Let's see....

i have experienced this more than a hundred times i think, but like any other emotion, they pass you by, they come and go. if i feel or find something pleasurable, i intend to desire it. of course, who woudn't want something pleasurable in their lives, right? i hundered times i pleasured things, the pleasure of having someone around you, the pleasure of being in love, maybe? any person would desire this, right? of course, the feeling is ecstatic. but after feeling this, i have to say that sometimes, it's really painful to desire something.
i can say that i have fallen many times already, but fallen from what? i think that i have failed if there is something that i desire, but i cannot get hold of it. i've gone crazy over pigging out on food to the point that sometimes i crave for a certain food, but if i don't get what i want, i feel down. i think it's the same with almost anything. I feel something pleasurable and then there's desire, but if i can't do something to satisfy my craving for that desire... i begin to feel that i'm a failure.
it's lame, but i think that most of the lessons that i have learned so far from life is from getting hurt. getting hurt physically and emotionally. among the two, i prefer to get hurt physically, because the pain goes away about a week or two... but to get hurt emotionally, and i think is caused by my pleasures and desires, is harder to recover from. i have been thinking about the same things for the past year already, i couldn't get over something that hurt me so bad. it was about something that i desired so much. and the worst part is, i got hold of this desire, and i was trying to fight for it to the point that i was losing everything that i have around me. but somewhere along all the fighting, it slipped, and it still hurts me until this day.
so i've grown to become bitter... i making myself believe that if i stop thinking about pleasure, then i won't have to desire anything... and this will stop me from hurting again.
but even if i keep instilling this to myself, i still feel like there's something wrong with it, that if i stop desiring(actually i've already mastered this a bit), but then i still feel empty.
so what should i do? i don't want to get hurt, i'm tired of it, i want to stop desiring because i know that i will fail again. haha! you see, there's something wrong about it, don't you think?
because i've already thought about this like a thousand times already, i know that it is thru desire and pleasure that i find happiness also. i think that because of these two i still find the drive to live. it's pretty messed up, huh? but based on my experience, that's how pleasure and desire work for me. is it really that way with everyone? or is it that i just don't know how to handle pleasures and desires? i don't know about you... but this is how it is with me.

this is the title of the movie. the movie is about a girl who considers herself a "boy who is trapped in a girls body", yup, a transgender. in this movie, there were questions raised about being transgender. First, being in a modern society, is revealing or expressing oneself really safe especially when it comes to a persons gender identity? is it okay to be transgender? do people accept this kind of identities? how sure are we that we are safe?
in this movie, each of my questions were answered. for my first question, modern societies today are more open to other norms rather than that of tradition. now, we can see people fully and bravely expressing themselves and showing the world who they really are. we are lucky if we are in a society which is very open minded and will respect any decision that a person makes. but there are also unlucky ones, like "brandon" whom her friends believed to be a guy, but when they found out that she was a transgender, they raped her in even killed her. we have to realize that there are still a lot of people out there who still stick to early traditions.
Second, is it safe to be a transgender? in one way to answer this question, we have to know what kind of society we live in, here in our country, it's quite okay because i know a lot of people who are transgender and their parents support them at this. because being a transgender is like going along with what you feel is right, being comfortable with oneself because if a girl feels that she's just trapped in a girl's body and that she should be a boy, then so be it.
third, here in our country, yes, people are starting to accept the fact that there are really cases like this, but again, i think it depends on ones society, because like in the movie, obviously they do not accept people like "brandon" and so she was abused.
and lastly, how sure are we that we are safe? yes, again, people have different views, people accept and reject anything. so just to be safe, we have to be careful of who we choose as our friends, and again the society we live in.

with the answers that were offered, i'll have to agree because society really plays a big part in one's life. if a person grew up in a very open society, then chances are that he/she will be open too. but a society is there to guide people, to have conformity, a person still has the choice to reject or accept what their society is offering them.

i liked the movie "ang pagdadalaga ni maximo oliveros". it showed me how people in a way respond to gay people now a days. first, the family accepted him more than anyone around them. they loved him for whoever he is and even supported him with whatever he feels like doing. in return, maximo, being gay and showcasing a large interest in doing a girls "job", he made sure that he served his family and his family was very much satisfied.

nature vs. nurture: i believe that both of this theories have something to contribute regarding maxi's personality. although the movie didn't show how he was since he was born, i have encountered kids, at a very young age, showing signs that they are gay. so i believe that it can be that it is already in their nature, that they were born to be gay (and i believe there's really nothing wrong with that, while some people call it a disease?). nurture also plays a part. like socialization, because people around maxi was "open" with him being gay. so he didn't really have a problem. his family never attested to him being gay, so he never got comfortable and because his family supported him, he didn't care about what other people say. he was enjoying who he is, and he was happy. he even fell for a guy, and his family was okay with it, okay with that maxi was falling for a guy, but not okay with the guy he fell for. also, i think socialization plays a really big part because i also remember that scene were they where playing a beauty contest were they dressed up at their best as women. so they were imitating what they see in their society. another theory that i can see in the movie is the theory of cognitive development. growing up, maxi being gay, plays a role of a girl, he feels like a girl, tries to dress like one even. there's this scene where he just grabs a dirty kid out from the street and started to give him a bath, not in a harassing manner, but in a way that he just wants the kid to get cleaned. this way, he was playing a role of an older sister who just wants to clean her little brother. no one saw this as something bad, so he just continued
what he was doing, he was just trying to help anyway. because of this, maxi developed this personality of being loving and caring,in our society, we may say that this is being feminine, that's the main reason why guys don't show so much love and affection when they are out in public, because they are afraid that people might think that they're gay. so maxi got used to it and loved doing what he was doing, so he became more feminine.

first, i have to say something about the class activity last friday. in class, we talked about how we perceived people with different sexual orientation. our teacher asked us to draw a person given a specific gender. the groups came up with different images of people who they draw accordingly. from the activity, i honeslty believe that there's really no appropriate image that can go with a person's gender. i have learned and experienced that sometimes, what we see is really what we don't get. i mean, i have friends who are boyish and wears loose clothes but they're really not lesbians or homosexuals. they're just like that.

the assignment:
just this weekend, i went to my grandma's house for a little chit chat. we talked about how she felt about having gay friends (and yes, she did have gay friends and they were only about 7 or 8 years old). she told me that back in the days, her mom (my great grandma) would have her students go to their house for piano lessons. the students became their regular playmates since they were always there. after their lessons, they would play. one tine, it so happens that they were just fooling around and was provoking to of their friends to fight who so happens to be gay, haha! i was shocked because i never thought that there were gay kids back then. and for the story, the two "boys" fought until one went home crying. but the story doesn't end their. this boy who cried home happen to have an older sister who was a tomboy. and when she saw my grandma and the rest for what they did to her brother, they hurriedly ran away because she was way bigger than them. after her story, i asked my grandma how it was for her two friends,the "boy" and his sister(tomboy). she was very open about it. she said that they never had a problem with the two, they were ok with them. she even told me that the parents of the kids were also okay with it. i was actually shocked because i never thought people were that open about those things before. although i also know people who have stricter parents. once, when i was in high school, i had a friend who was gay, he liked boys too. he got caught in a scandal, somebody sent a video of him and a guy kissing in a cubicle to his dad. his dad got so mad, he tortured my friend until he can say and mean that he's a guy. but after this, my friend still continued to be gay but was of course limited. my grandma's generation is far more conservative before than today. it just so happened that my grandma was open minded to things like this. the only difference now is that people are more expresive of who they really are. they don't care much about what the society demands. they try to live life the way they want it to be and not the way others want it.