Looking Through Windows

I was walking the dog around the neighborhood on this mid morning, mild la.... z y Summer day and as we strolled the suburban sidewalks, I started to take these long gazes through the windows of my "neighbors," neighbors I have never met, mind you, but their homes ARE in a 10 block radius of my own. I noticed some had minature statues placed on the window sill for public view, others had what looked like their children's art work proudly displayed and yet some windows had closed shutters.

I thought to myself: You can tell quite a bit about a person by their windows.

I recalled walking the dog at night. Through their living room windows, I could see "neighbors" seated in comfy chairs watching television unaware that I was peering into their life.

I wondered does anyone peer into my window at night!?

Upon returning home from the walk (still a mid morning lazy summer DAY) the dog and I took a seat on the swinging bench on the outdoor deck built in side/backyard. My bedroom window is only visible from this deck. Looking outside in at my own room through the LARGE window gave me a strange feeling. I felt like I was seeing myself from another's perspective.

I was beside myself, outside myself. Surreal.

In the corner of the room a full sizebed

On a table being used as desk: a computer, a stereo, a desk lamp and papers scattered about

On the floor: stacks of books and a pile of laundry waiting to be washed

Taped or tacked to the walls: posters, miscellaneous "things," notes to myself and momentos from far off places, people and times...

And a mirror

Reflecting another angle of the room

a mirror without my reflection

but reflecting my "stuff"

I was then inlicned to go IN my room and look OUT.

So this is how I'm spending my Summer! haha

Time is Relative(ly unstoppable, for you can't go back.... but in our minds.... YES, you can go back!)

After having read a friend's blog, [ Hi Shawna ;-) ] I was inspired to dig up these old blogs of mine that relate to the idea of writing to yourself across time.

Anyway for what it's worth...



Blogs Recyled three times over, but hey! It's probably NEW to you!


Thursday, August 10, 2006
About me
Category: Life

So here are 2 entries from my personal writings. So you may know me and where i've been. feel free to comment or send a message letting me know how you are, and where life has taken you. as for me, I am good, really good. My lady and I are taking steps to moving out of the bay area and going back to school. and i just been surfing working writing reading living and just being with folk as much as I can. . .
L-8-r,
philip
So this is what I write to myself:
**take note of the dates. The 1st one was a month or so ago. The 2nd one is recent in its reflections.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Friday, May 26, 2006
9:10 AM
Millbrae home

Sloth, Ineffective, forgetful of ones personal goals, He wants to do more with time. More than just watch TV mindlessly. Sleepy Relaxing . . . just to be lazy

Push yourself dam it! Push yourself out from your own skin, and FEEL change. Be change. Conscious change. Body, Exercise: make time for it and get over laziness. Heart: remember to see people, understand them, cherish your time with them, nurture relationships. Pay attention when they speak. Listen. Ask them how they are. Make them feel special. Spirit: Analyze and reflect on morals and how you are living. Are you living the way you ought to? Mind. Exercise your intellect. Learn. . study. . . stay on top of responsibilities.

And . . . My problem. what I need to work on:

Walking the talk

I know these things and believe these ideas/notions, but I don’t really live them, practice them. they do not emanate from my being. And that is failure in a sense.

I pray that I will live more consciously.
I pray that I will live more consciously.
I pray that I will live more consciously.

Follow thru on these thoughts of mine, live these thoughts of mine and feel the change in each and everyday. Turn the whole thing upside down . . . I can try. I will try, I will do.

Reflect, Appreciate Analyze Understand, Anticipate
So now SHOW don’t just merely TELL

And start writing this novel . . .

Character learns his morals thru time,
And today in this anything goes type of society.

SO me.

Why do I do things?

To aspire to goodness?
So what is goodness?
Let me think on that more. ..

Vice and virtue tradition.

I want to consciously decide how I want to live.

I don’t want to just live my life.
I want to live my life as how I have decided.
Not just live merely what is prescribed to me by society.

Let me figure it out for my self.
Think on it deeply.

Give my self time to think on things more often.

Thursday, August 10, 2006
3:55 PM
Mild Millbrae Summer Afternoon


I was browsing the shelves at the local library today, and spotted a book titled The Promise Remains or Keeping the Promise or something along those lines. I didn’t bother to pull the book from the shelf, but the title struck a chord with me. The phrase Promises you make to Yourself came to mind. So I wondered if there were any promises I had made with myself in my younger days that I have yet to keep. . .

So what were the dreams I held to as a young teenager?
What did I NOT want to lose as I became an adult?
What feelings did I want to stay with me? What did I want to keep with me as time moved me forward and I began to mature, began growing older and losing my youthfulness?
What ideas, beliefs defined me in those days . . . I wonder . . .
Who was I when I was coming of age, as I know I have changed.

