The Hourglass (Repost)

If there is a symbol that I like the most, it would be the hourglass. Time is a subject that really hooks me, be it scientific or figurative in approach. And speaking of time, it has almost been three years after I have written "The Hourglass."


It is funny to look back on how I have seen things in the past. Perhaps it is inevitable. The same old hourglass may still look the same as it was. But its sands may mean different.

10/04/09 9:00p



Hourglass Time (meters) = [Time (seconds)][c],
where c* is the speed of a photon, a particle of light.


Time can now be measured in meters. Thanks to my Physics class for that great info. Yeah,great. After "time" being my every day life torturer, it's now another hindrance for getting a good grade in class. Time is so consistent: still as complex as it is.


Complex yet still so consistent.


It is funny how we get so bored wanting time to pass quickly. We do lots of things to "kill" it. We ask why is time moving too slow. But at many points we have a change of heart. When we are enjoying the moment, when we are cramming, when we are losing something or someone, how we want time to slow down. We even want to make it stop. Or even make it go back. But time is consistent. We people are not.


Good use of time makes good memories. Failure to do so makes regrets.


I am turning nineteen. So I say that the loss of time is proportional to my growing tall (Growing up is another matter.My growing taller seems more evident). And I look back to the goals I've reached, people I have hurt or took for granted and the chances I have lost. I hate how time can be my cruelest enemy: draining all my childhood away, showing to my face how I became the family's black sheep where I am the only sheep, bringing me the responsibilities of growing up and being an only child, depicting to me the fear of lost opportunities that I think will never be back.


I want to hold time in its neck. Pin it down and make it my slave. But I just can't touch it. It is in the fourth dimension, with length,width,height and something more we humans fail to explain. I want time to be out of my way. And the only way that it can be is for me to have more of it.


I wish I have more time.


TIme to change.
To forgive.
And to be forgiven.
To show that I care.
And be cared for.
To save.
And be saved.
TIme to say sorry,
I love you,
Thank you.


More time to make good use of.
And I almost forgot: time is relative. I wish more time for these people around me to still be around, for I'm praying for all my time because of them.


When we want the sand of the hourglass pour down faster, we fail to notice that it is burying us in. When we try to make it pour slower, we realize that we just can't. So we have no choice but let time be as it is and try our best to make the most of it. It is an attribute of existence- simply an attribute that will pass us all.



________________
*c=300000000 m/s

01/17/07 4:55a

Found: An Old Birthday's Note

Believe me. Tutoring every evening is not exactly an easy job. Like working adults, I understand how it is to pull oneself from the bed when all you want is to take a nap from a long day- Yup, be it a long day of hard work or a long day of rest, it still is long. It gets longer when I have to wait for that jeep and get pinched in between passengers of a stuffed jeep. Honestly, at times, I feel a little lucky if its is some pretty girl. Things are worse when the jeep is the type with small windows that blocks most of the wind in addition to some fat guys sitting near me. I hate it when the lights are purple, blue or red. I hate it when the driver speeds up at humps. (Manong, knock the hell off…) Times are so bad when my seatmate has to be a sweaty, bulky, muscular man. I can’t breath, seriously. And when I thought things can’t get any worse, a woman with a pail of fresh squid enters. Now, you get the picture.

I usually take an overpass to get to a waiting jeep when going home.

I have witnessed accidents, a couple of them. Once there was a motorcycle behind us that fell of balance while in high speed. Then there was a speeding car, illogicaly, while approaching a U-turn slot. The driver failed to notice another car in front slowing down to enter the U-turn. The brakes slowed him down but that was not enough to prevent a collision and some injuries. The U-turn slot is some steps away from the spot where I stood, before climbing up the overpass. No one was dead, fortunately. Sometimes, I can’t help but think what would become of me when the speeding car’s driver panicked and turned sharp right- to the dead spot where I stood. Well, I might be exaggerating things but I could have been a goner. And maybe things could have been easier.

Plato said that death is not to be feared. Death must be another great adventure. I beg to disagree. Such philosophy is for the proud who believes that he is not attached to anything, liable to or of anything and is indebted to no one. Whoever that person is I pity him. Because he is alone. I personally don’t know death. I have seen loved ones go and I see death as stopping of body functions. More than that, I see it as a separation. It is to part without knowing where to go. It is to make those who love you cry when you cannot comfort them. Some are able to say last words like being there around always even after death. I say cut the crap of being there forever. Faith is another issue. Or maybe not. Belief in life after death is an incorporation of faith in Him and in your departed loved ones. I really hate the topic though.

As for me, I fear it because I think I don't understand it's opposite yet.. Yes, I think so. I fear death because I haven’t learned to live yet. I guess that’s the very reason why we fear it.

Now there’s so much of death here. I will talk about it some other time.

Let me just clear it. No matter how I look at life as tiring as my daily trips in and out of my campus and of myself, life is beautiful. It is beautiful because I can see things and tell if they are beautiful or not. It is beautiful because I know there is someone at the dormitory or some people at home who wants to see me. I miss them. And I need to be alive to feel that. Days will come that I will curse life and hate it. I will wish for death as the better alternative. But believe me I will live, not mainly for the reason that I am afraid to die or kill myself. I believe choosing death by free will is cowardice. It is an easy escape. And I am never a coward. I might not be always brave but not the far opposite. Yup, I will mess up. I will fail more but never will be a failure.

