: : birthdays in July , fiestas, & Pork : :

July is the birthday month in our family. My Mom celebrated her 53rd birthday on the 21st in Fiji, and my grandmother celebrated her 77th birthday on the 23rd. the family had a thanksgiving birthday bash for my Lola... we had roasted pig and all the usual trappings to go with it...

My Mom's birthday is also the town fiesta in my Aunt's neighbourhood. So it was another feast of pork and more pork.
unfortunately I wasn't able to partake in tasting all the food since I just vowed to myself to stop eating meat. talk about the untimeliness of that one... but it's all good... I'm still hanging on to my vow to go meatless... Though sometimes I really feel like the meat is calling out to me and saying "eat me Mari, eat me"... Why is it that whenever you decide on not doing something, that the prospect of doing that thing that you promised yourself you won't do, suddenly seems so enticing to you, when before, it really didn't matter that much to you... But when you have vowed to yourself to completely ignore it, it morphes itself to something you can't help but notice? One of life's ironies...

i've been meatless (literally and metaphorically! har har) for almost 3 months now. And that is a WOW for me considering the fact that I grew up with a family that gorges on meat every single day. My Lolo considers a meal without any meat in it to be incomplete and unacceptable! I've only been eating chicken and tuna for so long now that I can't even tell the difference between the two... :-p

*** considering the seriousness of my last entry, this one may be referred to as a breather from it all... :-) ***

sigh... sigh... sigh... sigh...

:: of coincidence & christianity ::

Have you ever had that "weird" experience where certain things, events, people etc in your life seem to be "linked" together? Things so minute that you never gave them much thought... But when you do, they all seem to fit together in one whole picture... Like random pieces in a collage... Like there's a universal plan and you're in it... (ok that was just going overboard the melodrama there...) But the realisation of the coincidence overwhelms you because they are so random...

... like a series of coincidence in your life that is somehow connected by destiny ...

Take for example these recent events... A good friend of mine gave me a copy of the Da Vinci's Code a couple of months ago... I read the book in 24 hours... I was completely hooked with the story... To follow up with my Da Vinci Mania, I continued to read up on similar books like Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, (even) Einstein's Dreams, and purchased books like Papal Sin and Templars Revelation. I particulary liked Templars because the data presented in the book are the factual explanation of the events that happened in Da Vinci's Code...(or so they claim)Nevertheless, the book is a real awakening...

... a path towards one's enlightenment... or chaos?

Of course Da Vinci Mania was a hot topic when I gather with friends... And it was amazing how each and everyone of us were touched by the story in one way or the other... Not the story about the adventure of Robert Langdon, but the premise presented in the story about Christianity, etc. Being mostly all born to a Roman Catholic family with a usually strictly religious grandmother, our ignorance over this new information triggered a new curiosity. A brother of a good friend of mine who happens to be a devout Christian was arguing with me one weekend and was telling me, no not telling me, but more like commanding me to just have a "relationship with God", and to believe in Love and God and well, you know the usual sermon with them... He then continued on to say that this is all I need and all this "conundrum" will be gone... Hmmm... Did I mention that this boy is 17 years old? I admire his zeal and his faith, and I told him that, good for him I say... But I also told him that he should also respect other people's belief and that he cannot just compel others to believe on what he believes is THE only way to salvation. Humanity has survived all these time without the necessary requirement of having such belief...

.... moving on.... moving on ....

That talk though was just proof on how Christianity proliferates in our society... The choice is to wether to believe it or not... But of course these "prophets", just like any other merchant would do to sell his product, will always tell us the good side of the story... Nobody likes to hear the bad news... The biggest tool to sell Christianity: what else but the Bible... The Sacred Scripture... The authority in our religion, and even the basis... But not everybody would look at it as the product of a massive political agenda of Constantine... Nor would any convinced Christian notice that these collections of Books were already censored and the info within are not exactly concise... Like I said before, only the good news were included, the rest were snipped and further cut and removed... Final product being the Bible as it is today..

History they say is vague... Since the historian that wrote it, would be one way or the other, be biased in an angle that he alone knows, ie he has his own personal agenda for writing what he did. So the truth in some way may have been altered. Same thing with Christianity...

Nothing in Christianity is of pure origin... The cross the we revere so much, was derived from the Egyptian Ankh - of pagan origin... The cross which is the ultimate symbol of our religion is ironically the symbol where in Christ was brutally nailed to... the symbol of his sufferings... symbol of our faith...
Nativity... Christ being born on December 25... So was Horus, the pagan God... Christ was not even really born on December 25, as scientists today have proved it. It was merely adapted to that date to replace the belief of the pagans...
The Holy Communion... Of partaking the blood and body of Christ... Adapted from the rituals of the pagans as well...

.... so many questions... do we just ignore them???

Just when I chose to ignore these... I decided to go shopping... Ü After a long day of shopping, I decided to watch King Arthur... A good movie by the way... and there... cruelty of christianity was portrayed in its full glory...
and now...
now what...

True, Christianity has brought good to all... But it has also brought on much bad (worse?) things too... But was sugar coated as not the will of God, or something that was brought unto themselves? ... but still done in the name of God... we talk about the genocide of the Jews... how about the genocide back in the days for those who did not believe in God?

.... sigh ..... sigh ...... sigh .....

How do you keep the faith?
When in the first place you probably did not have one?
,,,
(" ,)
o0o

happiness... ?

is happiness attainable in one's life?
Merriam-Webster Dictionary describes it as "a state of well-being and contentment" or "a pleasurable or satisfying experience".
but the definition that had the most impact on me, was a description that my professor once mentioned, that happines is a temporary state of mind. very accurate don't yah think?

i believe it IS just a state of mind since once's definition of contentment, pleasure, and joy is relative... and it is only temporary indeed. for what happens once you achieve that state of contentment?

for most of us, the most memorable moment in our lives are usually our very "FIRSTs".... first crush... first date... first boyfriend... first kiss... first love... first car... first award... first...
even our favourite things are based on that first time we experienced them... the first time i tasted an eclair, i couldn't get enough of it! I had it for desert after each meal and snack time for two weeks! But after that, it was enough for me to eat them ocassionally... it's the law of diminishing returns...
But I still consider it as one of my favourite deserts...

we're "happy" once we have achieved our goal... but (normally) it doesn't just stop there... once we have reached that goal, we make new goals and the cycle continues... the search for fulfillment continues... therefore, happiness is redefined...

putting this into perspective...
how can one say that he/she is happy?
and have been saying so for most of their life?
won't that be redundant?
a state of mind that's happening all the time?
something that's overly familiar to one's senses? familiarity breeds contempt they say...
happy all the time...
won't that be BORING?

could it therefore be deduced that boredom is the result of continuos happiness?
LOL =D