Recently, I have a difficult time extracting words, stringing them into spasmodic thoughts, and then organize it into comprehensible write-ups. In the first place, I am always led to believe that I am at times a burden to understand. My world comprises of a certain kind of reality where even the intrepid avoids to venture. I am constantly trudging a quivering road of waywardness. And I usually find myself walking on thin high wires of novel words, and a tiny slip will mean either death or torture. And the latter will make the former more tempting.

These are one of those moments where a deep contemplation fails to evoke a sensible idea. Even an abysmal travel towards universe unknown becomes a suicide or treason towards my own kingdom. My little bubble of reality requires me some time for inactivity where even my mind suppresses its wanderlust. Sometimes though, the required rest is a malignant disease and by a single wave of the wand of boredom, metastasizes throughout my system rendering me futile and smashes me into a pulp. I have to fight this disease, this ailment that is keeping my desire to travel the world with a magic carpet of dithyrambic ideas, and just squeeze what little juice is available from my brain: brain juice! And I think I am not doing justice anyone or anything with this haphazard, senseless entry.

This malady of quasi-brain dead never could have come in a rightful time: New Year! Inasmuch as I want to bombard my dependable though soporific blog with hopeful thoughts and resolutions that could never be, my efforts will be verging on futility. I am paralyzed by a periodic disease, and this is a bad time for me to have it. But all hope should not asunder. January 1 is but a day, and upon each day bestowed to us by a grand architect, a new year beckons a streaking ray of breathtaking hope. Each day is a new year. Waking up is a constant battle against death; sleeping is a strand away from death. It is the closest the hands of afterlife can come to us. And when we exit the world of serene but trepid darkness, we escape the realm of the incorporeal. Everyday, as they say, is a new day. We should not stumble in our own inertia, and just continue to move forward; not ahead, but forward. For life is not a congenital race where the moment we learn to walk, we begin to decide to catch up to others. Take things incrementally.

As the traditional New Year approaches, I cannot help but realize how short 365 days are. It is a transient express; a fleeting flap of graceful wings and it’s over. But there is never an absolute end. And every consummation is another empty white slate. We get to start over, or continue the good things that have been working for us. As for me, I’m still in disbelief how I manage to lure and catch my love; ceaselessly grateful towards fate. But life, in anecdote, is a journey. It does not compromise of sure ends nor does it constitute a clear path. It is a giant, whirling ball of uncertainty. It runs you over at times. But it usually, always, leaves you wounded. My journey with the girl of my impossible dreams has just begun, and a termination is not an option. I will continue to walk the boulevard of misty tomorrows. Today may matter the most, but man thrives looking beyond where he is currently standing. And I am looking beyond everything. I am envisioning a reality where I get to have for life the love of my life. I am hopeful. And as 2010 draws to a close, and a new set of number combination plagues the accustomed mind, I remind myself that I am a victim of serendipity. And that fate is passive. It is us that should infuse a syringe-full of effort. I am forever trying to keep you, until life gives up on me!

As transient lights flash through the sky, delayed by tiny claps, the best time of the year enters in a non-traditional manner. I can’t help but think that this is the most silent Christmas I have ever encountered. Even though a drumming beat with interval pauses rattles the serene background of midnight, this is arguably a Christmas dogged by austerity. The decibels are conspicuously low, and the flashes faint. The spirit that is supposed to be reveling is unusually lackadaisical. Christmas enters tiptoeing.

This has been the most melancholic Christmas insofar as my memory accurately recalls. The world rejoices the birth of the supposed-to-be savior, and I cannot avoid thinking of what Christmas really means aside from the Christian tradition. Is it the warring noise that plagues the midnight sky? Is it the illustrious display of ingenious firecrackers atop the serene roof that we are all under? Is it the scrumptious meals temptingly resting on the dinner table? Or the perfectly wrapped presents that you saved for the morning after? There is no one thing that constitutes the totality of Christmas. Everything that tradition has been perpetuating comprises the true essence of Christmas. It’s not only Jesus’ birth, or the most holy of masses that the church has been broadcasting since time immemorial. It’s everything corporeal and intangible. It’s the gift that ensues a feeling of being remembered. The tasty morsels displayed on the table that encourages oneness and a sense of family. The hubbubs on the sky that resuscitates the frazzled spirit. The feathery feeling of joy, of unity, and of love. And that no matter how silent the night was, how little the displays on the table, or how infinitesimal the gifts you receive, Christmas remains adamant. It is immortal, and even death fears it. It is the single unyielding anchor of us, petty mortals, towards a slippery hope.

