ladyalchemist

It really pays to believe in someting and hang on to it. Right now I on my way to fully living a life I always wished to have. Starting up is full of … ohh wait… dream calls…

This is to inform everyone who reads by thoughts that i’ll be migrating all entries to my new blogsite at http://alchemyofthesoul.blogspot.com/

The devil is there.

It surrounds you. It hounds you.

If you give him an inch, it will take a mile.

Give him a toe, it gobbles you up whole.

The devil is there.

Beware.

Belief, an idea in which people placed some or all of their confidence. A framework of thought that which directed individual action. Belief and its expression is as unique as the individual. And it cannot be copied. No matter where you get the initial information regarding what you believe in, the moment you embraced it and held it as true for you it becomes uniquely yours.

The compiled words below are part of my journal entries in my Educational Guidance subject.–Gold

Self-awareness activity: December 11, 2003

Unraveling the Self

Having been exposed to various kinds of psychological tests coupled with my constant conscious effort in the past to really know myself, I could say that I do know me pretty well. Pretty much so that, at this point I rarely experience feelings and behavioral responses that I could not explain. In the privacy of my own thoughts I can afford to see myself stripped of all my biases, rationalizations and other defense mechanisms that almost always appear to be harmless self-deceptions.

It is with these that the interpretations of my responses to that brief self-awareness exercise came as no surprise. The first three questions regarding favorite animals are basics—its what the animals signify to the person that chooses it rather than the commonly perceived characteristics of an animal that really tells about the individual. The last question—the one about the coffee—is what those in behavioral studies call a party ice-breaker; the sort of question that a person poses to friends just for laughs.

The second set of questions is different, however.

It had me thinking for days. I am particularly interested in the flower and the creek thing. Thing first because it highlighted change in my psyche and the second because I personally find its interpretation significantly debatable,

Starting off from a more impersonal subject, the creek, as what can be gleaned from the interpretations, somehow symbolizes friends or people surrounding the individual being tested. Those who imagined to touch the pristine waters are considered to have the tendency to be easily influenced by outside forces—suggesting a weakness in a person’s character. In all my readings and in some occasion that I found a creeks or any bodies of water, for that matter, in personality tests, it is always made to represent life. Even in prose and poetic metaphors, it is always used to convey the idea of life. Its waves represents life’s ups and downs and the way its water flows, whether peaceful, rapid, or raging, represents the condition and quality of one’s life. Taking this universally accepted abstraction of life as the basis in interpreting behavior and human tendencies, then the interpretation to the scene given would be as follows:

        Those people who imagined themselves just admiring the pristine whiteness of the water ar the people who contend themselves to stand in the sidelines and have life pass them by. They are those people who are afraid to take risks, the one’s who avoid experiencing great pains at all cost and in so doing never know the depths of happiness. They enjoy life as long as they have minimal participation. They are for the most part OBSERVERS.

        Those people who imagined themselves readily jumped into the water and swim around are in contrast RISK TAKERS. They are those people who are not afraid of the unknown. They are those who experiences great successes and tremendous failures. They take life as a never-ending challenge and oftentimes emerged victorious.

        Those people who imagined themselves wade in at the shallow end of the waters are those that are either guided by PRUDENCE and CAUTION or hindered by it. They are those people who experience life in moderation as a general tendency 

And for the most important part of the activity that hits me like a bullet—the interpretation of one’s behavioral response to the imaginary flower. During the activity, I had clearly visualized myself gently touching that mirror of nature’s beauty and splendor. Except maybe those who have allergic rhinitis, who can resist touching a beautiful, flower?  To have it interpreted as a tendency to be materialistic had somehow brought conflicting emotions. Hearing the interpretations with its moralistic innuendoes, my initial reaction was from my highly hypocritical self screaming guilt. For a brief moment that morally rigid personal was asking me “What happen to the person who used to be grounded on the values of self-sacrifice; to the person who preferred the simple life of a dignified pauper.” Fortunately, the voice of reason finds it appropriate to assert herself asked, “Why, what’s wrong with wanting to live in material comfort?” As Og Mandino said in one of his books, “Poverty may be a privilege and even a way of life for the monk in the desert, for he has only himself to sustain and none but his God to please.”

There I realized that if the interpretation is correct and I’d like to think that it is, then I really did changed. Gone is the belief that the poorer you are, the closer you’ll be with God. The present me do aspire wealth and material comfort, but it does not mean that the self-sacrificing and dignified person is gone. She is still very much a part of me.

Only she has become more.

Now, she knows that life has so much to offer. She just needs to learn how to take it.

To be brave and courageous enough to partake in the abundance of life.

To have the strength and wisdom to shoulder the responsibilities of having much from life.

“Those who are much is given, more is also required.”

She knows that.

The compiled words below are part of my journal entries in my Educational Guidance subject.

–gold

Religion as a Form of Guidance: November 30, 2003

Unrestrained Thoughts

The declaration of Ramadan as a national holiday (2003) by Pres Gloria Macapagal Arroyo illustrates, in some respect how religion have become a form of guidance for the president. Although she herself is not a Muslim, her knowledge of the importance of this celebration to Muslim Filipinos is enough to make her declare a holiday—thus showing not only respect but also reverence by giving Muslims a chance to exercise their faith. As a president of a country that is somehow divided by religious orientations—with the Muslim playing as the disadvantage minority on the one hand and the Christians as the favored majority on the other hand, acknowledging the importance of the Muslim religious tradition is a brilliant move to reach out to them.

            On a more cynical view, however, I must say that the move is more politically motivated, that is to gain the needed support of the Muslim community not for any religious harmony’s sake but for a longer political life.

