An Open Letter to my Younger Self

Dear you,

Apologies for not sending a letter for all that you’ve sent me. I know, it’s been a while.

So much has changed but still so much stayed the same: people came but also left, much to my decision in leaving them alone; so much also for the people who stayed – and I thank them. Solitude comes because some people just stops getting in touch and with this, let me get connected again.

To start it off, I’d like to share with you everything from the beginning of this year. It may not be known to you how I almost dropped my dream of going back to school to pursue my interest in architecture. Almost, because I was already decided a year ago that I would not be able to do anything with my dreams other than to hold on to it until I have enough money I needed. All hopes up here. But then at the start of this year, my family talked to me and discussed how they plan to send me back to school this year.

They’ve all got all their concerns in life and to support me back to school was something I’d like to decline but am happily and would honestly be most humble to accept. Also with this hope are doubts, questions such as what if it’s late to start anew? What if I am not really fit for it, after all my interest in architecture is different from actually becoming an architect? These thoughts left me, sleepless most of the nights especially on the first half of the year. But alas, I pushed through, after years of thinking and trying to do it right, here I am pursuing my passion. But for that, my mother has to work abroad again. And I have to understand the distance of time and space is something that will always be bigger than us. Or is it?

At the beginning of this year also, I met a guy, ten years older than me. After a year of meeting people here is one that just gave me a feeling of home. Did I get tired that the feeling of settling for the moment is something that became as an easy decision? Or I pursue with it because as my friends telling me to go for it because knowing me, as for them, I’m just the type of person who knows what I want?

And friends. People who showed me things otherwise of my views in life. They showed me who I am, by showing acceptance and understanding. Some of the people I consider friends are some of my colleagues at work which apparently I have to leave to go back to school.

Just a thought now, when I said distance will always be bigger than us, actually it is, but it will not be bigger than our dreams when we learn to love. Love will always be bigger than us. So maybe I just learned how to love – myself and the people around me worth loving.

Anyway, so much for thought, I have also marked it as an achievement that I was able to visit my mother abroad before I went back to school. A week of escapade and actually my first time to go out of the country. She’s been working in HongKong for ten years now and maybe, a visitor from a family would somehow ease her pain of loneliness. The small time lapse video below was taken in HongKong

The feeling of loneliness I say bacause through out my stay there, I finally understood or maybe somehow understood how people look for connections especially in a foreign land.

So to cut things short for it would take a novel to honestly tell you about this year, I went back to school, and am still with the guy I met at the beginning of this year. I’ve still got a lot to tell you, but let these stories be told through time. I also have to go now to do some errands, but for the sake of advice: I am learning for the best of what relationships should be with friends, family, and even to a stranger that you’ll call a partner in life. I am young and to know that you are younger, what I would just tell you now, is to not be afraid of what’s to come. Take things slow, take it your time, learn to let go of things that aren’t for you. How’d you know? Consider your time – if its too fast let it run away, if its too slow, leave it. But I’m not telling you to give up with the things you know you want, dream my friend, dream bigger and let your dreams make and break you, and let love make you all over again.

Hope to hear more from you, even though I am not able to reply immediately, know that I listen, and that I read your letters.

Cheers to you for the new year and the new hopes.

Dear You (An Open Letter to Somebody worth Sending a Letter),

Tags

love, Open Letter, Pep

You, that’s been part of my life unexpectedly in a moment just when my thoughts are settled that I’ll be living  my days ahead alone, thank you for coming. Don’t get me wrong, this is just a welcome note. And to set expectations, please be advised that this letter does not wholely capture how I feel.

You, who found me in a wreck. I wanted somebody to pick me up but the moment I saw you I knew I had to pick myself up. I had a feeling that you did, in some part of your life, and so i was challenged, more so inspired to be better.

In you, I found a friend, a brother, a man whom I can love, and here in front of you I present my sentiments – my fears, my doubts, of you and me, of dreams to kill and to pursue. I lay them in front so you can see what’s the worth of me. I dare say nothing. But since I don’t want you to love a nobody, even though I’m still looking for whatever worth I have, so whatever you see of me worthy of loving, let me show you also how worthy you are of loving.

I know that this is just the beginning of things that we’ll face and as a reminder how we die a little with every single day, let us not fear dying with the things we love.

 

I

Love

You

My

Pep

The Last Fire Bird

Tags

fiction, fire bird

And then they came, all 40000 of them except one, the people born from the ashes of the phoenix. Or so they call, the fire bird.

