Confused-Shoes

Someone told me that maybe happiness is a curse- something you’re bound to pursue but never possess. And I’m tired of chasing something that’s not bound to be mine.

I’ve never been what you would call an easy and happy go lucky person. Never too happy, never too sad. Steady, although sometimes prone to making statements. But I could be uncannily tolerant. Tolerant to the point of being too condoning.

I’ve nothing against happiness. I just don’t think happiness is laughter, nor is happiness that fleeting feeling of bliss. Or maybe I don’t understand what happiness is, at all.

How people die in hot pursuit of it without succeeding totally confuses me. Perhaps it takes many forms. And talk to a relativist happiness could mean nothing or anything at all.

Take for example, falling in love. Or getting rich. Or finding contentment. Or spending quality time with someone dear. Or watching a movie or having lunch with friends. Or getting a compliment, plus cash, from your parents. Or getting a good grade. Or hearing a beggar give you the sincerest thanks. Ah, many things.

What is there to happiness that I couldn’t figure it out lately? What does it have to do with frustration? What does it have to do with being?

They said that most problems come from material inequalities. The lack and want of something. But the lack of happiness can be more terrifying, especially to a mind who has not known the extremes of emotions.

I played a really old and sad song over and over. It was a silly old love song that most people would hate, some people would like. But it was perfect for the moment. I was slowly being terrified at the idea of being a holy loner. But there is no recourse. The past few days have been full of adventures big and small. Whether I find happiness in all these voyages or mere transitory feelings of relief I don’t know. But perhaps vague is the new vogue.

Why this happiness is so elusive, I can’t tell. Why it seems more real when it is contingent and validated by another, I don’t know. Why I can’t convince myself that happiness is just out there in everything, I can’t say. But for everything that has happened one thing is for sure. I am not happy.

I look at the sunset. It casts a certain orange glow that signals the arrival of the night. I pretend that I could appreciate it, but I can’t. Somehow the feeling of comfort escapes me. I have not yet trained my eyes to see properly. Perhaps, I have not yet understood what it means to be happy.

I tell myself, though, that despite this lonely sense of loneliness that has descended upon me, things might get better. But I’m fooling myself. It can only get worse. I stare at the now darkening sky.

The sun is up. The sky is blue. It’s beautiful. And so are you.

-         The Beatles, Dear Prudence (1967)

Your absence is like the sky, spread over everything.

                                                               - C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

Breakfast, Kikiam. Lunch, Hotdog Sandwich. Dinner, Squidballs. Cigarettes the ever present companion. My dear friends, law school is now officially in session.

The 4^th floor is like plateau where forlorn climbers set up their final camp before setting out to conquer the terrible peak. And you can’t bring up food there. You’re on your own. It’s cold. Not really dark, but it could get lonely. Why I choose to stay here I don’t know.

Must be for the nice view of the trees of far away. And how close I can get to the sky once it rains.

My position is tragic, just like yours. We seek to be legends and the latin terms of Molo are magic spells. Te is always Te, Rowie is always Rowie. Hilbay is everyday a different story. Pamfilo is history.

Santos teaches legal bibliography.

_____________

“I’m doing this for the country. But maybe along the way I could have a yacht.”

I smiled. It was almost 8 pm and their class had just ended. No more familiar faces. Only a friend from another block.

“I’m doing this for no revolution, no loved one, no godfather, no deity, no muse.” I told her, in reply. We continued to smoke the cigarette. Her earrings reminded me of someone else.

“I’m old enough to know better.” She said. We were counting the evening people on the way to their cars. I was also counting the seconds as they pass. Every second that passes brings me closer to the end of everything.

“I’ve had issues recently.” “We all do.” “Mine is not about law, but it’s about school.” “Funny. Me too. Haha.” “Funny.” *cigarette smoke from my mouth* “I hope it doesn’t kill us in the long run.” *this time she puffs* “It won’t.” It would make us stronger, Nietzsche said. That which does not kill us.

We said goodbye. Till tomorrow.

_____________

Christ you know it ain’t easy. You know how hard it can be. The way things are going, they’re gonna crucify me.

That was John Lennon singing in my head. Did he mean law school?

Saturday. I came home at around 10 last night. Slept. Woke up at 8. Was in school by 9. All the other hours unmentioned were spent either studying or smoking or contemplating my life. The last one has taken most of my time so far.

