I Never Thought I Would Miss the Fog

I never thought I would miss the fog. I never thought I would miss waking up in the morning and shivering as the morning chill washed over me. I never thought I would miss pulling on my jacket to fight the cold, putting on my shoes and hitting the streets, living my life on my feet.

I didn't think I would miss the bus rides through the city I called home. Never thought I would miss dirty Muni and all the people, tired, grouchy, loud, filthy, drunk, or sometimes all of these things all at once. The morning bus rides are still fresh in my mind, but still feel like a distant memory. There was honesty there, a sleepy a truth to that daily commute. We're all heading to the same places, day in, day out. Tireless and relentless, but nonetheless still tired. It was a grind to not lose your mind. Only through sheer force of will my commuters and I made it through. And I took it for granted.
Now I long for the sights and sounds of the city. I pine for the bus rides to and from home. I miss the bart train screech and the silent conversations of the passengers around me. I miss the skyline I used to see everyday. I miss the by-lines of the daily Examiner handed out by a petite latina woman at Embarcadero station. I miss dodging the foot traffic of people on their way to work. I miss the water front of the odd numbered piers. I even miss the tourists constantly getting in my way and crowding the F train.

I miss taking the bus through Chinatown and the endless traffic, and stubborn old people forcing their way on to the bus. I miss the vulagrity of the Tenderloin, the boba places in the Sunset and Richmond, the freakshow on Haight, hell I even miss the gentrified Mission district (by god, someone please figure out how to stop driving the families out). I miss the changing scenary of the city by the Bay, and all it had to take and offer me.

But most of all I miss my friends and family. I miss coming home to a full house, where there was someone happy to see that I was home. I miss my cousins and my Lola, who I would talk to on the daily. I miss playing with Calvin and Henry after a long, tiring day at work. I miss just hanging out in Diana and James's apartment downstairs. I miss running into my cousin Pam in the morning on the way to work. I miss all my friends and coworkers, goofing off both while on and off duty. I miss breathing in the air, the faint scent of the sea not too far away. I miss how the city could feel so big, but be so small. I miss running into people who remember me, even if I feel like I should have been nothing to them but a distant memory. I had love for my city, and even if it may not be true, I felt like my city had love for me.

But now the fog has lifted, and been replaced by suffocating heat, thesounds of traffic, sitting in the parking lot people call “the 405”, and traversing the 10 at least twice a week. There are no more morning bus rides. No more friendly faces on the way to work. No chance that I'll run into anyone I knew. No family anywhere close by. It's time I start anew and man, things are different here.

My Highs are Lows

Alone and confused, the blues are burning my health.

I Have a Habit

I have a habit of making dreams a reality
I've been accused of being a wishful thinker
Just another unrealistic dreamer in a brutally realistic world

I've been told that all my thoughts were
nothing but flights of fancy
That my naivety is what blinds me
And unfortunately they can't see all the things that made me
The struggles, the hustles, the fights for what I thought was right
I have faced the depths of despair
I've been broken beyond repair
I bear the scars of wounds left over
running from a home that was not a home
Trapped in a hell where I would rather choose the pain of being lonely and alone
than go back to that false sanctuary I was forced to call home

I have faced the marginalization of who I was as a person
I braved the confrontations between the cultures I claimed
And struggled to reconcile that which threatened to leave my identity maimed
And from the flames of that fire I created a person whom I could embrace

Despite all the set backs I've faced, I was triumphant
I succeed where others fail
I conquered where my doubters fell
When the naysayers and those whom passed judgement would judge me
A no good, worthless, nameless face
Who would amount to absolutely
I became the exact opposite of what I was going to be:
Something.

What all those people don't know
What they cannot see
Is that all those dreams I dream
Though they may appear far, they are in reach
The fruit from the tree does not hang low
You must climb up to reap what you sow
And even if you fall you get up and climb again
Because what else will you do before your time ends?

To be something means to do something
To dream is to think
To act is to make it reality
All I wanted was to breathe
To be free from the pain that imprisoned me
All it took was a step out that door
Off that rock, far away from that shore
I snatched that dream because it stood in place
I reach for stars even though they're up in space
Because they're so much closer than we thought


I made one dream come true
and once I knew, I could not stop
If one came true then what is to say of the others that had not?
For each dream I reached, I held another star
Each one thought to be too distant, too far
But there they were, once above now beneath my feet
Not cold and dead, but warm and breathing
Clutched to my chest are my dreams made real
Warming my soul, telling my hear that it isn't made of steel

Each dream I have is in reach
All I must do is extend my hand
So given the choice, why would I look up and idly stand?

