January
In January 2022, I read and took notes on the book A Philosophy of Walking by Robert Gros and the article The Moderate-Minded Writer by Matthew Nisbet. I also started studying Thich Nhat Hanh’s work. Since it is the beginning of the year, I also conducted my annual review, improving my process along the way. I also started learning web design and development as part of improving the Sharing category of action in my life work. Along the way, I realized that there is so much to learn, so I decided to create a temporary site where I could start publishing. Then, I practiced web development by building Kaliskis na Ulap via Hugo and bought a full-stack web development course in Udemy to start learning through it. It was a tough start of the year. I went through a short depressive episode right after new year. Friends, Lea’s family, and lots of games got me throught it all.
February
This month, I continued studying about Thich Nhat Hanh. I particularly like his Understanding → Compassion → Happiness sequence and his distate for idelogies. I also started re-reading Scott Barry Kaufmann’s book Transcend and learned that my three main sources of self-actualization were continued freshness of appreciation, truth-seeking, and purpose. Along the way, I also activated my sky level improvement project by improving my purpose statement, vision statement, and mission statement. In addition, I continued articulating my field by researching any field or area of work where contemplation and philosophizing is combined. I discovered Ran Lahav’s Deep Philosophy but found that his work puts a heavier emphasis on contemplation over philosphizing and that his epistemology favors experience over reason. This prompted me to read about the differences of rationalism and empiricism.
This month, I published the first issue of Uman. It was also a month filled with web development projects. First, I continued studying web development, specifically HTML. I then discovered and implemented a solution to use a custom domain name for my Talahardin in Craft, which I also used for my collection of Thoreau translations. Lastly, I decided to pull the trigger and migrate vinceimbat.com from Wordpress to Hugo, improving my About page and adding the first season of Lilim into my content.
Meanwhile, I also spent a considerable amount of time nurturing my relationships. I celebrated my birthday with a few friends, I went home to Pangasinan and bonded with my cousins, and I attended Beth and JA’s emotional wedding with Lea, Cheff, Sarah, and Jeff. I was also reconnected with my cousins and aunts through the challenge we face regarding Mama’s eyesight.
March
I spent the bulk of this month thinking about the question, “What motivates us humans?” I was interested about the conscious or unconscious reasons behind our actions. Psychology holds most of the answers to this question, so I stayed there for most of March. However, I also reviewed philosophical answers that provide illuminating. Specifically, I read and thought about the meaning of life. After combining insights from my readings in psychology and philosophy, I decided that, at the time being, my minimum viable purpose will be to self-actualize and transcend (i.e., to fulfill all my needs for security so that I could grow as a person and live my life in the service of humanity). This could change as I deepen my understanding of purpose and human motivation. While thinking about these things, I articulated the difference between meaning and purpose and wrote a very fruitful note on the relationship of nihilism and approaching life with humor. Inspired by my thinking about purpose and motivation this month, I realized that I need a more systematic way of tackling my goals. Through a journaling session, I wrote a draft of an outline on my life management system implementation. A minor research I did this month concerned doing scholarly work outside academia.
This month featured several good walks: a walk around Baguio for the first time since the pandemic, first walk inside Makiling Botanic Gardens, discovering what would be my favorite trail along Matic-Matic-Maronong Road, walking with Megs and Josh at Baguio, and a solo walk at Yellow Trail. Aside from walks, this month was also a month of travels. I went to Baguio to see my nephew and nieces for the first time in two years. I also traveled with Lea’s friends to San Nicolas and saw Taal up close (after it blew up some ashes!). Then we celebrated Kris Ann’s birthday at Calayo, Nasugbu, Batangas.
