Life Patterns

Life, being an abstract object, is a very complex topic to discuss in terms of conversation, academic paper, research topic, a blog entry, or through any medium communication; why is this so? It is simply because life, from the very start, is unique to everyone. No two persons can share the same life at the same time. Life, as I may define it, is a detailed timeline of events from the moment you are born down to your very last moment. But what I am interested in most is the thing which connects a life to another, how a person lives his/her life and how he/she dictates its direction.

Consider this basic routine. You wake up, eat breakfast, take a quick morning shower, dress up for school or work, brush your teeth, go to school or work, chat with friends, eat lunch, go home, eat dinner, watch a TV program, brush your teeth, and finally go to sleep. Just observe, how big is the possibility that you will do these thing again tomorrow? Sure it wouldn’t be exactly the same; what will be the same is how things work, the pattern of how we do things and how we get the same results every time. Now consider a bigger bracket, it can span from a week’s pattern, a month’s pattern, a year’s pattern, etc.

We live in a world of patterns; patterns are those things that make a thing recognizable and easier to identify. Given this situation, what would you do? Knowing these given, what would be your decision? These are just examples of questions we unconsciously answer by applying the theory of patterns. How do you study for an exam? Let’s say it is a math problem, would you study every possible answer to every unique question? Of course you won’t, you will be studying how things work instead. You apply things on different things depending on your experience on the situation at hand. Training yourself for a ball game and learning different plays in basketball are good examples of situations where we use patterns to our everyday lives.

Now as you may have noticed, patterns may not be seen in a sequence like the daily routine example. It’s true, patterns may occur at different times and in different places but there is no denying the fact that patterns do exist in our lives. Our lives per se is a collection of patterns stitched together forming a unique timeline of events just for you. But do you accept this concept or do you reject it?

Acceptance of the idea would give you a sense of security. You may feel that you have nothing to fear since things you will be experiencing in the future are just altered copies of what you have experienced in the past. However, having this belief would put you in a box bounded by its sides. The thing with patterns is that they repeat themselves. Even your mistakes may be mimicked by these events. Even knowing this, would you still accept that your life is a sequence of patterns?
Rejecting the idea that we live in a sequence of predetermined patterns may cause you some trouble; after all, we could really see that things happen in a patterned way. However, there is this thing called as free will; as a brief definition this is the concept of doing things your own way and deciding your future for yourself not being affected by things such as predetermined fate, the known future, etc. Now we ask ourselves, what is the point of knowing these patterns? Are they really that important?

We have heard of this clichéd phrase many times (hence, clichéd) but I’ll say it again anyway, “History repeats itself”; we, whether we like it or not, experience things that we have experienced before and end up with the same happy or sad ending. We may have encountered many things in life such as problems and blessings; in one way or another, they are just repetitions or branches of what we did in the past. These past experiences may not have started with you, it may have been occurring in your family for generations, such things may simply be inevitable or is bound to happen. Learning to accept or reject this idea is simply up to the person. The real lesson to be learned here is to simply be prepared for the things that may happen that have already occurred before or may occur in the future.

Of course you too can dictate on how these patterns work and how you can use it to your advantage. If the event or experience is not in any way advantageous or beneficial, you could simply overlook it and look at the things which can bring you happiness and satisfaction.

Life is not about how to live it in the most correct way or how to please people by becoming someone who you aren’t. It is about how to live it to the fullest, how to understand the patterns that affect your life and how you can accept them so that you can express yourself to the fullest, you might end up altering these patterns to your liking for all we know.

Thanks for reading and good day.

Blogging, an alternative to Social Networking Sites

In year 2000, I have been introduced to a tool called the Internet. It provides us with the humbling experience of gathering information about anything we could think of as long as an article or a page (web page) about it exists.

In year 2002, I was a casual user of the Internet. I was always online just to seek information about the latest games for the PSone. I was also using it then to search materials and articles which I could use for my projects, etc. The speed then was 28Kbps and I was always watching the small logo of Windows (ME) in IE for a good 5 minutes before it completely loads a page.

