"What Is Real?"

I just finished watching the movie Beginners starring Ewan McGregor and Christopher Plummer, a story between a father and his son, and their relationship when the father came out of the closet, at 75 years old to his son and got afflicted with lung cancer. It is a slow paced movie but very endearing, and the undelying theme about sadness, pain, acceptance, tolerance and of course love, it's effects and consequences and eventually how to survive the feeling. One part that struck me was when Ewan relates an excerpt from a children's book called the Velveteen Rabbit by Margaret Williams about a stuffed toy rabbit wanting to be played with and loved by a boy which had a very deep meaning, I kept rewinding and playing the narration until I got up and searched the internet about it. I found the excerpt and here it goes:

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but Really loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get all loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

The story goes on that the Velveteen Rabbit does become real because he is so loved by the boy. To cut it short, the story reminds us that when we are truly ourselves and truly loved we become genuine and real.

If I asked you, I am sure you would say that you unconditionally love those close to you, your partners, your friends your family. And I am sure in general we do unconditionally love those close to us. However, the test comes from day to day, in the annoying habits and the frustrating ways of being human. Most often, in the day to day monotony of our relationships we are taking account of who has done more, who calls more, who initiates more, who has sacrificed more. We get stuck in the ego of self protection. We don't love with a reckless abandon. We don't look at our partner or friends with appreciation and joy for the daily contributions they make into our lives. I know how difficult it is to really let go and LOVE someone for their REALNESS yet that is what we all long for, someone to take us in and look at our ugliness and love it anyway.

So today, my challenge to you, as you interact with those close to you, love them for who they are, for their failures and their successes for their hits and misses. Love them like the little boy loved the Velveteen Rabbit.

Reel and Real Friends

When you are far away from your loved ones, the next best thing would be having friends around to keep you company. It is not easy being in another land where the first difficulty you'll be having is having problems with communication, (unless of course you're in an English speaking country, but then again when it is slang or somewhat they "eat" the words they say), anyway, so "birds of the same feather, do flock together," and we seek our kind, fellow "kabayans" in order to feel we belong, at least safe, and encouraged.
But having friends here is like playing the darts, it's a hit and miss process. You will aways never know which one is true, just being nice, kind, or only using you. You will always never know at the same time, which one you can depend on, talk to or hang around with, for they can ignore you in an instant, or simply does not want to have anything to do with you. or worst make everyone turn against you.
I am lamenting about my own experiences with the people I met these past 4 years living here in Riyadh, even lamenting is a kind word, if grieving is deeper then I am grieving. I am grieving that most of the "friends" I have here are not my "frienships."
We Filipinos are friendly in general, but we also have this inert talent to shun out whomever we dislike and we are capable of "acting" nicely in a click of a button. and I hate that. There is this reality that among the list of people I have met and described as "friends" only a handful I considered to be true.
Why I am grieving, I have a heavy heart because I think that it is important to have a support system and someone to be with in order to survive the loneliness and the hardships of being in a foreign land. Our families can only do as much with our phone calls, chat and emails, but being a physical person (I need to have a physical or personal contact with people) I am sad knowing most of my so called "friends" are not being true. I love friends, I treasure them a lot, that is why when I found out some of those I consider is fake, that a 1st-Class Louis Vuitton bag imitation is better!
How did I find it out? In reference to my post The Ones Who Never Left a couple of weeks ago, that those who stays with you even in your lowest times are "true friendships." But first it goes with the feeling and what we call instinct, our inert God-given talent to discern. I know when the person I am talking to is just bluffing and/or being honest. One thing also, you know that old lesson we always hear, that untrue persons never gives a direct eye contact when they speak to you, they cannot look at you straight in your face, either they look down, sideways or their eyes is looking in all directions and they usually cut you in the middle of the words you say, just to end it. Then they will always keep you "hanging on" and find it difficult to tell you "honestly" what they really mean and find it through other people the "real" reasons. There are those who are being too friendly and realize they just want something from you in the end, like a favor or a help, then you're ignored after. Once I do cared much to a "friend" and finding out through another that it was all taken negatively, and I hate those who are there during the happy times but leave you alone to fend for yourself. Lastly, there are friends you find only here, but once you come back home, they don't even bother to meet you.
It is true when they say that "friends are like precious stones, hard to find and too precious to loose,"  that's why I treasure the small circle I have here. Friendship is a recurring subject in my blogposts, because I really would like to put emphasis on the value of friends while living far from the family. They care the extensions of the family we love back home.
Another is that, I have learned that those people that I once ignored, where the ones that are really worth taking the time to get to know and hopefully develop real friendships. My world here may be small, but they are filled with great friends. Which ends this posts with a quote, "I have learned today that those whom I thought were nobodies are somebodies and those I knew were somebodies were the nobodies." by me.