It's Not That

And I thought this was over. But I told myself never to lie down forever after a fall unless both my legs get paralyzed. There are just some things you simply cannot rid of, however once you take a deep breath and point a serious look at it, the thing just takes another form. It seems that one cannot be erudite enough even to grasp the fundamentals of things concerning of the past, the present, and of the heart.

Maybe it's just a part of me trying to change. Heck, it's almost four months since my life changed, and as each day passes by, my life even moves forward to places I've never been to because I was alone.


Yes, maybe that's it.

Rains

Up until now, I still can't seem to write nonchalantly as before. I don't know. I guess I'm just too preoccupied with a lot of things. My attention is tossed to and fro with meter-high waves in the stormy seas of my head. I don't know if I'm just overcomplicating things for myself. And if I am, I wish that I'm just complicating things for myself, and not for a whole lot of people.

Things haven't changed, I still think I spread myself too thinly over too many things. But I guess what's keeping me from writing here is the fact that I want to write something substantial; an entry which feelings and emotions will still be recognizable after a year or so.

I write for my own sake. I blog to keep memories alive; like water trickling down ever so slowly to keep a plant alive. Water is the source of all life in this world. Rain is a gift from the heavens for a sunflower that is desperate for water, however



too much water can drown a plant as well.

Perfect Love

I came stumbling on this article.

---

"How was it like to have the perfect love?" Having the perfect love is risky, painful, most of the times commanding, usually on top of yourself, hard to deal with and yet always worth keeping.

"Your so called perfect love is only just as perfect as how you makes and believes it to be."

The painful thing is, just in time when you already had drowned yourself at the thought that you already found the perfect love, it breaks under the smallest crack. You struggle hard to save the relationship but you do it on your own. You save it because you finally found perfection, but no one helps you do it because only you believe it. Perfection is still there but only you can see it because it was only you among the both of you who made efforts seeing it through the relationship that way because it was only you who loved and it was only that love that made your lover perfect in the first place.

Perfect lovers come in abundance and they can be hand-picked, but just like other lovers around, hey come and go. And when they do, they leave you wrecked and when does love become perfect? It is when you think it is. There is no perfect love. The only perfect thing that exists in this world is the word alone. Following the word, there's no such one.

Is it perfect to sacrifice your love in exchange of your dignity and morality?

June 19, 2009

I will never forget this day.

Clock Strikes Twenty One - Late by Forty-Eight

Clock Strikes Twenty - Late by Forty-Eight

It was then that a streak of light different from all the rest appeared. It was a familiar spectacle, at least to my eyes. I kept on trying to remember what that was, and after a moment's pause and a skipped heartbeat, I remembered it. I stood my ground and tried to undo the damage the darkness was dealing me.

I remembered the patch of sunshine made for one.

I remembered the time when two hearts beat as one.

In that star of hope, might, and strength, I saw the one and only truth that I was searching for. The midnight ocean was not the evening sky, but were the windows of my eyes. Deep inside my eyes filled with tears of sadness and strength, I saw everything important in the thing I call life.

The clock struck nineteen. I am still not ready.

The clock struck twenty. I'm slowly getting there.


The clock strikes twenty-one, and everything went wrong. Everything, except one. As I search all that what was left, that single memory that remained precious slipped from my weakened grip, to be lost in the endless wait of forever.

I know I will meet you someday, somewhere, some place.


Please wait for me.

Borrowed Time Still Fabricates Reality (A Prelude to Clock Strikes Twenty One)

Borrowed time fabricates reality.

My heart begins to beat quicker. The heart of the world begins to beat quicker with the harmony of the waves gently crashing into the shores carrying the sands of time. If we could live for an eternity, the meaning of life will not be searched by lost souls. Life, as we know it, is just humans trying to know who they are, what have they become, and what they will become. Life is the infinite tessellation of the relationships of people in search for the meaning of their existence; the reason why time is just lent to them, and not given to them.

Another year passes by. Age doesn't matter, it's how you live your life.



Well at least for me, it still does.

