To think that those little made-up adventures were just over 10 years ago (that’s when I picked up my first camera, though Brentley has been shooting ever since early high school and has already been on international shoots without me—that’s why he’ll always be my senpai; aka “upperclassman”), it’s wild to imagine that what was once fantasy has now become reality.

If you’re even a casual listener of the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast, you’ll know that Joe’s been promoting Austin, Texas, pretty hard; with many guests also talking about how amazing the city is, even going so far as to move there themselves (most notably, Elon Musk with his new Tesla Gigafactory).

Though it’s still a work in progress, the vision is clearly there and the bottom-floor rooms are now built up enough to be used, along with the fourth floor rooftop balcony/event space. I’m now pretty stoked to help my dad further it along, even coming up with the name ‘Hilltop Lodge’!

Interestingly enough, it turns out that pearls actually hold a strong cultural significance in the Philippines (the South Sea pearl even adorning the Philippines’ 1000-peso bill), with many women (and, more recently, men) sporting them as luxury items in place of other materials like gold and silver.

Voted as one of the top islands to visit in the world by Condé Nast Traveler magazine and the Best Island in the World by Travel + Leisure magazine, Boracay has come a long way since I first visited in 2008.

Though my work relies heavily on the digital world (I pretty much work remote and do a myriad of things online), and I’m deeply fascinated by technology, spending time in a place where things move at a much slower pace and people are more focused on what’s right in front of them versus what’s online is quite comforting. 

I know I’ve written about fishermen and fishponds already, but the highlight I want to showcase here isn’t actually the the pond or fishermen, but the ingenuity of the Filipino people.

Two highly creative endeavours seen here are the three-story treehouse currently being built and designed by my Uncle Denis, along with the improvised rifle held by my uncle’s friend Michael.

A common trait that most immigrants possess when they first come to Canada is an aversion to treating animals like their kin; whereas, here, it’s become an increasingly common place practice to treat your “pet” like your “child”.

A recent craze in the West has become the notion of ‘Farm-to-Table’, but what about ‘Pond-to-Table’?

I know I said it in my last Story/Photo Series, but you honestly cannot get any fresher than harvesting fish that same day to be cooked later and put right on to your plate.

Easily one of the coolest parts about spending time in a fishing village is waking up early as the catch comes in to not only witness the day’s harvest, but also pick up some fresh fish. When we talk about food being fresh and organic here in the West, nothing truly compares to meat, fish and produce being collected and prepared right in your own backyard!

Every Filipino and Filipina knows that a core foundational component to the culture of the Philippines is family. Despite distance, time, circumstance or previous history, family will always be family. The best part is when friends become family and family become friends. ♡

It’s often been said that spiritually is prodded forth by the revelation of our own mortality, and I have yet to discover another place that makes me feel my own mortality as strongly compared to the Rockies.

What’s outside of the universe?

Everything we see, experience, interact with and observe is all contained within this unified system called the universe. Every molecule, compound, chemical, star cluster, black hole, blade of grass, animal, and even consciousness itself, is all contained within the universe.

How would you know what a “thing” is if you had no words to define it?

If there were no words for pain, love, fear, happiness, doubt, joy, yin, yang, how would you know what “it” is?

Language is how we both create and perceive the world around us. “Things” are only “real” because we can define them.

At the heart of the entire Practice of Meditation is Discipline. Discipline, broken down, is knowing what you must do in that moment (despite your thoughts and feelings) and doing it.

I need to go for a run. But I’ll be so tired after.
I need to eat better. But the desserts look more tasty.
I need to study for this exam. But this show is so tempting.

At its lowest level, these are just the three planes of existence. However, at its highest level, these are planes to help you achieve self-mastery; for, what else is more important to master in this transient life than your self?

Each morning (typically from Monday to Friday) we all wake up and “get ready for work.”

Most likely, you’ll take a shower; change your clothes; eat some food; then head over to your car or local transit station (unless you work remote, in which case you’d just open your laptop).

So, which of the 5 tiers is the most important? None of them. Instead of thinking of them in a hierarchal fashion, think of them more like different tools in your toolbox. Some days you need Yoga; some days you need Buddhism; some days you need Zen; some days you need Tantra; and some days you need to accept everything for what it is and reside in the Tao.

When we talk about Mastery, we often think about an endpoint. Some moment in time in which there is nothing left to learn because we have completed every task and unlocked every achievement within a specific skillset. Whether it’s cooking, tennis, basketball, martial arts, or yoga, we all think that the point of Mastery is some magical endpoint in which all learning stops.

Along the path of life, we developed a massive amount of anxiety from a myriad number of obligations that we had collected and could not drop or easily forget about. We spent the first third of our life gathering things which now served as the foundation for the rest of our lives; things which expected things from us and things that we could not ignore.

Have you ever noticed that when you’re watch an action movie, your heart begins to race and your adrenaline goes up? Or when you’re listening to classical music, your mood starts to mellow? Or when you’re watching a mountain climbing documentary, you suddenly feel inspired?

Astute practitioners of yoga (and Hinduism, for that matter—since they both come from the same tree) know that the primary objective is to escape the endless cycle of death and rebirth (Reincarnation) and achieve Moksha (Liberation).

Taken more allegorically, this can be better understood as escaping the endless cycle of death and rebirth in relation to one’s own suffering, or (more accurately) trauma.

Oftentimes, we don’t even realize that our ideas are so intertwined with our identity that we mistake one for the other. Because of this, we tend to become hostile whenever someone begins to challenge or reject our currently held view; believing that they are somehow attacking us, not the idea.

As a professional marketer, I’ve often been asked about the best way to grow an online following (so much so, that I’ve actually decided to put this up online as a reference so I don’t have to keep answering the same question over and over again, haha).