“We need a temporary home,” A man whom I believe is their leader said the very moment they met our barangay captain.

Our captain said nothing in return. Every one was in awe at the time.

“Don’t worry we’ll bring goodness to your land, we’ll make this land flourish with fruits again.” Again said the leader of the fire people – as I have called them because they call their creator a fire bird.

And so they were given a lot at the end of the town, almost the other side of the mountain. For all of them it seems fit. It was the previous trashland, which was not used for quite almost three decades now, but still the stink of the earth is still present just by passing by the place.

And yes, a year later they were able to make their side of town greener. They didn’t had an easy start as the people from our town did not accept them easily.

“ We are people born from the ashes of a fire bird. One man represents one feather, and someday we will return as a fire bird. But for that to happen we need to be together again.” Said Rex, one of the people whom I was able to speak to during their first days.

“How sure you are?” I asked.

“We dream every night since we woke up like this, some time ago.” To know how long was that time nobody knew.

“So one man is missing, and your looking for him. Is that why the firebird divided himself as many as you are now?”

“Nobody questions that intention of the firebird, it has its own life, and avery life is different from the one before it, but one thing is for sure, our goal in this life is to look for the missing feather of the previous fire bird.”

I silent

“Isn’t that how life should be, no matter what happened yesterday, it shouldn’t be a nuisance in having your goals at the present moment?. I think that’s how it should be. “ He affirmed himself.

And we parted ways, since then I never had a chance to speak with him again.

These people are dark in color, not black but dark. They had a very shiny black hair though, as black as the gas that when I look at them intently they seem to shine with all the colors. Their eyes were as dark as their hair is and their eyelashes which seems common to everyone of them is long like that of a beautiful girls eyelashes. Another common thing about these people, is that they are all people of nature, they can tend a broken bird’s wing. They can befriend any beast they encounter, once a deer got lost on our side of the town, and they were able to seem to tell her which way to find the others.They can make sure that a plant would grow from a seed. They were not aware of what plastic is, but then eventually they were able to know how to recycle them.

Some people from my town are actually envious of them. As years past, and as it turned into a decade, still their temporary stay is questioned. Eventually they were left on their own, but with all the money they are making for flourishing the land they borrowed the town would not let them have their own state.

I wouldn’t deny that even I got envy of these people. I have seen their side of town grow and ours eventually fell into sudden state of being poor. Some blame their coming as a curse. Some would say that the only difference between their side and ours is that they know how to help each other. But most agreed that our fall started when they came.

Which is another truth I would share, could be a coincident, but the people from our town just can’t ignore the fact that the some of the eldest in our town died all at the same time, 7 of them, just didn’t woke up the next day, And soon a lot of things followed. The first murder happened in our town, with our own people killing one of our neighbor.

Until a night came, when one man from our town got drunk and questioned them again.

“I remember how they died,” He shouted over the edge of the town. To the people who seems not to understand that they were being shouted of an anger of almost a decade now.

“I remember how they died, they died out of breath. The were choking. I saw both of my parents die and breathed their last breath. It’s as if there was an ash coming from out of their mouth, and like an ash it flew over the air.”

I can remember each word he said, I remember because they keep on repeating the same one for over a week, until he died. Just didn’t wake up.

“He was killed obviously,” Somebody said. Although most said that he died out of drunkenness.

Of course this talk did not just die as fast as when the man was buried, after a month one man, so drunk from reality, went straight to the edge of the town and burned their houses.

Nobody survived, but no bodies were found. Everything turned to ashes, and the story of the fire people seems to get lost as the days passed.

This was how it was told unto me by my father, and this is how I tell this to you, so that when you meet the last fire people, I want you to know what you should do with him, just bring him over to the trashland and a new fire bird will arise.

 

 

Summing Up

Tags

Beginnings, Endings, Happiness, life, New Year, Philosophy, Sharing

Dear you,

Recently I had a post on my Facebook wall asking what comes after happiness.

Surprisingly, my friends incorporated it with my current relationship. (That I would probably be talking sometime because it already taught me a lot with this too young relationship.)

I was thinking that people would take it seriously as how I first asked the question; as how thoughts like that come to me seriously; as how I have been described as being too serious. The good thing was that I became more happy with their answers. Sometimes too much thinking leads to unhappiness. I was happy then asking it, genuinely happy. And asking it may have been because, I fear losing, I fear of not knowing what to do next with it.

I’ve already got the answer when I asked that question. Validation, I guess was what I’m looking for. Which apparently I never had. It has been months since then and yet nobody has ever given me the answer as I do.

