Gravity
by Urbandub
The Apparition Album

A thievery plot to steal your wary heart.
I've confessed to the dark, I take her blessings.
The blind leads the weak,
Shut your mouth you don't need to speak
We'll commune under twisted sheets.

I'll sing you praises before the kill.

Tell me how your body works
You're my needed releases
Pull you in to me with all gravity
Your body's worth
More than the expanse of the seas
I'm all in, cuz tonight there's only you and me

I'm chaotic, all I need is more
No use to scream, there's no one here to hear
It's erotic when we leave it all to chance
You can run if you want
You can run if you want.

I'll wait 'til the night is here

So we dance and I'm holding on
Yes, we dance and I'm holding on
I'm lost when you're not around
Tell me if you need it then I'll give it
Give you all of the world
Give you all of the world
The sin is worth the risk you're taking

Relax, concede, this will be over soon
Don't move, don't scream, breathe in

6 Feet From The Edge lyrics
Creed

Please come now
I think I'm falling
I'm holding on to what I think is safe
It seems I've found the road to no where
And I'm trying to escape
I yelled back when I heard thunder
But I'm down to one last breath
And with it let me say
Let me say...

CHORUS
Hold me now
I'm 6 feet from the edge
And I'm thinkin'
Maybe 6 feet ain't so far down

I'm lookin' down
Now that its over
Reflecting on all of my mistakes
I thought I found the road to somewhere
Somewhere in His grace
I cried out
Heaven save me
But I'm down to one last breath
And with it let me say
Let me say


(CHORUS)

Hold me now
I'm 6 feet from the edge
And I'm thinkin'
Maybe 6 feet ain't so far down
(repeat)

I'm so far down
Sad eyes follow me
Well I still believe there's something there for me
So please come stay with me
Cause I still believe there's something left for you and me...
For you and me...For you and me

Hold me now
I'm 6 feet from the edge
And I'm thinkin'

Hold me now
I'm 6 feet from the edge
And I'm thinkin'
Maybe 6 feet ain't so far down....
(repeat)

Please come now
I think I'm falling
Holding on to all I think is safe...

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Fifth Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Moderate
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Moderate
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Very High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Very High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

Got this from a Plurk by Jan. Its about paying "taxes" for a book you purchased somewhere but was sent to you via snail mail and it happened to go through a facility owned by our wonderful postal service.

You don't have to pay any taxes to get your book. If you do, especially if the postal employees insist you do, you're being held up. And if they issue you an Official Receipt its still a hold-up, na me resibo ^_^

Hey, Blooey: want some payback? I hope you kept the receipt.

Below is a repost of my email to Rep. Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel. It concerns her remarks as quoted in an Inquirer.net post.

I haven't posted this in my Mentat blog because its still a personal communique between me and her, although I've posted in two forums of gamers I am part of who know of this action (but only the members of those forums can see them). If ever she replies, I will post that one, too, with her permission.


Hi, Ma'am Risa. Its Rob' Ramos. You remember me?

I know its been quite a long time since we even talked; the last decent ones I can remember was all the way back to the heady days of the 2000 - 2001 RIO. Such a wonderful time, that. One wonders where everything went wrong.

I wish my return to correspondence with you was under better circumstances; even after the mess (in my opinion, but then, unlike the general public, I was actually at or near its epicenter) that was 8 July 2005 you remained as one of the people from the "elders" that I respected. To say I was horribly disillusioned with the whole civil-society establishment starting that day is just the surface but that's a discussion for another day.

I write you, Congresswoman, as a reaction to an article that came out in Inquirer.net where you spoke at the the University of the Philippines-Cebu College. There, according to said article, you remarked that, and I quote, “DOTA, or any role-playing game for that matter, may be fun, but it won’t be able to teach you the skills you need for your first job, or for higher education.”

Ma'am, when I saw that I had just arrived from my usual two-hour commute from the DENR Central Office and was about to have my dinner in front of my PC. As is my routine, I fire up my desktop and switch on several windows of Firefox, one of which has the Twitter-like social networking medium called Plurk. It was through the Plurk of a fellow youth leader that linked the abovementioned article that I found out that one of the people I still genuinely respected and considered one of my mentors in issue advocacy could make such a sweeping and.. potentially damaging statement that, in my experience, has very little basis.

In fact, Ma'am Risa, as a religious gamer myself - notice at my email sig that I even blog about it - I actually found the remark you made quite insulting.

For your information, even before I took my Oath of Service with God and long before I met the likes of Bobby Guevara, Fr. Luis David, Dax Manacsa, Dr. Clemens Sedmak, Dr. Noelle Rodriguez, Dr. Ronald Meinardus, Chito Gascon and you, before learning about the anawim and their plight and Liberation Theology and all the -isms and colors of the political spectrum, before knowing what a Guardian was and why I should be one... I was a gamer. And even after all that, I still remained a gamer.

In fact, I have been gaming since my parents made our family one of the first in the country with a home computer when they bought for us a Commodore 64 way back in the late '80s. What did we do with that one? GAMING, Ma'am Risa, since there was no better gaming platform at the time than a Commodore 64, which was (when the games worked) better even than the Atari with its revolutionary VIC 2 chip and real gaming sounds.

By the way: the reason why my kuya is a high-paid employee of Smart Telecoms today, and why he was sent to Chicago for free for three years in his previous employment, is because he decided he wanted to learn programming from playing with that Commodore 64. In fact, it was my kuya that convinced me to plunk between 600 - 700 USD a month on this game called World of Warcraft.

I am also an "old school" pen-and-paper roleplaying game enthusiast. Back before the first strategic wargames in computers (the earliest viable of which would be Dune II in the early '90s), I and a couple of friends would hide away in one of the least-used corridors of Manila Science High School in our free time in between classes and make-believe we were doughty warriors and magicians or high-tech cyborgs out to slay some dragon or save some damsel or city.

Ma'am Risa, when other members of Congress open their flap, I usually just wave my hand in a dismissive manner and tell my friends, "oh, that's mostly just hot air," knowing the statements were more for PR value than any real value. Remember that I once used to write speeches for the Liberal members of Congress so I should know, or at least expect that when someone from such an august chamber as the House of Representatives makes a statement on anything not directly dealing with politics, they most likely didn't do sufficient research on it and just opened their yap and say the most politically convenient and acceptable-to-the-establishment thing. Like, "gaming is bad and you won't learn anything from it."

Yes, yes, I saw your, "then play DOTA or any RPG in moderation" but it was in the MIDDLE of the article. The MIDDLE, Ma'am Risa. We both have a background in journalism, right? So we both know which part of an article is most read, and which parts almost always never get read.

Ma'am, knowing you as I do, I was actually expecting someone else to say something so unfounded and... irresponsible. One of the old coots from the ruling coalition perhaps, or one of those... misinformed Party List representatives that think the RH Bill is a sin against God and Life. That was awesome, by the way: people - respectable people - protesting against a bill, calling it anti-life, when a crusory look at it shows otherwise. All because of their biases, and because, for those people, anything with the term "reproductive health" is bad and anti-life. You should have seen the stuff they were giving out at the Greenbelt Chapel about the RH Bill.

I was expecting "those people" to say something so unfounded as that one in the linked Inq.net article's Lead Paragraph.

Not one of those I still respect, one whose statements I expected would be founded on solid research and facts.

