On Promises

Promises seem to be beautiful things that put us in a dreamy state of looking at the future. It lures us to hang on, because of the belief that at the foot of the rainbow is a pot of gold.

The promise of staying together in romance, or the promise of being there in friendship, the promise to be good and do charitable things. The promise of a parent to take responsibility of a child. All of these creates in the mind a picture of a desirable yet-to-come. Like a scenario of a happy couple ending up in marriage, or a friendship lasting till all of them have gone gray, or making it to heaven after death, or a well-raised child.
A promise is an invitation to a beautiful scenario taking place soon.

It is not surprising how we try to make up for our blunders by devising promises. When we arrive late in an important affair, we promise to make it up. It doesn't matter to whom we promise it- to ourselves or to the professor or the boss or to a date. The point is we make promises as reparations for our faults. I admit to be a constant oblivious promise-maker whenever I disappoint someone. Sometimes an apology just doesn't make it until it's backed up by a promise. You may be forgiven for not making it to a friend's birthday party who really expected you to be there. But somewhere, somehow, you'd get the feeling you lost a bit of the person's trust and appreciation. You will be put in a position of awkward conscience- an urge to convince the friend you should not be reduced to the mistake you made. So you start promising to make it up to her. You make a promise to give her reason to hang on. To keep her trust and appreciation for you just the same. Why do we make promises? Simply because a promise is a "future" thing. Once uttered, it disposes itself into the future and becomes something to look forward to.

I look back at how my life have been ruled by tons of luring promises. How my decisions were shaped by the promises I made to myself, promises others made, and promises I just imagined were promised to me. Check your life and your decisions. It must be that way too.

Once upon a time, I promised my self a successful future. I promised my self a nice cozy house in a mini-forest, a sleek grass-green convertible, an inexhaustible vault cash, a pretty popular coffeeshop of my own brand, a band set in my bedroom, a jet-setter's life and a breezy creative living. But these things are not easy promises. They require a roadmap. I need concrete plans. And this is when they become difficult to keep. I have to make choices that could promise me better outcomes, but not necessarily make me happy at the moment. Like choosing what I think would be a more stable career path over enrolling for my hobbies and the things I enjoy.
 Simply put, setting aside my guitar and learning Adolf Hitler.

This is when promises become dangerous. They dress themselves in fancy pictures of what could be while smothering you to keep them. Making you forget what you really wanted to start with. The promise of faring successfully later on injects some analgesia to the throbbing thought of foregoing some of the things that matter to me. Instead of sketching my life day-by-day with my bare hands, I disposed it into a promise that is far in the future.

Apparently, it's like an analgesic. It makes you forget the pain of having to forego certain things, and get enticed with the vivid illusions of the promise- a colorful yet-to-come. Relationships work like this.
Relationships are built on promises. You make the other promises, and the other makes you promises as well. This is what starts a relationship, but what also ruins it. Unkept promises; They break the relationship altogether. But the funny thing is, we never see a promise as anything dangerous. It always gives us happy thoughts. It always gives us something to look forward to. When people makes us promises, we automatically hang on. In one way or another, we always believe in them. We get drowned in the enticing visions of a promise. It is capable of twisting our attitude toward something. A blunder. A proposal. A desire. Whatsoever. Make a promise, and things would seem to turn fine.

But in the long run, the pain control wears off and we wake up to an excruciating agony. That crucial moment when we get confronted with the issue of whether or not we have made the right choice, or that if we were right believing the promises of the choices we made. Maybe the moral of the story is to not make promises rule our lives. To not live our lives by the promises of the future. Maybe we just have to live it as it is now. Promises make a shaky ground. Maybe we just have to love without looking at the promise it brings, but just how it makes us happy and whole now. There is too much uncertainty in everything. Maybe it will prevent us from falling to hard and break into pieces if we entertain the idea that a promise is only a promise until it happens or it gets broken. We should take a choice by its ability to make us happy at the living moment, and not by the happiness it promises us on the future. After all, life never runs out choices. If we make a wrong choice, we can always override it by making another one.

