THE KNOWN UNKNOWNS

WHEN IT WAS UNKNOWN -

Roughly around three Mondays ago  - I just experienced the most grueling two hours of my life. I have faced the four horsemen of the apocalypse who scrutinized every bits and pieces of the words that came out of my mouth conjured from pressured and later on tired thoughts.

I guess it's about time for me to move to a new chapter in my life. My ambition drove me to success and I hope that this same ambition will drive me to greater heights. I have sought a higher position, which is lined up in my career goals. The initial question is, "Will I get it?" Honestly, I do not want to expect too much and be that overconfident to not even look into, "what if you don't get it?". Plan B has already been set in place. In addition, for a person as stubborn and demanding as me, I have developed the skill not to over-expect because in experience wise, countless of times I have over-expected, and countless of times, I have been over-frustrated.

The next question is, "Am I ready for it?" 75% of me says yes, and 25% is as sh!t-scared as a 5 year old boy not wanting to see the tikbalang in the backyard.

Anyway, through time, I have learned that the key to life is always going for it. There's no point of staring at nothingness and waiting for nothing! Fate is useless unless we do something about it. We carve our own destiny and there has never been a grand universal masterplan that has already been woven for us just waiting to be unfolded. I have always thought about that concept as nothing but pure absurdity. I made myself what I am right now, no sorries .... No regrets!

In reality, the coin has only two faces, I might get the. job or I might get ditched! I am open to all possibilities. The big question is: How will I handle it?

We live in a life of unforeseen circumstances. As human beings, we were made to think ahead, and ask ourselves "What we want to be?" as early as little kids. Part of our nature is ambition. But sometimes ambition does not only drive us to success, in some cases ambition leads us to failure. Too much ambition signifies selfishness and might result to stepping onto boundaries and limitations, in certain cases, stepping onto someone else. This is when ambition becomes bloody and definitely unhealthy.

In the end, we know what will happen. Danger and failure come from the things we imagined. The distinction between "known unknowns", the things we know we don't know, and "unknown unknowns", the things we don't know we don't know.

NOW THAT IT’S KNOWN -

Four days ago, the “unknown” has been revealed. Was I crushed? Of course! Was I disappointed? Very much?!?! Did I sour grape? Hell yeah!

So now, that the “unknown” has been “known”, “What will happen next?”

I have tried to think about it for the past four days but my mind shuts down and shifts to a different thought every time I try to lay down a plan on what will happen ahead. Is this my self-defense mechanism? Maybe! Maybe I’m protecting myself from running around shouting indiscernible blabbers or running to the beach and drowning myself!

Right now, I am feeling in the blanks. I am trying to feel it, right now. And since I’m feeling it, my emotions are taking over, and when emotions are in charge, rationality is out of the picture.

After the bad news, someone told me, “Don’t let yourself be eaten by the void.” I honestly don’t know what this means, but I know that I have too much self-respect to let myself be destroyed by just one failure.

If it’s not for me, then it’s not for me. Maybe someone is more “special” than me. I have no other choice but to accept.

I feel bad, down, frustrated, disappointed, unwanted, and worthless. – THIS IS THE PRESENT. 

As far as the future is concerned – WELL, I WON’T BE FEELING IN THE BLANKS anymore … I WILL CREATE MY OWN FUTURE … AND I WILL FILL IN THE BLANKS MYSELF – No one has the power to stop me from what I want. I am writing my own destiny and F*CK all BAD VIBES!

As a five year old kid would say … “NEK NEK NYO! SAKSAK NYO NA LANG YAN SA BAGA NYO!”

Haha!

SHAKE. SHOOK. SHAKEN.

A lot of things had recently shaken up the world. There’s the earth-shaking 8.9 magnitude earthquake in Japan, immediately followed by a nuclear disaster. Coincidentally, I am also getting my own share of shaking.
Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world, erupted in mass protests in January 2011, as the revolution in Tunisia inflamed decades worth of smoldering grievances against the heavy-handed rule of President Hosni Mubarak. After 18 days of angry protests and after losing of the support of the military and the United States, Mr. Mubarak resigned on Feb. 11, ending 30 years of autocratic rule. The citizens of Egypt were successful in getting what they wanted. Change in government, change in management and of course, change in leadership!

