Jk Andrew

Back off, Cupid.

Posted on Feb 11, 2019 by Jk Andrew

It’s only three days before Valentine’s. Do you have a date? Society’s pressure is nibbling at the back of your mind even as you desperately try to keep it at bay. “I need to get work done”, you helplessly mutter before you continue your tapping onto your laptop. We both know you’re not foolish enough to think anyone’s going to buy your false confidence; you can’t even fool yourself.

You stalk your exes to see if anyone’s as desperate to try again even just for a week, even if just for a day or two. As you hover on the message button on messenger and lose every bit of self-respect you have, your squad’s group chat head pops into existence. You’ve been saved! Or so you thought. “Who you takin’ out this Valentine’s”, your heart drops as you finish. “Jake, tell me you’re taking someone out this year! It’s been forever and you’re still not dating anyone!” Your heart hits rock bottom.

“Jake, tell me you’re taking someone out this year! It’s been forever and you’re still not dating anyone!” “Jake, tell me you’re taking someone out this year! It’s been forever…” Jake, tell me you’re taking someone out this year!” Jake, tell me you’re taking someone out…” Jake, tell me..” “Jake…” “…” These words bounce back and forth between your mind and your heart as you stare aimlessly at the wall as if looking at the void face-to-face. “…do I need to take someone out?” DO you? Do you really need one? Says who? What happens if you have no one? Does it make you less human? Less of a person? Then why do you, why do they tell us we need a date? Take a step back and look at things in a new perspective (ba dum tsss). Really, Panic! At The Disco puns aside, take a step back. Where does this “need” come from? Why do we even celebrate Valentine’s day at all? Why?

WHAT VALENTINE’S

A bit of history wouldn’t hurt. “…the popular customs of showing love and affection on St. Valentine’s Day is almost a coincidence with the feast day of the saint…a common belief in England and France was that birds began to pair on Feb. 14…For this reason, the day was dedicated to “lover” and prompted the sending of letters, gifts, or other signs of affection.” “Uhmm…what did I just read“, is what you’re saying right now. “How on earth is Valentine’s day, the day of love, related to birds mating and a saint??? Saint Valentine??? “…was also arrested, condemned to death for his faith, beaten with clubs, and finally beheaded on Feb. 14, AD 270. “YOU’RE NUTS, I’m not reading this any further you whackjob. I’m unfollowing this.” Be my guest. But for those of you who stayed, I understand how this all must feel. How does a beheaded saint connect to a day of love? Does it mean that this tradition was brought about by confidence? Perhaps.

SHAKE IT OFF

Shake off the thoughts of a dead saint and mating birds and instead, focus on the matter at hand. Do you need a date? Let’s see. Having no date would make you: still you, still human, still the same, nothing’s changed. Hmm, interesting. Let’s go further. “On Feb. 14, people are going out on nice, expensive dates.” So? You can go out yourself then or in any other time of the year. Mind-blowing, right? It’s all smoke and mirrors, empty desires made necessities shoved into us by society’s equally empty beliefs. You don’t have to do it just because everyone else is. If you do find ‘that’ someone, cool. Make everyday Valentine’s day for him/her, that’ll make your relationship strong. If you don’t, that’s alright too! Don’t rush a relationship because you’re pressured to having one. It’s not fair for you and for the other person.

TWO IS BETTER THAN ONE, BUT NOT ALL THE TIME

So you’ve come to grips with not having a date and not forcing anything off of it. Now…what? What do you do? You discover yourself. “That’s freaking cheesy, man.” No, it’s not. Does doing things you like or doing things you’ve always wanted to do sound boring? Do what fulfills you. Love yourself! That way, you can free yourself from the insane thought that you are incomplete without someone. A lovely nightmare it may seem, it’s false. Think of all the priests, monks, nuns, and everyone else living “alone” but are genuinely happy. They exist and they’re contented. So could you. Let me make one thing clear: I’m not saying you should close your heart to love. I’m just dispelling the idea of you being dependent on someone else. You can be an independent person! You can be happy. IF and AND when the right one comes, you’ll be right and ready.

How to reset your mind for 2019 without any brain transplant

Posted on Jan 5, 2019 by Jk Andrew

New Year 2019 was a blast! Fireworks popped from left and right despite them being illegal here in the Philippines (people will always find a way), food being as sinful as ever (sisig a-plenty with lechon backing it up)! It was a grand time for most of us, but what do we do now that the fireworks have stopped and that reality is beginning to strip away the lovely reverie created by the festivities? How do we deal with the ‘things‘ we set aside during the holidays? Assuming you’re one of the lucky ones who managed to sweep them under the rug temporarily.