The promise is only a promise until it happens now. We don't always have to get tied to them. At the foot of the rainbow might be a pot of gold, but the rainbow might be only in your head. 

And the pot of gold is just right in front of you.

Soon

I am here at a small chapel located at the edge of a village. This is a protestant chapel and there is no mass whatsoever tonight. The place is all mine.
Today is a Monday. I am here, alone and embraced by the quiet on an almost 7pm in the evening.

I wish to create.
***

Do you happen to know that feeling when you lie down to sleep on a 2 or 3am, and don't remember what kept you busy the whole day? Like hours seem to be wheeling off so fast, you hardly notice the day wrap up and shut down.

For the past few days, I seem busy doing what I can't even remember I was doing. Days seem to just pass me by like that. Moments are getting more and more unremarkable. Dry. Silent. Empty. Like scenes of a movie that really don't have anything to do with the plot. They just go away... not leaving any mark. They have become indifferent. Like robots.

Days fly so fast that it's become impossible to leave even the tiniest imprint. You know how that feels?
It feels like life is happening somewhere else.

I've been so restless. I feel the need to express. To sort things out. To find my way through all these unnecessary bustle. I need to write. But each time I attempt to write, I lose it. I lose the drive. Like a car engine that won't start. 

You twist the ignition, hear a loud "brrooom". And then what happens? The sound faints and vanishes just like that. It seems like the mere thought of writing is intimidating already. I cannot move inside my head. My thoughts are paralyzed.

What is going on with me?

I look at my old journal entries, read through them. And I get jealous of that kid, that effortless storyteller. Always in tune with her thoughts. Always in control of them, how to make them and convey them. Always has the means, the time and space, to express and create. I really miss that person.

Back in high school, I really wrote a lot and kept a compilation of my output. I had an active blog and a DevArt. Almost everyday, I wrote. I was so good at finding so many special things in just one day and then, I write about them right away. I kept a notepad with me whenever, where I put my poems, and proses, my couplets and undone stanzas.

I was really breathing back then. Now? I'm only learning to breathe.

Time is changing gears so fast, and I'm missing gears a lot. I'm a car engine that don't start. And my thoughts are on coma. Soon, someday soon, life will be happening not somewhere else, but inside of me. Soon, life will come back. Soon I know, are unempty days. And soon, are a boom of written stories. Soon,

I am coming home.

Tried Something Hard

Salamat, Dad.

Sunset and Dusk

I love sunsets and dusk. I think it's the time of the day when the sky gets most creative. The sun is so golden, and strong, and beautiful, like a god. And its delicate rays splatter hints of pink all over the dimming canvass. Looking at the sunset is like staring at Beauty in its very eye. Getting lost in the incomprehensible space of natural grandeur and untouched magnificence.

This sun is a god. The supreme artist. The very cradle of beauty. Reminding everything down below to honor the bright daylight's goodbye. Setting down, to make way for darkness to veil all over the place. And setting down to make sense in rising up again. When the morning comes, when rest and insight were won by the mind and body, it will rise again, to make you feel closer than you'll ever be to the most serene form of beauty, to set back again, and tell of the power that is vast, untouched and magnificent.

I am just a creature down below such a majestic heavenly body. I honor and appreciate such a power, this power that is unexplainable and inexpressible with spoken language. And at the same time, I humbly recognize this power as to be residing in me and so I feel that I am powerful as well as I appeal to its immense creativity.

This is the sunset I took just today before the night veiled off the whole place into complete darkness. I took the photo with my phone, while I was riding at the back of the car. This is a lucky shot I tell you that. And I believe this is destined to be here, as permitted by this god to reflect on this piece of art. Thank you, Sun.

Lazy and sitting all day

No drunk. Just Funk.

TorNOWdo

Right now munching this crispy potato tornado.

Life as a question

A little side story before I start rambling what is yet another personal theory.

