Saturday, June 27, 2009
Why is talent so celebrated? What is it about being able to paint, sing, or dance that makes us mark an individual as special, maybe a notch above the rest? What purpose does art serve in our lives that makes us revere the people it chooses as its medium?
Michael Jackson, being a man of such stature, battled with a lot of shadows. To me he always seemed to be a fragmented person who couldn't differentiate between himself and his own legend. His changing face seemed proof of the unreality he lived in, the emancipation from his real self. He was bizarre and never seemed to fit in with the world's conventions, and there were the child-molestation allegations that tarnished his image forever. At least that is how I read him, being just another grain of sand in a sandbox of people who witnessed the public life of Michael Jackson.
But then he was up on stage doing his thing, he was a force of nature, he was one with everything. He was pure life force and energy. In his lifetime, he had reached mythological levels in his craft, hence his mythological nickname, "The King of Pop".
Perhaps the artist represents one who is a step nearer divinity than the ordinary man, one who is able to rise above earthliness and channel the metaphysical. Some philosophers believe that man spends his life longing to reunite with his divine origins, and great artists serve as the bridge between man and the unattainable, truth and beauty. Art touches something in us that we can't ever reach or touch because it is too near. That is why we cannot help but revere a great artist like Michael Jackson despite his human failures, and even though he did a lot of things wrong. For all his imperfections, he gifted the world with his talent.
Perhaps as an audience, it's a human weakness to place the famed and talented on a pedestal. Maybe its silly how we build personal relationships with the rich and famous, even though all we really see are blurred reflections of who they really are in actual life.
But I haven't felt this strongly about anything in a long time, so much so that it's made me want to write about it. But consider this my own personal tribute to a man whose talent and works will forever be part of my life's backdrop.
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at 3:59 PM 4 Comments!
Sunday, May 24, 2009
I don't now why I bother writing this. The truth is, writing bores me to tears. I have nothing to say that will benefit mankind, or that will brighten your day, or will make you ponder the meaning of life or anything like that. I don't retreat into my mental space long enough to come up with something new to write.
It bothers me that I have a practically inactive blog, a once-huge blog at that, sitting like abandoned infrastructure, taking up space on the web. And I don't know what to do with it. Tear it down? Repaint it? Renovate? Rent the space out?
Having an inactive blog of this scale (at least 5 years worth of entries) is like dragging around a temporarily paralyzed limb. It doesn't do anything, it's just dead weight. Five years worth of accounts of your life lolling out there for the public to see like your ratty old underwear hanging on a clothesline.
Five years I blogged relentlessly and it didn't ever seem like I would get tired of it. But now, I am. I feel disconnected from anything I wrote. I don't actually like broadcasting what I do with my life, even though I rarely ever got really personal and private in the past. I don't care to share all the hum-drum little things. I don't care if people read what I write and I don't care what they have to say about the things I write.
I don't think I enjoy the blogging medium anymore. I don't like dialogue with nameless, faceless strangers, or people whom I will only ever know as pseudonyms in Helvetica. I don't care to hear a bunch of completely random opinions from people I will never know, anyway.
I don't read other people's blogs except close friends and family, and I don't read comments. If anything is important enough for me to have to know, then it will get to me somehow.
I think people spend too much time on the internet instead of cultivating real relationships with each other, and dealing with actual, in-the-present things. I'm absolutely guilty of what I just said.
On a whole, I feel like this blog is a 5-year body of work I am ready to move on from... to make way for new growth I guess. New medium. New something. I still enjoy reaching out to an audience, just not in this way. This blog was shaped during a particular time in my life when I was going through a particular phase, and was a particular sort of person, and well... things change as things are won't to do.
So... goodbye till I figure out what I want to do. I'm craving a more lo-fi medium. Good old pen and paper. Something hand-written.
Bahala na.
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Wednesday, April 29, 2009
And so it has been a year.
And so it has been a year.
When we got together, the last thing I wanted was to start a new relationship. It wasn't the right time. But I've learned that it's always precisely when you've decided that it is not the right time, even with the soundest and most logical part of your mind, that love likes to creep in through the backdoor. Before you know it, you're living with it. It's already made a room for itself, has strewn it's dirty socks all over the carpet, and has used up all the toothpaste. And however uninvited it was in the beginning, you want it to stay.
