i write to believe.

The past week has gone on with a series of stories and changing events.  One minute I'm focusing on counting machine hours and now I'm focused on understanding the creative industries that the business of my work intersects with.   In the middle of it, I try to keep up with the daily life of a faithful and miss out unfortunately on some of the things that would have increased my understanding about the mysteries of this life.  I am beginning to realize that if I want to deeply meditate on the faithful's life, it will take so much time that I need to be doing just that and not do anything else.   I easily get drawn in to things that require pondering.  It's almost an addiction.  It's like how I prefer to just read instead of go out to the mall and walk around.  How I prefer to write instead of engage with conversations that bore me.   I was participating in this Skype conversation between my uncle and my Mom this morning.  It was...

Somewhere in a distant past I was a writer of stories.  I love writing short plays.  In my lifetime I can say that I was happy with writing 2 short plays and 1 full-length originale musical (for church).  I don't know why I'm finding myself looking through old pictures of these moments today but I have been wanting to do it again.  To create and breathe like this again. This short play was called "Maybe I'll Find Me".  It's an interpretation of Jungian archetypes.  We were asked to do something creative for an elective in business school called "Creativity and Intuition".  This class was meant to teach us to tap into our creative intelligence so that we can be more wholesome as leaders.  I wrote this short play with 6 different archetypes in mind and one main character.  The play starts with a song sung by the different archetypes and the Self.  The monologues show the different struggles experienced by the Self as manifested by th...

Yesterday I spent most of the morning writing in my journal.  It was quite a release.  Introspection in longhand is almost like an art that's lost in this internet age.  So in the middle of the rain and sparks of thunder and lightning while the internet got cut I took the opportunity to do it the old way.  I realized that there are some things I can say on a piece of paper and not be able to say online.  The honesty that gets drawn out of me as I hold my pen and scratch the surface of my journal with words is an intimate act of making sacred reveries. Yesterday I was restless for creativity.  Two hours of writing about it and figuring out the creative urge led me trying to paint with my fingers and sing old songs from the faded sheet music of my favorite grandaunt Filomena.  I listened to my voice and how comfortable it was singing the warm melodies of 1950s music.  Finally my camera, which I have not used in a long time beckoned and I found myse...

I'm going to the our office in the city today to do some needs assessment for the graphic design team all huddled up in a lonesome penthouse.  Last Friday's trip to that office made me realize how painfully abandoned they have been.  Hired as graphic designers and promised a creative career they find themselves now stuck with routine work retouching finished designs for magazines and brochures.  I learned a lot about this retouching process.  A zit?  A body curve unwanted?  A crumple on a blouse?  Adobe Photoshop is their bestfriend.  What is painful about this process is: that's all they do all day.   Imagine creative people who are born to create from nothing now stuck zoning in to their computer every single minute working on the most creative way to clean up skin tone.   Don't get me wrong.  It's not a bad thing.  It's still a job that pays them.  But, for me the challenge in this case is how I can help them make thi...

Letting myself unwind for the past couple of hours after an intense dialogue with executives on business strategy and leadership philosophies.  I ran into this video.  Aside from faith, what motivates me is my passion for art or any related artistic experience.  Finding a relationship between deepening my faith and learning about how artistic experiences can help this deepening process has been an ongoing pursuit for me since I graduated from business school.   I've realized how art can help me become more grounded and reflective in anything I do which translates to almost a prayerful experience.  This helps me understand why faith is needed in pursuing any experience and in understanding the aspects that strengthen faith, I am able to keep up with my perseverance of pursuing any experience.  An elective I took up in business school called "Self-Mastery and the Arts" has convinced me how important the impact of art is in one's life.  In that study, I...

wrapping words and finding phrases somewhere inside my room I never thought I'd reach the 1,001 reader mark in just about 3 months.  I was telling myself that I should not even look at this counter because it is not a measure of progress but of course, I can't help it.  Anything that measure any kind of progress should be affirming right?   I'm not sure about those who flip through my pages but I hope those who drop by here find a little bit of breathing space in one way or another.   So thank you dear readers, for visiting me and making this journey worthwhile.  I find it encouraging that anybody out there would even want to read these words.  It tells me that all is not lost.  That there is a purpose.  That life moves on.  That heaven watches and grace is enough. I'm sitting at my desk and just finished a report for a 3 hour meeting tomorrow.  I want to be able to write about some of my discoveries at work as of late.  Pe...

christmas gift from an officemate Yesterday's visit to the hills of Tagaytay was lovely except for one minor thing.  I lost my phone. Yes, I lost my phone somewhere between the visit to Pink Sisters, a stop over in 7-11 to get 5 bags of Cheetos and driving off to visit Sonya's garden to admire the flowers.  I don't even remember what happened.  But to my mind, the phone was just in the car waiting for me to attach it to the auxiliary cable so I can play music on the way.   But I lost it.  And I love my phone.  And I had to let go of some of my savings last night just to replace it because the phone has helped me keep in touch with my writer/creative self.  It takes the little snapshots I sometimes post here but most of the time in my Tumblr page because I just like chronicling my day with images when I don't have words.  It allows me to check updates of my friends' lives in Facebook.  It keeps me in touch with my bestfriend in Singapore ...

