Linggo, Hunyo 17, 2012

Sum of all Pairs

      Nope, it's not the title of Ben Affleck's movie. It's a whole different genre. I've always wondered why there's always a tryst between two conflicting things or ideas. They always come in pairs. Did you at any moment in your life ever wondered why? I do believe that everything exist in pairs. That if you have something, this something has a total opposite somewhere. One being dependent on the other for validity and integrity. In other words, to maintain their sense of individuality. Yes, it's a bit vague. One in my opinion can't exist without the other but at the same time have an established, exact, and precise territory to set them apart.
      Opposites do attract, as the old saying goes. And that in a sense is true. They do tend to need one another to differentiate and maintain their identity. Totally reliant on each other. Each being a part of the other in a manner of speaking. They coexist giving us choices and evenly testing our judgments and convictions.
      I've been asked one time where the idea of good and bad came from. I really don't know how to answer him. Though it did keep me thinking for a while. Origins of words can be tricky. The idea is a lot easier to grasp. Well then, how did the ideas occur to the people who coined the terms good and bad? Were they coined by the Christians to teach their followers basic Do's and Don'ts? Or was it there even before the time when there was an established religion to follow? A lot of questions that would really drive a person insane. Let's go back to my precedent... everything exist in twos, in pairs. Armed with that in mind, let's go back to my example of good and bad. Would good be known without it's opposite, bad? How can something be considered good when we don't even have the slightest idea what to surmise as bad. It's not like that everything is good until somebody said so. Well, in a way maybe it was like that. But think about it. Good and bad were already in existence. We just don't know yet what to call them and how to distinguish one from the other. Our forefathers may have used so many parameters for trying to come up with a fine line separating the two. They did in such a way that they still correspond to each other. One the exact opposite of the other. Now we do have a fine definition of what's good and bad. Everything not bad is good and the same thing goes the other way around. Good can't exist without bad hot on it's tails. The two though totally different and exactly opposite do compliment each other when it comes to validation and differentiation. We can now compare them for better understanding of what they stand for. Now we can tell what's good because we do have a concrete idea what it is that is considered bad. Though the general idea of good and bad can be both subjective and objective and very highly debatable. So were just gonna focus on the main idea of the terms. They are individual entities, yes, but at the same time one can't exist without the other. Other examples are our ideas of life and death, yin and yang, heaven and hell. Other terms may arise from the two but if you would look closer we always go back to the most basic ones. Take for example, day and night. These two are our basic terms used with regards to presence of light coming from the sun. But now we have dawn, afternoon, twilight based on the intensity of the light during the course of the day. Nowadays, brought about by people being wiser, more intelligent and advanced, they almost have a name for everything. We have become more specific and precise. Nevertheless, however advanced our lives may have become we still have to know the simpler attributes of life. And that's another story.
      Going back to my pairs theme. These two words do intriguingly go hand in hand in making us understand their true meaning and impact in our lives. One is needed to define the other. They create a sense of balance in our lives. Each pair balancing one another. That with the absence of one the whole idea is corrupted thus ruining the balance. Even though being a pair means contradicting ideas. They do support each other to form a whole central idea about facets in our lives. Two entities of confliction forming a general thought. A sum that makes us understand things more clearly. A sum of all that we have and comprises the world of ideas that we know of. Arming us great knowledge for us to be able to coast in life far better.
      A man and a wife forming a family, a whole entity that is a building block forming a bigger group which is the community. A community furthers itself as a nation, nations comprising the world. The sum of a pair gives you a concrete idea, a wholeness that is easier understood. And with all the culmination of these ideas completes a bigger whole. For knowledge leads to understanding. Which is the key to a life well spent. So whether you're ugly or beautiful, fair or dark, tall or short, skinny or fat, always remember that without you, nothing will be complete. You, as well as I, are important in keeping the balance and creating the whole. Each one of us is a part of a bigger whole and without one of us the rest will cease to exist. The next time somebody calls you ugly to your face, just tell them, "You're only beautiful because I happen to be ugly. So shut up and thank your lucky stars. Without ugly people like me I don't think people would even consider you beautiful."
      We should always be mindful that our world, our lives, are lived on an invisible scale which we try to balance. If not, would lead to uncertain failures. We each need one another to keep it on the level and try not to upset or upstage each other. We do need one another to define ourselves as individuals as we walk our lives. We are all a part of a pair that will complete a wholeness that is filled with meaning and clarity.