I didn't think it was the right time, but life had other plans, and before too long I knew I'd only be kidding myself if I did what singles were supposed to do which was date around on the pretext of increasing my options. But even to myself, I was doing a bad job of pretending I cared about my other options. I knew this when I was out at a pub in the city one night with some new people, including a guy I had a massive crush on. Instead of enjoying the opportunity to flirt all night, my heart was in Blacktown, the very place I've been trying to escape since I moved here. The one person I wanted to be with was there.
I left the party, rang him up at 10 pm and asked him if he would like to have a late dinner with me at Mcdonald's. I picked him up and we drove to the 24 hour Mackers nearby (which has got to be one of the most derelict in Sydney). We sat outside and ate our food and shared french fries. We talked about this and that. And I was happy because I knew I was exactly where I wanted to be: with a wonderful guy who made me feel peaceful and comforted at the end of a long day, who had the kind of aura who quieted me and made me smile easily, who was warm and real, and made me feel like I didn't ever have to pretend to be anything.
We didn't get together the usual way where it starts out all romantic, and thrilling, and where you go out on little dates and try to impress each other. We were friends. I never dressed up for him, and never fixed my hair, and never got all nervous and cold when I knew I was going to see him. Because I we had no romantic agendas in the beginning, there were no games and no expectations. We started off on a very honest and real note. A special friendship grew between us and before long I realized I cared about him a great deal. I was in love before I even knew it.
It's been a year and he still fills me with a happiness that is both simple, and profound. Since he came along I've felt like a garden in full bloom, flourishing, and growing like a wild thing. He makes me feel like a 6-year old opening presents on her birthday, even on perfectly ordinary days. He makes me laugh like hell. And with him, I feel embraced, imperfections and all. I've never felt so healthy.
We're very different and in that respect, and I've broken almost every relationship rule I set for myself in the past. He's very out of the mold, and this was a risk, a free-fall. But despite the odds, it's worked so beautifully and now it has been a year.
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Sunday, April 26, 2009
think your life sucks? read this and stop feeling sorry for yourself
This article, published in a Brunei newspaper, is a labor of love I did for one of my best friends, Dan Cabrera. Proud of you!!!! I actually cried just while writing this. He is so inspiring!
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Sunday, April 05, 2009
I haven't blogged in almost a month. I haven't ready any blog comments in even longer than that.
I don't even feel like writing, for several reasons:
1) I am unbelievably busy.
2) When I'm not busy, I'm actually out living.
3) Facebook addiction has replaced blogging addiction.
4) I don't feel like writing. I'm actually really sick of hearing my own voice. All I want to write about are things like my boyfriend, what my crush in school wore today, what I ate today, and whether I should cut my hair or not. And that sort of thing is reserved for female friends.
I did manage to write a real post today, for the first time in ages, but it was like pulling teeth.
Here goes.
---
Is my birthday really just 12 days away? I'm too lazy to plan anything. Maybe I'll just get everyone together for drinks somewhere. I don't really want to throw a big party like I usually do.
Anyway, because we're suppose to write deep, meaningful posts whenever we turn a year older, that is what I will attempt to do right now.
Ok, things I have learned at the ripe age of 26, haha:
1) I am often accused by those several years younger than me of being "Age-ist" (which is a term I just learned from my sister), particularly by my little brother and those in his age group, which is basically everyone in my school with the exception of a handful of other mature-age students. Ok, I can be unfairly Age-ist sometimes. But other times, I feel I do have a point. I may be only 4-6 years older than the fresh-out-of-high school demographic. Being older doesn't automatically make you a better person. There's no difference in mental capacity, and anything that I can do, a 19-year old can do better than me.
But those 4-6 years do make a difference when it comes to certain things. I'm pretty sure someone younger than me can relate to everything I've been through, in an intellectual way. But it's different when you've actually gone through it yourself. There is no substitute for life experience.
I'm not saying that I've been through much more in life than all 19-year olds, and I am not implying that everyone's life follows a pattern where we all automatically gain wisdom once we hit a certain age.
But when I see people a few years younger than me going through heartbreak, or a dark night of the soul for the first time, I wish they'd believe when I say that a) things will change... drastically. Nothing is ever permanent. You will change many, many times in the course of the next few years, b) there's a life out there waiting for you, one you haven't even conceived of yet, and c) believe it or not, in a year, none of this will matter. Because I've been there. I haven't been everywhere, but I've been there.
