‘Reinventing Rescuing’

References: 

Berlin art-parasites

Photo by: Heather Mclean

Dear Future Daughter

References:

Berlin art-parasites

Photo by: Kate Powell

Let's run away and never look back

You ever wonder why teenagers love doing stupid things? Why they always get caught doing something "bad" and not show any remorse for it? Let me tell you why.

Artists never stopped doing what they love. They didn't die for nothing. They didn't want to be part of something so ordinary. No, fuck that. They wanted to do things that lived up to their passion, to their dreams and goals. Hell, they wanted to live.

So why stop now? Why go with the crowd? Why waste your life waking up at 7 in the morning, knowing that every single day is going to make you feel like complete shit. This is the norm everybody thinks is right for them. "Right" is the thing society invented in order for those teenagers to stop painting too much colors in their world, and start acting like them. And for what? You call having a crappy job that pays the bills living? You call kissing other people's ass just to get money out of it 'living your life'? Fuck your philosophy.

I'm gonna travel, & not only travel by places but by heart and mind and soul. I want to discover myself, see what the world has to offer, and what I can offer back. I want to rotate the same way this planet does, 24 hours a day. I don't want to settle and go to bed in my room smelling like cigarettes and alcohol full of regrets. Shit, I don't even want to go to sleep, or I might miss those things so euphoric it'll change my perception in life.

The way the 10 year old me saw the world full of surprises and mysteries, I want to feel that again. I don't want to let society morph myself into something acceptable for them. Fuck that. The way my mom told me that I can change the world, I want to bring that back, & prove to anyone who laughed at me wrong.

I don't want labels, or numbers, or groups to define me. I am my own person, my own artist. My world, my colors. What I say about myself is how I want to be perceived and nobody has the right to tell me otherwise.

RDM
12:01 AM
4 23 15

Five Day Challege: Young Blood

Seeking Relevance

Joseph Giancarlo C. Agdamag

A couple of years ago, fresh from the laid-back world of college, I started a blog. At first I didn’t know what to write about. My first few posts ranged from mundane rants to highfalutin sentiments (or so I thought). In fact, my WordPress ID was snooty (read: thoughtologist).

Eventually I found my niche, and concentrated on fashion blogging. I decided to critique the new collections of brands and fashion houses and to curate the really good ones according to my taste. To satisfy my readers’ visual appetite, and also to entice new ones, I created a Lookbook account. It helped that I was really into fashion and I liked dressing up.

But law school became more demanding and after actively blogging for almost a year, I stopped posting updates. It was regrettable as things were taking off (or so I thought). I had begun to receive invites to events and product launches, in exchange for spreading the news on my own network.

Fast-forward to the present. I laugh whenever I remember that phase in my life. Truth be told, I tried to pass myself off as some sort of a fashion blogger not really because of my interest in fashion, or even my passion for writing, but because I was trying to be relevant.

In this day and age when one’s influence is measured by the number of “likes” an Instagram post generates, or by the number of one’s Twitter followers, fitting in has become a lot harder. Social media is now regarded as a ticket to success and, in most instances, a key to fame and fortune.

Let’s admit it: You can’t be considered cool unless you have an active online presence. The more invested you are in social media, the cooler you are seen to be. The name of the game is popularity; the rules of the game are limitless. It’s a matter of being in the scene.

Social networking has pervaded our lives to the point that the distinctions between our personal and virtual spaces have so blurred that you can’t make distinctions anymore. The subjects of conversation are now shaped by what’s trending online.

It does not end there. Another confusion—between what’s real and what’s imagined—has been created. Social media takes us to another dimension—a world that may in fact not be grounded in reality. Since we have control over our own accounts, we can choose what to post online and, therefore, dictate what we want others to see and think about us.

Naturally, what we choose to post are enhanced versions of ourselves. Think of it as a digital marketing plan: We decide on what personality we want to project—artsy dude, privileged kid, know-it-all intellectual, carefree party-goer, wannabe hipster, etc.—and through liking, tweeting, or sharing, the grand plan is executed. Our online personas are transformed into virtual résumés. Through social media, we are able to sell ourselves.

Not that this approach is entirely flawed. After all, whether we accept it or not, we do this in order to seek relevance. We try our best to please others, so that we may find ourselves worthy of being accepted into the evolving notion of a person relevant to society.

Ultimately, social media is power. What were once unimaginable can now become great possibilities. This is where we must hold ourselves responsible to utilize its potential for the greater good, and not just our self-serving whims. But that’s easier said than done.