Double Post! (Crossing Streets/ Sleepless in LA)

I'm a week late on the blog post for last week and really cutting it close to not writing a blog post for this week. I'd like to blame it on my lack of discipline, and definitely on having too much to do on top of being a little too stressed out for my own good. My shitty monkey brain hasn't been cooperating with me as of late, but really I can't complain too much. No one ever truly operates under ideal conditions one hundred percent of the time. So, in an attempt to make up for lost time, I'm going to drop a double post on this sleepless morning while I'm waiting for people to wake up here in LA. If I was back home I'd already be up and walking around the city, but LA is a beast that doesn't have great public transportation. That just leaves me trapped in an apartment, waiting for people to get up so we can do things. Until then I guess I'll just keep writing.

Crossing Streets

With purpose I cross the street.
My stride is brisk; my steps sure, short, and swift.
My shoulders are straight and relaxed as I march on to my final destination
I take a few glances over my shoulder, take a few quick peeks over,
making sure no one's creeping up.
I converse with other travelers walking down the road
All the while watching what they hold in their hands, hide in their pockets, listen to their speech
and try my best to see what's underneath.
I'm careful, I'm patient.
My eyes are on the prize; my mind suffers no hesitation.
I listen for irregularity, I'm quick to react and diffuse any provocations and possible altercations.

I slip past the slippery and ease my pace for those who wish to walk with me.
But I watch my back knowing how quickly these people could disappear or turn on me.
Even still, I bear no grudges and harbor no hate.
There's a place I've got to be, so all that baggage can wait.
I move cautiously and swiftly.
These streets are cold, the world is mean, and the only person who can always watch my back is me.
And I can't walking carrying every burden holding me down, holding on to all the mental baggage that
threatens to pull my soul into the ground.
I drop my trash in a bin full of left over dreams, feelings, thoughts and regrets.
I don't have time to carry my trash, I have to move on to what's next.
Cars speed by and I dodge foot traffic.
The lights are blinding, the shuffle grinding, almost purposeless.
It is a low monotonous hum of souls passing by, threatening to pull me in like a riptide.
But I fight and move against the grain.
There is a place I have to be, and my life won't wait for me.
I reach the end of the block and look both ways down where the intersection meets.
With purpose I cross the street.

Sleepless in LA

I have a habit of sleeping late and waking up early. Normally this would be problematic, being constantly sleep deprived is terrible for your mind and body, but you would think that this wouldn't be as big a deal when you're on vacation, right? Not quite. My circadian rhythm has adapted to my terrible sleeping practices, and where most people would just sleep in for the weekend, I wake up at the buttcrack of dawn and can't go back to sleep until late at night. Since I'm not in the city that I live in, nor does any real form of public transportation exist here in LA that makes sense to me, I'm stranded with nothing to do, and unable to fall back asleep. I'm basically stuck in an apartment, using a laptop that isn't mine to try and fill my time with something useful that isn't watching youtube videos and going brain dead. The curtains are drawn, shielding the sunlight from coming in, but it's so bright that all the light cannot be prevented from creeping in. The apartment is quiet, only the sounds of slow, light breathing can be heard from the bed, and I sit here typing away trying to focus my mind on something constructive, and am finding almost next to nothing.

Being sleepless is almost maddening. I can barely think clearly, and after a few moments of blanking out, my body goes numb, or parts of it fall asleep, and I'm left to contend with the stinging needle-like sensation of trying to wake up my sleeping feet. I try not to move too much, at risk of disturbing those whom are able to rest, but I am restless. It is a zen-like practice to sit and wait when all your body wants to do is move. By now, I would already be moving around, getting ready, heading out the door for my morning commute, morning stroll, or even just to go to the neighborhood bakery and say hello to all the folks who pass by. But I'm not. Instead I'm in a quiet room, isolated from the world outside.

When I close my eyes, I can hear the constant hum of cars passing by. They sound a lot like ocean waves that flat lined, and only make the sound right as they break. Every once in awhile I can hear a low, rumbling groan, much like a strong wave breaking against the rocks, and recognize it as the sounds of buses and semi-trucks going by. Every once in awhile, I hear motorcycles pass, sounding like a storm is breaking, but even then it doesn't last for very long. The more I focus in, the more like an ocean it sounds to me, an ocean I personally would not sail across, but an ocean nonetheless. There is beauty in that empty space, between my vision and my hearing but it brings me no closer to sleep.

