I made a big leap yesterday.
I jumped off a high peak, knowing that there would be no safety nets waiting for me underneath.
Just as I was about to leap, I felt a big weight clamber up my back, attach itself upon my shoulder blades, and push me down forward, hurtling speedily towards the depths.
I fought, I scrambled and I tried to get the weight off me, until my hands found a ring, pulled it out and found that it was attached to a cord.
And out came a parachute.
“You’re everybody’’s best bud.”
A girl said that to me while we were chatting on Facebook yesterday. Two nights previously, another friend sent me a reply text message saying, “tnx jan. i knw i cud lways dpend on my bff.”
I’ve been thinking about that these past few weeks, about the special friendships I share with certain people. It started when I retook a Briggs-Meyer exam, which revealed, among other things, that I have become an Extrovert. This is a major turn-around for me, since for the longest time ever the Briggs-Meyer exam indicated that I was an Introvert. Granted that the recent exam came from a Facebook application (thereby casting the results in dubious light), nevertheless, I do see the change happening in me. I really am becoming an extrovert, someone who feels good when he interacts positively with other people.
But going back to the last few years, I’ve been building very close friendships with certain people; people whom I am privileged to call my best friends. To date, I have three who have themselves affirmed that we are best friends, with two other people who, as of late, have also become very close to me. There have been some other persons who have drifted in my life and become a “best friend” at some point, but unfortunately, these friendships have not stood the test of time.
I don’t know. I guess I have that quality… a certain trait that makes people comfortable with me. Charisma perhaps? But my charisma is not of the same kind as my friend Raymond’s. His charisma inspires adoration and adulation… much like how a rockstar inspires idolatry from his fans (which I have called the “Everybody Loves Raymond – Effect”). My kind of charisma, however, inspires trust and intimacy. It’s the kind that has had perfect strangers open up their lives’ stories and deepest secrets upon our first meeting.
But perhaps that’s an oversimplification of the relationships I have with my best friends. The truth is that I genuinely care for people around me, more so for those few that sit close to my heart. These people I would die for. These people I would tolerate when they are at their most annoying, forgive when they are at their most hurtful, and be patient with when they test my patience.
Or at least try.
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This week, big decisions will be made, and I am very apprehensive. There will be questions of short term stability versus long term results, self interest versus friendship, and penultimately, the issue of trust will be placed in the cruscible of fire.
Lord, please don’t desert me in this my dark hour.
When all has been said and done after President Aquino’s burial, the nation suddenly turns its eye on its less-than-beloved Inang Bayan, Pres. Macapagal-Arroyo. Suddenly foibles such as GMA’s million-peso dinner strike a very discordant note among people who are reminded of Cory Aquino’s simple and thrifty lifestyle.
Perhaps it’s no wonder that so many people (trimedia journalists at that) subconsciously wish she were dead?
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Speaking of great numbers, it seems like so many of my peers and contemporaries are having babies. For the past two months alone, around 5 or 6 of my friends and family gave birth to beautiful bundles of joy. I’m a sort-of-grandfather now, would you believe it? My first-cousin’s daughter, Carmel, recently held a baptism for her daughter Isis.
A few weeks from now, my best friend Raymond will also be a father. His friends JP and Gun-gun respectively had children this week. My partner James and Nika celebrated the birth of their son Hans early this year, while a few weeks from now, Jan A. will be having me over at his house as a godfather for his son Julian.
I have mixed thoughts about all this. Partly, I ask myself if I’m getting left behind. Partly, I’m relieved that it’s them and not me having a child. Partly, I’m questioning where my place is in this world since I am in no hurry whatsoever to start a family.
Que sera sera..
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I have a horrible backlog to contend with this week. Groan. Here’s hoping for no more distractions and attacks of procrastination.
And then there are the Filipinos, a poor nation made up of fragmented islands and regions of cultures; a country beset by corruption and petty-mindedness. In our smallness and weakness, would it be any wonder that we offer to the world not a hero, but a heroine. A frail woman of simple stature, with clothes not woven by the most fashionable of designers. A housewife and a mother of five. Someone who did not wield much power and shunned her wealth, and as much as possible evaded the scrutiny of the public eye.
