Inside Huggybear's Mind

March 29 to April 5

Twilight In Independencia

Meeting My Fiance

Sensing Mutants

Changing Scenes

Twilight In Independencia

February 23, 2014

I just got back from out of town. It's 6:20 p.m. as I write this. I'm sitting on the large roots of an immortal tree in Plaza Independencia in Cebu. Above me, strewn over the branches, are a dozen meter-length Christmas lights.

Behind me, if I peer behind the centuries-old trunk, is Fort San Pedro, the 16th century Spanish fortress that's now a museum. Even the ghosts of the soldiers who manned the ramparts have long been gone.  

I was listening to the park regulars' traditional mock debates earlier. The topics will never change: religion, politics and current events. It's just like in Luneta in Manila and Hyde in London.

The air is getting cold. It's becoming quieter as the zumba just ended. People are starting to leave. Night has fallen. "My favorite times of the day are dawn and dusk," I remember once telling a friend who's now also dead. "There is something sacred in the struggle between light and darkness."

It's now one of those times.  "Heavenly shades of night are falling, it's twilight time," as the Platters classic goes. But my favorite Platters song is the one in my favorite Steven Spielberg film.

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

The Platters

[Theme from Always]

Meeting My Fiance

February 26, 2014

Wednesday

It was one of those telepathic dreams again. I was in a empty street.

Across the grassy vacant lots to the next block, I can see the back of one of the houses I grew up in as a kid.

A voice was telling me that my fiance was waiting for me at the red front gate of our house. I saw in my mind she looked like stage actress and New Voice repertory founder Monique Wilson. I told Sue Storm of the Fantastic Four, who was beside me, to ask her to wait. I was about to go there when everything vanished.

Then I was in a room. I went to the next where I heard Iisa Pa Lamang.

Iisa Pa Lamang

Joey Albert

It's about having been involved in so many relationships then meeting someone whom you loved above them. There's a story there which I've forgotten because I had to rush out of bed when I woke up. But I remember scenes where I was eating spaghetti, and I was talking to an aunt who's now in a nursing home and a cousin who had died almost a decade ago.

Sensing Mutants

February 28, 2014

It seems I'm getting more psychic in my dreams. I haven't seen the future yet. Or maybe I did but didn't sense it. I'm not sure if I want to.

I was trying to climb out of a hole that transformed into a bridge. I was hanging under it. I can sense the presence of mutants around me.

In another scene, I was explaining the meaning of a ancient Chinese symbol.

Then I was sitting in a chair that's inside a wooden box. I have been moving the box with my telekinetic powers, driving it in the street like an SUV. In a flash, I was running naked in the street, holding a large block of wood to cover my genitals. It was night. I ran under and alongside a flyover. The city was deserted.

Changing Scenes

February 26, 2014

Wednesday

Spirits moved me. I felt a Higher Power pushing me to refresh my mind.

It was the day I finished reading Worker In The Light by George Noory and William J. Birnes, when I began the exercises in remote viewing and lucid dreaming.

I felt the urge to travel, if only to change my environment. On the way back to my place, I swooped by Booksale in SM Cebu. I approached a group of service crews at a food kiosk

"Where's BookSale?" I asked.

They don't know.

"It's a bookstore," I said.

One of them pointed to the next level.

"That's National," I said.

"Bookstore," he replied.

Okay...

I found BookSale and zoomed in. I bought Stephen King's The Gunslinger, Ashley McConnel's Quantum Leap, based on the hit '80s series and The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomas.

"The Rule of Four"

by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason

(Read March 10, 2014)

Paul Harris: Huggybear

Tom Sullivan: Zac Efron

Charlie Freeman: Chiwetel Ejiofor

Gil Rankin: Jesse Eisenberg

Katie Marchand: Emma Stone

Bill Stein:  Jason Schwartzman

Richard Curry: Ben Kingsley

Vincent Taft: Al Pacino

Patrick Sullivan: David Strathairn 

Detective Gwynn: Sigourney Weaver

Girolamo Savoranola: Robert De Niro

Francesco Colonna: Daniel Day Lewis

"I'm now in the house, bro," I replied to the text message from CB, another close friend, around noon. "I just got back from Mandaue with JC and NJ. We had breakfast in KFC in Park Mall. I had garden salad, chicken steak and a large bowl of gravy. I was thinking of going to Mactan Shrine but I'll do it during the weekend instead. I was planning to drop by Lahug and go to the funeral if you had replied earlier. So I'll probably be there tomorrow after gym. Then let's go to Camiguin."