And as weeks stumble down the pit hole of yesterdays, a new hope breaks the cold chill of economic turmoil. Incrementally approaching the end of years, and heading towards a new year, a silver lining streaks the roaring gray clouds; that no matter what troubles lurks within the unlighted jungles of uncertainty, all will fall into place. A new year begets a new brand of promise. The death defying stunts we endured during 2010, will become figments of our memories. There’s a reason why we are still here, alive, kicking, and breathing. There’s a recondite reason why we are given the rare opportunity to begin anew. And as 2011 inevitably approaches, let us begin to set foot on another terrain; novel and unknown. Resuscitate your forgotten dreams, rewrite your bygone wish lists, and repair your obliterated spirits. A new day marches towards the horizon; let us not forget to salute it as a welcome gesture.

As for me, I have been unfairly blessed with the single most divine creature known to frustrated writers. I have been bequeathed by fate the most angelic woman, and up until now I question its judgment of propriety. I was not looking, but she came. I was not searching, but fate paraded her. I am an innocent victim of serendipity; happily murdered by the claws of fate. Serendipity is man’s humble justification towards a life he cannot control. I steered clear from any distractions, but you perturbed my wild excursions. My coerced pilgrimage towards a life worthy of a life or death battle, has found its end in your beguiling embrace. Serendipity exists. And I have been obliviously stabbed by it.


photo from: my bebe, Bernz Bernales

The Dark Side, as famously dubbed by Star Wars. Everyone has his/her piece of malevolence trapped inside thick walls of pretense for social propriety. We are and always will remain strangers even to ourselves. We do not know what we are capable of doing when we fail to accept the side with which we are afraid to show. It’s a sore burden to have to carry a load that is tightly harnessed on our backs, and we are inept on removing it. We are evil; but we are not the devils. We are capable of sinister things, but we are cosmic kilometers away from being the cursed one. We may endanger the people around us with our secret contrivance against the world at large, but we are mostly, definitely able to go beyond our primal selves.

I’d be vehemently chastised for adamantly holding on to the tenet that man is a genetically superior animal. We are smarter. And I believe that is the only ace we have got against any other animals walking the floating surface of the earth. And just like any other animals, we have primal instincts. We are governed by instincts that augment our chances of survival. Man, after all, is subdued by the ubiquitous laws of self-preservation. We have evolved to put ourselves at a vantage point, but that wee piece of primal consciousness still lurks within the darkest corners of our being. We kill to eat, hence we are predatory. We defile the one and only place that supports our existence; we desecrate nature, plunder it with its treasures, and maraud the string that connects everyone on this planet; all these at the expense of our gratification and lack of self-contentment. We deny others there due of unadulterated existence to satisfy our avaricious desires. We compromise the fragile balance of nature to propel our self-proclaimed altruistic causes. We move forward at the expense of genocide; we are murderers, and that is our dark side. The primal consciousness of an animal lurks unnoticed within us. If we deny ourselves the awareness that we have that within us, we remain as men (women). We cannot unclench our fists if we do not know we are clenching it in the first place. But as shadows dancing at patches of ground, they are not all that. When there is shadow, subsequently there is light. If man has a side that wreaks of hellish havoc, man has a side that glows with scintillating grandiosity. We are not only men, we are human beings; capable of kindness, compassion, charity, laughter, care, love, and many more others.

We are capable of thinking, of being aware that the world is temporary; we are temporary. We are able to destroy, but we are more than able to create. That behind the dancing shadows, there glows an omnipotent light. There’s still hope for the human race. Hope should not fade. It should continue to cudgel every regret. We are not the devil. We are merely puppets of the perpetuating battle between good and bad.

(Scratches the attention-deficit itch that has been plaguing his feet.)