It is a strange feeling how this blog is starting to intimidate me. After a moment of staring at it, something holds me back from writing. My thoughts tend to get shy and tongue-tied at the very sight of its cozy wood background and hints of brown melancholy. The feeling is pretty much the same as confronting a blank paper. When the writer, or an artist, is about to create something, she thinks first before giving it a stroke, afraid to start with wrong lines or imperfect curves. And in thinking too much sometimes comes the doubt of being able to create well and beautifully.

I do not like the feeling. I do not want to get intimidated, especially in creating.I want to be free from anything deterrent of self-expression, self-love and self-discovery. That is what I understand my life is for.

I think that if life composes itself to a question, the question would be "who am I?". I believe that life is all about finding and knowing the self- that infinite soul that is mysteriously encased in a limited body. To reach within the depths of that soul, is to reach out to a larger truth that is perfect and unfathomable.
The soul is what makes anybody real, and unique, and alive. It is the powerhouse within which all meaning reside. And life, as I understand it, is the search and mastery of this Self.

You see, the search for the Self underlies everything that we do. It is always our sense of self that direct us to our choices and drives us to be doing what we do. I write because I understand my self as to be having the passion to write. Not necessarily that I claim to be a writer, but that I see myself as a story, which I want to tell and share.

Our sense of self at present reflects how we see ourselves in the future. I think that every goal, and every dream and desire is a drive of our present sense of self. A person dreams to be a musician because in one way or another, he sees himself as a sound. A tone, that is essential in creating a more complicated web of sounds that is music.

Who am I? There is really some level of unexplained difficulty in the question. One that will make us think second thoughts. Though in the usual dealings of life, who we are is simply our name. But if we look at it more reflectively, isn't my name only a word with a picture of my body and physical appearance, with a hint of my personality, but devoid in meaning and depth? No spoken concept is sufficient to answer the question Who am I?. "I am a daughter" for example is a concept that speaks of me. But it is not enough to encapsulate who I really am as separate from anybody else. My sister is also a daughter, and so is my mother. It is not everything that I am. Even negations won't work. Try, "I am not you". But all other people are also not you. What makes me different from all of them who are not you? What makes me who I am that doesn't make you who you are and others who they are? All this questions are borne out from a larger question, Who am I?

Self expression is one way of knowing who we really are. Ironic it may sound, but the dynamics is like that of an athlete practicing a sport. The more he plays the sport, the more he understands it, until such time he gets to devise certain techniques to win. The more you express yourself, the more you understand who you are until you find effective avenues for self-discovery. Others find it in art. Others in music. Others in being with other people, in rearing families and children, in helping out the needy, in consoling friends, and advocating peaceful change. There are countless ways to discover the self, and people around us help in this ventures, both in small and big ways.

I have been writing as means to express. And I don't like how I'm getting intimidated to write in this blog now. Seems like I've run out of the right words to say, which really should not be the case. Self-expression is truth, and is not within the standards of right or wrong. Probably because I kind of forgot who I am.

And this is how I unravel again life as this question.

What does your dream house look like?

Yung deceiving ang facade. Mukhang baro-baro outside. Pero inside, "wonderland".

ASK for a good haircut (on Formspring!)

Wonderwalk

Life is a walk. And love is a marathon.

"Life is a walk." This is actually a little cliche, but it's true. Everyday is a walk, and we take different sorts of roads everytime. Wherever we are heading to, only we know. It's a personal call. But the thing is, we are always on a walk to somewhere. Even without using our feet.

And walking is learning and discovering. Along the way are sights and sounds that tell you stories, lessons and beautiful things. The best part about walking is not getting somewhere, but the walking itself. Every step you take is freedom to move. Freedom to be, or become. The rhythm of your steps energizes you, and fills you in with passion as your feet do the incredible job. Every ounce of air that you take in is an idea rushing through your brain, a potential strand of a beautiful story.