Thus, the real challenge is to live out what we project online in the best way we can, with no pretensions. It should be the other way around—the virtual merely mirroring real life—but the prevailing setup dictates otherwise.

And this is what I propose: that whatever we decide to imbibe virtually, we should strive hard to transform into reality. By doing so, we restore the balance between what is real and what is imagined, and we reach the perfect version of what we want to become.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer

Fiva Day Challenge: Young Blood

Driven to Succeed

Maria Linnea V. Dimaano

I would have just settled with being an average student whose only aim was to graduate on time, but one experience changed my perception of success.

In February last year, I became part of an exhilarating event—a prestigious international competition where we engineering students were put to the test in terms of skills and ingenuity.

My classmate, who happens to be one of my best buddies, asked me a few months earlier if I wanted to join their team that wished to compete in Shell Eco-marathon Asia. At first, I just laughed at the thought because it felt like a waste of time, energy and money to build something seemingly impossible: a fuel-efficient car of the future.

I really didn’t believe in the project at that time, but my buddy pushed me to join the team. He told me that I should give it a try and that I could leave the group later if I wanted to. I agreed to join the screening, submitted my academic standing, and got accepted.

I finally met the team that I would be working with; I found that the team members really had a passion for making a unique eco-car to represent our university in the competition. This is important because many other schools from all over the world participate in the yearly event, where engineering students are challenged to put the concept of sustainable mobility into practice.

The aim appeared to be something that I related to as well. I found myself catching on to the spirit of the team and not wanting to leave. We started planning and scratching out a lot of ideas in the process. We exchanged thoughts and sometimes found ourselves bursting into laughter over jokes. Most importantly, we were building camaraderie first.

However, lack of financial support was a fundamental problem. We all knew that our school, being a state university, cannot provide us the funding we needed to build our eco-car. Thus, we approached various companies with sponsorship letters, and patiently waited for their responses.

Meanwhile, one of our colleagues brought up the idea of raising funds by selling candies to our schoolmates. I myself went to Divisoria almost every day to buy heavy bags of candies. It was really so tiring that I almost wanted to quit.

Fortunately, one of the companies we had approached finally responded to our letter and gave us the chance to present our sponsorship request. The result was that it gladly agreed to be one of our sponsors and gave us enough money to start our project.

We built our vehicle in the cheapest possible way. We gathered scrap materials so that we could reuse these later. We even bought a surplus engine even though it was a risky decision, in order for us to save money. Instead of sending some parts of our vehicle to a machine shop to be fabricated, we decided to produce them on our own.

I remember the times when our team would deliberate on how to utilize our remaining funds, with tons of things still left to spend on. It was like thinking of how to take a bath without using water. It left us no choice but to contribute some of our own money.

In a way, working on the project pushed our resourcefulness and creativity to the limit. Instead of fiberglass, we thought of an alternative material for the covering of our vehicle: We used banig. It seemed just as fine, and our vehicle caught a lot of attention as well every time we tested it on busy streets.

Just to be able to complete our entry, we stayed overnight on the school grounds for almost two weeks leading into the competition, instead of spending our Christmas break with our families.

All my exhaustion faded when I finally saw our eco-car running for the first time. Relief overcame me and I broke into a huge smile. It was like we had already won the competition when it was only the beginning.

Indeed, even if we eventually failed to set a record in the competition, gratitude defined our loss. The camaraderie that our team had built gave us all the reason to be happy and to be thankful. We did not just complete a project; we also formed a family that I will endlessly treasure.

In fact, our loss did not stop us from setting our sights on joining the competition once more. It encouraged us to improve and enhance our skills to be able to excel even more.

Failure may not be a good start, but we know that it is just a part of learning new things. It will never stop us from passionately doing what we want. We are invigorated to push our limits and to go beyond what we all know we are capable of doing.

And this year, from being a supporting member, I am now the manager of our team, the PUP-Hygears. A year has passed since that fateful day when my friend asked me to join them. It is a major leap for me. And my passionate team mates fuel my desire to set my heart on achieving our common goal.

This new journey makes me feel excited to see how my life and my perception of the world will change once more. I know that someday, I will look back on all these memories and learnings, and I will never regret anything.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer

Five Day Challenge: Young Blood

Searching for 'The One'

Cez Verzosa

Looking for a job isn’t easy, let alone that dream job. And neither is keeping one.

I’ve been out of college for more than a year now and at 21, I’ve applied for and gotten accepted in quite a number of writing-related jobs that I, for some reason, eventually deserted.

