Over the past two months of blog inactivity, big things have come crashing into my life one after another. I’ve always wanted to write about them, but until now the thoughts and ideas as to how I should put them into words remain a huge, black swirl of pure unadulterated blah.
In time maybe, but not now. Give me a couple of more days.
Last night, I chatted with an old friend through Facebook. After a few kamustahan’s, he asked me that maybe I was feeling lost and might want to find my way through a Bible study. I politely declined; he on the other hand aggressively attempted to convince me.
I told him that my religious beliefs pretty much bordered on the eclectic. I mean I’m Catholic, but I don’t dismiss other beliefs, either—in fact, I respect them. I told him that. He asked condescendingly: “Even Hinduism?” [STRIKE ONE! What's with the discreet condemnation of another religion?]
The discussion became pretty intense from there. I told him that at the core of everything, what’s truly important is one’s relationship with the Lord. He asked: “How tight is your relationship? Why won’t you want to join the Bible Study then?” (translation: If you don’t join Bible Study, you can NEVER have a tight relationship with Christ.) [STRIKE TWO! No one has the right to judge one's personal relationship with God. "PERSONAL". HELLO? Look up the meaning of that word in the dictionary, will you?]
And so I told him that no one has the right to judge one’s personal relationship with Christ. His answer? “No one has the right, but the Bible has the right. According to blah blah blah chapter blah blah blah verse blah blah…. Blah blah blah commits adultery.” (WTF!? Now where did that adultery thing come from?)
The argument went on and on and on. Actually, I was trying my best to veer the conversation away from religion for HIS SAKE, and that of my sanity’s as well, knowing that it wasn’t gonna get us anywhere. Nobody wins an argument anyway. But he was very persistent. I told him that he’d better use his energy helping someone else who needs saving, and he replies “Actually no, I have a lot of power.” (Like, HELLO!? Are you that dense?).
I told him politely that the last thing I wanted AND needed was a conversation on religion, and if he could kindly stop it. He goes on saying how sad he feels for me for being spiritually lost plus a gazzilion other more craps of panoramic judgments. “According to me, you are guilty of this and that without a shadow of doubt, and whatever you say will definitely be ignored, if not used against you”—those kinds of judgment. Get the picture? [STRIKE THREE! 'Nuff said.]
HOW SUFFOCATING! The last thing I needed was some lecture from another hardcore charlatan who’s so obsessed with his religion that he ends up becoming a living irony of the very concept of Christian ministry that he’s been trying to uphold. Why? He leaves me with another Bible passage before deleting me from his Friends List and blocking me from finding him in Facebook ever again. If that kind of action was his idea of being a Christian, then I fear for him. I bet the fires of hell are already catching up on him faster than he could say “Amen”.
I’m amazed at this guy, really. He voluntarily ended our four years of friendship because of a religion-related problem that he himself created. Imagine burning your own house so that you will have something to be angry about. How deranged is that? So guys, if a Venancio Jimenez III a.k.a. Shobs invites you to his Church, you pretty much already know what to expect. His Christian concept of love and friendship is about deleting his long-time friends from his Friends List, forever. That much, I’m sure.
Last week, while I was in an air-conditioned bus to Ortigas for an interview, there was this guy who walks along the aisle from the middle seats, stands in front of the passengers, flips a bible open and starts talking about God’s Word. He utters some gibberish gah’s and a whole lot of blah-blah-snore’s before finally introducing himself as a parson from the Pentecostal Missionary Church of Christ. He ends his biblical preaching by saying the words “Because a God-lover is a church-giver”, supports his claim using some passage in the bible, and then he asks for money from all the people aboard in a very showbiz-like manner.
Despite the shame, pity, or for-the-sake-of-(whatever) that I may have felt for the poor guy at that time, I still decided to not give him a single cent. Using religion for pecuniary gains has just got to be the sickest thing.
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Because the responses to my most recent job applications are taking forever and my blog entries have turned out a little depressing lately, I thought about being of service to the entertainment world and couch potatoes by writing reviews of particular TV series that—although they may not be part of mainstream obsessions (save for Heroes)—are highly entertaining and readily available on DVD at the local piracy store. I’ve been watching too much DVD’s recently; I might as well make something good out of it.
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Just as the title says: random thoughts.
All of a sudden, my apathy is taken over by the feeling of missing you.
Talk about cheese.
It’s funny how a simple conversation with an old friend and a couple of card spreads can turn my world upside down, just like that.
It was overwhelming—madness ensued afterward.
It seems like you still are my sweetest downfall.
I’m leaving. Again.
This idea of an episodic, grandiose exit from the hustle and bustle of this fast-paced urban life has reached the peak of redundancy; but I have yet to get tired of it. Escape has always been my much-sought-after resolve. There’s something about leaving everything behind for a while that makes putting life back together so much easier. The very idea of ocean waters splashing gently at my back under the warm sunlight is such a comforting thought. Whenever I walk away and seek refuge in nature’s arms, it’s almost as though I could hear the gentle waves of the sea and the soft, rural breeze whispering into my ears that everything will be alright.
Some may judge that it’s a perfect illustration of cowardice. I say being jaded has only made me strong enough to face my largest fears.
You see, coming back to that place is like hauling half my body into the grave. It is an asylum where I had left my most insane nightmares to wither and die. I had sworn never to lay foot on its lands again, but here I am, only a couple of hours away from facing my darkest, living memories once more. It’s so ironic how I’m attempting to find answers and salvation within the comforts of an accursed land.
I’ve been off the hook for over a year now, and perhaps some might say that the last thing I would be needing is another self-proclaimed time-off. But quarter-life crisis seems to have its way of catching up pretty fast. I’m in the middle of this roller coaster ride where love, family, social life and career are not given the opportunity to meet at a common end. I’m expecting tough decisions and sad goodbyes; big sacrifices and letting go’s—all for the one thing that I’ve neglected to place ahead of everything else for the longest time now: myself. That’s why at this very moment, I need this breather more than anything else. Afterall, it would be wrong to bury a feeling if it were still alive.
Loneliness is palpable—it is this quality which makes it harder to just suddenly say goodbye.
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I’m selfish, that’s what I am–compromising what is right for what I want. It’s crazy really, when I think about how I’ve lived a valued and principled life all these years and then suddenly, I find myself being able to throw it all away just like that simply because of a convoluted four-letter word that isn’t even an inch close to being in my favor.
And with the generous amount of crapload that I’m getting now, I’m not even in the position to complain. I had been warned beforehand. I had known the risks of what I would get myself into. But what’s so tragic about the whole deal is that I still pushed through with it.
It’s so easy to ‘cast a spell’, to carry the guilt, and to accept to live with the karma. I have tried ‘magic’ to mend things over and over again, breaching rules and ethics just to fulfill my own selfish desires. In the end, I realized that there’s a never ending hunger that comes with acquisition. Satisfaction is a myth—success feeds desire; we only end up longing for more.
When I am engulfed and consumed by the flames I so equally like and abhor, I find myself retreating to the sanctuary of age-old release, chasing after a ‘freedom’ that is temporal and meaningless: temporary, impermanent. But then this specter of a flame is a double-edged sword: delicious and every bit poisonous. Its crimson phantasms haunt me and draw me into inevitable submission, and its tiny sparks ignite and combust into gargantuan shrouds of flame that consume me in eternal damnation, shackling me to be forever stuck in this never-ending cycle.
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