Jim Paredes's Blog, page 21

Call it serendipity, call it a love story

HUMMING IN MY UNIVERSE By Jim Paredes (The Philippine Star) | Updated April 7, 2013 – 12:00am

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where everything seemed hopeless, where you had actually given up on life itself, but then help suddenly came along?Call it the answered prayer, a miracle, serendipity, a lucky break or whatever else. When it happens, it can be completely life-changing.

I had a friend who left the Philippines before he finished high school to migrate to the US. I actually knew him for just about three years. We were year mates and it was that time in our lives when we were going through a lot of formative experiences — our first drink, prom, date, girlfriends, teenage angst, fights, and a lot juvenile high school discoveries and craziness.

A big part of our life then revolved around the barkada. Our peer group was our support system in almost all ways. We ran to our friends when we were in trouble or even just for company. We shared our experiences and secrets with our mates. We all asked for each other’s advice in many matters and ways. We also laughed, cried and did a lot of things together.

My friend came back to the Philippines to visit a few years ago. We had more than a great time. But it was only yesterday that I found out how terribly important his visiting the Philippines and seeing all of us again, were to him. It was much more than I, or he, had imagined.

My wife saw him on her trip to San Francisco recently and he narrated to her what it all meant from his point of view.When he left during high school, we had almost lost touch completely. It was some six or seven years later when we heard from him. He was in Washington in 1974, and it so happened APO was touring the US at the time and so we got together but very briefly. After that, he had disappeared completely — or so we thought.

Time marched on, and since ‘74, we had all gotten married, had children and built careers and gotten older with the passage of time.When he came back to the Manila for a visit a few years ago, he had just been through a divorce. He had also lost his job, and was suffering from a bad back injury. He was also broke. He had told us that much. But I learned from Lydia, my wife, that he had come back to literally say goodbye to his past, and to everything else that meant anything to him.

He was down and out on his luck. As far as he was concerned, everything in his life had bottomed out and there was really nothing to live for. He was here to take a last look before he was to bid life farewell.He came here not knowing whether we would even remember him. He had no great hopes about that. After all, in his mind, he felt that we may have forgotten him completely, or would vaguely remember him if at all, or worse, not even care to see him. He had only spent three years with us, and high school seemed eons ago, he thought. From a distance he may have imagined that we were all successful and happy with our wives and families and doing well career-wise while he was down in the dumps with no sign of recovery. And that of course gave him all the more reason to be pessimistic about how this visit would go.

This was his last trip “home,” if he could even still call it that. But aside from seeing us, he also came for another reason, and it was to meet a child he had inadvertently fathered before he had left which he only heard about or discovered a few months before he decided to visit.

But he had a few things coming that he wasn’t prepared for.

To his big surprise and delight, when he came home, we greeted him with open arms. We all went out of our way to throw him a party, and spend a lot of time with him. We even went to Bagiuo. We talked about old times, drank a few, laughed a lot, teared up a bit while remembering the past. He was so happy to know that he had not been forgotten, that he was part of our individual and collective memory, and that the place he left a long time ago had actually not just recorded but treasured the times he was here.

On that same visit, he had asked about his previous high school girlfriend who happened to be my wife’s cousin. To make a long story short, even that turned out extremely auspicious. Meeting again brought them together in matrimony after a few months. They now share a happy life in San Francisico.

That visit which was supposed to be his goodbye to things that mattered to him actually became the turning point where he felt he had rediscovered the important elements in his life — friends, family, and love.Narrating all this to my wife, he said he saw the hand of God rescue him from his pitiful, sorry state of despair and deliver him to a state of new chances and opportunities for meaning and happiness in life. He felt he had been gifted with grace that was completely undeserved. It must have felt like winning some sort of lotto where the prize was something beyond any material value. He had a brand new lease on life itself.

How many of us have experienced something like this? I guess one can only come out of it with, at the very least, an optimism about life, but most likely with an unshakeable faith in a God who loves and cares for us.In life, the cavalry does show up occasionally. In my own experience, God, through many forms, has also intervened for my own good. Life is full of surprises and wonder. At the very least, we can’t write anything off. Anything can happen, and it usually does.

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Capture your great times this summer. Join me in my only summer Basic Photo Workshop on Saturday, April 20. Call 0916-8328088 for reservations and queries, or write to jpfotojim@gmail.com.

A beautiful death

HUMMING IN MY UNIVERSE By Jim Paredes (The Philippine Star) | Updated March 31, 2013 – 12:00am

During Holy Week when more than half of the population seems to be going somewhere else, I can’t help but feel the speed of life slow down to a crawl with each passing hour.

In the Christian world, it is officially a time of sadness, suffering and death. I thought I could relate to it easier this year since I will be mostly in the city with no real plans for vacationing anywhere. I will be left here with the debilitating heat and a lot of thinking time on my hands. It might also be a good time to think about death since I have lately been experiencing the demise of distant relatives, friends, colleagues, etc.

I must confess I think of death a lot. I have been doing so for a few years now. Every year that I live, I hear more and more of friends and relatives and people I know dying.

Every time I hear of any death on news radio, or read about it or see it on TV, I am taken aback. I literally pause even if shortly to honor them, whoever they are. I am not oblivious to the fact that death happens, and that it will happen to everyone. I also do not wish to ever become oblivious or blasé to the important fact that each person who dies leaves a family, or a community, maybe some loved ones, and a life like my own spent on trying to make sense of what it all means, among many other deep questions. Every person leaves a mark on the world he/she has helped shape. And the world has shaped him/her as well. And because of this, every passing is a loss.

Death is inevitable. This we know. But what lies after it has been kept a big secret from us if we speak from a rational/scientific point of view. The afterlife is the biggest question with no one single definitive answer that will satisfy everyone. But even outside science, death is engaging us in all ways. It is amazing how the phenomenon of death is mind-boggling from almost all aspects — scientific, physical, social, religious, spiritual, and even legal. It is a big deal — the biggest, perhaps.

My sister in-law Janet Pimentel’s father died in a hospital just a few days ago. He had been ill for some weeks. He died peacefully. My brother Raffy witnessed him go through his progressive weakening, the administering of the Sacrament of the Dying and his ultimate end surrounded by his loved ones. He described it as a beautiful death.

My sister in-law Rosanne’s husband Rick Watson passed on a few weeks ago, too after a long illness. By all accounts, and from her description, Rick also had a beautiful one.

I guess I can also say the same thing for my mother and father in-law when they died. They both died of cancer. My mother in-law died at home while cared for by nurses with the help of her children. My father-in-law left everything in great order when he died. There was nothing vague about where his estate would go. He was a good father and a lawyer. Above all, he prepared himself spiritually to meet his Maker in a manner that was compatible with his faith.

At my age now, I have already heard and seen a quite a few of what people call “beautiful deaths” and I have a greater understanding of it.

What makes a death beautiful?

I think all beautiful deaths have some things in common. Here are some: the one who died had enough time to contemplate his own life. He was able to come to terms with how he lived. He also faced up to his weaknesses and faults, strengths and gifts and was able to own the truth of who he was with unconditional acceptance.