Just a few weeks after that, a threat to civil war erupted in Libya. Same with Egypt's case the unrest in Libya is mainly caused by the people's dissatisfaction with their leader. But unlike Mumbarak, Libya's ruler, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, does not show any signs of stepping down and acts on a strong and aggressive show of force to eliminate his opposition. Though it began with a relatively organized core of antigovernment opponents in Benghazi, its spread to the capital of Tripoli was swift and spontaneous. Colonel Qaddafi lashed out with a level of violence unseen in either of the other uprisings, but an inchoate opposition cobbled together the semblance of a transitional government, fielded a makeshift rebel army and portrayed itself to the West and Libyans as an alternative to Colonel Qaddafi's four decades of freakish rule.

And now, even though NATO allied forces are also showing direct aggression towards Qaddafi, taking the side of Libyan opposition, it seems that as of the moment, there's no shaking up the Qaddafi, which is causing further complication.

On top of these, other Arab nations like Bahrain, and Yemen are also being shaken up by political unrest just because a change of leadership is being clamored for.
These are also all too familiar for Filipinos with the series of EDSA revolutions which toppled unwanted leaders.
It only shows how fragile people can become once dissatisfaction towards their leaders has arisen. And it only brings about the idea that chaos occurs when no effective leader is driving the society. Opposition occurs, lawlessness happens and the paramount of it all is when a revolution erupts, which may result to total chaos. This is the total dissolution of the community, which is the worst thing that can happen.

This can also be a common denominator in the corporate world. Sometimes, the subordinates' feelings and opinions towards the change of leadership runs parallel on how society calls for it. But the major difference is that in the corporate world, people's revolt leads to insubordination, and insubordination has always been proven counterproductive. In a democratic society, we elect our leaders, in the corporate world, we don’t elect our bosses.

I guess, we are already lucky right now that corporate management has transformed already from a managerial-autocratic rule into a participative and cooperative leadership. Now, as employees, you think that you are important and you are given the chance to air out your opinions regarding your satisfaction towards the company that you are working for. Nowadays, big corporations are more inclined into keeping and improving their people rather than firing them. And one good strategy in keeping people is making them feel satisfied.

So, it’s going to be a big avalanche when employees altogether started to feel unsatisfied not just because of a sudden mass hysteria but because of a series of undesirable (and not unfortunate) events.

And in most cases, it’s really up to the leaders to manage and contain these kinds of situation. And in cases like this, what the employees need is a LEADER and not really a manager.

A leader who do not have subordinates - at least not when they are leading. That when they want to lead, they have to give up formal authoritarian control, because to lead is to have followers, and following is always a voluntary activity.

Someone who does not tell people what to do, because telling people what to do does not inspire them to follow. It does not inspire creativity and independence.

A leader who needs to appeal to his people, showing how following them will lead to their hearts' desire. Leaders with a stronger charisma find it easier to attract people to their cause. As a part of their persuasion they typically promise transformational benefits, such that their followers will not just receive extrinsic rewards but will somehow become better people.

In a nutshell, I guess the time has passed when people should be considered has half imbeciles that need to be commanded upon all the time. We have all evolved into a thinking men and women, whom based through life and work experience should be able to work together as a team and not as merely pawns. A strong team needs a strong leader. And a strong team can shake things up and make things happen.

ON “LEAVINGS” AND “STAYINGS”

John Mayer - All We Ever Do Is Say Goodbye


Two days ago, KEVIN bid farewell and said goodbye to SITEL. He will be moving on to Convergys together with the other PayPal peeps. The good thing about this is that Kevin never had a hard time leaving the company and the best thing about this is they were offered salaries way higher than what we are getting from SITEL. So, nobody can really blame him from leaving. And nobody can really STOP him from leaving. It’s plainly a career move.