Ma'am, let's level-off here: I agree with you that too much gaming is bad. In fact, all of my friends who are gamers agree with that "moderation" part of your statement. Those of us who are "elders" of the younger ones who play as part of our Guilds always, ALWAYS, make it a point to remind them of their responsibilities at work and, most especially, at school.

In my Guild in the game Rising Force Online Philippines, we actually SCOLD our younger players who we find online on a test week. We SCOLD our members when they put the game over their IRL lives. In fact, we ENCOURAGE them in their IRL lives and even try to inspire them to excel.

And you know what? This isn't just for the Elite Covert Operations Unit of RFO-Ph (Nexus Server). Many of the old Guilds do the same. Yes, there are "bad" Guilds and gamers out there, but in my experience, their faults notwithstanding a lot of the gamers in this country are actually decent, law-respecting young men and, yes, women.

Who actually LEARN stuff that THEY CAN USE in real life in the games we all play in.

In RF alone, due to the way the game's major goal - the capture for your Race of the location known as the Crag Mine - is designed, you have to learn three very important things: work as part of a group, organize a group, and lead a group. We play as armies here, you see, and your Race won't win the so-called Chip War (CW) if you're a disjointed, chaotic and leaderless mass. The best CWs of RFO-Ph were the ones where each Race was ably-led and acted as one. And you won't believe the level of strategizing and problem-solving that come even in casual gameplay in RF. Wait until you see what happens during major Events.

Teamwork, the effective playing of roles in a team, and leadership ability, if not management skills (especially for the really effective Guildmasters)... aren't these all things you do in real life? And need to land a job?

Do you have any idea how many of those call-center kids play online games and got jobs as tech supports, even if they aren't IT, because they learned IT while playing videogames?

Do you have any idea how many of Level Up! Games "gamemasters" used to be RF players themselves? And if you think all a GM does everyday is play games, then maybe you should fire your research assistant.

I have been a member of the RFO-Ph community since its "Open Beta" (or OB) days; my old community, the one I once fought beside you with, had been polarized by the Garci issue, my Party destroyed, my ideals killed by the same people who supposedly upheld it. I needed a home, although at the time I suppose I didn't realize I was looking for one.

Let me tell you that, despite the downs it has been through recently, you will be surprised to find your words debunked just by the RFO-Ph community, to say nothing of the community of Philippine gamers out there. Aside from those things I mentioned above, we have writers who, if given a break, could find a place among the up-and-comers of the West's science fiction writing community; these hone their skills in writing by helping the administrators of RFO-Ph craft the world we all play in. We have young artists who practice their craft by illustrating our universe, and doing simple acts of kindness by designing Forum Signatures for their fellow players, for free.

And then there's every year's LU Live. If only you could see the effort that comes in the design of those costumes, and the sheer competitiveness in the way booths are put up for the various Guilds... heck, the kids learn entreprenurial skills then and there.

There are bad seeds, yes. I will be the first to admit that, even and especially in a Congressional Hearing. In fact the RF Community nearly got broken because of this damnable "hackstorm" perpetrated by these bad seeds. In my opinion - and I have told LUG this - the game was a victim of a very concerted gray or even black op by its competitors to literally nuke what was then the no. 1 online game in the Philippines. But that's my opinion. Which means, it wasn't the community itself, the grand majority of its gamers, that gave us such a black eye but its deviants. I'm sure you'll agree with me that any community has such destructive elements.

But, Ma'am... there is so much good and utilitarian in these games. Sure, they won't learn their calculus formulas here, or their accounting... But isn't that what school is for? If kids cut class or dedicate more time for video games is it the fault of the game or the gamer, or something else?

Ma'am Risa, in case that is the argument, then let me introduce you to some of the members of my Guild. We're not a big Guild, certainly not the most powerful. But we're well known for several reasons. One of them is our Guildmaster, who was once "Board Archon" of our Race and a close adviser to many of our Racial Leaders, the guys who command our armies during the war. He, by the way, helps his dad run a business. They make these big machines that package and build stuff and my Guildmaster is their chief tech guy, the one responsible for assembling and troubleshooting these machines and talking to the clients. Their clients? Oh, just some companies. I heard their names were Unilever, P&G and this one called Coke. Ever heard of them?

One of my Guildies is so powerful in-game he's in demand during "levelling" sessions and when he "dives" into an enemy formation, he lives. He's a chef in one of the top hotels here in the Metro.

And, oh, by the way, I'm proud to say that one of our Guildmates recently got his license as one of the Republic's newest Mechanical Engineers.

We would have had a lawyer, too, but somewhere along the way he decided to more directly enforce the law instead and enrolled at the PNPA. Another guildmate, one of our ladies, is currently in boot camp in the US after having enlisted with the world's foremost Navy.

And that's just a few of them. All of them, I can say with the fullest conviction and deepest pride, are decent, hard-working, achieving, men and women. These are men and women I can present to the likes of my peers in the Union of Catholic Student Councils or even the International Federation of Liberal Youth or that old, sadly-defunct alliance called KOMPIL II-Youth and tell them... yes, these are my friends. These are my comrades.

Did you know that one of the oldest Gaming Guilds of the Philippines, the Holy Order of the Light, recently went to La Mesa Dam for an adopt a tree activity? And that one of the tenets of their Guild is to play the games they're in responsibly, fairly and with all honesty.

Responsiblity, fairness, honesty. A love and appreciation for the environment, even. Aren't these real-life things?

Yet we all learn them in-game. And not just learn: they are developed and encouraged there.

One of the lessons imprinted in my mind from those wonderful days in Fr. Luis' class was this: he asked us why is it that so many students are so active in social-reform activities while in college but nearly all disappear upon graduation? Fr. Luis pointed out that the problem lies in the loss of a mechanism that supports such activism. The orgs end at graduation and nothing fills that role up.

As one of the Republic's former youth leaders - "former," because Mar Roxas and Frank Drilon took it all away from me - I know how hard it is to get young people to join organizations such as KALIPI or your Akbayan Youth, where such values are promoted and protected. But for those who didn't choose the path of the Guardian, who spend hours in these games... the same values can also actually be promoted and protected in the groups they are a part of, if not by the whole Community itself. I saw that in my Guild, and in HOL. I saw that in the bigger Community that is the one composed of the gamers of RFO-Ph.

This is already long enough and I suppose you have better things to do than listen to the ranting of a washed-up former youth leader. All I wanted to point out, Ma'am Risa, was that you were wrong. You can tell me you were misquoted but... it's there, o.

Ma'am, ako na lang tignan niyo. When you were all busy trying to recruit Denni and whoever else from that batch of young leaders that sprang in the late '90s... one of them was already an avid gamer. Ma'am, I was advising and protecting the schools of the Union and then the organizations of K2Y and I was already an avid gamer. I'd like to think that you at least respected me then, so what do you think of your statement now when you've found out how passionate I am about this aspect of my life?

Is fire evil, Ma'am Risa? Or does it become so based on its use and the intent of the user? And do you tell your children not to use fire because of its dangers, or teach them instead in its proper use?

And in case the Kool-Aid there at the Batasan has changed you drastically that you don't accept "anecdotal evidence" anymore, even a personal statement from one of those that used to work with you and yours, here is a link to an article about what you learn (or, in this case, is practiced) in games. The scientific study quoted in the article has a pdf link here, for Her Honor's perusal and further comment, if any.

Apologies for the length, Rep. Hontiveros, but as a tax-paying, law-abiding citizen of the Republic, I believe I have a right to tell someone who purportedly represents me that she might have been misinformed when she spoke in public on a matter of deepest concern to said representation.

