2011PheyTalk-001

It’s been a while since I last had my journey written. For the past few months I have been very busy thinking, planning and praying for a new career path. Yes,  my absence to the world  for the past months was about dealing with myself in preparation for making a huge decision and this is about my life and finding who I am in search of my true calling.

I realized that I just wasted my years working for the government. I thought that being part of the government system would help me achieve my goals to be effective and useful for a greater purpose but in my end I found myself stuck with the piles of folders and telephone calls of my bosses. I also became a slave of politics for the benefit of the politicians that I served and protected but all was in vain.

I do not want to elaborate so much on how the system goes because I believe that all things happen for a purpose and now I am being shaken to do something that is really me and worth of my time and my life. I am now awaken and moving forward making one step at a time towards making a difference.

THE JOURNEY BEGINS. I started my journey two decades ago when I started my first volunteering experience at the age of twelve as an assistant teacher for the slum kids in one of the urban cities in Metro Manila. That was one of the most memorable experiences that led me to see the other side of life and made me realize at a young age what real joy is all about. I did not only enjoyed the job but also found my place in serving the need of the people and after that a lot of opportunities came and I became active in many socio-civic programs of our community and school and participated in all forms of social and environmental activities available.  Also later in college, I was able to work with NGOs, private institutions and the government that focuses on youth affairs and development, livelihood, trainings and education. My desire in volunteering never stops even when I became physically unavailable to help, I still find ways on how to be part in Global Networking which, shares the same vision I have.

THE JOURNEY CONTINUES. Enough for silence! I think I am raising the dead and I am breaking free to go back to what I love doing most which is working for a greater cause and I strongly believe that now is the time to decide and do something proactively.

There are people like me who are abundant in visions yet their dreams are buried in the casket of despair and hopelessness. Now, I tell myself, “do something!!” instead of whining and feeling bad about life, instead of only having a life “make a life!” and make it more challenging and worth living.  It should not be like a new year’s resolution that we fail on keeping but I believe that it must be like a personal commitment where our hopes and dreams are fueled that comes from the inspiration that lives were changed and that is because we became part of the solution and not the problem.

MY AGENDA: I have three areas of need in mind that I hope I can focus and start some programs or activities, one is Youth Empowerment and Development, second is Employment and third is Education. Though I am in the process of making research and proposals in these areas, I would also want to learn from the experts and solicit advices to make this possible in the process. I am really hopeful in the future that I can pay attention to these in full time basis. But for now all I desire is to make this possible and be available as possible I can. 

For all social entrepreneurs, I hope that our visions will be like seeds thrown in the soil, fertilized and watered and like a solid rock strengthened in the changing seasons and time. Keep it up!

I was wondering why our movies, television, novels and the whole entertainment industry is talking much about vampires and zombies.
So what about these creatures that attracts the attention of the public? Well let us analyze some characteristics of these two:

The ZOMBIES
Base from the movies, the perspective that comes to my mind is that they are:

1.) Made from the human experiement to be used as biological weapon. The problem exist when the experiment failed due to abuse and excessive ambition.

2.) Comes in a variety and form. Some are human like, there are monster like, some are fast, slow, wise, dumb and many more. I also seen the zombies in the 80 and I think they reinvent themselves as the years gone by and they are now improved and technologically relevant.

3.) Zombies are carnivorous and only focus on hunting and eating the human carcass. But one thing I notice they are not like snakes, aligator, pirana or shark that will finish the human victim up to his bone. They just suck the blood, eat the internal organs and leave the person when he is dead. I think, just thought maybe they left that way so that they will have more recruits. But what if they will have all the humans turn into zombies? What will they eat then?

4.) In return, people fight back for their own survival. They have to kill the zombies and have to shoot the head or the brain to make sure that the beast is dead.

The VAMPIRES
1.) They are the icon of fashion and lifestyle for many people of different ages. Vampires in the 70s and 80s are feared creatures. They are fast and changes their form to bats and wind. As for the legend is concern they never die and get stronger as they become older and existed for thousand of years already. 

2.) Like the zombies, they also transformed and have blended with the trend of time. They kept their taste in black fashion, red lipstick and pure white foundation yet changes their contact lens from red to a variety of colors and designs. Even with the food that they eat. There are now such thing as vegetarian vampires wherein they eat animal blood (like the Cullen's) or drink in a ready to drink bottles blood with certain flavor such as type "O", type "A" etc. (True Blood) but their all time favorite is still sucking of fresh human blood. 

3.) There is a new concept in this vampire human thing, that not only the "V's" benefits from the human but also human can drink the vampires blood with an effect that can be compared to cocaine or higher form of drugs. The "V's" blood can serve as cure, drugs with the highest form of ectasy (True Blood) for both human and other creatures such as wolves. In other words if before we think of vampires as parasites now both can be co-dependent and mutually benefit from each other.