On another note (since I don’t want to sound so formal writing about bland topics such as the one on top), I have noticed an “ant march” on the wall of my room. They have been going at that for months now, and I just could not find the conviction to halt their way. I don’t want to be so rude to stop their established way of life. It never ceases to amaze me how robotic they are at following the line. They go by the thousands and still no one gets lost. Some may stray the line, but they still manage to find their way back. Ants are the exemplar of hardwork. They work for subsistence. But the one question that niggle my thoughts is that are they even capable of living? Not merely surviving, but living. They seem to work as if tomorrow is just an escaping idea. Do they encounter the dilemma of fitting in? Obviously they do not have any problems of divergence, since everybody seems to heed a higher authority. Do they get depress when love doesn’t work out? Do they even love? Questions leading to more corollary questions; endless stream of inquiries that will never be answered. Frustrating to say the least, answers always seem to evade those who continually seek it.

The world is big, simple, but never easy to understand. So is man. We should learn to co-exist with everything else. As shadows depend on light, man should stop fantasizing and wake up to the reality that we depend on everything else. We are merely custodians to the artifacts created by a being beyond understanding. Live and let live!


*photo by loi brodeth
*camera by my bebe, bernz bernales

The breeze sends a familiar chill. Christmas is a sneeze away, and the world is now again revolving around a giant Christmas tree. Gift wrappers and alluring promos wreak havoc on pockets and wallets. Christmas carols are now commonplace. Though the carolers are rare these days, the idea of Christmas still remains alit. The melody that never fails to elicit an aura of peace and humanity is immortalized by the people who remain steadfast in the tenet that Christmas is and will always be the most wonderful time of the year.

The one most surprising thing I've met thus far is the sole Christmas decor in our home. I was literally caught flabbergasted, jawdropped, and a smirk popped ephemerally. The reclusive psychedelic ball of mesmerizing light was the eccentric piece that lifted the dormant Christmas spirit in me. It has been years since I saw an ornament hanged in our home, more so a scintillating one. It was a crude contraption, made up of flaps of semi-stubborn plastic. It illuminated our congested terrace. Little streaks of kaleidoscopic light rested on the surface of dusty stocks of old boxes. It illumed by frayed eyes.

I just got home, and the sight I beheld replenished my dried energy. I never really expected someone will put up something of the like inside or outside our home. It was just too Christmasy. I took my phone, click on its camera and started to take a shot; a still moment in the perpetually moving world of blatant bitterness. It was a sweet panorama moving below and in front of it; a novel taste to the once tedious and bland universe that is our home. Christmas has once again touched the dried scales of our abode. It was simply heartwarming; a relief amidst the chilly atmosphere of late December.

Allow me this night to once again be desultory. Although this is more or less in the same context, the year is drawing to a close. The curtain of 2010 is incrementally falling down on the stage. The decade will now be ending, and a new dawn breaks the silent sky. As the stars slowly disappear above the sky, a new light peeping behind the clouds is a beacon of a fresh start. With my batchmates in Psychology about to graduate this March, I will once again be left behind. It's a sad ordeal, but sh*t happens from time to time. All we can ever do is take head on what life throws out you. Whatever fate spoonfeeds you with, the best thing and the only thing that can happen is open your mouth wide enough for it to see that you will not falter, and you will not slow down. In the end, we defecate every bit of it.

I am not getting any younger, and as my age indicates the true face behind the facade of inexplicable youth, I am way passed my pre-pubescent years. Although I have yet captured my true intent and my destined purpose, I am continually in the grueling search of an atrocious ending to my not-so-extraordinary life. I will be graduating in the not-so-far month of October, and that in itself is not ascertained to me. Nothing is certain. It would be an excruciating plight for me to witness my friends receive a piece of paper to certify that they have finished college. In my 23 years living, breathing, and travelling, I have known nothing else but the four walls of bureaucratic education. I have known the heartbreaks of failing, the wretched grins of a not deserved success, and the suppressed joys of a job well done. The pesky murmurs of an assortment of instructors, the sudden evolution of teaching, and the sharp decline of quality, I have been through. I have been here long enough to notice that more and more students are settling for substandard. I have been one with almost every clique, and the years that I lost is coming back to terrorize my focus.