The 12 peso latte in the Nescafe vendo is better than the best Oreo Froccino.

Things change a lot. Wrong things suddenly become right. Like love, which has a nasty habit of disappearing overnight. Or trust. Frustration. Satisfaction. They all come and go. And worse, I have no control over the feelings that hover around. I could not in my limited abilities the power to summon all the happy thoughts and ask them to stay.

Happy thoughts. I have a friend named Happy.

I guess I’m not manic depressive, only sober dull. Routines delight me. Silence brings an enormous sense of well - being. The dead books, the silent trees, the gentle clouds, humming airconditioners, uncomplaining tables and chairs. I watch the people passing by. I look at the eyes of my friends. I stare at the moon.

I head for home.

Traffic was like hell, but that’s what most people will say. But the steady jam, red lights, rain, it seemed to me the perfect setting to fall asleep. The sounds present the obvious.

I needed something to believe in. A proof that something true was there. That it was not a dream. It could have been a dream, but I wanted to convince myself I was not just dreaming. I am still thankful if it was just a dream, though.

My shell is as hard as my heart.

I think I am meant for lawschool.

I love the solitude of hours of study.

       I made another reason to break my heart. And now it is crying once more. Torn asunder and all alone. Back to where I came from. A heap of self-shame. This is all of me and this is all that I ever will be. Nothing more to give. Nothing else to show. And I understand it all.

I have always been a bad dancer, and for years I have been waiting for that someone who would be patient enough and tolerate the idea and the practice of dancing with me.

Years passed and I should have known better. I never should have tried my feet, dancing along with professionals. How could I have known that this dance would be my perpetual ruin? Of course I should have known. I am mature and I know a lot of things.

I have big plans. Fantasies. Illusions. Innumerable impossible dreams. And in my desire to accomplish such and turn them into reality, I have not only lost myself but these very dreams. Nothing remains but frustration. Why did I ever do that, pretending that I belong? Why do I keep poking my head into the cold and dark and uninviting room lit by torches and chandeliers and people who eat food I haven’t tasted, wear clothes I never wore, speak in tongues to foreign and dance in a music I could never adore?

But I keep telling myself. I wanted this. I am holding on, albeit I must not stay in the dance floor. Clowns and jesters could not forever be strong amidst ridicule. The stage is cruel, so are the dancers. I am not good enough and before anyone tells me so, aloud, I should leave.

it took me so long to realize all these but it will take me just as long to leave it all.

Yes, I am the world’s biggest Saddist. My impotence destroys me, my frustration rages deep inside and I am blinded by my inability to cope, when everyone and everything else seems to dominate.

Dance, dance,dance.

(birth determines personality)

Second week, law school. The rains have started. There should be no more excuses for tardiness. There should be no more reasons for procrastination. There are just two things left: doubt and guilt.

(were it not for the inherent impossibility)

Who feels the strain of the cases and readings steadily piling? Higher and higher, harder and harder. I do. Hell, If I studied like this during undergrad I guess I would have made more people proud. And how about the doubts? Am I really for law school? Is law school really for me? Corny as it may be (as I have thought of it back then), now I am finding that short movie during the orientation a little too real. Haha, nakakarelate na ko. Whichever way I put it, the doubts still beckon me towards frustration. I need redemption. I need something to raise my spirits up.

(should commit an offense while on a philippine ship or airship)

And the guilt, ah yes. Teachers not showing up lately, or not teaching. Two weeks. It would be nice for them not to show up but definitely bad for our bar exams (if I may set my sights too far). Yes, the free times and vacant scheds should give relief, but not. Guilt trip, guilt trip. How can I smoke calmly when every smoking break I have the “shit I should be in the lib making the digests” monologue in mind? (even though living abroad) Is law school a calling? Perhaps. But for myself, I don’t think so. I am enjoying the precious free moments with the block right now. No ifs, no buts, no guilt, no doubt. But definitely, acads-wise, I am lagging behind.

(cannot allege the incapacity of those)

So I highlight another sentence and right down another fact. I memorize one short article, the long, complicated ones I leave to chance. I stare at the teacher in front, pretending to be god. I catch a quick glance at someone, brooding, smiling, reading, anyone at all. I hope nobody understands the teacher. I hope everyone thinks this way too. There is the future but must I die before I come to terms with it?