Yours in the Service of the Republic, still,


Robert Anthony L. Ramos
Head, Media and Public Relations Directorate, Kabataang Liberal ng Pilipinas
Former Media Director of the Liberal Party National Headquarters
Former Strategic Director for the Union of Catholic Student Councils

This is, hands down, one of the best, most inspiring, and well-given speeches I have ever heard. Students worldwide should read or listen to this, both those taking their own, personal (but much trod) paths, and those taking the roads less traveled. Like us crazy Guardians.

For Tin. Because of her bad day ^_^

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The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination

J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, delivers her Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association, 2008.

Copyright, J.K. Rowling 2008

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.

The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindor reunion.

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step to self improvement.

Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that have expired between that day and this.

I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.

These may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.

Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension. I know that the irony strikes with the force of a cartoon anvil, now.

So they hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.

I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all the subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.

I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.

I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown.

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.

So given a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.

Now you might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I personally will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working at the African research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.

There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.

Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to speak against their governments. Visitors to our offices included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had left behind.

I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him back to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.

And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just had to give him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.

Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.

Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard, and read.

And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.

Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places.

Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

What is more, those who choose not to empathise enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, people who have been kind enough not to sue me when I took their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.

So today, I wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

I wish you all very good lives.

Thank you very much.

Steve Jobs  
“Find What You Love.”

Commencement address at Stanford University
Palo Alto, California USA
June 12, 2005
Click to view video

Steve Jobs is the CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios.

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I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Bill Gates
“Great Expectations ”

Commencement address at Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts USA
June 7, 2007

Chairman of The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Mr Gates has commited more money than perhaps anyone in history to improve life on this planet.

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President Bok, former President Rudenstine, incoming President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, parents, and especially, the graduates:
I've been waiting more than 30 years to say this: "Dad, I always told you I'd come back and get my degree."

I want to thank Harvard for this timely honor. I'll be changing my job next year and it will be nice to finally have a college degree on my resume.

I applaud the graduates today for taking a much more direct route to your degrees. For my part, I'm just happy that the Crimson has called me "Harvard's most successful dropout." I guess that makes me valedictorian of my own special class I did the best of everyone who failed.

But I also want to be recognized as the guy who got Steve Ballmer to drop out of business school. I'm a bad influence. That's why I was invited to speak at your graduation. If I had spoken at your orientation, fewer of you might be here today.

Harvard was just a phenomenal experience for me. Academic life was fascinating. I used to sit in on lots of classes I hadn't even signed up for. And dorm life was terrific. I lived up at Radcliffe, in Currier House. There were always lots of people in my dorm room late at night discussing things, because everyone knew I didn't worry about getting up in the morning. That's how I came to be the leader of the anti-social group. We clung to each other as a way of validating our rejection of all those social people.

Radcliffe was a great place to live. There were more women up there, and most of the guys were science-math types. That combination offered me the best odds, if you know what I mean. This is where I learned the sad lesson that improving your odds doesn't guarantee success.

One of my biggest memories of Harvard came in January 1975, when I made a call from Currier House to a company in Albuquerque that had begun making the world's first personal computers. I offered to sell them software.

I worried that they would realize I was just a student in a dorm and hang up on me. Instead they said: "We're not quite ready, come see us in a month," which was a good thing, because we hadn't written the software yet. From that moment, I worked day and night on this little extra credit project that marked the end of my college education and the beginning of a remarkable journey with Microsoft.

What I remember above all about Harvard was being in the midst of so much energy and intelligence. It could be exhilarating, intimidating, sometimes even discouraging, but always challenging. It was an amazing privilege-and though I left early, I was transformed by my years at Harvard, the friendships I made, and the ideas I worked on.

But taking a serious look back I do have one big regret.

I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world-the appalling disparities of health, and wealth, and opportunity that condemn millions of people to lives of despair.

I learned a lot here at Harvard about new ideas in economics and politics. I got great exposure to the advances being made in the sciences.

But humanity's greatest advances are not in its discoveries-but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity. Whether through democracy, strong public education, quality health care, or broad economic opportunity-reducing inequity is the highest human achievement.

I left campus knowing little about the millions of young people cheated out of educational opportunities here in this country. And I knew nothing about the millions of people living in unspeakable poverty and disease in developing countries.

It took me decades to find out.

You graduates came to Harvard at a different time. You know more about the world's inequities than the classes that came before. In your years here, I hope you've had a chance to think about how-in this age of accelerating technology-we can finally take on these inequities, and we can solve them.

Imagine, just for the sake of discussion, that you had a few hours a week and a few dollars a month to donate to a cause-and you wanted to spend that time and money where it would have the greatest impact in saving and improving lives. Where would you spend it?

For Melinda and for me, the challenge is the same: how can we do the most good for the greatest number with the resources we have.

During our discussions on this question, Melinda and I read an article about the millions of children who were dying every year in poor countries from diseases that we had long ago made harmless in this country. Measles, malaria, pneumonia, hepatitis B, yellow fever. One disease I had never even heard of, rotavirus, was killing half a million kids each year-none of them in the United States.

We were shocked. We had just assumed that if millions of children were dying and they could be saved, the world would make it a priority to discover and deliver the medicines to save them. But it did not. For under a dollar, there were interventions that could save lives that just weren't being delivered.

If you believe that every life has equal value, it's revolting to learn that some lives are seen as worth saving and others are not. We said to ourselves: "This can't be true. But if it is true, it deserves to be the priority of our giving."

So we began our work in the same way anyone here would begin it. We asked: "How could the world let these children die?"

The answer is simple, and harsh. The market did not reward saving the lives of these children, and governments did not subsidize it. So the children died because their mothers and their fathers had no power in the market and no voice in the system.

But you and I have both.

We can make market forces work better for the poor if we can develop a more creative capitalism-if we can stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or at least make a living, serving people who are suffering from the worst inequities. We also can press governments around the world to spend taxpayer money in ways that better reflect the values of the people who pay the taxes.

If we can find approaches that meet the needs of the poor in ways that generate profits for business and votes for politicians, we will have found a sustainable way to reduce inequity in the world.

This task is open-ended. It can never be finished. But a conscious effort to answer this challenge will change the world.

I am optimistic that we can do this, but I talk to skeptics who claim there is no hope. They say: "Inequity has been with us since the beginning, and will be with us till the end-because people just don't care."

I completely disagree.

I believe we have more caring than we know what to do with.

All of us here in this Yard, at one time or another, have seen human tragedies that broke our hearts, and yet we did nothing-not because we didn't care, but because we didn't know what to do. If we had known how to help, we would have acted.

The barrier to change is not too little caring; it is too much complexity.

To turn caring into action, we need to see a problem, see a solution, and see the impact. But complexity blocks all three steps.

Even with the advent of the Internet and 24-hour news, it is still a complex enterprise to get people to truly see the problems. When an airplane crashes, officials immediately call a press conference. They promise to investigate, determine the cause, and prevent similar crashes in the future.

But if the officials were brutally honest, they would say: "Of all the people in the world who died today from preventable causes, one half of one percent of them were on this plane. We're determined to do everything possible to solve the problem that took the lives of the one half of one percent."

The bigger problem is not the plane crash, but the millions of preventable deaths.

We don't read much about these deaths. The media covers what's new-and millions of people dying is nothing new. So it stays in the background, where it's easier to ignore. But even when we do see it or read about it, it's difficult to keep our eyes on the problem. It's hard to look at suffering if the situation is so complex that we don't know how to help. And so we look away.