But instead they look at me, roll their eyes, and say "What do you know, you're only what, 5 years older than me? Big freaking deal!"
True, I don't know everything. But when you're my age, maybe you'll see what I mean. And I'm sure that somewhere out there, there's a 30-year old reading what I've just written and smiling at how naive I am, and how little I've been through.
2) Love is never an ultimatum.
And an ultimatum is the worst way to get someone to stay.
3) When it's time for a relationship to end, the worst possible thing you can do is try to prolong it, for whatever reason.
4) There's a certain pleasure in making an ultimate and final judgement on another person. It's why we love to hate Paris Hilton. We love to believe that she'll always be dumb, and she'll always be rich, and she'll always be blonde. And since it's wrong to openly judge "real" people, we judge celebrities instead because we don't have to think of them as real.
We've all been guilty of reducing someone to a 2-dimensional character. But each time I've done this, each time I've thought I've read a person right, they do something to surprise me entirely, something human and good. And I realize I can't judge a person entirely for one thing they said or one thing they did. Everyone is a work in progress, everyone is a flowing river that never stays the same.
People choose their actions based on what they believe is right, at a given time, and depending on what they've experienced up to that point. New experiences will come after that, and the person will change, whether it is visible to me or not.
5) Dream big. Dream really, really big. Even if you never get there, you'll still get farther than if you dream small. Providing you're not just sitting on your ass, of course.
Ok, I'm all out of wisdom.
Leave you with one of my latest:
"No matter what he did, his feet would not touch the ground."Inspired by Palawan, the most beautiful place on earth.
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Sunday, March 15, 2009
3 years
In the middle of a water color painting, it suddenly hit me what the date might be, and I checked my phone just to confirm that it really was March 15, and that it was my 3rd Australian Anniversary. I have been here 3 years, 3 years since I boarded the plane that would take me to Sydney. I had tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat and a feeling that could only be described as grief. Not sadness, grief. It was equivalent to the worst break-up I've ever had, or losing a loved one.
It wasn't about leaving a place. Manila wouldn't disappear if I left it for 3 years. I was leaving behind an era, a childhood, a state of being, an order of things, my Garden of Eden. I knew that even if I were ever to return, it wouldn't be to the same place. It would be different, or I would be different. It was the end, and it was final.
But I knew I had to leave. I resisted it for the longest time, with anger, with resentment. But I first knew it deep inside when, the year before I left, I went on a 6-week sailing trip to Negros on the Greenpeace ship, the Rainbow Warrior. For 6 days, I was a kitchen hand, floor mopper, polisher of things that needed polishing, and when we were docked, a tour guide to visitors on the boat. I was far, far away from my comfort zone, with a bunch of sailor/ activists from the four corners of the planet, and often found myself in the middle of nowhere with nothing but endless stretches of ocean and night sky all around, engulfing me. In the distance, I would spot strange shapes, other ships sailing in the night time. And I remember feeling a deep sense of peace then, being nowhere, being in between two places.
There is something very romantic about sailing, see, there's so much symbolism to it that you can relate to just about everything in life. I've only ever really sailed on a ship once, but after that trip, I knew I was a sailor. A sailor of life. Cheesy. But the metaphor has helped me out many times, especially in regards to my move here. Life is a voyage.
Since then, I've had an unexplainable affinity with all things with a nautical theme, ships, and storms, and oceans, and maps, and compasses. I love the song "Harbor" by Vienna Teng. When I first heard it, it sounded like I wrote it myself. I love the poem "First Lesson" by Philip Booth.
When I got back, I knew there had to be something out there for me. I didn't know what it was, and it may very well have been false hope, and there was always the risk of coming back empty hande,ut I had to see for myself. And when I got to Sydney, despite the depression that hovered over me like a spector, the gripping cold of being in the middle of nowhere, I made a promise to myself that I would be happy.
I have yet to learn to sail for real, though.
---
Something I wrote the year I left:
I am 22 about to board a ship that will take me towards new horizons.
My sails are woven out of hopes and dreams.
The winds of fate will blow me to my destination.
I am the captain.
Faith is my first mate.
My heart is my compass.
Love will be my anchor.
