It’s the second day of the second half of the year, and I just finished cleaning my room. No, I didn’t wait that long just for me to go pick up a broom and clean up my room. I do that quite often. It’s just that this time, I cleaned up my room as thoroughly as I possibly could, with all my consciousness and intentions and energy evocatively poured into all of it. It didn’t just involve dusting off the shelves or changing the curtains or sweeping the floor. Every wipe of the wet rag, every sweep of the broom, every fold of the blanket, was a meaningful symbolism, a self defined metaphor for being reborn and starting anew.
I started it all yesterday, the first day of the rest of the year. Early in the morning, while electricity all over the city temporarily disappeared as scheduled, I already found myself dramatically tearing down the intricately designed green wallpaper I arduously put up just before the year began. I must admit I felt a little bad having to say goodbye to the elaborate drawings that covered my wall for the past few months. I’ve always been clingy. But it was time for it to go. Now that the year is halfway through, it’s time for another change, another chance to look at life from a different perspective, especially during what remains of the rest of this year, and part of that change is learning to let go of the little things I’ve grown unnecessarily attached to.
Now I assume most people find nothing significant about the leaving of May and the coming of June because it is, after all, just one of those times once each month where you should flip the page of the calendar to forever forget the days that have already come to pass and remind yourself of the days to come, to keep track of the present and remain connected to the web of time and space as it presently is. To some it may signal the end of a long summer vacation and returning to academic imprisonment, I mean progression. To me, however, it has come to mean an entirely different thing. It is more than just a mere calculated shift in the numbering of the days and the phases of the moon and the comings and goings of the tides.
It is a chance to leave behind the past and reveal the future. It means getting a chance to wipe out all that have happened, and prepare the newly blank slate for whatever new learnings that will be scribbled on it. It symbolizes another beginning, one after the previous beginning that was the New Year, as every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s inevitable end. It is a time to purge my little space of all the old, exhausted and negative energies and fill it up with a new and vibrant aura. It is a time for me to bid farewell to the dust and dirt of the past and make room for whatever new particles the future will bring.
I find it a way of looking back, a way of reminding myself of where I started and how far I’ve come since then, and a way of bracing myself for all the overwhelmingly wonderful surprises ahead. Which is just what I need, really. I’ve been somewhat troubled lately. I feel like I’ve been going around in ever shrinking circles, not really getting anywhere, finding myself in the same place I thought I had already left, a place I thought I’ve long gone far away from. I feel like emptying myself out, picking up all the good pieces and then throwing everything else away. Although I reckon I might just end up keeping everything anyway and putting them all back in, given the way I always see some good in everything, having some use or purpose even for the most unwanted of garbage. Either way, I‘ve been feeling the need to stop going forward for now, go back and take a good look inside myself, analyze everything flying around in the swirling chaos that is my mind and arrange them alphabetically inside a mental file cabinet of sorts. It sounds weird I know.
But I read that having feelings of retrogression like this isn’t unusual, especially now when the planet Mercury is in astrological retrograde, a period when most areas ruled by the planet also experience a reverse in direction. Among these areas include communication, travel, business and the mind’s processes. I don’t exactly know how all this works in the grand scheme of things but it makes sense to me. This explains why most of us, like me, tend to think more, especially about things we haven’t completely figured out just yet, things we’ve pushed aside and left hanging, waiting for completion and decent closure. This also explains why we’ve been having all these inconveniences related to telecommunications, technology that deals with information, and the like. As I’m writing this I’m even making sure to save it every few sentences, as glitches and little inconveniences are to be expected.
Nevertheless, there’s always a reason to start anew. Especially if you go looking for it. For me, the fact that it’s the first day of the rest of my life is enough reason to take a deep breath, exhale all the air I’ve already used to the deepest of my cells, return it to nature where it can be rejuvenated, and breathe in new air that will seep into every microscopic element of my being and refresh me in ways that will ultimately prepare me for all that lies ahead. Every day is a new beginning, no matter which week or month it falls on. I think that’s why every day sees an end at dawn, the sun finally setting to take away with it everything that happened and leaving behind a dark emptiness with which to begin tomorrow, a night to usher in another morning. With that, yesterday becomes a memory and tomorrow a promise. I think that’s more than enough reason to start anew. Every chance we get.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Catharsis
Two nights ago, I dreamt about my cat again. Like most dreams, there wasn’t much sense or logic or continuity in that dream, only vivid images and raw emotions that have been stripped naked of all conscious restraint and pretense all stitched seamlessly together. There is little need for me to wring my brain dry to remember the surreal details of the dream, as I recall them perfectly.
It began with me walking down a dark alley, the kind that I used to take on my way home from school to ride one of the jeepneys parked nearby. I don’t remember seeing anything else but the pavement I was walking on as it glistened with the remnants of a good downpour, puddles of rainwater reflecting the moonlight from above and illuminating my way. But then suddenly there I was, passing by an abandoned, empty lot, one covered with tall blades of wild grass and enclosed by a cyclone wire fence. I found myself stopping near the lot and taking a peak at what was inside.
