Birthday Rants and Reflections

(my journal entry dated March 21, 2012, a Wednesday)

Today is my birthday.

I’m honestly at a loss about what to think or how to see the year ahead. I mean, it’s just an ordinary day, really, but I’d like to place something special about this day: what it has to say to me, what things there are today that would give me clues on how to go about the year ahead, etc.

Just what have I done last year? The most significant I can think of is my blog. I got to launch it in November last year, supplemented by entries here in this journal. Is that all?

I am dismayed, although I refuse to dwell on it. I happened to read a short biography of Peter Paul Rubens, and it said there that in one year, Rubens was able to produce masterpiece after masterpiece. Last year, all I have to show as an accomplishment is a blog—that just about anybody can accomplish—that very few people read and appreciate.

I’m getting myself down again just thinking and writing about it. And it’s no consolation for me that there are so many of us who, under the same stupor, just let each year pass with no major accomplishment whatsoever, personal or otherwise. But I must not be down today.

Yesterday, I took advantage of going to the mall after driving Marj and company to the airport. I finally got to buy turpentine and linseed oil and now I’m not sure if I’m going to be painting today or focus on writing my _____ because I had promised Kuya Jing that we’d do karaoke today.

I also resolved that I won’t go online today. ____said she’s greeting me Happy Birthday on my Facebook wall. I don’t know how many others who’d do the same, but then if it turns out many forget (or choose to forget), I guess I deserve it. I’ve been “neglecting” my Facebook friends these past couple of weeks and if they “neglect” me today, it’s all right. Serves me right. Hehe.

I actually have two wishes for my birthday. One is to be able to finish (or at least, get on—NO! finish is the word!) my _____ this year. The other is to launch a business venture that would help augment the family income.

Some say that one shouldn’t share or reveal one’s birthday wish so it won’t get jinxed. I don’t know if it’s true, and I couldn’t care any less anymore. I’m tired of superstitions. My faith in God should suffice.

But then the ego is just weak. It needs to feel good. It needs to be satisfied and comforted, or at least assured. Assured by superstition? I guess it works in a way. Faith works that way, too—in a way.

Now, I’m kind of seeing it from a materialist’s point of view. Materialists have a point too, I’m not going to dismiss that. Oh, this life is so much bigger and deeper and more complex that to trade one belief (or mindset) for another causes an “imbalance” in a way.

I guess that’s the point of many Christians: if you believe in God—who is all powerful, all seeing, all knowing, etc.—then why rest your belief in something else other than God? But then, siguro by extension, we believe in God when we believe in ourselves (since we’re God’s creation, too); or we believe in God when we believe in the power of money (also another of God’s creation through us). By the way, “belief” is not the same as “service” (as in “You cannot ‘serve’ two masters….”).

I guess we can be both “material” and “spiritual” at the same time. There really isn’t anything wrong with it, as far as I see it. But there should be a balance between the two.

Is it all right for one to hold back or dominate the other? I mean, should spirituality “hold back” material progress (and vice versa)? Spiritualists would probably say it’s possible, and there are some who’d probably even say that it’s even all right for spirituality to supplant material progress. Life will go on.

Hmm…on the individual level, I guess it’s okay. But if it would involve many people, hundreds or thousands or more, I think it’s dangerously risky. Just look at the abu sayaf, the way they pray right after mutilating their victims. Or those cult members who committed mass suicide because of…whatever.

Spirituality can be a most difficult burden, simply because it’s so abstract. And more so, if it’s imbalanced. One man’s enlightenment can be poison in another man’s mind. And so, spiritual leaders should take care that their intentions are pure and uncorrupted, and that their lessons are well understood.

I still think the imbalance between the material and spiritual is what actually brings about so much evil in this world. It all rests on our momentary choices, I guess. A blessed birthday to me!