This can imply a lot of things, but in the end it probably means he must have attempted to grapple with all of his issues, especially those involving forgiving himself and others and asking for forgiveness from other people and making peace with his God.

This is definitely not a walk in the park. It may be the hardest thing a person may have to do. By nature, we avoid what is difficult and threatening to the unreal image of who we are, and embrace our own made-up illusions.

One of my wishes is to go quickly, hopefully not dying after a prolonged illness. To be sick for sometime brings great financial burdens for loved ones to settle after you die. It takes away precious time from them too, and causes suffering. The one good thing about it is, one has the time to think, prepare and ponder what one must do to fix things, and purify himself before going.

I want death to come quickly, if I could have my way. But I know I must always be ready for it to happen anytime. I should therefore not get into nor entertain long festering fights. No time for that. No harboring of hatred of others too, and immediately forgiving and not hesitating about asking for forgiveness when needed. I must also learn more and more the life art of appreciating people and things.

I am nowhere near all this, in truth, even if I try to live my days like this. It seems like an ideal. But try; I do. It is clear to me that if I live my life like this — without all the baggage and garbage — it will be a great life that will no doubt prepare me for a beautiful death when and how it happens.

I may not have a long spell of suffering to have the time to figure everything out. That’s okay. Maybe no one can really figure everything out completely anyway. Or maybe the answers and meanings one person gets may be so different that it is not applicable to others. But a life lived with a spiritual practice of contemplation can prepare you somewhat.

A beautiful death does not have to be a drawn-out affair. It only means the person whose condition has been leading to death must have some spiritual, emotional and religious closure. And whatever physical state we are in, it is good to be reminded that we are always closer to death. Hopefully, we will not leave too many unresolved issues that may arise after we die that will still cause great concern to anyone.

The quality of one’s death I believe can largely be dictated by the quality of how one’s life is lived. The more meaningful and consciously purposeful the life lived, the more it will be appreciated and missed. I am not referring to a life lived in a large manner that affects a lot of people. It is not about the social status one enjoyed while alive, but how one lived it within his own context.

Can a death be an ugly one? From the standpoint of the living, the answer has to be “yes.” We hear of it almost daily. But even when death comes to someone and it appears to be senseless and brutal, I am comforted by an abiding faith that a God of unconditional love awaits on the other side. So how can any death, whatever the circumstances, not be beautiful when it is the portal through which the soul will experience its greatest, happiest moment, and that is the reunion with its Creator?

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Capture your great times this summer. Join me in a summer Basic Photo Workshop on Saturday, April 20. Call 0916-8328088 for reservations and queries, or write to jpfotojim@gmail.com.

Personal power: How to use it

HUMMING IN MY UNIVERSE By Jim Paredes (The Philippine Star) | Updated March 24, 2013 – 12:00am

Illustration by REY RIVERA

Each and every person on earth has personal power. It is a power that is ours to own, to spend, to invest, to waste, or to give away freely or with conditions. It is up to us what we want to do with it. It goes with being alive.

Every day, we use this power for many things as we go through life and its different activities and aspects. Whether we work or not, study or stay at home, or whatever it is we do, or do not do, we have this power at our disposal.

I want to talk about the power to choose. To me, it is a truly vital power. And we use this all the time even if, mostly, we do so almost unconsciously. We choose what to wear, eat, like, hate, think, dream and do. We choose who and what to listen to. We also choose whom to talk with, what to buy, reject, what to spend time on or engage in, what to support or stand for. The power to choose is probably the aspect of personal power that is most used daily.

Even when we do not have money, or food, or material resources, or lack mobility or access to many things perhaps due to sickness, poverty, or detention for example, we always still have the power to choose. And we always will. Even when we are down to almost nothing in terms of material resources, we can still choose our attitude towards what we are experiencing. And the use of the power of choice can spell all the difference in what we experience in our own lives

Think of Anne Frank. She was a Jewish girl who chose to believe in the beauty of the world even when there seemed to be only ugliness and hate under the Nazis. Think of many other people who have survived the worst of human conditions — survivors of concentration camps, tsunamis and other natural disasters, and horrible crimes, etc. In such situations in the past, there were many who gave up, and understandably so. But the people who survived chose to believe that they would overcome somehow even when everything seemed to indicate otherwise. They all lived to tell their story and inspire others. In these we see the triumphant use of the power of choice.

Every minute of the day, we may not be aware of it but we do use up some of our personal power, and often wastefully. And we unknowingly do so when we worry, fret, feel anxious, or get angry. Each time we invest in an emotion, a thought or entertain a feeling, we do use up power.

Think of personal power as some sort of currency that we invest. Writer and intuitive healer Carolyn Myss likes to talk about “energy investments.” She points out that we often unknowingly invest our present personal energies uselessly, especially when we are stuck in the past and can’t move on. When we are still living out childhood traumas, or when we have issues about forgiveness, we are using up precious energies on investments that do not pay back. They are energy traps, or black holes that suck out our personal power.

Each time we worry over things we have no control over, or fret about problems we can solve but do not do anything about, we are throwing away personal energy and power. When we constantly put ourselves down, or feed our own insecurities, we are not increasing our power at all but basically throwing it away.

There are many things people worry about: traffic, health, money, job security, romance, forgiveness issues, the state of the people they love, etc. There is no end to what we can worry about when you think about it. And yet the only obvious end to it all is to stop worrying about it.

You may complain that I make it sound so easy. I am not being flippant here. And no, it is not easy. It will take practice, and it is a practice of the spiritual kind we will need to do.

If you are not aware of it, most everything we worry about is either coming from a past that we have judged as bad, or a future that we are projecting to be dire. In doing so, we drain all of our power and we begin to run our lives on empty instead of living in the ever-renewed present.

Think about it. The present is perfect. There is nothing wrong with it. It is always fresh and new. It’s as simple as that. To live in the present — that is spiritual practice by itself.

So how can we use personal power without wasting it, and in the process even gain more of it? Is it possible?

Yes, it is.

Each time we choose thoughts, actions, attitudes, and feelings that lead us to greater creativity, openness to life, and acceptance of what shows up, we gain more power. When we do things that truly sustain our spirit, we are increasing our personal power. Every time you use your power to further evolve into something bigger than your present self, you are increasing the power within you. To put it as simply as Joseph Campbell wrote, you gain more personal power when you “follow your bliss.”

These days, the elections and the new Pope are getting everyone excited. These two spheres in life — government and religion — are big concerns in a country like ours. Not so strangely, a lot of people have discovered that these two topics are often best left undiscussed in many situations because they can be polarizing, and understandably so. And they can be power drainers.

Lately, I have been asking myself how much of my personal power I should invest in these two. The answer is, I will most probably still invest a lot in them. They are contentious spheres but they can lead to positive social and personal changes if understood and used properly. Politics is about making peoples’ lives better, while religion is about understanding the deep and true meaning and purpose of why we are here.