Dreams tend to be very vague, symbolic and metaphorical, so I don't know how to explain it exactly, but I somehow knew that the lot, in that particular dream, was where all the things from my past went to when they were no longer part of the present. Beyond the fence, shrouded by phantasmagoric blankets of mist and shadows, was a purgatory of sorts for all the dead people, all the dead animals, all the mangled, decapitated toys and faded memories from way back when that had already crossed over to the afterlife.
It was there that I saw her, my dear old cat, lying limp on the ground, very much like how I remember her when she died. But then she got up, walked across the field, sauntered toward me in the same regal way that she used to, slinked her way out of the entangled mesh fence, and presented herself in all her living feline glory at my feet. Suddenly overcome by my surging emotions, I bent down and stroked her, fondling her small face and wiping the usual dirt that streamed from her bright green eyes down to the contours of her cheeks. She looked so much better and happier, I noticed, her fur immaculate in her newfound youth. I ignored the truth that she had died months ago, and chose to believe that she had now returned to me, by some ambiguous miracle, at least for the meantime.
It was then, just when I was beginning to actually believe the illusion of her reappearance, that my rationality took over, lectured on the infallible laws of science and violently demolished the misleading dream right there and then, like some vile cockroach suddenly crushed to death by the sole of some vindictive rubber slipper. And then everything went black. The dream had come to an end.
It’s almost been a year since she suddenly passed away but I still can't seem to accept my cat’s death as I keep having these recurring dreams, dreams of her coming amazingly back to life. There’s a song from my childhood, I remember hearing almost all the time, and it says that a dream is a wish your heart makes. If that's the case, then could it be I’m secretly, deep in my heart, still wishing for her to one day resurface on my doorstep as if nothing happened? As if her death was merely a discrepancy in the ever changing flow of time and reality that had now been resolved, a bad nightmare that was now suddenly over? Or does it mean it is but time to let go and simply embrace unquestioningly everything that has come to pass? I don’t have the answers to all these questions.
I grew up with my cat. Perhaps that is the reason why the big void she left agape inside me when she died still has somehow not found any closure yet, a wide open wound that was never really sutured, only cleaned and covered up with useless gauze. The normality of her presence was an anchor for me, a center that I balanced myself on. For as long as I can remember, she has always been a part of my life, always around somewhere, waiting to be found and showered with pure, undivided attention. Until very recently. I’ve told myself countless times with resolute conviction that I had already allowed myself time to grieve her passing. Perhaps I was wrong. Maybe the wounds have healed, but the scars that have now formed are ugly. Somehow, deep inside the very core of my twisted being, I do feel I have not yet completely graduated from the initial phase of denial. Maybe I find cathartic release in these dreams, a chance for me to ventilate all my unexpressed emotions, feelings of anguish and mourning and loneliness I could no longer outwardly express, thoughts ands sentiments I refused to accept and acknowledge and liberate.
It’s a wonderful feeling, being reunited with someone you never thought you'd ever see or meet again. But it gets creepy when you're reunited, even just in the realm of sleep, with someone who's already supposedly died. The problem with dreams is that they create otherwise impossible realities so convincingly that you end up believing them, at least at the time that you are dreaming. You end up so perfectly deceived, hoping that they become true, assuming that you haven’t yet believed that they are. But then you wake up, and you realize that it simply cannot happen, because in the plane of existence that we live in, there are no such things as pink cotton candy clouds and winged horses and rainbow slides and magical powers. Not even the resurrection of our loved ones.
I know, and psychology tells me, that dreams are a clever way for our subconscious minds to communicate to us, to convey hidden messages we already know but seem to repeatedly miss by some mental anomaly. But they never really tell us upfront what it is that they wish to say. And you can’t plead to or force them to tell you, either. So it really is up to you and your conscious mind to figure things out and decipher the buried lesson, something that in the end is supposed to help you change your life for the better.
As of now I still cannot understand what that dream was supposed to tell me. I haven’t given it much thought, either, as only more and more questions are born, questions that never really seem to find any answers. I might put my already compromised mental health at risk if I try too much. I’ll have to wait until the realization presents itself to me more clearly, and then I’ll find out what that dream truly meant. In the meantime, I will continue sleeping and dreaming, hoping to find out more about myself and this life I’m trying to live inside my own head. Wish me luck. I might not even come out of it alive.
It began with me walking down a dark alley, the kind that I used to take on my way home from school to ride one of the jeepneys parked nearby. I don’t remember seeing anything else but the pavement I was walking on as it glistened with the remnants of a good downpour, puddles of rainwater reflecting the moonlight from above and illuminating my way. But then suddenly there I was, passing by an abandoned, empty lot, one covered with tall blades of wild grass and enclosed by a cyclone wire fence. I found myself stopping near the lot and taking a peak at what was inside.
