A 3-year-old unpublished post

I was checking my blogger account and found out that I had unpublished drafts dating back as far as three years ago. It was quite a find. Here's one that I can't believe I actually wrote... It was dated February 15, 2006, the day after valentines day. It's mere profundity has caused me to doubt if I were the writer. I guess, my preoccupation with business and learning has made me less introspective and more focused on the external environment. But now that I have unearthed such post from my unpublished list, I thought that it is time to share it. And so, here it is, my after-valentines thoughts almost three years ago.


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February 15, 2006


A deluge of text messages filled up my cell phone inbox – all quotations about love, trying to define its nature, and trying to explain its characteristics. But none has provoked my thoughts more than this particular message:

“Sometimes I wonder if, instead of falling madly in love,
we should aspire to fall sanely in love.
But then, what would be the point?” – Jessica Zafra

My initial reaction? “I’d always choose sanity over madness," I said, "even when it comes to love.”

Perhaps it is because of my realistic inclinations and pragamatic attitude that made me form an ideal picture of how I should love: Use your head before your heart. Be more logical, less emotional. Love within reason.

But is love really reasonable? Is it closely connected with logic?

This morning, I saw men line up at a small flower shop just to buy roses – their neatly-ironed barongs turn into a mess of crumples as they try to negotiate their way through a crowd for one small thing: a not-so-rare flower that, with the commercialization of Valentines Day, has become more expensive than clothes. They know it will wilt in a day's time, but nonetheless, they spend two to three days worth of salary for a day's worth of fleeting happiness for their loved one. Reasonable?

Last night, I watched TV documentary about a man who works so hard for such a small amount. And at the end of the day, exhausted and hungry, he takes his pay back home, then spends all his hard-earned money to feed his children until they are satisfied. Even if there will be no food left for himself. Logical?

Several years ago, I learned of our rebellion to our Creator. All-powerful and holy, he could have chosen to annihilate us and make sin disappear from all of his creation. But instead, he sent his son to leave the richness and splendor of his kingdom, to live in the world with us sinful rebels, and take the blame and punishment for our sin – which involved great suffering and a criminal’s execution – so that we may be able to enter his kingdom, where mansions and crowns await us.

Sane??

The greatest of loves is always the most incomprehensible. Love itself cannot be accurately defined nor explained. It is beyond the emotions of the heart. It transcends the logic and reason of the mind. It is both madness and sanity. It is as unfathomable as the One who invented it.

Love is God. God is Love.

That is the only accurate definition I could ever find. And that is the only explanation that makes enough sense for me to understand it.

Why I deleted my Friendster and Multiply accounts

Yes I did.

It was a bit hard to do, I had 235 friends in Friendster, and I had tons of photos uploaded on my Multiply account. But my motto for this year is to simplify my life. I went through my yahoogroups and left half of the groups I was subscribed to. I even deleted all my inactive accounts in Shelfari, Flixster, Tagged and what-have-yous. Then I stopped at Friendster.

I looked at all my 235 friends and realized that only a handful were my real friends. And they did not even update their account! I do not want virtual friendsters who would just post some glittery greeting on my message board or send me virtual smileys. I wanted friends who I can talk to over coffee, tell the details about the going-ons in my life and laugh at the idiosyncrasies of people around me. Including myself.

And so I went to the account settings and hit the delete button. When Friendster asked for a reason why I was deleting my account, I typed in: "It's complicated."

Then I went to Multiply. I kept that account for couple more weeks after I bid farewell to Friendster. I still hanged on to the idea that I had friends in Multiply who may want to read my blog or view my photos. But then, I got tired viewing their photos and letting them view mine. I got tired responding to their blogs and seeing their responses to mine. Maybe I wanted more meaningful conversations than one-line comments. Or maybe I was rebelling against all forms of convention. And Multiply IS convention. Everyone seems to have it. I wanted to be different.

Blame the artist in me, for it was the one that made me go to my account settings and delete my Multiply account. When the team at Multiply asked why I was deleting my account, I said "I did not want to Multiply, I wanted to simplify." And simplify I did.

