Remember those quotes you so dearly cling to as though it were a universal truth and repost endlessly on Facebook or Twitter? These are often the ideas of non-conformists. And such non-conformists, the ones whose opinions matter, tend to be dead. I have observed that the world celebrates living conformists and dead non-conformists. Now, these men that are dead and their actions and words probably hold no meaning for most of us.

    The world we live in enjoys defining and discriminating between the differences of various groups of people. It would be rather silly for the world to claim that nothing would change once a group of people, whose beliefs are different from the current or dominant set, become important in this temporal realm. Geographic differences, racial differences, cultural differences, personal preferences. All these things are ultimately silly in the grand scheme of things, but they seem so important because we are humans and we live to listen to other people.

    In the About page, I said I would update every Wednesday. These past few days have been a treasure trove of insight that, if left unwritten, would probably be lost.

    We, as humans, are fragile and weak creatures. The Apostle Paul admits this in 2nd Timothy 4:16 – 18. We often feel alone, we are weak and we are prone to falling when tempted.

    The Enemy knows this well, and he works around the clock without resting to destroy us in any little way he can. He will not hesitate to use anything and everything against us. You said something wrong? He will make the other person feel bad and bitter towards you. You accidentally jabbed your elbow into someone else? He will whisper into the other person's ear that you are a physically violent person. He will even use people whom we thought we could trust to destroy our relationships with other people, such as friends and family. He dangles false assumptions and whispers them in the most seductive voice he can, because he knows that false assumptions lead to false conclusions. And false conclusions lead to actions that can have terrible repurcussions.

Hate. We often hear it today in the form of so-called hate-speech; hate speech is practically anything that anyone thinks is even slightly offensive to what they believe in, usually with regards to race, religion or the lack of it, or simple personal preference.  Is that really hate? People hate all sorts of things. Lovers, for petty reasons, say they hate each other. Friends hurt each other unintentionally, but it leads one of them to claim they hate the other.  We also hear it often used by children: "I hate vegetables." "I hate cleaning my room." "I hate my curfew." "I hate school." Is that really hate?

An intense loathing and hostility towards the source, hate is by no means an invalid emotion, but the meaning of the word is invalidated by how people use it. What is wrong is not so much the hatred people bear for certain things, but the object of this hatred. Did our parents love us enough to teach us the appropriate approach to hate? Or do we simply parrot what we see in the media, and hate everything around us like angst-filled teenagers?

Just the past Sunday, I was supposed to have the privilege of seeing Nick Vujicic speak live. For those that do not know, he is an Australian fellow who was born without arms and legs. His personal story is rather interesting, so I recommend that you look here for that. And, look here if you're interested in hearing what he said last Sunday.

Mr. Vujicic's sermon is not what I want to discuss though. I wanted to talk about the observations I had about the people that came, and my own realizations. Our church had recently transferred the Sunday meetings to a new building, and this new building's seating capacity is massive. Now, my father and mother had gone earlier in the morning to help out with ushering those who would come for the first service. Around an hour before my sisters and I were supposed to leave for church, my father sent me a text message that the place was filled and overflowing.

Indelible. Springing from the Latin word indelebilis, meaning impossible to remove, or unable to be forgotten.

I exercised my responsibility to make sure I am allowed to voice my discontent with the current government by voting the other day. At the end, after I turned in my ballot, a small drop of ink was dabbed onto my right index finger. The dark shade of purple bead spread quickly, covering the surface of the cuticle and seeping under. Indelible ink, they called it. It has only been two days and most of the ink has already been washed away, except for the ink that got under the edges of my nail. So much for being indelible.

An old essay of mine, and a horrible attempt at being humourous. And this is more of a place holder for testing how this thing works.

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March 15th 2011

Public transportation: arguably the most popular way of getting around in Metro Manila, since there are very few options for transit for regular Filipinos. Either one takes public transportation, takes a personal vehicle or relies on one’s God-given feet for locomotion. It becomes popular only due to necessity rather than choice, since most people would walk if it were not so sunny in this country, their homes were not kilometres away from the market, or take their own car instead if they had one.

What makes public transportation less attractive compared to other forms? Well, most people say that public transportation is not very comfortable. Is it because of the lack of vehicles or the terrible traffic? Perhaps beholding the reasons that have been found concerning this issue can reveal what really is behind this lack of comfort.

Today is election day. And I've finally managed to set this thing up. There's plenty of work to be done, if this place is to be a small light in the growing darkness of the world around us.
First thoughts. I need to address how to organize the thought flows of this site, then to make time to constantly generate good material for you to read.

It's Monday. It's the start of a new week. And, hopefully, new content arrives at least every Wednesday and Saturday.