Dreams tend to be very vague, symbolic and metaphorical, so I don't know how to explain it exactly, but I somehow knew that the lot, in that particular dream, was where all the things from my past went to when they were no longer part of the present. Beyond the fence, shrouded by phantasmagoric blankets of mist and shadows, was a purgatory of sorts for all the dead people, all the dead animals, all the mangled, decapitated toys and faded memories from way back when that had already crossed over to the afterlife.
It was there that I saw her, my dear old cat, lying limp on the ground, very much like how I remember her when she died. But then she got up, walked across the field, sauntered toward me in the same regal way that she used to, slinked her way out of the entangled mesh fence, and presented herself in all her living feline glory at my feet. Suddenly overcome by my surging emotions, I bent down and stroked her, fondling her small face and wiping the usual dirt that streamed from her bright green eyes down to the contours of her cheeks. She looked so much better and happier, I noticed, her fur immaculate in her newfound youth. I ignored the truth that she had died months ago, and chose to believe that she had now returned to me, by some ambiguous miracle, at least for the meantime.
It was then, just when I was beginning to actually believe the illusion of her reappearance, that my rationality took over, lectured on the infallible laws of science and violently demolished the misleading dream right there and then, like some vile cockroach suddenly crushed to death by the sole of some vindictive rubber slipper. And then everything went black. The dream had come to an end.
It’s almost been a year since she suddenly passed away but I still can't seem to accept my cat’s death as I keep having these recurring dreams, dreams of her coming amazingly back to life. There’s a song from my childhood, I remember hearing almost all the time, and it says that a dream is a wish your heart makes. If that's the case, then could it be I’m secretly, deep in my heart, still wishing for her to one day resurface on my doorstep as if nothing happened? As if her death was merely a discrepancy in the ever changing flow of time and reality that had now been resolved, a bad nightmare that was now suddenly over? Or does it mean it is but time to let go and simply embrace unquestioningly everything that has come to pass? I don’t have the answers to all these questions.
I grew up with my cat. Perhaps that is the reason why the big void she left agape inside me when she died still has somehow not found any closure yet, a wide open wound that was never really sutured, only cleaned and covered up with useless gauze. The normality of her presence was an anchor for me, a center that I balanced myself on. For as long as I can remember, she has always been a part of my life, always around somewhere, waiting to be found and showered with pure, undivided attention. Until very recently. I’ve told myself countless times with resolute conviction that I had already allowed myself time to grieve her passing. Perhaps I was wrong. Maybe the wounds have healed, but the scars that have now formed are ugly. Somehow, deep inside the very core of my twisted being, I do feel I have not yet completely graduated from the initial phase of denial. Maybe I find cathartic release in these dreams, a chance for me to ventilate all my unexpressed emotions, feelings of anguish and mourning and loneliness I could no longer outwardly express, thoughts ands sentiments I refused to accept and acknowledge and liberate.
It’s a wonderful feeling, being reunited with someone you never thought you'd ever see or meet again. But it gets creepy when you're reunited, even just in the realm of sleep, with someone who's already supposedly died. The problem with dreams is that they create otherwise impossible realities so convincingly that you end up believing them, at least at the time that you are dreaming. You end up so perfectly deceived, hoping that they become true, assuming that you haven’t yet believed that they are. But then you wake up, and you realize that it simply cannot happen, because in the plane of existence that we live in, there are no such things as pink cotton candy clouds and winged horses and rainbow slides and magical powers. Not even the resurrection of our loved ones.
I know, and psychology tells me, that dreams are a clever way for our subconscious minds to communicate to us, to convey hidden messages we already know but seem to repeatedly miss by some mental anomaly. But they never really tell us upfront what it is that they wish to say. And you can’t plead to or force them to tell you, either. So it really is up to you and your conscious mind to figure things out and decipher the buried lesson, something that in the end is supposed to help you change your life for the better.
As of now I still cannot understand what that dream was supposed to tell me. I haven’t given it much thought, either, as only more and more questions are born, questions that never really seem to find any answers. I might put my already compromised mental health at risk if I try too much. I’ll have to wait until the realization presents itself to me more clearly, and then I’ll find out what that dream truly meant. In the meantime, I will continue sleeping and dreaming, hoping to find out more about myself and this life I’m trying to live inside my own head. Wish me luck. I might not even come out of it alive.
Stop, look and listen
Just last week, on my way to work one early morning, a nice sticker on the jeepney I was on caught my eye. Now, that isn’t very unusual, because I ride in a jeepney everyday (I have for as long as I can remember), and we all know how typically colorful our favorite modes of public transportation can get, with all those stickers and brightly reflectorized decorations that constantly remind us to “beware of pickpockets” and pay “barya lang po sa umaga”. So no, it isn’t unusual to notice the tacky, although culturally iconic, glaring signage.