But while I invest my powers in these, I also try to develop the spiritual habit of treating them with some lightness. This means I should be open to their truth but not get completely attached to them. My reason for this is less about being skeptical and more about being open, and humble enough to accept I could be wrong.

While they may both present truths and causes to believe in, I must be ready to let them go once I sense they have reached their expiry dates. Things may ring true at one time but may become untrue later. We have seen how people used to think the world was flat only to discover later on that it is round. To hold on to such beliefs as eternal truths in light of new revelations may be toxic.

For something as important as the fate of my spirit, I do not think I should trust any single religion, book, person or belief system completely. Above all, I must trust my own experience of a God that has increasingly become evident to me as I have gotten older. I also know that my understanding of God may not fit anyone else’s experience since this Great Being is unfathomable at best to the human mind. As a guest on Larry King’s show wryly put it, “I belong to the one, true church of which I am the only member.”

As for politics, I may be a liberal democrat but will not go with every cause that presents itself. Choices have to be done with ever-increasing consciousness. I will choose what I will invest my personal power in with great discernment. The world evolves. So must our thoughts, opinions and our commitments.

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Capture you great times this summer. Join me in a summer Basic Photo Workshop this April 20. 2013, Saturday. Call 0916-8328088 for reservations and queries, or write to jpfotojim@gmail.com.

On top of Mt Pulag, you discover what you brought up with you

HUMMING IN MY UNIVERSE By Jim Paredes (The Philippine Star) | Updated March 17, 2013 – 12:00am

My wife Lydia was excited and raring to go. I just nodded along when she presented the plans to climb Mt. Pulag with some friends. It seemed like something way off into the future and I was preoccupied at that time with other things. I agreed without really looking at the plans. I just knew we were going to set aside three or four days to do it.

We drove up to Baguio on a Monday to have a day of rest before the climb the next day. Early Tuesday morning at 5 a.m., our group of 18 friends (seven of us senior citizens) met at the Petron station near Pancake House. It was there where we also met our guides from Trail Bound, a mountaineering outfit run by Boboy Francisco who has been climbing peaks since his college days. He is almost 60 years old now and he is still at it.

We rode off in two big jeeps towards Benguet for about an hour and a half. We stopped for a sumptuous breakfast at a Pinkan eatery that served varied choices of delicious home-cooked food — rice, papaitan, squid, eggplant omelet, eggs, bulalo, etc. — in big servings. And all these for less than 100 Pesos per plate including bananas and mangoes.

After breakfast, we proceeded past Ambuklao dam going higher northward. It was not hard to notice that as we went farther away from Baguio, things got more and more rustic. The roads became narrower and rougher until it was down to just one lane. Sometimes the ride got so rough you felt you were being physically pushed and shoved around inside the vehicle.

We stopped again at the DENR office where we got a briefing on how to conduct ourselves during the trek. Mt. Pulag, we were told, was considered a sacred site by the different tribes who live there. We were not to leave any trash. Nor should we behave in a boisterous manner and must be respectful of the customs and culture of the ancestral people who have occupied the place for ages. No picking flowers or any vegetation. No shouting. No drugs. No scandalous behavior. And yes, no sex!

We continued on our ride to the Rangers Station at the base of the mountain. But just before getting there, we made an unplanned stop by a small community where we took photos of kids in a decrepit shack that passed for a pre-school house. We were thankful Teacher Luzviminda allowed us in and even got the kids to sing for us. Out of gratitude, we pledged to send them notebooks, pencils, etc., which the guides said they would bring to them on the trek next week.

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When we finally got to the Rangers Station at the base of the mountain, we had a quick lunch and proceeded to do the three-hour trek to the camp on top. That would be our home for the night even if just for a few hours. We gave all our heavy bags to the tribal women who acted as porters. They would be carrying them for us all the way to the top of the mountain and down to the Rangers Station the next day. At first I was hesitant to have my bag carried since it seemed like “cheating.” It did not take too long (after just 15 minutes of walking up the mountain) so I was so glad I did.

The trek up the Ambangeg path can easily tire you because the air pressure at that altitude is light. It is a three-hour hike on sometimes smooth but mostly rough upward trails that are narrow and even treacherous at times. It is a real test of physical endurance. Often, we had to stop, drink water or just simply collect our breath. We caught ourselves a few times half-jokingly expressing the thought that perhaps this whole Mt. Pulag adventure may have been a mistake for seniors like us who walked more slowly than the rest. But we knew we had to plod on. And we did.

The stunningly breathtaking scenery all throughout compensated for all the hardship. We went through marvelous flora; pine forests that got thicker with more species of trees, moss, and general foliage which became even more lush the higher we went. During the walk, I caught myself amused at the thought that this was really the first time Boboy Garrovillo and I were living up to being a part of a true Hiking Society. It was cold and it seemed to get even colder when we would stop walking. It was better to keep moving.

When we finally got to the camp late afternoon at some 2,500 meters up, we were met with even more biting cold. But it was beautiful up there. Brown undulating hills covered with tall grass stood majestically before our eyes. We all sighed in awe and relief. We were finally there and it was a great feeling. In near total exhaustion, we crept into our tents, unpacked our sleeping bags and just rested. I caught a few winks. I remember everyone dozing off amid the temperature drop.

We were called to dinner at 7 p.m. But not everyone ate. Some were just too exhausted to get out of their tents and just continued sleeping. I had some soup, adobo and rice in the unforgiving chill, eating while standing under a beautiful starry night sky. I figured I had to eat since I would need all the fuel for our trek to the peak very early the next morning

There was a passing cloud on the otherwise clear night that sprayed everyone with a fine mist that further added to the already high humidity. The wet cold on Mt. Pulag can permeate everything. I was happy Lydia had remembered to bring Ziploc bags for cellphones and cameras that we had brought up.

It was especially hard to get around inside a tent and unpack sleeping bags and huge knapsacks, especially since we were so exhausted. The cold, the tight space and the thin air caught us catching our breaths quite often. We went to bed at about 8:30 p.m. I was able to get a few hours sleep. Lydia was cold, cramped and miserable and hardly got any sleep. Soon our alarm rang for our 3 a.m. wake-up call.

Stepping out of a tent on a two-degree Centigrade cold dawn can really wake you up. The icy temperatures penetrated to our bones despite our thick winter jackets. We all soon assembled and with flashlight, knapsack, headlights and walking sticks, we began the final assault to Mt. Pulag’s peak.

If we thought the trek from Rangers station was already tough, hiking in the dark towards the 2,900-meter peak was unbelievably difficult. The trails were mostly very narrow and muddy that we had to walk single file with one foot always ahead of the other. There was hardly any place to even stand with both feet together. On the left side of the trail was mostly a deep dive so one had to avoid falling. I was constantly reminding myself to concentrate. “Casualness produces casualties,” I kept telling myself. In the dark and cold, all this became doubly challenging. Two fellow trekkers lost their balance but fortunately avoided falling off the deep. They stood up and continued walking.

At certain points, we all asked each other what the hell we were doing there when we could be home dry and comfortable. Why did we say yes to this, we thought. We should have done this at age 20. We were 40 years too late. As we silently plodded on amid many rest stops, we mostly just heard our deep breathing carried by the howling wind trailing off into the darkness.