The thing about leaving is the risk of entering a new environment that you may not be prepared for. Something that can shock you totally, catch you off-guarded and make you think later on that the risk that you have taken is not really worth it. But that’s just the dark side of it.  Another thing about leaving is the sacrifice. You sacrifice your friends, the relationships that have been built stronger through time and the reputation that you have already invested on. The latter is the hardest thing to let go. In most cases, people don’t leave because they are too scared in losing on what has been started. I’m one of these people.

I lot of my closest friends in SITEL already left. The question they ask me is, “WHY ARE YOU STAYING?”

My basic answer is that I’m too lazy to move out and move to another company. I already have a COMFORT ZONE in SITEL and I’m afraid to leave that COMFORT ZONE. And like what I said, I’m scared – what if I won’t be as successful as I was when I was in SITEL (although I know how uberly awesome I am – the inevitable may still happen)? And I still have friends. My colleagues, my bosses, my agents who are an integral part of my SITEL life.

So, no matter how things turn out super shitty, I think that my reasons for staying would still supersede my impatience and dissatisfaction towards the management and the company as a whole.

I’M A BB GIRL.

On to a different topic, I bought myself a BlackBerry. It’s one of those impulsive-spur-of-the-moment thingies. I wanted to return it after a day but as Farrah said, I deserve it and I should really give a gift for myself, which made me realize – I’ve never bought something expensive for myself for a very long time.

The annoying though is that until now, I still can’t browse facebook and damn globe still won’t let me update my plan to the newer ones when I’m 3 months to the end of my contract.

Another annoying thing is that I have been using it for the past 5 days and I still text like an 85 year old man.

QUITTING

Like leaving, I’m not really fond of quitting. When I was a kid, playing with the neighborhood kids, I rarely say “Ayawan na!” – I would keep on playing, running, competing – whatever we’re doing – unti I win.

Same goes up to this point. I would never quit on something just because I’m pissed off. Me being pissed, make me drive stronger and make my motivations far more intense.

AMERICAN IDOL

I am still standing to my opinion that the AI management are so crazy and so out of their mind in letting JLO and STEVEN TYLER stay as judges. Nothing useful comes out of their mouths. I’m still not impressed.

The contestants are also not that as exciting to watch as compared to the previous seasons.

And lastly, is Jacob Lusk gay? He is gayer than Elton John and Clay Aiken put together.

Okay. Stefano Langone is HOT and that’s just it.

THE DAY THE INFATUATION DIED

When I first saw him, I never even thought of knowing him or even knowing his name. He struck me like the first streak of lightning after a rainless season of a seemingly endless drought. He stood out amongst the hundreds of people around us. He’s unique. He’s one of a kind.

And so, the unexpected happened. He suddenly became closer than I thought or even expect of. He’s within my grasp. He’s technically two inches away from me. And still I can’t do anything about it. I guess, with all this crap, the most painful experience is when thinking of you can almost do anything but just because you think more about yourself and how other people see you … you can’t do shit about something. All you can do is fantasize … mentally conjure possible “futures” for the two of you, or look from a distance …. Smile …. Cringe … then … move on with your day to day activities.

But as if I was left with no choice, I was as vulnerable as a dog howling during full moon. I couldn’t help it. It’s the way I see him and it’s the way he sees me. He has this demeanor that can totally disarm me in a split second. He wouldn’t bat an eye lash, he knows how I feel towards him yet I don’t feel any defense mechanism or even awkwardness and that made everything even more harsh and complicated.

And although I have thought that this mere infatuation would lead me nowhere and that the probability was like hitting a $260 M jackpot in the lottery in a lifetime, I still nurtured and, worse, tried to pursue it, with the selfless thought that MAYBE something might change and that I would be lucky by him reciprocating the strong feelings I have toward him.

The good part was I knew that this was coming and it’ll lead to a disaster… the bad part was ….. I didn’t do anything about it …. And I just keep on holding on.

