Welcome 2012!

One Lab Accident Away From Being A Supervillain

It’s a poorly guarded secret that I am a geek.  Actually, given that I have been known to hang around and troll within online forums and social networking sites, it’s not much of a secret at all. I am indeed a geek, and I must say: I proudly embrace geekdom.

Books are useless! I only ever read one book, “To Kill A Mockingbird,” and it gave me absolutely no insight on how to kill mockingbirds! Sure it taught me not to judge a man by the color of his skin…but what good does that do me?

Seriously, everything you need is already online. Let us stop cutting trees to get paper for printing books.

This new year of 2012. I want to be the father of all nerds; the one nerd to rule them all. Socially awkward but incredibly intelligent, ridiculously petty but dominantly aggressive, breaks down in tears at the sight of my favorite sci-fi characters, but hyper-sexually egoistic at the sight of a pretty babe. I want to be the nerd that you would always aspire to be but never had the balls (or the insanity) to become.
Yes, I've seen all the Big Bang Theory episodes. How I love this low brow comedy about a few dweebs trying to get laid. Sheldon Cooper is the best! Except for the voice, my friends say I'm exactly like Sheldon, in how I act, think, talk, and behave towards others. It's pretty funny. I'm actually sitting here and wearing a Sheldon "Bazinga!" shirt.

I don't really have a favorite episode, I love them all!

The joke is that I am “one lab accident away from becoming a supervillain.”  I don’t know if anyone has ever noticed my brown eyes go black as some of my colleagues push me too far, almost off the edge.

Lab accidents include falling into a vat of toxic chemicals, getting bitten by genetically-altered insects, being blasted by radiation of extreme proportions, mutating caused by the many pills and antibiotics testing, and so on. It may hurt so bad, but I'm willing to take the risk just to get my share of the fame.

Is there any chance that I'm going to get super-strength in my hand, Because, I'm not gonna lie, that would be stupendous. I mean super human good looks? I've always had it, born with it. But super human strength I mean, think of the possibilities.

An opportune, unplanned and unrepeatable (hence "Accident") event that gives a character their superpowers is just what I’m waiting for to complete my reign of supremacy.

The Undo Button

Why is it whenever someone says 'with all due respect' they really mean 'kiss my ass'?

I have very good qualities, but I just don’t understand why people focus on my shortcomings instead.

Some are saying I lack empathy, unable to discern sarcasm, doesn’t like change, and have an inflated ego. They say I do not understand social norms, and makes little attempt to do so. They’re all so pathetically wrong! I just don’t mind them because I am obviously miles above them.

If you can play a guitar and harmonica at the same time, like Bob Dylan or Neil Young, you're a genius. But make that extra bit of effort and strap some cymbals to your knees, suddenly people want to get the hell away from you. This is exactly what I go through everyday. Some people just don’t realize ingenuity when they see one.

If given the chance, I would tell them that If I was born in the early prehistoric days, I could have been the man who invented the wheel, and if born during the 1800s, I would have single-handedly built the Eiffel Tower out of metal and brawn. That's what kind of man I am.

I know I have my imperfections. But, everything I am not, made me everything I am. They’re just some sorry excuses for human beings with small minds. With brains a third the size of mine. I will have you know that I have more talent and more intelligence in my little finger than they do in their entire body.

What’s keeping me from hatching a diabolical plot to tear them into pieces or blow them up into smithereens? I always had a saving grace – humor.  For me, a joke from the right person or a funny article in a blog is the “Undo” button for anger.  “Undo” is a critical function, and one that we often seem to overlook.

People may laugh at me because I'm different, I laugh back at them because they’re all the same. It does not do good to dwell on hatred for these lame people, and forget to “live” for the ones that you love.

"
Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness. Never hope to find people who will understand you, someone to fill that space. And intelligent, sensitive person is the exception, the very great exception. If you expect to find people who will understand you, you will grow murderous with disappointment. The best you'll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way."
— Janet Fitch (White Oleander)

The Birth Of A SuperVillain

Think of your typical Supervillain – Lex Luthor, Two-Face, Green Goblin, Darth Vader, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, etc.  What distinguishes the supervillain from an ordinary, flawed person?  Evil?  Well, in many cases, the villain starts out as an okay guy.   Sometimes he’s a slimy political type or a petty criminal, but where does he start to devolve into supervillainy?  The trigger is usually quite simple – a painful incident from which the villain is unable to let go.  The bad guy clutches the pain -- and its associated anger -- to the chest like a teddy bear, repeating the grievance as he falls asleep at night: nursery rhymes for evil doers.

