I have a theory. Deep down, every single guy wants to be Justin Bieber.
Hold up, before you react, let me explain why.
In evolutionary science, the main reason why men 'peacock' or project an image is for mating purposes. We don't go to the gym so we can beat up other men. We don't buy expensive cars to upstage other guys. The reason why we do what we do in front of the mirror is to attract the opposite sex.
Here's where Justin Bieber comes in. A lot of people, including myself, first thought he was a girl when we heard his debut single "One Time". When we saw his video, we all thought he looked like a lesbian. So why do we hate him so much?
The answer is simple: we feel threatened. We feel emasculated by this little runt of a boy. We secretly envy him for being able to make millions of girls drop their panties for him.We want his power and his status. We want to be like Justin Bieber. This is the cold hard truth.
If you don't show your hatred of Justin Bieber in front of other men, you'll be called gay for supporting the bane of men all around the world. He's the common enemy, he must not be tolerated.
But see, not all men are threatened, only those with lesser status. You think guys like Willie Revillame or Manny Pacquiao give a damn about Justin Bieber? They probably might not have an idea he exists.
So, what does hatin' on Justin Bieber imply? Well, to put it bluntly, it just says you have a small penis.
Welcome to the world little Haru-chan! :) First nephew on the mother side from my Japanese cousin. Can't wait to spoil him when he visits this new year. :)
You are not in control of what you buy. You think you're making rational purchases, but you're not. Marketers are controlling you like a puppet. You cannot escape.
How sure am I of all this? Two words: Brain Scans.
There is a new science out there folks, and it's called Neuromarketing. It's Science and Marketing combined. Basically, they scan people's brains using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging or fMRI to find out how we react to certain brands and products. And yes, companies are now beginning to use this new science to improve their marketing.
If you thought marketers of old were quite convincing, they now have a more potent weapon at their disposal to control your every single purchase. It's scary, but if you know how it works, then you can avoid it and you can even make it work your way, like Neo seeing the fabric of The Matrix.
The book is called Buyology, written by Martin Lindstrom. This guy is at the cutting edge of marketing and brand development. He's so good at what he does that TIME Magazine named Lindstrom as one of the world's 100 most influential due to his work on science and marketing, so this guy is like Morpheus who's offering you the red pill.
I don't want to give away too much about this book, because I really think anyone who cares about their shopping expenses should read this, but I will share with you some of the revelations I discovered that's related to clothing and fashion.
Lindstrom talked about something in our brains called Mirror Neurons. Basically, these Mirror Neurons are responsible for our copycat behavior, especially when it comes to imitating our favorite endorsers and celebrities. We cannot help but imitate other people who we think highly of. I don't know about you, but this... disturbed me.
Think about it. A huge part of who you are today, is not because of your own choice, but because you have been imitating other people. You are an identity thief. You don't mean it, but you subconsciously pretend to be somebody else. How frightening is that?
I talk a lot about being true to yourself and having your own identity, but what if we can never have control after all? You think you're buying that shirt because it fits who you are, but maybe your subconscious mind is trying to imitate that latest catalog you saw online? It's insane!
But after I had some time to process this new revelation, I realize that we do have control at the end of the day. You have to have better self-awareness, and you need to be in touch with your own behavior. This is a good thing, because it forces you to look deeper and see the depth in your surroundings. You cannot just look at the surface level. That shirt, is not just a shirt. There's a lot more to it, and it's up to us to think what it means to us. In a way, this book teaches us to be better consumers, and we can thank Mr. Lindstrom for liberating us from The Matrix.
So after you've read this book, and the next time you're about to buy something, ask yourself a simple question: What's the Buyology of this purchase?
This blog entry is very important for the following reasons:
1. This is my first entry in an attempt to rekindle my blogging 'career'. 2. I've made a decision today that will set off a series of events that will determine the rest of my life. 3. If you are in the middle of a transition phase in your life (high school to college, college to real world, single to in a relationship, in a relationship to engaged/married), you will pick up a few things from what I am about to say.
So pay attention.
Tony Robbins says it's in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped. What you decide in every single waking moment of your life, sets forth a chain reaction that will determine your future.
It's when you choose your college. It's when you choose which course to take. It's when you apply for a job. It's when you meet people and get to know them. It's when you choose to love someone.
You can't take back your decisions. Once you made them, it's done. It's written in the past, and you cannot change them. Pens down, pass your papers. Your future is altered forever.
