Considerata VIII

Go! To spaces, real or virtual, that thrill and excite your senses

But equally or more, go and weave quiet time in those spaces

to question the noise

as they invade the longitudes and latitudes
of your own map of meaning.

Not all matter matters to you.
Reacting is ordinary in every human animal
but responding reveals the better human, the sapien.
Posting soothes your own feelings and reinforces your own beliefs
It does not always make the matter, better.
At times, willful silence

is also an act of protest
Restraint could be revolutionary

Creating and recreating what it means to live and love.

Avoid people who frame life based ONLY on their own view

13.8 billion years for the universe

4.6 billion for our planet
10,000 human generations

are a stupendous waste of space, time, and light to glorify just one life.

The planet has seen 100 billion lives, exploding our lens of what is possible.
Wealth is the hunt for the stories beyond your own time and space.
Poverty is thinking only your own life and view matter.

If you compare yourself with others,

Revel in your differences
No better proof of life
Than to see life mutate and morph

In different forms, shapes, and trajectories
Connect your differences
The planet is a mere pale blue dot from Voyager 1 in space
But from our own seats on the planet, we still deeply matter to each other.

We are now poised to live beyond a century

So we summon the clockmakers and
forge a dialogue with time
To rethink and reshape how we learn, live, and love
Within lives once governed by age-labeled stages in time.

But we still will die.
Biology has new powers except deleting the end of life.

Each of us will still close the theater of our own lives.
And bow for one last time.

And when you do, what will it be for?
Did your work matter to the cast, the crew, the audience, and not just your own?
But most important of all, to whom will you give that last grateful bow?
Don’t forget to wink before you close your eyes one last time.
It keeps the next ones guessing as to what is possible, live on stage. 


Seek high lessons from the extraordinary
but always fasten your seatbelt of gratitude to the everyday
Golden moments rarely come in solid bars
There are more of them in nuggets and dust
That cling to the everyday people
Who wait, serve, clean, fix, drive, guard, protect, preserve, and conserve.
“Extraordinary” is only so because it is held up by the ordinary.

Recognize deceit, on-screen or in one’s gaze.

Even more, recognize it in your own soul. 
And silence it so you do not add to the noise.
Noise is distracting. Fake noise is lethal.


Be wary of people who think words are mere cloaks of character.
Or that art is mere decoration.

They have failed to inhabit their speech and their space
with their own souls and imagination.

But never abandon the slow march of the hours
unfolding in momentary slices
For it is where the here-and-now becomes fireworks.

The sliding velvety yellow sweetness of a spoonful of fresh mango

or the orient-storied taste of simmering ramen broths
all find their once-upon-a-time, in the story of our one Sun.

Resplendence inhabits all – the Sierra Madre, frogs, and tamaraws,
demoted planets, tucked-away villages, and inflated buttered buns.

Be yourself.
Stripped of all your delusions, it is all you’ve got.

Love, learn, and thank with a vigor that could shame the Large Hadron Collider.
Unleashing powers that birth an evolving you

who make this orbit of a lifetime with others
A heck of a ride too.

If you’re going to stop time

Remember that it does not know you or care about you.

But it gave you a chance to stretch yourself out.
So fill it with stories of love that can burst gargantuan stars.

Reconsider what makes a family

Genes are stories of biology 
but the human story is the one you craft with genes, shared with family or not.
Beyond “birthright,” we should stand for the “stayright” of other life forms
Whose numbers are only a shadow of their past
giraffes, whales, bees, and fire trees.

Have enough windows for fresh ideas 
but do not refashion facts to deceive the young.

The millennials have shed their millennial bang.

Another batch emerges.

We are all spread out in time.

Conversations across generations are the most genuine of all time travels.
The human mind can cross space-time borders. 
But you have to be willing to go on that ride.
Doing so, changes horizons for all beings in living time.

Listen.

And alas, you see
Honest purpose.
Yours and theirs.

“Why” is still the fundamental password
To life’s puzzles.

Amid a fantastic, riveting buffet of technology’s what’s and how’s
Blaze in and ask: “Why?”

Despite your sense of self, bleeding into cybersecurity breaches,

you live in a real, genuine universe!

13.8 billion years since the Big Bang

And somehow, it gave rise to living, breathing you.
And YOU are NOW showing.

Life in its most complete story could never be told.
Too many roles, too many gods, too many plots.
But you can live by dancing through your life’s orbits
in ways that can blush solar systems!
Opt to live if the choice is between living and telling.



Live to deserve the light. 
It traveled 150 million kilometers
To birth the one and only you.
And starlight has not stopped fueling you since then.

Whether or not you care about Darwin being misquoted 
about life being only for the fittest
or your nose bleeds when told that Einstein’s equation 
was metaphorically and literally enlightening,
this universe is that one stage for all that.
It birthed all your atoms 
and what you have made of your own atoms.

In your end time, it will see your atoms, your dusty atoms.

And your atoms will recycle.
Atoms to atoms.

But not your story.
Your story has but one chance.
Find peace with your own craft.
No artificial intelligence can overtake genuine humanity.
Passion’s architecture remains without an algorithm.



But as you insist on your humanity, let it grow.

Start by changing your mind

In times when it is hardest to do so
Forgive, admit to our failures, surrender to a better idea, and let others have their turn.

And as we gaze at the overpowering show of light at day
Or in its shadow-filled, points-of-light mystery at night
Know that it is proof of boundless, expanding space-time.
As that light reaches our eyes 
We unlock
the beauty of galactic upheavals, 
sketches of powerful light from celestial furnaces.
And on our planet
We cast our sights on couples at a cafè, in a tender gaze 
Young lives in adventure rides, circles of friends in I-got-your-back huddles

the soul-piercing beauty of terrestrial and marine scapes
And all the birds that move to paint the space in between land and sky.

We catch this moment now as the passing year’s light signs onto the fabric of time.

All that was are now swept onto the vaults in our minds.
From now on, we can retrieve them only through filters.

The universe was here before you formed your first memory.

It will be here after you turn off the light on your last.



But only you

Can make a story out of the light that brought you here.

Only you can weave the piece from your own fabric of space-time.

Dawn is here.

Awaken resplendent with love and light.
Happy New Year.

 ❆ ❆ ❆

This is called Considerata VIII because this is my 8th version through the years of writing a New Year’s science column. It is inspired by Desiderata which is packed with currencies of wisdom. For the previous versions, the links are below. – Rappler.com

Considerata VII | Considerata VI | Considerata V | Considerata IV | Considerata III | Considerata II | Considerata