In a world that worships machismo, and bravery, we the Filipino people offered a mother as someone who represents the best of all we are, our pinion of hopes and dreams, our heroine, our ideal.
And with us, the world mourned, as a child cries for the loss of its mother; as a nation which has often been left orphaned by those who purport to lead it.
I am one such child and orphan. I was born into the tempestous era of martial law, into a family which was outspoken in its disapproval of President Marcos and his regime of tyranny. One of my earliest memories was standing on top of my grandfather’s pick-up truck parked near Fuente Osmena, and watching my father take the stage and standing beside this wonderful woman. I was wearing a yellow t-shirt, with a yellow band tied around my head, my right hand formed into the sign of the letter “L”.
The crowd kept shouting “Cory! Cory! Cory!” in that great mass of human traffic around Fuente Osmena, and I was shouting with them in my tiny child’s voice, not quite understanding why or knowing of the darkness that was the Marcos era. But young as I was, I understood that the time of our greatest challenge was at hand. I understood evil and his face was Ferdinand Marcos. I understood goodness and her face was that of Cory Aquino’s. The choices were simple, it was not between the lesser of two evils, but that between evil and good, darkness and light, Loyalista blue and Laban yellow.
And decked in yellow, I was with the side of good, parroting the lyrics to “Magkaisa”, not quite getting the words right, but my heart was into my singing.
Goodness won that day and life went on. I grew up and the world became more complicated. The choices were not in radical polarizations, but in tonal gradations, in shades of gray. It is no longer a choice between right and wrong, but with what wrongness we that we could live with.
A child born of summer, I have grown to the dull winter of our nation’s discontent, until at last, one by one the pillars fell and we were forced to stand and hold the roof on our own.
My grandparents passed away. Ricardo Cardinal Sin died a few years ago. And now our nation’s heroine, our mother, departs from us too.
And we mourn.
We mourn not only for the departure of someone that we love, but also perhaps we mourn the loss of our childhood… the death of our innocence. We look back in sorrow realizing the glory of what we once achieved as against the reality of what we have become.
I remember being a child. I remember being an idealist. I remember that our nation once had a mother.
But she leaves us now, in the hope that she does not die in vain. That what our father, Benigno Aquino Sr.’s words would ring true, that we, the Filipinos, are worth dying for.
Goodbye dear Cory.
You are the best of all we are, the ideal that we aspire to be:
A fragmented nation of various cultures and religions, standing as one, strong in the face of our fear, courageous in the face of our weakness, and loving in the midst of hatred.
Thank you and see you again. Soon.
“When I get to the bottom, I go back to the top of the slide, and I turn and go back for a ride, till I get to the top and I see you again! Yeah yeah yeah!” – The Beatles, Helter Skelter
I’ve been meaning to blog more often. Unfortunately, the little distractions in life keep getting in the way. Hanging out with friends, work, and Facebook… I never seem to find the energy nor the inclination to blog anymore. The reasons also have a lot to do with my blogging style. Unlike most bloggers, I feel a need to centralize my blog posts around a topic. To discuss more, and to report less.
But I suppose that will just result in less blog posts, and in this case, quantity would be more important than quality.
Hence, I endeavor to post a week-ender entry every Sunday night, just to recap the week that was and unlock my thoughts on the week that shall be. What to write about? Random nuances that nobody is interested in, unless the gentle reader happens to be a stalker. In which case, stalk away! 
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Paper work has begun piling up, and fortunately, procrastination has not been as rabid during the light weeks, which means that I can manage the deadlines coming up. (Or so I think).
The projects are becoming more interesting, especially with a transport company that recently signed up with us. Transportation law was always one of my favorite Mercantile Law subjects during the review, and finally, the law is becoming alive in my practice. From the Warehouse Receipts Law, to the Civil Code provisions on common carriers, to demurrhages and bareboat charters.. life is becoming a lot more… interesting.
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One thing I could do without is some drama in my life. Most of mine is self-generated. Fortunately, the people I’ve imposed my hang-ups on are trusted friends who understand and are patient with my moodiness. Thank God for best friends. Especially best friends with ice cream.
