It was 3am and I'm still up posting some drainage-worthy phrases only I can understand.
The past weeks for me have been way crazy. I felt like I was standing, no, crouching, on some kind of plane that's unstable, flat yet paperweight that it wobbles with a mere gasp of breath. Or probably a sigh. So the going-away-to-a-faraway-place was the exact drama I know I needed.
Every time I go somewhere I look forward to bringing even a single realization or a new inspiration. Baguio's six-hour bus ride from Manila assured me it was a pretty far place where I'm safe to believe it would free me to think of anything that will eventually contribute to a sudden snap (in Tagalog, mapatid ang utak). Not exactly my first time, so not excited for anything but the mere fact that I was far up in the mountains past the woods. You know, heights are not exactly the best standpoint, but the detachment gives you a decent view of the good and the bad in your own little jungle. Looking down the view from a little place down Session Road, you can see both darkness and light. I can describe it this way:
"The blackness stand out amid the hundreds of tiny domestic lights that are almost equidistant."
But I can also say it this way:
"The blackness of the mountain appears almost unnoticeable as the little colorful lights dance behind the fog across the horizon."
You see, sometimes all you can see inside your own rut is the mere rut. There will be days that shake your faith --- and by "faith" I don't necessarily pertain to anything religious, but the mere general belief that the structure of things in your life is actually going in a straight direction. But it won't. Otherwise it could all have been a pathetically boring life for everybody. And the solution's pretty much to go on and play the Jumanji (you know, the game you can't quit and the only way out is to finish it). The blows will hurt, but the only way to finish better is to see things differently.
One thing you'll always have to go against is other people's incorrect notion of you. You see, people have the tendency to stereotype some people and believe perspectives can change overnight coming off from out of town and gaining some much needed recharge. That's not true all the time, because for one, I have just started to rummage on my own mess when I got back. And going away can bring forth two things --- either a stereotyped "recharge" (which to me is temporary and more artificial) or a new-found inquisition on things. I can be misinterpreted pretty badly here, I know, but I think all this craziness is just one thing I lost and have unexpectedly recovered from the mountains.
We are all entitled to our own ways and means of craziness. Reasonable craziness, that is. And when I say "reasonable," I mean leaving some things behind to chase what can ultimately make you live free. A lot of things hold us up today, and I dare say most of these are literally THINGS, material possessions that have become nothing but status symbols. And it pains me to see people living in the "means" of living --- that is, being held up on earning money for the sake of getting hold of something physical.
I know it's crazy to think that chasing happiness will feed me. But if I know I won't live long enough, I'd rather go on living chasing something people will not be able to buy from anywhere, not even from me. This mere craziness is what feeds me. I can choose to stop and lessen the complication, eat three times a day without a bother, but this craziness rides me all the way to the end of my Jumanji.
To flee from that painful situation by detaching yourself to the world, physically or just mentally, and try to divert to temporarily forget --- it can be intentional, but it can also be not. But whether or not what happens to us is chance, it all happens at the right time. And because life speaks to us in great and mysterious ways, you're just so unlucky if you won't notice. It's okay to detach. But be sure to be back with a vengeance. #
No comments:
Post a Comment