farmers say to themselves, “let the ones who starve eat the harvest, I can endure and wait till everyone realizes the value of farming. Then, I too, can have my fill.” So the farmer waits forever for that harvest that will never come.

So, no, you don’t reap what you sow. You get what you reap. But what is there to reap when no one is sowing?

“I want someone who understands me.”
Do you make efforts to understand anyone?

“I want someone who will be there for me, no matter what.”
Are you there for anyone no matter what?

“I want someone who will love me for who I am.”
Do you love anyone for who they are?

“I want someone who will take care of me.”
Are you taking care of anyone?

“Kids deserve this and that.”
Where is your adopted child? Where are you when children in your own neighborhood are being oppressed and abused?

A principle that does not evoke a sense of responsibility is a dead principle. It stinks like bad breath. So just keep your mouth shut and never speak about it.

Yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah.

I digress. I’m drunk. But not from the alcohol that I have been chugging. But I’ll stop right here — because words fall short to describe my feelings and other thoughts.

11/26/23
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Binary Tree Maze: Predetermined Paths

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Who am I?

I am the person traveling this path. The path was not set by me. My tools, attributes, were given to me, some I picked up along the way.

Our paths, it seems, are predetermined. Our choices, just a cascade from the primordial decision. Then the universe narrows down your choices to binary: Do or Don’t. And just when you think you’re at least in control of that — it rains. The universe conspires and freewill is an illusion. Our Life’s purpose is for us to walk the paths and experience it.

And now, I feel like I finally understood what Kahlil Gibran said, “You are the way and the wayfarer”.

11/26/23
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The Great Lucena Panic

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I searched online and could not find any article written about “The Great Lucena Panic” that happened in 1995 just right about a week or two after typhoon Rosing (international name: typhoon Angela). My family and I were there and I wonder if anyone else remember that night. It was a glimpse of what it would be like and how humans will behave in the face of an apocalypse.
Continue reading

11/26/23
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FWB

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written on Sept 13, 2023

The transience of things
And of looming ending
That can happen anytime
The unspoken agreement
Neither of us defined
But we adhere to
The murder of emotions
The lack of humanity

The walls around us
And the happy facade
What are we so afraid of?
What am I so afraid of?
Are we so traumatized,
That we all hide inside our shells?
Afraid of getting caught
For the crime of feeling or caring

The fear of rejection
And shame of being found wanting
So we hide behind the mask
Of never needing
And sit in the cold
With our only company
That we protect at all cost
Our pride and dignity

11/26/23
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Hues of Fond Recall

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Not in the present, but in their past’s embrace,
In their could-have-beens, I find my place.
A ghostly companion to remorseful minds,
In their regrets, a version of me unwinds.

In the reverie of hindsight, they romanticize,
Casting my presence with a saintly guise.
Tears and pleas, once dismissed, now adored,
As they weave a tale, where I’m saintly adored.

A figure of grace, in the retrospective light,
In the canvas of memory, I stand so bright.
A saintly mirage in the past’s rosy track,
Yearning whispers echo, “Bring the saintly back.”

But neither can I resurrect the saintly lore,
Nor would I feign to be anything more.
I’d rather linger unseen and drift away,
In the cold truth’s embrace, I’ll be okay.

09/18/23
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Binary Freewill, the Maze and Life

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“How did you do it?” asked ChatGPT. I decided not to answer. It was too long to explain. But that didn’t stop me from thinking about the question.

It feels like a sham if I say that I had grit or that I’m resilient. I never planned my life and didn’t choose the initial cards I was dealt with. The choices that followed were simple forks in the road, a matter of doing or not doing, forming a maze that appeared predetermined. Nobody knows what lies ahead the maze. You only know the two options you’re presented with — do or not do. Think of it like a strict binary tree, much like the image below. Every decision we make leads to two new options, while the road not taken fades into obscurity, and all the potential below it is erased. Neither what lies ahead before you make a choice and that path untaken can be known unless taken.
Strict binary tree

Somebody once told me, “Wow, Donna, you broke the cycle!” But, did I really? What would have happened if my Mom never left our province? If she was never exposed to a different way of living? Would she have raised me the same way she did? I can say that she was the one who broke the cycle, but was she really the one? What if my grandma chose differently? I could go on and on tracing the maze back up. Then a realization: when was the first choice made and who made it?