Come March, I will be green with envy. I should have been one of those who'd traverse the platform of half-hearted success. I should have been one of those who'd receive a thin paper that certifies your credibility as a worthy denizen of a third-world nation. I should have been one of those who'd don a toga that symbolizes my worthiness of being called a rational being. But I am not one of those who'd giddily wait for that moment. I am here, and this is exactly where I should be. I could think of many should-have-beens to audaciously stir reality, it is where I am right now that I should be thankful for. For without the mistakes I've made, the lapses I delayed myself with, and the pit holes that served as my own traps, I would not have conceived my own person today.

Take what life throws at you. It may not usually be that appealing, it's going to fit in perfectly. It's not what life gives you, but it's what you take out of what life gives you that matters more than anything. The things you get from it are indispensable. As for me, I might have delayed my journey; I gained a better look at the scenery that is often taken for granted. Life after all, is never only for the quick.

Journey on! We are journeymen in a self-diluted promenade. It's when you learn to strip yourself of harnesses that you realize how breathtaking life is. Grab hold to nothing but a pen, a paper, and an open mind. Life, I believe is continually in motion. And we are gyrating with it or against it.

Happy 5-days-to-go-before-Christmas!

An old cliché goes, “less is more”. With the little who came to the party, the night was no less than the best night within the premises of Cebu. Albeit such claim is a bit bias, I refuse to consider others to be a bar above what we had. I can confidently claim that the PsycNight was a success; and a fun one at that. Cheers to everyone who came, who saw, and who conquered!

Weeks of hellish and grueling preparations; from the trivial to the significant, almost all was covered thoroughly. From inefficacious invitations of fellow Psychology majors, where almost all showed no interest, to foraging the jungle of Psychology talent to fill in the intermission numbers, the weeks before showed no sympathy. From the contemplation of the cheapest, yet commensurate prizes, to the actual procurement within the congested agoras of Lapu-Lapu, the weeks before were laden with intervals of malignant sanity (sometimes you wish you were insane).

December 18, and the day has come. The ever-awaited day has spawned niggling sensations. The morning was set for officers and volunteers to set-up the venue for the actual event. Few came, but less is more. With time gaining pace, the unfinished venue was becoming a pressure cooker. But less is more. With calm minds, we managed to procure what we lacked, and leaped on the deep ravine of fate. We charged towards the unknown, and we geared for a night of fun; fun that only Psychology students know how.

The night, and unbeknownst to all, the nuances of the night were of last minute. Time gained pace, and caught up on us, but we managed to outrun it on the last second. The photowall tarpaulin was printed on the actual day, and it served its purpose and more. It was the star on top of the Christmas tree.

We were set to start at 6:00pm, and being Filipinos as we are, we never actually started on that time. 7:00pm came, and less than 20 were on the venue. Fear crippled us, and we prepared for the worse. Beside ourselves, we hoped for more. And more came. As groups came by the minute, we got relieved, pulled back ourselves and prepared the one thing we aimed to do: share the fun!

7:30pm. The exact time we started. From 6:00pm, up to 7:30pm, we anticipated for a long night. With less than 60 students who came, we got disappointed. But fun does not come in numbers, nor does it sprout when hundreds of feet trembles the wooden floor. Fun comes from those who are willing to share a piece of themselves with everyone else. And what appropriate time for everyone to share a little or a chunk of themselves to others than the season of joy, love, and sharing?

3rd year Psychology students comprised the larger chunk of the statistics, 4th years next (although it’s a bit disappointing on how few came), 2nd year, and 1st year, with only one. It’s quite a sad story, but things don’t always happen the way you wanted it to be. Personally, it was a shock for me when I only saw two 1st years, and the one happened to go home due to an emergency. But the show must go on, and go on it did.

The emcees, Joanne Abejo and Kris Alarin, 3rd year Psychology students, infused a young life into the night that started old. They were a sight to see, a frolic to hear, and a show to behold. No amount of generosity uttered is ever enough for PsycSoc to show its gratitude. With unnerving impromptus and unexpected twists, the two showed everyone on the event how talented the Psychology students are.