What our friend the villain fails to realize, is that the pain is a parasite.  When held close, the parasite burrows tentacles of anger into the victim, each tentacle releasing toxins.  The toxins begin to alter the victim’s mind, rewarding each negative thought with a surge of energy.  And the villain’s brain rots from within.

Comic book hyperbole?  Sure.  But, the metaphor is pretty transparent.  And pretty pertinent.  Anger is tied to the release of chemicals within the body, epinephrine and norepinephrine.  Think about it.  How do you feel when you are angry?  Strong, right?  Powerful.  Nobody’s gonna hurt you and get away with it.  Well, of course.  Epinephrine in particular is the same chemical that gets released when you need to fight for your life.  That surge of power is a survival tactic.  Great response if you are being chased by a wild animal.  Crappy response for dealing with other humans.

Is anger natural?  Yep.  Can it be a productive catalyst?  Sure – moral outrage has led to some of the greatest changes in society.  And to some of the worst. Think of the EDSA Revolutions.

Here’s the thing about anger: it is often fear in disguise.  Remember our friend epinephrine?  It gets released when someone insults you and when someone threatens you.  Our brains aren’t always able to tell the difference between fear and anger.  In my opinion, this is where we need to find that “undo” button.  Call it what you will: humor, forgiveness, acceptance, grace.  The ability to let go of the pain, to unwrap the tentacles of anger from around our hearts, and to look openly into the face and the cause of the pain is what separates us from the supervillains.  It doesn’t take a lab accident or a volcano planet to corrode our hearts and minds – it only takes unresolved anger.  That surge of power is a trap.  It is the zombie virus that destroys our brains and bends us to its will.

Don’t let anyone fool you – not even me.  In the short term, letting go of pain doesn’t feel good.  It feels lonely and scary.  You feel weak, vulnerable without the iron mask of anger.  You miss the kickass power surge.  You miss the feeling of moral certainty.  When you put the pain down and look at it with honesty, you are forced to see how much of it was your own creation.  That sucks.

So why bother?  Why let go of the pain and anger?  After all, someone else caused this, right?  Why should you feel bad?

Well, for one thing, the cycle needs to break somewhere.  As it stands now, we are heading toward a society of villains.  And, besides, what happens to the villain in the end?

"People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; Be kind anyway. If you are successful you will win some false friends and true enemies; Succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; Be honest and frank anyway. What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; Build anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; Be happy anyway. The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; Give the world the best you've got anyway You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; It was never between you and them anyway." - Mother Theresa

The Past That Haunts Us

Our early lives is a story about “violence” in it's immediacy, the instancy of the events. A synchronic rendering of many explosive and aggressive expressions.

We had a knack for choosing precisely the things that are worst for us.

A good example was during the previous local elections. Why on earth do we keep voting for the wrong people? Why do we easily get brainwashed by a few festive and elaborate campaign propagandas and promises?  We should instead vote for the guy which “demonstrates” throughout his life, not the guy who “convinces” during election time. We don’t realize that it is the choices and alliances that they made that show who and what they truly are, far more than all their combined credentials, abilities, and influences. Learn from the past.

I also see now that the circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant; it is our choices that matters, and what we do with the opportunities determines who we are, and what we are to become. It's not who we are that holds us back, it's who we think we’re not. Change the way we look at things and the things we look at will change.

Our heart breaks for the Philippines. We saw fear everywhere we went. We see anger in the halls of government and as a nation, we have forgotten who made us, who protects us, blesses us, and that we cry out for His forgiveness. Our hearts do break for those who suffered, those afflicted by the loss of loved ones, the pain of addiction, the strife that they found at home – those who have lost jobs, who have lost their homes, people who have lost hope.

We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us;and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all the blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to God that made us!

You know what the majority of the common people do about the crimes committed to them by the affluent ones?

Nothing! Because if they take it to court, it will just take away several days, months and even years, out of their lives and the accused probably won't show up and just let their lawyers talk, intimidate, or bribe their way out of a trial.  And even if they luckily got a judgment, these influential personalities might just stiff them anyway; so what are they going to do is piss and moan like an impotent jerk, and then bend over and take it up the tailpipe!

