How do I start? That has been an archetypal dilemma-inducing question that man has been plagued since time got conceived in ticks and tocks. Where do I begin has been the corollary question before that. If you may ask, or I may ask myself how I got to start off with that seemingly ignoble question, my answer would be ‘I do not know’. Life’s just full of rhetorical questions. It is its momentum. But what do we get when we continually ask questions we do not even have answers to? I say we get what we’ve been clamoring for: a diversion.

We unequivocally think that everything in life is about us. It rolls for us or towards us. We are the object and subject of life. Talk about self-aggrandizing! And by disagreeing on this is reason enough for me to conclude that I am correct! Pun intended. Life’s a corny joke; sometimes we do not get its humor. Laugh out loud once in a while. It reinvigorates our system!

Relegating back towards the first topic of life being a series of rhetorical question, I begotten one myself a while ago riding a crude, fear-mongering ferry boat. But before I relentlessly continue on that, let me first frivolously describe concretely on what I was riding as it is something in and of itself worth the effort of pressing tiny boxes corresponded with letters. A ferry boat; it is somehow a rudimentary method of transportation. It ferries bubbled up humans, perfunctorily journeying the sediment-heavy waters of the infamous Mactan Channel. The waters of which when churned up by the algal-infested propellers of these ferry boats, emanates an effluvia novel to your volition less sense of smell. It has been a part of the lives of the people of Lapu-Lapu, and that I think it is something that even when is gradually embargoed by bureaucratic modernity, will leave an unabridged void. The infamous ferry boat! Even though renovating the way you surfacially look is otiose, you have been a part of seemingly every citizen of Lapu-Lapu’s lives.

I guess we are again lost. Let me again ask for your kind consideration towards my meanderings, it is in no way a sign of conceit, but rather of indecisiveness and a chaotic method of organizing. Back to the rhetorical question than has begotten me when I was sitting lifelessly undulating upon every little tempestuous waves. This question transpired when I saw a family of Badjao (I do not know if that is the correct spelling of their tribe, but it sounds the same and maybe means the same). I saw them counting their collected alms for the whole day, followed it with genuine curiosity. The amount of their alms shattered my verbiageness appearing implicitly within my mind. For the rest of the day, they only got 18 pesos worth of alms; they equally distributed it to each other, unreluctantly. The oldest got the highest amount, which if you may ask, I do not know how much. I then asked, how do they sustain every day, if hypothetically, they get the same amount of alms every day? The effusion of hopelessness is clearly molded on their faces. Though there were signs that they were at least copacetic with what they got, they moved on talking in lingo once again. I tried to listen to maybe decipher even a sentence of what they were mumbling and babbling apathetically in a voice shattering even the agitating zephyr as crude boat divides the surface of the wan sea (I do not even know if the waters there were salty). But all to no avail! Not even a single word I could comprehend. I gave up and moved on with the listening of the rustle of the waves whilst simultaneously appreciating the flowing poetry of nature. I then stopped my doldrum ideations, and rhetorically asked myself, all the while typing it in my cellphone: “What is harder? Having to live life on a day to day sustenance or having to live life not aware of the opportunities of now because one is busy looking and planning for the dubious future?” As there are people, like the Badjao’s I recently observed a while ago, living one day at a time, living life as if today is all that matters. Doesn’t it? Now matters! For it is only now that we are certain of and about. Tomorrow might never be, and as humans as we are, we always want to be certain. Our life is staged in the show of today. And once today’s show is over, the backdrop falls, and we again prepare for another show.

Now has a plethora of opportunities. Paradoxically, we cannot notice it as we are too inclined of preparing for the quandaries of yet-to-be’s. I have been staunchly advocating that life is composed of nows; there never has been anything if not now. The past is there for us to guide us and lead us to where we are ‘now’, the future? I believe is not even sure of being existent. The opportunities of now are more than enough to carry us to where we desire to be.

Let me end this entry with a poem from nature: a golden sunset whose rays permeated the dark clouds that has shrouded its source. It has been one of the most breathtaking scenery since I learned what the word “etaoin shrdlu” means. The free flowing verses of nature are the epitome of creativity. Its lyrical take on every line ebbs like the fragrance of a slowly-crushed aromatic flower. That golden sunset became more memorable when I knew she looked at it too. Before I knew I saw that plight as just a beautiful prose of nature; but when I knew, I saw it as a romantic sonnet composed by nature to make one aware that everything and everyone is under the same sky, trudging the same ground, and breathing the same pungent oxygen-filled air. It’ll be remembered just as those resilient Badjao’s will be.

Tonight, as I lay myself to forceful rest, I’ll be counting iteratively 5’s. 1.) Firsts pave the way for next’s; 2.) What ifs slowly becoming tangible; 3.) Found out Wednesdays are commemorative of confirmation biased specialness too; 4.) The choices we make led us to where we are right this very instance, which I’m sure is a much better place than anywhere else; 5.) Hoping that what we had ends which will mark the beginning of what we will be having. These are the 5 things that will be sedating my neurotic mind tonight, my temporary anesthesia as a relief towards the odium of the unfairness of circumstance. 5, 4, 3, 2… Would what we have end if I say that all things life has thrown at me led me to where I am now, if what we had was a beginning? 1… =]