ask me.

Rain is heavy and is making me more reflective than usual. 

Heavy rains do that.  I like the pitter patter rythm it creates as I silently hum it inside my head.  and yes, as usual, I stare at my wall to the point of almost burning a hole into it.  

I am twenty-five and as I look back in my life, I've pretty much accomplished what I wanted to accomplish.  In fact, I always get what I want, despite the complicated chains of relationships and choices that I tie myself with.

So what else do I want? 

 What is there to do? 

What am I to do with my life?

I could easily answer those -with a quick, superficial, and thoughtless reaction in verbal translations.  It is so easy to get carried away and in the course of answering those questions -- it is, as always, so easy to forget the reason of asking them in the first place.

but --- what is the REAL question?

am I asking myself the right ones?   

Am i concerning myself with the issues that must be prioritize? 

is it worth it?

Four years of Philosophy  -- and still, critical thinking on my part requires effort.  

The convenience of common understanding and stock social definitions are so conveniently within reach that I have to disengage myself - and disengage so in a very frustrating way to be effective even in my personal reflections.  

My prejudice of things and the past knowledge that I have - both voluntarily and involuntarily - acquired is just making it hard for me to see things in its naked truth.

And so with my life as I question it, I cannot help but look back and define me with my past experiences and choices --- but is that all there is to me and my life? 

Am I to be defined by my past and is hopelessly bound to be molded through and through by my future? 

Will I always be an unfinished present project of the universe-- wrecking havoc and change as I grow and consume life the way I am doing so right now? -- or am I, really?

In college, I've dreamt of social change and I've worked for it through my arts.  I've learned to bend my body to adjust to the social curriculum of my community.  I've learned to flick my fingers at the beating of the drum as I find my rythm and balance in this social dance I was born into.  And as I listen to the music, as I watch the people gaping and in awe with my movements, as I felt the hot lights burning my skin... I noticed that they cannot see beyond the stage.  

They loved my dance but they do not care to understand what it is for. 

They follow my steps but stays only with the groove they are familiar with.  

Anything new, anything strange -- anything they do not know -- they see as dangerous.

And as the beat became faster, the steps harder, and the actions more complicated -- they didn't care to follow.  They stayed in their comfort zone, smiling and clapping -- but nonetheless disengaged at the experience, not caring to join -- not bothering to step in, promising support -- but always at a distance -- feigning sympathy, pretending to know with their textbooks in hand, with memorized theories... with complicated research citations...

How can you understand the rythm of hunger if you haven't experienced starvation? How can you say you know how it feels to be poor when you have an abundant life?

How can you say you care -- when in your eyes -- all you see are strangers doing even stranger things.

Yes, some changes happened -- some social shake here and there that rocked the arrogant struture and composition of certain institutions.  but then again -- it was but a little pebble that created a series of ripples in the pool of tears... 

My performance has come to an end -- and as the lights died down...as I took my bow, as I see them leave -- I found my dance to be shallow -- and I found myself asking -- "did I do the right thing?"

All these doubts -- all these concerns--- all these questions, for a certain, cannot be answered on my own.  Like the rain, it needs the earth to catch it. The water needs to kiss the soil, to flow within the roots of every tree, to be savored by every being, to round the grounds back and forth till it evaporates itself to become it once was...a dripping liquid phase of life.

one's questions  must then be like rain. 

fluid and ever flowing...

because -- Baseless questions can hurt the soul.

Unanswered queries can burn the mind. 

the Wrong type of asking  can only bury one in doubt... 

Redundant ones hardens the heart...

So what do I want? Where do I begin? What to do? 

**Looking -- waiting -- so far -- no answers are in sight.

*Sigh.

boundaries

by felixspencer2 (taken from flickr)

the boundaries of having no boundaries is to know how far one can go about running the fields without going insane.

we are so set to put a barricade of contradictions in everything we do because we always expect things to stop sooner or later. But what if the stop to occur has no direct relation to the boundaries we set?

