Living Life Fully

This article needs no introduction. It can speak for itself. Read on.

Living Life Fully

By Art Corpus

What is the purpose of life? What is the reason for living? Why are we in this world? These are the questions we normally ask when finally we decide to be serious with ourselves.

The answers are as many and diverse as there are minds that raise the question. One answer is that we are in this world to love, worship and serve God. That is the answer of religion. Another answer is: life has no purpose. It is for everyone to give purpose to his life if he wants. That is the answer of philosophy. The answer of science is something else. For science the purpose of life is to evolve because evolution is the law of the universe. As I have said, there are other answers; but these are the basic ones.

Of course, the logical questions that follows are: what is the correct answer? Is religion correct? Or is philosophy? Or is it science? Or are they all wrong?

The issue in this problem is LIFE. To answer the problem, therefore, we must first answer the question: What is life?

What is life? Wow! What a question! Before I asked myself this question, I thought I knew the answer. Now I must think again. That is the problem with these simple questions: they are not simple after all.

What is life? We are dealing here of course with human life; our life as humans, and so we have to rephrase the question accordingly: what is human life? What is basically human life, or if you want to narrow down the question, what are we really doing here as humans?

Come to think of it. What are we really doing in life as humans? In other words, what is the essence of human life?

To my mind, there is only one word that encapsulates whatever humans do and not do in this life. That word is EXPERIENCE. Everything we do is experience. And if we are not doing anything, even that is experience. The essence, the totality of human life, therefore is simply experience. And in the language of math, human life = experience.

The answer to our three original questions therefore is experience. The purpose of life is to experience life. The reason for living is to experience life. We are in this world to experience the world.

Hence, stripped of any religious, philosophical and scientific trappings, experience is the answer to life’s purpose. And since to experience life is nothing more than to live life, the purpose of life, in other words, is simply to live life.

What does this really mean logically? It means the question itself as to the purpose of life is irrelevant and even immaterial for us humans since we are living life anyway whether we like it or not.

But are we really living life? Or do we just go through life half awake or half asleep? When Jesus said: “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing”, is he not referring to the whole of humanity who are not fully conscious of what they are doing and therefore in effect, they really “do not know what they are doing”? Has not Jesus, by those words, spelled out the real problem of man: that man is not living life properly?

The answer is found implicitly in the aforequoted words of Jesus: we have to know what we are doing. In other words, we have to be fully conscious every moment that we are awake. Jesus in effect was saying that our presence should be complete in whatever we are doing; so we should not allow our mind to snatch our consciousness from the present and hold it hostage to the past or to the future. If we allow our mind to do this, then we are not really living life because life happens in the present and not in the past nor in the future; and so, we are not really experiencing reality because reality is now, not the past nor the future. Then we miss life, that wonderful reality that God has gifted us. Then we have not lived life, we have not experienced reality. Then we are a failure to ourselves. We are a failure to the universe. We are a failure to God.

Hence to live life fully is to be aware, to be fully conscious every waking moments of our life with our body, our mind and spirit. To live life fully is to interact with our environment, with the world in the fullness of our being. To live life fully is to accept completely the reality of the now. To live life fully is to surrender our being to the BEING of the present.

Now, what does this mean in concrete, in actual practice of day to day, of moment to moment living? It means appreciating the things and objects around us in full awareness with our senses because it is through our senses that we really know. It means touching with full attention the objects around us. Notice that as you touch them, each object responds individually and uniquely to your touch. Notice that as you caress with your fingers each object, it suddenly becomes alive – for it is really alive – and caress your fingers in return in gratitude for the attention you are giving it. Then suddenly you become pleasantly aware that everything – even objects you call inanimate – is alive and conscious and loves to be noticed and be given your gift of touch.

Then look closely at each object around you. In the stillness of your silent presence, notice the individual impact of their being. Allow the magic of your own being to fascinate their own and notice how they respond to yours. Then watch closely how in this mystical encounters of beings, the miracles of existence slowly and sweetly dawns in your consciousness. Then for the first time, you enjoy with gratitude the unspeakable bliss that comes to your soul in this moment of liberation from time as it is given a glimpse of eternity.