DROP YOUR PHONE.
No I’m not saying you should literally drop your expensive new iPhone Xs (not that you’re ever going to do that). I’m saying that you should leave your phone behind or stop excessively being on social media if you are like most people, myself included. I am beginning to correlate, based-off of personal experiences, that the more I use social media, the greater the “noise” is in my mind. This “noise” triggers a switch which causes me to get anxious and later on feel sad, hopeless, and guilty altogether. It’s not a fun fruit salad. A study actually backs up this experience of mine! Hooray! My agony is something useful! I’m not saying we should stop using social media altogether, what I AM saying is we should navigate these waters well! And by navigate I mean know when we’re using them too much that we begin wasting time.

MOVE YOUR BODY
HERE ME OUT before you close this tab! OKAY if you’ve spotted the grammatical error and batted an eye roll, can you at least see this through? I discovered that working out does wonders for your mind (and body, too!). It doesn’t have to be the back-breaking stereotype we see. It can be as as calm as yoga, or a bit of core workout, or even a 30 minute jog! Starting is the hardest part, but once you get past that initial hurdle, it only gets easier! The point of remotely wanting to work out is not only to get a toned and healthy body, it’s also to de-stress your mind or to remove the clutter that clogs it.

WE NEED TO SEE OTHER PEOPLE
It doesn’t need to be a shrink (but that could work wonders). It’s anyone you trust! I know it initially sounds cheesy but there is something about face-to-face interaction — being there at the moment — that no online conversation can replace. Perhaps it’s the human element or the spirit that makes it unique. “But what do we talk about, Mr. Void?” Brilliant question! Simple answer! Anything! Talk about whatever you want to! The latest buzz in pop culture? The latest indie film? The looming fear of the unknown? What lies beneath the known universe? Anything! Just make sure the person you want to talk to wants or is at least willing to listen to you.

*Random indie film GIF, not some signal to make out with anyone*

TAKE ‘EM DOWN
No I do NOT mean take someone down. I meant take down your thoughts and write them on a journal. I cannot stress this enough as seen from my past blog that JOURNALING 👏 HELPS 👏 BIG 👏 TIME 👏. Whether you’re having a horrid day because you spilled a cup of coffee on your favourite shirt, or having an awesome nap on the way to work and waking up just a a stoplight away from your stop, writing down your thoughts and emotions will help you a lot! Journaling helps relieve us from stress and excessive emotions that might cause toxicity later on. Still think I’m joking? Then why am I still writing this to you? 😉

NO TALKING IN THE LIBRARY
So many people take meditation or even prayer for granted, some even smirk at them. But little did they know, actually even I, that meditation has not one but several effects to our bodies that are proven by science! Among its many benefits to our mind and body, stress reduction, anxiety control, and increased self-awareness are what I consider the top three! You can read more about the other effects of meditation here!

“New year, new me” is what all the cool kids say, and nothing says a fresh new you than having a calm mind and putting more attention your mental health. Use your phone only when you need to. Talk to your family and friends. Write your thoughts. Value silence and alone time. And for God’s sake, hit the gym or hit the road. Chin up and keep smiling! 🌹

Surviving the Post-Christmas High

Posted on Dec 27, 2018 by Jk Andrew

If you’re like me, the Christmas high would all but be waning right now. We’ve all heard it before: “Christmas doesn’t feel as joyful like it did when we were young.” While it’s true for me and for a lot of sad kids (mine waned over a decade ago, I wrote about it here), I can’t speak for everyone. I knew I had to do something as I felt the final breaths of my Christmas high, and here I am, surviving my first time without it (died a few weeks ago). Lucky me! And as my initiative to turn things around and be the one who gives this time, allow me to share to you how I survived my first-ever post-Christmas high!

CREATE your reason to be happy

When I finally realized that the Spirit of Christmas left me (and in its wake, the memory of Christmases past which I call “its Body”), I was in shock. I stared at the walls of my room for what seemed like an eternity. Surely enough after some time, I woke up from the daze and acted. I can’t waste away like this, this can’t be it. With this new driving force behind me, I started to create a new meaning, a new definition, a new reason on why I should be happy for this season. If in the past my source of bliss was the gifts I unwrapped from under the Christmas tree, now it’s contemplating and appreciating the things and the people I have in my life. I know it might sound cheesy and cringe-worthy to some, but this is my new reason for being happy this season. Hopefully, you give it a try.

BUSY yourself

Don’t worry if the first one doesn’t work for you (it worked around 70% for me). This is what I did next when I realized that #1 wasn’t a complete remedy to my sorrows. I went into my room, locked the door, and pulled out my…sheets and sat down. I dropped everything I was doing and emptied my mind. I closed my eyes and began to ponder, “What could I do? How do I busy myself?” I thought of the things I needed to do, or wanted to do. As I continued to reflect, I remembered that I wanted to start blogging. I knew there were other sad kids like me, and I knew they needed help. Fortunately enough, I was able to learn from the sadness and manage to avoid falling into the same holes…well, most of the time. And that’s what I did. Upon becoming aware of myself, I acted and did what I needed to do. Viola, what you are reading now is a product of my self-actualization. What’s something you need or want to do? Is it to learn how to edit videos? To learn photoshop? To learn photography? I learned photography, too! Or is it something like starting a blog? Are you working on it? Start today!