I start to hallucinate a little, hear things that aren't there, but when I breathe slow and deep, the noises disappear, and all I hear is the ocean of engines. It is almost as ceaseless as the Pacific, and feels almost as vast. I breathe in much more slowly, and exhale gently, trying to sense anything unfamiliar. But for the 30 minutes that I do this, I sense nothing, as if all this is all too familiar. And in truth, being sleepless in LA isn't quite so different than being sleepless anywhere else. It's just that today, I'm not allowed to leave this apartment alone.

Humanity

I have an unshakable faith in humanity.
Now, many would argue that people tend to be the worst that they can be
Selfish, lazy, and filled with apathy
Consumers whom consume without thought
Sheep whom follow blindly
Forever marching towards our mutual ends because people cannot see beyond themselves.
People are driven by their selfish needs, and refuse to help others unless it benefits the self.
This is a world run on game theory, and this world is nothing but games
And everyone is playing to win, and only one can win

It's dog eat dog in the minds of many
and Humanity is doomed because
we are cannibals
Not in the physical sense
but one spiritually
We feed on each others' souls,
exploiting the labor of others
and extracting sustenance from their struggles
The misfortune of one is the benefit of those above him
And those down below clash with each other and
prey upon everything weaker than themselves

Some say we are
vampires sucking the life blood of the planet dry
Destroying the Earth we came from in a misguided attempt to control it
Humanity is a parasite,
one that has been around for a long time
And it's grown so large it has become a threat to the host in which it feasts
Forests are cut down, landscapes destroyed
entire environments decimated in the name of expansion and growth
Even as a species, humanity cares only for itself

But I believe in the contrary,
Humanity is not lost
It is far from the evil that humanity's doubters proclaim it to be
Humanity does not tend towards its worst
Humanity tends towards its
Best

If you look carefully at the world around you
You will find heroes and heroines everywhere
People who will sacrifice their well beings for others around them
All you need to do is look, and watch, and wait

You can see it in the eyes of the children,
How they laugh and play without noticing the differences between each other
How every year they grow closer and more tolerant of those different from them
The words they speak and the actions they take carry no contempt
and no hate.

You can see it in the eyes of the parents whom laugh with their children on long train rides home
Whom just got off work but never fail to share a moment of joy with their child
And though the day may have been bad for either one of them,
None of it matters because of the love shared between them

You can see it in the working class
Those whom struggle to make more and to make ends meet
Be so generous to those less fortunate because they know what it means
to be treated like dirt in the street

You can see it in the average person who feels that they should do more with their time
Because helping themselves alone feels empty
And putting away unpaid time for a cause is just as important
as making money

You can see it in the rich who invest in cures and causes
Not just for PR but because
they see a problem and are trying to solve it

Human society was built on cooperation
Altruism is our predisposition
Empathy is our mission
Love is our condition
Even child soldiers and the masses of people whom are broken
Do not become the villains they were thought to
Most fight against the urge to harm others the same way  they were taught to
Because in the end they know only together can we make it through

We are doing more than ever to fix the mistakes we've made
We are cleaning up our messes and asking for forgiveness
We are righting the wrongs of our ancestors and ensuring we do not repeat them
And though we may never be able to repair what has been broken completely
We are mending what we can and building our world  anew

Because you see,
The evil in this world
The evil in humanity is really ignorance and apathy
Both are inert states of energy that misguide and lead us astray
In the end, the worst in people is an anomaly
A symptom of something gone wrong
And we are all trying desperately
To fix it.

Life Must Happen

The hardest thing about life for me is to just let life happen. That may sound strange, but I have the hardest time just letting things happen. By no means am I a control freak; I abhor the idea of micro management both of my life and other people, but I dislike leaving things up to chance. This problem I have isn't as bad as it used to be. Many people whom were close to me when I was younger can attest to this: whenever I saw someone about to do something stupid, or I feel something bad was about to happen,  I would go out of my way to prevent that person from hurting themselves or to prevent the inevitable from happening entirely. Most times those attempts ended in failure, and sometimes even exacerbated the problems I was trying to solve.  In the end I've learned the hard way that you can't prevent the inevitable and you cannot change what people will do unless they're honestly willing to listen to you. So I've learned to ease up a bit, but the problem still persists and I've been trying to get to the root of the problem. It stems from many places, mostly my insecurities and my up bringing, but it also comes from my experiences and how I've learned to cope with the world, as well as the fact that I have a really shitty monkey brain.

