Why? Why not?

Let me start this first entry since forever with a rant: I have a love-hate relationship with Instagram. I mean, who doesn’t? It’s a black hole that ensnares and devours that which is free yet priceless — time. Case in point: I was sidetracked a good ten minutes from writing this all because I caught the glow of a notification on my phone’s screen in my peripheral vision. Facebook, one could say is no different and arguably the worse of the two. Its toxic landscape of fake news and vile people notwithstanding, it stands solid as the easiest way to keep in touch with family and friends back home. It helps that I mindlessly scroll through my feed with eyes half-closed anyway; the bulk of it does not register. With Instagram though, it’s always a 50-50 thing. One day I find the images inspiring, the next I cannot stand it. The perfectness, the posturing, the over-curating — it makes it hard to believe that the genuineness of the image has not been filtered out. I’m not preaching here; I too love them filters. So let’s altogether recognize it for what it is; it’s life captured in the best light from the best angle and photoshopped for good measure. I understand that everyone puts their best foot forward on social media, but the effect here is staggering. There seems to be no room for ugly on this platform. Precisely because it’s mostly images that are rarely given context, the viewer is left to fill the gaps in the story, or else, take everything at beautiful, perfectly manicured, veneered face value. “How to be you po?” we all subconsciously ask.

Last month, I took some time off Instagram. I wanted to channel my attention to more worthwhile endeavours. While it did help to cleanse the palate, I failed at my primary objective — I ended up spending my newfound extra idle time on Facebook.

Clearly my mind has to be engaged otherwise it will continue to wander. I know that if there is one thing that can capture my attention more than images, it is words. I’ve thus made it a point to actually read the paperback I almost always carry with me to work. To take it a notch further, I’ve decided to write again. Discounting a hiatus in the Himalayas or an interruption-free week away on the islands of El Nido, I can think of no better way to purge the mind of distractions (aside from working “in the zone”).

My twenty-four year old self started this blog six years ago as a way to document and express. At that time, I worked on weekends, and hustling 6-7 days a week to meet clients on my days off would not be uncommon. Busy, yes, but that was the primary reason why I wanted to do more and experience more of life. I woke up at dawn to be in the pool for 7am swimming lessons, and I’d rush to the studio for pole dance classes after office hours. On weekends that I didn’t work, I took six-hour bus rides to escape the city a couple of times and get surfing lessons. And even if I wasn’t particularly good nor consistent at writing, I still made time for this.

So what’s my excuse now?

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_Write pt. 2: hello/goodbye

I went to a farewell dinner last week. I only just met him at the start of the year, and a few months later, it was already time to say goodbye. The new normal these days.

It wasn’t quite the case back in the safe bubble of my homeland. The sameness, the confidence you find in the familiar, the phone numbers you’ve memorized. The day I left with a couple of small luggage and a freshly renewed passport in tow, I knew I drove a wedge between old and new, but it has since proven to have separated the before and after in more ways than I expected.

Roots have given way to wings, but making new friends grounds you and calms the “new kid on the block” anxiety that chews on your insides. Depending on your situation, you’ll likely gravitate towards fellow transients. You cling to them like a barnacle clings to rocks. The ease builds every day, and you slowly, sometimes without realizing it, build a new safe zone. But just when you thought you’re settling in, it comes and pulls the rug from under you. They announce their departure, quit their jobs, pack their bags, and you’d go to more than one of their farewells. Because you’re clingy and sad, and it’s hard to say goodbye. Friends forever, right? (Thank you, social media.)

From a young age, friends have been the kid next door, your classmates, your cousins, your parents’ friends’ kids. And for some strange reason, you always counted on them to be around. Now you know it always isn’t the case.

At the risk of sounding like One Tree Hill’s Peyton Sawyer, people leave, and as one of those who left, chances are you’d find yourself among the transitory flock. They come; they stay for a while. And when they leave, you’ll be going to a farewell for the nth time and wishing them the best in all sincerity, partly because you know you’d want the same for yourself if and when you choose to spread your wings once more. If you do decide to nest, there’d still never be a shortage of cause to celebrate. Someone will always need a proper sendoff. Someone will always come and need a reassuring welcome.