Early in the week however, another close friend surprised me with some drama of his own. It wasn’t inflicted upon me, but it involved another mutual friend. I’m surprised why he opened up to me about it since we’ve been out of touch for a long time and are no longer that close. I’m glad that he told me about it though. It would be nice to be part of his life again, if for the simple reason that we’ve been comrades in war during the past. I guess some battle scars never heal. But that doesn’t mean we stop taking medicine.
I’d love some of the good drama though. And by that I mean those moments when you connect with someone, or you find out that someone reciprocates how much they like you. The tingle-y stuff. Kanang gilok. I could use some more of those.
So, I took a chance and asked someone out for a date tomorrow.
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Saw low light pictures of myself and the old acne scars are beginning to bother me. With the advice of my mum, I finally overcame my disgust of metrosexuality and bought gunk to clear up my face. There are jumbled chemicals on my vain ugly mug. CHEMICALS! I went shopping with a girl for moisturizer! Gaahhh. I can practically hear the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy theme playing in my head. “All things just keep getting better…”. NOESSS! Before I know it, I’ll be color-coordinating my window drapes with my bedsheets. “Oh that’s just a lovely shade of fuschia, it goes well with the mauve throw pillows.” NOESSS!! Must. Grow. Hair. On. My. Chest. Must. Not. Turn. Metrosexual!
I am resolutely drawing the line at facials. That is just too fruity for me.
But on a positive note, my face looks clean and shiny.
I don’t know if it’s the placebo effect, but I can feel the overly pigmented corpses of pimples long gone slowly seep itself off of ugly pus lodged in my epidermia, like fossils of a bygone age slowly dissipating into fossil fuel. And being pumped out as gasoline.
Ah. Who knew Science indulged in so much chemicals?
I’ve wondered what it would be like for the moon to drift away from the Earth. What if our Moon wobbled off from the pull of the Earth’s gravity and just floated away on its own, to find its own place in the Universe? After so many years of the Earth’s gravitational pull, would the Moon miss being axiomatic to a much denser heavenly body? Or would it spin off on its’ own, find its own orbit around the Sun, maybe even garner enough mass to pull a passing asteroid into the Moon’s axis, for once being its own planet being orbited by its own satellite.
And how would the Earth feel if the Moon disentangled itself from its orbit around the planet? The Earth would surely miss the Moon. Without this plucky satellite, what would reflect the Sun’s rays during nightfall? Without the Moon’s own minute gravitational pull around the Earth, there would be no movement of tides, no drifting of the winds, no body to signal the cicadas into their mating season. The Earth, I think, would know when the Moon is gone, and mourn its loss from the Earth’s orbit.
Would planets such as Saturn mourn as much, if it lost one of its moons? Would the loss of Dione or Mimas matter when mighty Titan or demure Rhea or any of the other 58 moons, ice caps and asteroids encircling this Jovian planet, adoring its massive gravity and keeping its gas surface into place, still keep their pace in orbit, forming a beautiful ring of satellites? Saturn would probably not even notice that one moon is gone. It would not care. Saturn would still revolve around the Sun, as it always has, rivalling Jupiter through sheer mass and gravity.
But to this one moon, Saturn is everything. Crowded as the rings may be, the loss of Saturn’s massive gravity would hurtle that one moon far beyond the sight of this Solar system, deep into the farthest reaches of space where it will heat up like a comet, fall like a star, and be gone forever like cosmic dust.
For all the company that the moons in Saturn’s rings keep, it must be lonely to be one of Saturn’s moons, realizing that you are expendable and in the grand scheme of things, you are likely to end up a mere speck of cosmic dust.
It is better to be the Earth’s moon. It is better to know that you exert gravity upon its tides, and that without you, the Earth is left groping in the dark.
Before I took up Law, I was a voracious reader of fiction books. Whether it was of classical stories written by great authors like Ernest Hemingway or Gabriel Garcia Marquez, or pop novels written by best-selling writers such as Stephen King or Robert Ludlum, I devoured them all like an addiction. While my reading palate was diverse, I had a special appetite, however, for books written in the science fiction and fantasy genres.
