the unbearable lightness of boredom (..irony of fish crackers and regina spektor)

As far as I or anyone can tell, they're made from nothing more than starch, with minute hints of salt and pepper depending on the brand you pick. Of course the cheap plastic bag it comes in, lists a stew of other ingredients (well, chemicals really), purporting to add a semblance of taste to the popular snack. But the claim may prove an understated hyperbole. Fish crackers, if anything are infused with the unmistakable flavor of the cardboard.

Eating fish crackers is like munching solid air. You get a "sensation of sorts" at first: lips discern texture, nostrils detect a shy odor, teeth cuts through what is perceived as solid matter. And yet -and here's the conundrum- both the brain and the stomach are aware, with a conspirational smugness between them, that there's nothing there. The buds transmit no taste; the innards have no calories to absorb. A bag of fish crackers is an edible mirage.

Though an addictive one at that. Fish crackers compliment beer. Fish crackers go side-by-side with a bowl of assorted peanuts. Fish crackers go well with most types of juices and soft drinks. Second only to potato chips, fish crackers are the snack of choice to a clear majority - to be idly dipped in vinegar and munched until the bag is empty and our disquieting desire steps in and asks for more.

Why? Why is this so, you ponder? You rattle your brain and exhaust your imagination, forcing both to yield answers doomed to be dissatisfying. Then comes the point where curiousity, exhausted and frustrated, must yield to categorize the allure of Fish Crackers as an enigma, one of human civilization's grand mysteries, like the exact recipe for Coke.

Still, if the working dynamics of the fish cracker eludes, the impulse behind the need to understand is discernible.

Considering the myriad of concerns a normal human being is made to confront, WHY SHOULD WE CARE? Why should we care about the supposed lack of taste of fish crackers and their (Oh, ironies of ironies!) addictive appeal. Why go through the trouble of even stating a non-consequential problem? Why write and rant about and waste other people's time?

Well, we shouldn't care, really. Or more specifically, i shouldn't. Its just that, I'M BORED!

When you're bored, the mundane exudes an element of mystery that generates an authentic sense of wonder. A "wonder-ment" that either leads you to madness or to wallow, habitually, in self-pity.

When you're bored, you begin to notice things that were previously dismissed as commonplace or beneath the dignity of full-scale attention. The smell of naval lint, the odd shape of a toe, Kris Aquino's various facial ticks when she badly pretends to be excited in her game show and yes, fish cracker mysteries.

When you're bored, you tend to find things which have long surpassed the urgency of their need. Once favorite pens turn at the oddest of places, old high school pictures, and that collared pink shirt (now undersize) with flattering appeal.

When you're bored, you begin to exercise that dormant ability to philosophize. ("Would it make a difference if i were born a day earlier?" Yes, i would have asked this yesterday.)

And sooner you think, when you're bored, you conjure up means to amuse yourself or while away the time. For one thing, you know you're bored when you start sending out inconsequential surveys to friends, and people you just want to annoy.

And other thing besides. The other week, i watched all Regina Spektor videos available. At some point, probably after the fourth or fifth instance I've notice the cleverly placed Spektor's cameos, Regina's songs becomes eclectic enough to elevate her status, at least in my view, from sheer lucky to a bona fide artist. Why? Because on a day when boredom has reduced me to putrid level of a fan, she has demonstrated the healing power of art.

Art quells boredom by substituting idleness with the comforts of senselessness.

environmental cliche

( ..this is after watching Inconvenient Truth of Al Gore and 11th Hour of Leonardo de Caprio cause Mama once told me never to write anything until you know something. tama ba Ma? hehe and believe me, this will bore you hahaha )

in our crowded archipelago, the competition for space has become increasingly intense. allocating land just for garbage seems an awful waste and extremely inefficient. incineration, the enclosed, high-heat burning adopted in many advanced societies, could have been a more efficient method in terms of space. but that option was canceled out by the Clean Air Act, after focused lobbying by environmental activists concerned about incineration's hazardous emissions.