---
First Lesson, by Philip Booth
Lie back daughter, let your head
be tipped back in the cup of my hand.
Gently, and I will hold you. Spread
your arms wide, lie out on the stream
and look high at the gulls. A dead-
man's float is face down. You will dive
and swim soon enough where this tidewater
ebbs to the sea. Daughter, believe
me, when you tire on the long thrash
to your island, lie up, and survive.
As you float now, where I held you
and let go, remember when fear
cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year
stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.
---
"Harbor", by Vienna Teng
We're here where the daylight begins
The fog on the streetlight slowly thins
Water on water's the way
The safety of shoreline fading away
Sail your sea
Meet your storm
All I want is to be your harbor
The light in me
Will guide you home
All I want is to be your harbor
Fear is the brightest of signs
The shape of the boundary you leave behind
So sing all your questions to sleep
The answers are out there
in the drowning deep
You've got a journey to make
There's your horizon to chase
So go far beyond where we stand
No matter the distance
I'm holding your hand
---
I'm going to celebrate in the best way: Lebanese charcoal chicken with my best friend! :-)
Want to feel like a king for only 20 dollars? Go to a restaurant called "El Janna" in Granville, order yourself some chicken, an order of chips, a drink, and if you like, some baba ganoush. Remind yourself that Julius Cesar, Cleopatra, or any of the most rich and powerful people in history never, ever had this luxury. Feel richer than a king. Let the chicken juice dribble down your chin. Lick your fingers. Feel grateful to be alive.
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Sunday, March 01, 2009
day's end
Consider this the first finished work for the school year. We were given the concept "Face", and were told we could do whatever we wanted with it, in any medium.
Anyway, this one is called "Day's End".
I think my coat-rack is missing an arm. Never was any good at drawing man-made objects. :-p
Conjures up reminders of Hannibal Lecter, doesn't it? I've never actually seen "Silence of the Lambs", though. What sparked the idea was a bunch of Salvadore Dali self-portraits where he painted his face without any bones or muscles, just skin. Count on him to think of doing that.
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Friday, February 27, 2009
influences
The past two weeks, I've been achingly tired. Even my skin feels tired if that's possible. My classes now start half an hour earlier than they used to, and end half an hour later as well. I wake up too early in the morning, and by the time I get home, I only have enough energy to scrounge around for something edible, have a shower, and be in bed by 10:30.
I now drink twice the amount of coffee I did last year, and have been spending more on food to keep up my energy during the long hours. I used to spend as little money as possible each day, and never bought any of the canteen food or the horrible coffee they sell. Last year, I survived mainly on a diet of cashew nuts, raisins, and brewed coffee all brought from home. But now, I realize that I would rather be less a few dollars each week but be in high spirits, than be richer but weak and rail-thin. And so, I have incorporated the 1-dollar hash browns from the canteen into my diet. Keeps me filled up till the next class.
Things are different this year. Last year, I was extremely nervous about being able to prove myself. This year, I have a bit more confidence in my abilites. Not that I am anywhere near perfection, or will ever be for that matter. But with every project, I have a fair amount of faith that whatever it is I will produce will not turn out disastrous or grotesquely ugly.
I'm a bit more relaxed. Helps that the teachers have sort of gotten to know us and our working styles, as well, and aren't breathing down our necks as much.
I now see how my mindset has already changed from before I started this illustration course. Art used to be a romance. Every page, every canvas was an outpouring of inspiration, the product of my heart and soul. And all anyone had to do to rain on my parade was to point out one mistake, or one flaw, or one thing they didn't like about my creation.
Before I got into this course, a lot of people told me not to go to art school because it would ruin whatever raw talent and originality I had by making it conform to rules and structure. I wrestled with the decision for years.
I suppose art school just doesn't work for some people. Some people don't need to study art. Whatever they do, they already do it well. But I believe that structured education will only ruin you if you let it. You are already original as is. How can anything ruin that? Besides, there are a great many other things in this world outside of a school that can either ruin you or help you as an artist. In any case, you're not going to grow creatively if your main intention is shielding yourself from the world, to isolate it from as many outside influences as possible in order to preserve your originality. Nothing grows from purity. Inspiration comes from letting the world in, from colliding with life, from letting foreign flavours in to marry with existing ones.
