Daily Dose of Geek Mythology

Anyone who has seen fantasy movies, played fantasy games, and read fantasy books may be familiar with a handful of fantasy creatures.

There’s a well-known one that has been introduced since Homer’s Iliad. It’s the chimera. Though its appearance have been altered by the various fictions, its primordial form looks like this:

It has the head of a lion, the legs of a goat, and a snake’s upper body as its tail. And, err, the bat wing is extraneous. Chimera from The Iliad doesn’t have wings.

[The artwork uses this as reference].

Would you believe that certain types of chimera exist? Oh yes, you only have to be in the right country to see one. Filipinos are seeing one on TV everyday. They see a kind of chimera that has the tongue of a snake, the body [and stickiness and sliminess] of a slug, the horn of any terrible mythological creature, the snout of a pig, and the face of a president.

The Glomeria.

I think it’s time we crane her out, eh?

And yes, this is my blogswarm. I still hate that word, though. 

Improvisations

I started this post with one goal, and that’s to say something random. It’s then that I knew that I’m not so good at doing these write-anything’s. Yes, this first paragraph is identical to my previous post’s, and you’re about to read what I was originally trying to say before someone gave me a dose of facepalms.

There is one word that came to mind when I was insisting on a random topic: writer.

Writer is what the dictionary defines as either: 1. someone who writes professionaly, or 2. a person who is able to write and has written something.

I do not use those two qualities to describe myself. I don’t consider myself a writer and I’m not under the illusion of being able to write. Perhaps my confession may come off as strange to some, seeing that I update my blog often, but it’s true that I find myself lacking possession of what makes someone a writer.

I do not believe in most of the braggadocios I toss around. I also do not believe that a person can claim to be a writer just for doing blogs. See, there’s a disturbing trend of bloggers becoming too full of themselves when their blogs find a considerable readership. That’s great if all it requires for a blog to excel in readability is if it’s popular, but popularity has never been related to quality. That’s a truth most of the popular bloggers gloss over, so instead of having an accurate gauge of their skills they throw their fists in the air believing they’re John Steinbeck. The result? Embarassing chest-thumping from someone with a ghastly lack of creative prowess.

Let’s not fall into that trap, please. We should know of the danger smugness can do to an aspiring writer - actually, to a person aspiring anything. Smug means excessive complacency or self satisfaction, and when you’re smug about your writing, you’re going to look down instead of up. Imagine that you’re on a stairway where the floors represent writing proficiencies. If you do not look up then how will you climb and reach a higher level? I don’t know if that made sense, but whatever. All I’m saying is, you wouldn’t be motivated to improve if you’re self satisfied.

So if I’m admitting that I suck, what’s my business with this "writing" thing then? To that, I give a circuitous answer: would you believe that I tend to love doing what I’m bad at, but care little about what I am good at? Maybe that has to do with why I fall in love with girls who are unavailable or out of my league, but not with girls who are single and have shown interest in me. Eh, let’s ignore that previous sentence. I’m good at calculating, doing technical papers, programming and creating presentations, but I wouldn’t do them without getting paid. I suck at piano playing, drawing, writing and reviewing films/music/books, but I would gladly lose sleep just doing them, just like now as I’m doing this post. Oh snap!

With this thing called writing, I will never stop chasing it the same way as our administration will never stop making up lame excuses for their corrupt deeds. Because of my love of writing I am lost in books, often abandoning real world and imagining my own. Because of my love of writing I read and reread Elements of Style. Because of my love of writing I perceive smugness as the most perverted sin. Because of my love of writing I often lose time for much else. I know I suck, and that’s why I always look for ways to suck less. And even if that puts me out of touch with people, it makes me do something better than those with an active social life.

Communicating.

I will call myself a writer once I'’ve become good at improvising. How does that work? It’s when you can give me just one word and, without much pause, I’ll be able to say many things about it, and without much preparation create beautiful works. Yeah, just like the free-flowing music. Just like jazz.