And it was just because I LIKED HIM. I liked seeing him. I liked talking to him. I liked being with him.
Luckily, I was equipped with enough bitterness and with enough heartaches that I let myself turn the silly infatuation off. It’s one skill that I am proud that I have and one skill that I have perfect through hard times. All

I needed was a BIG RED SIGN TO STOP …. And that flashed in front of me undoubtingly telling me to FORGET ALL ABOUT IT.

It was not easy.

But, at least now, I am very confident to say … that I have experienced the day the infatuation died

ON BIRTHDAYS … CUBAO EXPO and BROMANCE

I don’t really know what kind of air got into my head and I decided to, once again, blog. Well, post-birthday-depression could have somewhat attributed to this.

I don’t like celebrating birthdays. Birthdays for me is a bittersweet pill that you have to swallow, which will never fail to make you feel older --- one year closer to doom! (Evil laugh! Ha! Ha! Ha!)
But I had no choice but to drink four consecutive nights away. For others, they might look at it as a “long playing” birthday celebration, but for me (and for others who are close enough to know me), it’s part of the weekly routine. No biggie!

HAPPY NOTE: I received an awesome gift from the team -- E-CIGARETTE. I'm not yet nicotine free but for four days.... i have been a MARLBORO-free person! I lav et!


On a sad note, I guess it’s worth blogging that I’ve been saddened by the recent news that “Little Boy” will be leaving SITEL and moving on to another company.

So Friday was his last day, it’s pay day, and it’s the day after my birthday. Me and the “boys” went all the way to Cambridge (so soshal, right …) to finally put the Lady Gaga number together. The jamming was a blast, at the end of the two hour “rehearsals” (they don’t even say “rehearsals”), came the birth of a new genre … ha ha ha …. GLAMCORE … and as the “boys” put it – MALANDING HARDCORE! (tumbling!)

We all ended up in CUBAO EXPO. I’ve been there once, I couldn’t even remember when, and it was day time. I never thought that nights in CUBAO EXPO can be as exciting and interesting as the thrifty-hard-to-find-artsy-fartsy stores there.

We found ourselves in one of drinking spots there,“Mogwai”, which was awesome with all its artsy set-up, and all that “antique”, “deconstructed” and old-Filipino world feel.
It’s also worth exclaiming that the beer is cheap and the food is good. (Bacon-Liver with Mashed Potato is a must!)



Entirely, CUBAO EXPO is a Petri dish of anything unusual, with the perfect blend of evenly diversified people in all shapes and sizes – musicians, designers, writers, deviant students and even bums who consider “bumming” as an expression of ART and passion!

I really enjoyed that night with the “boys”.

Speaking of boys, let me just say that I generally grew up in a “male-centered” family. I have two older brothers, all my cousins are boys, my dad, who was very open about him being a “bad boy”, and my grand dad who used to be a cop. So, my (super)mom was the only feminine figure when I was growing up. Fortunately, her influence to me is far more greater that all the testosterone around me.

But I want to talk about testosterone. The word “bromance” has been thrown all around me these past few weeks because I have let myself be surrounded by boys (not in a bukkake way).

So I tried to do a little research and according to Wikipedia: Bromance is combination of the words bro or brother and romance. Editor Dave Carnie coined the term in the skateboard magazine Big Brother in the 1990s to refer specifically to the sort of relationships that develop between skaters who spent a great deal of time together. (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromance)




Well, I’m just happy to know that at this day and age, men are more open to this kind of stuff without actually blurring the thin line of sexuality.

THE REVOLUTIONARY "REVOLUTIONARY ROAD"

Everyone is excited to see Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet get back together onscreen after their first gigantic team-up in “Titanic” almost a decade ago.

But hold your horses because this movie is not the usual sugar-coated, shriek-popping love story like the Titanic. Actually, they should be handing out complimentary razor blades, so that the audience can just slash their wrists after viewing the neurotic yet provocative tale.

