jessa

Everyday Stories, Lived

Relationships

  • The gradual normalization of wrongdoing

    If only right and wrong, good and evil, were color-coded, we could see clearly which way to go and what not to do if we desire doing good. But wrong and evil often seem good (at first) until you are hooked and trapped. Then, you are either already knee-deep in them before you realize you’re… Read more


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  • Online aggression

    I find more people angry online than in person and I don’t know why. Because it’s election season in the Philippines, the occasional angry mob has become a 24-hour online presence and it has been challenging to drown out all the noise and think clearly about the values and principles our parents and well-meaning teachers… Read more


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  • Living in selflessness

    I constantly have to remind myself that I am the adult now. Sometimes, I still feel like being in the in-between—the chaos between a surf and the shore—tossed and turned into places familiar and unknown. While the routine keeps me sane, not pushing the boundaries makes everyday too predictable and boring, safe but hollow. The… Read more


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  • Resisting the urge to respond immediately

    What I learned to part ways with after seeking and engaging in creative activities is the idea that “messaging somebody entitles us to receive immediate response” because we are no longer high schoolers messaging one another, tethered to our phones all day long. I have trained myself for years (since I got ahold of a… Read more


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  • Late-night musings #25

    When I was planting seeds, I never really considered how much time it would take for the seeds to grow. I was just hopeful that they will. While some promised immediate returns, others could lay silently under the earth for years and decades even when you keep watering them. I kept watering the ones that… Read more


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  • Self-centeredness and short-term thinking

    Our confrontation with mortality—or more often, our avoidance of it—shapes our relationship with time itself. When we refuse to acknowledge our finite nature, we construct an artificially narrow temporal horizon that barely extends beyond our existence. This temporal myopia manifests first as self-centeredness, as I’ve observed in my perception of time. Who has the time… Read more


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  • Being comfortable in your own skin

    Getting old and being married meant you have to accept two realities about finding comfort in being naked in front of: Read more


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