Clicking the shutter and pointing the camera at people and random moments in the office last Friday was liberating.  I have always wanted to  do it but was just to conscious to let that part of me loose.  I was afraid people would find it too weird or too eccentric.  And when they do, I'll end up having an even harder time. So I've been quite careful about my artistic inclinations at work until last Friday. Dressing up as a Native American Indian gave me the perfect excuse to click away.  Being engaged in the project of SNS Challenger as helped me approach photography a little bit more reflectively.  It reminded me why I started looking through the lens in the first place.  Gary Mcleod says it more articulately  I am not a photographer. By this, I mean that I am not a technician who is trying to help recreate someone else’s vision. I have an understanding of my own vision- and this may sound like arrogance- but this understanding has come from s...

a brief moment of vanity On the way to work this morning I worried greatly about the Employee Integration Program and other training programs that the company expects from HR.  After having finished the Training Needs Analysis Report yesterday I realized that there is really a big problem on  managing performance .  A lot of the people rating employees did not know how to rate performance let alone manage it.  No wonder efforts seem unsustainable.  No wonder people feel so tired.  No wonder everyday feels like such a home stretch. Great performance cannot be articulated because nobody wanted to breakdown what comprised it.  Most of them probably just wanted to rate people and give them high marks because they were afraid of being disliked if they didn't.  Some of them had the guts to call out improvement needs mostly on attitude. Still the problem is glaring at my face.   Ano ang gagawin ko about sub-standard performance?   ...

This morning's conversations have led me to think a little bit more about how creativity can exist where I work.  I was trying to tweak this idea by referring to company as community.  In my head I was talking to myself and mouthing the words c-o-m-p-a-n-y and c-o-m-m-u-n-i-t-y.  It starts to feel a little bit different talking about the work place as a community instead of a company.  I started to feel a little bit of gusto.  A little bit of creativity. I had a couple of things to address this morning. Meeting with an employee who wants to avail of early retirement.  I had to find out if I can make him stay on or at least stay longer till a replacement for him is found. Call with the senior manager of our telecom provider.  I had to find out when they will send their network team here because it seems that they are not listening to our red alert. Call business dev't candidate.  I had to follow-up on an interview schedule for the...

This day has been spent trying to get my team to communicate a little bit more. Since I have been getting into this whole writing rhythm, I thought I'd share the experience at work.  That way I can integrate my life and they learn how to be a little bit more reflective with theirs.  Reflection and introspection are not normal to a lot of people where I work.  Most of the time the immediate reaction is an impulsive banter or an icy retort.  When you ask them to write something down I sense a little bit of queasiness as if you were forcing them into a straightjacket. I wonder a lot about the quirky little strategies I try to implement in my division.  Sometimes I think I'm going for something totally unorthodox such as requiring all of them to update their Google Calendars everyday as a productivity report instead of a lengthy email.  It is also my way of being able to tell where they are at a given moment if they accurately update their schedules online. ...

Yesterday I discovered Andy Goldsworthy's work. He's amazing. I immediately thought, "I want to be like him!" Sculpture entered my mind yesterday because I was thinking of wanting to do something tactile aside from discovering my writer's voice. But I didn't want anything too complicated such that it required too many tools or other processes that required installation or electricity. I was thinking of junk art and sifted through some Youtube videos about this medium. However I'm no engineer and I'm not sure I can even think of anything relevant using junk right now. But I had an interesting time reading about Found Art and how it was started in the early 20th century by Marcel Duchamp. All this, it needs to be noted, has come from what I have absorbed during nightmorn conversations with Adi for the past 2 years. The absence of time and opportunity to study art has been compensated by keeping in touch with her all this time and taking in he...

The Salonierre shares this video on SheWrites.com. Another round of applause for Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love author, for hitting me on the spot again in less than 2 weeks. Her talk liberates me and puts me into a calm thinking rhythm as this Friday almost comes to a close in 50 minutes. The afternoon passed pretty quickly and I am happy because I feel that I can breathe a little bit easier right now. She's pointed out quite a few things I really resonated with, like the usual judgments given to artists in search of their muse. The struggle of emotional stability when fighting for the creative genius to stay afloat. The tension between wading in purely creative seeking activities and having to be in a stable job to earn a living. Yes, she hits the point the right there because that's where I am. Yet she says it ever so gracefully that you do not feel invalidated for being in that arduous struggle. You are in fact affirmed for struggling and keeping up with the str...

The whole introspective and creative process is not complete without spiritual illumination. The act of "listening to the work" arises from the openness of a soul to receive the soft promptings of the Spirit. I find myself resonating with Rachel's post of late as she gathers archives of her own spiritual journey in 2008. How incidental, I posted a comment on her page that I was doing the same thing just last weekend. Sifting through my writings hidden and in public. Turning pages of old journals and understanding myself a little bit better. Allowing myself to sit through the process of God creating and transforming me in these circumstances. She writes, In this season--despite the "not-knowing," the pain, the fear, and the frustration--I can be grateful for so much. I am the daughter of the Creator of the universe, who guides my life with tenderness and compassion. In a way that I will never completely understand, He loves me. Yes, He loves me, despite th...