4.) Stories changes, versions and roles of vampires were improved as friendly and admirable (for most desirable) creatures. In the story there is always the obstacle of having someone or people to terminate them and the way of killing them is thesame, which is any silver but the most effective is to crush their heart with a pointed silver blade or put them under the sunlight without any specialized sunscreen (True Blood).

So what is these all about and what make this sense? I hope you are getting my point and will try to understand what I have in mind. Well, this is all about us and the world we live in. We are all preoccupied with issues and experience of chaos and torture of our time. like any literary concept, there is something we need to crack and to decode behind the curtains of social system, politics and cultural phenomena.

We strike to balance good and bad and make peace with our troubled world. I believe that the zombies and vampires are two different and important characters and personalities that represent in our life.

The zombies are the extreme forces of evil which was made from the ambitious act of people of different statuses that usually take advantage of us. It devours our innocence and eats our good nature to the point until we become broken, became helpless and we be like monsters like they were.

On the other hand the vampires are the less evilish (I don't exactly know what term I should use for them). I think vampires of our time are less harmful but you have to be cautious and keeps an eye of them because they can wear a mask and be as meek as sheep yet in a blink they can be more dangerous than you can ever think of. I think they are also in different types with different personalities of creatures with "fangs". There are vampires that are saddist, some are swift to kill without any more evilish and worse but there are some who are considerate and can be faithful, loyal and a protective friend. 

We are in the era of survival. Our time is characterized by complicated adventures with different obstacles on our way. Although there are more seen and unseen creatures around us but the most prominent in our time of are the zombies and vampires.

Who are the zombies and vampires of our lives? What do we do to cope up and survive whenever we face these creatures and maybe the right question is who we are and what we are? Are we a Zombie or a Vampire?

"We all want change but in order to make it happen we must be part of that change and more importantly it should start from us."

In a reply I made in a forum on Poverty Eradication in Africa (http://projects.tigweb.org/WALEX/discuss/thread/424841), I was reminded that I also belong to the third world country. We also experience the same struggles dealing with the issues of our own.

I also do believe that even great nations has their own problems and encounter defeats as others nations. This is reality. There is no perfect country and no perfect individual who has everything they want and everything they need will be given favorably in an instant. We work for it, make the best decisions and plan. Most of the time we wait for  the fruits of our labor and it is the same thing with change that doesn’t work overnight.

We all want change and it is now the necessity to grow and move beyond the old boundaries of our selves and of the past  but in order to make it happen we must be part of it, have the involvement to be tested including the winning and the loosing experience and as a nation, it is being brave to take the risk.  I believe that the hardest risk to take is that change will start from us.

Many countries in the course of history make different kinds of drastic and thoughtful moves because they believe in something and they hold on to that. Their visions became their driving force to fuel themselves to take the necessary risk of challenging their culture, religion and their own beliefs. As far as I am concern, none ever succeeded without sacrifice  and their sacrifice is isn’t simple or easy at all.

Change is no longer as hard as it is before and less of a threat to our stability. In our present age and era of continuous search for life in the field of science, mathematics, psychology and others, we find pleasures to see series of revolution of change in many aspects of our lives in good and better ways and our search for change continuous.

I am counting reasons not to feel sad about today. It’s just that I am what I feel and think I am and today is not the day for celebration and I would be a hypocrite if I will say i am okay.

I have listed some of the things that I think why I am feeling this way.

  1. It’s a gloomy day. It’s hot at the same time wet and it do affect my emotions therefore I crave for sweets and want to eat more.

  2. I have allergies since last week. It’s itchy and i am unconsciously scratching my rashes and are already  irritated.  I usually have these when I am under stress or the weather changes and now it’s both.

  3. Lost my job and only left with a part-time evening class.

4. I am already bored to death – All the DVD series and movies that I already watched even the Korean films with English subtitle, surprisingly I enjoyed watching them again. See how bored I really am?

5. Hate to se the situation of my dad. He is getting weaker and weaker everyday and I felt I need to do something but I don’t know what it is. i don’t know where to start or how to start.

6. Afraid on what will happen to my sick father. I just hate the worse part of everything especially I am the only one who will look after and take care of him. 

7. I can’t concentrate on my papers. They should be submitted a long time ago but because I have a lot, I mean “A LOT” in my head to take care, I can not produce good ideas, process things and make things work. =( I worry about this everyday.

8. I desire to finish a lot of things. Before, I felt that I have no time for each one of them but now I have a lot of time yet I lack in resources to fulfill and finish those things.

Like a season, it changes in the course and the movement of time. There are two seasons, there are three and there are four in which each country have.  We are like each country that has their unique but not different seasons in life that whether we like it or not we have to face, experience and later endure them. Each season passes. I just hope that it will not pass without getting anything from it.

I know that God enables us to have unique individual mechanism to cope up with our problems and struggles. He will never leave us or for sake us or even give us something that we will not be able to endure. Our God is too big for our gigantic troubles. I believe that mourning was made to make us realize a lot of things in the process of purification and I guess, the reason for all these things is for us to stop, be still and recognize Him in our lives .

It will be no worries, He is just a faith away and to mourn is free.