            Going back to the idea of religion as a form of guidance, I really do not see religion as such. Faith guides, religion indoctrinates and faith is not equal to religion. Through and through it is indoctrination and nothing else. Who, better than us Filipinos should have known this?

Religion was used by the Spanish conquistadores as a tool to exploit us and our resources. With it they incite fear and guilt in the ignorant minds of our forebears. They had used religion to manipulate us. They even incorporated our own pagan practices just to attract more followers. Back then we are Indios who didn’t know any better than to hear and follow what they say.

We are not allowed to think.

To reason for ourselves.

To grasp the truth of a Supreme Being as we experienced it.

They told us what to believe and forbid us to ask questions. For Indios like us questioning is heresy. We are treated as an Indio, acted like one and for many years after that, the collective psyche of the Filipinos remains that of an Indio. Everything that come from the West are better—even their very mistakes and social malaise look better compared to our feeble ones.

Taking anything foreign as better than our own is no mere colonial mentality. It is ingrained in our innermost being, our spiritual psyche. Our inferiority as a people does not stem from our race. It comes form our religion.

Bored.

That’s how my life is right now and maybe for at least a few more days… Hahay. Life really delivers. You ask for work, it gives you work like there’s no tomorrow. As in work that goes in on your mind even while you’re asleep. And when you scream "Stop, oh please, stop. I can’t take it anymore." It handed you paid siesta. And when again you look for real work since you are used to working like the proverbial oxen.

Guess what life have given me?

A sore eyes. If that doesn’t beat it all, I don’t know what else.

So now we’re back to my being bored.

Having a sore eyes really makes life really boring. I can’t go out on job interviews, can’t work on my vb lessons, can’t have a movie marathon, and I can’t even read my favorite mushy novels.

Oh life. But then i guess, this is life saying "Hey ma’am, just take a breather for a couple more weeks. Before you know it, you’ll again be neck deep with work."

So now i guess, i just have to ride with my boredom and come out of it hopefully energized for another adventure.

The compiled words below are part of my journal entries in my Educational Guidance subject.

–gold

Life’s Cross-roads: November 23, 2003

Irrelevant Ramblings

   Looking back and reevaluating my life, I must say that I am most fortunate. I felt blessed and protected.

   No. Not materially. I have always been poor on the material side of things. As early as six years old, I had already learned to value labor and its rewards.

   I know. The money my mother used to buy my first school uniform when I was to enter grade 1 was taken from the savings I had out of gathering rocks for the construction of our rich neighbors’ houses.

   Yeah, I fetched rocks for a fee, together with my brother and some cousins. But don’t get me wrong. My parents did not force us into child labor. They are very good. In fact the best as far as I’m concerned; for despite our financial struggles, they raised us well.

   School was easy. I never needed to cheat to earn myself good grades. Back then I was more concerned with learning than with grades. Also I have learned during the second grade how unreliable grades are as an indicator of student intelligence and learning. I knew then because a lot of people in my class cheated during exams all the time.

   I first decided to become a teacher when I was in grade 1. That was when my teacher hit me in the face with my flashcards for some unjustified reason. She hit me because I didn’t put the cards inside my envelope and said she didn’t want clutter on our desks. But since those cards where neatly tucked in under my envelope, I didn’t see why she needed to do what she had done to me. She could have told me first as a sort of warning. And I said so as much. Not to her, but to my father who became the sole audience of my righteous, if childish indignation.

   With that I had made up my mind to become a teacher, and definitely a teacher not like her. For as long as I can remember, I have always had high regard for the teaching profession. But that experienced with my grade 1 teacher had also made me very critical of teachers behavior, competency, etc. I know now that sometimes I overreact. I have had a couple of teachers in the past both in high school and college who received my sweet, double-edged love letters. But sometimes, I just can’t help it. Someone should never tread on other people’s dream so callously and cold-heartedly without somehow expecting to get burned.

   Well, much had happened since then. I have experienced both the joys and pains of living—though I’m sure not all of it yet—and struggled to find some meaning for my existence. I have felt intense emotions toward some things and react apathetically towards others.

   Crisis? I don’t know what it is—apart from what economists say.

   Yes, there were pains. Even heart-wrenching pain that seems like tearing your soul apart; the kind that somehow made you feel that no matter how hard you cried it doesn’t seem to go away. But of course it did.

   There were also choices. But then they were just that.

   Choices.

   It never reached to some critical proportion. And although there were a lot of times when it seem to make a poor choice of things, I couldn’t find enough reason to regret it however.

   Poor choice or not, I know everything that I have experienced were crucial and essential to my becoming. Even those I did not consciously choose.

   I don’t believe in coincidences.

   Everything happens for a reason.

   I know it. I read about it. I experienced it.

Prejudice is like seeing a dice,

You look at one side

And then you decide

That the back is as black

As the one you look at.

                        USJR ‘94

                        …while waiting for my next class

                        in the classroom next door

Freedom is not to do and say

What you always want to be

It is not a right you ought to exercise

But responsibility in disguise

For true freedom can be achieve only

When one has done his duty.

Who’s the most free?

Are those people…

            Who thought they’re free

            ‘Coz they can do everything

The way they want it to be?

Who does things their way

With utmost disregard of human dignity

Just to satisfy their rights to be free?

Don’t think this is so…

            Since freedom is meant only

            To do things ‘cause its your responsibility

            And never because you are free

And he is most free

            Who can do anything

            To the best of his ability

English Class Poetry Writing 

Theme: FREEDOM

                        PNHS 94