Some people don't study art because they're afraid that structure might drown out their own voice. Others dont go to art school because they've already reached that artistic level where they have the skills to carry out their best inspirations, and they can freely dance with life. And some others don't realize that they are already dancing with life until they go to art school. I love stories of people like John Mayer who dropped out of Berklee School of Music because he could already see very clearly what he wanted to do.
In any case, it helps to have open-minded teachers or mentors who push you and encourage your individuality while still maintaining necessary structure. Because the best artists aren't really the mercurial, flighty stereotypes we often see in books and movies. They are disciplined individuals who, like athletes, show up on schedule to train even when they don't feel like it. They stay in shape, so that they may have the skills and know-how to translate true inspiration when it strikes.
I've been drawing since I was three, but I feel like I'm really just starting to learn now.
---
The other day, I got to thinking about the main figures and incidents in my life who influenced my artistic development. The most central figure of all, I realize, is my mother, and I write this to credit her.
My mother was always dabbling in something creative. My parents were never the type who bought me new toys all the time. I can recall very few Christmases and birthdays where they gave me big, expensive toys like Barbie houses and the like (never actually owned a Barbie house, in fact). But one thing my mother never held back on were art materials. My mother always bought me crayons, and pastels, and paint sets, and craft kits, and huge paper to draw on. She also always got me really quirky things to play with that weren't expensive or fancy but fueled the imagination. A can of Play Dough, or a box of old costumes can do so much more for a kid than a huge, expensive Barbie House. To this day, I don't believe in buying kids fancy-shmancy toys that leave little to the imagination. Kids are already capable of keeping themselves entertained. You just have to feed them raw material to work with.
My mother, whether consciously or not, gave me lots of raw stuff to play with, raw stuff that I could turn into whatever I wanted. She surrounded me with interesting things, and showed me how things could transform into other things with a little imagination.
My mom also never held back on books. When she'd come from overseas, she'd always bring me home books. I owned a mountain of books which I read and reread from cover to cover. I can't tell you what those books did for me. When I was younger, I loved the pictures. When I was older and the books didn't have pictures anymore, I would draw my own pictures for them. I treasured those books, and to this day, I am still one to really, really care about my books.
My mother was a U.P. Fine Arts student back when I was young, and she would take me to class with her sometimes and give me my own sheet of paper to draw on, and I would sit there amongst all the college kids and try to do whatever they were doing. I also got to help out in the Lantern Parade once. She also enrolled me in art classes.
I must've been grade 1 or 2 when we had a poster-making contest in school sponsored by Safeguard soap. The topic was handwashing and health. My mother and I cooked up this poster and won a couple hundred pesos. Of course, I got all the credit even if she did most of the work. But it was then that I began to get my first inkling that I might actually be good at drawing.
And it was because of my mother that I learned to have an appreciation for the naked, human form when I was very, very young. I'd see all her life drawings and she would tell me that the human body was a beautiful thing. I attempted to draw my first anatomically correct woman at age 6. My teacher in school told me it was 'bastos'. My mother saw the same drawing and corrected my proportions.
My mother also exposed me to unconventional notions of beauty. She always had unusual taste. I remember when she came home from her first trip to Nepal and brought home these beautiful wooden carvings of fierce masks and animal heads. She also showed me photos of Nepal's living Goddess, the Kumari Devi. It was all so alien to me, all so different from what I was taught to consider beautiful, but thanks to her, I learned to appreciate beauty I couldn't relate to culturally and that challenged convention.
And so with this entry, I credit my mother, who has had to bend over backwards a bit in order for me to do well in this design course. Thank you, mom.
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Sunday, February 15, 2009
calling all Philippine musicians
This is reposted from my friend Jorel Corpus's livejournal/multiply/facebook. You may know Jorel from his bands Kjwan, Brigada, and the now defunct Happy Meals. Jorel is currently studying guitar at the famed Berklee School of Music and is in talks with some people regarding making Manila a possible audition site for future Berklee students.
I admire Jorel for going after his dream of studying there precisely because he had so many reasons not to do it; several of them being a) he's already very, very good at what he does, and respected by many, b) he already has a kick-ass band that has won an international competition, c) he'll probably get far anyway even if he never formally studies music, and d) his band, Kjwan, just released a new album. There's also the fear that many artists have of discovering how they might measure up next to other musicians, the fear that they might arrive there and discover that they're not "real artists".