Three Hundred Minus One Hundred Eighty Four

A man is welding an iron rod on the tenth floor of the building adjacent to our office. Before he got there, he precariously lowered his rickety carriage by the complex systems of ropes and pulleys. Even with the semi-soundproof panes of the office and the headset owning my right ear, I still heard the complaints of the pulleys as it stressed itself in its task of lowering the man to safety. The creaks of the wooden planks managed to defy all the obstructions between its lofty, outside position to my ear sitting prettily inside the ninth floor of the opposite building. The sheer height of the tenth floor coupled with the crass battering of the wind to the man's body made me wonder if that man clad in his welder's mask is happy with what he's doing. I wonder if he feels safe in being tied to a safety line which does not look sturdy at all. I wonder if his knees buckle and freeze whenever he is raised to even higher heights. I wonder if he's really willing to risk life and limb in doing his job.

I wonder if all that risk is worth taking. I wonder if he's doing the right thing.



I wonder if I'm doing what I'm supposed to do.



---
Three hundred minus one hundred eighty four equals one hundred sixteen.

The Blind (Leading the Blind)

After failing to accomplish or even start the related literature of our thesis, I went home from the ninth floor with a heavy weight burdening my eyes. My pupils were dilating erratically as I ran along the peaceful street of Upper McKinley. My reaction was to squint my eyes as the dimly lit afternoon was too much a bright spectacle for my sleep-deprived eyes to handle. It was almost half past five, but luckily, I still managed to catch the bus that would bring me back to the bustling station in Ayala. As soon as my back laid rest on my seat at the very rear of the vehicle, all my notions of consciousness went to the gnarled hands of the sandman, even if my lower back complained because of the frigid wisps of air that numbed my upper back.

Awakened by the noisy steps of the other passengers wanting to go home, my eyes suffered another case of photosensitivity. My eyes could not bear how bright the fluorescent lights installed in the bus seemed to be. My forehead wrinkled like poor velvet as I crumpled my eyes to deter any more light from blinding my tired eyes. But after a few minutes, my eyes regained composure. My face slowly straightened out to its normal, expressionless look. All the emotions of my face seemed to have been sapped by the tired appearance of my eyes. I could barely open my eyes to see if the train was packed with people or not. After squinting for the tenth time, it dawned in me that I was already inside the train, standing under another blast of air-conditioning comparable to that of a fourth of how cold it was in the arctic. A friend of mine told me that before. How I wish that he's still my friend until now, but there's no point in sulking on something already in the distant past.

As soon as the doors of the train opened in Cubao, the masses poured out like a tidal wave breaking the most impenetrable door. The people flushed themselves out of the chaos inside to the chaos outside. Sweat saturated the six-thirty air as people drenched in their own and someone else's sweat wiped their faces with whatever they had handy. I slowly treaded the stairs and avoided the weird heat emanating from the people clogging the way.

For the very first time, my eyes breathed a big sigh of relief as the stairs were dark and gloomy. Apparently, the fluorescent lamp died out.

I climbed down and waited for a bus to take me home while keeping the darkness from that flight of stairs with me. I am tired of seeing the same things over and over and over again. I am wearing out of seeing what other people don't see, and from seeing things that I do not want to see.

Sometimes, I just want to get blind and live in the darkness of the night. Sometimes, I want to see nothing else but an infinite ebony sky; without stars, without hopes. Sometimes, I yearn to go back in time and remain under a starless night, forever wishing that my dreams would be carried across the sky.

It was just a short time until I found myself standing to alight the bus. However, the man in front of me was slowly walking his way towards the exit. He didn't look old or lame, but the conductor and the other passengers on board kept assisting him.

He was blind.

I helped him alight the bus since he was in front of me. It was then that he asked me with an unsure voice if I would be willing to be his eyes until he catches a tricycle home.

Opo naman, kuya.

He placed his hands on my tired shoulders. His hand felt distracting, but at the same time relieving. Each and every step of his was a small victory in my sight. Each obstacle we overcame was a deep relief on my part. I held his hand on my shoulder and told him that we were almost there. I did not let go of his calloused hand until he was carefully climbing the tricycle to bring him home.

As I walked another distance, my shoulder felt light. The blind man was no longer holding it. Each and every step I took meant nothing, and each obstacle I avoided gave me no relief. I placed my hand on my shoulder and felt an emptiness: nothing was there but the strap of my bag.