But the sticker wasn’t even particularly conspicuous. It wasn’t like the usual that boldly screamed for attention and stirred amusement. It was just a bunch of unremarkable cut out letters glued to the leather interiors. But the message they all formed together was nonetheless striking. It was a verse from the Bible, a fairly common verse I’ve heard and read and recited (and sang, even) so many times in the past. It read “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”.
Although all my years of education (as in all grueling, sixteen of them) were spent in conservative, private Catholic schools, I can’t say I’m a very religious person. Spiritual, yes. I can say I have a very deep, almost visceral personal connection, a spiritual umbilical cord of sorts, to the Divine. I whisper little prayers every chance I get. But I can’t claim to be religious at all, even if it were for the dear life of me. I seldom find the sincerity, necessity, and sanctity of the rituals and dogmas religions mandate. Religion is one of the enigmatic things in this short, so far unexceptional life of mine that I am still yet to figure out and truly understand and embrace. But I appreciate it. Most of the time.
Still, I didn’t expect that commuting and noticing the small wonders of public transit on a perfectly fine morning would send me a subliminal message, perhaps another ingenious wake up call from this very creative universe. I didn’t expect something so trivial would send me spiraling down the inner depths of my mind, contemplating on things I never have any success at comprehending. As if I had just bumped my head on something really hard and emerged awake from amnesia, I realized something I had known all along the past few months but kept trying to bury at the back of my head. I labor and I am very much heavily laden. And I need to have some rest.
Since the year started I’ve been relentless at pursuing my goal, which is to make the most out of what I have and what is in store for me, to find happiness in whatever it is I do and to make this the best year ever. Maybe I bit off more than I can chew. I’ve had wonderful success so far (and much progress is at hand, too), but I’ve had to pay much in exchange as it all came at a great price. Not even the commissions I earned could afford to pay it off. I vacantly watched as time flew by, waving goodbye at me as it left me behind, slumped and toiling at my workstation to achieve what I had (foolishly) set out to do.
Now I feel tired, like an age old monument, I imagine, standing motionless and tarnished by the harsh elements as the world around me continued to move on and change. Without me. I’m bored and burnt out, stagnant and rotting in a very bad place. I feel like I’ve nothing left to give. I don’t even have anything left to draw upon, like a well that’s empty and dry. And I need the time to fill myself up again. It doesn’t come all the time, I guess, this feeling of being so dangerously close to completely burning out. But it comes. And I think it just came, knocked on my wide open door and gave me a big warm hug. My mind is so aged and fatigued it can no longer function the way it normally does, like a sophisticated cellphone submerged in a glass of ice-cold whiskey, like a precious tonsil surgically estranged from the lymphatic system and preserved for posterity’s sake in a bottle of formaldehyde. My body is, well, it’s always been a rusty old piece of machinery, anyway, so it’s not a big surprise that it’s now breaking down like a thick slab of butter melting in a hot, stainless steel skillet. My soul, my poor old soul, wants to just evaporate and vanish into thin air, even just for a while, if only to momentarily stop existing and leave behind the pains of arduous reality. If Descartes says “Cogito ergo sum” or “I think therefore I am”, then perhaps if do the exact opposite, if I shut my brain down and stop thinking altogether, I would stop existing, too. What a relief that would be. But I can only sleep for so long, and the only other real alternatives are death or lying in a comatose, both of which are rather grim and unattractive prospects.
If only my life were a movie playing in some big old fashioned VCR (I prefer vintage as technology tends to harass you with so many intellectual demands), I would gladly press the remote control’s pause button right now and just rest. I want to make the world play statue dance all at the same time, with me telling when it’s time to dance like there’s no tomorrow and when it’s time stop and just be still and motionless. At the moment I’m so confused about what I really want to do, wading in deep waters of ambivalence. With the kind of disorganized life I am living right now, finding serenity, clarity and lucid moments is hard. It’s so hard to try to change when everything around you remains the same, and it’s so hard not to change when everything around you is. It can get really confusing at times, living a life and trying your best to be good at it.
But I’ve now come to a realization, thanks to that nice little sticker I happened to notice by some big cosmic coincidence. I need some rest. I’m now learning to let go of whatever little control I have over my life (there isn’t much of it to begin with anyway), consciously trying to taper off my obsessive compulsive habit of always making mountains out of molehills, sweating the small stuff, fretting over every minute detail and worrying about the consequences of the smallest of my actions. I’m learning to loosen up, relax, be a bit careless, even, just to keep from killing myself with all the panicking I’ve been doing. I’m learning to take each day as it comes, not forcing things to happen and instead entrusting them to the powers that be, to the universe and whoever is in charge of it. I’m now embracing my nothingness, releasing my command over my life and hoping for life to surprise me with wonderful things I don’t expect.
