Joshua Foer addressing his audience on memory. Click on the image to be linked to the video on TED.com

Several years ago, my best friend, Briana and I picked up this concept of mind-mapping. It started out as a distraction from studying for the national exam and also just a curious journey into learning. We would sneak into Borders (as we were too frugal to buy the books) and sit there for half an hour each day, flipping through the pages of the renown book of mind-mapping by Tony Buzan.

We invested in art blocks and expensive color pencils, and sat at home from morning till night, drawing mind maps on history endlessly. Many judged us with disdain and said we were wasting our time drawing these pictures to keywords that didn’t make sense. But we knew something was happening inside of our heads with these mind-maps: we were remembering more than we ever did.

Years away from those days of standardized national exams, mind mapping has changed my life. I now do well above average academically and I recall information faster and more accurately, at least as compared to my lackluster years in primary and secondary school.

While I hardly mind-map with color pencils anymore, the way information is processed has changed for me. Preexisting maps are constantly being expanded, redrawn, or it even overlaps other maps, other information.

Today, I came across the above video and it hit home for me. I realized it wasn’t that mind-mapping unlocked the treasures of my intelligence, or that Tony Buzan found a spectacular secret to our memory; it was that mind-mapping brought me absolutely present with the information I needed to process. Mind mapping nestled information in meaningful contexts and gave it significance. It taught me how to draw connections between knowledge (the hard, solid, and dry knowledge from schoolwork) with the boundless, perplexing world we inhabit. In other words, knowledge had application.

In this TED presentation, Joshua Foer lighted a bulb. Our lives are the sum of our memories – being able to remember is a big deal. Whether in school work, in our social lives, or in changing the world, our ability to remember and understand information will and does matter.

So be present.

Photo source @ limiluh.tumblr.com. Full credits unknown.

Most people don’t understand how it feels like being born into somebody, into a person. They don’t understand the difficulty in having their life written out for them before they could even decide or speak. Unfortunately, I do. It is like being a puppet with emotions, directed as a character they despise, dancing in front of a cheering crowd that they don’t recognize or want to be a part of. You can cry, scream, and even try to rebel, but those strings will never set you free.

I’ve lived almost 20 years, short, but those were 20 years lived being brainwashed repeatedly as I was told that my ultimate destiny was to fill a white coat. It is indisputable, and there is nothing else beyond that white coat. After all, why would I settle for a petty life rotting by the streets with an airhead degree and nothing accomplished? All those dreams that I had, or talents even, they didn’t matter because they were petty.The list of shining achievements in improving lives of refugee children, reconstructing a youth group, or even launching an event that rocked everyone’s socks off, didn’t matter. My dreams didn’t matter. In their condescending eyes, anyone could have done it and to be honest, someone else should be doing it. What is in concern is my commitment to being a scientist. The world needs scientists and not leaders, so close those blinds to the world and study biology instead; science will save lives.

But they don’t know, it will never save mine.

The person that I am and the things that I love have been ripped apart and crumpled into insignificant scraps of unrecognized work and skills. There is no place in this world for a person like myself.

In their pursuit of glory and pride of a person they could never be, a scientist, my true abilities and destiny matters little in comparison. This was the life they could never live, and even if I am not for that life, they will make sure I run dry and dehydrated, beaten to my bones before they ever see me step away from this track they have written out for me.

Am I angry that I am forced into this life that I don’t want to live?

No, I could never be angry at parents who just wants the best for me. But everyday I abhor myself ever more, for never being able to be that daughter they wanted at birth.

Credits unknown; via weheartit.com

I bade farewell and gave long hugs to his roommates and suite mates. There was a heavy discomfort in needing to remove myself from their presence and say ‘Have a great summer.’ I cannot imagine never living with these people again, never spending time watching videos together, and never sharing Chinese take-outs in the common room again. The rooms were packed up from personal belongings and left barren only with the skeletons of empty beds, unowned wooden tables, and creaking cabinets. Their personal items that once made up the mess of this dorm, gone.

The 2012/2011 academic year is closing to an end. Watching people slowly board their parents’ car, pulling out of the parking lots, and driving home–something they have within a few hour’s drive–, I feel terribly desolated. It almost seems as if time and again, impermanence resurfaces itself in different ways, reminding me that life, the relationships, the people, and places are built on delicate grounds of time. No matter how hard I try to hold on to them, I cannot seem to escape separation.The dorm is now empty from people and personality; now there’s just only the two of us until 8pm, where we’ll have to leave, too. Though I don’t live here, I’ve shared many days with these boys in this dormitory, hiding in their room, fearing the lonesome back in that house right off 347 on Mark Tree Road.

But I guess its time to go back now. Back to where I started.

Photo by Usman Aslam @ ASBO

Witnessing the destruction all around, my heart beat and breath raveled inside my ribcage. The sight, stories, and tears were crashing and flying by me, and all I could really feel was this little thud in me. It was not extravagant or elaborated, it was just a soft thud. And I knew I was looking at my future.

Last week, I had the opportunity to go down to Joplin, Missouri to help rebuild the local community that was devastated by one of history’s deadliest tornado. I was expecting several broken playhouses and some misplaced homes, but to my dismay, unseen and untouched parts of the town was still torn and unhealed.

I had the opportunity go around town to pick up the left-over debris, to clear lands and unearth buried belongings, and to clear the forest from hundreds of meshed roofs that was ripped from an elementary school. It was heartbreaking to see the aftermath and I dare not even imagine being a victim of such massive destruction. Climbing through the forests with hundreds of fallen trees, and driving around town to see the destruction with my naked eye, it was a testament to our fragility and a reminder of my own.