But here is a guy dedicated to improving his craft, for seeing how far he can go, and who is no longer satisfied with mere praise from his admirers. Now he wants to be good by his own standards and that means putting himself outside of his comfort zone and daring to see what lies beyond.
Here is what he has to say:MANILA: POSSIBLE BERKLEE AUDITION SITE. PLEASE READ!!!Hi everyone!!!
As you all know. I am currently in Boston studying at Berklee College of Music. For the past couple of weeks i have been working on getting a meeting with the International Programs office and Scholarships office to discuss the possibility of making Manila, our hometown and audition site for their World Scholarship Tour.
For those who don't know, Berklee has this program called the World Scholarship tour where they go to cities around the world and audition people who are intersted to study in the college. (isnt that cool at how the college actually goes out to audition people) The nearest audition site to Manila is Kuala Lumpur which is where i auditioned back in 2007.
Now of course running at the back of mind mind eversince was. "I wish they would come here to Manila because i know that they will be surprised at the amount of talent that the country and city has"
So anyway fast forward. I just spoke with the Director for International Programs and it seems feasible for now because turns out theyre prospecting for new audiition sites. Seems like i came in a good time. Perfect.
So this is where i need you guys to help me out.
One of the factors that they will probably decide on would be how much people are going to audition. So i need you guys to ask around for me who is interested to audition for the school. Do not think about the application process first. I just need to know a general number on how many people want to audition if there will be one in Manila.
There have been no details yet on how were going to go about this. But i have some time to spare so i want to know a general figure that i could give them when we meet again. I will be speaking with the director again tonight to get more information and get details on what i need to research in Manila. So for now all i need is the number of people who POSSIBLY want to audition.
For those who dont know. Berklee College of Music is an awesome forward thinking music school thats located in Boston. Its been my dream school since High School and im just fortunate enough to be able to come here even for a couple of sems. The school has people from all around the world (LITERALLY!) Zimbabwe, Korea, Mozambique, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Slovenia, UK, Hong Kong, China, Kenya, Japan, Australia basta you get the picture! It hosts people who have very dynamic musical backgrounds from traditional to DJ-ing to hiphop, breakbeats, jazz cats, drum and bass, christian, samba, rock, choral, novelty, merengue BASTA ANDAMI YOU NAME IT LAHAT YATA NG GENRE SA ITUNES MERON DITO!!! It has alumni na sobrang diverse who have won grammy's and who have very successful musical careers around the world. Some of these people are Quincy Jones and John Mayer.
If you want to learn more about music and make it relevant to your career and the current music scene. I believe this is the place to go to. Some people might say otherwise but thats their call. Im only talking to the people who wanna go and are interested kung ayaw mo eh di wag mo na tong basahin HAHA.
Going to this school is not the be all and end all of your career but it will surely help you and give you all the information you need to make great music and songs to inspire a generation!
SO HELP ME OUT AND LETS GIVE A WHOLE NEW GENERATION OF PEOPLE THE CHANGE AND OPPORTUNITY TO FURTHER THEIR CRAFT TO BREAK OUT OF THE MOLD! Please ask around for me and pass this onto your friends.
Leave a comment here to let me know if you know people who are interested. Let me know.
1. How Many
2. Gender
3. Age
4. Musical Background
so i have something to throw when i meet again with the director. Thanks people. PLEASE REPOST THIS IN YOUR BLOGS AND LINK BACK TO MY MULTIPLY OR LIVEJOURNAL. THIS WILL BE REALLY A LANDMARK OCCASION IF THIS PUSHES THROUGH! YEAHHHHHHH!!!
Let me leave you with something that really encouraged me this week from scripture.
“Companions as we are in this work with you, we beg you, please don’t squander one bit of this marvelous God has given us.”
2 Corinthians 6:1 MSG
ALL THE BEST PEOPLE! HOPE TO HEAR FROM Y'ALL SOON!!!
(im trying to tag every music related friend i have so maybe you guys can help me spread the word better! thanks!)
I CREATED A MAILINGLIST IN YAHOOGROUPS FOR THIS. PLEASE JOIN IT IF YOURE INTERESTED.
