keep your friends close and your enemies closer

If you want to know who is the original author of that quote, please. . . Google it. I'm here to talk about the second part of that quote.

When I think about keeping my enemies closer, first thing that came to my mind was "I won't do that! It's manipulative! It's evil!" Well, now here I am, with insomnia, so I have more time to really think about it.

After 1 hour of conversation with myself, I realized that it's evil, if the intention is evil. If I keep my enemies closer so I can pretend to be their friends, then that's evil. If it's because I want to easily manipulate them, then it's evil. But, if I'm only trying to avoid getting hurt by my enemies, then it's not evil. For instance, I can avoid giving them my ideas so they can't steal it.

But then, there's the problem of pretending to be nice to your enemies to keep them closer. Isn't that lying? You don't like them but you pretend to like them? Well, let's take this intention thingy a step further. What if we really try to be nice to them? Not because we like them, but because we're good human beings that like to be nice to everyone. Now we're talking!

Keeping our enemies closer because we are truly nice to everyone, is a good thing! Now we have the advantage of knowing our enemies, AND we are truly nice to them. Who knows, our enemies might even pick up one or two good vibes from us and change their "evil" ways. By introducing "good" in their lives, they might want to spread that "good" around.

However, do NOT sacrifice yourself for your enemies. This might be obvious to some but not to all. Use your own judgment to know when you cross the line from being good to being stupid. If you give all your money to help your enemies, but your family can't eat, then please, please, just give your money to me. You're too stupid anyway to have them.

I'll stop digressing. The point is, now I can keep my enemies closer without being pretentious, and still be a good person. It's another way for us to spread goodness around. Have I mentioned the word good? Good. I'm not sure, so I'll say good again just for good measure. Is that good enough?

Why am I stuck with the word good? It may be because I don't feel good. I just got out of surgery and I can't drink my rum. And that's NOT GOOD. Please someone drink a shot of rum for me!

Rosa's Choices

When my friend Rosa was sick from cancer, a lot of people were inspired by her attitude and personality. She was positive and upbeat throughout her ordeal. I remember at Rosa's memorial, Fei-Fei, her sister, said that food was Rosa's passion. When Rosa couldn't eat anymore, she became the food police in the house. She was asking people what they're eating and living vicariously through them while still being joyous. I wasn't there, but knowing Rosa, I could imagine Rosa saying "Mmmm... wow... that must be good!" with her big smile.

How did Rosa do it? How could she faced what we would consider a calamity with such strength? I think Fei-Fei or Rita, (Rita is also Rosa's sister) said that Rosa didn't know why people were inspired by her. Rosa mentioned something like: "Why people are telling me that I inspired them? I didn't do anything!"

Some people may attribute her cheerfulness to "it's just her", "she was born that way" and "she's just like that". But, there's another ingredient to her being "just like that". It's the choices that she made through her life.

When little annoying things happen in life, she chose to look at the positive side. I've never heard Rosa complained for hours because someone cut her off on the freeway. She would not let little things ruined her day. Choosing to be happy, looking at the positive side, and being able to move on from the little annoying things, made it easier to choose the same attitude for bigger problems in life. She worked her character muscles by lifting smaller weights and progressed to heavier weights throughout her life. When the cancer hit, although she was losing her physical weight rapidly, she was a Hercules inside.

We also have choices to make in life when we face our problems. Will we let the weights drag us down, like a prisoner with ball and chain, or will we use them to better ourselves? Won't life be more enjoyable when we follow in Rosa's footsteps?

Everyone has problems and certain choices are harder to make than others. It takes time and long term perseverance to build those muscles. Life is a marathon, not a sprint, unless of course, you PLAN to die quickly.

So what choices are you making in this journey? What choices will you be making?

Attention to all statue and idol worshippers

Please come and join us Catholics as we worship statues

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119370066239175607.html

Mario

And just in case you can't access the link, here's the article

By SARA SCHAEFER MUÑOZ
October 30, 2007; Page D1

Cari Luna is Jewish by heritage and Buddhist by religion. She meditates regularly. Yet when she and her husband put their Brooklyn, N.Y., house on the market this year and offers kept falling through, Ms. Luna turned to an unlikely source for help: St. Joseph.
[Saint joe]
Some choose to bury St. Joseph upside down.

The Catholic saint has long been believed to help with home-related matters. And according to lore now spreading on the Internet and among desperate home-sellers, burying St. Joseph in the yard of a home for sale promises a prompt bid. After Ms. Luna and her husband held five open houses, even baking cookies for one of them, she ordered a St. Joseph "real estate kit" online and buried the three-inch white statue in her yard.