April
April started out with me contemplating my inevitable mortality. My contemplation led me to the realization that what is truly important in life are not the peak experiences but the plateau experiences. Seeing the value of plateau experiences comes only after several brushes with death and suffering—experiences, which make one wiser. The connection between plateau experiences, death and wisdom is as follows: When one wants to see the world as it really is, driven by curiosity and truth-seeking, one easily realizes that everything is fleeting. This realization of the fleetingness of life then leads to more intentional living: one wants to make the most out of this short precious life. Thinking about the fleetingness of my life led me to asking myself what I want to do with the little time I have left. The answer that came to me was that I wanted to write a book. I spent a considerable amount of time this month thinking about what kind of book to write and realized that I wanted to give birth to beautiful non-fiction books with photographs that combine personal narratives, philosophical thinking, cultural references, and historical descriptions all situated in a specific geographical location. To facilitate this project, I wanted to be better in managing the intermediate packets that coulud lead to writing a book. Thus, I transfered my notes from Craft to Obsidian. After setting up my notes, I began compiling a reading list of books and essays about place and nature that talk about what it means to live and draw resources from history, culture, science, philosophy, and every possible source. This led me to writers who were influenced by Thoreau, such as Annie Dillard and Edward Abbey. While reading all of these books about nature, a common practice among the authors emerged: Everyone described specific moments of deep observation of particular phenomena in nature. Because of this, I was inspired to go back to writing field notes during my walks, which I rewrite as vignettes in my journal.
Meanwhile, I sent my blackout poems to be included in the Tuloy-Daloy exhibit. Outdoors, I visited Rizal Shrine for the first time and did my second hike to Mt. Makiling. Lea and I also went to Baguio and bonded with Jeff and Sarah. And, finaly, my family got together for the first time after two years.
May
This May, I continued incorporating narratives into my Talahardin and developing them there. I continued developing how I think about my writing life by reading DIY MFA. One of my most important writing achievements this month was narrativizing Uman’s April 2022 edition.
As I progressed in writing, so did I in walking. I decided to improve my walking by increasing the time I spend outdoors in the afternoon. I reasoned that the more time I spend, the more chances I have of catching something. Just the act of extending time led me to writing longer, more beautiful field notes that ultimately convinced me to relaunch Lilim. I have published three issues of Lilim this month. It is also during one of these walks that I serendipitously discovered the story of the LB internment camp. After reading about the story at the UPLB library, I spent an entire afternoon tracing the possible boundaries of the camp. It is during this walk that I also started writing the poem Ode to Baker Hall. I also got to walk at Lopez Quezon, around town, in one of the fishponds at Sta. Teresa, and at Santino’s Farmville. And, of course, I had my second Makiling hike this month.
This month, I also researched and thought about insurance, but this ultimately convinced me that I need to think about my financial philosophy as a whole.
I met two strangers this month, who stayed with me a few days since. The first was Ate Nadia (?), the loving sister who feeds the stray animals in Batong Malake by buying cat food through her own money. The second was Lolo Aldo, who was on his 90s, on the eve of his death, and who continuously said thank you for visiting me, all while expressing his knowledge of his imminent death.
I also remember how I notice my relationship with my nephew has changed. Sometimes, I find myself annoyed with him, but we also get to do things we haven’t done before when he was so little, like bond at alog and talk like grownups.
June
This month, I achieved a feat I never thought I could do. Or I know I could but I was just too afraid to do it. I walked from Los Baños to San Pablo, passing by the towns of Bay and Calauan along the way. It was my first multi-day walk, the second day of which I spent going around Sampaloc lake and visiting Bunot lake. While walking towards San Pablo, the difficulty of the walk, which I think owes more to rookie mistakes than the trail itself, made me ponder about why I was doing the walk in the first place. I did the walk early this month, so the entire month, I pondered a lot about my motivations for walking. I journaled about it, thought about it on my next walks, and wrote an entire Lilim article on it.
The walk also shifted my attention to one of my other interests: photography. I wanted to take good photos and edit them better while walking, so I decided to improve my photography by studying how to use the Light Room Mobile camera and editing through the app. This education extended even after the walk. I continued learning how to edit better by watching Sean Dalton and CM. I also studied how to backup photos. Finally, I mastered how to use the PRO mode in LR mobile camera so I can manually adjust focus and exposure when taking photos. However, I sensed that my learning started to become less systematic. To organize my learning, I furnished my process on how to process literature notes and applied that in my notes on metalearning from the book Ultralearning. I needed to relearn metalearning to create a more systematic, custom-made photography learning roadmap.