with options for centralized waste disposal running out, it has become fairly clear that only decentralized approaches are becoming feasible—barangay or municipal collection and recycling schemes, community composting, and the like. these would need to be combined with public drives, even government incentives, to buy and use less packaged consumer items. this effort would have to be effective enough to counter the overwhelming influence of advertising.

but there is little potential profit and graft in such approaches. what then is to greatly motivate public officials to change course?

even if they were persuaded, it wouldn't be easy. it would require community meetings and systems management, even door-to-door campaigning to influence individual behavior. this kind of effort in any community could easily be on the scale of, well, an election campaign. then again, someone capable of the logistics and management challenge of a well-oiled electoral campaign should be able to run a grassroots garbage reform drive. As in any election, the battleground for this type of campaign is the hearts and minds of millions of individual decision-makers.

i realized the problem of trash was just as much at its source as it was in its final dumping ground. for every so-called "consumer" after all, there is an individual producer of trash. whatever goes into a household will eventually come out in one form or another. it could either destroy someone else's life or it could destroy yours or mine.

the process that leads to such visions of hell in Antipolo or in Smokey Mountain (who could forget) usually starts in clean, orderly homes. like most household trash producers, we had no idea where our garbage ended up after it was picked up by the basureros. our simple observation that most people had an "out of sight, out of mind" attitude about their garbage applied to us as well.

unlike any other issues more serious than this (is there?), the garbage crisis (not only in congested metro manila but also in different cities all over the archipelago) is something all of us had contributed to directly. we ARE paying the price of abusing nature with global warming, change in weather (or climate) which the people in Africa are the ones who is first (and most) affected, ironically, despite the fact that they are the least contributor of pollution.


nevertheless, one should lessen the expense of using plastics, smoking, etc. REUSE, REDUCE and RECYCLE. cliche as it may sound but its the least we can do to help nature and ourselves.

yes, there's more to life!

the tyranny of the teenage absurdity must end! this world has become a post-puberty wasteland of youngsters playing, in essence, adult. Not the adult, synonym to maturity type but to an adult who's yes to beer drinking til morning and were-so-cool-we-should-do-this kind of way and wasting their lives. but really, i have nothing against teenagers like that since most of my friends seem to be on that side of the society hahaha!

so, okay lemme get this straight, I'M NO MS. PERFECT! i drink, i smoke (sort of, i kinda quit last month) and I'm bisexual. but people who tend to overlook much important things and focus on what he/she only wants to see are the people who should be dead! HAHAHAHA! seriously, even if we have only one life to live we should not neglect matters that are also consequential AND essential to THE full circle.

Lindsay Lohan wanna be's are popping up like annoying pimples across the dial. You're lucky to even get a glimpse at a real grown-up these days. Teeners are always trying to look preposterously cool and magnificently well-spoken (they're trying to be). In fact, they are much more childish than their Dragon Ball Z counterparts. To be a teen nowadays is to act like 30 (or something like that), be masterful at emotional situations and glorious one-line put-downs, act like you know everything (ahh! the know-it-alls), dress resplendently, look gorgeous and be surrounded by dumb parents who just don't get it, and Homer Simpson-like teachers.
So, okay, i know I'm not making sense at all. hehe. All I'm saying is with all the poverty, injustice, political irregularities and struggles, I'm pretty sure there's more to life than killer heels and rebonds and ipods and laptops. We just need to look around and look far dude, as far as Africa ^_^

the only thing i learned in 17 years, the only thing: it may took us so long to learn that the answer to life is found in such a simple place. we really don't need tornadoes and crashing houses to know it. we just need to look into our hearts. OWWWKAY, THAT SOUNDED CHEESY! hahaha

well, what do i know right? i guess I'm just depress over turning 18 months from now plus i think I'm gay, i mean REALLY gay! talk about revealing too much information HAHAHA sorry jeff! (and he knows) ;-p