When I said I could see my future, I didn’t mean being a victim and damned by such fate, but that I wished to see myself in service of such aftermaths. It wasn’t a trip to feel good about myself being a servicer to the community. I was not there to gain karma points, to please a higher being, or to prove my compassion with photos on Facebook.

I was there to redeem myself of ignorance. I wanted to be there to see destruction with my own eyes, to hear the stories of loss, and to fill my hands with the wreckage from the disaster. It didn’t matter if I made a difference, but it mattered that I care to know.

I hope I don’t grow old chasing after the temporary promises of money, or the obsession in loving a husband and only raising good kids. I want to still care for the welfare of the world, and to surrender my resources, whether in energy or wealth, to mend the little broken parts. I want to care and give, simply because the spirit of a better tomorrow is the only thing that can keep us sane.

Photo by Michelle Lynn

You don’t know this.

Sometimes when my eyes shift to search for the truth in your eyes, I catch a glimpse of their shadow lurking behind you. In that moment of recognition, I shudder with immense and unbearable fear, and for that I push you away. I run not because of doubt or distrust, but the terror from the dark past and shadows that haunt me in your image.

There is so much anger and dissatisfaction in me; they are the few weapons I have against you. The fragility of this beating, caged thing called the heart is not something I want to challenge. It is not something that can bear the touch of another again.

I can’t love without feeling the rejection, hurt, betrayal, and neglect inflicted upon by the cheap love I’ve felt before.

I’m scared, baby. I’m scared to death of the premonition of scars.

Photo from Helena Fan

All over the world, as we close the windows to Facebook and log out from Skype, we turn to face the darkening new reality. With a turn of fate and the execution of future plans, we’ve all travelled thousands of miles away from home only to greet solitude and uncertainty. Everything we were sure of, our dreams, decisions, passion, are now watered down over and over by the demands of pundits and the pressing reality.

We feel alone here, while everyone else seems to be moving on just fine. Its as if we had the worst of luck; a fattening food culture, a retarded student body, a broken heart, a tough academic life–I don’t know how many times I’ve heard someone say “well, at least you have (this). But you know, for me, I had to (that)”. I don’t understand our need to feel the worst. I feel overwhelmed most of the time, wishing everyone would just stop complaining and comparing.

The world is so distortedly different for each of us now. We no longer live in the same place or situation where we can compare our lives. We struggle with our own plight and demand that everyone sympathize, yet we refuse to accept that everyone has their own war to fight. They are fighting their challenges alone, too; challenges that we’ll never understand or ever need to endure.

The last thing anyone of us should be doing is putting down one another, pretending as if our war is the toughest. It’s not. We just have to take a deep breath,

& move forward together.

Photo from falsa-ironia.tumblr

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Everything was supposed to spiral out of control and I was supposed to sink deeper into my own abyss of self-loathing. Yet, right at that moment when I eyes fell too weak and I was ready to drown along with the strong tides, he came in and held my hand so tight, I didn’t even dare give up on myself.

Image from Julietadecopas.tumblr

For thousands of days, and hundreds of months, I’ve felt heavily flawed, tampered, and stained with a past I cannot undo. For long, a monster lived inside me and fed off my insecurity, growing each day into a large creature, groaning and echoing my every imperfection. It clawed at my heart, choked at my airways, pricked my nerves, and drowned me in a mire of self-loathsome. Each day, with every smile, it whispered another flaw.

But for the first time in a very long time, I feel its death inside of me. It burns with his every word of reassurance, of reminder that I am more than I know. For every second he spends with me, he spends it ailing my broken mirror, he fixes the reflection of myself. While all the rest spent their time trying to judge me, trying to tame me, he counts off the ways he could care for me. Everything I do never fell into the subject of his opinions. Every decision was mine, and his to support.

In the night when I cried, he held and told me that everything will be okay. And with every confession, he only held me tighter and whispered that I am perfect and that there was no one else I should be. Sometimes I wake up with a nightmare but find him right next to me, stroking my hair and telling me that everything’s okay. Sometimes the pillow falls out, yet he patiently wakes up, lifts my head, and puts me back to sleep.

One morning, after waking from an odd dream, I saw him sitting over the bed, watching me wake. I softly said ‘I’m so lucky to have you in my life.’

He looked slightly confused. “No,” he said, “its the other way around.”

We don’t know where we’re headed or what we are. We’re neither friends nor lovers; simply two beings trying to figure out how to love like this.

As I told him he was impossibly amazing, he said that for every good thing I could think of him, he could name two of mine. He patiently waits for me as I cautiously learn to trust again.

Image by Martin Day

It’s easy to get side tracked in our endeavors. It’s easy to be washed away by the strong tides of life and be overwhelmed by the human emotions in us. We try so hard in maintaing a calm and cool composure as we row on towards our big dreams and goals. But it’s tough as we age, trying to make sense of this large, ever-changing, and impossible universe and system of existence.

So yes, it is tough. It is hard trying to function within a society, love within a family, and yet strongly hold ourselves as an individual. We’ll find days of all sorts, as we decide which angle of the world we’d rather look at.

My limited years of living and view of the world hampers my ability to offer the best antidote to this misery of ours. But I can reach out and confess that, yes, I am a victim of uncertainty and weakness. We all are, but it doesn’t mean we end here, wailing at our imperfections.

Life tumbles on and on, and the only way to brace it through is to grow stronger after every turbulence.

Let yourself be washed in sorrow, disappointment, anger whenever they arise, but don’t let them drown you into the inescapable abyss of self-pity, loathsome and ungratefulness.

Embrace that you are only human.

Take a deep breath.

Now, Start Over.