Mountain climbing is not just a physical activity. That’s just one of its many aspects. It will challenge your character and expose you to yourself and to others. If you are a whiner, it will show in a big way and may cause demoralization, not to mention irritation to the group you are with. You may even hate yourself after the ordeal for showing weakness. Luckily I was with a great group of friends. We were all unbelievably pleasant and supportive of each other. We pushed and pulled each other up when we needed to without fuss.

The experience also opens you to spiritual musings in many ways. I certainly thought of my own mortality as we faced this often extreme, physically challenging adventure. One also begins to realize that beyond the limit of what you think you can do, there lies much more strength and power one can harness if you say “yes” to the unknown and unconditionally deal with whatever comes up as it comes up. I felt many epiphanies amid the exhaustion. There we were, unable to go back and left with no choice but to plod forward. Actually, there was one other choice we had to make, and it was this; we could be grumpy and hate all this or rise up to the challenge with optimism and a sense of power.

We just had to persevere and continue. We soon discovered it was wise to just concentrate on every step we needed to do. To keep asking how much further we needed to climb was demoralizing. So we just continued walking.

And before we knew it, there we were!

Standing on Peak 3 overlooking God’s creation is quite an indelible experience. We were quiet and bone tired but our spirits were full and soaring. We did it! Yes, we certainly did it! And at our age! We felt giddy and triumphant. We were all smiles as we enjoyed the sunrise and the unspeakably tantalizing scenery that was unfolding with the dawn. All this as we sipped and enjoyed some coffee with giddy delight!

Buoyed by our achievement, we went back to camp with a seemingly light hop, skip and bounce. We then had breakfast, packed our things and soon headed down for the three-hour walk back to the Rangers’ Station.

Personally, this part of the trek was the most difficult. My left knee began to hurt quite badly with every step down the path. Soon it was excruciatingly painful. Luckily, long-time friends Tato Garcia had brought a rubber knee wrap and Betta Dans had a painkiller that helped me negotiate the path all the way down to the Station.

Climbing Mt. Pulag was life changing. It affected us on many levels and we got more than what we bargained for. We all felt we had conquered ourselves. But more than that, we also felt we discovered so much of the inner strength we did not know we had. “The only Zen you find on tops of mountains is the Zen you bring there,” as author Robert Pirsig put so aptly. It was quite a self-discovery!

I highly recommend it even just for the adventure and challenge. But at the same time, I do so with much hesitation and reservation. Mt. Pulag, after all, is not your usual picnic place. It is a sacred, almost inaccessible sanctuary and the tribal people feel it should remain this way. No unwelcome “development,” please, and no to big throngs of crass tourists and consumers.

It would be tragic if one day, we see condos, malls or food chains littering the path to one of God’s great hangouts. I do hope there are enough people who care and who can protect it from property developers! The way to kill paradise is to pave the path to it.

Just shut up and write

HUMMING IN MY UNIVERSE By Jim Paredes (The Philippine Star) | Updated March 10, 2013 – 12:00am

Illustration by REY RIVERA

When I am trying to find something to write, I often catch myself staring at the blank screen while my mind actively seeks out a topic. It goes through an array of compiled and unarranged, catalogued and unrecognized, complete and incomplete ideas, random and raw and un-analyzed thoughts that it can seize and make a big deal of. Sometimes, my mind sorts through all these undefined sparks of inspiration in a calm way, and decides to pick one of them for an article. Then I expand it with words.

That’s when writing is easy.

At other times, my mind is not calm at all. It is racing nervously as it looks at the clock and the deadline of submission while coming close to panic. It is like a car in a tight spot but with a very impatient driver. It bumps into everything everywhere and in so doing causes more panic and raises tension. I feel pressured, and grouchy, and sometimes even wonder why I commit to writing assignments in the first place. It only stops when I catch myself. But often, the “self-catching” is a temporary reprieve and the staring at the blank screen resumes together with the restlessness after awhile.

At times like these, my mind is screaming, “What the f*** can I possibly write about that I haven’t touched on in the past?” And then the great critic that lives inside my head appears, menacingly reminding me of my limitations as a writer and even as a human being. This makes me feel even more harassed and pressured to produce something monumental, not unlike the girl in Rumpelstiltskin who must spin gold overnight for submission by morning.

To say it is a frustrating exercise is an understatement. It is too mild a description that one sounds like he is almost in denial of the true distress he is feeling. It is downright unnerving and upsetting when nothing crystallizes and no writing happens. The elusive subject is like keys to a maleta one may have misplaced, or a name of a person remembered and very present yet elusive at the tip of one’s tongue.

But in between the mental rants, the mind also hears its own intuition whispering amid the din of distress saying, “The topic you want is not far away. It is right there under your nose.” Even you know it is there. You just have to wait for it to appear. Or more accurately, you just have to really look.

Sooner or later, you realize that one needs to simply surrender, calm down and take stock of one’s self. One needs a quieting, a calming of the mind, an acknowledging of that field of potential that is there, a bright abundant flower garden waiting for you to go and pick out a few roses. The field where everything including creativity arises, where there is lots of breathing space and time to do things does exist. You know it does because you have seen it a few times before.

If you can get to this state of calm, then you can begin to look at yourself and notice where the flow of the mind’s ocean is going and follow with it with great interest.

And where it goes is what one must write about.

To me, breaking out of writer’s block will always be unsuccessful when one tries too hard. One must not try. But then not trying is also dangerous so one must try, I guess. I know it sounds contradictory. In short, one must try and not try at the same time. It’s a paradox. In the end, one must not try to write the masterpiece but must simply just write. To obsess on writing that “great work” in the middle of an episode of writer’s block is to almost guarantee writing won’t happen. Just write. Without conditions. That is the Zen of writing.

Shakespeare and almost all prolific writers were successful because they went with the flow, not resisted it. They simply went with it wherever it wanted to go. But before they were able to simply go with the flow, they must have suffered through countless bouts of frustration also. Even while they were already holding the magic wand of creativity in their hands, there must have been times when they still could not get it to work.

One learns to write in many ways. One way is to read a lot of good writers and marinate in their different styles, methods, substance and magic. You can emulate them. Or one can simply look for inspiration and be inspired. A nice beach, a beautiful house, a lonely cottage on some mountain, a quiet space to think can help a lot. But there are many other ways. Ask writers and they all have their homemade recipes to entice the muse to free them from writer’s block and inspire them.

Whatever way you choose to do ultimately does not matter. If it works, do it. But accept that the thing that writers do is write. No ifs, and/ or buts about that. And sometimes writers simply must unconditionally do the act of writing. One must show up no matter what shape or form one is in. If the muse shows up as well, then that is well and good. If she does not, then a writer must make do. Whatever and however you write is the state of your art at the moment. Accept that. Don’t compete with what you’ve done before. Sometimes you are great, sometimes just so-so. And sometimes, you may even be bad. Just show up just the same.

But how does one do it without inspiration? How can one write without the nice house, or the muse?