I should do this more often.

Huggybear's Favorite Don McLean Songs

Special Midweek Feature 

Vincent 

American Pie 

Birthday Song 

If We Try 

And I Love You So 

Photo courtessy of Don-McLean.com 

Huggybear's Corner

March 22-28 Edition

Huggybear's Corner

Seeing Through Centuries

Dancing Like Dobson

Looking For Alvin

Jonathan Aquino's "Huggybear's Corner"

My eBook, Huggybear's Corner, went live December 14, 2013

Here's my blurb

This is the first anthology of my inspirational and eclectic magazine articles, all published in major magazines and newspapers.

These stories on spiritual growth, the triumph of the human spirit and a mind-blowing range of other subjects are crafted to stand the test of time.

This volume is dedicated to those who have the faith to believe in their talent for writing, and who have the courage to follow that passion all the way, no matter what stands in their way.

In the end, it's not about how others celebrate your work. It's about how your journey as a writer made you a better person.

Along the way, hopefully, in our own personal ways, our pen has shone a light on our own little corners under the sky, and made this world a bit better by our transient passages.

My First "Greatest Hits" Collection. With Stories About Og Mandino, Tony Robbins, Wayne Dyer, Brian Tracy, Jim Rohn, Jack Canfield, Shirley MacLaine, Christopher Reeve, Cory Aquino, Dolphy, Eddie Garcia, Paeng Nepomuceno, Marilou Diaz Abaya, Mario O'Hara, Celso Ad Castillo, Lea Salonga, Manny Pacquiao, James Herriot, JK Rowling, Philippe Cousteau, Oliver Stone, Carl Jung, Albert Einstein, Norman Vincent Peale, 3-time Nobel Prize Nominee Fr. Shay Cullen and a lot more including near-death experiences and Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Download Huggybear's Corner

Seeing Through Centuries

February 15, 2014

Saturday

I was standing, leaning against my workstation, looking through the glass windows with a spectacular skyscraper view of the mountains of Cebu.

There were three of us who had volunteered for the midnight to 9 in the morning shift: me, my best friend JC and the former rock band vocalist RC.

I was thinking how those mountains have stood for thousands of years, wondering what they looked like in the centuries past, knowing they will still be there a thousand years after I'm long gone and forgotten.

"I never know what brought me here," I sang softly, "as if somebody led my hand; it seems I hardly had to steer, my course was planned..."

Ever Since The World Began

Jimi Jamison and Survivor

[Theme from Lock Up]

(See Huggybear's Favorite Jimi Jamison and Survivor Songs)

I held the bouquet of "flowers" made of chocolate wrappings and cloth paper tied with a material made from banana leaves.

"I admire creativity because it's so rare," I told JC earlier, showing him the "flower" made by RC from tissue paper for the Valentine office decoration.

Our  4 a.m. lunch was the first time I got together with my closest friends in the office: JC, NJ and MA who's also my gym buddy. With us were his girl IR and our officemate AG from whom I bought the home-made empanada last week and who had bought California maki.

"Johnny, you're so rich," MA joked, kidding me with my new knapsack, rubber shoes and the large pouch of TwinLab whey powder.

I remember our conversation last week where I told him that once you experience being totally self-reliant, you'll have a radically different mindset about money.

"I bought it because I need it and I buy only what I need," I told him. "I choose quality because I respect myself but I never pamper myself like a spoiled brat. Only insecure people do that."

Speaking of money, I was with my friend CB two days ago when when he got a loan from the bank.

"I'm lucky if you're with me!" he told me.

It's true. I bring good luck to people. I even seem to draw customers when I'm buying from street vendors. Coincidence perhaps, though a spookily consistent one at that. But that, I think, is one of the best compliments I ever heard in my life.

