All travel is fiction, you told yourself, as you walked around Ximending that cold morning. You’ve been too obsessed with getting the details right that you forgot that the experience is more important, the feelings you will take away from this whole trip. Because what is really different, anyway? You can go as reductive as…… Continue reading Love in the Time of the Novel Coronavirus
Category: personal life
Is There Really A Self? (& 10 PM Explorations of Being)
What if, as Plato said in his allegory of the cave, we only see shadows of reality, and that is because of the frailty that is our humanity?
Displacement Theory
When you get stuck in something—even when it’s something good—long enough, you start craving for something better.
The Weight of a Life in Wonder
At certain moments of your life, the question comes, during a pause: Selfie with “Untitled (Donkey)” by Jeff Koons, at the Moco Museum (October 2019) What am I doing here? What the hell am I doing here? The question came to me thrice during my recent trip to Europe, where my friend Gretchen and I…… Continue reading The Weight of a Life in Wonder
Of Grit and Grace
Much has been said about persistence and perseverance: how, if you are only forceful and determined enough, you could achieve whatever it is that you set your mind to. A wall of photos and business cards (Vietnam, 2014) Malcolm Gladwell, in his bestselling book “Outliers”, argued that it takes 10,000 hours to master any particular…… Continue reading Of Grit and Grace
For the Privileged, a Performance of the Poor
The real enemy is the invisible one that never shows its face: the system that creates these tensions between peoples of different classes.
On the Kano Model and the LGBT Movement: Musings on the Intersections of my Startup and Advocacy Life
The Kano model is a customer satisfaction theory popular in the startup world. But does it also fit in the fight for LGBT rights?
The Knife They Give Us
This is what they do to us: they give us the knife and convince us to stab ourselves. They make us believe that we deserve it—that we, the sinful, should bleed.
A Necessary Fear
This was a draft I began writing in August 2014. I am not sure why I didn’t get to finish this. I am publishing this now with some thoughts I’ve added, four years later. Today I had an anxiety attack. It wasn’t the first, nor the worst, but it crept from behind and surprised me.…… Continue reading A Necessary Fear
A Writer in Manila 