Putting on Christmas Weight

Oh, god, I'm putting on so much Christmas weight.

It doesn't help that I'm a stress eater, and as degree holder in that totally useless intellectual pursuit of Philosophy, I'm really wicked in rationalizing. It's not fair, even to me, when I rationalize with myself why I should stuff my face with food. Here are some of my favorite rationalizations for cheating on my diet:

I'm burning this off at the gym tomorrow. This may sound logical. Sometimes, for a particular fitness goal, you need to load up on carbs, protein, and other fuel so you can burn it off. This sounds like the best excuse for someone like me to a.) stuff my face with food, and b.) force myself to the gym. However, I'm quite fickle minded when it comes to my fitness goals. There are days when I want to look crazy beautiful thin like Francisco Lachowski, or insanely fit like that Brody guy in Glee, and sometimes, I wannna be as massive as Dwayne The Rock Johnson. So, it's really frustrating when I eat like a hippo, hoping to run it off like a Cheetah, onlyy to go to the gym and meander around like a pregnant mammoth.

I deserve this for the day I've had. Ok, so sometimes you have one of those days that you just want to stab clients in their weird eyes that look like they're watching people from two different directions. Also, there are days when you're so pleased with something you've done, you feel like you deserve a reward. The worst is when I'm dealing with a particularly difficult client and somehow managing to overcome the challenges, then I eat for, like, 5 people. Two of them drowning their sorrows in carbs, the other two are celebrating, and there's the lonely guy who just came along for the salad.

I will start on my diet tomorrow. AKA, Dead Man's Last Meal. So, once in a while, I get this crazy idea into my head that I am desperate enough to starve myself gorgeous. Usually, this happens after mildly stalking Filipino bodybuilders from my model friends' network of other really insanely fit friends. These guys have a thing called "a season" where they basically obssess about eating nothing but fish and vegetables and protein supplements and spending mad amount of time lifting cars so they can compete in body building competitions. I don't get bodybuilding competitions. It's like it's halfway between a real sport and a beauty pageant, and it's madly competitive. Anyway, dedication to look that way demands an insane amount of discipline, and perhaps, a healthy dose of mental illness.. I have an insane amount of mental illness, and the discipline I have is reserved for BDSM nights with strangers I meet up with from the internet. So, as I browse through galleries after galleries of these almost naked men and their bulging muscles, I can't help but feel the deepest and sincerest of envy. I wish I can look like that. So, immediately after drying my eyes from ugly crying over the physique I so badly want, I make a resolution to never eat anything again, unless it contains 20 grams of protein per serving. This resolution I celebrate the night before by eating a meal equivalent to the weight of Kim Chiu. The next day, I immediately forget about being on a diet because I get distracted by watching American TV shows on my laptop.

I don't get to eat like this everyday.  So, I'm at a restaurant with friends. Or I'm alone, and I'm looking for a place to eat before I write in a coffeeshop. Anyway, I enter a place, with all the intention of ordering the tiniest portion of their lightest salad. My expectations don't go beyond nibbling on a piece of carrot. Instead, I end up ordering like half the menu. Because I'm thinking, I don't get to eat like this everyday. See, I was born poor. I grew up in the ghetto of Kalookan's 3rd Avenue. If you haven't been to Kalookan's 3rd Avenue, count yourself lucky. Now that I have my own job, and I'm making my own money, I suppose I can treat myself to dinner that my parents never could have afforded. Which is a really stupid way to justify eating a 6-course meal alone.

Just so we're clear, I spend an insane amount of time at the gym and training for mixed martial arts. When I'm at the gym, I'm usually all pumped up and sweating my blood out. I'm not like one of those limp guys who go to the gym just so they can check-in on Foursquare. If I increase the intensity of my physical activities, my heart would probably just burst.

The problem is really with how much I'm eating. I wish I have a friend to intervene. It's sad that I would need intervention.

But then, I can always eat the sadness away.

Instant Insecurity

OK, so cameras have "instant sharing" functions now. Basically, the new generation of cameras in the market have a function that lets you share your photos to your social network as soon as you've taken them.

This, plus the fact that mobile networks compete in providing the most affordable and most reliable services in enabling this via 3G or LTE networks.

One can't help but wonder: Have we gone so in need of affirmation that we cannot wait until we process our experiences before sharing them to the world? Why is there a sense of urgency in our insecurity?

Why do we tweet AT the moment, and not ABOUT the moment?

Do we need people to LIKE our dinner before we even taste it?

As a performance artist, the time-exclusivity of each performance--as bound by the "now"-ness of it--is a dimension that is integral in the piece's whole. When I perform a poem--as oppose to it being an object on the page, a written piece that you consume on your time--the performance is made richer by the fact that it exists on THAT MOMENT alone. The performance maybe the same for the audience who is watching it live and watching it on video via Youtube, but the performance will never be the same for the performer. The moment is the performance, the performance is the moment.

With this "instant sharing" nonsense, people are sharing their shit in real time. Now, everybody's going "look at me, look at me", and they're doing it NOW, and they're doing it easier, and they're doing it everywhere.

There is no process. There is no critical thinking involved in instant sharing. Instant sharing diminishes the experience. Processing the experience allows you to amalgate your learnings, your insights, your point of view, into the actual moment of experience. All of that is compromised through instant sharing, and for what? For the convenience of "getting liked right now".

It's dumb. And I don't trust people who NEED instant sharing in their lives.

FTW - Follow That Whore

"RT for a follow back," said one minor celebrity on Twitter. This was followed by several fans griping about someone being too snobbish to follow back.

Why are people so obsessed with getting Twitter followers? It's dumb. This whole concept of campaigning for followers.

These are the very simply reasons why I WILL NEVER ASK YOU TO FOLLOW ME:

1.) I get nothing out of it. My life is not improved by you following me. I won't wake up tomorrow strangely stronger, able to do more laps than before, simply because I gained 40 followers overnight. I can't go to the store and tell them to give me stuff and charge it on my thousands of followers.

2.) YOU benefit from the content I generate IF you follow ME. So, the way I see it, YOU should ASK ME if you can follow me.Your mind will be blown by the new ideas I'll spit out. On a lackluster day, a random update from me might send you laughing out loud on your dirty floor or spiralling down the staircase of madness that you land on your feet holding a sawed off shotgun against your client's head.

So, there. I'm not gonna ask you to follow me. That's a risk you have to take yourself.