Destination Unknown

I don’t give a damn about most of those bloody tag games. This one
is different enough, so I’m playing along for once. Actually, the only
reason why it interests me is because it’s a question I’ve constantly
asked myself: why do I blog?

Five reasons are required for this game, although that’s excessive
for me. BUT, I do have concrete answers as to what AREN’T my reasons,
so I’ll put that along.

So without further delay…

1. I DON’T BLOG TO EARN PAGE RANKS (PR’s).
I recently read a blogger who claims not to care about PR, then
proceeded to post page ranks there. Viva hypocrisy! Anything becoming a
popularity contest loses its real purpose (and loses its appeal to me).
Take Friendster: its real intention was to connect people, but because
to many the number of friends they have is bragging rights, they’d not
hesitate to add people they don’t actually know and wouldn’t bother
exchanging messages with. Take music and blame its decline to reality
TV’s. Take jazz and DO NOT think of CURLY LOCKS. DO NOT.

Now take blogging: I can’t stand bloggers whining about the clicks
they get. I do like it if my friends read it, but that’s another thing
entirely (and anyway, I mostly just send my blog posts directly to
their mail. It’s up to them if they come here or not!) PR’s don’t
dictate the quality of your site. And, you know, porno sites get high
page ranks too. Screw those (Err, yeah, that’s the point)! If you want
to be widely read, LEARN TO WRITE. And if you want to exchange links
with me, make your blog impressive and STOP WHORING IT!

2. I DON’T BLOG TO IMITATE. What I do is I put my
thoughts down on paper/form and let it flow as naturally as I could. My
writing style may have been influenced by some people that I read, but
I do not deliberately open another blog in a different window then
write in the exact same way. Perhaps some readers may not have a clue
what I’m talking about, so allow me to cite an example (but I won’t
explicitly name names): there’s this "emerging" person who’s getting
all the credit for dissing everything. Now if you’ve ever read that
blog with www.somethingawful.com opened on another window then you’d
find them strikingly plagiaristic. It’s sad that these days someone can
get all high brow by copying another’s work.

3. I DON’T BLOG TO DISS. Allow me to spell the
difference between criticizing and dissing. Criticizing is when you
find flaws. Dissing is simply an act of disrespecting. All dissers
criticize, but not all critics diss. And sometimes dissers do not even
need explicitly find flaws; they only need to speak or act rude to
another.

I don’t make it a secret that I like to criticize. I do it because I
want to voice my opinion and to encourage change. I don’t do it just
for kicks. Occasionally, I’d diss, but I don’t dedicate my blog to that
act alone. Now if you recall, I mentioned this blogger who imitates
somethingawful. That blogger also happens to be one of the most
notorious dissers of the "blogosphere". Like all dissers, that blogger
laughs at others to validate own ego, and has NOTHING to contribute to
the society. And people are totally sucking up to that person just for
that, engaging in comment-box ranting/genuflecting whenever they could.
I just don’t get it. Schadenfreude is fun but if that’s all you do, if
that’s all you can teach, then shut yer trap!

4. I DON’T BLOG TO BECOME PART OF THE BLOGOSPHERE.
I started blogging just before it became all the rage. While I’m at it,
allow me to tell you I fervidly HATE that buzzword. Th4nKs 2 w3b 2.0
3v3ry1 H4S 4 Fr34K1N 0P1N10n! And because of that, people with no
respect for sensibilities, languages and truths (particularly truths)
CAN WRITE FOR THE PUBLIC! Back in the days, writers have to research to
know and to have any platforms for their writings. Now all they need is
to rest their burden of proof on ANOTHER BLOG, so if their
credibilities are attacked, they can say "I SAY SO BECAUSE THE
BLOGOSPHERE SAYS SO SO BLAME THEM NOT ME"! I love freedom of speech but
for the love of all that is holy, I do not need people without
credibility WRITING and COMMENTING on topics THEY KNOW NOTHING ABOUT!
And if you factor Web 2.0 by popularity-driven mentality, the culprit
of why certain celebrities, websites, blogs, movies and governments
emerge/endure becomes lucid: a lot of people have bad taste, and they’d
use everything in their power to suppress those that disagree with
them. Mob mentality at its finest.

5. I BLOG. JUST BECAUSE. Not to belong. Not to
shout. Not to validate my ego. Not to pander. I blog, because I enjoy
this space, and I’m just savoring every minute of it. Call it boredom,
call it love, call it "too much spare time", whatever.

And now I’m out to tag someone. Watch your comment box.

Okay, so today’s topic is about driving in Metro Manila (MM).

I don’t pretend to be clever, but normally I try to start a post
with a snappy first paragraph. Today I am indecisive. I could say
driving in MM is more fearsome than exploring the underground city of
Edinburgh (then title it "The Long Halloween". Ooh, the horrors!). Or I
could say our traffic is our own Iraq War. Or I could say the state of
our road is the reflection of our society. Or I could say there’s a
deeply disturbing psychology about the boorishness of those bloody
drivers. Or I could say there are more accidents on our roads than
there are questionable Mattel toys (now that’s really stretching it).
Or I could say there are more Stephon Marbury’s here than any NBA
columnists could shake their thesauri at. Or I could simply say I hate
driving in Manila. Right, the last one’s the simplest. I’m sticking to
that then.

I hate driving in MM (not because I hate driving, but) because…

(Gee, I hate spelling these out because I risk sounding like I’m
insulting your intelligence - which isn’t my intention - but pardon me
because I’m just doing this in case any foreigners are reading)

…traveling in Metro Manila is more chaotic than reading a Chuck
Palahniuk’s book. Why? It’s because of bad vehicles, poor traffic
engineering and the patchy pavements – the lunar module was invented by
a Pinoy; bet he didn’t have a hard time experimenting.