As someone who has written columns, books and songs, I have learned that the switches and levers of creativity are all inside of me. And they are simple to operate, really. Show up unconditionally and do what a writer does. That’s it. It can’t be any simpler. Too many conditions and the creative machine jams and locks.

But I also know that the hardest thing to be in this complicated world is to be simple; so in the end, it is not that simple.

So the task is to work at being simple. But if you must work at it, then it must be somewhat hard, and therefore not easy and as simple as simplicity is supposed to be.

Hmm.

Let me end this by leaving you with just one piece of advice then.

Just shut up and write.

Samsung wows with its amazing cutting-edge technology

HUMMING IN MY UNIVERSE By Jim Paredes (The Philippine Star) | Updated March 3, 2013 – 12:00am

They were at it again.

I am talking about the Samsung guys who invited both traditional and social media practitioners to the unveiling of their new products for 2013. Samsung, the mega tech company which had a net growth of 31 percent last year of which 61 percent was in Southeast Asia made sure that they had dazzling products to show.

Samsung did not disappoint. As I write this, I am in my hotel room in Jakarta and down at the ballroom of the Hotel Mulia is the amazing display of cutting-edge technology applied on Samsung’s newest aircons, kitchen ranges, refs, vacuum cleaners, cameras, printers, phones, tablets, laptops, speaker systems, and televisions.

Samsung SEA Forum 2013

This ULTRA 13 inch laptop runs on Windows 8 and it has touchscreen!

There are air-conditioners that you can control via Wi-Fi for those who want their rooms cool by the time they get home, washing machines that do not get clothes tangled, speakers that are turned on and controlled via NFC, very modern refs with new, cutting-edge features, etc. The Series 7 Chronos and ultra laptops are dazzlingly powerful, sleek, super fast, versatile, multifunctional and have batteries that last hours more than their competitors

The innovation, creativity and the “wow” factor Samsung products are getting recognized for were clearly evident. I particularly was impressed with the Ultra HD and the OLED TV (both Smart televisions), the Galaxy Note 8 and the NX300 Camera.

The 85-inch UHD is the biggest, smartest TV of them all. Nothing comes close to it right now.

The Smart Ultra HD television in all of its 85-inch screen glory undeniably hogged a big part of the show. The clarity of the images on screen are the clearest I have even seen on any screen bar none! That’s probably because the Ultra HD has four times more pixels than the full HD that is the standard today. It is also ultra thin and its speakers are inconspicuously embedded on the frame that supports the television.

And all Samsung Smart TVs are now capable of being upgraded to the latest specs via a gadget called the “Evolution Kit,” which you can attach to the back of the TV. This means that if you bought a 2012 Smart TV, you can easily enjoy the features of the latest 2013 model, and get a new pack every year for the latest upgrades.

It is important to note that soon enough, all TV broadcasts will be going digital. And the Samsung Smart TV you already own now will be the only television sets that can be upgraded to receive the new signals via the Evolution Kit. This is a big advantage since you most likely may not have to buy a new TV to enjoy clear digital broadcasts.

This tiny gadget can upgrade your 2012 Smart TV to the latest model with all its apps, goodies and features.

The main feature of the OLED TV is one of the most innovative technological function I have seen in a television since its dawning. Its most impressive feature is this: its beautiful LED screen can show two video sources at the same time. No, I am not talking about the usual split screen that other TVs do. This is way better! By wearing a pair of glasses with ear speakers, two people can watch and listen to two separate channels of their choice, privately. Imagine your wife watching Discovery channel on the usual 2D broadcast while you are watching a Blue-ray disc of the latest Oscar-winning film in 3D at the same time with no image or sound leak. The execution is flawless. When you actually see how it works, you will really want one.

This ‘bridge’ gadget looks and feels just right. A real challenge to the Ipad Mini but with much more features.

Enter the Samsung Galaxy Note 8! This new gadget is clearly riding on the success of the Note 1, 2 and the 10.1 tab. I am quite familiar with the whole line since I have all of those devices. When I heard that they were presenting a Note 8, I must confess I initially felt it was overkill until I actually held and played with it.

The Note 8 is a “bridge” gadget between a full-size tab and the Note 2. It has an 8-inch screen and the OS is the latest Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. The size and feel to this user (to borrow Goldilock’s comments upon trying Baby Bear’s bed, chair and porridge) is, “This one is just right.” If you’ve had a Note before, it will feel comfortable to use with its similar apps and S-Pen. While it is obviously being positioned against the Mac iPad Mini, Samsung suggests other uses to also include a diary and e-reader among other things. The price? No one knows as of now. But going by the way Samsung prices its products, it will probably be close to the Mini iPad even if it has a lot more features.

A big surprise of the forum was the Samsung NX300 camera. It’s a mirrorless camera that allows a 3D lens attachment for both still photos and video. The results are quite impressive, and awesome, even if you will need a 3D capable TV to appreciate it. I am speculating that the NX300 camera can make 3D more accessible to people and can even really popularize 3D photography.

Samsung is positioning itself among the high end cameras with this beauty.

And if that were not impressive enough, I was surprised and pleased to discover that the NX300 has a number of lenses from fixed ones to zooms. This camera has a shutter speed of up to 1/6000th of a second, and ISO settings from 100 to 25,600. Throw in a movable back monitor where you can angle your view up and down. It is important to note that all these features can be found among the big players.

Samsung has recently embarked on going beyond the point-and-shoot camera and developing more advanced consumer cameras lately and its efforts are beginning to pay off. Its recent launch of the popular Galaxy Camera is testimony to this. The NX300 is a step in the right direction in bringing Samsung to the arena of big contenders for serious photo enthusiasts to consider.

There were other wows in the forum like refs with sparkling water and crushed ice dispensers, TVs that could mirror your gadget’s screen, and a lot more.

The only thing missing in the forum was the introduction of the much-awaited S4 phone which almost everyone in the world, especially the guys at Cupertino, have been anticipating.

But that is another story about to happen soon. They’ve got plenty more surprises up their sleeves!

Abangan!

North Stars

HUMMING IN MY UNIVERSE By Jim Paredes (The Philippine Star) | Updated February 24, 2013 – 12:00am

Scouting was an activity I truly enjoyed as a young boy. I loved the idea of being with a “troop” and exploring things, learning skills like building a fire, cooking outdoors, studying rudimentary first aid, pitching tents, hiking and camping. I liked doing things like tying different knots, and carving and cutting things with knives — that kind of stuff. There was also the Scout’s Creed which I can still recite to this day.

It was in scouting where I first heard about the North Star, also known as Polaris. While I am not familiar enough with the spread of planets, constellations and stars in the night sky, I know about the North Star’s practical use. It is one of those shiny objects in the night sky that other stars seem to gravitate towards and so, it is a useful guide for explorers as they traverse both lands and oceans.

I mostly appreciate it as a metaphor. “True North” is a term used as a reference to where one’s moral compass, or life’s direction, is supposed to be pointed. As a navigator of life, it is important to know where one’s True North is, or risk getting lost.