Then listen to Being. Listen to Existence. Listen to Absolute, the infinite potential, the mysterious NOTHING from which everything comes and goes. Listen to it in the silence that waits between gaps of every sound you hear. Listen to it in the rustling of the bamboo leaves, in the breaking of the waves on the shore. Listen to it in the stillness that punctuates every bird’s song and counts every drops of the falling rain. Listen to it in the dramatic suspends that interrupts the deafening claps of thunder and the blinding flash of lightning. Listen to it in the blooming of love during the night when lovers are alone and out of sight, when silence listens to their moan and sigh while the full moon watches from the sky. Listen to it in the laughters of children at play, in the compelling note of a baby’s cry and in the haunting melody of a mother’s lullaby. And finally listen to it in the reassuring cadence of the beating of your heart and in that unbounded awareness you enter into when your mind finally transcends itself and gives you an ineffable taste of nothing less than the Absolute, Being and Existence. Then all of the sudden, you are truly free, free from the slavery and tyranny of the monster that is your own mind which snatches you willy-nilly from your transcendental embrace with the eternal present and locks you away within the time-bound confines of the past and the future.

All of a sudden, the sadness, bitterness, guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, all the problems of the past and the worry, stress, anxiety, unease, apprehensions – all the forms of fears of the future disappear like illusions that they really are. In sum, all the imaginary pains, unhappiness, problems caused by your identification with your mind, suddenly leave your consciousness because they cannot co-exist with the reality of Now. And so, the heavy weight of the years your mind has been carrying is now lifted from your shoulders. Then joy wells up unbidden from the depths of your being. Tears of bliss spring from your soul. Then finally, you have found peace. Then you realized that every moment of your life is perfection itself.

To live life fully also means being aware of NOTHINGNESS which envelops everything and from which everything comes and goes. And so, be aware of empty space around you, that vast emptiness with which Nothingness garbs itself and everything else in creation. Before, you take notice of objects. This time, notice also the empty space that surrounds the objects because it is really the space that gives existence and meaning to the objects. And if you are lucky, you might realize – as science does – that reality, that everything, is not only clothe with but is made up of emptiness. Then you might realize that your very own body is simply a field of vast emptiness and that you yourself is nothing else but NOTHING as everything else.

To live life fully then, is a humbling process. Whereas before you are living in a dream of your own grandeur, now you wake up to the reality that you are really NOTHING.

But then, to live life fully is also an enlightening process. Indeed, you wake up to the reality that you are nothing. But at the same time, you also wake up to the reality that everything else is nothing and therefore you are one with the wonderful world of NOTHINGNESS, one with the ocean of consciousness, one with the totality of BEING.

In sum, to live life fully is to die to your illusory self and be born again to your real Self.

William James: The Will to Believe

William James says “an option [is] genuine option when it is forced, living, and momentous.” A live option has some appeal to the agent and a dead option is one that has no appeal to the agent. A forced option is when “there is no standing place outside of the alternative. Every dilemma is based on a complete logical disjunction, with no possibility of not choosing”

An option is momentous when it is a matter of life and death, now or never, or an important one in a lifetime situation. A trivial option, on the other hand, is “when the opportunity is not unique, when the stake is insignificant, when it does not make any difference”.

“Can our will either help or hinder our intellect in its perception of truth?” James asked. He then clarifies what willing nature is by stating that it is not “only mean such deliberate volitions as may have set up habits of belief that we cannot now escape from – I mean all such factors of belief as fear or hope, prejudice and passion, imitation and partisanship, the circumpressure of our caste and set.” He states that there are things we hardly know how or why yet we find ourselves believing. We believe in what has been told to us by the authorities or leaders. We line our beliefs to theirs. He then concludes that our non-intellectual nature does influence our convictions. He says, “pure insight and logic, whatever they might do ideally, are not the only things that really do produce our creed.”

