what! another blog?

welcome to impulse blogging!

yes, it is another blog from me. i really don't know why i have this penchant for changing blogs every so often. it could be a form of emotional molting. shedding the old skin for new in the hopes to be cleansed and be more beautiful afterwards.

it may be so for the first few entries especially when that feeling of being a new person is still in the consciousness. then everyday stuff happens and you get caught up and you forget what it was like to be very beautiful and very clean. but i guess that is how life works. you go forwards, but paradoxically in circles. you start with your self and in the course of looking for your self you go here and there and every where and yet still end up where you began. sometime wiser. sometimes the same old fool.

there was actually a previous attempt for a blog change, which name i got from the first line of a tolkien poem in "the hobbit" - roads go ever on and on (see first entry of that blog below). however, after a few entries... it didn't feel right.

i wanted it to be about journeys, especially since i am traveling through many life-changing roads this year. but i wasn't able to convey the things i wanted and seemed to have gotten lost along the way. i was just glad i didn't go public with it yet that i could still change my mind about how i wanted my new blog to be.

so why impulse blogging? simply because i blog on impulse, on gut feel. and it gives me license to write about any thing any time. not that i don't usually do that. but naming a blog specifically for something, like biyaheng mindanao or the cross-eyed bear became limiting.

i just have too many interests and too little mastery in any of them to put a single personality on my blog. not that it is being imposed by anyone either. it's actually just me who wanted a personality for my blogs... hoping get a steady stream of strangers to check on me and maybe earn a few bucks along the way. but in the end... i realized i'm not that gifted of a writer. and most of the time i do write entries just because and with certain people in mind who i want to "listen" and they happen to be people i actually know and probably the only ones who would care about what is happening.

so yeah... most of the stuff here might end up gibberish. sometimes deep. sometimes funny (i hope). sometimes boring. sometimes nonsense. mostly blabber. mostly candid. just like who i am.

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my first entry on roads go ever on and on:

Monday, March 24, 2008, 4:47 PM

This first of the "Roads go ever on and on" verses written by JRR Tolkien can be found in "The Hobbit." Bilbo Baggins recites the poem at the end of the book as he was ready to go home. This particular one I really like was taken from "The Lord of the Rings," also recited by Bilbo as he goes off to another adventure and leaves my precious to his nephew, Frodo Baggins.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
Whither then? I cannot say.

I can strongly relate as the second decade of my life is about to close. Knowing who I am and what my values are, I can say with conviction that the past twenty-nine years were wonderful, exciting and blessed. It has been an exciting journey so far -- a roller coaster experiences. Emotional joys and sorrows, intellectual failures and enlightenment, spiritual desolations and consolations. I have gone through all of them and have survived. I LIVED those 29 years.

Strangely, I am quite excited to face my 30's... to journey towards the future. The third decade feels like it holds a lot of promise. Just as I knew 2008 would by my year. It's only been the first quarter and already I have felt myself evolving. It seems that the universe has conspired, as Paolo Coelho claims in "The Alchemist," to lead me to my desires. In certain aspects of my life, I have relished the journey and have returned where it all began. In others, I am still looking for the treasure in the Pyramids. For some, I am still a naive shepherd trying to understand his destiny and itching to move forward.

After near thirty years, I've come to realize that it IS all about the journey. It is about putting one foot in front of the other since roads go ever on and on. After the pit stop, detour, or road block (aba, amazing race naman!), there is always something beyond. Another fork in the road, another door to open, another map to follow. The North Star is there to point, not to be reached.

I am excited. I am restless. Where many paths and errands meet, whither then? I can not say.

There is already a bend in the road. I can see it. What is beyond, I have to take the steps to get there. Fast or slow, it doesn't matter. I will get there. Patience is something I have to learn.

With eager feet, I go. As roads go ever on and on.