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_Write pt. 1

I want to write about the things I think about all the time. The things that have lodged themselves in the folds, which I imagine my brain to have or so I glean from illustrations. I want to write about the things that I don’t want to think about. The things that somewhat overwhelm me with the amount of mental prowess I estimate they’d require. Those that I so conveniently tuck away and conveniently forget, albeit momentarily, as I proceed with honing my urbanite zombie, mobile phone-obsessed, social media-thirsty self. There are times when I catch myself realising, as I sit in the office at midday, how cloudy my thoughts seem to be. How much more effort is needed now to enter the “flow” state. How rare it is nowadays to get an “aha” moment. This isn’t new. The problem is, it’s become more recurring. A no-fail cure that has saved me from this malaise time and again was to write. It could be a swift hack at the keyboard at midnight (I can only really think when it’s quiet or when I have classical music blasting at my eardrums) or a long drawn affair where I stroke, caress, look back at every word, every sentence. Oh my, look at the time. And so now, I write. My fingers type; downloading the steady stream of words in my mind. No self-editing for this one. Not now. No self-censorship. I just put down the words, the words that are thoughts, the thoughts that are things, the things that I think about and those that I don’t.

Okay. Done.

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Of Movies and Memory Gaps

Over lunch the other day, movies came up during conversation. Anytime anyone brings up the subject, I light up like a bulb and get all excited, particularly when the other person shares the same taste as I do or at least familiar with a wide range of titles.

I was asked a very simple question, which to my surprise, I found hard to answer: “So what are your favorite movies?” I immediately replied, “It’s difficult to choose just one.” Understandably, the next question was, “What are some of your favorites then?” That didn’t make it any easier. I’ve been backed into a corner and left with no recourse but to rack my brains for answers. It took me a couple of minutes to jog my memory and pry a few.

A couple of days later, the question still simmered in my mind. It was really very surprising to me that I could not as easily name the films that I’ve adorned for years. Movies to me are a source of joy that keeps on giving. I love stories, and film is one of my favorite media. Countless days and nights I’ve spent on equally countless features. There were years when the rooster’s crowing (the family across the street likes to keep cocks) was the only thing that could make me turn off the computer and remind me that I have to be at work in a couple of hours. As a kid, I could memorise the dialogue after the first viewing. In short, it’s been a life-long affair.

I took a trip down memory lane last night to reacquaint myself with some old faves, and my, was it nice to see them again. Here are five loves of many:

I have not paid as much attention to movies in the past couple of years, which truthfully is why it took me only forever to recall my favorites. Maybe one of these days, I’d find the time to sit down and talk about each in detail. For now, I’ll end this by introducing a new favorite, The Handmaiden by Park Chan Wook. I’m glad I’ve stumbled upon this jewel of a flick. No, it’s not for everyone. But man, is it dizzyingly lovely.

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Blank Space_

A clean slate. Pretty much how this site looks like at the moment.

Confession. I’ve been itching to post an entry for the longest time but couldn’t bring myself to do so until I get the look of this page right. As evidenced by all the white space that you see, I have not been able to do so just yet. But (and that is a very big but), as the note tacked onto the bulletin board inside the office lift says (and I paraphrase), you just have to start. Nothing ever happens until you do; all else follows.

And so I populate this page with three short paragraphs. Not the best of (re)starts, yes. But oh well, let’s begin_

Wiggle

25.07.2015 1800hrs

How to begin? I don’t know where or how to start. I haven’t really written anything in over a year, aside from lists, emails, and countless chat messages. My mind I think, has become much too accustomed to short exchanges, attention span and thought organization greatly diminished. The wires in my brain seem to have been snipped short at some point, and I am grasping the ends and trying to tie them together in an attempt to knit paragraphs together.

Sometimes I tell myself I need a new laptop to write with. My Stella cannot connect to the Internet, tapping Celine’s screen doesn’t give the whole experience, and the thought of using good old pen and paper does not entice me. I know. I have far too many excuses. But every once in a while, at least once a year, I cannot help just doing it.