His thesis is “Our passional nature not only lawfully may, but must, decide an option between propositions, whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual grounds; for to say, under such circumstances, ‘Do not decide, but leave the question open,’ is itself a passional decision – just like deciding yes or no – and is attended with the same risk of losing the truth.” This simply says that when we have a genuine option (that is live, forced and momentous) that could not be decided merely on intellectual grounds, our passional nature must be or is on the right place to rule. It may seem that James is against the moral evidentialism of Clifford. The thesis of James is against the moral evidentialism of Clifford with regards to the idea that our passional nature has the right to be place before insufficient evidence. James sees the weakness of moral evidentialism of Clifford when it cannot answer immediately when the situation is asking for urgency. However, it does not connote that James disregards the significance of the intellectual grounds, that is, the sufficiency of evidence. It does not end here his preliminaries (in his essay).

There is one more thing we need to know, small but important. “We must know the truth; and we must avoid error.” In these two separate laws, as he calls it, which are not two ways of stating an identical commandment, is where he criticizes the doctrine of moral evidentialism of William Kingdon Clifford. He re-states, “Believe truth! Shun error! As two materially different laws, we might put first place or treat more imperative the avoidance of error then let the chance of truth take. For him this is the attitude of Clifford’s doctrine. He declares, “Believe nothing, [Clifford] tells us, keep you[r] mind in suspense forever, rather than by closing it on insufficient evidence incur the awful risk of believing lies … so Clifford’s exhortation … is like a general informing his soldiers that it is better to keep out of the battle forever than to risk a single wound.” This should not be the attitude; this is not only our epistemic obligation. The risk of being in error is just a small matter compared with the blessings of knowledge acquired. Being duped many times in any investigations is more awful than postponing the chance of having the truth. James said, “We may regard the chase for truth as paramount, and avoidance of error is secondary.”

Our passionate nature has a big part in the formation of our opinions which influences us inevitably and is lawfully determinant of our choice. Scientific questions and in law courts are not in some way the scope of our passionate nature. It is because we need more time to investigate and be able to conclude beyond reasonable doubts. In these cases, James had weakened his criticisms to Clifford. Hence in the first glance these were the primary points of Clifford. The moral evidentialism of Clifford is much closer to the scientific method or the method of verification.

However, he tries to regain, but never did, when he stated that, “Human passions, however, are stronger than technical rules.” Then he immediately introduces that moral questions cannot wait for sensible proof. A moral question is not really concerned with existence or non-existence but of what is good or what would be good if it did exist. He says that we should not consult science but our heart regarding the worths of both "exists and does not exist". In order to understand what James is telling us here, let us be reminded of the genuine option James had told us first hand: live, forced and momentous option.

Let me relate a true story in this matter. There was once a woman who believed that she really had found her man. She was very happy. However, the man cheated twice to her. Though the woman truly loved the man and willingly engaged herself to him, they broke up. She told herself that she would never give any chances to him again. The woman had cut their communication while the man tried to amend himself and became so honest and truthful. Not only that, he also prepared a good future for themselves. After some years, for some reasons they regained their communication and the man was now ready to rebuild their relationship. The man told the woman, "This will be the last time that I’m going to ask you and if you would not still believe me that I’ve changed, then I will not be yours and you will not be mine”. Do you think the woman will accept the man again, not knowing the struggle and sacrifices of the man to change himself? I think not. (This was what really happened.) Why? Because she already closed the door for themselves. She closed the door for finding the truth if he really was a changed man. It was better for her to be in error than giving an open door to her ex-lover. It was better for her to be mistaken than giving chance to find the truth. She even did not know the sacrifices and struggles the man did for amending and changing himself.