Only I truly know the answers to those questions. But here are a few things that come to mind about who I was:

Even back then I wanted to be a writer. I remember sometime in high school I wrote out a contract between me and my best friend that before I was 30 I would be a published writer. We bet $ 100 (Back then that was a BIG chunk of change. We were in high school with just part time jobs, you know!) So even then I loved the power of words . . .

What else. Oh man. Back in the day I was quite the Romantic. . . Love Sick Puppy, and just really Free Spirited . . . and I was dam proud of being that way, too.
I had hella Slow Song Tapes and was just so into Wishing on Stars, Expressing the Love I felt for _______ or _______ depending on what time period were talking about (they will remain nameless, hahaha, though if you really know me you probably know their names or will know that you were one of those names, hahaha, anyway). I was always in Love and not only with the women I loved and still do, but I felt Love for simply Being Alive. I was so Inspired and Stoked on Life back then. . .

But I was governed by Emotion. Very little Reason back then . . . so as I grew older I swayed back and forth between the two extremes and now I am happy to say: I am a Balanced Individual who is eager to learn the Wisdom and Truth of those that surround me. . .

So my friend, please share some of your Truth with me.

Her are some of the reflections I see staring at me from the past. Snippets from my 28 years on this Earth

In my life:

I have been the Day Dream Believer,
I have been the Heart Broken Boy picking flowers for his lost love and taking walk all alone in the late afternoons
I have been the Pragmatist, Mr. Productivity, Senor E`fficience` (haha)
I have been the Chain Smoking, Nihilistic, Self Destructive Loner, Pushing the World Away
I have been the Idealist; the Fight the System, take down the man Rebel Kid
I have been Naïve, I have been Used. I have been wronged and I have done wrong.
I have been stupid
I have been clever
I have been boastful,
I have been humble(d). . .

I have been the Poet, spending late hours of the night writing on my lot in life, Full of Questions, Brooding on Philosophy, waiting for Discovery and on the verge of something new and foreign to my young mind back then.
I have been the observer. Watching from the sidelines and learning how things work and wondering how they could be done differently.

I have been the older brother, the oldest son, the close friend, the jealous boyfriend, the wacky co-worker, the mysterious quiet one in the group.

I have been much in my life.
I have been and continue to be human
I relish in Individuality within Community

And now I know that we must always be generous with what we have . . .we must be right with ourselves before giving into something/someone else. . . and we must Love, and we must Teach and Feel and really Think, really Ponder on things . . . and always Change for the better . . . Fall, for we all do, but Do Not Fail to Rise and Open Your Eyes, Learn. We all have something to learn . . .

Peace to you and yours and theirs and or maybe just you, but not really . . . cuz no one is alone unless they want to be.
Peace Love Positivity and Consciousness . . . and then some. . .

4:53 PM
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Sunday, September 23, 2007

Life, I wonder. . . Current mood: creative Category: Blogging

Exert from a letter TO a friend [appended with extrapolated ideas and edited to fit a BLOG format. hahaha, I be getting hella technical with my description of these words typed; man . . . there just words, hahaha]

Me writing to a friend:

…I'm good. I can honestly say I love my job, I love what I do for a living (City College). Well, actually I can say I love my jobs. I enjoy working at the Surf Shop from time to time. I am also finding that working at Longs Drugs is actually fun when I just work a few hours and only on Saturdays.

And with Kickboxing 3 times a week, Surfing once or twice a week and Working on my Writing in my leisure moments, I must say life is grand.

Ahh... Life.

I wonder where we'll all be in 15 years. We'll be 44-45 years old (for you that are my age). Will one of us have a family by then?

Hmmm....

I definitely DO WANT a family. So I'm putting aside a little from every paycheck for that.

Seriously, 15 years will pass in the blink of an eye.
And man... I got dreams I want to make happen;
What's the use of dreaming if you ain't gonna make 'em come true? Ya know.

Are we just hoping to hope? Or do we hope that one day these wishes will come to fruition?

Hazy dreaming or a crisp clear REALITY?

Yes... Dream, we all should imagine a brighter place, but don't stop there. Make it happen, dig?


"Would you rather have a dream or some substance? . . .
a Lexus or Justice?
a Beamer, a necklace or …FREEDOM!"
--Dead Prez


Aight, I kinda got off topic but dig:

I'm living life day to day and enjoying it all and at the same time, building a foundation for the future. I live in the present, prepare for tomorrow and…

often times I find myself in reverie recalling where I've been in this life: how People who are still in my life today and also people who used to be in my life long ago, how both have shaped my identity. How all these life experiences are part of me and I take them with me as I journey forward gaining new layers and seeing new colors…

Ah life... I love it.