I admit that it takes a certain kind of geekness to appreciate science fiction and fantasy, and of this geekness, I have in spades. Nevertheless, it would be good if more people learned to appreciate these genres and the stories that they have to offer, because some of the best writing I’ve ever encountered has been made by science fiction and fantasy writers. From the in-depth analysis of Isaac Asimov, to the lyrical prose of J.R.R. Tolkien, to the beautiful cadence and pacing of Neil Gaiman, there are works of literary art that is appreciable in these genres, which I would consider at par with Ernest Hemingway, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, F. Scott Fitzgerald and the other literary giants.
But I guess it’s because of the “geekness” attached to science fiction and fantasy that most people don’t consider these genres as mature literary art forms written by top-caliber writers. And then there is also the case of the numerous mediocre sci-fi and fantasy novels filling up the shelves and giving the genre a bad name. But then again, what genre is spared of its sub-par counterparts? (I would cite popular examples but for fear of being trolled by these books’ legion of rabid fans, I deem it more prudent to just keep quiet.)
I suppose that the lack of appreciation from the “mature” literary world has been due to the lack of understanding of what makes a truly good science fiction or fantasy novel, and perhaps due to the misconception that science fiction and fantasy is best read by geeks.
Let’s categorize the two in their proper perspectives. By my understanding, the bookstore classification for science fiction and fantasy seems to be that if it has spaceships, robots and laser pistols, then the story is science fiction. However, if the story has elves, magic, swords and sorcery, or imaginary creatures, then the same would be fantasy. It’s a very simplistic arrangement and it works on a commercial level in the sense that it helps customers easily locate and identify the particular books that they want to purchase from off the bookshelves.
As a writer, I offer my humble two cents perspective for differentiating whether or not a work is science fiction or fantasy. By this token, I also want to point out that when I say science fiction or fantasy, I refer to ALL written media of the same, regardless of whether or not it is a book or a graphic novel/comic. I guess my categorization could also apply to movies of the same genres, since the principles are applicable to any story.
Of the two, fantasy is the easiest to comprehend. By popular understanding, fantasy refers to books involving dwarves, elves, faeries and knights in shining armor. Its famous authors include J.R.R. Tolkien of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, C.S. Lewis of the Chronicles of Narnia, and J.K. Rawlings of the Harry Potter series. (Ever notice that the famous fantasy authors tend to abbreviate their names a lot?) The timeline is usually set in the Dark Ages, but it sometimes may deal with the present, such as Harry Potter. However, people would be surprised if I consider books such as Dune, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, and Star Trek novels as fantasy, more than science fiction. “But Jan, those books have spaceships, robots and aliens. Don’t they count as science fiction?”
No, I consider them as fantasy. From a writer’s perspective, a fantasy story is one where ESCAPISM is the primary objective of the author, or in other words, it offers an escape from the mundane real world into a world of astounding wonders… where a spell can transform a man into a bird, or a boy can pick up a lightsaber and play Jedi mind tricks with the Force. A good fantasy book plays on your sense of whim and wonder, and thus tends to be written as grand epics, such as the battle between good and evil in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy or the Chronicles of Narnia. It makes heroes out of mere men, and makes possible for beautiful elven princesses to fall in love with grungy unbathed rangers. After reading fantasy, you feel like you’ve taken a mental vacation into a land far far away where anything is possible.
Of the people who’ve written for this genre, special mention should be given to J.R.R. Tolkien, not only for being the first fantasy writer but also for the level of dedication and thought he put into his work. What’s amazing about Tolkien is that he not only mapped and fleshed out a totally well-conceptualized universe with a treatise and explanation of each and every race and its culture, he even took time to create a language (Elvish) with its own syntax, grammar AND writing, called Tengwar. This is escapism in its finest form, the kind that has created an actual college course that studies the language created by Tolkien.
Another author that deserves special mention is Tolkien’s contemporary, C.S. Lewis. What most people don’t know is that Lewis is not only a fantasy writer, but he is also an accomplished philosopher of Christian works. A closer reading of the very simplistic Chronicles of Narnia would reveal parallels between the life and death of Aslan the lion, with that of the passion of Jesus Christ, and the armed conflict between the Narnians and the Calormen is an allusion to the Holy War between the Crusaders and the Moslems. Finally, the scenes of the book “The Last Battle” mirrors that of events told in the Book of Revelation. Thus, in its simple and easy to comprehend stories about talking animals and magical portals, the Chronicles of Narnia teaches children of the basic tenets of their faith.
