It’s been going on for weeks now, and I didn’t really want to talk about it with anyone. But it gets hard, you know? It gets really agonizing to bear that you have all these feelings and things you just want to let go off, but can’t because of feelings and things. And on most days, I doubt myself. Maybe that’s the problem. I doubt myself so much, to that point when I can’t move forward and do things. I doubt myself, and I deprive myself of things, and it just gets harder and harder each day.

I get that I shouldn’t be this whiny, and that I have to keep it together. But I really can’t, you see? I know I’m always messing things up and losing streak and just plain old disappointing. But I can’t help it really. It’s occurred to me that my stigma of the world was that it should be ideal, when in fact that is one of the hardest things to ask for in this world. I ask for the arts, for literature, for freedom. I ask for theory in praxis, I ask for all this little things that are underrated, and yet the world doesn’t give a shit, and that brings me down. I ask for good love on most nights, and that gets me upset. I ask for simple solitude, for a little quiet, for a little piece of heaven — and then all I get are little pages of books that tell me, “Yes there is, but it is not here.” ”Yes there is, but it isn’t that easy.” ”Yes there is, but for now you have to make do with what you have.” ”Yes there is, but it’s not meant for you.”

I don’t want to keep trying anymore, because I see people who have it easier  than I do. And it irks me, and it just disappoints me, and it upsets the living shit out of me. Why can’t I catch a break, really?

• JAN 25: English research paper, first draft.
• JAN 25: Pausong Phil Youth Council debates.
• JAN 27: Western Histo group research paper.
• JAN 28: Intro to Journ long test. Short test, large coverage.
• JAN 30: Science and Society long test.
• JAN 31: Some really important things.
• FEB 1: Requirement #5.
• FEB 3: Patayguhit.
• FEB 6: Rubdob.
• FEB 10: Western Histo long test.
• FEB 14: News writing multimedia story.
• FEB 15: Requirements (lahat).

Gusto nang magpaampon ng brain cells ko sa ibang brain dahil sinasagad ko na ang thinking capacity nila. (Ang hirap kasi sa inyong mga hinayupak kayo, kumain na nga ako ng chocolate, pinag-palpitate niyo pa ako! Lintik.)

"Little did he know": This makes me happy in so many levels.

Look. The way I see it, the only way to get shit done is to actually love the shit and be one with it so that you can work on it and work day and night with it. That’s commitment, that’s what you’ve signed up for the moment you write your name on an application form, that commitment changes the course of your entire life no matter how long that could be.

The way I see it, you don’t leave your kumpadres out in the water because they signed up for this as well, and not one moment (I hope) in their discernment did they see a kumpare leaving them up above in thin air. No. You do not do that. You do not abandon ship in times when you want to poo and shit and just hurl everything that’s been badly fed to you. You do not abandon ship because you think that it’s brave to do so. You are being selfish, not heroic. You are doing the sea of disappointment a favor, and you’re only hurting those who have believed that you can make it. Fighting for what you think is right is not about winning over whatever shit loads of crap you have in front of you. Fighting a battle is doing what’s right for those who have been behind you after all your crazy. The way I see it, you don’t quit on your men on the moments when they have been hoping for you to make it through. It’s hard as rockshit hard, but damn you they fucking deserve it, you know that? Alam mo yung pride? Alam mo yung sakripisyo? Alam mo hindi kasi nadadaan sa teorya ang mga ganitong bagay e. Hindi kasi ito textbook material na nahahanapan mo ng source sa internet, o nakakasuhan mo ng krimen o civil offense dahil nagipit ka at gusto mo ng katarungan.

Ang pagtataya raw, isang misyon. At ang isang misyon, isa ring pagtataya. Reading gay literature on Sunday dawn isn’t quite how I pictured a colorful life. Writing this entry wasn’t quite a walk in the park either, because I’m practically in a field on open fire — pero alam mo, alam kong worth it ang ginagawa ko ngayon. Sa kabila ng shit, ng stress, ng pagod at ng hirap, alam kong makakayanan ko to at ng kasapian dahil dala namin ang isa’t isa. (See also: Paragraph 2). At sa tingin ko doon tayo nagkaiba.

One should always be drunk. That’s the great thing; the only question. Not to feel the horrible burden of Time weighing on your shoulders and bowing you to the earth, you should be drunk without respite.

Drunk with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you please. But get drunk.

