CONSUMING PASSIONS

WARNING: This is an extremely long post. And to be honest about it, may just bore you to death. But because it's the new year I felt the need to write exactly this piece. For my sanity, not yours :p


I think there is no point in living a life without having one or two things that makes you giddy at the knees.

I think it's better to be dead than to live like you are dead, or to live as if you're just waiting for the end.

I know that at one point in our lives we'll have to go through brief periods of sulking, burst of days,weeks even when it does seem as if being catatonic is the only way to live. But I think we go through this choppy parts precisely so that when we get out of them we'd be more inclined to live out more fully, more intensely.


People I love know I can be the most calm, unaffected, unhurried, uninterested person in the world for things that don't matter to me. I will never be swayed by computer games, I will never jump with excitement at the prospect of getting the latest gadget, will never be interested in gambling or the flashy lights of casinos and such. My interest in clothes is below par with most women my age unless of course the clothes I'm talking about are for my consuming passions, but I'll get to that later. I am not one to invest in expensive jewelry, I get by with my cheapo 50 pesos fashion stuffs. I've lived for two years not wearing a watch on my wrist, the watch I bought two years ago? It stays on my desk when I'm at work, and since I am on sabbatical right now, that watch is somewhere in my mother's home, stashed away by a mother who knows too well that I don't give much of a damn if I don't see the watch ever.


I am moved by only a few things and for that I am very thankful. Because I am just the type who goes through my passions intensely, heedless and undeterred. For my passions, I am willing to lose, to risk, to live dangerously, and to act fast and swiftly.

I think that most of us are this way. We have a few things that define us. These may not be the same things that other people use to measure us. For example, when people ask me what I do for a living, I tell them the truth, I'm an engineer who designs oil refineries,LNG and Petrochemical plants. And they get either impressed or they do not believe me. But I do not measure my life with my work as an engineer. It's just something I do to earn a living, something I studied for and am slightly competent with, and though I am glad for the perks such as travelling, being able to save up enough moolah to use for my passions,I cannot for the life of me think that if I die I'd feel more fulfilled having had this career. I believe that each of us has a secret gauge, how we judge ourselves against our consuming passions and how we readily equate them with our happiness.

WORDS

Maybe I owe this in part to my parents, who early on, bombarded me with books. I grew up knowing that books are friends, how they can move you from places and feelings in just a few pages. And I guess it follows that being a bookworm would lead into me having aspirations of becoming a creator of this magnificent works of imagination and magic.

Writing was the first sure thing in my life. As a child, it was the one thing people kept praising me about. And for some time it frustrated me that I couldn't reach the perceived heights of writing that I felt I had to get to somehow prove my worth. There were a few published poems, pats in the back, a few essays published in a travel book, but that was it. And for a time, I was disheartened. I guess it comes with age, but I understand now that writing is something I do and will do on my own terms and with whatever time I have. I've stopped trying to set goals, because setting goals refutes the role of writing in my life--it's my oldest form of therapy. The way I am able to say the most honest, most horrible, most intimate thoughts running through my crazy mind. Writing is the oldest way I know to distill life and people and experiences into slices that are more easily comprehended by myself.

It took time, but I realize the idea of the lonely writer is as dead as Elvis. To write one has to have lived enough. And I for one thrives at meeting people, travelling to unknown places, listening to their tales, their stories. I live with the cacophony of this modern world, and love it. I love how this present world affords us to run around in search of our happiness, how so many things can be thrown at us, so many tales all rolling with each and every breathe we take.

I love how somehow I could feel utterly alone, distance myself even in the midst of a rockin' celebration, even in the center of my loved ones' blanket of familiarity. And how, days come, when alone with my thoughts I could almost leap with an ebullience, a joy that is unmistakably personal.

FOOD
I live a food-obsessed life.Food for me is beyond nourishment. It is taste, love, devotion, sadness, salt of the earth, failure, redemption, class and crassness. For someone like me, every emotion, experience, every lie, every goodness can flow from the acts of making, savoring, enjoying, longing for food.

My obsession with food goes more closely with the act of making and preparing something exquisitely edible from humble ingredients. And come on, please do not say that foie gras is anything but humble, it is a duck's liver for god's sake! But the philosophy, the devotion to producing the foie from a quacking duck, now that is grand! A perfect example of devotion to food.

Because I am first a baker and a cook, before a food lover, it is the sourcing of stocks, of new ingredients, the dynamics of new techniques, the chance to learn the classics(french), the rustic (italian and mediterranean) and the exploration, the updating of my own culture's heritage in food that bewitch me. It is also why I went ahead and opened a food shop. It is, more than a chance to get some bucks, my adventure in creating my own identity, my own take on what is good and worthy of being offered to others. Each batch of goodies out of my oven is a process of risk, bravery, and a never ending cycle of food love.