While fantasy and science fiction hold many similar elements, science fiction is an altogether different animal, and I daresay it is much harder to write than pure fantasy. For me, science fiction refers to stories which make you question the way you look and define things. While fantasy takes you away to a fictional world where everything is bizarre and different, science fiction however creates a fiction that re-imagines the world, but in a way that helps us to question reality as we see it.
One particularly good author of this genre is the great Isaac Asimov, whose works you’ve seen in movies such as “Bicentennial Man”, and “I, Robot”. I am particularly in awe of the way Asimov wrote Bicentennial Man, which is a story of how one robot fought for the right to be legally recognized as a man. By taking a disparate concept like robotics, Asimov in effect explained to us what it is that defines our humanity.
Again, I must reiterate that a story does not have to be set in the future to be considered as science fiction. Way before the movie “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” was ever shown, the author T.N. White had already written “The Once and Future King” an Arthurian novel where the wizard Merlin was born backwards. That means he was born a baby in the future and that he lived his life from the future to the past. That’s why people are amazed when Merlin can foretell the future and yet not know what he had yesterday for breakfast. Our tomorrow is his yesterday and our yesterday is his tomorrow. It would also explain why Merlin seemed to be getting younger and younger as you get older and older.
Science fiction can even be set in the modern day. For example, the graphic novel “Y: The Last Man” explores a modern world where all males of every species has died out except for one man and his monkey. A curious but very conceivable consequence of this was that since every man from the President of the United States, all the Supreme Court Justices and majority of the people in Congress has died, thus by effect of legal succession, the next person to become President is the Secretary of Agriculture, who was a woman. Also, every military force of the world has collapsed, except for one: the Israeli Armed Forces, which trains both men and women for armed combat.
So as you can see, science fiction and fantasies are not just for children or high school boys with no love lives. These two are very mature literary art forms worthy of serious critique and appreciation. I hope to live to see the day when the likes of Tolkien or Asimov are granted prestigious awards like the Pulitzer or the Nobel, in recognition of their work done.
This is part one of a series discussing measures for coping with the turbulence of the global recession of 2009. This part involves a discussion of the possible alternatives that entrepreneurs and businessmen who are considering cost-cutting measures on labor should undertake. While primarily intended for management, this article should also be read by the employees of a company, so that they will be aware of their rights and procedures of due process required by law to effect such alternatives.
When various American financial institutions collapsed from investments in “toxic” sub-prime mortgages during the middle of 2008, the world economy felt the stirrings of what would later be recognized and forecasted as a global recession. Numerous institutions, such as the Lehman Brothers and the AIG insurance company, collapsed due to the bad investments. This cast a domino effect on other companies worldwide, prompting a concerted effort among the G7 state members to come up with bailout plans and coping policies to avert the international collapse. Thus, industrial giants such as the Ford Motor Company and the Citicorp group of companies sought financial aid from the US Congress to prevent their own shut-down.
Indeed, times appear bleak not only in America but also around the world. In Germany alone, which has the biggest economy among the members of the European Union, leaders met last Dec. 14, 2008, to assess and prevent the extent of the financial crisis. Countries in Asia that maintain a heavy trade relationship with USA are worried about the American recession’s impact on their export sales. As an example, Toyota Motor Co. estimates a 40% drop in sales due to the recession.
Our very own Philippines is very much affected by this crisis, as 17% of our exports are sold in US markets. Ask any of our manufacturers and exporters here in Cebu and they will report that they are hurting from a drop in the demand of products. By the last quarter of 2008, a reported 3,000 workers from the Mactan Economic Zone were laid off, while around 27,000 workers in Mandaue and Lapu-lapu were asked to work fewer hours or go on leave.
Normally, in times of low demand, businesses turn to banks and other financial institutions for short- and mid-term liquidity assistance to bridge the payment of operating costs from bad times to good times. However, because the nature of this recession involves an attack on banks and financial institutions, understandably, these companies would hold on more tightly to their liquidity reserves and have stricter security requirements for loans.
