Reality Check.

I am neither happy nor sad.

In fact, I am not feeling anything. I don't get excited. I don't get hurt. I don't get angry or frustrated anymore. I mean, I just don't feel anything. Nothing makes me feel anything. Not even the most agitating situation can make me feel anything. I don't even feel irritated when waiting for a long time. What's even worse is that I can't feel attraction. I don't have any crush right now. There is no one who can make me feel. No one. And I have been like this for quite some time now. I don't know if this is okay or if this means that something is wrong.

I don't want to sound whiny, but I just can't help but think: what is wrong with me? I am supposedly to be on the peak of everything. I am in my late adolescent stage. According to the psych books, I should feel the hormones acting on me. I should get easily affected by everything. But I am not. I simply get detached. Why? Why is that happening to me? I am still a teenager, why am I not feeling anything? I am just confused most of the time. I know it is excusable for me to be confused, but aside from that? I just feel bleak. Just bleak, and nothing else.

At first, I thought that feeling nothing is okay, like it is a good thing. I thought that being not able to feel is one of a kind, like it is something only a few people are capable of. I thought that being not able to feel anything is equivalent to being strong. But then, I was proven wrong.

It is good to feel nothing sometimes, but when it gets consistent and normal, you start asking yourself what is wrong with you. The lack of any emotion and feeling is like a vacuum. It is actually a vacuum. And being in a vacuum is not good.

Being in a vacuum makes me less of a human. Being not able to generate any feeling and emotion makes me less of a person. It rips me off of everything that I am.

Do not fall in love.

"It is either we are friends or we are not."

Through rigorous contemplation, I have come up with a decision almost two years ago never to fall in love with anyone, especially when that someone is a close friend (note: opposite sex). Though it is easy to fall in love with a close friend, it has many hang ups. It has its disadvantages

For one thing, the friendship is in big jeopardy. A person in love with his/her close friend tends to act and to react differently. S/he perceives the reality with rose colored glasses, and may misunderstand some actions of the person s/he is in love with. The relationship gets messy. The emotion gets tangled up with the platonic one, which may result to confusion and worse heartache. A person in love, no matter how s/he may deny it, expects something in return. There is no such thing as a free gift, much more an emotional investment. Expectations always come up in the process of falling in love with a close friend. And that's where the danger comes in. Expectations have its way of ruining everything. Believe me.

Another thing is the awkwardness of the situation. Come on. It does not feel "exactly right" to fall in love with a friend. Everything gets awkward because something has changed, "you" have changed. Everything gets mixed up, and reason starts to be blurred. Emotions are cluttered. And then one thing you'll notice: the friendship is not the same anymore, and it is your fault. It is your heart's fault.

So you see. Falling in love with a friend is messy. It confuses the mind. It breaks the heart. And it leads to the deterioration of the friendship, which is more important than the sexual relationship because it can last longer than the latter. One might argue that we cannot choose who to fall in love with, but I beg to disagree. We can choose the person we fall in love with. We can, just as we can choose to be happy or not. It just takes time sometimes.

So for those who feel like s/he is already starting to fall in love with her/his friend, restrain yourself. It is either you are friends with that person or you are not. You choose.

On Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief

I am not the type of person to write a decent review on something I have watched or read. I am not articulate enough to do so, but I have my own judgments and comments on a lot of things which I keep only for myself. However, I will deviate tonight because I will "try" to give some decent comments on the book-turned-movie Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief.

I must admit that I put Percy Jackson series on hold for quite a long period of time. I stalled some months before finally reading the first book. Actually, I watched the film first before deciding whether to touch the pages of its original form or not. So you see, I have joined the bandwagon of people who watch the movie first before being able to read the book (which is very unusual for me). Do I regret it? No. In all honestly, I am thankful that I did. Why? Because the movie is upsetting. Even for me who has no idea about the content of the book, it is an epic fail. I don't know why they make film out of books when they can't even give justice to the original piece. It is like they bastardized the book. No offense, but the film was a major failure for me.

Movies should take the audience to a new kind of world. They should have an effect on the audience's reality. Movies should make the audience feel. And that what lacked in Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief (movie). I felt nothing while I was watching the film. I felt NOTHING! That rarely happens to me. I was detached from the movie that I was more aware of the reaction of the kid on my right side to every scene. I felt nothing. This might be due to the cinematography.

First, the color and texture (my knowledge on film jargon is limited, so bear with the layman's term) are somewhat more apt for a romantic comedy film. I wished that the film was darker than it was because the "mythology mood", as I would coin it, was not felt in the duration of the movie. I did not feel the angst of what mythology should be. Second, the camera movement did not involve the perspective of the audience (which I value so much, btw). Third, lighting was not used to the advantage of the film. There were not much mood setters in the film. And lastly, the effects were crude (though the water effect was okay). I did not feel like Medusa head was real. It was more like a painting, IDK.

There are a lot of things I could say about the actors, but I will just have to say 'so-so' and leave it like that. There is a room for improvement, as they say. I just really hope that the next Percy Jackson will be directed by Steven Spielberg. No offense to Chris Columbus.

Invictus

Last night, I went over some things in my life that need an overhaul. I have been busy lately that I wasn’t able to wrap my whole life accordingly. In the past few weeks, I was a mess, a total mess. I have been consumed by events that mean nothing metaphysical to me. All the things around me were real, but nothing mattered. I have been in a total whirlwind so to speak. My life was in a limbo. So I decided to take a break and think. And last night, the fear that made me do stupid things overwhelmed me again.
But I was able to overcome it. It was not easy. It took me years to finally accept that I am afraid of failing. And it took me many battles just to defeat my own fear. And last night, after a gazillion of battles I have fought, I won. But it was not an easy battle—nothing was, nothing is, and nothing will ever be.
I have been a prisoner of my own fear, that I realized when I woke up the next day. Little fear can cripple even a great man in the making. But I won’t let it loom my decisions in life. Never again. I might be still scared, but it won’t cripple me again. For I remember a great line from one of my favorite poems, Invictus: “I am the master of my soul, I am the captain of my fate.”

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