The Human Experience

I just finished watching this docu-movie The Human Experience by a bunch of New York City guys and I had a hell of an experience. Sounds exaggerated but in all honesty, it blew me away. It was based on actual "human experience" by these guys that won a lot of awards, citations and recommendations from different groups from political, educational and religious groups from around the world.

What made this movie authentic is that the guys immerse themselves into a world we so much take into a stride, turn our back on and for granted.

We look at our lives as something we have to live in order to be successful in all aspects, career, finances, wealth that we often overlook the most important thing, how to experience to be human. Love, compassion, brotherhood, understanding and peace.

I was in a roller coaster ride of emotions watching the film and it made me look into my life as to what am I here for and what am I supposed to be doing with it. We sometimes assume that is it enough that we have a great job, a house, a car, a nice family and good savings. These are what life is all about, these made us happy. But have you seen life in another perspective? In another man's shoes?

The four young men did and it changed their lives. The movie was divided into four "experiences" and each touched their lives in ways only hearts would know. They became a homeless beggar on the streets of New York, they saw the plight of abandoned and abused children in Lima, Peru, talk and be with people living and dying of AIDS and Leprosy in Africa, and in each segment they share what they have learned and how it touched their lives. The last segment hit home and made me cry, as one of the young men has not seen his abusive alcoholic father for 10 years, and it made him angry, and a set up was made for him to meet his father and confront him. But his experiences mellowed him and softened his heart and the moment he saw his father, he just hugged him and told him how much he loved and misses him and that he already forgave him. It was so heartfelt that my tears kept rolling down my cheeks. Then he told his father about his "human experience" and that the most important thing, whether we experience the good and the bad, life is still good and it is worth living.

Truly a remarkable film, made me think about the things I take for granted and that life is more meaningful when we look at it in another way. Our family is the most important thing, the love we get from them is enough to make us complete and that no matter how we get battered and bruised by life, we can always heal, and recuperate with our family. That to some people, their joy is not found on the things they have but on the things they experience with life. A piece of bread for a homeless person is joy, to play with a boy with no hands and only one leg and see him laugh and learn to master his existing appendage is joy, to see the smiles and the tears of happiness from the people who are sick with no hope of surviving simply because you visit them and you cared is joy. To forgive is joy. I think that's what life is all about, to experience it, to see through the joy and the pain and still keep your heart, to reach out, to feel, to live it out, and to love, that's all that matters, for in the end, no material thing in this world can ever replace our human experience.

Love In Between Tradition and Beliefs

Weekend, like every weekend before, I just stayed home and watched movies, something to pass time, if I am not reading or mastering my camera. One thing about me is that I love movies that is not conventional, something special that not a lot of people would like to talk about  or would shy away to see, or am I being too indifferent? Anyway, it has been part of my daily internet surfing to find good GLTB movies, not the exquisitely sensual types, ok, yeah, sometimes, but those dramas, comedies, romance and suspence movies that basically about the lives and loves of the GLTB community.

Without me knowing it, I finished watching two movies that really tackled very sensitive topics but were dealt with lightly and semi-lightly. It's about love overcoming trandition and religion. One is gay and the other is lesbian.

My very first lesbian movie, and I never thought I'd love it this much, I Can't Think Straight stars two gorgeous women who's portrayal of closeted lesbians just caught me off guard, not to mention being a Catholic-Arab and a Muslim-Hindi (and how about that for starters!) made the movie interesting and poignant. Both families were traditional, and both were expected to follow their parent's choices for them, even when it comes to love. Family loyalty and respect were jeopardized when they fell in love. Good thing the setting was in the modern age, so people tend to be a little bit open, well after a lot of denials and dramas. Enough said. One thing though, I will never looked at lesbians the same way again.

The other is called A Touch Of Pink, where a gay Muslim-Pakistani who's mother visits gets to find out that her son is living with a man whom she thought first were a housemate. But eventually the truth was revealed and broken hearted not to see his only child get married and have grandchildren leaves. But mothers are mothers, they cannot abandoned their child however their child turn out to be. So a reconciliation and acceptance lead to a happy ending. Enough said again.

I will not divulge much of the movie, cause it is better if you people of the blog watch it, it will be worth the three hours in front of the TV, I promise. The sexual content were a minority, and were dealt with artistically and as a part of the story and not graphic.

I really believe in love,  love that transcends through the hardest of adversities. After all, we are here because of love, so why some people put a label on it? Why we sometimes define love? Love is beyond everything we understand it to be, and if we cannot understand the very core from which love evolves, we will never get pass the point of prejudice, hate, limiting beliefs, indifference and intolerance. Does it matter when two men or two women fall in love? Are there really rules in love?  Is it written somewhere that love should only be between a man and a woman? There are so many debatable questions about love, and to add to the pointless argument, the subject of tradition and religious beliefs, combine that with narrow-mindedness and closed hearts and minds and what have we got? A totally messed up world.

We are made to love and feel love, share love and be loved. It makes us human, it makes us divine. It's our one way ticket to eternity, and we have but a short time to learn about love.

But human as we are, we  love to scare and limit ourselves by setting rules, religion and all those beliefs that imprisoned our souls and hardened  our hearts and not to mention closed our minds.