If we can really see a problem, which is the first step, we come to the second step: cutting through the complexity to find a solution.

Finding solutions is essential if we want to make the most of our caring. If we have clear and proven answers anytime an organization or individual asks "How can I help?," then we can get action-and we can make sure that none of the caring in the world is wasted. But complexity makes it hard to mark a path of action for everyone who cares-and that makes it hard for their caring to matter.

Cutting through complexity to find a solution runs through four predictable stages: determine a goal, find the highest-leverage approach, discover the ideal technology for that approach, and in the meantime, make the smartest application of the technology that you already have-whether it's something sophisticated, like a drug, or something simpler, like a bednet.

The AIDS epidemic offers an example. The broad goal, of course, is to end the disease. The highest-leverage approach is prevention. The ideal technology would be a vaccine that gives lifetime immunity with a single dose. So governments, drug companies, and foundations fund vaccine research. But their work is likely to take more than a decade, so in the meantime, we have to work with what we have in hand-and the best prevention approach we have now is getting people to avoid risky behavior.

Pursuing that goal starts the four-step cycle again. This is the pattern. The crucial thing is to never stop thinking and working-and never do what we did with malaria and tuberculosis in the 20th century-which is to surrender to complexity and quit.

The final step-after seeing the problem and finding an approach-is to measure the impact of your work and share your successes and failures so that others learn from your efforts.

You have to have the statistics, of course. You have to be able to show that a program is vaccinating millions more children. You have to be able to show a decline in the number of children dying from these diseases. This is essential not just to improve the program, but also to help draw more investment from business and government.

But if you want to inspire people to participate, you have to show more than numbers; you have to convey the human impact of the work-so people can feel what saving a life means to the families affected.

I remember going to Davos some years back and sitting on a global health panel that was discussing ways to save millions of lives. Millions! Think of the thrill of saving just one person's life-then multiply that by millions. Yet this was the most boring panel I've ever been on-ever. So boring even I couldn't bear it.

What made that experience especially striking was that I had just come from an event where we were introducing version 13 of some piece of software, and we had people jumping and shouting with excitement. I love getting people excited about software-but why can't we generate even more excitement for saving lives?

You can't get people excited unless you can help them see and feel the impact. And how you do that-is a complex question.

Still, I'm optimistic. Yes, inequity has been with us forever, but the new tools we have to cut through complexity have not been with us forever. They are new-they can help us make the most of our caring-and that's why the future can be different from the past.

The defining and ongoing innovations of this age-biotechnology, the computer, the Internet-give us a chance we've never had before to end extreme poverty and end death from preventable disease.

Sixty years ago, George Marshall came to this commencement and announced a plan to assist the nations of post-war Europe. He said: "I think one difficulty is that the problem is one of such enormous complexity that the very mass of facts presented to the public by press and radio make it exceedingly difficult for the man in the street to reach a clear appraisement of the situation. It is virtually impossible at this distance to grasp at all the real significance of the situation."

Thirty years after Marshall made his address, as my class graduated without me, technology was emerging that would make the world smaller, more open, more visible, less distant.

The emergence of low-cost personal computers gave rise to a powerful network that has transformed opportunities for learning and communicating.

The magical thing about this network is not just that it collapses distance and makes everyone your neighbor. It also dramatically increases the number of brilliant minds we can have working together on the same problem-and that scales up the rate of innovation to a staggering degree.

At the same time, for every person in the world who has access to this technology, five people don't. That means many creative minds are left out of this discussion-smart people with practical intelligence and relevant experience who don't have the technology to hone their talents or contribute their ideas to the world.

We need as many people as possible to have access to this technology, because these advances are triggering a revolution in what human beings can do for one another. They are making it possible not just for national governments, but for universities, corporations, smaller organizations, and even individuals to see problems, see approaches, and measure the impact of their efforts to address the hunger, poverty, and desperation George Marshall spoke of 60 years ago.

Members of the Harvard Family: Here in the Yard is one of the great collections of intellectual talent in the world.

What for?

There is no question that the faculty, the alumni, the students, and the benefactors of Harvard have used their power to improve the lives of people here and around the world. But can we do more? Can Harvard dedicate its intellect to improving the lives of people who will never even hear its name?

Let me make a request of the deans and the professors-the intellectual leaders here at Harvard: As you hire new faculty, award tenure, review curriculum, and determine degree requirements, please ask yourselves:

Should our best minds be dedicated to solving our biggest problems?

Should Harvard encourage its faculty to take on the world's worst inequities? Should Harvard students learn about the depth of global poverty the prevalence of world hunger the scarcity of clean water the girls kept out of school the children who die from diseases we can cure?

Should the world's most privileged people learn about the lives of the world's least privileged?

These are not rhetorical questions-you will answer with your policies.

My mother, who was filled with pride the day I was admitted here-never stopped pressing me to do more for others. A few days before my wedding, she hosted a bridal event, at which she read aloud a letter about marriage that she had written to Melinda. My mother was very ill with cancer at the time, but she saw one more opportunity to deliver her message, and at the close of the letter she said: "From those to whom much is given, much is expected."

When you consider what those of us here in this Yard have been given-in talent, privilege, and opportunity-there is almost no limit to what the world has a right to expect from us.

In line with the promise of this age, I want to exhort each of the graduates here to take on an issue-a complex problem, a deep inequity, and become a specialist on it. If you make it the focus of your career, that would be phenomenal. But you don't have to do that to make an impact. For a few hours every week, you can use the growing power of the Internet to get informed, find others with the same interests, see the barriers, and find ways to cut through them.

Don't let complexity stop you. Be activists. Take on the big inequities. It will be one of the great experiences of your lives.

You graduates are coming of age in an amazing time. As you leave Harvard, you have technology that members of my class never had. You have awareness of global inequity, which we did not have. And with that awareness, you likely also have an informed conscience that will torment you if you abandon these people whose lives you could change with very little effort.

You have more than we had; you must start sooner, and carry on longer.

Knowing what you know, how could you not?

And I hope you will come back here to Harvard 30 years from now and reflect on what you have done with your talent and your energy. I hope you will judge yourselves not on your professional accomplishments alone, but also on how well you have addressed the world's deepest inequities on how well you treated people a world away who have nothing in common with you but their humanity.

Good luck.

Note: I'm currently researching commencement addresses for use by my boss(es), and, natch, I would have to be blind, dumb, and irrationally Repuglican (take note of the difference with rational, responsible, Republicans) to NOT get one from Pres. Obama

This is also... kind of fitting, given a rather heated debate-slash-question-needing-answer I got into with an old 'kada this evening. A lot of what Pres. Barack said here kind of answers a question most people not in the UCSC ask me as to why I am in the life I live and lead, and why its hard to leave it.

I found the speech here. Lots of speeches there, too.

Barack Obama
“Make Us Believe Again”

Commencement address at Wesleyan University
Middletown, Connecticut, USA
May 28, 2008

I have the distinct honor today of pinch-hitting for one of my personal heroes and a hero to this country, Senator Edward Kennedy. Ted is at home getting some much needed and deserved rest, and we are so pleased to see many of his family here today including his wonderful wife, Vicki. He called me up a few days ago and I said that I’d be happy to be his stand-in, even if there was no way I could fill his shoes. I did, however, get the chance to glance at the speech he planned on delivering today, and I’d like to start by passing along a message from Ted: “To all those praying for my return to good health, I offer my heartfelt thanks. And to any who’d rather have a different result, I say, don’t get your hopes up just yet!”