My issue with my supervisor is okay now. We had a heart to heart talk and she apologized. She admitted that she had indeed acted rather harshly, intruding into my personal life which is one of the worst things you could do to me. She asked me to stay, getting JC to make me give it one more go. I'm staying because it's too early to leave. Once I do, I'm not sure when, or if, I'll ever get back. JC and I are targeting promotions.

But deep inside, I know I really don't belong here and I will soon continue my journey. I already know where I'm going to next. My heart is not in any office job. It never had been.

Dancing Like Dobson

February 21, 2014

Friday

I dreamed I was standing in the yard of what looked like an abandoned or unfinished building.

I was talking to a woman who seems to be drawing water from a pump or hanging clothes out to dry.

Her aura is blurred and I don't know who she was.

The building is unpainted, just gray from the cement plastered on the concrete hollow blocks. On a large hole on the wall which had been a window, I saw a cousin-in-law. I was glad to see her because we're close and I miss decent conversations.

In a blink, I was standing in a bright living room full of stuffed toys and colorful decor. I saw my cousin-in-law look go into the kitchen alcove to my right. On the sofa in front of me is someone from my present work whom I had an issue with last week because of the way she was showing how unworthy she is of her position.

I have a solid track record of defying authority. But I'm always civilized, even in my dreams. I was telling her that I like the place because it's large. I even danced like Peter Dobson in Sing.

Sing

I looked behind me. The wall, with bright billowing curtains on both sides, gave way to a lanai, or outdoor patio, overlooking a sprawling garden. In my dream, I thought it's the home of a childhood friend. Now, I realized it wasn't. I have never been there before.

Looking For Alvin

February 23, 2014

Sunday

It was half past two in the morning when I went out to get a cup of hot chocolate.

 The vending machine is in the variety store down the street.

They have a large TV where the locals would sit on benches on the sidewalk to watch movies on DVD or cable.

I went to the bakery across. The girl at the counter told me that they still don't have pan de sal. I looked at the glass counter.

"Where's Alvin?" I asked.

She looked confused.

"I mean Francis," I corrected myself.

She smiled too.

Francis is a type of bread without fillings. But they don't have it too.

I felt the beginning of a drizzle as I went back. The little droplets of rain were like ticklish pins and needles. The rain fell as I went inside. So there I was, sheltered from the raging elements with a cup of hot chocolate. I should be so lucky.

Blessings come in all forms and sizes. I try not to lose focus on the big picture. I know what I want in life. They may be radically different from the socially-upward goals of almost everybody else, but my life is nobody's business but mine.

In my present company, my original goal is to stay for a year. There's been a couple of times when I've been tantalized by the prospect of gunning for promotion. I know this is not my dream. So I had to ask myself why. It's not about the prestige because my self-worth is a solid as titanium. It's not even about the higher pay although I'm saving to continue my journey. I certainly don't want to be stuck where I am. But my idea of moving on means leaving it all behind.

So, to me, money means freedom. This is why, unlike most people, I avoid a high-maintenance lifestyle. I would hate it if I'll be forced to slave for gadgets, coffee shops and overpriced Internet service. But money per se doesn't faze me. I have proven to myself many times that I can walk away when the atmosphere has turned toxic. Absolutely no regrets. It's a big world out there. I'm a voyager and there's nothing to keep me here aside from the need to work and save. What I have that "normal" people don't is the freedom to just get up and leave when it's not worth staying anymore.

Huggybear's Favorite Paul Anka Song

Special Midweek Feature

Times Of Your Life

My Ninja Training

March 15-21 Edition

Slice of Life

Sleepless In Cebu

Going Radical

Ninja Assassin

Slice of Life

February 2, 2014

Sunday

This is my text message to my friend R in Manila

I live on a quiet side street near Cebu's business district. It was cool and shady when I bought a packet of Bear Brand Swak at the store just outside the gate near noon.

The sun was blazing down on the main street a few yards away. The milk went along with the boiled bananas I got from the talipapa market earlier.

I'm trying to gain weight while trying to avoid protein-starch combinations so I had mongo, chopsuey, canton and rice for breakfast.