So again, what comes after happiness? Sharing. As once said,

“An act to make another happy, inspires the other to make still another happy, and so happiness is aroused and abounds. Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the single candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”1

And as we are hedonistic beings, happiness was never too hard for us to achieve. A little effort of appreciation and gratitude, and maybe a pinch of optimism, even though we may have different views for happiness, nothing beats shared happiness.

2017 has too many ups and downs. A roller coaster ride indeed. I lost my ability to even tell the story even in this platform, where no one knows me. I lost myself, more than ever, more than any woods I have entered, more than any road I traveled. I lost myself that I even gave up looking. And being a loner, an introvert, who have tried going outside of his walls, it was a blessing and a mistake to let people into my life. A mistake for I was hurt. I was disappointed, a blessing for I learned, and finally understood why even I was able to hurt people who have expected something from me.

For years, at the end and at the same time the beginning, I was able to say once again that I am happy. For here I am, looking at myself again. That in the process of losing, I was able to appreciate the best part, that is always being able to find what was once lost. It may never be the same as before, but items are always more valued the second time around.

I have said once, to the same person I asked the question I have been pondering, that there are three things people need to realize in his lifetime.

First, one must realize his own existence: his dream, his purpose.

Second, one must realize the existence of others.

Now first and second may be interchanged.

And since the first two, most of the time, overlap with the other or make the other forgotten, the third is realizing both the existence of yourself and the existence of others. Again having shared happiness.

And again at the end of this I am happy, now let me share this feeling with you.

source:
1 https://fakebuddhaquotes.com/thousands-of-candles-can-be-lighted-from-a-single-candle-and-the-life-of-the-single-candle-will-not-be-shortened-happiness-never-decreases-by-being-shared/

Birthday Blues

Tags

future, Ishiguro, lost, Murakami, Nobel, you

Dear You,

I’m lost, and lately I don’t feel like I can find what I’m looking for anytime soon.

Lost. How vague, honestly, searching for whatever has been missed.

In a few days time I will be celebrating my birthday again. Again, and yet I don’t feel any closer to what I have been trying to reach. Another round of trials yet not being able to meet the expectations I have set for myself. Are you feeling that right now, when you’re reading this, probably a year older than I am?

I easily get sad nowadays. I left my journal and I feel sad already. What with the news that makes me sad? I think it’s up to you to dare look back.

Currently I’m having a week of vacation in our province, Eastern Samar. Ishiguro already won Nobel. No good for Murakami which I felt more closer to although I never wished for Murakami to win. I find him a personal writer which I would like for myself alone. Not happening for now, I’ve just got a lot issues with overrated things.

I like underrated things, I hope you still do. Overrated ones, they seem to be misunderstood of what they really mean.

My life? I feel overly underrated, if you know what I mean. Sometimes I believe this is just a phase, that this will end.

P.S. Facebook reminded that six years ago, a doppleganger showed in our house, and now I feel the need to see him, feeling that he would maybe bring a good message coming from the future, from you.

The Essence of Writing

Tags

Philosophy, Self-discovery, Writing

I don’t know, really, what some would even call essential. Writing as essential practice of everyday life, I would just guess. I’m a reader and a listener to stories, if people would ask me, that’s what I usually tell them. Some, to my surprise, told me that I’m good at writing. But to me, this is just a normal cycle of somebody who reads and listens to stories, they tend to end up writing, or creating films or a painting, for art’s sake – if only painting and films are part of my forte, I would also have done the same. So you see how it is a normal process, once the bucket is full, then you have to pour the water to take another bucket, water the plants to it won’t get wasted.

So what is the essence of writing to me? It is the worth of discovery. Writing is a process (so is film making and painting, and dancing, and singing, and even digging gold, or planting a tree, or making pastries). And what do we do with process is mastering it, and mastering a process is a discovery of ourselves. The philosophy of everything we do is the ultimate goal of everyday living, we are  humans anyway. We think and never gets tired of thinking, of growing. (I believe.) So then this is a self discovery, something I do that I hope everyone would decide to do. Self discovery through a mastering a process.

“I read somewhere that how we shave in the morning has its own philosophy, too.”
– Wind/Pinball, 1973 (Haruki Murakami)

52 WEEKS OF THANKFULNESS – WEEK 43

And here we are, existing to change the world for the better. Inviting everyone to do this.

Haddon Musings

BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD.