I am not writing about anything really. I’m merely trying to jolt my writing muscles out of deep cryogenic coma. Piecing words together, one after the other. It’s like the equivalent of willing a toe to wiggle.

At this point, I may have to apologize to whoever chanced upon this. It’s a rather selfish exercise, and you certainly are right in thinking that there is nothing to be gained here. But my, look at that, four paragraphs. There is yet hope! May I then be so bold as to ask you, dear reader, not to completely strike this page off your reading list. Maybe next time, there’d be better reason for you to waste your time here with me.

Tschüs!

A Study (of K) Pt. 1: Eyeglasses

Those Eyeglasses. She rests on top of your nose confidently, sitting squarely on your face. Like a knight guarding the gate, she opens the doors at your bidding and shows you the world. Once she boasted of a pristine pair of clear plates and a fine, rigid frame. You laid your eyes on her, and she was never the same. How you’ve smudged the glass with your fingerprints, and the frame, rubbed off by your incessant, unconscious touch. She’s seen better days. And yet, she wouldn’t have it any other way.

She revels in the idea of holding your vision ransom, and on days when she’s feeling feisty, she’d distort an image or two, throw in a couple of blinding flashes and blurry shadows, and giggle silently as you rub your eyes in disbelief. She falls faint down the bridge of your nose, trusting that you would catch her, and she smiles as you slide her back in place, basking in the assurance that you’d never let her fall, never let her break, never need to replace her. She observes everything with you, wistfully wishing to know what you make of the things you perceive, what goes on behind those eyes — eyes that look on from daybreak to dusk, eyes that rely on her, a supposedly impartial and unclouded ally.

When you finally take her off and place her on your bedside table at the day’s end, she looks on anxiously as you sleep, watching your eyes quiver behind the closed lids. She envies the dreams that show you worlds she never could and cannot begin to imagine, and she waits impatiently for the sun to reappear, the morning to dispel the dark, the light to tear you away from that other place and bring you back to the world of you and her.

Then you open your eyes and always find her.

Tschüs!

Of Buses and Trains and Laundry

It’s a quiet afternoon. The sky is overcast, and there is a faint breeze whistling through the trees. I have just boarded a bus to the nearest train station. I no longer have to look out the window to see where I should get off; I’ve taken this trip enough times to know.

I’m on my way downtown, to Lucky Plaza to be exact. Like most Filipinos here, I’m about to send some money back home. Yep, this is part of who I am now, a Filipino who works and lives abroad. To distill my existence into a three-letter acronym would be a wrong way to describe how I live though, or anyone else, for that matter. Life and people are much more nuanced, and to morph and glaze them over into a concept or collective, however well regarded, would be to see them from a narrow perspective. You begin to realize this when you become one of them yourself.

I’ve been based in Singapore since May last year, and with everything that move entailed and all other things, I kind of lost touch with the pleasure that is writing. Not that I’ve let go of the personally gratifying exercise that keeping this blog has been. It’s always always bubbling underneath the surface, but I’ve allowed myself to be almost fully occupied with the exigencies of this new chapter. Only today did I realize that it’s been a full year since my last post; only today did I finally decide to put a period on that rather sad gap and to start a new sentence, again and again.

As you may expect, I’ve gone through more than a couple of cycles through the metaphorical washing machine of life, from the time I started to seriously contemplate uprooting and throwing myself “out there” up to today. I’m all for YOLO, but know that behind the hippy-ishly filtered images of “living fully and freely” lies major work; setting something into motion and following through with it takes commitment, tenacity, and a whole lot of faith. Freedom, with its dazzling rush of excitement, comes with the grounding weight of responsibility. And depending on how you are as a person, anxiety will surely tag along as well.

Given all that and, at the risk of sounding self-absorbed, my seemingly inborn tendency to observe as I live and at times observe myself as I’m observing, the highs and lows and twists and turns can be prolonged and magnified. A royal pain in the ass sometimes but a gift nonetheless. This is where writing comes in. You put your arms around the wriggling, pulsating strands you fall into, the web of life you find and create, and endeavor earnestly to weave it all into something intelligible, interesting, and if you really try, something beautiful.