I also bought some ponkan oranges - wet because they sprinkled water over them to retain moisture.

"What's this, orchids?" I joked.

It's my day-off from my call center job. I thought about going out to watch Jack Ryan and I, Frankenstein but the scorching weather made me want to stay indoors all the more.

Just when I'm getting emotionally detached from work so it wouldn't control my life, I got an award for one of the most outstanding trainees or something like that. That was nice but it doesn't mean anything to me. Aside from what I earn and my buddies there like JC (who's leaving for Canada), CB (who's leaving for Manila) and NJ (who's leaving for Malaysia), the most important things in my life are outside the office.

I'm spending this day to rest, re-reading Herman Hesse's Siddharta for the nth time.

"For a long time Siddharta lived the worldly life, the life of pleasure, without ever becoming a part of it," writes the great German mystic Herman Hesse. "Much that he has learned from the shramanas, from Gotama, from his father the brahmin, remained with him for a long time - moderation in life, pleasure in thought, the habit of meditation, intimate knowledge of the self, of the eternal self which is neither body nor consciousness."

Of course there's my music: spinning the FM dial. I always use earphones because I don't want to anybody else to hear what I'm playing in the same way I don't want theirs. As I write this, the radio is playing Carol Banawa's Iingatan Ka. I remember Arnold saying he wanted to do a duet with her when we were in Chowking Philcoa near U.P. in the late 90s. I also remember it was Arnel who taught me to appreciate Tagalog music, especially when we went to his hometown in Baliwag, Bulacan. I prefer Ronnie Liang's version even if I can't relate to the mother part because I never had one. But it's a nice song.

Iingatan Ka

Ronnie Liang

"Buhay na kay ganda,

pangarap ko na makamtan ko na..."

Sleepless In Cebu

February 19, 2014

3:39 p.m., Wednesday

"Time management is life management," as I wrote on my magazine article on life coach Cheryl Richardson.

If there's one thing I want for myself the most, it's the ability to fall asleep and wake up refreshed at will.

This is my text reply to a friend asking what time I'll be at the office

I always come early. Never late. Ideally I'd watch cable movies first on the 12/F pantry before shift. But lately I can't sleep even if I feel exhausted. I'm trying to find out why. I know it's a manifestation of something not yet conscious though significant. Oftentimes I'd finally get some shut-eye just a couple of hours before shift and I have to struggle to be alert. I've lost all my mutant powers. So I don't know what time I'll be there tonight. 

Going Radical

February 16, 2014,

Sunday Morning

"Consider the radical than the gradual."

I really love that advice by Ardy Abello, a life coach and guest co-host of this morning's episode of Chink Positive on Radyo 5.

Classic example, of course, is quitting smoking. Rather than decreasing sticks, it's better, he says to stop cold turkey.

I'm thinking about other things where I will apply that lesson. I believe the right mindset wins you half the battle.

I'm getting mentally ready for some things coming. Then it's going to be radical.

I can relate to how Ardy went on diet regimen during the holidays when everybody else was gorging themselves so their New Year's resolution would be to work out-for a week or two.

"Do it at a time when it's most challenging," he says. "That's when you will test your discipline."

"Poise is a choice."

I like that sound byte from guest Abigail Arenas De Leon, model and image consultant. It comes from her new book 88 Things Every Professional Should Know (Or Else). Composure "separates men from the boys," she says. It's about branding: managing how other perceive you. Which, in turn, is how your value as a professional is measured. I agree, jadedly, that this is the "Me Generation" where millennials have a "sense of entitlement," as she says.

Personally, I feel overwhelmed by the many young people I've come across lately who are superficial social climbers. They can freeload in other people's Wi-Fi for all I care. But making fun of others is like part of the local culture. I also agree, this time tragically, that "Proper decorum" is still "important" she says. I couldn't agree more. But I've noticed it has now become practically obsolete.

Just to give one example among the many I've seen, I can't help but have the impression that elevator etiquette is an alien concept here in Cebu. It's really consistent: they won't bother to press the doors open even when they see somebody coming. I've seen a lot of birdbrains in all my travels, but there's a lot of people here who think an elevator is a stage where the audience is impressed by the wet-market way they show their sophistication: inadvertently showing their glaring lack of it.