If all these binary choices were a cascade from the first choice ever made, and the maze has been pre-written before that first choice was even made, then I’d say Life’s purpose is to walk the paths of this grand maze—to experience this life.

There is something about this thought that evokes a profound sense of love / emotion in me, one that is hard to put into words. To think that every meeting has been predetermined long before we were formed in our mother’s womb — it makes me want to hug every person I have met/will meet, worship everything that exists before me, and say, “Nice to finally meet you in this grand maze.”

03/30/23

Unattainable Sky

Amidst the void, where hope and reason dwindle
The moon radiant in unreachable spindle
Led this traveler in futile kindle,
Holding on to embered love with sacred thimble

Unrequited notes of nightingales call
Moon’s warning, an ominous thrall
Fleeting moments, lovers rise and fall
Embers burning, a melancholic sprawl

Yearning to touch the unattainable sky
Heart holding on, an endless supply
Moon’s secret touch, a fleeting high
Leaves unhealed wounds, a silent goodbye

All that lies beyond reach, a distant hue
A farewell that bids, yet leaves no clue
Pain that lingers, with memories askew
A tragedy, hidden in plain view

03/30/23

The Night

The night warned her, but loneliness steered
Two hearts entwined, with secrets unheard
But while one heart burned, with a flame so true
The other stood dormant, with no love to pursue

Her heart a moth, drawn to love’s inferno
Lured by its flame, in a dance quite nocturne
Chasing a shadow, of a love undefined
As she fell and got caught, in a moment most blind

The night spoke in riddles, with secret arcane
A fractured tale, of a love hard to explain
A prism of light, that shattered too soon
As her heart remains trapped, in a love of strange tune

Yearning and sorrow, a symphony of despair
A story of pain, woven with threads most unfair
A dance without music, in a hall of mere dreams
As her heart beats, captive to love’s silent schemes

08/24/22

Consciousness

I see people actually believing that an AI can gain consciousness. In case anyone is wondering… I’ll tell you now… as a programmer, I believe, an AI will never be self-aware.

An AI is nothing but a script that pulls from a database when certain conditions are met. No matter how big that database gets and no matter how complex the conditions were, the AI will not gain consciousness.

To believe otherwise is like making a handful of goo and thinking that if you make that same goo the size of our planet it will all of a sudden gain consciousness. You don’t have to be a programmer to know that’s illogical. If it didn’t work on a small scale, it will not work on a larger scale.
Continue reading

11/16/21

Society’s “Groundhog Day”

Once upon a time, Challenge gave rise to Cooperation and Competition.

Competition raped and killed Cooperation after giving birth to Slavery and Uneven Distribution.

Slavery and Uneven Distribution got married and gave rise to Felt Injustice and Felt Fear.

Felt Injustice and Felt Fear got married and had two children named Envy and Jealousy.

Envy takes more after Felt Injustice. And Jealousy takes more after Felt Fear. Both have the same parents so their other attributes overlap.

Envy and Jealousy got married and gave rise to a child called Rivalry.

Rivalry gave rise to Disconnection and Misconnection.

Disconnection and Misconnection got married and gave rise to Apathy and Sociopathy.

Apathy and Sociopathy gave rise to Discord.

Discord gave rise to Challenge.

Challenge gave rise to Cooperation and Competion…

And…

This story will keep repeating until Cooperation gain the skills and wisdom to beat Competition.

And therein lies the paradox.

And that’s Society’s riddle to solve.

05/15/21

The Twig and the Boy (Ang Suwi at ang Binatilyo)

I can’t sing
And even if I can, I don’t have the right words
And if I have the right words
Would you hear it?

I can’t paint
And even if I can, I don’t have the right colors
And if I have the right colors
Would you see it?

If I can express this emotion
That the person inside me feel for you
Would the person inside you feel it?