Am I freaking you out? I hope so.
Every decision is important, but we cannot be paralyzed in fear. There are times we want to delay our decisions for as long as we can, to 'think about it' so to speak. We try to visualize and imagine what could happen if we do this or that. We play out mental movies in our heads. But we can't dwell on what's going to happen just as much as we can't dwell on our past decisions.
What is important is what we do RIGHT NOW.
Life is all about taking risks. No matter how calculated your decisions are, you will never know what's going to happen. But that's what LIVING is all about. It's the UNCERTAINTY that makes life worth living. We can't be afraid of life, we have to seize it.
We resent the past and we dread the future. If you think about it, the only time life really gets heavy is when we dwell on the past or the future. But when we're 'in the moment', nothing else matters. I'm sure you've experienced this when you're playing sports, or when you're engrossed in what you're reading, or when you're really busy and you don't have time to daydream.
NOW is all there is. Nothing else matters outside of the present.
Try catching yourself when you start thinking of the past or the future. This is called 'watching the thinker'. You become self-aware, and your senses are heightened. When the mental movies start playing, stop them. They don't serve you any purpose but to divert your attention from what's going on NOW. Life exists in the NOW. Not yesterday, not tomorrow, but TODAY.
If you want to learn more of this, try reading The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. The book changed my life, and it continues to change it every day.
I hope you realized something from what I wrote. I made it as easy to understand as possible, because sometimes I get too philosophical.
Remember, watch yourself. No mental movies. No past. No future. Only now.
After much deliberation on which site I'm going to blog again, I chose Multiply. Most of my old entries are here, and it feels like home. So yes, I'm back, just like this guy, and since nobody really posts much, you'll be seeing a LOT of my entries. I'm KSP that way. :D
Here's the debate in the Methodist Central Hall, Westminster, in October, considering whether the Catholic church is a force for good in the world.
Speaking for the motion were Archbishop John Onaiyekan, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, Nigeria, and the Rt Hon Ann Widdecombe, Conservative MP and Catholic convert.
Speaking against were Christopher Hitchens, writer, broadcaster and polemicist, author of the bestselling book “God is not Great”, and Stephen Fry, actor, comedian and television presenter. The debate was presented by Zeinab Badawi.
Eduardo Calasanz was a student at the Ateneo de Manila where he had Father Ferriols as a professor. Father Ferriols, at that time, was the Philosophy department head. Currently he still teaches Philosophy for graduating college students in Ateneo. Father Ferriols has been very popular for his mind-opening and enriching classes but is also notorious for the grades he gives. Still people took his classes for the learning and deep insight they take home with them every day (if only they could do something about the grades...)
Come grade-giving time, Father Ferriols had a long discussion with the registrar people because he wanted to give Calasanz an A+, which the student eventually received.
Read the article below to find out why. ---------------
Partners and Marriage by Eduardo Jose E. Calasanz
I have never met a man who didn’t want to be loved. But I have seldom met a man who didn’t fear marriage. Something about the closure seems constricting, not enabling. Marriage seems easier to understand for what it cuts out of our lives than for what it makes possible within our lives.
When I was younger this fear immobilized me. I did not want to make a mistake. I saw my friends get married for reasons of social acceptability, or sexual fever, or just because they thought it was the logical thing to do. Then I watched, as they and their partners became embittered and petty in their dealings with each others. I looked at older couples and saw, at best, mutual tolerance of each other. I imagined a lifetime of loveless nights and bickering and could not imagine subjecting myself or someone else to such a fate.
And yet, on rare occasions, I would see old couples who somehow seemed to glow in each other’s presence. They seemed really in love, not just dependent upon each other and tolerant of each others’ foibles. It was an astounding sight, and it seemed impossible.
How, I asked myself, can they have survived so many years of sameness, so much irritation at the other’s habits? What keeps love alive in them, when most of us seem unable to even stay together, much less love each other?
The central secret seems to be in choosing well. There is something to the claim of fundamental compatibility. Good people can create a bad relationship, even though they both dearly want the relationship to succeed. It is important to find someone with whom you can create a good relationship from the outset. Unfortunately, it is hard to see clearly in the early stages.