Maybe I’ll find the answers if just take the time to stop, look, and listen. Life, after all, is a journey, not a destination. It's a big journey with so many unexpected detours. It’s time I learned to let go of the compass, the map, the worry and just sit back and just go along with this big joyride we're all in. It’ll all be over before we know it, anyway.
But the sticker wasn’t even particularly conspicuous. It wasn’t like the usual that boldly screamed for attention and stirred amusement. It was just a bunch of unremarkable cut out letters glued to the leather interiors. But the message they all formed together was nonetheless striking. It was a verse from the Bible, a fairly common verse I’ve heard and read and recited (and sang, even) so many times in the past. It read “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”.
Although all my years of education (as in all grueling, sixteen of them) were spent in conservative, private Catholic schools, I can’t say I’m a very religious person. Spiritual, yes. I can say I have a very deep, almost visceral personal connection, a spiritual umbilical cord of sorts, to the Divine. I whisper little prayers every chance I get. But I can’t claim to be religious at all, even if it were for the dear life of me. I seldom find the sincerity, necessity, and sanctity of the rituals and dogmas religions mandate. Religion is one of the enigmatic things in this short, so far unexceptional life of mine that I am still yet to figure out and truly understand and embrace. But I appreciate it. Most of the time.
Still, I didn’t expect that commuting and noticing the small wonders of public transit on a perfectly fine morning would send me a subliminal message, perhaps another ingenious wake up call from this very creative universe. I didn’t expect something so trivial would send me spiraling down the inner depths of my mind, contemplating on things I never have any success at comprehending. As if I had just bumped my head on something really hard and emerged awake from amnesia, I realized something I had known all along the past few months but kept trying to bury at the back of my head. I labor and I am very much heavily laden. And I need to have some rest.
Since the year started I’ve been relentless at pursuing my goal, which is to make the most out of what I have and what is in store for me, to find happiness in whatever it is I do and to make this the best year ever. Maybe I bit off more than I can chew. I’ve had wonderful success so far (and much progress is at hand, too), but I’ve had to pay much in exchange as it all came at a great price. Not even the commissions I earned could afford to pay it off. I vacantly watched as time flew by, waving goodbye at me as it left me behind, slumped and toiling at my workstation to achieve what I had (foolishly) set out to do.
Now I feel tired, like an age old monument, I imagine, standing motionless and tarnished by the harsh elements as the world around me continued to move on and change. Without me. I’m bored and burnt out, stagnant and rotting in a very bad place. I feel like I’ve nothing left to give. I don’t even have anything left to draw upon, like a well that’s empty and dry. And I need the time to fill myself up again. It doesn’t come all the time, I guess, this feeling of being so dangerously close to completely burning out. But it comes. And I think it just came, knocked on my wide open door and gave me a big warm hug. My mind is so aged and fatigued it can no longer function the way it normally does, like a sophisticated cellphone submerged in a glass of ice-cold whiskey, like a precious tonsil surgically estranged from the lymphatic system and preserved for posterity’s sake in a bottle of formaldehyde. My body is, well, it’s always been a rusty old piece of machinery, anyway, so it’s not a big surprise that it’s now breaking down like a thick slab of butter melting in a hot, stainless steel skillet. My soul, my poor old soul, wants to just evaporate and vanish into thin air, even just for a while, if only to momentarily stop existing and leave behind the pains of arduous reality. If Descartes says “Cogito ergo sum” or “I think therefore I am”, then perhaps if do the exact opposite, if I shut my brain down and stop thinking altogether, I would stop existing, too. What a relief that would be. But I can only sleep for so long, and the only other real alternatives are death or lying in a comatose, both of which are rather grim and unattractive prospects.
If only my life were a movie playing in some big old fashioned VCR (I prefer vintage as technology tends to harass you with so many intellectual demands), I would gladly press the remote control’s pause button right now and just rest. I want to make the world play statue dance all at the same time, with me telling when it’s time to dance like there’s no tomorrow and when it’s time stop and just be still and motionless. At the moment I’m so confused about what I really want to do, wading in deep waters of ambivalence. With the kind of disorganized life I am living right now, finding serenity, clarity and lucid moments is hard. It’s so hard to try to change when everything around you remains the same, and it’s so hard not to change when everything around you is. It can get really confusing at times, living a life and trying your best to be good at it.
But I’ve now come to a realization, thanks to that nice little sticker I happened to notice by some big cosmic coincidence. I need some rest. I’m now learning to let go of whatever little control I have over my life (there isn’t much of it to begin with anyway), consciously trying to taper off my obsessive compulsive habit of always making mountains out of molehills, sweating the small stuff, fretting over every minute detail and worrying about the consequences of the smallest of my actions. I’m learning to loosen up, relax, be a bit careless, even, just to keep from killing myself with all the panicking I’ve been doing. I’m learning to take each day as it comes, not forcing things to happen and instead entrusting them to the powers that be, to the universe and whoever is in charge of it. I’m now embracing my nothingness, releasing my command over my life and hoping for life to surprise me with wonderful things I don’t expect.