GIVE

If you’re somehow like me (again) and you found joy in Christmases past from receiving a ton of gifts, then you definitely need to read through this one. Now that you, too, have a void in your heart where joy used to be, you need to do something about it. What can we do to upset this sadness? If before our joy is in receiving, why not flip the tables and give? Why not be the reason for someone else’s joy this Christmas? I hope you don’t get the wrong idea of me forcing you to buy gifts for other people. Although that would be awesome, please don’t limit the idea of gifts as something tangible or material. From the eternal words of Mindy from The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, “My presence IS my present.” Spend time with people. With family. With friends. With that old lady across the street. With that homeless guy you walk pass by everyday. Maybe throw in some food or some clothes while you’re at it. Be the gift!

Occupying myself with these four things helped bring a new kind of joy in me. It was by creating new meaning that I finally got to focus on what or who truly matters this season. I learned to busy myself with things that helped me grow and be fulfilled as a person, but most importantly, I became mature enough to shine the spotlight over someone else. Instead of asking for things, I’m now beginning to find joy in giving to other people. Whatever I receive, I accept wholeheartedly. Oh, and here’s a bonus tip for you!

BONUS TIP!!

This for the history buffs and all the people who want a bit more brain food. All this talk about the “Spirit of Christmas” had me thinking a while back: “WHY do we celebrate Christmas? What is it really all about? Is there really a Santa Claus (hint, there was but he’s slimmer and different than the one we grew up with)” What I discovered had me on the edge. I could not believe it at first, but now I came into grips about the truth behind them! Click here for the truth behind Christmas!

How I lost Christmas…and how I found it again.

Posted on Dec 24, 2018 by Jk Andrew

Sadness doesn’t choose when. It cares not if it’s your anniversary with your girlfriend or if it’s your folks’. It cares not if you’re having the best day of your life because you finally hung out with friends you haven’t seen in months. Hell, sadness doesn’t even care if it’s the birthday of an almighty Deity. Nothing seems to be spared from the gaping emptiness sadness gifts to everything it encounters. Not even the divine.

Christmas time has always been something to look forward to, especially to us Filipinos who begin celebrating it as late as the first second of September. Just this year I witnessed our vice mayor blast Christmas In Our Hearts by Jose Mari Chan, the grand daddy of Filipino Christmas music. It was August 31, my dear readers. As the years went by, the Spirit of Christmas showed no signs of waning. Perhaps it was my fault for taking it for granted (really, it was just me lowkey expecting kickass gifts from my parents). Eleven years. Eleven blissful Christmases. The Spirit waned when I was 12, after having found out that there was no gift under the tree for me, and how that was a stark reality I had to accept and get used to from then on.

I didn’t adapt so well. Year after year, I was forced to witness the thing I loved slowly wither and die. Like a child who braved to see his first pet be ‘put down’, I was in pain. It was a pain that doesn’t sting but one that gnaws you from the inside until there is nothing left. It was this year when the Spirit died. Now I’m left carrying its corpse and to occasionally waving its lifeless body at people who cheerily greet “Merry Christmas!” The Spirit left but its body remained. “What do I do with it now?“, a recurring line from my daily monologue. This void left by the Spirit, sorrow immediately made its home. A soul-crushing remorse from Christmases past. It was a sadness unlike any other. A sadness so sly but made its presence know from the dread it loomed above my head. It threatened to swallow my sanity to the point that I can barely feel anything at all. Almost not even the sadness itself.

I contemplated, and contemplated, and contemplated. For days, I thought of nothing else but why. Why did I lose that joy? Why do I barely feel anything anymore? Why does this sadness crush me so greatly that there’s almost nothing left to feel? It was then when someone whispered materialism. It was the gifts. The Spirit waned when the gifts stopped coming. Maybe it wasn’t the Spirit of Christmas I was celebrating all this time. Maybe it was something different altogether.

“But as it took its last breath and left, I realized something that’s now slowly changing me.”

Those were long, grueling years in pursuit of a dying Spirit. But as it took its last breath and left, I realized something that’s now slowly changing me. For the better. I’m free. We’re free. Free to make meaning. It was when I realized this that I was able to free myself from the sadness that bound me to the past. We’re free to make our own traditions. We’re free to make new meaning for things. Gifts may stop coming. Surprises will stop…surprising us. People can leave. Families may not spend Christmas together (though hopefully not). But I tell you this, no matter how bad it gets, our happiness is in our hands and we are the ones to decide what makes us happy.

Merry Christmas! Chin up and keep smiling!