It was about that time that everything became clear. Or did it?



(Three hundred minus eighty-eight equals two hundred twelve.)

The Reality (Three Hundred Minus Fifty-six)

Becoming one with the masses who commute each and every day wasn't that difficult. You just have to do what they do and you'll be fine. You only need to climb the escalator leading to the train station with groggy eyes filled with the monotony of everyday life. You just need to hurry along, and push aside anyone who gets in your way. You push people, intentionally or unintentionally, as people push you aside as well. People push each other, like they're pushing their virtues aside just to board the train that could only fit less than a hundred. You just need to think like them: you need to get to work because you need to earn money, but the only thing is you don't have any salary in the company you're working for.

You arrive at your office, and fight to wake yourself up. The task drains every bit of energy you gathered in a five-hour sleep, leaving you as productive as a cat taking a nap. With the world slowly spinning to a messy, messy blur, your head intermittently falls idle which results in the obvious bobbing of your head, just like a chicken desperately pecking the ground for any kind of grub. The hours pass with you fighting yourself, with you almost losing to your very own self.

The monotony is just too cumbersome to bear. However, there are a few people who stood above the uniformity of office life. They, at some point in your stay, are slowly becoming more than just a superior in the office. The thought gives you the faculties you need to make the push until 5:23 pm. You rush the big office floor to the reception to log out and press the call button to descend nine floors. Finally, another office day has passed. Finally, you are home bound, free from all the conformity you need to distort yourself to. You feel how nice the cool air is. Even if the skies look bleak and depressed, your hopes flicker a small ember of peace that after nine hours, you're out of the office. The air gently kissing your face was a testament to that, and it fed the small ember the fuel it needed to become a small, warm fire.

But as you step inside the bus to take you home, you meet the same people in your department. However, they are different. You try to muster a shy smile, however, they do not respond. They just look forward and gaze into an invisible reality, with their eyes welling up with the monotony of their life.

Trust Issues

I have said this before: I easily trust people.

In my opinion, the cause of this ease of trust is the way I look at people. I instinctively brand the people I meet and have conversations with as good and incapable of doing any kind of harm out of pure malice. Blindly looking at people's true motives and intentions, I seek the small refuge they might offer in their sharing or "sharing" of their self. Things happen over and over again; people enter and leave my life as if it was untouched, unmarred, or without any kind of scars. And the end of each farewell, my tears roll down my cheeks no matter how hard I try to muster everything inside. I readily open my palms in preparation to gently catch and fondly caress what they will throw to me as their own being, but in doing so, they cover a hidden desire which remains cloaked in mystery until the damage is done and the pain is felt.

No matter how heinous or atavistic a person looks, deep inside me a voice lingers saying words that mark the belief that a good person resides inside that appearance. Deception is at work: either me deceiving myself into feel-good and heroic structures, or them putting up a concrete barrier to make the visible be invisible to the eyes of someone gullible like me. It is just that seldom do I interact with people outside my zones, and in that seldom occasion that someone steps into my circle, my hunger for closely-knit ties rumbles my senses and opens my whole in their mercy. But that does not justify everything. It does not support anything.



I have trouble trusting myself, but I have no problem trusting other people.



I guess this is one of my obvious weaknesses,
but I hope someone could look into it as a strength,

so that I may start believing in myself in a way that can ratify my sense of self-perception.

Dreaming

The night sky is clear.

As a gentle breeze blows the fine blanket of fallen leaves, I feel my chest quiver. The faint rustle of leaves sounds like a small wave lapping on a rocky shore. Memories come back like they happened just minutes ago. Patterns emerge out of the darkness: patterns of tears; patterns of emptiness. Everything feels as if each is slowly settling into their proper corners of the sky, but I am still in the same spot, staring at the stars that continue to twinkle amidst the overpowering abyss that surrounds them.

Confusion fills me.
Sadness visits me.
Emotions leave me to a state of nothingness.
Cycles start to turn again.
I don't know what to do anymore.