This is not something to be proud of, especially for someone who was raised in a society where work experience is defined by the number of years rendered in a company. Needless to say, I’m not a fan of status quo.

I stayed for only seven months at my first job in a PR agency. After that, I tried my luck in direct selling, which didn’t work out, so I ditched it and got into my college best friend’s company where I worked as a research assistant for more than a month. Soon after, I had an online reporter job at a New-York-based online science news site for another month. And after that, I got a project-based writing stint at a local real estate company, which I think ran for three weeks.

Fortunately, after a rickety ride on a yet undefined career path—a ride that I unwittingly enjoyed—I finally found a full-time job in a local TV network. It’s another dream fulfilled. It’s actually quite a feat to be able to stay a while in this job (more than half a year now), considering its infamous reputation of a high turnover rate. However, as the months drag on (and as of this writing), I am somewhat reconsidering my stay.

“WHAT?! You’re leaving UH-GAIN?” I can hear my parents and friends shrieking in chorus. “When will you learn to stay? You will never have a good resumé with what you’re doing!” I know they mean well, but at the end of the day I will still go for what my heart longs for.

Some 20th-century prodigies may find it easy to pronounce this risky affair as career suicide, and effortlessly label me a wishy-washy person in the workforce who can never promise constancy to a company. I understand that. Who in their right mind would accept someone who has been jumping from one job to another?

But, as someone who’s been in an industry where deadlines are a norm, I cannot easily ward off this unexplained urge to accomplish my goals before an undetermined deadline. I just have to do it, to look for that one thing that would make me feel satisfied, because at the back of my mind, there’s a loud ticking of the clock that’s reverberating throughout my soul.

Hold on a little longer, they say, there is not one job that promises a trouble-free journey. Everyone must start at the bottom rung of the ladder and everyone must learn how to survive the landscape of the real world.

I agree with that, and we all have to endure things at some point in our lives. However, we don’t have the luxury to keep holding on to almost everything. In the same way that life is not a buffet, we only have enough time and energy to do a number of draining sacrifices. That’s why I think I must choose pretty carefully: What is it that I really want to do that deserves all the effort?

I’m not generalizing; it’s more of a personal thing, perhaps another matter concerning passion versus paycheck or

getting torn between prestige and realism. And in the course of over a year of searching, I haven’t found that one job that can make me feel that it is what I’m meant to be doing.

And so I quit.

I used to get disappointed with people who easily throw in the towel. I find it difficult to understand their decision to just give up in spite of the hundreds of applicants who would have killed for the job they decided to leave.

But then I realized that quitting isn’t all about being weak. It’s about having the strength to acknowledge one’s worth and to know what one deserves.

Don’t get me wrong, though. Sometimes I feel a little

envious of my friends who are able to stick with their jobs. Some of them have managed to reach one year already. I do admire them, as well as my colleagues in my current job, because they’re still there, regardless of the obvious downsides of their work. Had I convinced my restless self to stay, I might have reveled in the same sweet satisfaction today. Maybe they have found their niche or may have been comfortable with what they already have. And here I am, still unsatisfied and searching for “The One.”

But just because I found a job that was not able to meet my personal criteria of happiness with work does not mean I did not perform well. Each step I took, I was pushed to give my best in terms of not only the craft I want to hone but also my attitude toward work. Each job drove me out of my comfort zone; each of them taught me how to deal with bouts I am not acquainted with. Sometimes I go an extra mile, insisting on putting myself in a situation that I could not control. Thankfully, I have managed, and I have learned a lot. So I don’t think it has been wasted time; I don’t think it is “not work experience.”

I think it’s normal for young adults of this generation to experience this kind of eagerness and restlessness to pursue dreams the soonest we can. We refuse to settle for less, and we fear having to regret that we have stayed for so long in a job we aren’t happy with just because we have to conform. It’s not a bad thing—but sometimes it’s not the ideal option either.

Each one of us has personal reasons and dreams that lead us to where we plan to go. Some may beg to differ and some may share the same thoughts. But there is one unnerving thing that we cannot deny at all: that Life has an indefinite deadline. No one knows if we are meeting that “deadline” in 20 years, 10 months, or perhaps even less than a week.