Sexual hunger draws you to each other and colors the way you see yourselves together. It blinds you to the thousands of little things by which relationships eventually survive or fail. You need to find a way to see beyond this initial overwhelming sexual fascination. Some people choose to involve themselves sexually and ride out the most heated period of sexual attraction in order to see what is on the other side. This can work, but it can also leave a trail of wounded hearts. Others deny the sexual side altogether in an attempt to get to know each other apart from their sexuality. But they cannot see clearly, because the presence of unfulfilled sexual desire looms so large that it keeps them from having any normal perception of what life would be like together.
The truly lucky people are the ones who manage to become long-time friends before they realize they are attracted to each other. They get to know each other’s laughs, passions, sadness, and fears. They see each other at their worst and at their best. They share time together before they get swept into the entangling intimacy of their sexuality.
This is the ideal, but not often possible. If you fall under the spell of your sexual attraction immediately, you need to look beyond it for other keys to compatibility.
One of these is laughter. Laughter tells you how much you will enjoy each other’s company over the long term. If your laughter together is good and healthy, and not at the expense of others, then you have a healthy relationship to the world. Laughter is the child of surprise. If you can make each other laugh, you can always surprise each other. And if you can always surprise each other, you can always keep the world around you new. Beware of a relationship in which there is no laughter. Even the most intimate relationships based only on seriousness have a tendency to turn sour. Over time, sharing a common serious viewpoint on the world tends to turn you against those who do not share the same viewpoint, and your relationship can become on being critical together.
After laughter, look for a partner who deals with the world in a way you respect. When two people first get together, they tend to see the relationship as existing only in the space between the two of them. They find each other endlessly fascinating, and the overwhelming power of the emotions they are sharing obscures the outside world. As the relationship ages and grows, the outside world becomes important again. If your partner treats people or circumstances in a way you can’t accept, you will inevitably come to grief. Look at the way she cares for others and deals with the daily affairs of life. If that makes you love her more, your love will grow. If it does not, be careful. If you do not respect the way you each deal with the world around you, eventually the two of you will not respect each other.
Look also at how your partner confronts the mysteries of life. We live on the cusp of poetry and practicality, and the real life of the heart resides in the poetic. If one of you is deeply affected by the mystery of the unseen in life and relationships, while the other is drawn only to the literal and the practical, you must take care that the distance doesn’t become an unbridgeable gap that leaves you each feeling isolated and misunderstood.
There are many other keys, but you must find them by yourself. We all have unchangeable parts of our hearts that we will not betray and private commitments to a vision of life that we will not deny. If you fall in love with someone who cannot nourish those inviolable parts of you, or if you cannot nourish them in her, you will find where you share the business of life, but never touch each other where the heart lives and dreams. From there it is only a small leap to the cataloging of petty hurts and daily failures that leaves so many couples bitter and unsatisfied with their mates.
So choose carefully and well. If you do, you will have chosen a partner with whom you can grow, and then the real miracle of marriage can take place in your hearts. I pick my words carefully when I speak of a miracle. But I think it is not too strong a word. There is a miracle in marriage. It is called transformation. Transformation is one of the most common events of nature. The seed becomes the flower. The cocoon becomes the butterfly. Winter becomes spring and love becomes a child. We never question these, because we see them around us everyday. To us, they are not miracles, though if we did not know them they would be impossible to believe. Marriage is a transformation we choose to make.
Our love is planted like a seed, and in time it begins to flower. We cannot know the flower that will blossom, but we can be sure that a bloom will come. If you have chosen carefully and wisely, the bloom will be good. If you have chosen poorly or for the wrong reason, the bloom will be flawed. We are quite willing to accept the reality of negative transformation in a marriage. It was negative transformation that always had me terrified of the bitter marriages that I feared when I was younger.
It never occurred to me to question the dark miracle that transformed love into harshness and bitterness. Yet I was unable to accept the possibility that the first heat of love could be transformed into something positive that was actually deeper and more meaningful than the heat of fresh passion. All I could believe in was the power of this passion and the fear that when it cooled I would be left with something lesser and bitter. But there is positive transformation as well. Like negative transformation, it results from a slow accretion of little things. But instead of death by a thousand blows, it is growth by a thousand touches of love. Two histories intermingle. Two separate beings, two separate presence, two separate consciousness come together and share a view of life that passes before them. They remain separate, but they also become one.
There is an expansion of awareness, not a closure and a constriction, as I had once feared. This is not to say that there is not tension and there are not traps. Tension and traps are part of every choice of life, from celibate to monogamous to having multiple lovers. Each choice contains within it the lingering doubt that the road not taken somehow more fruitful and exciting, and each becomes dulled to the richness that it alone contains.
