Felix Bravo’s Weblog

Today is June 22^nd, seven days past the day they have set aside to honor fathers all over the world. Too late to be remembering the man who gave me life, but who said that a late celebration to honor a past life is an unforgivable sin? My father, always forgiving to family faults including the neighbor’s, never complained of tardiness.

I know my father to be one who would always admit faults. He never glorified sin, for he had lived it— big sins, small sins. On our way home from his shop, he and I would pass by a small Catholic chapel in a barrio in the town of Cadiz, and he would call on the priest to demand his right to confess. A ritual he would do once month when I was five, he batted for perfecting it when I was seven, and by this I mean he did his confession to his favorite “padre” at six p.m. every Friday afternoon. Very regular, as long as it did not rain. I understood this actuation to mean he had been burdened by his many sins.

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Minds at work (meaning your mind, or mine) could be busy processing 10,000 thoughts per day, so says the book titled Mind, Body Medicine: How to Use Your Mind for Better Health (by Daniel Goleman and Joel Gurin). 10,000 thought data per day means 70,000 thought data per week, or 3.65 million thought data per year. If these thoughts were printed on paper, you could be crushed by its sheer weight alone. If they are bad data and they remain as electronic data in your brain, they could either make you a lunatic or a killer.

Can harmful thoughts harm other people? University of California-Berkeley professor Herbert Morris posits the premise “that unless acted upon, thoughts by themselves can have no extra-personal effects, so that if thoughts are of public, specifically legal concern, it is only because of their link to harmful action.”

That premise has been challenged by a fellow professor Meir Dan-Cohen in a paper, who says “Can one person’s mental states, such as intentions or emotions, affect others even in the absence of any action or expression on that person’s part? Contrary to a widely shared assumption, I argue for a positive answer.” Professor Morris says they cannot; Professor Meir Dan-Cohen says they can.

I argue that firstly harmful thoughts can harm the person who harbors those thoughts. Medical doctors such as Keith Schenert have made studies that reveal that “for many Americans, our thoughts do more harm than good” to us. This is contained in his 1980 publication titled Stressed/Unstress. His report says that as a result of their harmful thoughts, “25 million Americans have high blood pressure,” “1 million have heart attacks,” “8 million have stomach ulcers,” and another “230 million filled prescriptions for tranquilizers.” These are figures over twenty-eight years old; don’t think that they have decreased.

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Dr. John B. Calhoun, a research psychologist of the National Institute of Mental Health, set out to prove his theory on the dangers of population overcrowding. His brand of discipline is also known as ethology because it deals with the behavior of animals. In the process Dr. Calhoun also invented the term “behavioral sink” to describe aberrant behaviors he had noticed among the rodents, a term that has now passed on to common use.

His studies on rats and mice began in rural Maryland in 1947 and were to last for 15 years. Dr. Calhoun had chosen rodent species that are aplenty in North America, and are true omnivores— would eat almost anything—, have acute hearing, are sensitive to ultrasound, and possess a highly developed olfactory sense. A 2007 study discovered too that these rodents possess meta-cognition, a mental ability previously found only in humans and some select primates.

In one very interesting experiment, Dr. Calhoun built a steel cage nine feet on each side designed to be populated by 160 rodents only. He wanted to create a colony of cultivated rodents – rats with “values” as high as any human values. The cage was always cleaned, was well-stocked with food and water and was free from predators— indeed, an ideal habitat, except for its overcrowded condition. The rodents were deprived of privacy, with no time or space to be alone. Since there was no escape, Dr Calhoun was especially interested in how these animals would handle themselves in their crowded environment. Though their numbers grew, the size of their cage did not. He allowed them to populate to 2600, about 16 times what would be considered normal density. Dr. Calhoun’s studies reveal the following:

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One day a buyer shopping drops by a large Gemolite chain store in one of those big buildings in Downtown Cloudburst. That store is a branch of a jewellery manufacturing company and exquisite “gemolites” are its main product, although it sells other gems too.