As for me, I shall continue to search for that one job that would make me say, “Oh, there you are. I have been looking for you this whole time.” I cannot settle just yet. I just know it has to be somewhere. I may just have to keep going for a bit, hopefully finding it before my ultimate deadline.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer

Five day challenge: Young blood

Young and Passionate

Terence Thomas M. Cosare

I graduated at 21 in March 2014. I received an overwhelming number of phone calls and e-mails from companies inviting me for an interview. I perceived myself as a special fresh graduate going to job fairs with my three-page resumé which I felt would impress those companies: Holder of a degree from a top university, leader of school and community organizations, recipient of a special award from my school.

Thoughts of a promising career (and salary) swam in my head. I felt I was Jordan Belfort walking the streets of Makati and heading to my interviews, dressed in my business shirt, my favorite necktie, dress pants and socks, well-shined shoes. I looked at the tall buildings around me and told myself: “I will be the Wolf of Ayala Avenue.”

Fresh, passionate and excited. I landed a job as a relationship manager in an IT company that sells financial solutions to banks. My job required me to attend meetings and travel around the country to meet bank presidents and CEOs. At times they were in doubt about and occasionally fascinated by the idea that a 21-year-old fresh out of university was speaking to them about their business and educating them on core banking. I felt privileged because I was learning from the people I was meeting and, at the same time, doing a lot of traveling.

After a few months, another company called to express interest in having me. I gave it a try and passed the required interviews. I was promised better compensation, and I saw the product as more appealing to the market—thus, more opportunities for me to close deals and get commissions. I moved to the company and it is where I am today.

I am still excited and burning with passion. In starting my venture with the companies with which I engaged, I learned that the world after school is not as good as I expected it to be. As I started paying bills and giving my monthly share of the household expenses, I realized it could happen that I’d be living from paycheck to paycheck. Before I began working, I thought I could have my dream car within months; seeing the deductions from my salary depressed me.

Also, the corporate world is not as considerate as school. Every report day at work feels like thrice the pressure in math-class recitations and exams. Most of the time I get scolded during pipeline reports. I tend to see my youth and my being a fresh graduate as an excuse for not performing as well as my elder colleagues, but never is it accepted as valid. I perceive myself as a kid in a gentleman’s game or a

blue-chip rookie underperforming.

There are days when I literally have heartache and I feel dumb. The swagger that I had a la Jordan Belfort has been mostly replaced by frustrations and tears.

Still, I am fortunate to have supportive colleagues and friends who help me get through work every day. Also, although there are mostly rough times at work, I still push myself for the sake of my family. My mom has invested so much in me, and I know my father is always confident in and proud of me. I can’t afford to let them down.

Now I am no longer considered a fresh graduate. I am writing this piece to motivate those graduating after me. It is possible for us to land our dream job. But on the other side of this reward is a lot of yelling from your boss and intense pressure. The world after college is a world of wolves, fast and aggressive, wanting to stay ahead and reach their goals. Being young and fresh out of school should never be a reason for us to not perform. We must learn quickly and start working to excel.

As young professionals, we have the advantage of being fresh, excited and passionate. Always take to heart these three essentials; these will move us to continue searching, learning and working. Then we will have no choice but to achieve greatness.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer

On Love and Loving

Essay by Jonathan V. Gochuico

Love always comes unexpectedly. It is never planned. It just happens. It just unfolds. It just drives on to see how life would become with the beloved. As such, the very reason why it's challenging remains undetermined: the wait, the unpredictability, or the probability of living one's pathetic life alone.

As much as I want to be philosophical about it, the fact remains that I could not because love is a reality that defies logic. It is just consistently inconsistent. You'd never know what you'd gonna get. Loving is just like an invitation to a buffet--everything is there, enticing you to take a bite.

You get some, bite some, eat some, and spit some. That's life, that's love, and that's loving.

There's actually nothing that can define love as everything just depends on taste and subjectivity. It's like getting the horror of your life upon discovering that behind an almost Edward Cullen or a Jacob Black-like description of someone is a frog.

It can never be argued that love is something felt; thus, it requires no explanation. Faithfulness and honesty are sometimes not reciprocated.

Loving does not mean being loved back.

Love is either blind or sees more.

You're either happy because you're loving, or you're loving that's why you're happy.

                 

References:
Essay: Walking you through reading and writing; Pilot edition
Photo: Brooke DiDonato

Inspired & Blessed

Women of Inspiration

-Drew Barrymore

-Barbra Streisand

-Angelina Jolie at the 2015 Kids' Choice Awards

Good night Talks

-Angelina Jolie

-Paulo Coehlo

Life Mantra

Source: berlin-artparasites

Source: poems porn

Three Day Challenge: F I N A L S

-What keeps me going

Notes to Self