On Ninja Assassin

February 3, 2014

Monday

This is my text message to my friend G in Las Piñas

I've always been fascinated with Ancient Japan.

I somehow doubt I could have been a Shogun or even an Emperor in a past life because I can't imagine myself as the Establishment.

It would be more in character had I been a Shinto monk or a ronin samurai who performed seppuku under the cherry blossoms of the sacred Mount Fuji.

Or maybe I was a ninja.

I've been watching Ninja Assassin film clips and Rain's training while uploading my Sinulog footages for the past week. It's one of my favorites from our almost daily movie marathon last year. I remember our regular trips to Puregold Almanza for grocery, then we'd rent DVDs from VideoCity across Pilar Village where we went to high school - which I continued somewhere else. I'm now using some of the techniques when I'm in the gym.

Rain's Training for Ninja Assassin 

Just last Friday, I was doing the abdominal exercise with my back to the floor while raising the upper and lower parts of my body. I was almost screaming in agony. I would collapse, grunting in pain which strangely sounds positively orgasmic. I realize that I really need to get my own place so I can do the headstand over a bed of nails.

Ninja Assassin

Raizo is a victim of child abuse. He grew up in fear and absolute obedience. His only friend was a young orphan girl. One day, he saw her in the garden clipping a bonsai. He told her that's forbidden, looking around fearfully. The other students were in the courtyard, practicing. Nobody saw them, but everybody knew they were an item. She explained that all living things has a heart - a heart that yearns to be free.

"I don't," he says.

"Yes, you do," she says. "It misses you." 

The Huggybear Smashwords Interview

March 8-14 Edition

Smashwords Interview

Bill Clinton

Texting Diaries

Keeping Connected

Jonathan Aquino's Smashwords Interview

This is my interview for my eBook publisher Smashwords.com.

It went live September 9, 2013

Q. What is the greatest joy of writing for you?

A. Writing is about creating something original. It's about sharing a part of yourself through characters that reflect your own, or about sharing the experiences you went through and the insights you've gained along the way.

 I feel keenly the need to express my thoughts that I even have a journal. Writing a diary is like a mystical revelation: I achieve detachment, yet my senses are heightened so I live more fully in the Moment.

Q. Do you remember the first story you ever read, and the impact it had on you?

A. As a kid, I grew up reading Enid Blyton's The Five Find-Outers and Franklin W. Dixon's The Hardy Boys during grade school. But the first adult book I read was Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird so it's special to me.

Then, when I became a teenager, two other books also became part of my life. I was the same age and going through the same adolescent angst as Finny in John Knowle's A Separate Peace and Euripides in William Goldman's The Temple of Gold.

Q. What are your five favorite books, and why?

A. Wayne Dyer's Your Erroneous Zones changed my life and made me who I am now: one who values his own worth without the need for other people's approval.

Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull gave me the freedom to be who I want by showing me that my true nature is more important than how others expect me to conform.

Carlos Castañeda's Journey To Ixtlan is the first to open my eyes about the infinite mysteries beyond the everyday world and made me see Death in an entirely different way.

Trevanian's Shibumi became my favorite novel because never have I identified to a literary character so viscerally as with the semi-telepathic protagonist Nicholai, except for the assassin part.

Shirley MacLaine's Out On A Limb set me off on my own spiritual journey. I came across a battered copy last year through serendipity. Then I found an out-print-copy of her Dancing In The Light too. I believe that "coincidences" happen because there is a Higher Power that guides us.

Q. Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing?

A. I grew up in the Philippines, in Antipolo, about 40 kms. east of Manila. But I have lived in so many different places since I started living alone when I was fourteen. It's my travels and adventures that shaped my character and brought out the artist in me, so to speak.

There was no "Eureka!" moment. I just came to accept as a matter of course that all I want to be in life is a writer.

Q. What do your fans mean to you?

A. Let me tell you a story. There's been a lot of times when I'd be in a bookstore but I don't have the budget to buy everything I want. I promised myself that when my books get published, they will be worth people's hard-earned money.