These two stories had in them powerful messages about love, being true to oneself, to be brave to stand and fight for one's freedom to choose whom to love. No matter and whatever people might say, nobody and nothing can ever tell us who we are and how we should be. We may be outcasted, disowned, hated and be judged, but as long as we stay true to who we are, nothing else matters.

We Can Awaken

You are not your name; you are not your possessions; you are not what you do; you are not your religion; you are not your belief system; you are not your programming nor your conditioning. You are not your thought; you are not your emotions. Your job is not in an office, it is to remember who you are, what you are. You are not your body or even your mind.

You are not your life, not a human being playing a spiritual game but a spiritual being playing the human game. You are consciousness, a point of view; a point of awareness; a point of light. The Earth is a school for soul evolution; you came here to evolve your consciousness. Lifetimes are experiences we use to evolve our consciousness. The body is a vehicle we use to enter this dimension, the five senses perceive our reality, our dimension. But it is not the only one, dimensions are realities in which consciousness happens. When you look around you, know what you see is not as real as you think it is, understand that the systems in place began with corruption and will fall to the power of love found in each heart.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, remember that time is not real. Time is an illusion, created by your mind in response to the movement of light and shadow across the earth. With time and thought, we created fear (fear is also an illusion), fear keeps us enslaved to this reality, to be done with it, replace it with love.

With your imagination you direct how the world happens around you. Imagine if you could actually do what you imagined, you can awaken.

- taken from something I saw on YouTube, photo by Gregory Colbert

9/11 The Day The World Stood Still

I am hesitant to write about 9/11 as until today I don't really fully understand what's it all about. All I know is that hundreds or a thousand innocent people had perished in that tragic day. I think it is one of the saddest moments in world history and it jeopardized the relations between people, countries and faiths. I remember when I saw the whole clip on TV, I thought it was a movie but when the CNN logo flashed on the screen, I stood there watching in disbelief. It indeed happened and somehow it was the day when the world stood still. Why did it happened? Why attack on innocent people? Why humans kill other humans? Why humans have no respect of their kind? We had wars to end all wars, but we never had a sincere look at the world as a whole. That we are one and the same regardless of race, color and belief. There's no point in blaming anyone or anything, for there were already so many finger-pointing since the attack, as for the loved ones of the victims, the scars will forever be visible and will never heal. They may not be able to forget nor to forgive, but think about also of the other thousands of victims of this relentless and pointless wars. In Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Israel there were also innocent victims. It was not only America that was attacked, it was not America that got hurt, but the whole world. We have everything that we need to sustain life, and the whole world needs to be united. The human race already came a long way and produced, created and built advances in science and technology but we still kill each other just because we differ in color, faith and beliefs. There are many lives to rebuild, instead of spreading fear, why not spread peace? There are a lot more people in Africa and the rest of the world still sleeping at night without food and shelter, and these mighty countries should direct their power and energy in making the world a little better. America was not the direct target of these attacks, it was aimed against humanity.

"There are only four questions of value in life, Don Octavio. What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same - only love." - Johnny Depp, Don Juan de Marco

Dostana

Here I am writing again about friendships.
How many people do we meet and call friends? I am not sure anymore. I used to measure friendships with the degree of togetherness and the times they're there when you are down, and share your joys and pains. But that became a question because of an incident.

Nonetheless, I come to terms with the issue and slowly letting it go.
Saw this movie Dostana, a Bollywood Movie set in Miami, Florida. Dostana is an Indie word that mean a Friend. A very light story of three friends, two guys, Kunal, a fashion photographer and Sameer, a Nurse and a gal, Neha who is an aspiring magazine editor. Both men are in love with the girl but cannot tell her as they pretended to be a gay couple in order to get to live in a great looking apartment with the girl.


Jealousy among each of the men makes them do things just to get the girl's attention but eventually loses to another guy, the girl's boss in a very prestigious magazine publication.

They joined together in order to drive the would be suitor away and succeeded but all backfired and loses the girl. In order to forgive the two, Neha's boss/boyfriend together with her dared them to kiss in front of a crowd. They begged off as they are not really gay, and as Neha turned away the crowd roared in shouts and claps, Kumal and Sam were kissing on the stage. Neha then run towards them and they all group-hugged and all became well again as their Dostana is far deeper than anything else andthey are bestfriends. Arm in arm they took Neha to the boyfriend and handed her over as she was an orphan, kneeled and asked the boss to marry her.


I laughed, got teary-eyed, enjoyed the music and felt good afterwards. It was one of the best films I had ever saw at almost 2 hours! The movie included some MTV like dance scenes which are also a delight to the ears and the eyes.

Which brings me back to the main topic, up to what extent can a friend go just to ask forgiveness to another friend? These guys swallowed their pride, kissed, kneeled and cried just to gain their friend's trust again. Why? Because they LOVE each other.

I think there should be love between friends, not just "be friends" and share laughters, fun times, sad times, jokes, and what have you. I think I am going to look for a friend who will love me and not just be friends with me. Sounds far-fetched and you might wish me "goodluck!" Nevertheless, there's no harm in trying, right? I'll start with me, instead of saying I like my friends, I will start to say I love my friends and then go from there.