So I vow myself to life. It is the best gift from the Higher Being up there that I could ever have. Though the best, it is the same gift that I felt like leaving and giving up on because it feels wrong. It is like messing up a video game and you want to start it all over again. The problem is that there is no reset button. So these are not words of a resolution, a promise that I will be better or greater. But still, I vow myself to life. Maybe there’s life after death but I don’t know it. So I’m taking this short chance: To make each moment count for my Creator and the people around me. I vow to acceptance of my imperfection and to the task of leaving it. I vow to loyalty to the path I have taken not because there is no way out or any reset button. It is because it has taken me this far and let me meet the people important and dear to me.

Last ten minutes of my age as 20. Thank You Lord for everything.

You have given me chances. It is only I who missed grabbing them

I thank you for the things that made sense and the things that doesn’t for now. I hope I learn to understand them soon

Thank you Lord. Even if I always mess up, I love You.

Thanks for my mom and dad and for my girlfriend. I get mad with them at times but ,sincerely, they are the few who made sense in my life. May this life and its everyday be a prayer.

Thank You for this life you have given me. (March 18, 2009 11:50 PM)

09/18/09 1:30a

The One

I like it when she looks strong when I know she is not. Because that, in a way and in essence, is strength.

When all seems wrong she keeps that frown and trying-to-be-sharp look on her face. She keeps her voice from trembling. She have trained her eyes well to do her bidding and not to betray her.

Her round eyes. I know them when something is wrong. They don't look bubbly nor sleepy.

This is her mask which I have known distinctly and loved. Not because its merely a mask. Not because it hides her face. That frail, weak, crybaby face.

It is the mask that I have seen through. And kept me to stay.



09/16/09 9:45p

Google time and cooling off

I am still having a problem with my Google Account's time settings. I have set it to GMT +8 hours, Manila time. Google said that the changes were saved. I wonder why the time in my mail reads 15 hours late. Yeah, it is saved. But unrecognized.

Yes. 15 hours. late. (An update: Yeah, the time of posting has now changed. It varies now. But never correct.)

And the same goes for my Google Calendar, Google Talk and this blog.

So I will be adding the date and time that the entry is really finished and posted until I get a solution.

I have an issue with my first post: It is a .emo type of document. Don't interpret me as an emo type of person. I am not.



Or maybe...




heck...

And I had to walk my way to the flyover crying. It was lucky that it was dark. Yellow lamps and a few from closing stores were the only lights.

It is just that I can’t sleep without telling anyone about this. But I got no one. So it’s up to my heavy duty computer keyboard to get mashed.

This is the farthest that I can get from her. The feeling is a little hard to describe by itself. It is better to describe it by what it is not. It doesn’t feel empty. I don’t feel like breaking apart. I don’t feel certain but I don’t feel regretful at the same time.

All I know is that this distance I decided to place between us is to be measured by time. And time units used to measure the distance has always been the longest in all forms of literature. And so I am writing this.

I didn’t know how to call it. Break-up? No. Cool-off? I didn’t believe in the word cool-off when it comes to partnership. But then it has turned to the classical “atheist being face to face with God.” Nevertheless I faced it. And I never thought that I would initiate it. So I used the classical lines, “I need space…”

And so I’ve learned that I what I have learned is little still. And another lesson I need to know has this price. It is the price of a heart, not breaking, but being crumpled. It is not painful. But it is sad. You can follow a person miles away. But not a person a time away. Miles is a measure of length. Tangible. Time is dimensionless. Indefinite. And so I know that this time she cannot follow me even if I want to give her the opportunity of being the one to come to me. I started it. So it is up to me.

Nothing to expect from me. And I, nothing to expect from her.

But I told her that there is a thing that she should be expecting: I am coming back.

A home is not a place. It is a state. You’re not in it. It is in you. And so I’m just on a little walk. That’s all.

It was a sad embrace. It was not romantic. It was not hopeful. But certainly it is not empty. It has sense still strange to the both of us. And so my unclear style of writing is not at all a style in this document. Because I can’t describe what I feel of what it is. Because I described it of what it is not.

It is not a goodbye.

09/16/09 12:30p

Warps and Loops

Hi! People call me JD. It’s not my real name but a far derivative. Anyway, I got used to it.

21 years old, not growing any younger, troubled by this

College Student, looking forward to graduation. My eyes dropped and rolled

Part time tutor, teaching, boxing, wrestling with kids

Only child, the black sheep. /omg

Catholic, no issue regarding it if by birth or by choice. Born, stayed, committed.

A Filipino, a proud one and a dreamer of a better place for us.

A son, lost, found, getting lost again, found again, learning, growing.

A child.

A person.

A friend.

And I am writing for a special purpose, just like any writer. There were stories done. Feelings about them were forgotten. But merely forgetting has not caused the stories to cease existence. So when I remember the emotions, the scenes and the details, I will grab the chance. This is my memory box, my bulletin board, and my notes to everyone. I hope that my stories and thoughts will not be only a help for myself. But for the people involved in it to remember. For strangers. And for the internet surfer who will bump into these pages, Warps and Loops.

I want to stir the world, even if it is just the immediate world around me. This is my way.

09/15/09 12:12a