I am an American. An Asian American to be specific, a Filipino American to be even more specific, but nonetheless American. Thus I hold onto this crazy notion in my head that much of my reality, much of what happens to me and my world is dependent upon how I choose to interact with my world and the decisions that I make. Therefore what happens to me is completely in my hands. This over exaggerated sense of internal locus of control is pretty common in Americans, but usually only when something positive happens.  When something bad happens however, many Americans will chalk it up to forces outside of their control (external locus of control). I unfortunately don't have that ability to conveniently switch between the two when something happens to me and overcompensate on that internal locus of control business and attribute both my failures and successes to the things I've done. Everything seems to balance out in the end; if I do good I praise myself for it,  if I do bad I give myself some criticism, and since I tend to succeed more than fail (at least in recent years) I come up with a net positive. Well, you see the little descriptor before American at the top of this paragraph? Both the "Asian" and "Filipino" descriptors? They're there for a reason.

I was brought up in a Filipino household, and the culture that was passed on to me from my parents was far more collectivist than individualistic. I was taught that what I do shouldn't just be for myself; my actions should also benefit everyone around me. If I succeed, the success is not mine alone. Everyone around me contributed to that success, therefore my success should be shared, and everyone around me should be credited for it. Saying that it was my victory alone is selfish, and if there is anything that is discouraged in collectivist cultures, it's selfishness. As a result, I've come to avoid selfish behavior as much as I can, and do my best  to not be too selfish (I'm still American after all). So the formula now for how my brain sees my successes and failures goes something like this: success is a result of my personal action along with the support of the people around me, and failures are a direct result of my personal actions/in actions.  Things should be ok, I basically just share the glory with others around me, and I shoulder all the blame for not doing as well as I would like to. With the abundance of success this too should be ok, but I also have a shitty monkey brain, and good lord it's a shitty brain. 

You see, human brains, aka the shitty ancient monkey brain, have evolved to pay attention to negative stimuli more than positive stimuli. It's extremely useful back in the days when we were running away from animals trying to eat us, or so we could protect ourselves from raiding tribes of other super intelligent primates. Running from the tiger is way more important to your survival than feeling good because you found a new way to scratch that hard to reach itch on your back that you couldn't reach before. Unfortunately, that same system in shitty monkey brains is also the same system which calculates scarcity and it's really bad at it. Human brains are notoriously bad at numbers and keeping track of quantities. Combine inherently bad quantitative skills with the predisposition to focus on negative stimuli, add a sense of false scarcity because I have to share my victories, as well as the idea that the bad things that happen to me are basically my fault alone, and what you get is this fear of letting stuff slip out of control. 

It's extremely faulty logic, and my rational brain knows that. Most of the things that happen in the world are not within my control. I don't have any control over anyone else except me. I affect far less than .0001% of the world and in most people's lives I'm not even a significant factor. What happens to me is a good deal of luck and what other people around me are doing. If I get hit by a car, part of it would be my fault, but it's also the fault of someone else. If I get shot, there really isn't much I can do at all. If I win the lottery, I'm just extremely lucky. Even in my own life, a good deal of it I cannot control at all. So that inflated sense of control over my own destiny is flat out wrong and my rational brain knows it. Unfortunately, that rational, thinking brain is a recently developed trait humans have developed. The much older emotional monkey brain takes precedence over everything else. So that fear sticks with me, and my emotional brain searches for the only logical answer to addressing my fears: control as much of my life as possible.

This is probably why I like video games so much. If I work at it enough, I can beat any game out there. Video games are the only instance where you see a direct pay off for the time you've invested. It is also the only instance where you have complete control of how well your digital avatar, no matter what form it takes, and can determine their fate with 100% certainty. There are surprises the first time you play any game, but once you've completed it, you literally can predict what will happen, and you control your avatar's fate without any uncertainty at all. 