"I wasn't sure if it would be disrespectful for me, a Jewish Buddhist, to co-opt this saint for my real-estate purposes," says Ms. Luna, a writer. She figured, "Well, could it hurt?"

With the worst housing market in recent years, St. Joseph is enjoying a flurry of attention. Some vendors of religious supplies say St. Joseph statues are flying off the shelves as an increasing number of skeptics and non-Catholics look for some saintly intervention to help them sell their houses.

Some Realtors, too, swear by the practice. Ardell DellaLoggia, a Seattle-area Realtor, buried a statue beneath the "For Sale" sign on a property that she thought was overpriced. She didn't tell the owner until after it had sold. "He was an atheist," she explains. "But he thanked me."

Existing-home sales fell 8% in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.04 million units, the lowest level in nearly 10 years, according to the National Association of Realtors.
DISCUSS

Some Catholic clergy are uncomfortable with the St. Joseph's trend. Read about this and track other news in the housing market at Developments, WSJ.com's new real-estate tracker.

Statues of St. Joseph sold online can be as tall as 12 inches. One, made of colored resin, portrays St. Joseph cradling the baby Jesus. Yet most home sellers favor the simpler three- or four- inch replicas -- most of which are made in China and often depict St. Joseph as a carpenter.

Most statues come in a "Home Sale Kit" that is priced at around $5 and includes burial instructions and a prayer. One site, Good Fortune Online, recently added another kit with a statue of St. Jude -- known as the patron saint of hopeless causes -- "to help those with a difficult property to sell," the site says. Another site, Stjosephstatue.com, takes orders for its "Underground Real Estate Agent Kits" at 1-888-BURY-JOE.
[Saint Joe]

Demand for the statues has been growing. Ron Weissman, who sells the statues at Good Fortune Online, says about six months ago he switched to online transactions because the increase in calls -- from about two a week to 25 calls a day -- was too much to handle. Richard Weigang, owner of www.catholicstore.com, says he sells about 400 statues a month, double the amount he sold a year ago.

In Catholicism, St. Joseph, a carpenter, is honored as the husband of Mary and foster father of Jesus. Representing a humble family man, he is the patron saint of home, family and house-hunting, according to the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author of "My Life With the Saints." Popular belief holds that people who wish to enlist St. Joseph's help in selling a house should bury his replica upside-down in the yard. (Apartment dwellers are advised to put him in a potted plant.)

Methods of burying the statue vary. Instructions in one package give buyers several options, including burying it upside-down next to the "For Sale" sign, burying it three feet from the rear of the house and burying it next to the front door facing away from the home. Phil Cates, owner of stjosephstatue.com, says: "I've seen it buried in all types of places with all types of ceremonies." He says the detailed burial instructions are largely intended to prevent people from forgetting where they put their St. Joseph. (His kits advise burying it facing it away from the house, to symbolize leaving.)

Theologians say there's no official doctrine that calls for the statue's interment. The practice may have stemmed from medieval rites of land possession, in which conquerors claimed land by planting a cross or banner, says Jaime Lara, associate professor of Christian Art and Architecture at Yale Divinity School. Mr. Lara also suggests that the tradition may have gotten mixed up at some point with folklore surrounding St. Anthony. St. Anthony, known as a matchmaker, would often be held ransom, upside-down, until he found a husband for someone's daughter, he says.

Some clergy aren't sure how St. Joseph would feel about his replica ending up on its head in the dirt, and suggest displaying it somewhere in the house instead.

"I think it's much more respectful than burying the poor guy," says Msgr. Andrew Connell, the archdiocesan director of the Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith in Boston. Some retailers, such as Mr. Weigang, owner of www.catholicstore.com, also encourage buyers to put the statues in the house.

"We don't advocate burying," he says. "Some of those statues are quite beautiful."

Catholic leaders also say that faith and devotion are necessary, in addition to burying a statue, otherwise the practice amounts to little more than superstition or magic. But they are also enjoying the saint's newfound popularity. "If they have a good result and they think it was St. Joseph, it might inspire them to practice more," says Msgr. Connell.
[Saint Joe]
The St. Joseph "Underground Real Estate Agent Kit" from www.stjosephstatue.com

Once someone's home sells, the custom holds, the statue should be dug up and put in a place of honor in the new home. That's what Ms. Luna did after she and her husband sold their house shortly after burying St. Joseph. She put the statue in her office in their new home in Portland, Ore.