What is religious hypothesis? James briefly states, “Science say things are; morality says some things are better than other things; and religion says two things, First is the best things are the eternal things; Second is that we are better off even now if we believe the first affirmation". If these are true, then religious hypothesis is living. It is also a momentous option because we are able to gain the vital good than lose it by our non-belief. History tells us that man does not live twice, disregarding the concept of reincarnation. Why then take the risk of being an unbeliever? It is forced so far as the good goes. Although we do avoid error by being skeptical if religion is untrue, we lose the good if the affirmation is true. James would not take the risk of not having the chance to achieve the prize or be at the winning side of his believing, though religious hypothesis has insufficient evidence. Skepticism, agnosticism in particular, James does not support but agrees to a rule when he said that “a rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were really there, would be irrational.” The rationality of religion resides on this rule that he introduces. It is really true that we cannot think otherwise that religious truth, if there is, it should be accepted as it is. But this rule is very hypothetical. This rule should be true if and only if religious truth exist. I do not agree that this rule is momentous or to the term of James, is a genuine option. It is because by its nature, it is hypothetical. It might be an imperative, however, it falls to the category of hypothetical imperative, that is, conditional. It is not then a forced option which follows that it is not live option.

James, however, assumes that his audiences might have the manner of thinking that says that they have the right to believe in their own risk any option that is live enough to trigger their will. Another thing is that freedom to believe can only cover living options which the intellect cannot by itself resolve; and living options never seem absurdities to them who has them to consider. In the end James said that we are the one holding our own lives, we respect one another’s mental freedom and each must act in his own accord. Whether we choose to believe or not, or wait to believe, we choose our own risk, our own fate, our own leap.

William Kingdon Clifford: Ethics of Belief

“Thomas, one of the Twelve, said to the [disciples], ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put a hand into his side, I will not believe.’ Now a week later … Jesus came, and said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” — John 20:24–27.

William Clifford is like St Thomas, the Apostle, an evidentialist.
It is worth to present W. K. Clifford’s doctrine of moral evidentialism in his Ethics of Belief.

Clifford started his essay on his popular shipowner story and analogy. The shipowner knew that his ship was old, not over-well built at first and need repairs. He doubted that the ship would not make another trip and that it needed thorough overhauling and refitting. Builders and contractors were also suspicious of the ship. However, he succeeded in overcoming those doubts and suspicions. He said to himself that the ship, in his experiences, had gone safely through so many voyages and weathered so many storms and he also put his trust in the Providence. With these in mind, he acquired a sincere and comfortable conviction that the ship was safe and seaworthy. The ship sunk in mid-ocean and all aboard died.

Clifford says, “he had no right to believe on such evidence as was before him. He had acquired his belief not by honestly earning it in patient investigation, but by stifling his doubts. And although in the end he may have felt so sure about it that he could not think otherwise, yet inasmuch as he had knowingly and willingly worked himself into that frame of mind, he must be held responsible.”

The ship owner is always wrong, even though the story will be altered to that it journeyed safely and all were happy. Why? Because according to Clifford,  “the question of right and wrong has to do with the origin of his belief, not the matter of it; not what it was, but how he got it; not whether it turned out to be true or false, but whether he had a right to believe on such evidence as was before him … not whether it turned out to be true or false, but whether [he] entertained it in wrong grounds … it is not the belief which is judged to be wrong, but the action following upon it.”

The origin or the genesis of how beliefs are formed is first and foremost seen where the blame resides and not really on the consequences that it produces. Clifford is suggesting that the man has an epistemic obligation when he said, that “the existence of a belief not founded on fair inquiry unfits a man for the performance of this necessary duty.” However, in the latter part of his essay, he said that not performing our epistemic obligations well will have moral impact not only to the individual but also to the society, that is, it is a sin to mankind. He said, “no one man’s belief is in any case a private matter which concerns himself alone. Our lives are guided by that general conception of the course of things which has been created by society for social purposes.” He believes that a former generation shapes the next generation. Whatever is taught to the following generation will be implanted to them. If ever an evil thing is being passed on to the later generation, then an evil thing will be lived on by the subsequent generation. He said this for the reason that if, however, false beliefs which results to wrong actions have been done many times and being accepted widely and made permanent, for instance stealing money, then society will not only lose its property but it will turn into “a den of thieves; for then it must cease to be a society.”