But only marriage allows life to deepen and expand and be leavened by the knowledge that two have chosen, against all odds, to become one. Those who live together without marriage can know the pleasure of shared company, but there is a specific gravity in the marriage commitment that deepens that experience into something richer and more complex. So do not fear marriage, just as you should not rush into it for the wrong reasons. It is an act of faith and it contains within it the power of transformation.
If you believe in your heart that you have found someone with whom you are able to grow, if you have sufficient faith that you can resist the endless attraction of the road not taken and the partner not chosen, if you have the strength of heart to embrace the cycles and seasons that your love will experience, then you may be ready to seek the miracle that marriage offers. If not, then wait. The easy grace of marriage well made is worth your patience. When the time comes, a thousand flowers will bloom… endlessly.
In a recent article published on the Philippine Daily Inquirer entitled, “Read to your kids but don’t talk like Kris” by Philip Tubeza, Kris Aquino was unfairly maligned as setting a poor example for promoting literacy by using ‘colegiala talk’, or what we know as Taglish.
I’m not a huge fan of Kris Aquino, but to use her as the poster girl for bad use of language is really uncalled for. The criticism came during the First Philippine Summit on Early Childhood Education.
Answering questions from reporters, educator Carolina Gustilo de Ocampo said Aquino, the youngest sister of leading presidential aspirant Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, should set an example to Filipino children and avoid mixing Filipino and English when talking.
“That one is really very bad because she’s a Lit (Literature) major. She reads very well. She’s very intelligent,” De Ocampo told reporters after a media briefing at the Shangri-La Hotel Makati.
“She should be a good model for language because she’s excellent in both English and Tagalog. She should not mix it. She has so much power. Everybody looks up to her. Everybody finds her wonderful, so [she should] use that opportunity to be good in both languages,” De Ocampo said.
American literacy specialist Laura Benson, a professor at the University of Colorado and a speaker at the summit, said it was important not to mix up languages.
Bitch please. Pardon my French.
I believe there was a study done a few years ago, that the more languages a child learns at an early age, the more likely he or she will be able to use and retain them later on. I think the best age is from 6-14, I’m not very sure but I read that article somewhere.
What’s funny is is that at the end of the article, Professor Laura Benson (tukayo!) contradicted herself.
Other languages
Benson pointed out that teaching children early about language was “really training the brain and developing neurological pathways” for them to be able to learn languages other than their mother tongue.
She said children exposed to other languages had an easier time learning more languages when they grow up.
Benson also said children who were taught early also had a bigger vocabulary and learned more quickly in school.
“And the gap grows pretty quickly because their brain is now wired and they learn at a very drastic rate. It’ll be much easier for them to learn,” she said.
Okay so first they say we should not mix up languages. But then they encourage children to learn as many languages as they can as they grow up.
First of all, let me be the one to point out that what they are suggesting is terribly impractical and totally unnecessary.
Personally, I can speak four different languages and dialects. At home we speak Hokkien, the Chinese dialect from the Fujian province, which is the language used by most Chinese living in the Philippines. I spoke in Tagalog with my yaya and friends growing up. I read and wrote in English in school. I studied Mandarin subjects in elementary and high school, and later on in Beijing after college.
Mixing up languages is perfectly fine. Why? Because all languages are mixed to begin with. Take the Anglo Saxons and the Germanic Tribes for instance. They mixed it up to form English. Languages evolve. Look at the Singaporeans and how proud they are with their Singlish. New words are added to the dictionary all the time (example: Bling). Looking up the meaning of a slang? Search for the word online in Urban Dictionary.
In this day and age of a borderless society, the exchange of words and ideas cannot be helped nor moderated. Taglish is the evolution of our language and society. Kris Aquino isn’t the one who started it, she’s the product of the same society. Language is all about communication and being able to relate with the people around you. Even De Ocampo supports this:
The important thing is to talk to children in “the language of your community,” said De Ocampo, an Ilonggo from Bacolod City.
And guess mo kung ano ang language ng ating community?
I know I don't post stuff on Multiply anymore, because I now blog on Tumblr. But I just had to share this video with as many people as I can because this video moved me. For those of you who know me, I'm not the type to emote when I watch stuff like movies, but I got teary-eyed watching this. I don't think words can do justice on the quality of this lecture by Randy Pausch. Just watch, and you will be moved as well.