What are “gemolites,” you may ask. “Gemolites” are rock-hard man-made gems; unlike real diamonds which are natural and can be mined from the bosom of the earth, “gemolites” are perfect imitations of the natural. They have the color and the sparkle of the real. It is virtually impossible to distinguish a man-made diamond from the genuine. Natural diamonds are very precious, but a “gemolite” you can always afford.

But one gem, different from the others, catches the man’s attention. “I want that,” he says. “How much is it?”

“It’s not a gemolite,” the seller says. “It’s real, and very expensive. I’ll give you a discount; just get a gemolite. We have plenty of gemolite stocks. They cost only a fraction of the price of that gem.”

“No, I want that one,” the buyer insists. “How much?”

“A very large amount.” He looks onto the man’s eyes. “Very large.”

“You think I cannot afford it?”

“Well, many of my customers have been coming and going just to see that gem, promising me they will come back. If you’re determined to buy it, you can.”

“How much then?”

The seller pauses for a while. “Everything you have, sir.”

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Happy are those who have friends in the high places: for by the click of their fingers they could silence the objectors, by name-dropping they could cut through red tapes.

Happy are the pushers: for by just pushing their weight they get on in the world.

Happy are the hard-boiled: for they never allow life and its threats to hurt them.

Happy are the greedy and those who hoard: for they have guaranteed themselves abundance of things in times of want.

Happy are the adulterers in the high places: for they still get the respect of the society.

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Two sets of twins, one Spanish, the other Chinese, have kind of sorted their own lives, rectified human errors that caused their separation at birth, and sued their hospitals for damages.

The Chinese twins are suing a hospital in Beijing because an alleged mix-up (hospital’s fault, so they say) had led to their separation for two decades, with one of them believing someone else was his identical sibling. They lived with that unknown lie for twenty-one years “until a strange series of circumstances led to the truth,” so says Yahoo! News. “The real brothers grew up not far from each other and when mutual friends of both men began commenting on how similar looking they were, they decided to introduce them to each other,” Yahoo! News says further. Suspicions got started and both guys had blood tests. The results: The separated brother known as Xiang Nan, brought home as their baby by another family, was a 99.999 percent match for Wang Yiwen, who as a baby had been brought home by his real family with another baby the hospital thought was his twin. The kid who grew up as Wang Yiwu, Wang Yiwen’s twin brother, “had absolutely no biological relationship to the people he knew as his mother, father and brother,” Yahoo! News says.

The real siblings and their parents have demanded more than $150,000 in damages, but the Beijing hospital isn’t interested in a settlement; its spokesman calls the incident “hypothetical” and that much time has passed for a case to be made.

On the other hand, the Spanish twins (no names given, but they are women) who got separated at birth by hospital error and reunited by chance 35 years later are also suing the state-run Canary Island hospital for millions in damages. The error occurred back in 1973. The lawyer for one of the twin sisters said his client was seeking £2.4m from the government. The case has been working its way through the courts since 2004 and the lawyer said a verdict on possible damages was due soon

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(1) “How do I know what authorized matter is mandatory and what authorized matter is optional? Do I need to trust some ‘authoritative’ teacher of the text, or is there a fool-proof way to know?”

All authorized matters are mentioned specifically in the Word of God. The only fool-proof way to know is by reading it.

Those who cannot understand English will need someone to guide them as they wade through the Scripture. Even the Ethiopian eunuch who had been reading Isaiah understood this need. “How can I,” he said, “except someone shall guide me?” (Acts 8:30-36).

Authorized matters that are mandatory are basically those commands, statutes and ordinances God has taught through his prophets (from Moses, who wrote the first five books of the Bible, to John who penned the last). The commands and statutes in the Old Testament obligated only those who were under it. All commands that Jesus has taught through his apostles and prophets, which are basically found in the New Covenant, are for those who would choose, and have chosen to make Jesus as King of their lives.

Acts 4:34-37 may be a good example of an authorized matter that is optional.