To have a North Star means to have direction, and to have direction gives you purpose. One’s True North is a metaphor for one’s fixed and set values. To know them is to choose the life path that coincides with the values and morals you hold dear to your heart. And that is important.

I watched the premiere of the movie Lincoln the other night. Lincoln used the North Star metaphor quite engagingly. In the movie, he tried to explain to Senator Stevens, an ally and staunch supporter of anti-slavery, that one may know where one’s True North is, but with that knowledge does not come the location of swamps, sinkholes, etc. that stand in the way of getting there. That is why to stay on course, one may have to proceed with caution and be ready to make a few turns to avoid being stuck. I thought that was wonderful, practical advice.

Abraham Lincoln and many people during his time held the burning belief that all men were created equal in the eyes of God and so therefore it ought to be the same in the eyes of the law. He abhorred slavery. This belief cost the US a terrible civil war and it personally cost Lincoln his life. Needless to say, it altered the US and, perhaps, world history forever and for the better.

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In the course of following one’s True North, one will realize that it is not easy to stay on course all the time. Or at least it may seem that way. Obstacles will stand along the way. You can get stuck, waylaid, confused and may even seem to encounter insurmountable blocks or forces bigger than yourself. It is so easy to give up in the name of practicality and realism.

But where you realize that a straight line between two points (you and your goals, for instance) is simply not feasible, or even possible at certain junctures, one must be creative and daring in finding alternative routes. One must be observant and practical as well. There is a proverb that says, “A sailor must have his eyes trained to the rocks and sands as well as the North Star.”

But sometimes, one is left with nothing except the unknown. Someone once said that to discover other lands, one must be willing to lose sight of the shore. That moment of seeming drift, where one seems to be neither here nor there requires boldness and steadfastness and even faith in the belief that something awaits on the other side. Or to borrow another metaphor, one must be willing to knock on many doors until you find one that will open. And it requires that, deep down, you know there is at least one door that eventually will open for you.

In a journey that seems lost, stuck, or pulled down by disappointment, we must be ready to extemporize, to ad lib, to improvise along the way until we find ourselves again in a position where the goal is more visible and attainable.

Among negotiators on both sides of the peace panel on the Bangsa Moro issue, I can imagine the tensions they feel. Questions like, how much are we willing to put on the table? Or to put it in a scarier context, how much more must we give up, is a question that can be challenging to answer. Giving up something you now have for something that is dreamed of, desired but not assured in the future can be quite a fearsome challenge. It is like stepping into the dark not knowing whether your shoe falls on solid ground or not.

All the “what ifs” can suddenly appear and even cast doubt on the wisdom of negotiating with the enemy. What if in the end, we gave more than what we got? What if everything fails again as it has happened so often before? What if people blame us? Nothing is sure, that is for sure. But nothing changes without people trying to change things. That is why ardently following one’s True North is for brave men/women with big visions. It is not for the small, the petty and the cowardly.

But what happens when you realize that you have been looking at the wrong star all these years? I have met a few people who have had the predicament of discovering they wanted to do or be something else after years of specialized schooling. I have met former rebels disillusioned with a movement they were once ready to die for. I have met individuals who had woken up realizing that their avowed True North was actually a pipe dream, an illusion built on nothing more than an egotistic vanity or aspiration, or an inherited “duty” dictated by their parents to them.

It is hard to awaken from such a dream. But if you are courageous enough to dissociate from a dream that was unknowingly forced upon you, or a false one, then all is not lost. In fact, all may be gained back since this great self-realization will awaken you to your true purpose. You will carve your own path and follow this road you have made and which was made only for you. Your sense of purpose will shine like a clear star in the uncertain darkness. Simply put, by discovering your North Star and courageously following it with great wisdom borne of pain and fearless creativity, you will become a North Star yourself for others to be guided.

Changing yourself

HUMMING IN MY UNIVERSE By Jim Paredes (The Philippine Star) | Updated February 17, 2013 – 12:00am

Have you ever found yourself suddenly not enjoying something you used to enjoy before? Did you ever wake up with the realization that some of the beliefs and ideals you used to be willing to die for have become meaningless or trivial? Or how about losing interest in friends, hobbies, work or causes that you used to look forward to and spending a lot of time on?

This has happened to me a few times. Maybe it was part of a prolonged midlife crisis spell. Some, as it turned out, were just temporary moods or feelings. But there were some that became permanent changes.

People change. They do all the time. That’s a fact. Sometimes it is easy to change. At other times, it can be very difficult to handle.

I remember hearing about a macho bully boxer from my older brothers’ generation. He had an irrational hatred of gays and used to beat them up, until one day, he suddenly came out of the closet openly and became a screaming, out-and-out cross-dressing homosexual.

I have met priests who changed their minds later on and left their vows to get married. One of them was my teacher who married Lydia and I. I’ve also heard of formerly shy, submissive women who overnight transformed into assertive people aggressively pursuing big dreams. We all have our own stories to tell.

I was recently reading about last year’s Oscar awards and came across something interesting. Mother Dolores Hart, a nun, was there to attend the show because of a movie about her life. You see, she had led a very interesting life and some producers made a documentary about it. It was in the running for some awards.

As a young actress decades back, she held the distinction of having given Elvis his first onscreen kiss. She was a fast-rising actress then who had done movies with some big Hollywood leading men during her time. In fact, she had already inked a million dollar contract at her young age. But when she was 23 years old, she found herself visiting a monastery for some peace and quiet, and decided to stay there — for life! True as it is, I find it hard to believe something like this happens. And yet it does. It is very similar to the story of St Ignatius of Loyola, a soldier, playboy who gave it all up for the spiritual life.

These are certainly compelling stories of change, to put it mildly. What sets these apart is that, while we all do change from time to time, many of the changes that happen to us are not conscious ones. They just seem to happen suddenly and they catch us by surprise. They don’t seem to be born of conscious decisions. More accurately, they are more like the results of a lot of unconscious internal struggling and processing that probably was percolating inside us for some time, unknown to our conscious minds.

The unconscious mind is “below the radar” of our thoughts, so to speak. But it has a lot of energy and also wants to express itself through us. And it will, often without our conscious permission. That’s why we often perceive change as something that only “happens” to us. They are not acts we willfully chose unlike those of Mother Dolores Hart, and St. Ignatius, etc. They never entered our conscious thoughts.

Okay, but if we sincerely, and with full knowledge and consent, want to deliberately change, how do we do it? How do we get the unconscious and our unthinking, kneejerk habits to go along with us? Is it even possible?

I notice that a lot of mature people have greater chances of success at changing themselves for the better, and do so when they want to. They have a developed ability to look at themselves objectively and dispassionately. And that is one of the crucial primary skills we need to be able to recognize our defects before we pull off personal change. It involves being able to suspend the ego’s “fight or flight” function and just learn to observe ourselves. We observe ourselves without vanity, emotional investment or narcissistic interest.

By simply observing, you learn a lot about yourself and you begin to understand how and why you do things, and why you outgrow other people, including yourself.