Maybe I’ll find the answers if just take the time to stop, look, and listen. Life, after all, is a journey, not a destination. It's a big journey with so many unexpected detours. It’s time I learned to let go of the compass, the map, the worry and just sit back and just go along with this big joyride we're all in. It’ll all be over before we know it, anyway.
Homecoming King
It’s been a while since I last came home. By “home” I don’t literally mean our little house on the prairies of the city’s suburban outskirts, as I’ve been living in the quaint house for almost all my life. I mean home as in inside me, inside myself, inside the only real home I can ever really have. Profound, I know. Let’s just say I’ve been away on a soul-searching adventure of sorts, thinking I could find myself elsewhere, some distant place other than what was already within me. I’ve had no success in finding what I was looking for. And it feels like it’s been a very long time since I last paid a visit, sat down and had a good talk with myself over some tea and biscuits.
In this day and age when people live in insomniac cities that never sleep or blink, it’s hard not to get lost in the colorful chaos. It has become so hard to ignore the many pastimes that exist only to amuse and lure us away from the clear paths we’ve supposedly already chosen for ourselves, leading us astray like some legendary piper did those poor mice and children of Hamelin once upon a time. Losing focus has become part of daily routine, as many of us momentarily leave behind our carefully crafted plans to enjoy some leisurely activity here and there, hoping to find escape and release and, quite possibly, that one missing piece that would complete us and make us truly happy.
We find ourselves forever wallowing in endless, man-made oceans of bright neon lights and disorienting sounds and other eccentric sensations that can easily distract, making us all but helpless against these temptations that surround us. It seems there is always so much to do, so many places to go to and sights to see, so many people to meet, and yet so little time. It’s hard to find your way when everything around you points you to so many other different, often opposite, directions. It’s hard to stop and keep still when the world around you is spinning around, feeding you with confusion and pushing you to march aimlessly down the crowded streets along with the rest of the faceless mob as if electricity ran through your veins. Especially for someone like me, whose sense of inner direction is either dormant or entirely nonexistent, getting carried away by the ever-changing tides of the times is becoming both a hobby and an ugly vice that has left me a mess so easily swayed by circumstances into making half-hearted decisions. The world constantly pulls me away from myself, drawing me away from all the confines of my being with promises of finding bliss outside. And I find myself following in a trance.
Lately I’ve been so caught up with work and all its unthinkable horrors that I’ve barely had the time to stop and figure things out. I’ve somehow become constantly hungry for more than what I already have, chasing after dreams that always seem far away. Pursuing your goals and ambitions and all other worldly things often leads you away from most of the things you’ve always believed mattered the most, things you’ve always held dear and close to your heart. You easily forget your morals, your sense of restraint and control, your childhood inhibitions and self-imposed boundaries, even your impression of who you truly are and what you really want and what would truly make you happy.
I’ve been so engrossed with my journeys outward, entangled in an intricate web of hedonistic consumerism and the addictive cycle of pleasure-seeking egocentrism, that I’ve all but completely lost touch with my being, separated from my true self by the wilderness of distractions life has set before me. Sure, I still get some time alone, to wash the dishes when I get home or raid the stores at the malls in my obsessive-compulsive shopping sprees, but when you come to think of it, I haven’t really had the time to be alone with myself, away from the dirty dishes, away from the trendy yet impractical clothes nobody else but my plastic baul and the malls I’ve been financially supporting appreciate, away from all the things that are cluttered around me and inside my head. I’ve been so lost, so far away from home, from myself, and I must admit I haven’t really put much effort in finding my way back.
After work I somehow feel a vague sense of emptiness, which of course then gives birth to the need to preoccupy myself with more work, if only to fill my hollow insides and dull the throbbing pain of a troubled mind and kill the time, like pulling the stubborn weeds from the garden soil (with enough suppressed tension to actually pull and tear off the earth’s entire crust, too), or inspecting the retailer shelves for whatever expensive new arrivals I might have, heaven forbid, possibly missed by accident. I haven’t really taken the time off to just be with myself and not struggle to keep up with the rest of this quickly revolving world’s extra-curricular activities. Usually, I do.
I’ve always treasured stillness and silence, that precious time to be alone with your many thoughts and yourself, quietly reciting monologues and soliloquies and prayers and conversing with that other sentient voice in you (creepy, I know). It’s another voice that isn’t entirely your own but somehow helps in stirring everything else that’s swirling in your mind into a good brew of recollection and contemplation. It’s not like I’m schizophrenic or anything. I think it’s something we all do unconsciously; turning inward, tuning in to our own thoughts and learning to shut out everything else when it gets too noisy. I just find it a good habit, a way of keeping myself mentally healthy.