I invite you to come and join me on this pilgrimage to change the world through thankfulness.  Perhaps if enough of us join together we can change the negative climate that exists and is overtaking our planet. Together we can move our fellow citizens of to a better, higher and finer place.

Dom and I went to New York City this past weekend.  We went to celebrate his birthday.  As I have written about in the past, Dom has a great love for music, particularly the opera.  So I bought us tickets to see Aida which was performed at the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday afternoon.  New York City has been the stage for some of the happiest and proudest moments of my life and the saddest and most heartbreaking moments of my life.  I am thankful that the heartbreak has not…

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Moments in Seconds

Tags

mornings, optimism

Today, while going to my work, this view greeted me a good morning. Yes the day may not seem to be  a good day over all, but thinking that atleast there was that moment that made my day, I think it’s more than enough to be thankful.

For the moment that made me smile.

For the moment that made me feel that there is goodness in everyday…

Is this how an optimist looks at things? Because I’m trying to learn it, actually I am planning to create another series on this blog which will then be the third series on my list, it focuses on the goodness of things with a hashtag getinspired.

Oh I may have forgot that I’m talking to my future self. Just a reminder and I really hope this should remind you someday that life has always this side of inspiration.

#getinspired 

Tiredness

With all my muscles longing for rest, with my mind traveling back to the place where I just came from. Images of sceneries flashes over me as the bus I’m on is racing through the road under the sunset. I’m tired, my body is but not my spirit. This is the kind of fatigue I want. The kind of tiredness that I need. The one that could make me say, “It’s been a long day, I think I could rest now.”

But in reality what’s happening is that I’m just tired, my muscles are wanting rest not because I came from travelling to a place that brightens up my spirit and that tells me how wonderful it is to be alive. My body is tired and my mind is stressed over things that when I think about doesn’t really matter. But why is that? Because I let it happen.

In fact I have been holding back for days to post this one. It’s been saved on my draft for almost a week now. Why, you may ask? It’s because I’m tired. Life has been quite indefinite for me for quite some time, I actually told you with my previous letter what’s been happening with me. And also just to say that I’m trying to drive my life on a positive route towards my goals, I’m actually planning to share with you my goals rather than sharing you what stresses me. Planning. Actually.

I’m tired, again for the tenth time. And because of that I actually feel lost. Tired of this routine, of this life, (though I want to clarify that I’m not wishing or hoping to die any sooner). With this kind of feeling, I can’t make any sense to what matters to a young man like me. What matters to a man? But with all this, one good thing when I’m tired is I feel good listening to late night talks. Right now I’m actually reading All I Did Was Ask by Terry Gross. Maybe because doing so lets me relieve myself from the tiredness I feel, especially when all you have to do is listen to people talk about interesting topics that open your mind.

Now, that I’m postimg this, I just felt a weight off my back. Maybe, all that I needed to do all this time was to learn how to open up. Maybe so, maybe yes, who knows for real anyway? And just to share with you some of the positive thoughts I’m having lately, because I feel like people wouldn’t just want to hear what makes you feel tired, so of course I’m sharing you this.  Lately, I realized, how we need people to prove our own existence to ourselves rather than prove them how we exist. So then if only people will think the same way i just did, and then just be honest with themselves, the world will be a better place.

P.S. I really hope to hear from you soon. And, also, the same as I hope for the world to be a better place, that you’re not losing hope in living as how you believe that you’re already slowly missing the years of your life.

Monday Mourning

Tags

equality, humanity, life, love

We mourn,
For the times that we haven’t spoke up,
For the times that we let in fear than love,

We mourn,
For the times we did not stand up,
For the right and the things we feel are right,

We mourn,
Life that just passed by,
Cause we know we’re born,
To cry, giggle, and live with love.

A simple message that I’d like to make for the world. In fact I’m lost for words. Of course I’m busy with my work, and the world continues to spin as things, events, happenings, continue to make and break everything, cause this is a process of building and rebuilding humanity right? But then how does one’s life have meaning? Years ago I would answer one of the questions on our quiz in ethics, I wouldn’t even remember the question but I would remember clearly my answer, which goes like this. “It’s because we give others less value that we chose who will live and who wouldn’t.” Who has the right anyway to tell who is worthy and who is not? Isn’t it any existence worth existing even just the thought of idea? And wouldn’t it be that the greatest sin humanity has ever inflicted on its own is that we destroy existence of our kind?

I don’t know what to think at the moment, it could have been just the media, but it’s no joke that we humans can’t find our common ground when all these thousands of years we’ve been living under the same sky, on the same planet, in the same world.