Commercial Break

Spoiled by today’s uninterrupted cable shows, dvds, instant downloads and online streaming—some people get easily impatient about commercial breaks. While I understand how painful it is to watch a 20-minute show for a full hour or how the fingers itch to block those pop-ups and crawling ads on our screens, I often remind myself that whether we like it or not, these commercials are the lifeblood of TV shows. No matter how annoying they may be, we cannot deny that they do make it possible for our favorite shows to come into our realities.

In some occasions, I even find myself looking forward to these breaks -- times when the show is quite uninspiring or too violent and gory that I need a moment to catch my breath; or times when I need to pee or return those missed calls.

Even when it comes to writing, when words are scarce or inspiration is dry, sometimes all it takes is a distraction to get the ball rolling. Sometimes, a simple break could be a springboard to a great lead. Like those trailers in between movies, they sort of warm us up for the main feature.

In this light, before we move on to some serious stuff this weekend, allow me to warm you up for a few minutes with this entry. At the risk of annoying you once more, let me share with you my version of a commercial break:

There were about five press releases and an advertorial waiting for me to write into being. And it was one of those nights when relevant words were out partying by the beach. So, while waiting for them to return home, I searched for the perfect distraction and found it -- yahoo! -- on my sink.

That particular night, I decided to test Ariel’s power. No, not the Little Mermaid Ariel from under the sea… but superpower Ariel the laundry detergent.

When I was in Cagayan de Oro a few years back, one of my and my cousin’s favorite bonding moments was doing laundry together. She was the one who showed me the proper way to wash certain clothes. She was the one who introduced me to the power of Ariel.

As she said, Ariel is made in such a way that you need not hand wash clothes too much or too strongly or too long. All you’ve got to do is soak the clothes in a bucket of water mixed with Ariel powder and just leave it for a few minutes. The powder does some kind of dance -- let’s just call it magic – that removes dirt automatically. If you’re not using a washing machine though, it might pay to do some handwashing after for a bit. But not necessarily too much or too long.

Me, I’ve always hated doing laundry. But I remember at that time being so amazed by the dirt-removing power of Ariel that I voluntarily washed clothes a couple of times more. Frankly, I couldn’t tell the “before and after” difference (they just look clean to me). Nor could I really tell if Ariel compared to other laundry bars actually has its own special magic. But just the thought of those little enzymes attacking invisible dirt and oil and weaving its own special fragrance over the battlefield of whites and coloreds was enough to arouse my imagination into overdrive.

Anyway, that night, I found my thoughts drifting back again and again like the Tide to that particular lesson once upon a time. But this little experiment had nothing to do with clothes though. For I’ve decided to test Ariel’s power instead on the stained takeout styro, which previously contained the Chicken Parmesan from a fastfood joint.

To prevent insects (ants, roaches, and what-have-yous) from claiming my room, I’ve taken to the habit of washing every little food/drink container or trash before I throw them in the garbage can. All right I admit I’m freaky this way, but hello--Roaches? I’ll take my own freakiness over theirs anytime.

Anyway, this particular styro’s tomato sauce stain was hard to remove. And since I have no plans of going outside just to throw it when I have these overwhelming assignments on hand, I needed to do something.

So inspired by Ariel, I set out to do my little experiment.

I. Problem: Is Ariel powerful enough to drive the styro sauce stain into extinction without outside force?

II. Objective: To find out answer of the problem before writing deadline.

III. Hypothesis: Yes, it is!

IV. Materials: Celfone clock, stained styro, a cup of water, 7 pinches of Ariel powder

V. Procedure:

1. Do a preliminary wash of styro, particularly on its problem area, using running water for 10 seconds.
2. Pour a cup of tap water to the styro container.
3. Add 7 pinches of Ariel powder and stir with fingers
4. Check results every 30 minutes thereafter until curiosity is satisfied or boredom settles in

VI. Findings
30 minutes: No visible change
1 hour: stain is lighter
2 hours: stain is even lighter but still visible
3 hours: hey, I’m not that patient! No way am I waiting till the third hour.

VII. Conclusion
1. Let’s just say Ariel has potential.
2. I believe I’ve wasted enough wacky, senseless words to go back to writing serious, boring stuff for a few hours. So I did.

Disclaimer: This is in no way a paid advertisement. Nor did the writer receive little packets of Ariel for writing this piece. The subject is purely a product of circumstance and is used to drive the point that, when we’re stuck, breaks and distractions are sometimes worth their while.

-- SunStar Weekend, October 15, 2011

You, Me, Multiplied

Ever feel like you’re living nine lives in parallel worlds? Sometimes, I do.

We get up in the morning, drink our breakfast, run to work, attend five or more meetings, watch a movie with friends, hang out with family, and maybe, read a book before going to bed.