I actually love to walk. I love strolling around nice places, like beaches and parks, and I walk as if I'm in the movies. NO, just kidding. *wink.
I walk while introspecting, taking in all the good things and cherishing all the good sights. My friends would always tease me for being a slow walker. I remember during field trips and/or out-of-town seminars, I always get behind the pack. And teachers always hated me for that. One time, I was eight then, I got lost in SM because my mom and her office mate Jessel were walking so fast, and I lost sight of them. I was panicking and crying, until a stranger saw me and dropped me off the Information Area. My mom was paged. At least I was only eight that time. I didn't know yet that was embarrassing.

Up until today, I walk like every step is to cherish. And I appreciate every person I get to walk with, especially those slow, long walks with good conversations.

Life is a walk, and the road is full of surprises. Unexpectedly, along the humdrum routines and familiar things, something would just pop up your way all of a sudden, like a genie in a bottle and make all your fantasies come true. The road will turn into a bunch of fluffy clouds, and bright rainbows would hang overhead. You find yourself grasping for breath in thrill and excitement, and everything around is a blur. All you see is magic. This is when the marathon begins.

You hop right in without so much thinking, and find yourself moving on the fast lane. But you don't mind. 'Cause me, I didn't.
And when you start to not mind as if nothing else matters but what is here and now, and you start to think you found reason for life and everything, and you feel that the long hard walk is worth it, and that everything does make sense, you know you have bumped into love. The best discovery there is.

It's a phenomenon. It is life-changing. It turns you into huge strong planet, and makes you feel like you couldn't ask for anything more. It's the strongest feeling, the most mind boggling, the most beautiful. That is why countless stories go about love everyday.

Now here's the bad news. Love is a marathon. The arched rainbows would make you roll downhill so fast, until the show's over, and the fluffy clouds are gone. No more rainbows and butterflies. And you're on the cold hard ground, at the foot of a stranger, asking for love to come back. And that's the time you realize that it had all been on the fast lane, that it had been a marathon. It ended so fast.
You'd be asking for playbacks and slower versions of the happy scenes, and find that there's not a rewind button at all. And all you got is the "play" button, and the walk keeps on.

Life goes on. The marathon hits the finish line. And from a strong huge planet you've been to a million tiny grains of sand, you hit the open road again. What a wonderwalk.

Pippy

You black beanie has served me well for the past months. And you may take some time off, a gray beanie got qualified to substitute you for the season. I love you.
***

Hi! I am glad and thrilled to introduce you to a new character in the story of life.

Remember when I told you how I feel so human and safe with my tuque on? To me it's like a safety helmet that encloses my personal thoughts from outside interference, vanity and judgment. (Well, any hat for that matter. Plus, hair is most of the time scruffy- and I'm lazy- and a hat is just the fastest kind of remedy.)

Well guess what. Somebody just knows what I need, and cares about it. Hence the entry of this character in the story. So, everyone, living and non-living things, put on the cat's pyjamas and meet my new company, friend and helmet- Pippy.

Pippy is a gray beanie, gifted to me two days after my 20th birthday. Pippy is cool and cozy. And quite remarkable to people.
When I wore Pippy in Spanish class for the first time, La Maestra acknowledged me when I entered the room, and told me how she's noticed me always wearing this kind of hat. And then I told her, "Uhm this is a beanie, Ma'am.". And from that day on, I was formally "that one with a beanie" in class. 

She actually never acknowledged me on anything I wore or do in class, even if I almost always wore a tuque. I'm pretty sure it was Pippy who catalyzed the verbalization of her curiosity and/or interest over my hats- if there was any.

And from that, we can say that Pippy is special, apart from the fact that Pippy is called by a special name- Pippy. Pippy was by the way, derived from an endearment that gets a lot of variation everytime. Pippy simply was named after the person who gave it to me. And Pippy reminds me and would always remind me of a birthday I planned to just let slip away, but people around me really pushed to make that day special. So Pippy is a lot of people, memories and things to me. Pippy is really special.

So there. Pippy. Cool isn't Pippy? :) The black beanie (as in the topmost photo) I used to wear a lot, and the other gray tuque, are now on a great vacay somewhere. Pippy is taking over the scene for the mean time. And I'm wearing Pippy now. Say Hello.

Thanks, Pia.

To prepare for war, Friday night, Room 22