I'm a freelancer so I'm used to my manuscripts being rejected or ignored, so I am deeply grateful to folks who would take the time to check out my books. I don't think of them as "fans" because I find it condescending. I think of the eBook industry as a community so I'd rather think of them as "friends," and I hope they won't find that too presumptuous.

Dreaming Bill Clinton

January 1, 2014

I dreamed about Bill Clinton. We were in a large room. It's not the White House: more like Bruce Wayne's mansion.

I was sitting in a backless divan, wearing a tux.

Clinton was standing in front of me carrying a little boy.

It's just the three of us. Outside the closed door, a party was about to start. The boy's left shoe fell off; a light-colored sneaker-type scandal. I picked it up and put it on him.

I jumped.

I was walking down the upper middle class subdivision where I spent part of my puberty. I was on the way to the chapel. I had to go there everyday so I couldn't come to the family reunion with the two branches of my second cousins. Inside the chapel was a film-making workshop. A couple of guys were shooting an MTV.

"I could have done that better!" I remember specifically saying that.

I jumped. I was on a small hill. It was daylight.

On the clearing below, I saw a childhood friend, Jerry, calling out to me. He was in front of a large cabin.

I jumped. I'm inside an abandoned building. It seemed to have burned down a long time ago but it's still standing. In the middle of the floor was a large hole.

I looked down.

Texting Diaries

January 20, 2014

This is my text message to my friend and colleague, NJ

Bro, I got the footages. I'll return the cam later and treat you to lunch, thanks.

My film will go live on YouTube this week as soon as get the sound track and finish editing. 

I just heard from Ysa that Lawrence's group has won third place but too bad I didn't get to film them. I congratulated him for being the champion in the Sinulog Kabataan last week but I didn't even know he was participating in the main event. Still, all the awards aside, he really is one of the most talented dancers I've seen and it's a great privilege to have witnessed him perform live.

I'm already in the office. It's my birthday and I've brought Fudgee Bars for everybody. I just had baked mac and veggies in the pantry with the third Terminator on StarMovies. I hope they show the second Thor.

I saw last week, among others, Analyze This, the third Dark Knight, the third Narnia and the fourth Twilight where Shine had rushed me just when the Cullens and the werewolves were about to have the final showdown against the vampire secret society Volturi.

Analyze This

The Dark Knight Rises

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn 2

I guess it's too early for Jack Ryan, Tai-Chi Man and Frankenstein. I'm not even sure if they're showing on the theaters already. Anyhow, I want to see them on the big screen.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

Man of Tai Chi

I, Frankenstein

Speaking of movies, I've been obsessed with Jumper yesterday.

It's my ideal set-up and one of my all-time favorites.

I was stuck right smack in the middle of the teeming crowd at the Santo Niño Basilica during Sinulog yesterday. All I wanted was to teleport.

It must be nice to just pop up somewhere else in the blink of an eye.

Jumper

Being in that situation made me even feel more like David Becker, the most recent character I "played" in my one of my mental movie, where I had key scenes with Meryl Streep.

David is the hero of Dan Brown's Digital Fortress, which Judemensch lent me last Friday.

I finished it over the weekend and I'm going to return it later.

There was a scene where David got stuck in the crowd in Seville, Spain. They were all going to church, and he was pushed along like a boat on river by a giant wave.

The happiest difference was that the U.S. National Security Agency is not bugging me (pardon the pun) to steal the encryption algorithm pass-key for the world's only unbreakable code - and being pursued by a relentless Portuguese assassin.

Dan Brown's "Digital Fortress" 

David Becker: Huggybear 

Susan Fletcher: Meryl Streep 

Trevor J. Strathmore: Liam Neeson 

Midge Milken: Michelle Pfeiffer 

Leland Fontaine: Denzel Washington 

Greg Hale: Colin Farrel 

Phil Chartrukian: Daniel Radcliffe 

Hulohot: Antonio Banderas 

Tokugen Numataka Ken Watanabe

Chad Brinkerhoff: John Cusack 

Agent Smith: Sean Bean 

Rocío Eva Granada: Salma Hayek 

Pierre Cloucharde: Brian Dennehy 

Megan: Anna Popplewell  

Manuel: Edward James Olmos 

Señor Roldan: Stuart Wilson

Seville Guardia Official: Jaime Fabregas

Keeping Connected

January 17, 2014

8:35 p.m, Friday

I got in touch with a close friend again. It's been over a year since we last saw each other when I left Manila. We promised to update each other more regularly.