The real world however does not work like a video game at all. There are too many factors to consider, far too many uncertainties, variables completely unknown, at lest to me, and the game doesn't end until you're dead and you only get one chance to live. Life really isn't something you can control. Uncertainty will always be a part of life. Trying to do so usually ends in disaster. I've wrecked friendships and relationships because I tried so hard to control everything, and I watched countless more relationships crack under the strain of having too much restraining it. I've missed opportunities and  threw some away because I feared the uncertainty that would follow. It's like trying to dam up a river with endless amounts of flimsy levies, and those levies are made out of twigs. All levies fail eventually, and the disaster that follows is usually incomprehensible.  So it's probably best not to try to build levies with twigs and exert influence over aspects of our life that we realistically don't have much control over. Instead, I should let the river of life flow, and use it's flow to enhance my life and the lives  of those around me. I should control it selectively, and use it's force in my favor. Instead of building a dam, I should build a water mill with my twigs, and use the momentum of the river to power my efforts to creating a better world Diverting rivers is usually harmful, but harnessing it's energy is immensely helpful. In the end life must flow, and I just have to let it flow, because that's what life was meant to do. I just have to let life happen, and my life will be better for it.

(P.S. will add links to sources of information later)

Fresh Starts and Five Golden Rules

It's been a good many years since I last wrote anything that even resembled a blog. Even then, it was admittedly god awful and genuinely terrible. I was blogging during a tough time in my life, and decided to write about my troubles, tribulations, and how much I wallowed in my self pity.  Looking back now, I can definitely see why I quit blogging in the first place, and I'm extremely thankful, based on the stats I saw here on this very account, no one saw it. Well, no one except me.

I decided to return to blogging mostly because of my cousin Diana's blog Pancakes in Bed which you can find here. In it Diana, chronicles her and her family's life, the challenges they go through, and the joys of going though it together. Along with the occasional tasty treat recipe, her blog posts instilled a lot of hope in me, and the inspiration to give blogging another shot. I'm no longer that self pitying kid I once was, and I'm far more well put together. That isn't to say I don't struggle now. I do; I just handle it better. I see my world from a very different point of view than I did three years ago, and coming back to this blog, I caught a glimpse of what I was and decided to start over. I deleted the mess, and now my page is empty. It's like having a blank canvas: I don't know what I'm going to make of it. Whether it be beautiful or exciting, heartwarming, humorous, or depressing, I'm just excited to be creating again and painting the world I see with my words.  It's a new beginning for me, and just like with every beginning, I'm nervous, afraid of what's to come, but something inside me is excited to get started and dive head first into this blogging business.

There are self-imposed rules to how and when I post here, because I need a way to keep my self in check and prevent myself from spiraling into an endless torrent of Debbie Downer/ Negative Nancy/ self-pity posts, as well as keep this blog somewhat consistent.

1. There is a minimum of one post per week and a maximum of one post per day. I'm not allowed to forget about the blog, and I'm also not allowed to flood it with multiple posts just because I have a lot to say that particular day. I want to stress quality over quantity, and one post per day feels a lot like I only get one shot to get it right and I need to make it count.

2. No "Dear Diary" bullshit. I'm not here to write about how my day went, what I ate for lunch, or what person X said to person Y. If I do talk about something in my day, it has to be relevant to a bigger idea I have in mind when I'm writing the blog, or a celebration of a milestone in my life and/or the lives of people around me. This is just so I don't ramble on about nothing, and give a synopsis of what I did in a mundane fashion all the while being purposeless. Speaking of which...

3. Entries must be purposeful and for the most part benevolent. I write. I write a lot. Sometimes I write poems. Sometimes I write stories. Sometimes I write essays. For fun. Knowing what I tend to do as a writer, I'd like to ensure what I post is actually worthy content by my standards. I need to have a purpose for writing the post. I can't just post just for the sake of posting.
 I also know that I can rip into people pretty harshly and spread a lot of bad vibes using my words. I'd rather not poison the well as much as possible, so I can't be too negative or critical of people here. Ideas are fair game, but specific individuals and groups are off limits.

4. Posts must be (mostly) original content. I'm allowed to share things but at least 60% of every post must be something I wrote. Posts don't count if that 60% of my content conflicts with rule number 3.

5. Everything else is fair game. I can posts stories, poems, discoveries, essays, photo essays, even experiments I'm conducting and how they're progressing. I really hope this will keep my blog somewhat interesting and give me the motivation to try out different styles of writing I don't normally do.

Enough rules, let's get this business started.