Despite living in a world that constantly drives itself towards exhaustion and leaves behind those who cannot keep up, I sometimes choose to just stop altogether, discreetly step aside and let those more eager to run the race shuffle ahead of me and disappear in the distance. Of course I don’t like getting left behind. But sometimes it just feels good to stop and rest. Then I trail behind in my own sweet time, watching the colorful blur that is the rest of the world in a hurried fast forward as I go along. Whenever I feel so close to burning out and getting lost along the way, I usually pause for awhile, taking time to regain my balance and checking my map and compass before once again running the marathon through life’s convoluted (and heavily booby-trapped) labyrinths. I used to do that a lot, like an instinctive reaction to everyday life. I don’t know what sent that habit flying out the window.
I guess I got carried away again, swept off my feet by my insatiable desires to complete myself and pursue happiness in all the mundane comforts that surround us. Of course, like everyone else, I also strive to chase after the many ideas the culture has taught us to value, like success and prominence and wealth, no matter how tiring and draining it sometimes can be. I guess I overdid it again, as usual, losing my focus in the process. I sought happiness in all the wrong places. I feasted gluttonously on food that I knew would only accumulate in my already gargantuan thighs and cut my life expectancy in half. I spent money on many unnecessary things I found rather comforting (if only temporarily), stacking heaps upon heaps of new clothes on my hamper while helplessly watching as my handicapped social bridges began to collapse one by one and crumble to dust, abandoned and neglected. I can’t say I’ve entirely burned them to the ground but much work needs to be done to repair the damage and rebuild where gaps have now emerged. I feverishly pursued lofty ambitions, the fruits of which are still yet to ripen, sacrificing a great deal of whatever time I had left to deal with what little that remained of my so-called life.
Now, after some thinking, I can say I’ve reached a point of (long-overdue) enlightenment. I’ve realized that no matter how far away from home and from yourself everyday life takes you, it’s important to always find your way back and return to the self, on a homecoming of sorts. At the end of the day you must take the time to pause, breathe and look back inside, learn to let go of the worries and troubles of the world around you. I may venture out and explore every so often, broadening my horizons, but now I try my best to not be too far away and distant from my inner self, my core. As the Zen saying goes, you cannot see your reflection in moving water. It is only in still waters that you truly see a clear reflection of yourself. That is why, I’m reminded, I do not fear the long, quiet journey home everyday, despite the carnivalesque theatrics of my dysfunctional family waiting to greet me home by the doorstep. I relish in it, finding in it the chance to forget the confusion the world outside so easily causes and return to who I truly am. At the end of the long day, shopping and wandering the streets, I’ve learned to sever my ties with the pretentious world and reunite with the real me waiting for me to come home. It’s like taking off a dirtied coat and leaving it hanging outside just before stepping into the door. And the homecoming is always wonderfully warm.
Now I’m home. Again. And this time I’ll try my best to stay as long as I can.
In this day and age when people live in insomniac cities that never sleep or blink, it’s hard not to get lost in the colorful chaos. It has become so hard to ignore the many pastimes that exist only to amuse and lure us away from the clear paths we’ve supposedly already chosen for ourselves, leading us astray like some legendary piper did those poor mice and children of Hamelin once upon a time. Losing focus has become part of daily routine, as many of us momentarily leave behind our carefully crafted plans to enjoy some leisurely activity here and there, hoping to find escape and release and, quite possibly, that one missing piece that would complete us and make us truly happy.
We find ourselves forever wallowing in endless, man-made oceans of bright neon lights and disorienting sounds and other eccentric sensations that can easily distract, making us all but helpless against these temptations that surround us. It seems there is always so much to do, so many places to go to and sights to see, so many people to meet, and yet so little time. It’s hard to find your way when everything around you points you to so many other different, often opposite, directions. It’s hard to stop and keep still when the world around you is spinning around, feeding you with confusion and pushing you to march aimlessly down the crowded streets along with the rest of the faceless mob as if electricity ran through your veins. Especially for someone like me, whose sense of inner direction is either dormant or entirely nonexistent, getting carried away by the ever-changing tides of the times is becoming both a hobby and an ugly vice that has left me a mess so easily swayed by circumstances into making half-hearted decisions. The world constantly pulls me away from myself, drawing me away from all the confines of my being with promises of finding bliss outside. And I find myself following in a trance.
Lately I’ve been so caught up with work and all its unthinkable horrors that I’ve barely had the time to stop and figure things out. I’ve somehow become constantly hungry for more than what I already have, chasing after dreams that always seem far away. Pursuing your goals and ambitions and all other worldly things often leads you away from most of the things you’ve always believed mattered the most, things you’ve always held dear and close to your heart. You easily forget your morals, your sense of restraint and control, your childhood inhibitions and self-imposed boundaries, even your impression of who you truly are and what you really want and what would truly make you happy.
