What about everyone else? Michael Jordan said something to the effect of: “While you are out taking time off the ball, off work, someone, somewhere else, is getting better at his game.” And that’s where I might have lost. I would have been doing nonsense, unless I put everything under that category to use.

The card games, those video games, the old generative graphics and programs, sales reports, all the technical solutions I have offered to customers over the phone from some fifty months past, all the pencil-on-paper drawings I have scanned and digitally painted, all the digital plans, even my past failures in college: if I let everything go to waste now, I would have to start from the ground up on something else.

But surely, there’s a way to work things out, right? Some way to tie everything together?

I have failed on several occasions to build systems where I would have every say, every mandate; where my conditions for deals would simply be to dictate all and just have the clients up and pay me to do what I want, and in return I’ll give them exactly what they need, but the world of sales and especially this country where connections matter first and quality matters second, there’s no way that would work. I simply would die in starvation should I tread Howard Roark’s path. But I tried, and I still try; eventually, I’ll get there, but without the perfect storyline to support it, and in its place, botched beginnings and Wynand-esque trials (and eventual errors).

But it has already taken me all of my twenty five years to get here and it looks hopeless. Should I die now, I would be remembered for nothing, and that sucks.

There’s great satisfaction in knowing that all I’m living for right now is this set of expectations I’ve set for myself. It’s disappointing to know that I still haven’t reached a tenth of that by now. I feel like I need a mentor, some Mr. Cameron of sorts, but I have to supply the experience from my own where no such character exists. It’s doubly hard, but I guess that’s better than nothing.

Yet, no one who personally knows me would believe that I’m giving up. I know I’m not. It’s not in my character. So maybe I’d die trying, or maybe I’d die with some success under my belt. Or maybe I’d die awesome, maybe I’d die a legend, and maybe, while my breath won’t, my name would be remembered for many, many years to come.

Partial screenshot of "Palay 1," a stupid generative artwork I made about a couple of years ago.

I’m in dire need of inspiration right now. I need to break this damned cycle: I thrive on new things and not enough has been happening as of late. Or maybe yes, maybe I’ve had my share of small adventures over the past couple of months. But adventures don’t necessarily mean crazy.

Section B! Very different, yes, indeed, very different yes! Ok yes!

I need to go out and messing my life up a little bit more is probably what I need. Perhaps I should be more spontaneous again. Perhaps I should sin again. Perhaps I should be over-the-top, on-the-edge, being a weirdo with a beard-o and possibly an Artest-like hairdo. Perhaps I should just waltz out of the office right now and stop this nonsense ranting and backpack all the way to Baguio.

Third section! Unique lah! It looks nothing like the first two! See, the pattern's all different! Very, very nice!

Or am I looking in the wrong direction? I don’t really need to mess anything up to have fun, right? I can just be spontaneous without intentionally destroying my life, can’t I? (Why the hell am I debating with myself over this?)

I give up. The artwork's boring. What was I talking about, again? Oh. Breaking cycles.

I would like to go to Barcelona to watch my favorite football team kick ass. Now.

Food continues to tempt me; love doesn't.

My life as of late has been about three main things: work, worldly objects, and food. Not that it’s completely a bad thing to focus on the said items, no, but when you start disregarding proper financial management, health, and most importantly, love, there’s something wrong with you (and that’s an understatement; read: there’s something very wrong with you). So I guess something’s really wrong with how I’ve been living my life.

I consider my work a 24/7 affair; almost everything I do has something to do with work. Be it blogging, be it travel, my head just keeps relating everything with work. It’s definitely not just for the love of what I do. It’s simply something I can’t shut out of my mind, and it’s really been tying me down from everything else out there.

Perhaps making the situation worse is I find solace in the material things I buy for myself. I don’t want to discuss it here in detail, but yes, it’s really lame and I can’t help myself. I’m a damned fool. It’s definitely not just for the love for whatever I’m buying; it’s the need to be comforted and responding to that need by buying cheap ass music CDs and ripping them for my iPod, for one thing.

Food continues to be that hole in my pocket. A friend told me a long time ago: “Pagkain naman ‘yan eh, huwag kang magtitipid sa pagkain (Well that’s food; frugality doesn’t apply to food).” Okay, whatever man, how about now that I’ve upgraded the costs of my daily meals and it’s like a Supersize Me moment everytime I’m at a restaurant? It’s definitely not just for the love of food that I’m doing it; it’s just disregard for wallet management and cheaper alternatives. (In the past few weeks, though, I’ve been enjoying cheaper food trips. Uyeh to takoyaki, turon, and Bugong’s roast chicken.)