Belief, according to Clifford, “is that sacred faculty which prompts decisions of the will, and knits into harmonious working all compacted energies of our being, is ours not for ourselves, but for the humanity.” A self-deceptive or credulous person, that is, a person who believes on something without fair investigation, believes in insufficient evidence and easily persuaded, is defiant to the duty of mankind, and sinful to self and to the humanity.

He then sums up his inquiry: It is wrong always, everywhere, and anyone, to believe upon insufficient evidence.

As I was reading William Kingdon Clifford’s Ethics of Believe it did bothered me. It is because I am thinking that he is convincing me to believe only to what has sufficient evidence. He seems to be telling me not to believe only by faith. His arguments are for me plausible.
It is because I understood Clifford’s concept into my own context. I gave biased on him very early. I find him as an opponent against my faith. It is funny. I jumped into the conclusion that he is attacking my religious belief. One thing is that, if we could not find any evidence to prove the existence of God, I should not believe in the God I believed in. However, I would like to tell Clifford in this area of inquiry that if we can't find proof or evidence on the existence of God with the things around us, he is then not yet the god I believe in.

Going back to St Thomas, who was later called the “Doubting Thomas”, I cannot say that he is bad or wrong to state those words. (Please see above). It doesn’t mean that he really did not believe in what the other disciples told him. What he was after were the evidences that prove that Jesus was really alive. His time dictated him that it is really impossible for a dead man to come to life again. I could not blame or I would not blame St Thomas for being skeptical. He was just performing his epistemic obligation. I am actually proud of St Thomas (compared to many Catholics who have negative impression of him) on his interest of investigating and knowing the truth. St. Thomas wanted the disciples’ statements to be justified and reasonable. Here, I am now a friend of Clifford.

Being evidentialist is not really bad. It actually leads us to our search for truth. It is true that we could not live forever. However, we are not to spend our whole lives to be skeptical. Though Clifford did not clarify and is not clear on what sufficient evidence mean, I am assuming or presupposing that sufficient evidence might be being logically reasonable. It does not mean then that logical reasoning is not a sufficient evidence for us to believe certain truths reasonably. Principles like the non-contradiction. We could not deny the fact that non-being could not be “evidentialize”, because our reasoning will tell us that it is nothing. How could we create something which comes from nothing? Humans or anyone other than humans who have the capacity to reason and to think can create only something from something. In other words, they can only recreate, not to create. There is only one being who can create something from nothing, and that is God, to whom I believe in.

If Clifford’s principle is to be applied in acquiring knowledge, theory of knowledge in general, then it is really acceptable as a model. Being skeptical, in a sense of the suspension of judgment and giving a fair investigation and to believe in the sufficient evidence are really helpful in acquiring true knowledge. Truth and search for truth are Clifford’s concern.
Nevertheless, Clifford’s principle has a limit. It is true that we could not live forever, as I stated above. There are times that we have to decide at the moment, instantly. There are times that we need not to spend more time to discern more in order to have certain true decisions. Most of the time we are faced with events or conditions that need urgent and important decisions. So it would be impractical to apply Clifford’s doctrine of moral evidentialism.

At least I have 160 pesos

Remixed songs! Boom Parana Mama Boom!! Tiktaks! Bing! Cling! Click! Tsak! These were the sounds of the remixed music. Oh yes! These were the sounds caused by rain, Coca-cola, Sprite, Royal, Pepsi, Mountain Dew and C2 plastic bottles, cans of Purefoods, Argentina, Century Tuna and bottles of Ginebra, Tanduay, Emperador and aluminum, zinc, iron and newspapers, magazines and paper boxes etc. These are the singers and dancers.
These were the things around the junkshop, known as “Pastor Pantaleon Junkshop”, of my Tito. These were what greeted me upon arriving yesterday and in the morning. But of course, it was with coffee with milk, fried rice and egg, the breakfast served by my cousin.