Now I have put all my blogs, published articles and photos into one site: www.vanessavelasco.com. It's not a social site, I just put that up for professional purposes. Like a profile or portfolio for would-be clients or contacts. But still I linked this blog to that site, because my blog is something I really cannot delete. I don't know why. Maybe because all my good memories are kept here. And I do want to keep them.

But as for social media, I am making myself scarce on cyberspace. For I'd rather see my friends' real smiles than their virtual smileys, or hear them laugh than see the letters "ROFL" or view some yellow bald cartoon rolling on the floor laughing on my computer window. I guess social media has made me anti-social.

And oh... thank you for reading this entry. Wanna have some coffee sometime? =)

On Love and Unique Family Names

I just read an interesting conversation in my mailbox that inspired me to post this entry. The email was from Toto, a friend I knew back in college. Back then there was nothing extraordinary about him. He was intelligent. Argumentative. Pilosopo. the typical UP student. But the one thing about him that really stands out -- what people remember him for -- is his surname.

I admit, I snickered when I heard his surname. It was uhmmm... unique. I even remember those days when he was still a post-graduate student in France -- I was chatting with him online when my dad entered the room, looked at the computer screen and said: "sino yang ka-chat mo, bakit ganyan ng pangalan??"

Then there was a time when he was back in the country on vacation, we got together and he was ranting why he was still single while he can be considered a good catch. He has the looks, he has the brains and he has the things women would want in a man. But how come no girl has ever fallen for him yet? Our advice: "Kuya Toto (yes, we called him kuya back then) palitan mo na kasi apelyido mo para may magpakasal na sayo!"

He didn't. He took pride in the fact that his surname was unique -- even exotic -- to the French people.

After earning his doctorate degree, he came home. Here, a friend introduced him to a pretty lady doctor at St. Lukes. They fell in love and got married.

Recently, I was checking the messages in our yahoogroups when I read that particular email when he was kidding that he wanted a baby girl so when she grows up and gets married, she would not have to live with the surname of Bacolcol forever. Then someone dared to ask the question: "Toto, are you serious that you want a baby girl to eliminate 'Bacolcol.' Wifey doesn't use Dra. Bacolcol? Curious lang."

His response: "My wife uses my family name of course. But before we got married, I told her she may use her family name if she wants to. Pero ayaw ng asawa ko. Siyempre love covers all, unique family names included :-)"

That made me smile. Lucky guy. He found true love.

Rediscovered Treasures

There was once a city I fell in love with. I savored each day by waking up early to watch the sunrise and listen to the quiet waves on the seashore, and going to bed late at night just to witness the moon rise and cast its soft light upon the waters. I very seldom took cabs because I loved walking on its acacia-lined streets and listening to the citysounds -- a blend of roaring motorbikes and rhythmic rustling of leaves. It was almost like second home to me.

When I came back to Manila, I wrote about that city. I kept tons of pictures of it and displayed its sceneries on my computer's wallpaper that would make me relive those moments when I breathed its air. Soon enough I was inspired to write about it in a magazine. When my articles and my pictures were published, I was encouraged to write more about other things I loved. Not only about the city I loved, but also about the music I loved, the causes I loved. I have rediscovered my love for these things and my love for writing.

Then my computer crashed.

The first thing that came to mind was to save all the school reports and papers I have worked on for my MBA classes. I have forgotten about my articles -- they were published anyway. I have forgotten about my photos -- I keep them in my blog anyway. My mind was on saving all the years of hard work I put into my MBA courses. And so I did save my MBA reports and files. All others were gone.

Almost two years later, I chanced upon the blog of an old friend. And there, on one page of his blog, he gave a place for the article and the pictures I have written about that city. Soon enough, it inspired me to search for all the other articles i have written and published in the magazine where I used to contribute. It is a good thing that Gmail archives all received and sent emails, that I was able to find the emails and attachments I sent to my editor.

I then decided to create another blog (I know, I know... this is my nth blog!!) where I archived all my published works. Just for posterity's sake. And who knows... maybe it will inspire me once more to pursue writing and photography... maybe after I finish my MBA.

If you want to view the archive of my published works, just click here.