The pain still throbs up to this very day, and no wonder why: I keep on holding to it, never letting it go, and never giving it time to heal. Time ticks by, and life goes on. The seconds elapse, the minutes pass, hours expire, and days turn into weeks. Months become years, and goes on forever until the end of time.

Life must go on.

Dreams within the still of night
On the wings of hope take flight inside me
There upon some distant shore
We want for nothing more
Than what will be
-- A Bride in Dream

Surrogate Security

With his feelings an utter mess and his thoughts in disarray, he felt more vulnerable than ever. He continued to stare straight at the low ceiling of his room as the bitter cold slowly ate the warmth of his feet and his eyes dried up in the absence of the tears that one flowed down his bony cheeks. Consciously and unconsciously, he was tossing in his bed from side to side every minute or so, like prey writhing to escape with dear life as the fangs of the hunters clamped down its bare neck. Something was stuck in the deepest parts of his being, something that was not there before. It clogged his desire for happiness and warmth. For some reason or another, he just wanted to close his eyes, and enter the world of his dreams. He hoped never to wake up again in the cold and piercing embrace of the nightmares of his confused heart.

But the cold was too painful to bear. The abnormal weather made his self-inflicted wounds throb with an increasing wave of pain that emanated across his entirety. He wished to weep, but his tears were in mourning. His tears were grieving the loss of his precious skies full of aspirations as it broke into the shale storms that were saturated with uncertainty and broken promises. His blanket never seemed to protect him from the cold that was slowly taking his sanity. He kept kicking and shuffling, but his efforts were all for nothing. In a last, desperate attempt to kindle a small flame of hope to provide him the warmth and the light he needed, he reached for his long legs and tucked them close to his body. He yearned for the security of his mother's womb, the kind of devotion where one would protect the other with everything they have.

His sight was slowly growing dark despite the small night light turned on. He thought he was finally falling asleep. But a sharp, invisible pain inside him jolted him into the reality that he was falling into yet another dangerous pit of his emotions. It was one of those instances where he felt the chilling embrace of the most unending darkness one could face.

With the last remaining ounce of his strength, he reached out his hand to hold onto something. He reached out his hand to save himself from another ironically agonizing fall into the world he is so accustomed to. He reached something warm, soft, and pleasant to the touch. As he grabbed the object which seemed to be brimming with affection, he placed his head on it. A subtle warmth calmed his body down, and after a few moments, he regained the sanity which was sapped by the unknown hunters of his night. He felt alive once again.

He realized that all was but a dream forcefully transgressing his sleep.




In his dreams, the pillow was his source of warmth, life, and happiness. It was everything, and it meant everything to him.

But in his waking consciousness, the reality remains that the pillow is nothing more than just a pillow, something that will never return all his yearnings for security. The reality remains that he still stands under the starless sky that he has wrongly wished for himself.


---


ay rai
pede ba kita maging surrogate sister?

meaning?

uh
like
family outside my home
kasi na dedepress na ako sa sarili ko dahil I find my family disfunctional when I know it isn't
ang shits kasi ng mga drama sapaks ko sometimes

you don't find me dysfunctional?

para sa akin hindi

hahaha
ok
i'm just here

sometimes i wonder
am i like selfish or something?
kasi all i ever do is run to you guys kapag namomroblema ako or something

no you're just in need of love and affection
we all do
that's what friends are for

thanks rai>:D<

>:D<

Rain, Rain, Please Go Away

After recovering from the sickness that pinned me inside the house for two full days, my sister finally allowed me to go to school today. I was pretty much excited and all, but as soon as I was ready to leave, the weather started to become unfriendly. A light drizzle was slowly falling down like a fine curtain as I woke up, but it turned into a nasty and violent fall of needles when I was prepped and ready to go.

It made me lose a whole portion of my eagerness. The wet weather doused the flame that once vigorously burned inside me. I indefinitely stared at the street as the countless spears of mercilessness continued to fall. I found myself slowly retreating, as if a terror only I could see was in front of me. I wanted to go back inside and sleep, and dream about that particular embrace that could make a second a lifetime and make the deep, freezing cold a warm and comforting radiance of security.