While being hung up on photography and walking almost the entire month, I went back to my foundation (philosophy and contemplation) and reminded myself that my walks and photos will be more meaningful if I am more intentional about them, if I use them to deepen my sense of meaning. To facilitate this meaning-making, I continued to sharpen my writing this month, although not in the same intensity as I did with my photography. I continued marinating myself in narrative, which would help me elevate my experiences while walking. I transcribed some of the narratives I wrote in my journal into my Talahardin. I tried imitating one of Ben Hewitt’s vignettes and wrote myself Lilim 03(06) (due for publishing). Another highlight of the month is ordering, unboxing, and finally reading Kissa by Kissa. I read it at Homespun for two sittings and learned a lot about walking, books, and photography, things I could use in my own work. Aside from these, I also had several powerful journaling sessions. In one session, I wrote about how a rain that came in an evening triggered memories I had of similar times in the house at Sta. Maria. In another longer session, I confronted my past life as a JW ministerial servant and compared it to my life now, objectively. It was a healing and enlightening session. Lastly, I updated my reading list and included a few books of walking narratives.
July
This month, I spent a huge amount of time thinking about Thoreau. I studied his medium (the romantic excursion) and his quest to live his unique version of transcendentalism. More importantly, I studied his philosophical stance, which showed how different he is from me. Reading about Thoreau’s quest inspired me to think about my own. A huge part of this quest is the work I do that does not involve others, just myself. This work is philosophical, that is, studying and writing for me to understand. I spent more time thinking about the kind of philosophy that I want to practice and this led me to lyrical philosophy per Edward Mooney. This research on lyrical philosophy introduced me to Henry Bugbee and, later on, ordinary language philosophy, specifically the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein. My research on philosophy sharpened the kind of writing that I want to produce. I now know that I want to create artifacts of writing around universal subject matters, which are place-based and use the romantic excursion as their device.
Speaking of writing, I worked on preparing a few poems to be sent to TLDTD for potential publication. The experience was very instructional.
On photogaphy, I created a photography learning roadmap that I would follow once I am ready to return to photography. On walking, I produced a couple of Lilim issues and articulated that when I walk, the most important thing is my connection with space, object, or scene. While walking with my father and mother for the first time in a long time, I was also reunited with Tita Sabel.
Lastly, I modified how I prioritize goals. I created a comprehensive list of life goals and divided it into two: a list of five primary focus goals and a large list of what is left called “avoid-at-all-cost list.”
August
In August, I went deeper into understanding how to incorporate lyrical philosophy into my writing by studying Henry Bugbee and his work, particularly The Inward Morning, which I wrote commentaries about using additional research. Responding to his epistemology, I began valuing my fieldnotes better and giving them a specific category in my notes garden (“seeds”). I also explored the work of Andrew J. Brown. Through these readings and explorations, I began looking closer at the religious nature of my work and I faced head on something that I was unconsciously avoiding: accepting that I am still engaged in a religious activity and my past religious life has several things to teach me about living a wonderful life.
On writing, I published one Lilim issue and several walk vignettes in draft form. I also received good news from TLDTD that my poem Gawat and its translation Tagsalat will be published in their Issue No. 5.
The main project that occupied me this month was transitioning my website into a digital garden using Quartz and combining all my notes and blog posts into a single ecosystem where writings grow from seeds to seedlings and eventually evergreens.
On relationships, I met with two of my aunts from the States, who I haven’t seen since the pandemic. My partner also moved in with me.
September
This month, I spent the majority of my days thinking about money and how it relates with the life I want to live. I read the YNAB book then applied it by creating my personal budget, helping Lea create her personal budget, and building our couple fund budget during our first budget date. We needed a system that could help us talk about money easily, and we find the YNAB system and app really helpful.
Doing the budgeting, however, made me realize that I need to improve my finances if I want to retire earlier than the traditional retirement age. Specifically, I need at least a 40% savings rate, which, if I keep expenses to 40k max, will require me to produce at least 65k per month. My problem was how to do add 15k to my current earnings as I am no longer willing to increase my editing hours. It became clear to me that if I want to increase my earnings, I need to start a source of income that is closer to my passions. While thinking about this, I encountered the career capital theory by Cal Newport, which argues that if I want an ideal career, I need to develop a rare skill in exchange for it. I felt an intuitive reservation to the theory of career capital because it treats everything we do like something to be exchanged and treats careers like competition. This made me remember that some important things that have to be done especially in our life work are not always profitable. I remembered gift economics and decided to spend the remaining days of September reading the book The Gift by Lewis Hyde.