And then there are the travelers, who are arguably the greatest malefactors.

Jeepney drivers: They’re anarchy, personified. They
accelerate as they please, swerve as they please and unload passengers
as they please. They ignore traffic regulations, and the cops just
ignore them. There’s even a belief that they pay monthly fees so they
could act above the law.

They don’t even care about other people. When you toot your horn
they won’t recognize you. On the other hand they can’t get their hands
off their horns. They also play loud and awful music on some subpar
superwoofers they got from Raon.

They also don’t use their headlights.

Bus drivers: They’re like jeepney drivers, except
they use their headlights. So they’re not as boorish, but that’s like
saying North Koreans are freer than Burmese.

They’re more insufferable because they act like the big guys on the
road. Buses are larger than most cars, and since the drivers know full
well that they won’t be quite as damaged if they collide with most
cars, cue the super indiscriminate swerving.

Bikers: They should be called "Crevice Hunters", although the sexual innuendo should be, um, stripped.

In their utter disregard of their own safety, bikers are the most
irritatingly opportunistic: where there’s passage, there are bikers.
Bikers are very troublesome because even when car drivers look at their
side mirrors they won’t be able to anticipate bikers who zig and zag
between other lanes and vehicles (as though impersonating the chess
horse). But by far the bikers’ most annoying habit is their tendency to pass behind a car that’s backing. Would it kill them to wait, huh?

Just how stupid is that?

Cyclists/Horse Carriage Drivers: In most cases, they exist only because their customers are too walk-phobic.

The unanimous criticisms are that they don’t only slow down those
vehicles behind them, they also travel in directions opposite of the
road. The horse of the carriage pees and poos anywhere.

Rich and spoiled drivers: They worship speed. Their
favorite trilogy is not the thought-provoking Godfather or the
fantastical Lord of the Rings; it’s the one with cars. What do the call
it, The Dumb and the Dubious? They think that just because
they got fast cars and hot babes (who are only in it for the
blingblings), they could do as they please and treat the road like
their private race circuit. So cue the Pimp My Ride rhetoric, the
obnoxious driftin’, the pulled-down shades, the "Mad Skillz" tautin’,
the dust-bitin’, the slurs-throwin’, the faux street-cred forkin’ and
the crunks-blastin’! And try not to get on their bad side lest you risk
being cussed at.

Bloody obnoxious, these posers! If they’re so interested in gangsta-frontin’ then why not just live in Tondo?

Cops: Your Philo 101 should teach this:

Who is more loathsome: the clueless driver who unintentionally
violates vague traffic laws, or the slacking cop who comes out of
hiding when the opportunity to fine
the said driver arises?

Pedestrians: who pop out of nowhere and can’t read signal lights. ‘Nuff said.

A friend of mine has just finished the first draft of his novel and
because he thinks I might be a good critic, he’s sent me the files. I
thought it’s going to be hard times for me because I abhor reading
books on a monitor (to date, I’ve only finished 1 e-book) but I’m also
too reluctant to waste papers and printer inks.

And so, I’m quite surprised that I was able to make it past a
hundred pages (out of 150, I guess that’s a novella then) without
batting an eye. I’m thoroughly impressed with his work! I would love to
give a brief summary of it here but I promised him not to tell anyone
yet, though I’ll be glad to advertise his book once it gets published.
For now, I commend him and his work (so far).

At the same time, that only leaves me frustrated. I know how hard it
is to write a novel, but it’s also something I’ve wanted to do. Many
people think I’m weird because I often space out and become quiet. What
they don’t know is that I woolgather. A lot. I have plenty of stories
and characters made and stored in my brain, and I would often assert
that my daydreams are productive because I will write about them
someday. I’ve started writing a few, but because of lack of
words/skills, abundance of bad lucks, or sheer dissatisfactions, my
works are either lost or trashed.

When I was a kid, I did write, but I have never considered it
anything more than a pastime. I’ve only started to fall in love with
writing when I’ve started blogging two years ago, which wouldn’t happen
if it wasn’t because of my female best friend’s VERY persistent urgings
(she’s blogged since the late 90’s I think). It’s only then when I
actually spent time developing my writing skills. To be honest, I never
even thought that this would last long - it’s two years now
and still alive, though no one ever comments there. That’s an
achievement, but I fail to find reasons why I should be smug, since I’m
not even close to finishing a book. And in case you’re wondering how I
could want to create stories but not want to write, let’s just say I
used to want to commit those stories to another medium.

The longest I have gone was write four chapters (plus prologue) of a
story involving spirits who combat catastrophes. Unfortunately, I lost
the draft. Apparently those spirits lost to a flashflood of computer
viruses. My other stories didn’t fare better. I would often write the
first chapter, revise it over and over, and finally decide it’s trash
and promptly erase everything. Oftentimes I would blame myself for not
taking writing lessons earlier in my life, but the fact is that I did
but I churned only soulless essays like how Kenny G’s churned soulless
jazz (he still does that). Unlike Kenny G though, I didn’t earn a
penny. I bemoan not falling in love with writing sooner. I could’ve
been more capable. Yet, I don’t stop imagining (there are reasons why I
called my other blog NIGHTDREAMER, and it’s not just because of Wayne
Shorter), and it feels like my heads about to burst with too much ideas
that don’t have any outlet of release. 

So here I am, whiny, yet busy, lazy, aging (24 after a month) and
distracted, unable to do what I want, and bitter that my friend has
finished what I’ve barely started. While he’s currently editing his
draft, I am wistful yet lost in inaction.

Le sigh.