This is the price I pay --
Just for one riotous day --
Years of regret and of grief,
And sorrow without relief.
Suffer it I will, my friend,
Suffer it until the end,
Until the grave shall give relief.
Small was the thing I bought,
Small was the thing at best,
Small was the debt, I thought,
But, O God! --- the interest.

----Paul Lawrence Dunbar

The Present That Strikes Us

I have never been nothing. I am the blood of the dragon.

Remember when only a few people had mobile phones. Generally regarded as an object of derision, you would occasionally see business types clutching those ridiculous grey bricks to their faces and mutter to yourself 'what a prick.' Nowadays, an eyebrow hardly even flutters when we see a ten-year-old child happily texting away. You probably wouldn't notice anyway; you'd be too busy downloading an app on your iPhone, checking your Facebook wall, or tweeting away your every petty activity.

The present day is all about high-tech gadgets: Ipads, Iphones, blackberries, etc. But no matter how advanced our technologies are, we still could not hold off against natural or man-made disasters. We have witnessed several tragedies that costed many lives.

Just remember that what seems to be a crushing blow may, in reality, prove to be a marvelous, uplifting power. There is a story about a shipwrecked man who managed to reach an uninhabited island. There, to protect himself against the elements and to safeguard the few possessions he had salvaged, he painstakingly built a little hut from which he constantly and prayerfully scanned the horizon for the approach of a ship. Returning one evening after a search for food, he was terrified to find the hut completely enveloped in flames. What a crushing disaster that seemed! Yet by divine mercy this hard affliction was changed into a mighty advantage. Early on the following morning he awoke to find a ship anchored off the island. The captain stepped ashore and explained, " We saw your smoke signal and came."

After every thundering rain, there will be a blooming of flowers in the driest of deserts.

Noynoy Aquino is on the verge of proving that  we didn’t made a mistake in choosing him as our new leader. It's time for a new generation of leadership... for there is a new world to be won. His administration is seeking our support for everything to succeed as promised towards our trip to the “Tuwid Na Daan” (straight path). He may cross some lines in doing so.

Do you want him to be a dragon or a dragon-slayer? If you don’t know the answer to that question then "You need to nerd up a little! You're too cool!"

Government “whips”, like an impeachment, for the really bad politicians or government appointees who doesn’t have the delicadeza to resign from their post, and the political “slipper” for the minor offenders.

"If I...
Stumbled on a watch I'd assume it had a watchmaker,
That a muffin presupposes a baker,
So you must agree sooner or later,
That this proves that there's a creator.
So if I put my foot in a stinker,
You'd assume the existence of a sphincter,
Thus you don't need to be a great thinker
To conclude that God's a bum."

Tim Minchin

The Future That Awaits Us

The predictability of random events. The notion that reality as we know it - past, present, future - is in fact a mathematically predictable preordained system. Somewhere out there in the vastness of the unknown is an equation for predicting the future. An equation so complex as to utterly defy any possibility of comprehension by even the most brilliant human mind, but an equation nonetheless.

Get involved! ...and create your own future.

If you want something bad, you have to fight for it. Step up your game. Break out the L-word. Don't wait around for your life to happen to you. Find something that makes you happy, and do it. Create your own music, and treat everything else that's trying to put you out of tune as just background noise. Don't ever give up on something or someone that you can't go a full day without thinking about.

Find yourself an "enemy", and your life will gain a purpose. Turn yourself into a "superhero" to vanquish the evil super-villains. Everyone who is actively searching for a worthy "adventure" should remember this concept.

We cannot say that we are still young and that we still have forever to become great. For anyone of us our forever could end in an hour, or a hundred years from now. You never know for sure, so you'd better make every second count because everyday has the potential to be the greatest day of our lives. However, we should not worry too much about our future. Worrying is like sitting on a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you anywhere.

The best of us must also sometimes eat our words and humbly accept our mistakes. Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow.” It is alright to dream big and excel. But If you get to thinking you’re already a person of some influence, try ordering somebody else’s dog around, and it should bring you back to humility.

The world is in our hands! Fire it Up!

"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."

Is 2012 the end of the world? Find out here.