This is my text message to him.

I'm doing fine, leading a very quiet life almost to the point of invisibility. I want it that way. I like my colleagues where I work. I go to the gym everyday after shift. I eat mostly fruits and vegetables.

Before shift and after gym, I get to watch cable on the pantry, with The Big Year this morning. 

The Big Year

The movies I've seen for the past weeks that I really like are The Social Network, Across The Universe, The Green Hornet and the Filipino indie Lola with Anita Linda.

The Social Network

Across The Universe

The Green Hornet

Lola

During my rest-day weekends, I disappear from the world: I just stay at home, catch up some sleep and read. My recent articles have all been published. I just started Dan Brown's Digital Fortress. It was from a Mormon friend of mine who also lent me Brown's The Lost Symbol and The DaVinci Code. My next YouTube short film will be about the Sinulog this Sunday.

Step Up Sinulog 2014!

(A Short Film By Jonathan Aquino)

Then on Monday it's my birthday. I'll treat it like an ordinary day but it's still special.

I'm a special child.

"You are a child..."

Desiderata

"You are a child of the universe,

no less than the trees and the stars,

you have a right to be here..."

Harry Emerson Fosdick Tribute

March 1-7 Edition

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Dream Recall

Huggybear’s Weekends

The Hobbit

Harry Emerson Fosdick

My article on Harry Emerson Fosdick appeared in Philippine Panorama on (date).

This is the cover story

Harry Emerson Fosdick, one of the most influential theologians in the early twentieth century, had a deep understanding of the human condition. His ideas helped me develop a more sincere empathy with humanity's weaknesses, and a more genuine appreciation of its inherent greatness.

My new story, "Lessons From Harry Emerson Fosdick," is a timeless collection of some of his profound insights from his classic On Being A Real Person. The real-life characters in my story who illustrate those principles include the mystics Emanuel Swedenborg and Georgei Gurdijieff.

There are, as well, three men I admire most: the self-taught healer Lawrence LeShan, the telepath Wolf Messing and the exorcist Walther Franklin Prince.

"No realistic dealing with the problem of anxious fear," says Fosdick," can omit this central matter: an ethically satisfying life is indispensable."

As a religious leader, Fosdick, is a spiritual contemporary of the Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman. I first wrote about Newman in my equally timeless story "Student's Digest: A Guide For College Graduates," which appeared on March 5, 2009 in Philippine Panorama. Among the illustrious figures in that story are William James and some of the titans of Philippine academe: Professors Paz Latorena Vidal Tan and and George Bocobo. Newman’s The Gentleman, the essay that taught me to be the kind of person I am now, has a special place in that story. 

"The emotional drive that leads us to assert ourselves is, in the end, worth what we make of it," says Fosdick. "If we use it well, we become dynamic selves amounting to something, with dominant aims served with forceful self-commitment."

Dream Recall

December 25, 2013

Christmas Wednesday

A dream can be elusive as a unicorn, as ephemeral as the gossamer wings of a fairy.

As I was surfacing to consciousness, I knew I had three significant dreams. I was even reviewing the main highlights as I was heading to the surface of consciousness.

All of a sudden, they're gone as if a powerful telepath has erased them from my memory. All was left were fragments of scenes and fragile pieces of remembrance.

I was climbing down the wall of a building that was vanishing, like the battleship in the Philadelphia Experiment, but in slow motion. I sensed the building is being attacked by a demigod because he thought his son has been kidnapped there by a man I saw in a vision. My black diver's watch fell, getting stuck in a metal grill above an excavation pit on the street below me. I was worried that it might get dislodged and disappear.

Everything was changing. Below me was now a newly cemented sidewalk. My watch lay in the middle the rough concrete.