Each time we find ourselves falling into familiar negative emotional patterns that are triggered by certain situations, we can pause and think and decide whether we want to indulge them instead of being “hooked” by them as what usually happens. Only by catching ourselves doing them can we consciously start to really change our reactions to responses.

Think about this if you find yourself always having the same pattern of fights and arguments with certain people. How often has this happened before? Isn’t it always all too familiar on hindsight? And yet when it happens, don’t you habitually bite the bait without thinking until you are again completely entangled? And you always feel surprised and ask yourself how/why it happens again and again. And you feel victimized because you felt provoked and couldn’t help but react the way you did. Once again, you have been seduced into falling for toxic patterns that keep you “crazy” and unhappy.

Surely, there must be a way out of all this.

I remember an emotionally troubled friend of mine who had been seeing a shrink for more than 10 years. He once asked his doctor if he was “getting better.” Was he progressing? He really wanted to know. The psychiatrist smiled. He told my friend that when he came in as a patient, he was like a fool who was always bumping into furniture in a dark room. But after 10 years of therapy, he had learned to stop bumping into the same furniture. He can now navigate the dark room and was now bumping into other furniture inside other rooms.

This may sound funny but it is a perfect metaphor to explain what was happening to my friend. It is this; he was learning more and more about himself. His unconscious psychological habits were slowly but surely becoming more known to him. His neuroses were being “uncovered” through therapy and brought to the light of conscious self-awareness. Now that they were out in the open for him to see, they had begun to lose their power over him.

Carl Jung liked to say, “What is forced hidden becomes fate.” I love this. It simply means if you deny who you really are or refuse to recognize your own feelings, they will “come out” on their own, and often impolitely. And they can bite you. It is good to uncover chunks of your rich unconscious, elevate and bring them to the realm of the conscious and be enriched by their gifts.

I once attended a life-changing seminar where the facilitator asked the question, “What kind of life would you have if you stopped blaming anyone for whatever you are going through?” That blew me away! I was stunned at the implications. To me, it meant taking full responsibility for one’s actions. It meant being 100 percent aware and actually choosing your responses instead of merely just reacting. That takes a lot of courage and training to commit to as a life practice.

Hard as it is, the wonderful payback (if indeed you can develop the habit) is the liberating feeling of unbridled freedom. You are living life on your terms. You can stop expending energy blaming other people. You know your wants from your needs. It is your own life you are living, and no one can force you into doing anything you don’t want to do!

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Hey, Singapore, I am having my 2nd Photo Workshop there on Feb. 23. I will teach you how to take great pictures. You will learn not just the basics but a whole lot more. Call now at +658-2336595 and ask for Earla. This will be a cutting-edge experience. Let’s have fun and shoot!

Making exercise socially relevant

HUMMING IN MY UNIVERSE By Jim Paredes (The Philippine Star) | Updated February 10, 2013 – 12:00am

I have a love/hate relationship with exercise and gyms. Maybe it is because I was once a certified couch potato, a card-carrying member of what someone on Facebook describes as the Fitness Protection Program who, in moments of weakness, actually biked and ran and went to the gym — and shamelessly enjoyed it.

While I am all for staying fit and healthy, I am ambivalent about the whole idea of going to a venue designed for this type of activity and doing stretching and exercise routines designed by a so-called expert.

Studies say that to stay healthy, one must walk 10,000 steps a day. That’s to keep the circulation going and for leg muscles to remain firm and not atrophy. Other studies will tell you that the lifestyles of most people who live and work in cities is downright unhealthy. That all that sitting on one’s butt in front of a computer is harmful in so many ways. It hampers blood circulation and wreaks havoc on one’s posture, causing a host of medical conditions. That constant typing will cause Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and staring for long hours at a computer screen will destroy one’s eyesight.

These are just some of the reasons why experts say we should exercise. And I agree, though grudgingly.

I am back to exercising these days. But on the days that I have designated to go to the gym, around two to three times a week, I find that I have to psych myself and engage in self-motivation to actually do it. While putting on my running shoes and my gym shorts and T-shirt, and preparing my water bottle, towel and bag, I struggle against a great inertia that suggests I forego all this trouble.

But I end up doing it anyway. I have long ago been convinced that when you consistently perform an activity 21 times straight and on schedule, you have already made it a habit.

I believe in physical activity. I believe in balancing the body, mind and spirit. I believe that a perfect body with an infantile mind, or a repressed, dark spirit will not do the world any good. So all three areas must be cared for and balanced.

What bothers me about exercising and gyms is why I even have to engage in them, even if I have already found many perfectly good reasons to do so.

Let me try to clarify. The whole idea of exercise is a bane of modern living. Think about it: men and women lived for many centuries without really “exercising.” They were fit because they had to survive by hunting, gathering food, tending cattle, training in the art of fighting, carrying heavy things and doing manual labor, or perish. All those activities made them fit. No gyms, no fancy outfits, no memberships, and no trainers (except maybe for the warriors).

I am an old-fashioned guy who likes to make crazy sweeping statements, and I say the modern age has made narcissistic sissies of everyone. When was the last time you were actually in danger because you were hunting an animal for your family’s dinner? When did you ever have to go to a corn or rice field to gather food to bring home? When was the last time you held a spear to drive away invaders? Our ancestors did all these (quite regularly, I assume), and without watching themselves in big mirrors! They knew backbreaking work and the rewards it brought. I dare say, they knew how to live a full life and even die majestically with their boots on!

Now, all we do is simulate the muscle movements the ancients used to do while being supervised by instructors in the comfort of an air-conditioned gym with machines, gadgets and TV sets as we watch and ogle ourselves and others sweating before big mirrors. We are largely removed from anything life-threatening (unless, of course, a big machine falls on you, which is as improbable as the church supporting RH). Sadly, that’s what we moderns do to feel good and macho. Where is the “living” in that?

Okay, I know I am being facetious; but isn’t there something askew with this picture? Isn’t there something comically perverse here? I think that gyms are no different from sex shops where people can buy sex toys to simulate the real thing. Or gyms are like libraries where we live vicariously while reading about the lives of others instead of living our own. Or they are like Disneylands of the body where we simulate and pretend we are in actually dangerous adventures and fantasies come to life complete with adrenalin rushes, but with the assurance that we will never be physically hurt.

Have I driven home the point that all that strenuous effort we exert in the gym is just in place of the real, compelling physical activity our ancestors had to do to survive? A mere shadow of the real thing!

American writer Robert A. Heinlein points out, “Sex without love is merely healthy exercise.” He has a point. To our hunter-gatherer ancestors, it may well have been, “What good is all that stalking, waiting, running, and throwing spears and shooting arrows if we have no dead animal to bring home?” “What’s all the huffing and puffing and trying to blow the house down for if the wolf doesn’t get the pig?”

Which brings me to a novel and noble idea I wish to espouse. What if we could convert all that physical activity that happens in gyms to something really tangible? What if we could transform all the energy we expend doing pull-ups, stationary walking and running, push-ups and stretching, into electricity? What if exercise machines were connected to the electric grid so that every time they are used, they produce power for everyone to use? I once saw a man on TV connect a stationary bike to a contraption that ran his TV set. If he wanted to watch TV, he had to actually pedal and produce the power to run it.