Why again am I talking about this? Because I spaced out and my currently one-track mind jumped from one subject matter to another.

Sometimes, life doesn't permit you to do just as you please.

I really wanted to write about how I think I’ve forgotten how to love: what it feels to be in love, why people fall in love, and how people should respond to love. I think I also wanted to write how, for some odd reason, whenever I think of love, I also think of damned chocolates.

I also don’t know why lines from the movie Kimmy Dora keep on messing up an otherwise coherent train of thought. “Demonya ka, impakta ka, mamatay ka nuhhh!” “Ako, ako si Dora Go Dong Hae!” “Ebola virus? Ano kaya ‘yun? Malaking ipis?” “Kadiri ka, huwag mo ngang kainin ‘yang suka ko.” Mind-bending.

Back to the topic at hand. Maybe I rejected love as an emotion a few months back because I wanted to focus on work, and perhaps it was a rejection made out of the wrong reasons. Now that I’m both loveless and happy at work, I feel that I’m missing out. Is it time to open up to the possibility of a new relationship? Maybe. I think I might even have some use for a dose of inspiration right now.

This cup of White Haze costs Php 115. It doesn't cost anything to love. Do the math.

Di ba, ako’y tao lang na nadadarang at natutukso rin? That’s the way it should be. Eh nasaan na ‘yung tukso?

The Disconnect.

Despite having caught up with major backlog and despite the brain-restart, the Renaissance from last weekend, I still managed to turn this afternoon into a Khangkhungkherrnitz series of fuck-lahs. Anyway, point here is I’m trying to learn how to do this job well and how to run this monster of a group (even if for just a short while), and yes, in the process, mistakes happened. Key is to really learn from them; “all (we) got to keep is strong, move along, move along like I know (we) do.”

I stole that last few words from the All-American Rejects. I’m so pathetic.

There’s a disconnection somewhere between what is and what could. (Things change, goals evolve, and people grow.) What do I want for myself? I think I want things now that I never wanted for myself last year. No, not really born out of the New Year’s celebrations, but steady realizations from the months that passed. Maybe that’s why I’m scolding myself this much for the mistake from this afternoon. I really want to make this work, but sometimes, some things just drive me nuts.

On another on-topic note, I hate lagging behind. I’ve made it my personal mission years ago to be at the top of whatever industry I choose, whatever ladder I set for myself, and whatever race I want that can be raced. I could be far ahead of where I am now. I could have been much better, but I guess I couldn’t do it then. I’m trying to do it now.

Why do I always feel like I’m running out of time for everything?

The last dawn of 2009: good riddance, asshole.

I did not like you very much.

You took a lot of individuals from us, from entertainers to everyday people living their ordinary lives. You took a lot of properties via disaster and crime. What little you gave us, you took from us tenfold. What pride we have right now from all the positive things that have happened pales in comparison to what we have lost.

You were a very difficult year to live in. You presented the greatest challenges one could pack together into three hundred and sixty plus days. I hated you.

But you know, as always, as we have no choice but to accept our fates and live through the hardships, we had no choice but to learn from it the best we could, as well. We were left with no other option but to endure and in the process, be stronger collectively and as individuals. We had to come up with ways to pull each other up, console each other through difficult times. As they say, every hero needs a villain or a struggle to go up against. You were that villain, and you gave us the opportunity to be heroes in our own way.

So I think we have to thank you, too. The deaths, the crimes, the disasters, the tragedies: these are facts of human existence. We are, after all, subject to events beyond our control. We have no choice but to endure, to curse and to scream “fuck” and “shit” a hundred times if need be. There are too many instances when we just have to be reduced to helpless beings, but through the helplessness, we had to chance to be strong.

Thank you for that. And fuck you, still: here’s a middle finger to mean you a good riddance as we welcome yet another year into our lives. What next? More calamities and deaths?

It’s not our place to will good tidings into existence. It’s our place to fight back. So let’s.

Cheers to 2010, and all the middle fingers that wave in the air as battlecries. We are not hopeless. We are survivors of 2009. We are heroes.

I’m a whiner.

I whine about Mondays just because.

The solution is: buy another car, sleep early on Sundays, and stash everything (camera, lunch, tripod, whatever) in the car and bring it all to work. But, how the fuck can I afford a new car? Of course, I already know the answer to that question, and I’m trying my best to do it, but it’s going to take a long while. In the meantime, I’ll have to shut it and endure these stupid Mondays.

I thought exploring car catalogs would bust stress. I thought wrong. It’s depressing. The cars I want are over a million bucks’ worth of metal and leather and electronic shit.

Mondays suck.