How can one put into words
Or find the right melody
Or even draw on a paper
The intricacies
Of a bitter-sweet, one sided memory?
Using statements that only serve to misrepresent
Adjectives at best only approximate
Of undying emotions, flavored by the present
From a time long gone

Like a tree telling a story
Of pains, secrets and splendor of what once was
And a man who only remembers the twig
And the tree who only remembers the boy

You, are not who you were
I, am not who I was
Yet who we were, once was
Now, live in solitude, locked up inside us
And though desperately trying to reach out for one another

They will never meet again

And for their story, let this be my final plea:

That though we remember separately
And hear but echoes of what used to be,
Together, the you and I of today…
Let’s honor in friendship’s new light
The beauty of all that once felt right

And when the time comes
With my last breath
I would have but one last prayer
That when we are both no more
That the universe remembers for us
And piece together, what we could not

The memory of the tree and the man
The twig and the boy
You and I, who were, once was

06/21/20

My Hidden Mother

Beneath the tough, thorny and cold facade, mired in chaotic, dark mess of regrets, traumas and unresolved issues… is my mother.

Broken as can be, still she tried, with all her might, she tried to be good. But reality can’t be denied, she can’t change her form. She’s beaten and molded to a certain shape, she can’t escape.

Inside her, is my mother, longing to hold me. Inside me is a daughter longing to hold her.

05/22/17
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Tower in the Sky

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It was but yesterday we met in a dream.
You have sung to me in my aloneness, and I of your longings have built a tower in the sky.
But now our sleep has fled and our dream is over, and it is no longer dawn.
The noontide is upon us and our half waking has turned to fuller day, and we must part.
If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper song.
And if our hands should meet in another dream we shall build another tower in the sky.
- Kahlil Gibran

05/18/17
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The Sea

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The Sea is calling for me again and the breeze is tempting me. My feet says stay here and grow your roots for once. My heart says, you do not belong here, don’t get stuck. My brain tells them — shut up, you two, and let me sleep.

12/15/13
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Don’t say you love me

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“Hey I got your gatorade and a pack of cigarettes, I’ll see you in about an hour, ok?”

“We’ve done this once and then you closed the door
Don’t let me fall again for nothing more

Don’t say you love me unless forever
Don’t tell me you need me, if you’re not gonna stay
Don’t give me this feeling, I’ll only believe it
Make it real or take it all away”

07/16/13
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Science and Faith

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The big bang theory in essence assumes that in the beginning… a ball of energy existed and upon it’s explosion the universe as we know it was born. This scientific notion is as ridiculous as saying God existed in the beginning and caused the Universe. Both belief requires faith and acceptance of the premise that there was a primordial existence that caused everything. To this day I still remain Agnostic for that reason. In truth, none of us knows anything, and if everyone will humbly accept that, we will all be Agnostics.

07/16/13
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Reasons reason

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Reasons reason
But mind won’t mind
A million thoughts, a thousand plans
But you will, what you’re meant to do

Once I was a fool demanding a promise
Then I got a little bit smarter
Who needs empty promises? no one knows the future!
Then came assumptions — I realized, I’m still a fool

Promises are demanded
To have somebody to blame
Assumptions are assumed
So you can walk even though you are blind

I wish, I could
Walk in faith without assuming
Know my way without a promise
Enjoy the journey though the destination is unknown

07/15/13
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Sudden awareness to existence

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This sudden rush of awareness to my own existence happens to me from time to time and each episode last only for a few seconds to about 2 minutes. When this happens, it feels as though I was just born and awoke to realize I exist. And a billion questions that I can’t yet name just overwhelms my brain, and all I can really focus on is WHY?!!! Continue reading

09/14/12
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Unto eternity unmoulded…

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Unto eternity unmoulded I would give my hands,
And to untrodden fields assign my feet.
What joy is there in songs oft heard,
Whose tune the remembering ear arrests.
Ere the breath yields it to the wind?
My heart longs for what my heart conceives not,
And unto the unknown where memory dwells not,
I would command my spirit.
Oh, tempt me not with glory possessed,
And seek not to comfort me with your dream or mine,
For all that I am, and all that there is on earth,
And all that shall be, inviteth not my soul.

- The Earth Gods, 2nd Earth God – Kahlil Gibran