So we know that Teddy’s legendary sense of humor is as strong as ever, and I have no doubt that his equally legendary fighting spirit will carry him through this latest challenge. He is our friend, he is our champion, and we hope and pray for his return to good health.

Now the topic of his speech today was common for a commencement, and we heard some of the themes from president Roth, but one that nobody could discuss with more authority or inspiration than Ted Kennedy. And that is the topic of service to one’s country – a cause that is synonymous with his family’s name and legacy.

I was born the year that his brother John called a generation of Americans to ask their country what they could do. And I came of age at a time when they did it. They were the Peace Corps volunteers who won a generation of goodwill toward America at a time when America’s ideals were challenged. They were the teenagers and college students, not much older than you, who watched the Civil Rights Movement unfold on their television sets; who saw the dogs and the fire hoses and the footage of marchers being beaten within an inch or their lives; who knew it was probably smarter and safer to stay at home, but decided to take those Freedom Rides down south – who still decided to march. And because they did, they changed the world.

I bring this up because today, you are about to enter a world that makes it easier to get caught up in the notion that there are actually two different stories at work in our lives. The first is the story of our everyday cares and concerns – the responsibilities we have to our jobs and our families – the bustle and the busyness of what happens in our lives. And the second is the story of what happens in the life of our country – of what happens in the wider world. It’s the story you see when you catch a glimpse of the day’s headlines or turn on the news at night – a story of big challenges like war and recession; hunger and climate change; injustice and inequality. It’s a story that sometimes can seem distant and separate from our own – a destiny to be shaped by forces beyond our control.

And yet, the history of this nation tells us this isn’t so. It tells us that we are a people whose destiny has never been written for us, but by us – by generations of men and women, young and old, who have always believed that their story and the American story are not separate, but shared. And for more than two centuries, they have served this country in ways that have forever enriched both.

I say this to you as someone who couldn’t be standing here if not for the service of others, and wouldn’t be standing here today if it were not for the purpose that service gave my own life.

You see, I spent much of my childhood adrift. My father left my mother and me when I was two. When my mother remarried, I lived overseas for a time, but was mostly raised in Hawaii by her and my grandparents from Kansas. My teenage years were filled with more than the usual dose of teenage rebellion, and I’ll admit that I didn’t always take myself or my studies very seriously. I realize that none of you can probably relate to this, overachievers that you are, but there were many times when I wasn’t sure where I was going, or what I was going to do with my life.

But during my first two years of college, perhaps because the values my mother had taught me – the values of hard work, honesty, empathy and compassion – had finally resurfaced after a long hibernation; or perhaps because of the example of wonderful teachers and lasting friends, I began to notice a world beyond myself. I became active in the movement to oppose the apartheid regime in South Africa. I began following the debates in this country about poverty and health care. So that by the time I graduated from college, I was possessed with this crazy idea – that I was going to work at a grassroots level to bring about change.

I wrote letters to every organization in the country I could think of. And one day, a small group of churches on the South Side of Chicago offered me a job to come work as a community organizer in neighborhoods that had been devastated by the closing of steel mills. My mother and my grandparents, liberal-minded though they were, wanted me to go to law school. My friends were applying to jobs on Wall Street. Meanwhile, this organization offered me $12,000 a year plus $2,000 for an old, beat-up car. And I said yes.

I didn’t know a soul in Chicago, and I wasn’t sure what this community organizing business was all about. I had always been inspired by the stories of the Civil Rights Movement and by JFK’s call to service, but when I got to the South Side, there were no marches; there were no soaring speeches. In the shadows of empty factories, there were just a lot of people who were struggling. And at first we didn’t get very far.

I still remember one of the very first meetings we put together. The community had been plagued by gang violence and so we tried to mobilize a meeting with community leaders. I had worked for weeks on this project and we waited and waited for people to show up, and finally, a group of older people walked into the hall. And they sat down. And a little old lady raised her hand and asked, “Is this where the bingo game is?”

It wasn’t easy, but eventually, we made progress. Day by day, block by block, we brought the community together, and we registered new voters, and we set up after school programs, and fought for new jobs, and helped people live lives with some measure of dignity.

I also began to realize that I wasn’t just helping other people. Through service, I found a community that embraced me; citizenship that was meaningful; the direction that I’d been seeking. Through service, I discovered how my own improbable story fit into the larger story of America.

Now each of you will have the chance to make your own discovery in the years to come. And I say “chance” because, as president Roth indicated, you won’t have to take it. There’s no community service requirement in the outside world; no one forcing you to care. You can take your diploma, walk off this stage, and chase only after the big house and the nice suits and the other things that our money culture says you should buy. You can choose to narrow your concerns and live life in a way that tries to keep your story separate from America’s.

But I hope you don’t. Not because you have an obligation to those who are less fortunate, although I believe you do have that obligation. Not because you have a debt to all those who helped you get to where you are today, although I do believe you have that debt to pay.

It’s because you have an obligation to yourself. Because our individual salvation depends on collective salvation. Because thinking only about yourself, fulfilling your immediate wants and needs, betrays a poverty of ambition. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential and discover the role that you’ll play in writing the next great chapter in the American story.

There are so many ways to serve and so much that needs to be done at this defining moment in our history. You don’t have to be a community organizer or do something crazy like run for President. Right here at Wesleyan, many of you have already volunteered at local schools and elementary schools, contributed to the United Way, and even started a program that brings fresh produce to needy families in the area. One hundred and sixty-four graduates of this school have joined the Peace Corps since 2001, and I confess a special pride that two of you are about to leave for my father’s homeland of Kenya to bring alternative sources of energy to impoverished areas. I ask you to seek these opportunities when you leave here, because the future of this country – your future, my future, my children’s future – depends on it.

At a time when our security and moral standing depend on winning hearts and minds in the forgotten corners of this world, we need more of you to serve abroad. As President, I intend to grow the Foreign Service, double the Peace Corps over the next few years, and engage young people of other nations in similar programs, so that we work side by side to take on the common challenges that confront all of humanity.

At a time when our ice caps are melting and our oceans are rising, we need you to help lead a green revolution. We still have time to avoid the catastrophic consequences of climate change if we get serious about investing in renewable sources of energy, and if we get a generation of volunteers to work on renewable energy projects, and if we teach people about conservation, and help clean up polluted areas; if we send talented engineers and scientists abroad to help developing countries promote clean energy in a way that’s compatible with economic growth.

At a time when a child in Boston must compete with children in Beijing and Bangalore, we need an army of you to become teachers and principals in schools that this nation cannot afford to give up on. I will pay our educators what they deserve, and give them more support, but I will also ask more of them to be mentors to other teachers, and serve in high-need schools and high-need subject areas like math and science. We will need you.

At a time when there are children in the city of New Orleans who still spend each night in a lonely trailer, we need more of you to take a weekend or a week off from work, and head down South, and help rebuild. If you can’t get the time, volunteer at the local homeless shelter or soup kitchen in your own community, because there is more than enough work to go around. Find an organization that’s fighting poverty, or a candidate who promotes policies you believe in, and find a way to help them. We need you.

At a time of war, we need you to work for peace. At a time of inequality, we need you to work for opportunity. At a time of so much cynicism and so much doubt, we need you to make us believe again. That’s your task, class of 2008.