Now to go back to the part where I write:

And man... I got dreams I want to make happen:

and they are Raising a Family, Continuing my Career in Education and Serving Students, Traveling, Writing...

Funny...Now that I think of it

I AM Living My Dreams
Today and Everyday.

I am truly blessed. I guess I'll just keep doing what I'm doing, get some more Traveling in and then when and if the universe allows it, hopefully I'll have a woman and kids to grow together with =)

And that is life...

Well... life as I see it at the young age of 29. We'll see what I have to say in 15 years!

I haven't talk about death, loss, heartache, and all the injustice in the world, but it is there and I am aware of it, but we do what we can and try to live our lives as balanced as we can.

So how YOU livin'?

3 Days Fell Away and Now I'm BACK!

It falls away like a snake shedding old skin... then I fill it, I fill the day, with doing and moving, with restraint and fasting, pushing limits and then relaxing.

In three days time the sickeness has retreated and dissipated to nothing more than me laying in bed and saying to myself: "What's this? I feel better! Back to work," prepping materials and compiling data, cutting weight, working out techiniques and combos, improving reaction time, reading movement, &c.

My weight shifts and swings. This can't be healthy, but it is a fighter's lifestyle, so "they" say.

When this Summer ends someone (not "they") remind that I'm a grad student and writer.

After this summer-- Hang up my gloves and STOP taking fights!

There are not enough hours in the day to do everything!

So for this Summer: 2 fights, get rid of one of my cars, make space: donating/selling extra clothes and other misc. items. Plan finances for the rest of the year. Enroll in 2 classes, finish up application....

For Fall Semester: Work at CCSF, Take 2 classes, Write and Surf in spare time and NO MORE FIGHTS. JUST STUDY AND WRITE!

ahh... life planning and such.

Random Jottings Thru Out the Day

Thursday, June 12, 2008
4:56 PM

Thoughts for a story: Speaker’s Intentions and Receiver’s Interpretations do NOT coincide. Disconnect. Because Action/words/behavior do not support speaker’s/do-er’s intentions or....maybe the Interpreter MIS-interprets because things in THEIR personal life affect their interpretation. Hmm…

5:28pm Left house to train (Muay Thai)

Back to writing 10:00pm-ish Listening to Lenny Kravitz’s Mama Said 1991 album on CD of which I borrowed from the library

Passing judgment on certain types of people. Pretentious snooty elitist snobbish types

High brow vs. low brow- how about: mid brow!

Character: Middle class, Average Joe sensibility and mass appeal, but with an artistic creative intellectual’s quirks and eccentricities.
Socially adaptable… eclectic, diverse. Worldly, multicultural.



Writer’s dilemma: Spending most of your time writing about life rather than actually experiencing it for yourself or should we rather live life without much reflection on the past-- your own and that of others. Also NOT seeing other perspectives, points of view, NOT imagining…

How about? Find that middle ground between Living Life and Writing “about “ life.


Beginning
Establish character(s): past and current situation
Plot, Setting, description, feelings, themes arise, relationships/conflicts with other characters, with self, with setting, with ideology, with the reader?
(Ocean) Swell Building…

Middle
Choices made, consequences dealt out, (Ocean) Wave Breaking

End: twist? (Ocean) Water Rolls back out to sea
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Coming to terms with YOU. If you’re a tease, accept that you are tease and maneuver thru life as such.

If you’re spaz. Be the best spaz you can be!

Now there is a JOURNEY to self-realization, to becoming CONCSCIOUS of your personality traits. And a JOURNEY to OWNING them, to MANAGING them.
Make THAT into a story!
ok sleep now to wake up early for "dawn patrol" (that's surf speak for an early morning surf session).

Aloha! (means "hello," "goodbye," "I love you" and other things!)

For any fight fans out there....

Saturday, June 21, 2008

XFight and Fairtex"War Of The Heroes"

Fairtex, the largest Martial Arts and Muaythai Equipment and Apparel company in the World, presents "War of the Heros" at the Santa Clara Convention Center featuring 5 USMF (United States Muaythai Federation) Championship title fights, Saturday, June 21, 2008.

Wassup people! For any fight fans out there, I will be fighting on the under card of this show. Tickets are $40. Come if you can.

To buy tickets on line go to:

http://www.virtualboxoffice.com/

Thanx,

Philip

New York, New York

New York Public Library














New York Public Library














Central Park














Iced Coffee at Byrant Park

A Few Pics from NYC Trip.

Buildings reflect on building.

Liezl and me and in SOHO

Cool-looking building down by Chelsea Piers

Really!?

Taking a break from all the hustle and bustle.

more pictures to come