I'm the Anti-Scrooge

Image Source Dickens: A Christmas Carol is a painting by Granger which was uploaded on November 21st, 2010.

Most of my December posts are odes to how much I love the holidays. That still remains to be a fact. It may be the positive version of a psychosomatic thing...an anti-psychosomatic-but-within-the-realm-of-mind-and-body-connection situation. Spread the happy energy.  As an ending to this exhortation, I will semi-quote a sermon by a Rev. Fr. Ed last week:

We might consider putting on our Christmas list the following--

To your enemy, forgiveness;

To your opponent, tolerance;

To a friend, your heart;

To a child, a good example;

To yourself--respect. 

universal language

Image Source 

My husband and I had the rare opportunity to be kids-free for a day to do Christmas errands. We didn't realize that we weren't on our Christmas list and so I brought up if we should get ourselves anything. Truth be told, we both don't care much about getting presents. We care more about having the luxury of time to do what we'd like to do. 

While on the way north where my in-laws reside (kids were there), I listened to my iShuffle and suddenly missed our 90s band phase. It was 'Drive' by Incubus that made me remove an earbud which I shoved onto my husband's ear and told him 'gusto ko kapain ito' (I'd like to figure out how to play this). Wouldn't it be nice to have an electric guitar, electric bass, and amplifiers to jam with? My husband said that he misses tinkering with electronics more than jamming. Oh well.

We were both part of bands in high school. My husband's pseudo-metal band was called Spagnum Core, which was inspired by a sanitary napkin commercial back then--disconcerting name. It was his motorcycling rocker-but-an-altar-boy phase. I was in a band called The Culprits and we were mostly grungy/alternative. I remember borrowing my brother-in-law's black electric guitar and my husband's electric bass (and their jacks) for my junior high variety show where my band played 'Be with You' by The Cranberries and 'As Long As It Matters' by the Gin Blossoms. [Fun fact: my husband, his brother, and I met at a youth group]

A huge part of my teenage life involved playing music. While I was classically trained in piano, the guitar will always have a special place in that part of my brain in charge of 'feel good' sensations. Like that poem that Tom Hiddleston read--'if music be the food of love'...it probably is. 

Well, music is art and as Ayn Rand stated in her book The Romantic Manifesto (linked on my recommended books on the right side of this blog), 'the goal of art is art itself.' It's not just about communicating one's reality, but simply concretizing it. 

We'll have to settle with our acoustic guitar for now. Maybe I should get a capo or a few picks--we'll see--it's not urgent. 

untainted

Maia Morgenstern

Today is the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. That Mary was conceived as full of grace by her mother Anne. I had the fortunate opportunity to participate in a Redemptorist service today where 10 priests presided. The designated choreographer as well as the main presider complimented me on my name. The parish priest's mother, who had just passed, was named Anna. Anna means full of grace. I wish I were full of grace. 

I'm sure at least another person has hoped to have grace--whether grace in terms of sophistication or in the spiritual sense. Is purity of mind, body, and soul even attainable? Of course, we want to separate that kind of purity to the ignorance-is-bliss sort. Pure but not naive, I always say. It's a delicate balance.   

Source

  

Resolve to avoid idle speculation

Dali's Three Sphinxes of Bikini

"...we are suffering from a plethora of surmise, conjecture and hypothesis. The difficulty is to detach the framework of fact -- of absolute undeniable fact -- from the embellishments of theorists and reporters." Sherlock Holmes (Silver Blaze)

I have posted about idle speculation in the past. My father introduced me to that concept (to steer clear of it) as a teen so that I could maintain a state of clarity amidst the fogginess of circumstances or when there is some semblance of human machination going on. I still succumb to it--it's almost instinctual. But the conscious effort of "early prevention and prompt treatment" seems to help. How? By allowing speculations to appear in the head followed by a mental picture of a giant eraser that abruptly and vigorously obliterates those speculations. Then a jaded state. Disengagement. Dusting off one's hands. Mission accomplished. 

Deep thought in a different language

Do you think in a particular language? 

Such as internal conversations in Tagalog, English, French, Swahili, etc.?

I probably think in Taglish. It's convenient.

English tends to be limited--there are words in Tagalog that don't have direct English translations. Balisawsaw, umay, kilig...unless I'm simply unaware. 

I miss conversations in straight Tagalog.