Now understand this - believing that change is possible is not the same as being naïve. Go into service with your eyes wide open, for change will not come easily. On the big issues that our nation faces, difficult choices await. We’ll have to face some hard truths, and some sacrifice will be required – not only from you individually, but from the nation as a whole.

There is no magic bullet to our energy problems, for example; no perfect energy source - so all of us will have to use the energy sources we have more wisely. Deep-rooted poverty will not be reversed overnight. It will require both money and reform at a time when our federal and state budgets are strapped and when Washington is skeptical that reform is possible. Transforming our education system will require not only bold government action, but a change in attitudes among parents and among students. It’s hard to change attitudes. Bringing an end to the slaughter in Darfur will involve navigating extremely difficult realities on the ground, even for those with the best of intentions.

And so, understand that should you take the path of service, should you choose to take up one of these causes as your own, know that you’ll experience the occasional frustrations and the occasional failures. Even your successes will be marked by imperfections and unintended consequences. I guarantee you, there will be times when friends or family urge you to pursue more sensible endeavors with more tangible rewards. And there will be times where you will be tempted to take such advice.

But I hope you’ll remember, during those times of doubt and frustration, that there is nothing naïve about your impulse to change the world. Because all it takes is one act of service – one blow against injustice – to send forth what Robert Kennedy called that “tiny ripple of hope.” That’s what changes the world. That one act, an act by you, class of 2008.

You know, Ted Kennedy often tells a story about the fifth anniversary celebration of the Peace Corps. He was there, and he asked one of the young Americans why he had chosen to volunteer. And the man replied, “Because it was the first time someone asked me to do something for my country.”

Now I don’t know how many of you have been asked that question, but after today, you have no excuses. I am asking you, and if I should have the honor of serving this nation as President, I will be asking again and again in the coming years. We may disagree as Americans on certain issues and positions, but I believe that we can be unified in service to a greater good. I intend to make it a cause of my presidency, and I believe with all my heart that this generation is ready, and eager, and up to the challenge.

We will face our share of cynics and doubters. But we always have. I can still remember a conversation I had with an older man all those years ago right before I was headed for my new job in Chicago. He said, “Barack, I’ll give you a bit of advice. Forget this community organizing business and do something that’s gonna make you some money. You can’t change the world, and people won’t appreciate you trying. But you’ve got a nice voice, so you should think about going into television broadcasting. I’m telling you, you have a future there.”

Now, I’ve wondered, he might have been right about that TV thing, but he was wrong about everything else. For that old man has not seen what I have seen. He has not seen the faces of ordinary people the first time they clear a vacant lot or build a new playground or force an unresponsive leader to provide services to a community that’s been neglected. He has not seen the face of a child brighten because of an inspiring teacher or an inspiring mentor. He has not seen scores of young people educate their parents on issues like Darfur, or mobilize the conscience of a nation around the challenges of climate change. He has not seen the lines of men and women that wrap around schools and churches, that stretch out block after block after block just so they could make their voices heard, many for the first time.

And that old man who didn’t believe the world could change – who didn’t think one person could make a difference – well he certainly didn’t know much about the life of Joseph Kennedy’s youngest son.

It’s rare in this country of ours that a person exists who has touched the lives of nearly every single American without many of us even realizing it. And yet, because of Ted Kennedy, millions of children can see a doctor when they get sick. Mothers and fathers can leave work to spend time with their newborns. Working Americans are paid higher wages, and compensated for overtime, and can keep their health insurance when they change jobs. They are protected from discrimination in the workplace, and those who are born with disabilities can still get an education, and health care, and fair treatment on the job. Our schools are stronger and our colleges are filled with more Americans who can afford it. And I have a feeling that Ted Kennedy is not done just yet.

Surely, if one man can achieve so much and make such a difference in the lives of so many people, then each of us can do our part. Surely, if his service and his story can forever shape America’s story, then our collective service can shape the destiny of this generation. At the very least, his living example calls us to try. That is all I ask of you on this joyous day of new beginnings; that is what Senator Kennedy asks of you as well, and that is how we will keep so much needed work going, and the cause of justice everlasting, and the dream alive for generations to come. Thank you so much to the class of 2008, and congratulations on your graduation.

Vegas Skies
The Cab

It's twelve o' clock and I need your attention
It's like the alcohol making my head spin
Your scent is the rum. the room is a bottle
Keeping me hopeless 'til I wake tomorrow

And if tonight ever makes a difference
The way that I feel the way that I'll remember it
I'll take this down until the glass remains
Swallow the words that I was meant to say

It's a long drive back to Vegas skies
So why don't I make one more wrong turn tonight, so

Say goodnight our first goodbye
I've only got forever and forever is fine
Just take your time
We'll stop the clock together
And know that the timing was right

All of these guards they stand tall and defensive
Putting up walls around what was once innocent
It won't let me in, but I'm stronger than that
'Cause you stole my eyes and I've never looked back

Girl, last night I forgot to mention
The way that I feel, the way that I'll remember this
When we're this young, we have nothing to lose
We've just the clock to beat and a hand to choose

It's a long drive back to Vegas skies
So I don't, I make one more wrong turn tonight, so

Say goodnight our first goodbye
I've only got forever and forever is fine
Just take your time
We'll stop the clock together
And know that the timing was right

It's a long way down
Just fall into place and you'll fall into me
We'll make it out you'll see

So, say goodnight, our first goodbye
I've only got forever and forever is fine
Just take your time
We'll stop the clock together

And say goodnight, our first goodbye
I've only got forever and forever is fine
Just take your time
We'll stop the clock together
And know that the timing was right

You Found Me
The Fray

I found god
On the corner of first and Amistad
Where the west was all but won
All alone, smoking his last cigarette
I Said where you been, he said ask anything
Where were you?
When everything was falling apart
All my days were spent by the telephone
It never rang
And all I needed was a call
That never came
To the corner of first and Amistad

Lost and insecure
You found me, you found me
Lying on the floor
Surrounded, surrounded
Why'd you have to wait?
Where were you? Where were you?
Just a little late
You found me, you found me

In the end everyone ends up alone
Losing her, the only one who's ever known
Who I am, who I'm not, who I want to be
No way to know how long she will be next to me

Lost and insecure
You found me, you found me
Lying on the floor
Surrounded, surrounded
Why'd you have to wait?
Where were you, where were you?
Just a little late
You found me, you found me

Early morning, City breaks
I've been calling for years and years and years and years
And you never left me no messages
You never send me no letters
You got some kind of nerve, taking all I want

Lost and insecure
You found me, you found me
Lying on the floor
Where were you where were you?

Lost and insecure
You found me, you found me
Lying on the floor
Surrounded, surrounded
Why'd you have to wait?
Where were you, where were you?
Just a little late
You found me, you found me
why'd you have to wait
to find me, to find me

As I write this, Obama has just finished his oration. The last part was... well, what can I say? It was a winner.

One has to fully appreciate the... immensity of the image Obama tried to evoke by using that winter at Valley Forge. Read the history of the American Revolution. Remember how Washington's ragtag army fled to misery. And in the midst of it all, "that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet (it)."

Words can't begin to describe what one feels right now. How does one who's been on the frontlines of the struggles that dominated this first decade of the 21st century even begin to speak of the... catharsis, the relief this moment brings? How does one even begin to relate the horror, the despair, in seeing the world - and not just this nation - grow darker and meaner and more dangerous? And how does one start speaking of the feeling of having a THORN leave one's heart, of suddenly, SUDDENLY, feeling HOPE, REAL HOPE, for the first time in eight sad and hard years?