In year 2004, I was in high school then, my friend introduced me to a site called Friendster and I was convinced to create an account. I immediately told my friends to register their own accounts and to be my contacts in the said site. Friendster, being a Social Networking Site (SNS), offers different features for its users. Some of its features like posting a blog or sending a message are example of non-unique features of the said SNS. However, it was that site that opened my eyes to things like Account Profiles, Testimonials, Groups, Posting of Bulletins, etc. During my stay at Friendster, there were also trends like dressing up and customizing the look of your profile and it was an era of "Profile Wars" then. There was also a trend called the "Maximize your Network" wherein you compare your number of friends from others'; that may have been the start of Friendster's fall (subjective). You start adding people you don't know, people you think you know (posers) and block the users you hate or abused you in some way. As of September 2009, I officially left my account and decided never to open it unless I really need to.

In year 2006, I was also introduced to a site called as Multiply. The big difference between Multiply and Friendster is its function and key features. Multiply, for me, was the first to offer full customization abusing the power of CSS to its fullest potential. You are also given the option to move and/or remove features you don't want to be seen in your site. In Multiply, you interact with your contacts via Posts, objects you upload or publish for others to see; these may be blogs, photos, music, videos, links, and so on. However, the change in their design of the control panel, or inbox, may be one of their wrongest steps. People started to find other sites that have intuitive controls like the old Multiply has to offer. People also started using Multiply to sell things, losing the concept of "social network" altogether. People have also been offended by contacts' posts which may have been talking about him/her in a judgmental or discriminative manner. As of Septmeber 209, I officially left my account and decided never to open it again unless I really need to.

In year 2008, a friend introduced me to a concept known as "microblogging", a process of posting updates in sentential form, hence, micro. Plurk, a site which offers microblogging in a graphical user interface (GUI) called the timeline, became one of my greatest addiction in college. I initially had four friends there and karma, a numerical determinant of your contributions, went up to around 15 o my first day. I enjoyed seeing my friends' posts and responding to them as well. At around June 2009, I had more than 30 friends and started to experience flooding/spams. I started to be less active on Plurk when it started to become personal and less private. I started seeing private conversations accidentally posted as public posts; my friends judged and backstabbed by a contact and her friends and I became a victim of these "private conversations" myself. As of September 2009, I officially left my account and put my karma on "vacation mode"; decided not to open it again unless I really need to.

In year 2009, Friendster was struggling and the era of Facebook was born. I opened up an account and started to find contacts in the network. The age of applications within SNS's came and I was actually staying in a site for more than 5 hours. Facebook had it all, comment-able posts, status updates, blogging through the Note application, surveys using quiz applications, and "internetworked" games. I learned my lesson from Friendster and added only those that I personally know. But later this year, still 2009, I realized that Facebook may be in now but after a while, it will disappoint me once again, a pattern I've observed from the other 3 SNS's Ive managed, cared for, and loved. And as the pattern goes, as of September 2009, I officially left my account and decided not to open it again unless I really need to.

But as a Computer Science undergraduate, I'm attached to the Internet as if I could not live without it and I seriously want to avoid the hurt of what SNS's can give me; and that's why I chose blogging. Blogging, derived from web logging, is a process of maintain an online journal for others to see and read. Its purpose it to educate, disseminate or just to express ideas and/or emotions you've been keeping inside. And for the next few months and hopefully, years, I will be blogging regularly and will be sharing with you, my readers, my ideas, stories I have been writing, songs that I have been singing, and all of the memories I keep within me.

I believe that a new role has been given to me. My purpose now is to write, to express my feelings and ideas in a stage I have created for myself. I have been killed 3 times in HS, and 3 times in college in this very semester. Blogging, as I see it, is a good alternative to Social Networking Sites.

Good day. Thanks for reading.