Workers and all the staffs (my tito, tita and cousins) woke up early as they prepare themselves for another day of work. At 7:00 AM, they are already working and those will be the sounds you will hear all day. These people, especially the workers, work hard all day to have a meal be prepared for the day. The popular maxim or saying is, “Isang kayod, isang tuka” (One toil for one feed). Yes indeed, this the reality. This is the life of most Filipinos.

Last night, as I listened to the story of my brother, who happened to be a worker in the junkshop, I cannot help but to harden my heart and keep holding back the tears that would fall anytime. We were sitting in his little room. A room made of plywood. Drops of rain were falling in the roof. It’s good that it has electricity and electric fan. You can see other people in the other room with the hole in the wall! haha! My brother, Yosie, is the sixth of the twelve fruits out parents. He just finished grade three (3) in elementary. He is now twenty-three years old and has a son.

He said. “It is better to be here than in our house, in the farm, working hard and keep risking with the unpredicted weather. It’s been thrice that our farm was flooded. Too much money was wasted. Now, all the money that they are using there, either for the farm or everyday meals is all from debts of our mother who keeps searching every day. Very lucky if she has something to repair, like pants. Other than that, she cannot find another source of our living. If I’ll stay there eating everyday and nothing is coming in, it will just increase the debts of our mother. Instead of I, who will be eating the food, it is better to be eaten by our little sisters and brothers and my wife and son. It is better to be here sacrificing, working hard. At least I have 160PHP everyday. I am budgeting 300PHP per week for my meals. Sometimes I will ask my advance pay so that I can have more food and have merienda. If I will not eat more, I will be hungry and weak. I’ll be pitiful and cannot work. I could not hold, carry and bring those heavy irons (bakal). Food is very essential for this kind of work as well as in the construction though they have higher salaries than us. It is better to work there. Last time, I got an extra work with them and they give me 300PHP and I am very happy. I went home at once and bought 1 kilo of rice.”

Then he continued, “Even those who are just sitting can feel hungry, how much more for us who exert much force, all muscles are working. The work is also dangerous. A few hours ago my finger should have been cut-off, if not for my wedding ring. Look what happened to my ring, deformed isn’t it?” Indeed, a mark of wound was there and the  fleshwas still in blood too. I think his bones were broken, but he strongly and pitifully said, “No! Look I can still move, though I can’t feel my finger, hehe.” And he continued, “This is the life here, the more work; the more you eat but the less you are paid.” He paused for a few seconds and said, “Another thing is that, whenever I go back home, Anay (our mother) or all of them think that I have enough money. They don’t know that the little money I have was just an advance pay of mine. I will be force to go back, to work and pay the debts. It is alright at least I can give them a little. Though they don’t know how hard my life here in Manila. They thought it’s easy to live here, but not.”

Those words are really depressing! However, thinking of  its positive side, he, as my younger brother has developed his being a responsible man.

Education is a profession or a career. Education equals life. This is the life trend here in the Philippines. There is nothing or no one to be blamed. All is the product of all these causes: of being born in a poor family, living in this new era of the poor ones, being born in the Philippines with rich natural resources but poor and corrupt government, with little education, of wrong “diskarte” of life, of laziness, of the natural calamities, cause of the unfair capitalist, cause of the many selfish persons and the like. These are some of the causes that lead to a poor living.

Lady, You Got Me

Lady, to have you, is my greatest desire. You are my greatest happiness. My life. Everytime I am with you, everything is in its proper place. Every time I am near you, I have no doubt that you are the one. I am very certain. Sitting beside or in front of you, I can see clearly the chain or link of our lives, just like wedding rings that bond us forever. Everytime our eyes looked at each other, it digs deep and it tells me that you are my soulmate, it envisions the future.

Everytime we are together, my purpose in life is reached. You are a must-goal in my life. You perfect my existence. Everytime we meet, the beauty of life shines within. It lightens up the darkness. Time brings us to an everlasting state of life. When I am with you, all doubts and confusions are gone. You are the answer.