Haha, I cried.

And I'm not going to be ashamed or sorry I did.

Remember that I write speeches, that I am a political communications operative. I know bullshit; I write it, after all. And damned good at it too, if I do say so myself. I'm the Stormcrow of the UCSC, of my generation of young leaders, more known for telling people the bad news, of pointing out the pitfalls, being the naysayer, the cynic.

But I CRIED.

Please be assured that my faculties and instincts and training have not deserted me. The world tomorrow will still have people dying by gun and bomb and plague, Africa will still be riven by tribal wars and AIDS, the Palestinians and Israelis will still glare across their borders, the world economy will still be in the ICU.

And it still felt good to CRY.

Because I remember how it was watching the Wall fall almost two decades ago. I was still young then, but I could understand, even then, that something significant was going on. I stood on EDSA that second time, as it was announced that we were a million people there, along with the thousands nationwide. I remember waking up the next day and how it felt to know we put the Philippines on a new track.

I knew hope at its highest. And I know how it was to have that hope crushed to near annihilation.

Eight years. Eight FUCKING years of darkness, of anger, of pain, of fear. Eight Godforsaken years where one could barely hope things can get better.

All that... gone today as that amazing man named, quite ironically (Bin Laden, I'm looking GLEEFULLY AT YOU), Barack Hussein Obama, took his oath, and spoke those amazing words.

In front of a magnificent people who have affirmed the ideals, the DREAM of America. That democracy and freedom are ALIVE, WELL and KICKING.

For the first time in eight years, somehow, we can dream again. We can hope again. There's so much to do, so much to fix, but... we can dream. We can hope. We can look at those selfsame clouds that PRESIDENT Barack Obama said were on the horizon and... smile.

The nightmare is over now. And we wake to a new day.

It may not be bright yet, but we can hope now. We can dream. We can believe.

And in the face of all the challenges we face, those three things can be powerful weapons indeed.

For something like, oh, seven or eight years, January 19 is a sort-of special day. Well, at least its a busy day because this day happens to be the anniversary of the founding of the Liberal Party (of the Philippines). So as a card-carrying member and (former; soon-to-be, if not already) staffer of the Party Headquarters, I was involved in the preparations of one form of its anniv celebrations since January 2001.

Today... I have no freaking idea what happened today.

My morning is shit already so I won't dwell on that anymore and instead talk about some thoughts and observations while I was in the Quiapo-Raon-Recto area.

Alighting from the PUJ that takes the Quiapo-Legarda route and looking at all the dilapidated buildings and slum-like conditions in many alleys, I wondered how this place must have looked like in its heyday.

My dad used to talk about this place, about "Downtown." During their time, this was the place to be. This was their Ayala Center, their (rennovated) Greenbelt (I remember the old Greenbelt, and none of you kids would probably have been caught dead there), their Fort or Eastwood. It probably was even more... alive because Recto was the center of the "University Belt," with Asia's oldest University on its island (literally, during the rainy season) in nearby Morayta. Imagine having Downtown just a literal stone's throw away from your college. That must have been amazing, like some CEU and Mapua students based in Makati must feel.

Today, most kids would have as top-of-the-mind when "Downtown" comes to mind is anything that deals with the country's gray market capital. Divisoria is in this area, and the aformentioned Raon. Sta. Cruz used to have that whole alley with the long, continous stall of... stuff. There were (are?) those stalls of handicrafts underneath the bridge going to Quiapo from Lawton.

I was actually having fun looking at all those ROTC-related merchandise along Raon while walking from Plaza Miranda to the LRT station on Recto. I mean... wow, look at that BULLETPROOF VEST. Or that... hey, I thought such realistic-looking toy guns were already banned? Oh, wait, what am I talking about, this being the Divisoria-Recto area?

I remember, uh, "slumming" in this area when I was in college, partly because there were these bargain-prices PS rental shops in Orient Pearl arcade (beside National Bookstore Recto), and neat, uh... PS2-related stuff. You know, the kind the Optical Media Bureau is supposed to crack down on?

There was this one time, lacking anything better to do (this was the age before MMORPGs and Crossing Friendship Bridge days), I decided to give my Guardian Angel a heart attack and actually went into those darkened alleys and eskinitas of the place, exploring, as it were. I've forgotten the interesting (and, uh... interesting) stuff I've seen there, but this morning I saw some of those alleyways and, well... brings back memories.

And I was thinking about dragging Ria there, hahaha. Her dad would kill me, fer sure.

But, Ria, what's living in (Metro) Manila without having gone around DOWNTOWN?

XD

Let's not bring John there. He'll stand out with that complexion of his XD

Hey, I once saw some really old manual cameras being sold there.

XD

Well, made for an interesting morning. Maybe I'll visit the place again soon. Its practically nearer to my house than, say, Makati is, after all.

When I Met You
Sung by the Apo Hikinh Society
Words and Music by Jim Paredes

(Danny)
THERE I WAS AN EMPTY PIECE OF A SHELL
JUST MINDING MY OWN WORLD
WITHOUT EVEN KNOWING
WHAT LOVE AND LIFE WERE ALL ABOUT

(APO)
THEN YOU CAME, YOU BROUGHT ME OUT OF THE SHELL
YOU GAVE THE WORLD TO ME
AND BEFORE I KNEW
THERE I WAS SO IN LOVE WITH YOU

(Danny)
REFRAIN:
YOU GAVE ME A REASON FOR MY BEING
AND I LOVE WHAT I’M FEELING
YOU GAVE ME A MEANING TO MY LIFE
YES, I’M GONE BEYOND EXISTING
(APO)
AND IT ALL BEGUN WHEN I MET YOU

(APO)
I LOVE THE TOUCH OF YOUR HAIR
AND WHEN I LOOK IN YOUR EYES, I JUST KNOW
I KNOW I’M ON TO SOMETHING GOOD

AND I'M SURE MY LOVE FOR YOU WILL ENDURE
YOUR LOVE WILL LIGHT UP MY WORLD
AND TAKE ALL MY CARES
AWAY WHERE THEY CAN’T BOTHER ME

(REPEAT REFRAIN)

(APO)
CHORUS:
YOU TAUGHT ME HOW TO LOVE
YOU SHOWED ME A TOMORROW AND TODAY, MY LOVE
THAT’S DIFFERENT FROM THE YESTERDAY I KNEW
YOU TAUGHT ME TO LOVE AND DARLING,
I WILL ALWAYS CHERISH YOU
TODAY, TOMORROW AND FOREVER

(INSTRUMENTAL)

AND I'M SURE WHEN EVENING COMES AROUND
I KNOW WE’LL BE MAKING LOVE LIKE NEVER BEFORE
MY LOVE, WHO COULD ASK FOR MORE

(REPEAT REFRAIN)


Now for the commentary:

Okay. What the hell is this all about?

First, I'm trying to return to active blogging. There were a dozen topics to discuss - the Valley Golf Brawl, the Alabang Boys thingee, this blogging brouhaha over Mar Roxas (yuck), my experiences with my Death Knight in World of Warcraft, that Tarot Reading I got recently - but I seem to still can't get to writing. I mean, I tried, pero...

And I still can't access Plurk.

Haha, see: Plurk is EVIL.

Now when do I get to access my account again?!