But not everyone is aware of the follow-up step. Trudy Lopez and her husband buried a statue of St. Joseph when they were trying to sell their condo, even though Ms. Lopez is Jewish and her husband is a nonpracticing Catholic. They sneaked out late at night, worried they might be breaking a condo association rule.

"And I'm thinking, 'If my family knew what I am doing, they'd die,' " she says.

Soon they got an offer, but didn't realize they were supposed to bring the statue with them to their new home.

"I'm afraid a lot of the statues won't be unearthed and someone will go over St. Joseph's feet with a lawnmower," says Father Martin.

Movie making

I just finished helping my sister with her music video project. It was intense and very tiring. My whole body ache and my my brain is losing it from lack of sleep and too much rockstar energy drink.

But, it was a lot of fun. The whole experience makes me thinks twice about my career. Maybe I should pursue acting. The only part I don't like about being an actor is being a celebrity. I wish people could appreciate my skill but don't need to know about my personal life. I wonder if that's possible.

Pain & Suffering

It's been a while since I've updated my blog. I've been busy with this thing called work and life. They interfere with my blogging time. If anyone has $1 billion to spare, please feel free to give it to me so I can blog more frequently.

Now that's aside, I've been lying awake on my bed for 1 hour now. So here comes another blog.

I've heard Christians say that pain & suffering is required/necessary to grow. I think that's contradictory to the Christian teaching. Before I continue, I would like to clear up that I'm only focusing on pain & suffering that is caused by another human being. Natural disasters (flood, volcanoes, earthquakes) are a different topic. And so I don't have to type too long, I'll shorten them to p&s. Not to be confused with pms but that too is another topic (drum roll!)

P&S that are caused by another human being, are product of evil intentions such as selfishness and greed among others. If p&s is necessary, then evil is necessary because p&s are caused by evil intentions and evil intention are born from lack of goodness. And what do we call lack of goodness? Evil. So shall we say that evil is necessary for us to grow? If we do, that means God requires evil to exist so we can grow. It should be common sense for Christian to believe that God does not require evil to teach and guide humanity. If you need bible quote on why God does not need evil to do his things go to your nearest pastor/priest. If your nearest pastor/priest can't do it, let me know and I'll smack them for you so I can introduce them to some p&s.

So if we don't need p&s to grow, why do they exist? There's this thing that's called "free will". Some people decides to use their free will to succumb to evil and introduce p&s to this world. What we can do is to learn from p&s so we can grow and be a better person. And using our free will, we can also decide to refuse to pass down p&s. Revenge is another carpool lane for p&s. And of course, as with most things, doing this is harder than it sounds. If you need help, please . . . feel free to not come to me cause I'm busy. Didn't you read the first paragraph? I have enough trouble updating my blog.

Actors & Actresses

A lot of people are really into actors and actresses. Some might even say they are worshipped.

What's funny, actors are trained to be really good at:
1. lying
2. telling stories
3. pretending to be who they are not

umm...

nice . . .

In The Pursuit of Happyness

So I saw the movie. It was very moving and I learned a lot from it. One thing for sure:

Money CAN buy happyness

Parenting

I'm not a parent, I don't have any god-children, and I don't think I'm good with children. So read below at your own loss.

Being angry at your children and being angry at their wrong actions are two different things.

Being angry at your children is when you're angry and you're releasing your anger toward your children. I think that's damaging toward your children especially when they're at a young age. You're introducing hate toward your children. When there's more hate, there's less love. As a parent, you want to only love your children without any hate.

However, being angry at their wrong action is a necessary part of being a parent. If a child does something wrong, I think it's necessary to introduce hate toward that wrong action. For instance, if a child hits another person other than in self-defense, the parent needs to be angry at that action. The child also needs to learn that there are consequences to bad behaviour. Since most child will not understand the intricacies of social repercussion, morality, etc., the child needs to be punished as an introduction to consequences of bad behaviour. I will not say too much on types of punishments, but just enough to make the children understand and without harming the children physically.

This discplines will introduce hate toward wrong actions. When there's more hate, there's less love. So there will be less love of doing the wrong things.

And the same time, we want to introduce more love of good actions. When a child does something good, a reward is needed. This will introduce more love for good things. When there's less hate, there's more love. The child will love doing good things more.

Now repeat after me:
When there's more hate, there's less love
When there's more love, there's less hate
Where there's more hate, there's less love
Where there's more love, there's less hate

Do that 70 times 7.

So, why I suddenly write this post? I have no idea. Just came back from a bar watching my friend's band. I take no responsibility of my words nor my actions after the first drink.