And if sometimes you should happen to awake, on the stairs of a palace, on the green grass of a ditch, in the dreary solitude of your own room, and find that your drunkenness is ebbing or has vanished, ask the wind and the wave, ask the star, bird, or clock, ask everything that flies, everything that moans, every thing that speaks, ask them the time; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird and the clock will all reply: “It is Time to get drunk! If you are not to be the martyred slaves of Time, be perpetually drunk! With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you please.”

Nakakamiss magbasa ng mga ganito. Sa mga panahong lunod ka sa mga papel na kailangan isulat at kailangan pag-isipan, hindi talaga maiiwasan na sana ganito na lang kadali makahanap ng inspirasyon.

Oh, literature. Ikaw lang talaga ang bumubuhay sa akin, muli’t muli.

Sa restaurant na ito/ Sa ating pag-upo sa sangkalang mesa,/ Parang mumunting bituin ang mga ilaw sa paligid./ Nakikingi ako sa inyong kutsilyong dila/ Habang parang sibuyas nitong ginagayat/ Ang aking puso./ Umiiyak ako./ Pero paloob ang tulo ng aking luha/At ayaw lumabas ng aking hiyaw./ Kagilagilalas: una at tanging/ Pagkakamay natin ay pagpapaalam./ Hindi na kita kaibigan/ At natural lamang/Hindi rin kasintahan.

When life seems to be too much to handle, just remember two things: a jar and two cups of coffee.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty jar.

And proceeded to fill it with golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.

He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.

He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous “Yes.”

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the space between the grains of sand. The students laughed.

“Now,” said the professor, as the laughter subsided, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.

“The golf balls are the important things — your family, your children, your health, your friends, and your favorite passions — things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

“The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, and your car. The sand is everything else — the small stuff.

“If you put the sand into the jar first, there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life.

“If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

“Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your kids, take time to get medical check ups, take your partner out to dinner. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal.

“Take care of the golf balls first — the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented. The professor smiled, “I’m glad you asked.

“It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend.”

But it’s always the why’s and how’s. Oftentimes, it’s the why not’s that changes the game. It’s the how about’s, as well. The what if’s are painful to hear, to bear because of their alternate baggage. They are game changers, these little two-worded questions.

A sudden turn of events, and you. Thinking on your feet. Your explanation could lead to an end, or just a pithole to another question. A never-ending flowchart, a pitless well of fury and uncertainty. Just you and these questions.

Some of these questions I got from way back in high school:

Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years? What school? Why that school? What do you really want to be?

And now that I think about it, everything was so superficial. Just the where’s and the what’s, a couple of why’s. It was all about recognition: how have I seen this played out in movies? If I were a character in a book, how would my reader want me to react to this situation? It’s a classic, a person playing God. But it doesn’t work all the time.

But I guess majority of the big questions, I think, would come from my years in college. Damn have I made the biggest yes’s and no’s of my life, and damn have I been asked the questions that really got me thinking if these were trick questions or chapter titles of the book I’m a character in. Somewhere in my head there’s a little man screaming to just tear the page and move on with it.

Will you make a run for it? Why? Why not? Is that really what you want? Is that really what you’re going for? Are you really up for something that’s bigger than you? Are you sure? Are you making all of this up? What drives you? Who do you look up to? When do you want to get married? Who is the love of your life right now? Do you believe in God? How much do you love your career and your studies? Are you still up for it?

…And then my consultation would end, my counselor telling me that it’s okay to be scared. That he’d be more worried if I wasn’t at all afraid of what’s about to come. “It means that you’re thinking about it,” he says. “It means that you’re preparing yourself for something unknown to you, and yet willingly facing it. You’re afraid because you know it’s important. And it’s good that you know that.”

And I think he has no idea that there is, again, a little man in my head, screaming and screaming and just screaming, because he knows what to do but an invisible chain is dragging him down to another pithole, another question, another what if, another trick, another book, into another yes or no, into another decision, into another story.

And I guess it is a pitless well. It is an endless questioning.

Hey little man, it’s good that you’re moving from one place to another. It’s a relief to hear you screaming. Know that I’m moving forward for you, little man.

You little man, shaped like a fist — red and alive and pumping.

Hang in there.

Di ako makapag-isip ng maayos dahil ang daming nangyayari sa buhay ko as of the moment. Kahit kain yata di kayang sikmurain ng sikmura ko dahil busy siya sa kaka-somersault.