Set on post-war America and based from the 1961 agonizing novel by Richard Yates, “Revolutionary Road” is harsh, painful and merciless as it depicts the story of a young couple, the “Wheelers”, while exploring the idea of love and marriage. On the outside, the couple looks very perfect and upright and not only that, they are being looked upon by others as special and superior. But like normal people, this couple has so much going on beneath their perfect locks, pearly whites and well-ironed flannels.

Sam Mendes directed the film in such a way that everything seems impeccably normal in the beginning especially when the young Frank (DiCaprio) and April (Winslet) met for the first time in a social gathering in New York. After the opening scene, a few years have passed, already married, we are transported to suburban Connecticut and in a scene where Frank is watching her wife perform in a community theater, which was obviously a stinker. On their way home, we had a first glimpse of how volatile and explosive the two characters are.

After that scene, we say, “Hey, that’s normal … couples go ballistic with each other and fight ...”. As each scene unfolds, viewers are led to believe that a deep-woven plot is still yet to be revealed but not until the couple decided to move to Paris and leave the white picket fence and the playing-perfect-family behind, so that they can feel and follow their unconventional dreams. At this point, the viewers already had the idea that they are not watching some romantic fantasy of some sort, but rather, a harsh reflection of reality as we see these young couple be swallowed into their selfish ambitions and selfish lack of ambition, turning them into monsters and eat each other alive.

April is willing to pull out the kids out of school, sell the house, move to Paris and go to work – and she is willing to do all of these for Frank, so he can have the luxury of time off, to think about what he really wants to do.

While Frank is willing to stay, stay on in a dull job, even take the promotion he doesn’t want – and he is willing to do all of these for April, so that they can have another child and enjoy some of the luxuries they’ve done without.

They are really, truly, only selflessly thinking of the other.

They are really, truly, such clueless self-deceiving monsters.

Then, we realize, these are not monsters. These people are like us. And we also begin to realize that this story will not end well.

The story itself is basic …. it is so basic … it’s complicated and schematic to the point of having no choice but to accept a painful reality.

Although, occasionally all through out the movie, “American Beauty” surfaces. This is the movie that gave Mendes his first Oscar and a movie which also dealt with unhappy adults and childish adulteries. But unlike “American Beauty”, “Revolutionary Road”, is not that extra-neurotic and it does not have that pinch of whimsical absurdity in it. It also does not have that explosive and the “what-in-the-hell” ending as everyone expects. The movie entirely conveys a feeling of having an open, shallow wound, which does not inflict an excruciating pain but rather an irritating, stinging pain.

And as we all know, this stinging feeling will not be possible without the tremendous talent that gushed out from Leo and Kate. So we see DiCaprio's dull pain as -- his still-boyish face contorted and on the edge of tears -- he pitches a tantrum when his wife denies him her love. Kate Winslet really deserves the Golden Globes or even the Oscars this time. There's a shot early in the film that captures what Winslet can achieve non-verbally in five seconds' screen time. She can shift from 10 various emotions in a heartbeat without looking like a mentally retarded person. We see Winslet's icy anger at the latter part of the film -- and eventual anguished helplessness -- as she realizes how trapped she is and then, on the next scene, she’s back into becoming a Stepford wife.

Michael Shannon plays the addled, electro-shocked son of the local real estate agent (Kathy Bates), and he’s marvelous in a role of a person who’s perceived as delusional. His mother believes that he has a mental disorder, but he, being the only identified crazy person in the story, is actually the truth-teller, upsetting the picture-perfect suburban niche. Shannon’s wit and intimidation tactics are put to exemplary use. And then, following Shannon’s second scene, the film slips into a methodical, slightly heavy rhythm that’s enough to drive even the most undeviant into running out of town screaming and pulling his hair out.

"Revolutionary Road" takes its name from Frank and April's perfect block; so nice, so green, so ideal for raising children. But it also, unconsciously, signifies a journey the entire society is about to take. In another dozen years or so, women like April will be able to plan their families, to go back to work, to find other creative outlets than the nicest new recipe for chicken ala king. Or not, if they choose to. But that is the point. They will have that choice.

