08:43 | de[v/b]il
i do not believe in online personality tests (except for this one), and would have not posted the result of this one, the link of which i got from acey, had i not been surprised with the the seeming semblance of the result and me. so, here goes:
You are the Devil
The Devil is often a great card for business success; hard work and ambition.
Perhaps the most misunderstood of all the major arcana, the Devil is not really "Satan" at all, but Pan the half-goat nature god and/or Dionysius. These are gods of pleasure and abandon, of wild behavior and unbridled desires. This is a card about ambitions; it is also synonymous with temptation and addiction. On the flip side, however, the card can be a warning to someone who is too restrained, someone who never allows themselves to get passionate or messy or wild - or ambitious. This, too, is a form of enslavement.
As a person, the Devil can stand for a man of money or erotic power, aggressive, controlling, or just persuasive. This is not to say a bad man, but certainly a powerful man who is hard to resist. The important thing is to remember that any chain is freely worn. In most cases, you are enslaved only because you allow it.
19:37 | premonition
horror of horrors. a friend and her father honored me with a visit one very early morning last week. the news: the daughter is pregnant. the catch (yes, you got it right): i am the father (but more of like i might be).
self doubt. what am i to do? i asked the daughter and her father. i am only twenty-one years old. there are still many things that i would like to do. the father was looking at me with so much anger his face was turning red. you have to abort that baby i said to the expecting mother. and then the slap--on my face. i can't remember if there was a punch from the expecting grandfather. i passed out. it was a good thing my brothers were not in our house.
it's too late. the cosmos knows how much i wished that the daughter, her baby and the father were all just part of a very sick joke. bathala must truly love me as i woke up from that very bad dream.
10:03 | the evolution of a self-concept
it is amazing how we, as persons, come to define our selves vis-a-vis other people. but how we define our selves are mostly dictated by how other people perceive us to be. this may be in the form of assurance given by family members, or through pressure exerted by friends, or even through a promotion for a job done well. interestingly, our concept of the self, a concept of loob, that which is internal to us, is continuously created and recreated through our interactions with agents external, labas, to us.
the self is a concept, of which its inherent ideas/faculties may be re-expressed by the combination of other and different concepts. but the self is also a project. how we choose these other and different concepts is a process which requires cognition of both self and the environment.
as a concept, the self needs to have essential components which defines its being the self, the concept. and as a project, we build the self, the project, through our interaction with other agents. thus, the self is a product of what is essentially us and of what we made it to be.
[translation: last night i got a comment in friendster to the effect of i-do-not-want-to-be-associated-with-you-(insert adjective here). i may be an egomaniac, but i choose to rise, instead. i refuse to let any god treat me as a regular shit on earth without my permission, especially now that i'm nearing to crack. anyway, i turned down a job offer from a big bank, and deferred an application for another big institution for a government post. hopefully, i will be able to start soon.]
16:08 | apathy
"badjao, pasok!" screamed a young girl in malong to a group of malong-wearing pre-teens who followed her orders. when all of the members of the band were already inside the jeepney, the leader started to sing and dance as two of the pre-teens beat on improvised drums made from cut pvc pipes and what used to be cheap plastic bags. this happened while another pre-teen distributed envelopes with her dirty hands to the shocked passengers.
there were no amusement among the eyes of the commuters. there were only malice--and disbelief that such wretched creatures exist in real life.
the band only stopped its act when it became obvious that nobody wanted to give any donation in exchange for their frivolous performance. but, as if to scorn the passengers' conscience, they did not get off the jeepney. they only sat there, looking at the passengers in the eyes.
but the driver had his fill. "ang mahal mahal ng diesel, e." remarked the driver, as if the ragtag band is the cause of rising oil prices. the driver stopped his vehicle, and ordered the children to get off his jeep. they didn't. so mr. driver detached his jeep's gear stick to shoo them off. the children, sensing danger, scrambled off to the safety of the street.
i was there. and i did nothing.
