dreams are woven free

I am yet to be convinced of the peculiarity and the importance of the ongoing fad of giving special awards based on strata-clustered votes in most award-giving bodies even in the Philippine blogosphere. For one, its doors are wide open for the lack of or for the limited criteria of making a “more justified” choice rather than a personal one.

While I ruminate on the merits of critical acclaim, popular appeal and the productive union of the two, I find it quite ironic that I, always shunning popular choice categories, am making a choice and I am voting for Joseph "Otep" Zablan's blog "Libre Lang Mangarap" as my pick for the Blogger's Choice Award in the Philippine Blog Awards 2009.

Otep's blog is a far cry from being a literary haven. It is littered with misspelled words, disagreeing tenses and redundant non-words even when it is written in his native tongue. Sometimes, his posts lack coherence and form. But then, his entries are always engaging, with the unseemly pair of pomp in his optimism and the raw honesty of a struggling young man trying to find his own place. He acknowledges his fear of highfaluting words and sticks to his own standard: self-expression. He admits he is not a rocket scientist. He chose to fly rockets instead – in dreams like most dreamers do. This I believe is the endearing quality of his blog - dreams are woven free...



Maybe the inspiration that his struggles and dreams give has appealed to his many readers. Life may serve us with different color-coated chocolates, but not all chocolates are sweet. Along with the joy of having his little dreams fulfilled come failures and heartbreaks. Sometimes, he stubbornly wallows in the sickening taste of bitter chocolate for far too long but in his own time he picks himself up, takes his own sure strides and dreams again.

If this vote would make him dream more, why not? In our current times, perhaps we need more dreamers like Otep. Perhaps, the future will be much brighter and more colorful...

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884 - 1962)