jessa

Everyday Stories, Lived

Relationships

  • They call it trust. They call it faith. They call it acceptance.

    How can you know you’re being exploited if you belong to a system that keeps you from asking deep questions—a system designed to prevent you from knowing you are in one? When naive trust, blind faith, and uncritical acceptance are all that’s expected of you, how do you even begin to see clearly? While catching Read more


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  • The week I became a snot in the nose (and learned to let go)

    When you do things against your will, more likely working on things you never want to be part of, you end up grumbling and muttering under your breath, your mouth conjuring every complaint it can find. And the more you resist, the heavier the weight of the task becomes, even when it’s as easy as Read more


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  • Letter no. 50

    Dear reader from the future, How do you celebrate birthdays? Is buying stuff for gifts still a thing? Maybe after listening to many episodes of The Minimalists and reading The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here, I think about all the stuff I have accumulated over Read more


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  • A frightening degree of corruption

    Something shifted in me when I came of age. Probably because my interest in current affairs has grown, the blatant corruption in the Philippines now troubles me beyond belief in a way it never did before. Watching the Katakot-takot na Kurakot (Alarming Corruption) documentary series made greed and human evil all too real to me because they are my experienced Read more


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  • We are travelers here

    I like being in the airport because all the people here have a place to go. Everyone is moving. Everyone is active. And even when we are waiting on uncomfortable benches, on cold floors, and in busy shops, we are waiting only for a season. We all wait with purpose—a departure time, a gate number, Read more


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