Huwebes, Hunyo 7, 2012

Unfriend You

      So it's over, we're through. So I'll unfriend you.... This has been my favorite song for a while. I literally listen to it and enjoy Greyson Chance's cute voice whenever I do my weekly routine, which is unfriending people. It's my theme song for the said activity. I had posted once on facebook that everything that happens in your life merits a perfect song like in the movies. Real life is like a movie only more complicated. It may sound mean and incomprehensible but yes I do unfriend people a lot.
      I unfriend friends, ignore friend requests, add friends just to be able to unfriend them after several days and worst of all is that I screen people. Classifying them as friendlies or bitches. I'm not judgmental or maybe I am, it's just so happens that I have trust issues and great intuition. This is who I am today, a far cry from who I was years back.
      Once upon a time... there lived a nice kid with great potential, that kid was the old me. I was reared in an environment that taught me to be nice and appreciative of small stuff. I was the kind who wanted to please everybody and do what I was told. Safe to say I was a kiss ass. As soon as I entered school, I was the nicest, most behaved kid in class. Teachers love me and my classmates adored and respected me. But people have their dark sides, and I'm no exception. High school came and I was faced with a much varied assortment of classmates. All from different walks of life and backgrounds, with that came different attitudes. The disease of trying to fit in swept over me and I did what I was good at, be friendly. I did successfully do that for I was a chameleon and the only one who managed to go around the different groups they fondly call cliques. I learned a lot from going around. Gossips, classmates they hate, crushes and all the sordid stuff. As a nice person, I absorbed all these crap and kept them to myself from fear of being accused a back stabber and a two faced dog. I love secrets. Harboring them is a lot of fun. Just having the knowledge that you have something that would make people fly and do just what you want. To have something you can use against somebody when the right time comes. Holding people hostage just because they had committed the blunder of telling you their dirt. I know it sounds sinister and morbid but secrets are like that if entrusted to the wrong people. Moving on... well I'm not that kind. I'm the kind that even if I'm aware what they can do for me, I still keep them to myself. Even if I have trust issues, I pride myself in saying people can trust me. That's why friends do come and pour their hearts out because they know and I know that everything they tell me will remain confidential for as long as they want them to be. Your secret is safe with me; this is one of my most beloved motto in life together with my old time favorite, 'Time is gold'. I live by it because I do believe that it's not my secret to tell in the first place. The person, the bearer of the secret,  has the sole right to divulge it to the public at the most convenient time for them. Enough of secrets, let's go back to me being bad. By the end of HS while I was preoccupied with my college applications and entrance exams. I began looking deeper into people and found myself creating constructive criticisms in my head. Not that I'm perfect, because nobody is and that is a fact. Everybody came under close scrutiny and began identifying real friends from plastics. This was all handled under great discretion. I have segregated people I know as friends and pretend friends. By the end of the school year I was all too happy and excited to start a new chapter in  my life. I have already picked friends with whom I'll stay in touch with and those I'll bid 'au revoir', goodbye.
      From then on I had this thing of quietly assessing new acquaintances and surprisingly so, I was able to really tell if I'm gonna get along with them or not. Boastful, so self assured, untrustworthy, bossy, snooty bitches don't get the cut. Still, years of being nice and growing up that way, surfaces and I do as much as give them respect and a much deserved courtesy. In short I still treat them cordially apart from the fact that I don't like them at all. Sometimes I think to myself what a big fat pretentious hypocritical prick I am. But everything I do, I do for a reason. That is, I don't want to hurt people in a way that would surface as rejection. Who wants to be rejected? Not me. It's hard to deal with that even if people do say that it's okay, it's really not. It always leaves a scar. So I do everything I can to minimize conflict and make people happy.
      Nowadays, it has gotten worse and weirder. Back when I was nicer, I give it time before I dismiss people as unfriendlies but now the instant I meet you and lay my eyes on you, a mechanism in my head will turn and readily tell me which classification you fall into. Call me brutal but I can't help it. When I meet somebody I instantly go, I like this person or think that there is something off with this person that he/she's trying so hard to mask. First impressions for me are all that matters for somebody to be my friend or not. But the question is, do I get it correct all the time? The answer to that is no. Sometimes even if it pains me to admit, I do get it wrong at times. And all they have to do is prove me wrong and tell me what a sour trout I am. I've been told that I'm snobbish and sometimes a bitch by my friends (not in a bad manner but in a joking kind of way) and I do try to live up to it in a way. I love being perceived as that.
      How I treat unfriendlies is rather different. I try to remain civil and do try my hardest to show them the same courtesy I show my real friends. I'm totally polite and try to somehow show them that I'm a good enough person not to be brusque and prude. My friend's term for it is being choosy. I'm choosy in a lot of ways. Now I've proven time and again how choosy I am. A slight infringement could render you unfriended just like that, a click and then nada. Trust is the main feature in a friendship and when it's gone no way will it ever work. It applies not only to friends but to all sorts of relationships known to man. My being choosy extends to events I attend. I don't go to parties when there is at least one unfavorable person in attendance. Friends who know me well would tell me those in the guest list in advance so I could at least weigh my options in attending. My reason is solely that you go out to enjoy. So how in the world will you be able have fun if there is an unfriendly creature hovering about. Yes, I'm finicky when it comes to the company I keep. I want to be surrounded by real friends not phony ones who talk shit behind your back and grabs every opportunity to put you down. My being picky is not a bad thing if you look at it closely. When people do things differently, it doesn't make it wrong. All you have to do is ask and try to understand what their reasons are behind their actions. In my case lack of trust and my high end intuition is to be accounted for. We can never really understand or explain the workings of the human mind. We are all different one way or the other. So we're left with the task of learning how to deal with all the eccentricities and as much as possible try to understand and respect the way others choose to lead their lives.
      And as my life goes on, I continue to unfriend friends, ignore friend requests, screen acquaintances, avoid unfavorable things, and act cordial to those that I don't give a damn. That's life. So suck it up and try to live with it.