But this is 1955. And for now, for many, "Revolutionary Road" is a very pretty, very quiet and very creepy dead-end street.

On a closing note, here’s a quote from April: “This is what’s unrealistic. It’s unrealistic for a man with a fine line to go on working year after year in a job he can’t stand. Coming home to a place he can’t stand, to a wife who’s equally unable to stand the same things. Our whole existence here is based on this great premise that we’re special and superior to the whole thing. But we’re not. We’re just like everyone else. Look at us, we bought in to the same ridiculous delusion, this idea that you have to resign from life and settle down the moment you have children. And we have been punishing each other for it.”

On a lighter note, we still have to admit that watching Leo over and over again has its perks:

ON COCONUTER

It was around two years ago or so when I came across one very interesting blog. Honestly, the first thing that attracted me to this blog is the blogger himself who is dead-gorgeous but later on, I realized that he is more than his gorgeous looks.

His name is David Poarch and he called himself the “Coconuter”. He’s been living in the United States for thirteen years, he’s half-pinoy and half-american. He’s a Valedictorian of his class, he attended an Ivy League College (Rice University) in Houston, Texas and he used to work for NASA. He seemed to have everything a guy of his age would want but for him, something is missing. So, he decided to leave everything behind in the United States and decided to back here in the Philippines where he was born and raised as a child with almost nothing but a couple of boxes, which included only the necessary things for him to survive. His family and friends told him that he was making a bad decision but he didn’t care he still went on to his journey.

According to him, his trip “is a leap of independence and an emphasis on self-sufficiency”. He ventured without any financial help from his family and without any extra money.

His journey began on February 21, 2006. He tried to find out how will he end up living in a rural province in the Philippines that is so far away from civilization. He said that, “even though everyone tells me I am wrong, my heart still tells me that my purpose may just be found in this radical free-spirited journey and that I just may find that "perfect (golden) coconut to fall to me from the sky" or promising opportunity, rather, that I have been looking for.”

When he arrived in the Philippines, he settled in his grandmother’s house in Zambales. Well, it was close to being a house. It had unfinished floors, unpainted walls, no ceiling – nothing but a shack with four walls and a roof. For his first few months, he tried to do everything a normal “probinsyano” would do. He went to the market everyday, he planted vegetables in his backyard, he tried to plant rice, he washed his own clothes with his bare hands, and he even raised chickens and ducks. He posted on his blog through an internet café in a nearby town and he was always rushing considering the 30 pesos an hour that he had to pay. He became well-adjusted to the simple life and narrowed down his daily budget to $3 a day.

For two years, he continuously blogged about a lot of things, especially his travels around the remote provinces.

And on October, 2006, ABS-CBN’s “Nagmamahal, Kapamilya” made a story about him. It was very touchy.

As he continued to live his pastoral life as a modern nomad in a place very far from Houston, he encountered and endured a lot of challenges, there was one time, wherein someone broke into his house and stole his clothes and his digital camera, which he uses to document his travels and his life, they even stole his chickens and his ducks. There were also instances wherein he had to eat “Champorado” for four straight days because he couldn’t afford anything. He hit rock bottom (bankrupt) a couple of times, he had to endure several days and nights without electricity because he couldn't afford it. It’s really saddening and at the same time, enlightening.

He also met the love of his life during his stay in the Philippines, they have two kids now, Thurman (born and made in the Philippines) and Thea Ivory born last December 19.

Right now, I just learned that Coconuter, his wife and kids are now living in the United States. I tried to catch up in his blog to know as to why he decided to move back to the States and how he ended his journey but I wasn’t able to find the posts about that.

But I find his entire journey very enlightening and at the same time inspiring. He writes well. There is wisdom in his words. And the fact that he chose to turn his back to everything just to experience how to live in the Philippines is very admirable.

He now blogs at: http://blog.coconuter.org