OFFERING HOPE

I guess I have to thank my bad skin for this advocacy. In my teens, people always thought or egged me to try modelling or beauty contests. It was because I was tall and thin as a reed, and I had a pretty okay face. But I was never one who gave much attention to beauty stuffs, at least back then when I had clear young skin. I was, and will always be, more of a geek or a wallflower than a glamor queen.

In college though, stress and maybe hormones went into overdrive and for eight years I battled acne, bad, to-die-for acne. I know the feeling of getting one's hope up for a magic product to clear away the acne and then crying at the after-effects, how instead of helping, it made the breakouts worse. How desperate it feels at times, that cycle of hope and despair. And funny, because, at the outset my parents sent me to dermatologists after dermatologists who did nothing but prick my face and place medicines after medicines that irritated my skin even more. Funny how, despite the moolah my parents had thrown away at those doctors' offices, I was still left with deep scars.

It takes some time to deal with the changes--from being a pretty child, to a horrid acne monster to the reality that I will never have that once flawless face. And to the fact that despite being flawed, I am, to my mind and to I guess some people, still beautiful in the physical sense.

I don't get why people keep saying that outer beauty is not important, that inner beauty is what counts the most. That is a load of BS. Keep it real, that's what I'm for. True, being good counts, but being physically attractive matters too. And it is the combination of being our best in these two aspects that gives us that confidence to deal with anything.

I opened an online beauty shop because I knew there was a niche to be filled, there was a demand for the items from the countries I lived in. But along with that, I also knew that if I did this correctly, If I step up to be, more than a beauty seller, if I could help or try to match the right products to my clients, to be a listener to their woes, to be more of a friend, someone they can trust not only with money, but with the certainty that I am not in this for the profits alone, then perhaps it will be a passion worth fulfilling.

And despite the competition, in the short span of 10 months, the business is still alive, and with a solid clientele base. Because of this small endeavor, I have been able to get a cousin of mine out of the province, train her in the business, and hopefully by June, she'll begin her college education. All these little plans, this chance to help stemmed out from a bad battle with acne and the reality that in this world, beauty counts.



A HUNGER FOR WANDERING
If I was to be totally frank,what makes me come back to my day job is the big fat paycheck and the chance to satisfy my wandering feet.

I love the act of travelling, the possibilities it carries with it, the sense of being alive, the buzz of having experienced things outside of your banal everyday life. I've lived in five different cities in five different countries in the last five years and travelled to a few more for leisure. I've learned how even in the same city, one appreciates it differently if you go there to live for a time against being just a tourist out to spend a few days or weeks. How the memory triggers are entirely different from a town you visited to a place you've lived in.

I learned what I need to get from my travels and what I can do without. I can do without flashy things and can travel on a backpacker's budget.I won't hesitate at the chance of being muddied, dirty or a reasonable risk of danger. But I need to find something that connects to me-- a place's history, the sea, its natural beauty, or my fascination for something from that place.

Travelling and wandering is my one true vice and indulgence. I can't for the life of me, spend 15,000 pesos on a bag or a techie thing (except if my laptop needs replacement or my point and shoot dies on me) but I can with enthusiasm plan a trip worth more than triple that amount, and I'd be all too willing to scrimp on food, cut back on all my expenses and push me into becoming creative in making up new deals for my business, just so I can get the trip in motion.

I am addicted to the exhilaration of discovering life outside our own little environs and being forever a student of this wide amazing world.


DOWN UNDER

Down under is a world of rocky uncertainties, where those who matter shines in unbelievable ranges of colors---red, yellow, orange, a luminiscent shade of blue.

Down under, I am an alien who intrudes upon a world with its own rules and secret hierarchy. Down under, I am a prey and a predator.

Down under is where I want to spend more of my time in the coming days.

Yes, I've been bitten by the diving bug. One dive and all my mind is set, two days after the dive and I'm now a member of an online Scuba community. I've gotten advise from a PRO diver in Davao where to train for my PADI certificate.

And now all I can think is that in a week's time I'll be back in Davao, and I can begin the classes and hopefully on my birthday, I'd be able to dive again.

This sport is extremely equipment intensive and yes, unbelievably expensive. But because I am hooked, I've done the calculations, and if I really cut back, I can have enough free cash to buy the essentials--my first suit, shoes, fins and googles.

I cannot believe how strong the pull is on me. I've spent most of my free time surfing the Scuba Board, checking out the dive sites in Davao, studying the progression of lessons for the PADI OW cert. and looking through PRO divers' best dive experiences.

I love exploring this earth. Now, another world has opened itself to my wanderings. And I am beside myself with excitement, a bit of fear, but a total determination to give it a go.