And then, as if we’re not busy enough in the physical world, we log on and recreate our lives (sometimes over and over) in cyberspace. We build farms or hang out in cafes with friends at Facebook. We participate in forums with fellow professionals at LinkedIn. At times, we go shopping at Amazon.com, transfer funds to e-banks, surf at Google.com or trade merchandise in Multiply. Like savvy post grads, we take up courses at e-Cornell. We write about our lives in Blogspot and broadcast our moments-per-minute on Twitter.

Sometimes, we duplicate our lives online, as if afraid that by failing to do so, people will forget about us. Consider today’s social evolution -- We have dinner with friends and yet, instead of conversing with each other, we spend half the time tweeting to the world that we are, in fact, having dinner with friends. What’s more, we visit beautiful places and, without even a moment to say grace or reflect upon the gift before us, we take out our digital cameras and pose for multiple shots, just so we can go home right away and post all of it on Facebook, Flickr, Multiply, tumblr, etc. It seems that all aspects of our lives, from the amazing to the mundane, are now being copied or multiplied. Patiently, diligently.

Sometimes I wonder, do we recreate ourselves through different platforms in a not-so-secret bid for, um, world domination? Or could it be we’re just fulfilling that ancient mandate mapped in our genes to “Go forth and multiply”?

With so many opportunities brought by technology, surely, it’s a wonderful time to be alive. But then, with the wealth of options in our hands, don’t you just feel we’re also spreading ourselves too thin?

How do we manage multiple lives without being divided? At the risk of sounding uncool, should we be worried that we have more friends online than in the physical world? With the way we spend our time, are we becoming more digital than real?

In the movie Multiplicity, the lead character Doug Kinney (played by Michael Keaton) cloned himself (twice) to help manage the stressful aspects of his life. Overplaying his hand, eventually, he found himself -- and copies of him-- in hot water. Of course, his circumstance and reasons may be far more complicated than ours, but if we’re not careful, we might just end up with a similar fate – with diluted, unauthentic versions of ourselves.

How then do we move forward without being overwhelmed with technology and TMI (Too Much Information or Too Many I(s))? How do we navigate the pieces of us scattered in this world and cyberspace and shine a light on who we really are?

The trick, they say, is to take a holistic view of our digital and physical self. While we may exist in different spaces, people basically still need to feel whole. We can start by finding the bonds that already exist and focusing on them until they define us.

I have also learned from fellow netizens that by following some basic life principles, we might just find the way to managing a mindful digital life.

The first principle, I believe, is authenticity, that is, being true to our selves. If we do not know yet who we are or who we want to be, naturally, it would be quite difficult to connect the pieces of us through space. Wherever we are, let’s strive to bring out the best versions of us. So as not to confuse ourselves, I always recommend we take ownership of our own names. Rather than create a whole new you, create the best you. That way, you build a solid Avatar. Choose the traits you like about yourself and exemplify them online. Then, let’s be mindful of the friends we keep. Birds of the same feather, after all, tweet together. Ultimately, we become like the people we follow or surround ourselves with online and offline. Fellow tweeter @paiawonka drives the point in less than 140 characters, “We should strive to be authentic wherever we are, whoever we're with. Difficult, but doable.”

Second principle is to plant or establish our roots. I like the way a digital zen guru (zenhabits.net) puts it: construct your digital home, then set up essential embassies. What does that mean? First, we set up a simple website that tells the story of us (using our real names), and then we use social networks to build our embassies. To quote, “If my personal website is my digital home, then my social networking profiles on Facebook and Twitter, etc. are my embassies. Embassies exist to maintain relationships with “distant lands” and to act as an outpost for people who want to connect outside my home base, not rule my life by commanding my attention.”

Third principle is Spring Cleaning -at least once or twice a year. We organize what works for us and then trash the rest. Delete old profiles, junk spam, block noisy e-blasts, deactivate unused accounts. If you have archived stories that are no longer true of your present, click delete. Keep networks that make sense or that serve you. This way, we have more time to evolve, test new platforms, and reinvent ourselves.

Fourth principle is to flow like water. Keep it fresh. Be flexible and find new paths. Make use of free apps to simplify and save time. Subscribe to Google Alerts, that way you don’t waste time searching the web, you let information come to you. Spread your reach without eating too much time through Twitterfeed. By updating your account settings, you can easily syndicate content to your Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and other accounts with just one action. Keeping a Social Media Directory on your main site also helps. It’s a great way to keep viewers in the loop.

Ultimately, managing our lives becomes less stressful once we understand that although we operate in different spaces – multiplying across digital and physical realms—essentially, we all go back to The One.

--SunStar Weekend, October 1, 2011