I have a year’s worth of balled up material and a lifetime ahead to work with. So please bear with and join me, dear readers. I am not “a voice of a generation”, but I am a voice, just like you. Now you might ask what good it would do you to drop in once in a while. I actually cannot give a perfectly good answer to that perfectly good question. All I know is that it’s fun to share and definitely fun to sort of eavesdrop. At the very least, you can see how my ride is going, and maybe you can tell me about yours. And who knows? Maybe one of these days we’d run into each other on the train.

Tschüs!

Outbreak Manila 3: Enchanted Kingdom

I am a huge fan of The Walking Dead. It remains to be the one and only TV show that had me shrieking and jumping around the room in both fright and delight when I saw its first season. I cannot care less for vampire books/movies/tv series/fanfics/etc., but zombies have proven to be irresistible even in their limpy, wobbly, crawly ways. Unlike their pale-skinned, blood-thirsty fellow undead, zombies are admirable in their unequivocal quest to eat humans alive. They won’t try to befriend you, woo you, or win your heart (apart from wanting to devour it). They don’t talk and cannot and will not make piercing eye contact. Almost zero chances of sparks flying. It’s enough that they see us as lunch; there is no need for the added complication of inter-specie, star-crossed love affairs. I respect that. And no, please do not bring up Warm Bodies.

Deputy sheriff Rick Grimes getting chummy with unsmiling no-name zombie lady

You can imagine my excitement when I first heard about Outbreak Manila, the 5km run that dares people to run as though their lives actually depended on it. I would not pass up on the chance to live out the fantasy of becoming part of Rick Grimes’ zombie apocalypse survivor crew. I wasn’t able to join the earlier installments for various reasons, but I just had to do the Outbreak Manila 3: Enchanted Kingdom version. I thought the amusement park was the perfect venue for such an event, and I had another reason. When I was a kid, I read a horror children’s book that was set in a traveling carnival. It became one of those stories that stayed with me. As it turned out, I would be hitting two birds with one stone.

The event was held last October 31. It was the first time I “celebrated” Halloween, and I was thrilled. I was doing the run with Pau whom I consider to be one of my best pals. We go on all sorts of crazy “adventures” together, and this was yet another one for the list. Participants were encouraged to wear costumes, and I was game for it. The outfit would still have to be running appropriate though, and I didn’t really prepare. I somehow ended up with a purple wig that I really wanted to wear even if it did not make sense or looked good. But what the heck, right? It was Halloween, and life on earth as we know it has supposedly ended, so why should how I look matter? Because we were taking pictures, that’s why.

Aside: And we were running with Daniel Matsunaga. Spell distraction! We didn’t have photos taken with him though. I would not need a reminder of how hapless I looked with my disheveled wig beside such fine male specimen. Ha ha. Rovilson Fernandez was there with him. He noticed my purple hair, which I explained to be a mutation caused by whatever it was that brought about the zombie infection. I know, right? So smooth.

Each participant were given three flags that signified his/her three lives. The “zombies” were tasked to steal them without actually touching the runners. Some of them just stood there, probably exhausted from badgering the previous waves, but others remained to be effective and energetic tormentors. Nonetheless, they all deserved props for their impressive undead make-up and styling.

All in all, it was a highly successful event. Besides not being able to provide enough medals for all those who made it out “alive”, the organizers did a good job of making sure that it was safe and enjoyable for everyone, especially non-runners. I myself am not a runner, and I didn’t want to start training for the event even if Pau told me to. I thought I could get away with the workout I got from swimming and pole dancing. I should have listened to her though; my body would have thanked me for it. Good thing it wasn’t a race. There was no need to reach the finish line first; you only have to get to the end with at least one flag (life). Pau and I did complete the run with lots of flags to spare, and we both got a high from screaming our lungs out at every walking dead that popped out of dark corners and from successfully zigzagging our way past the hordes of zombies who took their roles rather seriously.

Now that’s done, I certainly will not want to trade places with any of Rick’s friends, even with Daryl around (ha!). I highly doubt it would be that much fun.

Find out more about Outbreak Manila here.

PS

So sorry it took me this long to post about this. Currently working on my blogging backlog! 🙂

Tschüs!