Two days ago, I dreamed about two Presidents of the Philippines.

 I just climbed up the stairs of a dark and narrow hall. I entered a room and came over to the  late President Ramon Magsaysay.

He was with a man I sensed as the Senate President. They have just been set free. It seemed the country had been invaded and the government was exiled.

The President and I hugged, one of us telling the other that he lost weight, but I can't remember who. I told him I missed him.

I jumped to another scene.

 I was standing beside the late President Manuel L. Quezon.

We were looking up at a red Japanese geisha costume on display. It's an heirloom, says a woman behind us. I turned. I recognized her as Fumiko, a yoga instructor whose videos I came across on YouTube while I was awake.

I jumped to another scene. I was a bodyguard of some dignitaries. I led them to a waiting helicopter on the rooftop. They flew away. I went down the door which directly led to the stadium where a conference of world leaders has just ended.

I sat down beside a boy about nine. He was crying because he wanted to be one of the escorts. I sensed that this was a big event, and he wanted to be able to regale his friends about his part in history. I sympathized, knowing he must have felt like the young Hardy Greaves in The Legend of Bagger Vance the book who got to be a caddie, much to his friends' envy, in the greatest golf event in the South.

The boy who was crying on my shoulder seemed to be the brother of a friend of mine. I'll call him Joshua. But Joshua is really young as we sat at the bleachers, unmindful of the crew below us dismantling the stage and the sound equipments. I met Joshua in my waking life when he was already 13. The last time I saw him was in 2007, during the funeral of my friend, his brother. Joshua was then 17. A year later, I would hear the news that Joshua had been stabbed to death.

Huggybear's Weekends

December 28, 2013

9:25 a.m., Saturday

This is my complete text message to one of my closest buddies. I'm sending this now but I'll send a copy to my e-mail first for my blog. This is a special time for me.

Since I don't have a new place yet near my beloved beach, during my rest-day weekends I just stay at home in my nearly sound-proof little room in the city, non-existent from the world, away from the madness of so-called civilization.

I just write, think, meditate, read, pray and listen to music. This is my time for myself and my spiritual life. I only eat fruits and vegetables, no rice and no meat; that's why I work out in the gym and do yoga the rest of the week.

When I get my new camera next month, I'll start giving time to the one other thing my soul needs: traveling. Then I'll start doing Living Asia-style short films again and you'll be my guide to Dumaguete.

But right now, I just let my body and soul find renewal. For breakfast I had chopsuey and pancit canton. I don't take liquids immediately before or after meals, so I'm waiting for half an hour before I drink fresh coconut juice which I've been taking everyday for over a week. I just bought large yellow mangoes and bananas in the market on the way home from the gym after shift.

I'm looking forward to finishing Siddharta by Herman Hesse. I can never forget the way it touched my life when I was a teenager. This is my wish list in our class' exchange gifts.

This morning, a friend just gave me Clarice Bryan's Expect Nothing: A Zen Guide. I seem to be more Buddhist than Christian though my personal relationship with Jesus Christ is stronger than ever.

But then again, like Siddharta, I'm the kind of person who would rather set off on his own journey for enlightenment than follow somebody else.

Right now I'm chillin', spinning the FM dial. The radio is playing A Perfect Christmas by Jose Mari Chan, the immortal classic from the soundtrack of my life.

A Perfect Christmas

Jose Mari Chan

"I can't think

of a better Christmas

than my wish coming true,

and my wish

is that you'd let me spend

my whole life with you..."

The Hobbit:

An Unexpected Adventure

“You thought you could escape me?" said the giant King of Goblins, menacingly. "What are going to do now, wizard?"

Gandalf and the Elves were able to get away . Then they saw that the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, was not with them.

The Elf King Thorin says that the hobbit probably got scared and went back to his little village.

I want to, admits Bilbo as he suddenly appeared before them. He had been there all along, cloacked by the invisibility powers of the Ring he took from Smigol.

"I miss my books," he declares, "my armchair, my garden.".

But he won't leave them.

         The Hobbit: An Unexpected Adventure

"You have no home, it was taken from you" he says to Thorin. "But I will help you get it back."