If this could be done, exercising in the gym would make more sense and have a greater social dimension. Going to the gym would be much more than just plain old narcissism but an activity with a positive social dimension to it. Personal vanity and social responsibility can actually go together. Think about it: weightlifters would not just be buffed-up human curiosities, they would be admired for helping produce power that runs modern life! People like Sylvester Stallone would be true heroes in real life!

Now imagine if we could bring this technology to our homes. To run the ref, you have to do 50 pushups. Your electric fan will run on low mode for the next three hours if you do six sets of 15 reps of leg curls. Surfing the net would require stretching and touching your toes. You want hot water for bathing? Do jumping jacks to produce enough electricity to run the pumps that bring up the hot water to the shower!

I would be more than gung ho about exercising if it were like this. Aiming for a flat stomach, or nice cuts on my aging physique, would constitute a truly productive, altruistic and noble act! How cool is that? It would be on everyone’s shoulders to prevent brownouts!

Okay, let’s start the treadmill and let’s get physical.

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Hey Singapore, I am having my 2nd Photo Workshop there on Feb 23. I will teach you how to take great pictures. You will learn not just the basics but a whole lot more. Call now at +6582336595 and ask for Earla. This will be a cutting-edge experience. Let’s have fun and shoot!

Retreating to silence

HUMMING IN MY UNIVERSE By Jim Paredes (The Philippine Star) | Updated February 3, 2013 – 12:00am

It is a noisy world we live in. Especially if you live in a part of Metro Manila where the sound of cars engines, tricycles, horns, sirens, construction and the general noise of life is quite evident. I notice that even when people are walking the streets late at night, they talk to each other loudly — loud enough to be heard through the window of my bedroom, which is beside the street. And yes, they are loud enough to disturb my calm before I go to sleep.

I am also sure that most of you, dear readers, have had your experience with unwanted karaoke singers who love hearing their echo-y voice traveling through the night and keeping you from sleep. That is probably the most irritating of all.

When I am in Australia, I experience quite the opposite. I hardly hear cars passing. When I do, the sound is quite muted. People do not blow their horns nor play their car stereos loud. They don’t drive at very high speeds in the villages. Neighbors are generally quiet — too quiet — sometimes you don’t even know if they are home. There are also no roosters crowing in the morning. Even dogs do not seem to bark at night.

Because of the silence, I am more likely to notice the sound coming from a dripping faucet, or the light, shaking noise a closed door makes when constant wind blows on it. That’s how silent it can get. As a result, I get great sleep almost every night. In the mornings, I wake up when I am ready to awaken. No unwanted noise jolts me out of bed. I often wake up after an 8-hour sleep to the soothing, happy chirping of birds.

But wherever one resides, there is noise to contend with for sure. Even in Australia, strange as it may seem, they also complain of noise pollution. I read a study somewhere that almost all over the world, noise is escalating. As life gets faster and more modern, it is inevitable.

There are the other kinds of chatter that hound our lives in the course of the day. Facebook, Twitter, cell phones, texts, social media, television, advertising, office deadlines, meetings, obligations, petty conversations constantly engage us and bombard us with information even if many are unwanted and not needed. Everyone and everything is vying for our attention.

Since when did life get so noisy and hectic? I don’t recall it being like this some 20 years ago. There were clearly more spaces for silence then. Not anymore.

I know quite a number of people who don’t seem to think all this noise is an issue. There is this theory that frogs can live and adjust without noticing their water habitat getting warmer until they just snap and reach their boiling point. Maybe some people are just like frogs. They unconsciously adjust to the noise. They are not aware how much it is affecting them till they reach their breaking point.

We all need periods of silence for our own sanity and a better quality of life. But with the way life is going these days, we must really make efforts to have those quiet moments where we can enjoy some respite from busy-ness and also wipe clean the dust of the world that constantly accumulates in our minds and spirits. We need to detox from mindless noise and engagement. We need to occasionally detach ourselves from the demands of the world.

You can’t always find a quiet place, or drop everything and retreat to some ideal Shangri-La somewhere. But you can go to a place within yourself where you can have your silent sanctuary. You can do yoga, meditation, long walks, Zen, exercise, and a host of other activities. The idea is to immerse yourself in a singularly focused activity or practice. That is all you do, and as you do it, you become present to everything that is happening, and also to what is not happening. And even when nothing seems to be happening, there is really a lot actually going on. I have learned that by simply engaging in the practice of being present, it is already doing me some good.

When you learn to quiet your mind, you learn to leave all concerns behind, and your wandering thoughts and feelings that normally control you begin to lose their power. You simply watch them come and go. Emotions and anxieties and other frantic states fade away and become benign and distant. This momentary freedom becomes the only thing that matters. And it feels physically and spiritually liberating.

I have been meditating for more than 14 years now, even if off and on. Let me tell you that meditation is one of the very few things that continues to keep me grounded especially in this crazy showbiz world I often live in. Without this practice of going inward, I would have fallen on the deep end of extreme ego aggrandizement long ago and gotten stuck there for good.

When the meditation is good, it is amazing. When it is not so good, it is still good. When you have been doing any practice for sometime, you will notice that you have easier access to the door of the sacred space and it gets easier to go in and out of it.

Meditation brings you to ground zero, the solid, unchanging reality where everything, including our own lives arise and play out. The difference is, we are present as witnesses and spectators. Life is fleeting. We begin to see and accept reality without our ego insisting it should dictate how things should be. The net effect is we begin to learn to stop judging and clinging to the world by simply surrendering to the arising moment. We discover peace in the stillness.

In meditation, I often feel wide-eyed, alive, and connected to everything. I have this feeling of wholeness, oneness and gratitude. The world is a wondrous place. There isn’t a moment or a thing that is not living, breathing and trying to connect with me on some level or capacity. Everywhere I look, on my left and right, top and bottom, I see life unfolding, rivetingly playing out and affirming life itself and my part in it. There are no hierarchies of importance. Everything rocks! Everything matters.

The felt experience is, I am IT and IT is I. I am the event and witness, spectacle and spectator, the experience and the one who experiences. I do not need anything to complete me. I am already whole. There is nothing outside of me. And all this is all there is. There is only awesome aliveness here.

This activity is my antidote to the endless noise and chatter so common in everyday life. Noise can lull us to boredom and sleep, while silence so deep and encompassing which we can only find inside us can roar so loud it can awaken us completely to life.

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So you got a new DSLR during the holidays. Start taking great pix right away. Enroll now. My first Photography Workshop for 2013 happens on Feb. 9, 1 to 6 p.m. at Bulb Studios, 2231 Pasong Tamo Street, Molave Compound. Cost is P3,920 (VAT inclusive).

For information, call 0916-855-4303 or e-mail jpfotojim@gmail.

If you live in Singapore, I will have a Photo Workshop there on Feb 23. Please call +6582336595 and look for Earla regarding details and reservation.