Thus today’s businessmen, particularly those who are engaged in export industries, are hard-pressed to come up with cost-saving solutions. As the levels of sales drop, would there be enough to cover the company’s fixed costs? Unfortunately and understandably, one of the first cost-centers that companies would reduce would be that of its labor costs, resulting in either massive lay-offs, or at the very least, labor-saving measures such as shorter working hours or long furloughs.
This series of articles seeks to inform businessmen and employees on the alternatives that may be undertaken on the matter of labor-cost minimization, including its legal bases and procedures.
(To read more of the article, please go to http://corporate.pgclaw.ph)
Anyone who has suffered through the rough patches of a relationship or survived a traumatic break-up would tell you that it is no joke to be dealing with the emotional drama that goes on inside one’s head, unseen from public scrutiny. You catch yourself sighing in the middle of something, and you find yourself switching stations whenever a particularly memorable or apt song plays on the radio. As much as we want to, it’s hard to switch off the internal dialogue replaying in your head over and over like a broken vinyl record. The accusations we make of ourselves, the things we should have done, the words we should have left unsaid. What’s done is done, but the trauma of a guilty conscience (or the hurt of a betrayal) still lingers unbidden.
Oddly enough, it is times like these when I am at my most productive. Suddenly, work becomes a blissful sigh of relief and you welcome the stress brought about by projects and cases. Studying jurisprudence and drafting pleadings produces a wonderful white noise that blocks out the repetitive melodrama ringing in one’s head. After a hard day’s work, I become too tired to think, too wiped out to catch on to recursive dilemmas which jackhammer obnoxiously at the heart.
I never believed the day would come but it has. Someone pointed out that I have become a workaholic. One part of me is sad that I’ve become that… someone who lives for work instead of working to live. The other part rejoices and welcomes the change. I’ve become a man who finds fulfillment in the checking of boxes in my never-ending list of to-do’s. I’ve turned into someone who sleeps early at night, to wake up early in the day, and immediately dive into e-mails and reports while I have not yet even gotten out of bed to have breakfast.
How my teachers would disbelieve these words. The slacker has become a workhorse.
Sadly, it took a broken heart to effect such transformation.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.From the First Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians 13: 1-13.
I just quoted to you a very familiar and very popular Bible passage that is read in each and every Catholic wedding. While this passage has become cliche to some, nevertheless, it has become some sort of a mission statement and policy for me… a reference I turn to when I feel lost and angry towards a betrayal, or when I am torn between conflicting moral decisions.A few years back, I read Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and the book changed my life. It gave me a structure by which to base important decisions from. One thing I got out of it is a definition of what I stand for… a principle which has become the bedrock upon which all my actions are supported on. That one principle which encapsulates everything I stand for, everything I believe in, which guides my destiny in life… that principle is LOVE.Love has become such a cliche term, especially on Valentines that people lose sight of the meaning of true love. True Love has become a by-word for greeting cards and commercial tearjerkers, that people forget how universal and all encompassing Love is. There is the love for one’s parents, love for one’s country, and love for one’s faith. There is the love for the morning sunshine, love for the cold rain, love for that friendly face you see on the streets, and yes, even that love for people who hate and antagonize you.Love is a wellspring of power. It allows you to heal from past hurts, forget past iniquities, and forgive without counting wounds inflicted. Through love, you derive the gifts of faith and hope… powerful tools that will see you through during times of adversity.I have strived to make love my center. And this is where St. Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians explains succinctly what true love is, by defining what it is not. Love doesn’t count costs, it doesn’t hold on to hurts. Love doesn’t seek to push one’s self at the expense of trampling on others. Love teaches us to value our own self and know that we too deserve and are worthy of true love. And love is eternally persistent… ever notice that St. Paul uses a lot of “always”? It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
May you find true love this Valentines Day and all the year round. Why don’t you start with loving one’s self?
Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone!
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Many thanks to my models, Maita and Gerard. This lovely couple is getting married this year. I was given the privilege of shooting their engagement pictures.