Remembering Sunday

Posted on Dec 23, 2018 by Jk Andrew

Imagine a lovely Sunday morning, your face greeted by gentle rays of sunlight and kissed by cold breaths of December air. As you slip on you slippers and begin your descent to the living room, the sound of crackling bacon catches your attention but not before its smell does and you waft towards the kitchen. You see dad at the dining table, reading the morning paper. Breakfast has been prepared and only mom and the bacon are missing. The perfect Sunday morning.

“It was all going well I didn’t do anything wrong“, you muttered insensibly before sprinting to your room, dropping a piece of bacon on the floor.

Mom finally brings home the bacon and breakfast starts. As you munch on that third strip of bacon, a brief absence of light happens, like those one second blackouts where you’re unsure if it actually happened or you just blinked longer than usual. Mom and dad’s voices are slowly getting muffled. the walls of your home being closing in on you without moving from their foundation. Only you feel this. Then phantom hands phase through your skull and abruptly squeeze your mind. “Stop“, you harshly whisper. Mom and dad barely heard. “Stop, stop, stop, please not today“, you beg. “It was all going well I didn’t do anything wrong“, you muttered insensibly before sprinting to your room, dropping a piece of bacon on the floor. You faint.

Recalling these events grant me a lovely cup of shortened breaths and a slice of anxiety. I’m quite sure some of you have had similar, hopefully less intense experiences. I haven’t seen a shrink yet to know if this is normal or if it’s something serious like a disorder (it would be awesome if this were still considered normal). I hope and pray YOU see one soon for peace of mind. But for the others who are still building the courage and the resources to see one (a soft stigma exists), I was able to come up coping mechanisms that hopefully help you, too. Here are three things that helped me live!

Don’t use the phone.

What do you do first thing in the morning? Do you pray? Do you sit still for a couple of minutes thinking of nothing? Tabula rasa style? Or do you pick up your phone and do a “quick check” on your notifs and social media accounts which often takes an hour or two? Just like that, an eighth of our day is gone. “But your math isn’t right“, title of your sextape (B99 reference) doesn’t matter. This is the case for many, I included. I haven’t perfected this yet, but I’m getting there! I did a little experiment with myself a while back. I compared the days when I didn’t pick up my phone first thing in the morning with the days that I did. As shocking as it may seem, the likelihood of me experiencing those “blackouts” were significantly lower when I didn’t pick up my phone. Don’t get me wrong, blackouts still happened during some of those days but on with lesser intensity.

Write, don’t tweet.

concept of children’s dreams and travels. pilot aviator child with a toy airplane plays at home in his room

For some of us, tweeting our feelings and sentiments about dread appears like a solution. It did for me, but not in the long run. The way I understand it, Twitter poses itself as a ‘public diary’ with which people scream their hearts out to a bird-shaped whole while subconsciously hoping someone from the other end answers back in agreement. This actually works but it also backfires. Big time. We feel a rush of validation whenever that bird scream back with ‘likes’ and ‘retweets’. When it doesn’t? It sucks the life out of me. Now if you’re not a celebrity or an “important” person, the latter scenario most likely happens. Heck, even if you arean “important” person, it’s not healthy to rely on other people’s validation of your feelings. You are your own person, and that in itself makes everything you feel valid. Go write your thoughts. Go spill your heart out on paper. Start writing.

Stop, breathe, and be.

Don’t fight the moment when it’s there. Don’t resist but don’t cave in. Stand or sit still. Breathe. Be. Let the moment be and let it slip away. There is beauty and strength in observing from a distance. Observe yourself. What would you do if you didn’t hit the brakes and stop? You can rewire yourself and your habits. Yes it’s true you can’t not feel, but what happens after that you have complete control over.

Don’t be dismayed if you can’t do these properly at first. I still fail every once in a while and that’s okay! Trust me when I say it gets better the more you keep on trying. You’ll be more self-aware and more in control of your actions. Chin up and keep smiling! 🙂

Who AM I? Why should you spend precious minutes reading the thoughts of a mad man?

Posted on Dec 22, 2018 by Jk Andrew

Like any other kid these days, I’m sad. I suffer onslaughts of seemingly unending questions about life, existence, death, and a host of other things grown-ups never sat us through. Despite all of these, I’m somehow alive and living. The time I spent on the void (that is my mind) contemplating about these things somehow enlightened me in a dark and brooding way (I still do these days). From one sad kid to another, there is rest in all of this struggle. Whether or not you believe in divine intervention, there is always an end to everything. Such is common in all things, I discovered. No matter how pleasing or horrible things and circumstances get, they always end. Perhaps this is why you should read the entries of a mad man who’s finally found reason and sanity. Maybe the fact that I am here, alive and jotting down thoughts to pose as a saving grace for others, is hope that light will shine for us tomorrow.