I was so afraid to be with you. I was afraid because I might be changed. My way of living. My way of thinking. My plans in life. The vocation I may take. I was so afraid to throw them away. I was so afraid to let them be just plans and all of them will be dissolved. I was so afraid that the strongest force that will let me stay with you forever will flourish and be nourished. I was so afraid to be near you because I know I could not control that force. Instead of saying no, I will say yes, optimistically, that is, I could not lie. It is like the Lasso of Truth, a fictional weapon of superheroine Wonder Woman, that forces anyone it captures to obey and tell the truth. It naturally flows the truth within me. I could not help but to be honest with you. I could not deny the truth.

Oh yes, that force is always drawing and pulling me to you even if we are a thousand miles away. It necessitates me to come to you and I did. I have no regret of letting go of my plans and of letting go of my chosen vocation. This thing God could not take away, because He could not withdraw what He has given.

Marry me. Say "YES!" (^_^)

Assumptions: relationship is broken and afraid to forgive

There are people who made too many assumptions. Assumptions that ruined a relationship. Since they assumed, they will allege the people involve. Oh yes, a questionable and doubtful assertions. Miguel Ruiz is worth noting here, when he said , “Making assumptions in our relationship is really asking for problems. Often we make the assumption that our partners know what we think and that we don’t have to say what we want. We assume they are going to do what we want, because they know us as so well. If they don’t do what we assume they should do, we feel hurt and say, ‘You should have known.’”

If that happens, both will be blaming each other. Even if one will accept his fault (though it was not his fault), the other will just be saying nonsense. The sad thing here is that, she is mad at her partner himself, and not to the act. True, she is mad to the person not of his doing (often people have this kind of attitude). It is because she sees her partner as evil as the fault is. Essentially, a person is good. Why? Because His creator is the Supreme Good. How come a person from Supreme Good be evil? Who wants to contradict this? Very logical isn’t it? The result of hating the person and not of his doing is not to forgive him. She is afraid to forgive, afraid to forgive herself because her assumptions are the cause of a breakup, a termination of their relationship.

These are some of the many effects of making assumptions: relationship is broken and being so afraid to forgive.

To die is to have life

Death is the separation of form and matter. Death, in a broader sense, that is all living and non-living things, is the turning point of a substance to become another substance. It will have another identity of itself. The former will be gone, and another will become. The it will become other it.

Death, in strict sense, is only for the living beings. Plants and animals when they die their form will vanish but the matter in which the form of the animals and plants are visible, will remain but will accept another form proper to it. To wit, imagine a glass of orange juice, if you will put water on in till it overflows and until the color and taste of orange juice will be wiped out, the glass of orange juice is no more but a glass of water is.

Today is Ash Wednesday. God is calling us to repentance. We should die in order to become another flesh and fresh again. We should die in order that God can enter into our life. We should deny ourselves and let God be in control. Let us open ourselves and prepare ourselves to accept God again in our life.

There are things I want to tell you

Things that you might want to hear from me. Things that will make you smile. Things like, seeing you in the future, I want to be with you every second of my life, I want to eat every meal with you, I want to come with you anywhere, I want to hold your hand tighter everyday, I want to hug you harder to make you feel what is inside me, I want to watch movies you like to watch and listen to music you like to hear, I want to join you to read and write, I want to buy the books you are reading, I want to buy you more books you like, I want you near me, I want to walk with you, I want to drink with you, I want to listen to your stories, (I want to fart and burp too when you do then we laugh out loud Wahahah!!!), I want to cook for you, I want to sip on your glass, I want us to eat in one plate, I want to sit, lie and sleep beside you.

Things like, I like your black hair, your eyes, you stare, your cute nose. I like your rough palm, your uncut fingernails, (your tiny but plenty mustache and beard that makes me giggle), I like the way you walk, the way you talk, the way you smile, the way you explain things, they way you make me understand … and a lot more.

I want to tell you I like you: I love you.
I want to tell you I want you: I need you.