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/berkleeinmanila /
JOREL CORPUS
http://yahihu.com
jcayabyabcorpus@berklee.net
+1 617 8005370
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Friday, February 13, 2009
Tomorrow everyone will be out in the town spending money to celebrate their love, prove their love, or confess their love. So I have decided to write about love. Somewhat.love and marriage
"Love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage"- goes the old song. Nowadays, love and marriage don't necessarily go together anymore, except maybe in the sense that marriage is cumbersome like the carriage on the horse.... and someone always ends up being the horse!
Or at least that is a sentiment that many young women seem to share. I notice it's a mark of women in my generation to hold off marriage, or to not want to get married at all. They want relationships but not necessarily marriage. Or if they do get married, they don't want to have children.
Women have a choice nowadays, and marriage isn't the only option anymore. And like every person my age, I often ask myself if marriage really is the enemy of your career, and if getting hitched means sacrificing all that freedom that women's rights activists fought for, all those choices that history has piled on your plate and plopped in front of you for you to gobble up.
Now is the time when a woman can be anything and anyone she ever dreamed of. Why throw it away by choosing early marriage?
I had a female friend my age (25), also Pinay, who was engaged to be married. People asked her if she was pregnant, and some of her Australian friends respectfully asked her if it was an arranged marriage (thinking that maybe it was common in Pinoy culture culture). Total strangers, who really had no say on the choices she made, all offered the opinion that she was too young. Why else would anyone want to get married at 25? Maybe the fact that she looked ten years younger than her age threw them off a bit.
She realized then what an oddity it might seem to some people for a woman of 25, of sound mind and body, to willingly, and of her own accord, walk into wedlock. Especially since alot of women her age hadn't yet made up their minds whether they ever wanted to get married at all. It was as if she had anounced that she was selling herself into slavery.
But she was getting married because she wanted to, and because she felt like she had found the right person.
I would say that I'm alot like her. I do dream about being married, and only a very small portion of that dreaming involves a wedding a white dress. I dream about married life- the husband, the house, the cooking, the dirty dishes, the laundry, the endless bickering, the babies. None if it sounds very appealing when I put it that way. But I do want a family and a household and someone to go through good and bad times with. I'm not in a rush, but I know that I do want it. I am as equally excited about the prospect of starting a family as the day I reach the pinnacle of my career (whatever that is).
This makes me a freak in some circles. I often get caught in the midst of female discussions where almost everyone in the group anounces that they don't know yet if they'll ever get married, and if they do it will be at a late age. And when I tell them that I'm quite sure I want to be married (or at least permanently committed to someone in an official way), everyone sort of gets quiet, looks away, sighs meaningfully, shrugs their shoulders, and the discussion ends. Then I feel almost ashamed for wanting domesticity, for wanting to be institutionalized, for pushing away the choices that history worked so hard to give me, for not wanting to travel the world till I'm 50 having affairs with men named Pierre, and Rodrigo, and Sven, partying on weekends, and eventually becoming an important, powerful woman in my field.
It's not that I don't want to travel, and that I don't want a career. I am rather ambitious, and have never been so focused on it in all my life. And just like every other contemporary woman who was told growing up that she could be anything she dreamed of, I would be devastated if I had to sacrifice my career. But hey... I want the dirty dishes, the husband, and the babies, too. What are ambitions if you've got no one to share them with.
This leads me to wonder:1) Is marriage really career suicide? Does it mean giving up your goals? Is it not possible to hold them both in equal weight? Is not a stable, happy family a goal just like every other goal, one that you have to work towards and devote time to, and one that you will have to get started on some time? Is it always a choice between the two? Can a woman not actualize herself in a marriage?
2) Is your partner really the enemy of your ambitions? Is it not possible to be in a rejuvenating, full-filling marriage where each helps each the other in attaining their goals?
3) If we put off committing to someone, does it really mean we'll have to make less sacrifices and compromises for the relationship? Will we not have to deal with the same pitfalls of adjusting to each other and accepting each others' imperfections?
4) Is it really better to have kids later on in life? Will you still have energy to run with them, and carry them, and teach them crafts, and take them to see beaches, and museums and things?
5) How come nobody ever talks about the good things about being married, especially in the media? Why don't we ever read about why marriage is worth it? Why is almost every movie and sitcom about single people? Ar they implying that married people are uninteresting?
To all you experienced, married people, young and old, here is your chance to share your hard-earned wisdom to those who care to listen.
Happy Valentine's Day!
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