As I continued to trace back my steps and stare into the raining sky, I felt myself slowly losing my grip on reality. The anxiety of all my twenty years started to knock on my mind. It was weird. I was expecting something tormenting, but what came to me was something illogical. The sheer foolishness of it made me realize that my mind was walking the path towards insanity, or something like that. My anxieties were personified and formed a straight line that vanished in the horizon. As I looked at the place where the sun supposedly sets, I asked myself when would be the time I would be able to leave "here" and reach "there". Sometimes, the awful feeling that I place burden upon myself is far too much to handle. Everything seems to be always beyond the horizon, unreachable to me, but very much accessible to others.

It was one of those instances when my emotions spiral into confusion because of something petty.

But then again, I steeled myself and toughened my courage. I opened my umbrella, and treaded the wet streets as the skies continued to cry in their own sorrow...

...or perhaps weep in joy for my small victory.

Fireworks Once Again

Naisip ko na those fireworks were set off by people who have conquered their own little ebony sky. The flash of light, the drizzle of sparks, the shine of different chromes blazing across the sky came with the bright hopes and dreams for the new year they were happily anticipating. They bid the last few moments of the year with anticipation and welcomed the new year full of optimism and promise. All of these I saw through their eyes. I saw their open hearts ready to embrace new blessings, new opportunities, new hopes, new promises, new, relationships, new challenges, new problems, and new difficulties that 2008 will be bringing them. They were ready to leave the past without forgetting the lessons they have learned and face the new year with faces confident and held up high.

-- Fireworks, January 1, 2008


A year has passed.

And what a year it has been.

Things seem the same, but they are immensely different along the vague and invisible lines of our lives. Strings have been cut, threads have been weaved, and we are all but an infinite piece of cloth, both tattered and finely-spun at the same time...

The beginnings have all but ended, and the endings are starting. Time has clocked its course, and yet here I am, alone and silently standing under each deafening creak and groan of the cogs of fate. Blinded by fury, beguiled by sadness, and hyped by mania, I push on forward, in a negative perspective to keep my sanity saved...

The rain stopped when the clock struck twelve. It was as if the weather joined the celebration for the new year. Inside my room, I heard the ear-splitting vulcan booms of the fireworks that momentarily turned the night into day. The bright lights of the pyrotechnics flashed on the deeply frosted old-style windows of my room. People outside were cheering and was caught in a stupor that everyone was a victim of. The new year has arrived, but there I was inside my room, playing.


Once you've lost something valuable, your life will never ever be the same again.


A year has passed
and a year will pass,

thank you to all the people who became part of my life.

Hopefully, you'll still be the same people I'll share 2009 with.

In Three Days

In three days, a new year will begin.

Right now, I have a mind-splitting headache. I rarely have these things (literally) bothering my mind.

I went to buy some ingredients for my (failed) brownies. I stared at the clouds as the sun scorched my eyes. Up in the heavens I saw a great cat, and after a few moments, it became an enormous white dog, as pure as the fresh blanket of snow that covered the sleeping part of my brain.

A shudder coursed through my body. I chilled to an invisible jet of ice-cold air. My lungs started to cringe as it was slowly being killed by the air that stung my skin. It was as if my ribs would implode as my severely weakened muscles couldn't bear the pressure my body was succumbing to.

It was then I realized that I do not need someone or something to feel the security I'm desperately longing for.





I need to find myself first.







Now what?

In Four Days

In four days, a new year will begin.

I'm not looking forward to a new year. How is the new year any different from this year?

A friend of mine told me, "It's the choices that make us who we are, and we can always choose to do what's right."

Does he mean that I've been all wrong all along?

January made things turn to worse. He gave me something to look forward to, but I end up losing what was most important to me.

February gave me the kind of dangerous solitude I hate the most. Weird though as I am almost always attracted to the blind and empty freedom it promises.

March made me lose something, and that something will remain scratched in my memories forever.

June made me realize that I have been living for twenty years, but no one seemed to care but me.

July made me happy, but in the end, crushed my poor soul. I thought it was the beginning of a new life, however, it was the beginning of an end.

August and September crept up silently like the night sky. They barred any happiness and left me devoid of emotions.

October gave me a smile, only to painfully take it back as he left.

November told me that I am ready, only to be crushed again.