On Self-Respect

I called my brother one afternoon to discuss a personal concern that has been weighing on my mind at the time. He gave me advice on how to deal with it in that direct yet gentle manner of his, probably because he knows I don’t like being told what to do. I didn’t really agree with what he said and launched a feeble retaliation, to which he curtly replied, “Have some self-respect.” That shut me up for a moment. His remark seemed to come out of nowhere, so I asked him what he meant by that. He said, “You’re smart. You’ll figure it out.”

The subject has been on my mind since then, which is why excerpts from Joan Didion‘s essay, “On Self Respect”, as featured on Brain Pickings here, jumped out at me when I read them:

The dismal fact is that self-respect has nothing to do with the approval of others — who are, after all, deceived easily enough; has nothing to do with reputation, which, as Rhett Butler told Scarlett O’Hara, is something people with courage can do without.

To do without self-respect, on the other hand, is to be an unwilling audience of one to an interminable documentary that deals with one’s failings, both real and imagined, with fresh footage spliced in for every screening. There’s the glass you broke in anger, there’s the hurt on X’s face; watch now, this next scene, the night Y came back from Houston, see how you muff this one. To live without self-respect is to lie awake some night, beyond the reach of warm milk, the Phenobarbital, and the sleeping hand on the coverlet, counting up the sins of commissions and omission, the trusts betrayed, the promises subtly broken, the gifts irrevocably wasted through sloth or cowardice, or carelessness. However long we postpone it, we eventually lie down alone in that notoriously uncomfortable bed, the one we make ourselves. Whether or not we sleep in it depends, of course, on whether or not we respect ourselves.

[…]

[C]haracter — the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life — is the source from which self-respect springs.

Self-respect is something that our grandparents, whether or not they had it, knew all about. They had instilled in them, young, a certain discipline, the sense that one lives by doing things one does not particularly want to do, by putting fears and doubts to one side, by weighing immediate comforts against the possibility of larger, even intangible, comforts.

[…]

[S]elf-respect is a discipline, a habit of mind that can never be faked but can be developed, trained, coaxed forth. It was once suggested to me that, as an antidote to crying, I put my head in a paper bag. As it happens, there is a sound physiological reason, something to do with oxygen, for doing exactly that, but the psychological effect alone is incalculable: it is difficult in the extreme to continue fancying oneself Cathy in Wuthering Heights with one’s head in a Food Fair bag. There is a similar case for all the small disciplines, unimportant in themselves; imagine maintaining any kind of swoon, commiserative or carnal, in a cold shower.

[…]

To have that sense of one’s intrinsic worth which constitutes self-respect is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent. To lack it is to be locked within oneself, paradoxically incapable of either love or indifference. If we do not respect ourselves, we are on the one hand forced to despise those who have so few resources as to consort with us, so little perception as to remain blind to our fatal weaknesses. On the other, we are peculiarly in thrall to everyone we see, curiously determined to live out — since our self-image is untenable — their false notion of us. We flatter ourselves by thinking this compulsion to please others an attractive trait: a gist for imaginative empathy, evidence of our willingness to give. Of course I will play Francesca to your Paolo, Helen Keller to anyone’s Annie Sullivan; no expectation is too misplaced, no role too ludicrous. At the mercy of those we cannot but hold in contempt, we play roles doomed to failure before they are begun, each defeat generating fresh despair at the urgency of divining and meting the next demand made upon us.

It is the phenomenon sometimes called ‘alienation from self.’ In its advanced stages, we no longer answer the telephone, because someone might want something; that we could say no without drowning in self-reproach is an idea alien to this game. Every encounter demands too much, tears the nerves, drains the will, and the specter of something as small as an unanswered letter arouses such disproportionate guilt that answering it becomes out of the question. To assign unanswered letters their proper weight, to free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves — there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect. Without it, one eventually discovers the final turn of the screw: one runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home.

Thanks to the people behind Brain Pickings for introducing me to this thought-provoking piece. For a young woman who’s honestly still figuring things out, this riveting treatise provides substantial material to digest and ponder. “On Self Respect” is from Joan Didion’s collection of essays, Slouching Towards Bethlehem.

Tschüs!