Second, I was reminded of the song above - an OPM, by the Apo, no less - when I overheard someone humming it, beautifully, over TV. It turns out to be the title and most likely the OST of a new movie starring KC Concepcion. Anyone's opinions of KC's acting and maybe singing notwithstanding, what I heard was good.

Now, the song is stuck in my head and I had to look for the lyrics so I can stop humming it mentally and get back to singing it.

Actually, I want to play it on the piano.

So... there.

Hey, its a beautiful song with a beautiful, simple message. The refrain says it all:

You gave me a reason for my being
and I love what I'm feeling.
You gave me a meaning to my life
Yes, I'm gone beyond existing
And it all begun when I met you

Ha? No, I'm not singing this for any particular someone. Ha? Oo nga, not for any particular someone, ano beeeeeehhhhhhh.

Seriously, wala nga.

But I do want to have someone to sing it to.

And I just realized that there's so much of Ateneo Commitment Theology in the song, hahaha.

Whatever. Its a beautiful song and I want to sing it.

Ano beh?

XD


Links:

Apo Hiking Society Site
When I Met You lyrics

While reading Blooey's entry on the sad, untimely death of her beloved cat, Tomas (yeah, we all adored that kitty, so its kind of sad for those of us in Blooey's circle to hear Tomas is gone), I came across her link to the Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) pet adoption program.

I guess I'm a little, well... See, we've lost something like six of our kittens in the last two months or so. Three of them recently succumbed to a cold-like disease, including our first female kitty, and it was... Well.

Anyway, if you don't like animals THEN GO AWAY. Sorry. I mean, you don't need to read further.

But if you do love animals, and...

Look, I know its kinda hard these days, but...

See, they have this donation program. There's this wishlist here, and... Well, just look at it, okay? See what you can do, if any.

Me? I was thinking, since I already got Jez the Planner, and I've already planned her Ateneo Adidas Jacket in the expenses, and if I can afford to drink from Starbucks at least twice a week, so...

Basta, just look at the list, ok?

And, if you can see to adopting one of the little ones, well...

Dammit, Bloo, I don't want to go there. I'll just get frustrated because I'd want to adopt them all, but I know I can't, and...

Ah, fark. Just go check it, okay?

Dammit, but that puppy named Nicole is sooo cute. And that poor little kitty... T_T

Click here for... The Wobbie

Hahahaha.

Ano comment niyo? Is it or is it not?

Mwahahahahahaha!!!

All Fall Down
One Republic

Step out the door and it feels like rain
That's the sound (that's the sound) on your windowpane
Take to the streets but you can't ignore
That's the sound (that's the sound) you're waiting for

If ever your world starts crashing down
Whenever your world starts crashing down
Whenever your world starts crashing down
That's where you'll find me. (yeah)

God love your soul and your aching bones
Take a breath, take a step, meet me down below
Everyone's the same, our fingers to our toes
We just can't get a right, but we're on the road

If ever your world starts crashing down
Whenever your world starts crashing down
Whenever your world starts crashing down
That's where you'll find me. (yeah)

Lost 'til you're found
Swim 'til you drown
Know that we all fall down
Love 'til you hate
Strong 'til you break
Know that we all fall down

If ever your world starts crashing down
Whenever your world starts crashing down
Whenever your world starts crashing down
That's where you'll find (find) me

Lost 'til you're found
Swim 'til you drown
Know that we all fall down
Love 'til you hate
Strong 'til you break
Know that we all fall down

All fall down (x6)

Lost 'til you're found
Swim 'til you drown
Know that we all fall down
Love 'til you hate
Strong 'til you break
Know that we all fall down 


Note: sorry. listening to One Republic. Nice songs ^_^

This one, though... this has imagery. Haha. Sorry, no kwento for now on WHO was in the imagery. That was surprising. Or maybe not. Ewan. Whatever, yaya.

Stop And Stare
One Republic

This town is colder now, I think it's sick of us
It's time to make our move, I'm shakin' off the rust
I've got my heart set on anywhere but here
I'm staring down myself, counting up the years
Steady hands, just take the wheel...
And every glance is killing me
Time to make one last appeal for the life I lead

Stop and stare
I think I'm moving but I go nowhere
Yeah I know that everyone gets scared
But I've become what I can't be, oh
Stop and stare
You start to wonder why you're here not there
And you'd give anything to get what's fair
But fair ain't what you really need
Oh, can you see what I see

They're tryin' to come back, all my senses push
Untie the weight bags, I never thought I could...
Steady feet, don't fail me now
I'm gonna run till you can't walk
But something pulls my focus out
And I'm standing down...

Stop and stare
I think I'm moving but I go nowhere
Yeah I know that everyone gets scared
But I've become what I can't be, oh
Stop and stare
You start to wonder why you're here not there
And you'd give anything to get what's fair
But fair ain't what you really need
Oh, You don't need...

What you need, what you need...

Stop and stare
I think I'm moving but I go nowhere
And I know that everyone gets scared
But I've become what I can't be
Oh, do you see what I see... 

Mercy
One Republic

Angel of mercy
How did you find me?
Where did you read my story?
Pulled from the papers
Desperate and hardened
Seeking a momentary fix

All I wanted to say
All I wanted to do
Is fall apart now
All I wanted to feel
I wanted to love
It's all my fault now
A tragedy I fear

Angel of mercy
How did you find me?
How did you pick me up again?
Angel of mercy
How did you move me?
Why am I on my feet again?
And I see you
Whoa Whoa Whoa
I feel you
Whoa Whoa Whoa

'Fortress the daylight
Come and I stand by
Waiting to catch the quickest plane
Fly me to nowhere
Is better than somewhere
That's where I've been and nothings changed

All I wanted to say
All I wanted to do
Is fall apart now
All I wanted to feel
I wanted to love
It's all my fault now
A tragedy for sure

Angel of mercy
How did you find me?
How did you pick me up again?
Angel of mercy
How did you move me?
Why am I on my feet again?
And I see you
Whoa Whoa Whoa
I feel you
Whoa Whoa Whoa

I'm so lost in you
A tragedy seemed to be over now, oh now
A tragedy it seemed to be over now

Angel of mercy
How did you find me?
How did you pick me up again?
Angel of mercy
How did you move me?
Why am I on my feet again?
And I see you
Whoa whoa whoa
I feel you
Whoa whoa whoa
I feel you
Oh Whoa whoa whoa
I feel you
Oh Oh Oh

After all the jitters and the nail-biting, all the anxiety, it can now be said:

Barack Hussein Obama is the 44th President of the United States of America.

Yeah.

Oh, hell YEAH!

I will make a more detailed, and hopefully analytical, post in Phoenix Eyrie, Reloaded. Right now, I just want to savor this moment. I mean, I'm not an American, but the... awesomeness of the election of a black man, who has as much roots in Kenya and Islam as he does in Kansas, Hawaii and Christianity, is simply... amazing.

I salute you, citizens of the United States of America. For eight years, we have wondered. Yet today, you stand proud as a beacon of hope and democracy to a world growing cold and cynical from war, hate and poverty.

Americans, this victory is more yours than anyone's.

I know, I know: political realities and all.

There will be a time for that. Later. Tomorrow. Well all know there is much work to be done. But later. Tomorrow.

Today... Grant Park in Chicago is a party zone.

Today...

Today is an amazing day, for an equally amazing people.

Congratulations, President-elect Obama. And Godspeed to you, and the people of the United States of America.