Di rin kaya ng loob ko na isa-isahin yon dito ngayon, dahil ang daming dapat ipagpasalamat, ang daming dapat banggitin na kung may makalimutan akong ilagay mawawalan na ng impact at kahulugan ang entry na to.

Habang pinagkakakitaan ng mga kapitalista ang 2012 bilang “huling taon” para gumawa ng kung ano-anong kalokohan, andito ako: Naguguluhan, pero malinaw para sa akin ang lahat. Hesitant, pero alam kung ano ang gusto at kailangang gawin.

Sabi ko nga, nakakatakot kapag alam mo ang kapasidad ng dignidad mo, sa kung ano ang kaya mong gawin at isugal para sa isang bagay o tao na mahal mo. Sana lang, naroon pa rin ang tibay at tatag ng loob.

Hm. Hindi naman siguro nawawala iyon.

Lumipad, maging malaya. Here’s to making the right decisions this year.

And because love battles
not only in its burning agricultures
but also in the mouth of men and women,
I will finish off by taking the path away
to those who between my chest and your fragrance
want to interpose their obscure plant.

About me, nothing worse
they will tell you, my love,
than what I told you.

I lived in the prairies
before I got to know you
and I did not wait love but I was
laying in wait for and I jumped on the rose.

What more can they tell you?
I am neither good nor bad but a man,
and they will then associate the danger
of my life, which you know
and which with your passion you shared.

And good, this danger
is danger of love, of complete love
for all life,
for all lives,
and if this love brings us
the death and the prisons,
I am sure that your big eyes,
as when I kiss them,
will then close with pride,
into double pride, love,
with your pride and my pride.

But to my ears they will come before
to wear down the tour
of the sweet and hard love which binds us,
and they will say: “The one
you love,
is not a woman for you,
Why do you love her? I think
you could find one more beautiful,
more serious, more deep,
more other, you understand me, look how she’s light,
and what a head she has,
and look at how she dresses,
and etcetera and etcetera”.

And I in these lines say:
Like this I want you, love,
love, Like this I love you,
as you dress
and how your hair lifts up
and how your mouth smiles,
light as the water
of the spring upon the pure stones,
Like this I love you, beloved.

To bread I do not ask to teach me
but only not to lack during every day of life.
I don’t know anything about light, from where
it comes nor where it goes,
I only want the light to light up,
I do not ask to the night
explanations,
I wait for it and it envelops me,
And so you, bread and light
And shadow are.

You came to my life
with what you were bringing,
made
of light and bread and shadow I expected you,
and Like this I need you,
Like this I love you,
and to those who want to hear tomorrow
that which I will not tell them, let them read it here,
and let them back off today because it is early
for these arguments.

Tomorrow we will only give them
a leaf of the tree of our love, a leaf
which will fall on the earth
like if it had been made by our lips
like a kiss which falls
from our invincible heights
to show the fire and the tenderness
of a true love.

Obligatory 2011 year-ender post.

I’ve done it for the past years, because I found the time and composure to rid myself of cheesiness, and list the things that have happened in the past 11 1/2 months.

But I don’t think I could this year. I can, but listing down the things I want to thank, the quaint things that have happened, thanking a million people of how I’m grateful they have been a part of my life — well, shit’s going down.

Fucking 2011 was a son of a bitch pain in the ass, but at the same time, it has brought me to places. And times. And feelings; a yes, feelings. Time zones, even.

And it has made me wonder.

That what if 24 hours wasn’t really 24 hours, and that the wrist watches that we have now are all disjointed and fucked up, and we’ve come to know that our lives are not measured by hours, but by the times we’ve fallen asleep and have woken up with the sun beaming straight at our already-burning faces?

And that what if, time had gone slowly because a lot of times have you dragged it and pulled it and made it lost its shape, and you just wanted to stay there for a good minute, but the seconds take that ability from you, and they prove to you that even the littlest things — the seconds, the dreams, the moments — have their own gravity, and it sucks to be pulled in and out, so fast, so painfully, by them?

I have done so much this year, I have achieved so much and yet I have written so little. I have given so much, and I have yet to account for the things that have been given to me. I have experienced quite a few numbers, crossing out various stuff from my bucket list. I have learned and realized, I have enjoyed life to the fullest — something that I’ve never done in the past.

I’ll go back to these 365 days, and I’ll remember how stead fast it went, and I’ll make for it the best days of my life. I’ve lived this year, and a 3092580-word blog post just won’t do it.