In other news, I continued reading and writing commentaries on The Inward Morning by Henry Bugbee. I also got my poem Gawat and its translation Tagsalat published in TLDTD. I finally got my first health and life insurance this month via Sun Life. This decision came after learning about the BTID strategy. Late this month, I also dealt with a pulsating headache, which I think is migraine. I consulted with Care and also used KonsultaMD for the first time, which was a great and helpful learning experience.
I went to two dates with friends: one in Pagsanjan and another at Las Piñas. I also visited Satya friends twice. On the second time, I made a few new friends. I also celebrated my third anniversary with Lea.
We tried adopting a new cat this month and rescued a kitten.
October
I started October 2022 with the intention of doing a creative reset. After re-reading Steal Like an Artist, I decided to publish The Long Walk (TLW) on Substack. The first issue was released on October 9, 2022, and it shared the highlights of my mental and physical walks. I was able to publish two more issue on 16 and 23. The issues contained highlights of my reading of The Inward Morning, the foreword of Kapag Natagpuan Kita, and Living Philosophy. The issues showed how I started building my philosophical family tree. It also presented my deepening appreciation and integration of poetry into my philosophical practice, which culminated on the book launch of Saglit, where I met Rofel Brion at Casa San Pablo. Meanwhile, Carillon came into our lives, Benjie and I started a photography project together, and Lea and I went home to Pangasinan to spend two days at the beach. Things were going well until we were all struck by the sudden death of my bestfriend, Rem. Rem’s death forced me to look at my life and my work and has reoriented my priorities into helping Claire and Rem’s family move on as well as the others who have depended on Rem. I am also called to protect Rem’s private and public writings and get to know him more through this. I am also finally committing to mastering poetry.
November
This month, I contemplated about my amoralist response to violence. My continuous contemplation on community made me realize the importance of having a metaphysical and epistemological home that one returns to as one practices tolerance and compassion towards others. This led me to the metaphor of walking and the well, which also has applications to poetics and living life in general. Aside from this, I also continued my exploration of unitarianism and did some readings on the I Ching and anarchism.
Meanwhile, I birthed some poems, translated Mini’s foreword for her baybaying book, and published four issues (4–7) of TLW. Outdoors, I walked around Hogar and did a hike to Mt. Kulis while attending the Ginhawa Breathing Space at Tanay, Rizal.
I focused my efforts on two main projects this month: Tuloy-Daloy and the Next Day Job. In Tuloy-Daloy, we were able to meet in person, start the conversation, move some work with Rem’s sites, and rewalked with Claire at MBG. With my Next Day Job project, I was able to finish reading Designing Your Life and getting some clarity about the life I want to live and the next step to do.
I was also able to help Lea build her comfort fund and get health insurance.
December
This month was largely spent reflecting on what kind of livelihood to choose next. After applying at different agencies didn’t work out, I got back to writing podcast shownotes and Lea asked me to assist her in building her LMS and OBMS, a project that occupied the last week of the year. I also received work from Bookbright. These new (temporary?) sources of income provided the sense of security that allowed me to stay calm and think better about my new situation. The best thing that came out of this process was designing My livelihood system that is both resilient and encourages my transition toward more satisfying work.
While working on Lea’s LMS, I also took the opportunity to improve my own LMS. I redesigned my daily routine to accomodate better sleeping habits and incorporated the pomodoro app Forest into my morning routine. I also exchanged rooms with Lea so I could have better sunlight in the morning.
Even as I focused on my livelihood, I still got to write a few poems and several more poem drafts. I was also able to release two TLW issues, the last of which involved a narration of my realizations from watching stars for over a week while at Cablong. I also did some translations for Mini. In addition, I was able to finalize a plan for improving and maintaining Rem’s websites, which I posted on the Tuloy-Daloy group.
While at Cablong, I also had several quality walks. My favorites were walking to Banaoang and discovering a heavily graffitied house and walking under a full moon.
This month also gave me several opportunity to nurture my relationships and start new ones. I began a friendship with Czyka and Sir Melchor Orpilla as well as Lex Castillo and Santiago Villafania (kumukurits). I also attended Rem’s 40 days and met new friends there. Lea and I also attended the freelancer’s meetup at Las Piñas where we also got to catch up with JA and Liz. Lastly, Embi and Bevs invited us to their new home.
I am grateful to end the year with Lea. It was our first year to celebrate both Christmas (exchanging gifts with each other) and New Year by ourselves within the comforts of our house.