The night kicked-off with Jorge Matig-a heading the invocations. It was assigned to him minutes before the incipience. He was followed by our beloved teacher and adviser, Sir Fish with his lucid recall of past experiences; he opened the night with an inspiring thought: fun is essential. School should not suck the life out of you, and you should not let it. And the presence of another teacher, Ms. Velasco, was an energizer. We never expected teachers to come, though we welcome the possibility, and having two of them immersing with us, was a breath of fresh air.

Knoll and company presented their piece first. It loosened the cork, and relaxed the stiffened muscles of tensioned students. Robz and company, could compete with the Jabbawockeez. Pronie and Rebecca, are always a show to anticipate; they never fail to resuscitate the frazzled. Patryz, with her gutsy performance, awed and hastened the circulation of seated audience. And not to forget, Rex and Tom, who relaxed the atmosphere with an acoustic serenade. Mau, together with Pronie, sang an impromptu, but still elicited applauses and praises. Psychology in USC is a jungle of talents.

Mini-game injected intervals of active fun. And with prizes to behold, it was not only entertaining but gratifying. And then the highlight of the night, the Psychobabble happened. It was a first, and hopefully not the last. It was not only informative, but also fun. Rousing the competitive spirits of everyone, those who came formed groups and competed against each other. In the end, the School of Fish, and appropriately at that since Sir Fish was a member of the group, won the contest. Nonetheless, everybody deserves applauses and a salute from the officers.

The night ended as quickly as it came. Weeks of life-sucking preparations ended with a blast of Psychology fun. With the little who came, the amount of laughter and smiles will never be topped with anything else. I do not wish ill to those who did not come, they might have other more important things to tend to, but they surely missed a night poured by the gods with incomparable delight.

Less is more. Less is more. Fun really does not come in sheer numbers, but in sheer willingness to share a piece of ourselves to those who are willing enough to accept it. Merry Christmas and a prosperous new year ahead.

I have been in a plight where it’s as if my GI tract is twisted and contorted into angles once thought impossible; where the only temporary remedy is to proceed to a fetal position. Who knows what is churning up within my stomach? It has been continually grumbling, nagging, and groaning. It would be a breath of petrichor if even for a while it takes time to consider giving me a rest.

Recalling the events which lead to my predicament, I cannot pinpoint one instance. It frustrates me to not know what caused this ailment. As far as my memory is vivid, I remember not having eaten any meal yesterday aside from a heavy dinner. But even before dinner, I felt something sinister lurking inside my entrails. Dire, ominous, and imminent.

I do have one culprit though, the acclaimed C2 tea drink that I imbibed even without a single bite of anything edible. As far as I know, teas are laxatives, and without anything to dispose, my poor old digestive tract got confused. Talk about gullible. And now, I am suffering intermittent contortions, exacerbated by my inability to digest food into its simplest component. I’m hoping I’m over this when I am once again touched by the sun.

Constipated. Life has been throwing darts at me, at random. I’m virtually out of room to maneuver myself, and what little space that is allowed of me, happens to be occupied by other things. I’m dying (this is a metaphor, by the way). Constipated by incessant bombardment of frightful choices, and lose-lose situations, I am traversing a dense thicket of forest where even the canopy is inept at absorbing light. I am walking in darkness. Foraging for sources of subsistence, I die every moment of motion. But the paradox of it all is that the rascal of my slow death is my lifeline. An inexplicable paradox of living and dying.

Love is a paradox. The more you have of it, the more you doubt its credibility. And I do believe that love feeds on doubts. For without you questioning its trueness, you never get to learn how much you need to patch it for it to remain afloat. Love is never enough. Never adequate to keep two souls afloat on the sea of petty cataclysms. It requires a steady amount of effort, of coincidences, and of trust. Trust that amidst the whirling storms you face, land exists.

Love is a constant trifling argument; a cynical outlook for something as wondrous as love. But I’m left with little alternatives. Love has been cruelly generous to me. But I am still passionately in love.

Constipated. Emotionally and physically. All happening to snap me back to awareness that I am alive and I am in love.