December embraces me in such a cold sorrow that I remain closed in the year that is to come.


Tomorrow brings new beginnings, but in reality, tomorrow is always a day away. No wonder it only gives people a fake sense of hope.

A Candle in the Wind (A Memory Fades - Final Light)

November 1, 2008
Sta. Maria Public Cemetery, Sta. Maria, Bulacan

The unpredictable weather seemed to resume its usual dryness. The weather was such a friend as my cousins and I walked along the cramped street leading to the entrance of the public cemetery. The place had a very different feel from Loyola: it was robust, lively, and full of energy. It was a weird feeling. It was very strange to brush my arms with an endless array of strangers. It was very uncomfortable to see hundreds and hundreds of curious eyes taking a glimpse into the eyes of a person hailing from Manila. It was difficult to remain calm and collected as the innocent stares of passers-by became an invisible, immaterial ridicule to my tired and heavy eyes.

The agony did not stop there. Inside the cemetery, the heat was remarkably impossible. The cool air brushing about and the cloudy sky that curtained the intense heat of the sun seemed to have dissipated. The air became saturated with the mixed smell of dead flowers, wax, and human perspiration. Sweat started to trickle down my back as I started to realize the heat from the numerous candles planted in front of the nitsos and the heat from the huge amount of people cramming themselves into the white city of apartments with marble addresses. After a seemingly endless journey and after another hundred more people beaten by their curiosity, we arrived to where the ancestors of Mamie lay.

There was no place to sit. So I decided to shred a plastic bag, and sit on top of Lolo's nitso.

I was successful in establishing a nook for myself in that chaotic world, but I was unable to draw a separate peace to calm my inner self being tossed around by towering waves in the middle of a heaven-shattering sea storm.

Soon, the gray skies slowly turned into an unsure relative of purple. My back ached tremendously as kids climbed up the tallest apartments and made a playground out of the flat surfaces of other people's eternal peace. I watched them play, sing, joke around, and even dance to a beat I was deaf of. They watched in awe as the kingly presence of the betrayed sun withdrew and let the crescent moon and her darkness creep in silently. As the darkness slowly claimed her reign in the sky, the candles with all their memories made their presence more real. The candles made their presence more meaningful.

The candles burned vigorously and brightly as the sky became a deep ceiling of uncertainty. It was unnatural that all the candles, different in their shapes, sizes, and colors, seemed to be all the same to my eyes shrouded by confusion. They seemed to burn in a monotonous manner, as if all the wicks present in my vision were all chanting an unheard mantra which made me more and more desperate for answers. Distraught, confused, and feeling lonely, I gently tucked my legs closer to my body and embraced them as I tried to draw an empty sense of security from an evenly empty part of my being.

And just about that time, a strong force ravaged across the cemetery. A sudden burst of wind turned the monochromatic burn of the candles into an ocean of vermilion embers. The smell of forgotten memories coalesced about and condensed the air that filled my lungs. All candles died at the same moment as they burned all at the same time, and all at the same manner.



All,

except one.



Nanay, 83 ka na dapat ngayon kung hindi mo ako iniwan. Happy Birthday. I love you, at miss na miss ko na kayo ni Tatay.

A Memory Fades (First Light)

October 31, 2008
Loyola Memorial Park, Marikina

The weather was harsh. The light drizzle that eased the unbearable heat that lasted for days became a heavy deluge of cold needles shooting down from the sky. The peaceful air of the resting places became a chaotic calamity-stricken world where rain was the ammunition and the slippery and wet grass was the devastating effect. The merciless break of the heavens sent hundreds and hundreds of candles of all shapes, sizes, colors, and scents into the grip of the darkness. It was ironic that the candles kindled for the dead were dying in their own, little way. Most candles left alone to fend for themselves were extinguished almost instantly.

But after a brief but intense shower, the skies cleared up. Stars soon peeked amidst the chilly night sky. The candles that remained lit slowly started to burn with a renewed vigor. I found myself transfixed to the beauty of a candle's flame as more and more candles slowly regained its warmth, and its memories. I was soon surrounded by the warmth of an unknown presence as I sat silently under an old, old tree. It was the same tree that saw me burst into tears when I failed to keep all of my sadness to myself as we lowered Tatay to his final resting place. It was also the same tree which witnessed all my sorrow and tears when we were to bring Nanay to where Tatay and Tita Nene was. And I am pretty sure that was the same tree that watched an innocent kid wondering what was happening around him.