If by “authoritative teacher of the text” you mean a prophet, I believe it is a phenomenon that has ceased to be, in spite of the claims of some sects (such as the Mormons and the FLDS, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Iglesia ni Cristo, the Armstrongites, the Quiboloy group, the Zimbanguists, etc.). In the Lord’s church, nobody stands as the “authoritative teacher” except Jesus. Whatever we teach today should be under the scrutiny of any reader and listener. Like you for example. I believe too that everyone and everything—he who teaches and he who does not, they who listen and they who do not, every doctrine taught, every act done and every word spoken—shall all be placed under the scrutiny of Him who shall be the judge of all.

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How did you learn your great lessons on this business called life?

My great lessons came out of the mistakes I had made. Many mistakes, and not just small ones but big. Mistakes that made me back out into a corner and made me think how I got it all wrong when everything seemed to be so right, or falling into the right place.

Sure, I admit that the times and the seasons when I got things correctly had also taught me lessons equally great, made me happy and made me dream of repeat successes. I got enamoured with medals and awards for the right things I did. For these flew into my lap expectedly; in fact I dreamed of these to the point of being obsessed.

But I had discovered too that trophies and successes may also tempt us to embrace rigid solutions for doing things, or get into patterns of thinking that rarely give us freedom to be creative. Rarely do they lead to insights nobler and more profound. Under that stupor, we seldom entertain the possibility of flops and fiascos.

Yes, the more profound lessons of my life tend to come from the occasions when I don’t get things right. They result from the wrong actions. They are a bounteous harvest of troubles from the mistakes I had sown. For bad consequences, wrong results, tend to impact me more than the correct ones, and has made me salve the wounded ego of one so bright who had done things so stupid.

So let’s take a little time together to think on life’s lessons and learn from these suggestions:

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Brother Edward is a gracious soul today. His lips beams with much thanksgiving. “The good Lord has blessed us so much.”

One day two years ago he was a different person.

You should see him now walking in great strides as he surveys the little world in this hamlet of Maraag, Sudlon 2, city of Cebu. No longer is he the man I saw two years ago, with a big wound on his head, with anger in his eyes.

That day I saw him, his body was in pain and gangrene was a big threat. He had just arrived from the hospital in the city, where the doctor hurriedly attended to his wound and sent him home immediately because Edward did not want to stay even a day in that hospital, even if his head wound was big enough that it required stitches and anesthesia and large doses of antibiotics. He could not afford the room, he had no money to pay doctor. However some good Samaritan paid his hospital treatment and that was all. Edward did not want to burden the man by staying a day or two at Cebu Doctors. So home he came.

The night before, he had been challenged to a fist fight by his younger brother Arnold who was drunk, and attacked with a broken wine bottle by his brother Arturo who was equally drunk.

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Crime indeed does not pay, but the Philippine government really meant business when it made the thieves pay. Their crime: The systematical pilfering of priceless historical documents at the National Library, selling these to antique shops and collectors.

On May 29, a Manila Regional Trial Court judge will decide on the case, so says ABS-CBN Online. This will put to a close the 18-year saga of retrieving thousands of stolen Philippine historical documents and bringing the thieves to justice.

A sting operation in 1993 had led to the arrest of Rolando Bayhon, a researcher of National Historical Institute. He was caught with 42 historical documents in his possession. He was planning to sell these documents at P1,000 each to a Manila antique store but justice caught up with him. Seven hundred other documents were also recovered from that antique store.

Following Bayhon’s arrest, National Library director Adoracion Bolos made a public appeal for the voluntary return of other historical documents by anyone who might have unwittingly bought them, vowing not to press charges, so says ABS-CBN Online. This resulted to the retrieval of 8,183 documents, mostly classified papers relating to the Philippine Revolution. A UP professor returned more than 6,000. NBI probe also showed there was a network of “mediators” and interested buyers of antique documents, and as always, Bayhon’s hand was the one caught dipping in the cookie jar. Some documents he had sold in the range of P30,000 to P50,000. The man really made much money out of the pains and anguish of the Philippine Revolution!

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