Thinking all the while that boundaries and limits help us regulate the stop we are expecting to occur, when in fact, it is the manifestation of fear to go out beyond what we do not understand.

Thus, the stop we are expecting is but an illusion and excuse to set ourselves in our comfort zone because we fear to go and explore that which we find strange...worse...things we cannot control.

One example would be the fact that we define ourselves.

Who am I.
What makes me ME?
and what makes me different?

So obssessed we are in defining ourselves and setting a different character to be identified from the commonalities of the human race.

I am myself. I am beyond what you think of me. I am more than what you see. I am more than a product of my relationships and decisions. I have a certain quality higher than that you percieve me to have.

Yet in my moment of confusion and anger, I see myself acting against the set of rules I have conveniently fenced around me.

That is definitely me.
But I see no one doing it aside from that shell that bore my face.

Is that me?
But it goes against the set of character I've learned to fence myself around with.

Can it be me? I would have known... I am myself. and on goes the debate...

We become trapped within the limits we set ouselves with... forgetting that we could easily lift it. That with one blow and it topples like cards...

so set me a boundary...
map me out and find me, like a rat, sniff my way out.

aut viam inveniam aut faciam

There are things that are opposite to eachother but are utterly inseparable...but the world has a unison of the differences that overlaps eachother.

In order not to get lost, we map ourselves certain lines of what is and what is not. But we often forget that the dichotomy of life, though real, is never hindering and it never will. Differences are just that, differences, they are not barricades, nor are they walls to alienate the world or the people around us.

And even with boulders positioned so that we may limit ourselves in terms of co existing and interacting, so we may preserve a certain sanctuary -- too sacred for others to insert themselves in...Trancendence is what we do best.

We draw the lines so we do not get lost as we live in this complicated world. But the lines are but imaginary. And the lines vary according to the map maker...

but the the lines can only do so much as bound those who've forgotten how boundless life can be.

so take me and ill show you how it is to be me.

see me now.

so what am i accountable for?
in this life of ruins where people are taught to wait for a tomorrow that never really comes.

what am i to fear? when I can only speak for myself and everything else becomes what i want it to be.

what am i to ask?
when I do not know what really makes me happy.

What is happiness anyway?

absurdly treading this part of my life where I've become a warrior of many things. But battles being fought for people you find special are very hard to do -- especially when they themselves are letting themselves get caught to be killed.

I tried so hard to design my life to please others while i secretly sneak out to glutton over things that i find enjoyable to kill my time.

But It's always the same.

Year after year.

Old Friends.
New Friends.
Young.
Old

Day after day, I still get impatient with the same old routine even with new faces to bear.
i find it a burden to hear people in ways where they find themselves unhappy of the state they are in.

But I cannot forever extend myself.

I cannot forever keep the basin of loneliness i feel because i do not find it in myself to walk away from the miseries of others.

I am in no way soft hearted.
I am not sentimental either.

However, I find it disturbing to see people getting stuck in that part of their lives and seeing that they don't even know it.
but it seems as if I am most apt to destroy characters, but then again, one can only destroy that which is brittle.
That's why when one locks to destroy, one focuses on nothing but the weaknesses.

so what am i to do?
I bang the wall, to find if it is sturdy enough.
It stands tall still...My wall is as strong as ever, but that never stopped me from banging a hole. Sooner of later, it will crumble...if that happens, what then?
will that make me realize?
what will that make me?

but what are they doing?
i am confused. i get lost just as i tangle within the sheets of my mind.
are they thinking what i'm thinking?
do they know that i am but a shell of confusing characters, trying to get hold what reality is all about...

excuse me...but do you know me?
because i've been looking for answers but until now, i cannot find one.

I become the people i am with.
that's why whenever i find myself alone, i find it hard to fit in.
i become the wall i am stuck with when no one is around.
mute.
hard.
cold.
forever an unwilling witness of other people's lives.
eternally immovable.
carefully listening.
vibrating with secrets.
basking in silence.
carefully waiting for the right moment...