I’ve been so engrossed with my journeys outward, entangled in an intricate web of hedonistic consumerism and the addictive cycle of pleasure-seeking egocentrism, that I’ve all but completely lost touch with my being, separated from my true self by the wilderness of distractions life has set before me. Sure, I still get some time alone, to wash the dishes when I get home or raid the stores at the malls in my obsessive-compulsive shopping sprees, but when you come to think of it, I haven’t really had the time to be alone with myself, away from the dirty dishes, away from the trendy yet impractical clothes nobody else but my plastic baul and the malls I’ve been financially supporting appreciate, away from all the things that are cluttered around me and inside my head. I’ve been so lost, so far away from home, from myself, and I must admit I haven’t really put much effort in finding my way back.
After work I somehow feel a vague sense of emptiness, which of course then gives birth to the need to preoccupy myself with more work, if only to fill my hollow insides and dull the throbbing pain of a troubled mind and kill the time, like pulling the stubborn weeds from the garden soil (with enough suppressed tension to actually pull and tear off the earth’s entire crust, too), or inspecting the retailer shelves for whatever expensive new arrivals I might have, heaven forbid, possibly missed by accident. I haven’t really taken the time off to just be with myself and not struggle to keep up with the rest of this quickly revolving world’s extra-curricular activities. Usually, I do.
I’ve always treasured stillness and silence, that precious time to be alone with your many thoughts and yourself, quietly reciting monologues and soliloquies and prayers and conversing with that other sentient voice in you (creepy, I know). It’s another voice that isn’t entirely your own but somehow helps in stirring everything else that’s swirling in your mind into a good brew of recollection and contemplation. It’s not like I’m schizophrenic or anything. I think it’s something we all do unconsciously; turning inward, tuning in to our own thoughts and learning to shut out everything else when it gets too noisy. I just find it a good habit, a way of keeping myself mentally healthy.
Despite living in a world that constantly drives itself towards exhaustion and leaves behind those who cannot keep up, I sometimes choose to just stop altogether, discreetly step aside and let those more eager to run the race shuffle ahead of me and disappear in the distance. Of course I don’t like getting left behind. But sometimes it just feels good to stop and rest. Then I trail behind in my own sweet time, watching the colorful blur that is the rest of the world in a hurried fast forward as I go along. Whenever I feel so close to burning out and getting lost along the way, I usually pause for awhile, taking time to regain my balance and checking my map and compass before once again running the marathon through life’s convoluted (and heavily booby-trapped) labyrinths. I used to do that a lot, like an instinctive reaction to everyday life. I don’t know what sent that habit flying out the window.
I guess I got carried away again, swept off my feet by my insatiable desires to complete myself and pursue happiness in all the mundane comforts that surround us. Of course, like everyone else, I also strive to chase after the many ideas the culture has taught us to value, like success and prominence and wealth, no matter how tiring and draining it sometimes can be. I guess I overdid it again, as usual, losing my focus in the process. I sought happiness in all the wrong places. I feasted gluttonously on food that I knew would only accumulate in my already gargantuan thighs and cut my life expectancy in half. I spent money on many unnecessary things I found rather comforting (if only temporarily), stacking heaps upon heaps of new clothes on my hamper while helplessly watching as my handicapped social bridges began to collapse one by one and crumble to dust, abandoned and neglected. I can’t say I’ve entirely burned them to the ground but much work needs to be done to repair the damage and rebuild where gaps have now emerged. I feverishly pursued lofty ambitions, the fruits of which are still yet to ripen, sacrificing a great deal of whatever time I had left to deal with what little that remained of my so-called life.
Now, after some thinking, I can say I’ve reached a point of (long-overdue) enlightenment. I’ve realized that no matter how far away from home and from yourself everyday life takes you, it’s important to always find your way back and return to the self, on a homecoming of sorts. At the end of the day you must take the time to pause, breathe and look back inside, learn to let go of the worries and troubles of the world around you. I may venture out and explore every so often, broadening my horizons, but now I try my best to not be too far away and distant from my inner self, my core. As the Zen saying goes, you cannot see your reflection in moving water. It is only in still waters that you truly see a clear reflection of yourself. That is why, I’m reminded, I do not fear the long, quiet journey home everyday, despite the carnivalesque theatrics of my dysfunctional family waiting to greet me home by the doorstep. I relish in it, finding in it the chance to forget the confusion the world outside so easily causes and return to who I truly am. At the end of the long day, shopping and wandering the streets, I’ve learned to sever my ties with the pretentious world and reunite with the real me waiting for me to come home. It’s like taking off a dirtied coat and leaving it hanging outside just before stepping into the door. And the homecoming is always wonderfully warm.
Now I’m home. Again. And this time I’ll try my best to stay as long as I can.
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