Then, it started to rain once again, as if the heavens understood what I was trying to say.

Choose

Since the start of my semestral break, all I am doing here in the house is wake up, eat, play, take a bath, play some more, and sleep. Nothing has been happening in my life these past few weeks that have some deep impact on my monotonous activities as a student. Well, since school's out, nothing has been happening that I can call worthy of being blogged.

Maybe the lack of pressure in my life now is slowly draining away everything creative in my whole being. But as I experienced during the last few weeks of the past semester, too much pressure cooks a person into something bland, dull, rubbery, and tasteless. Every creative energy I had was diverted into nothing but schoolwork. There were nights when I shifted into the seventh out of the six gears I know I have. I had to type a truckload of reports for our sales and inventory management system project, study ten theses statements for my final oral exam, and study for countless hours for three subjects. I had to overclock myself since everything needed to be done at the same time, or else, all hell would break loose.

Recently, I have discovered in myself that I am a very indecisive person, indecisive to the point that the opportunity to choose passes away because of the very lengthy time I take to decide. I have always been telling myself that I'd rather not choose because I do not want to make a decision that I might regret in the end, but as I talk to people who are older than me, I discover that I want to choose both. I always look at both choices and want them equally as the other. I do not know if I get torn whenever I leave something behind for another, but the fact remains that most of the time, I lose both because I want the two of them badly. I ranted to a friend of mine how boring sembreak life was because there was nothing to do. I also told him how I hated the hell weeks in school since I can't afford to slack off.

Gian (10/15/2008 6:35:27 PM): make up your mind

Philosophy 101 has taught me that man is man because he has the ability to choose freely, and these decisions will affect his future.

I always have reasons to choose something and not to choose something. The problem is, I always have a reason for everything.

I'm just afraid.

Reality and Fantasy: at War

After defeating a kingdom's whole army and endlessly routing one enemy officer after the other, sleepiness came knocking on my tired eyes. After continuously firing arrows that split into massive shockwaves that stunned the enemy on the spot, I felt a bolt of sleepiness hit my impenetrable desire to play. The mighty swings of the Spirit Reaper and the alluring but deadly dances of Da Ji were defeated by the tired feeling that consumed me inside. It was time to leave the world Orochi had created to test his might against the heroes of history. The short arm of the clock at three and the long one at six bellowed a lullaby in irony. I had to go to sleep because if my parents were to catch me playing in such an unholy hour, I would be toast for good.

Still thinking about the game that I was playing for over two hours, I lied on my bed. Staring directly into the darkness where the ceiling painted like the sky was supposed to be, I kept thinking about Ina's fantastic attacks with her bow, Da Ji's chaotic disruption as she performs her attacks with her Spheres of Decay, and Orochi's massive pulse, flame, and lightning charge attack. I was silently washed away to the shores of sleep with these thoughts in mind. However, the calm crashing of the waves in the shoreline suddenly became a loud, dissonant noise that echoed infinitely into the remote distance.

Video games have always brought me a different kind of peace. The fragments of power and fantasy make me break free from the painful bonds of reality and bring me into a world where war and harmony exist side by side. It blinds the harsh realities that one has to face in life. The escape from reality that these games offer me has kept me sane in the rockiest rivers and roughest seas. However, one cannot escape reality as it always reveals itself to the consciousness of people. No matter how hard we try to run away from the real world, we still exist and move in real time and space. When we try to escape reality, we are simply deluding ourselves to a foolish sense of emancipation to freedom.

My mind suddenly went blank.

And then, it happened.



Masaya ba ako?



I have asked myself that question over and over again. But all I ever do is enter the fantasy world, hoping tomorrow will bring more enemies to knock out, more items to collect, and more strategies to foil. I simply load up a game and channel all my energies into completing the mission placed in front of me.

All I ever do is run away, once again hoping that tomorrow will be just the same as today.