(persons who are authorized in this Code to obligate themselves)

Outside, UP is dreary and dirty. The sunken garden is more of a mud pool. There are no friendly faces outside the block. Ah, the rains have begun.

(extinguished by death).XXX

petitioned denied, costs against it.

I will be a hero.

I will do something meaningful. I will perform well so that they will be compelled to build statues of me. They will lay wreaths upon my tomb, they will have streets named after me. Airports will bear my initials, town plazas will have busts in my semblance. Provinces, schools, bridges, cockpits, arenas, grandstands, fields, expressways, residences, forts, camps, beaches, farmlands, churches, dorms, markets, terminals, malls, subdivisions, estates, hospitals, prisons, mountains, seas, the sky.

They shall not forget. They will always remember. They will think of me as if I was an angel sent to aid humanity. I will be a protector, a martyr, a visionary, an idol, a role model, a saint.

They would preserve my brains and my heart. My clothes and diaries in musuems. My words, in books and in their hearts. Schoolchildren will recite the poems that I have written in my youth. Anthems shall be made out of my poems, manifestos written under the influence of my thought. They will say, I am a genius. I am the epitome of humanity, the majesty of all creation, the beauty of human existence.

Ah, this five foot four, overweight, pimple-scarred sarcastic small town kid? But I bet you have dreams too. Nietzsche would be proud if you would not repress them, but announce them to all, so that the guilt may be expelled, from the fear that you have kept something so sinister in your heart all along.

I watched Trsitan and Isolde last night. Ah, I am King Marke.

Suddenly, the days are shorter.

I am saying goodbye, temporarily, i hope, to Nietzsche, The Beatles, forwarding quotes that I have discovered from my own books, Murakami, FHM, NBA Live, Frank Sinatra, Franz Listz, random trips to the gate to smoke a quiet night Marlboro, long sunday dinners with my family, long sunday NBA games, French 19th century novels (in English, of course), cheap mango shakes, lazy UP jogs, long YM chats, long Friendster blogging, talking to my cat while watching him eat, hanging out with the boys from the hood, taking long walks with girls who do not like me, overstaying in certain fancy bookstores, and so much more.

I have to say goodbye to so much more if I have to keep my very young career as a law student going. And I have to keep it going.

For a small town boy who is in Malcolm Hall, everything has been such a big blessing. Now I have to make Him who blessed me happy by doing my best, and still asking.

Thank you for you who raised my spirits up. I was in a bookstore in Cubao, then, with some friends, buying my very first law books.

Yes, I will fight. And so it is, just like you said it would be. Life goes easy on me, most of the time.

I went to Jupiter for a nephew’s party

But as it were I came two hours too early

So I roamed the streets. I didn’t mind the sweat

And I had with me my favorite red Adidas jacket

I was looking for a barber, or a salon would do

But in this city, haircut, like women, is overpriced too.

I roamed the streets the sun was up

Looking for certainty amongst the bus stops

Looking for love in the fancy shops.

I was alone. Orion, Juno, Kalayaan, and other streets

Offered various, delectable, interesting treats

But Seven – elevens were ubiquitous. And that was good

I needn’t spend too much on food.

A pack of cigarettes would do.

But in this city, smoking in streets, like certain women, is forbidden too.

And I had issues in my mind, certain stuff

My superior education wasn’t enough

To keep my afternoon from getting too rough.

Party’s underway. Lovely relations            

And of course, no stunning revelations

Same old idea of happiness – getting together

Our togetherness –  every family member

Being there and kissing and smiling would do

But in this city, sincerity, like uneducated women, is frowned upon too.

And so there goes my day

I did not throw it all away

And I want all my loved ones to stay.

The night, in this big mall, is terrifying

People everywhere, buying colorful things, shopping

And everything goes up on sale

Moneymaking operating without fail

But really, just kindness would do

But in this city, charity, like badly-dressed women, is absent too.

And with my nieces, I should have stayed

The way they laughed and chased when we played

And on my way home I was lost and lonely and afraid.

Going home. The train was packed and with my jacket

I kept on checking every single pocket

And I was in the dark jeep. Drenched in sweat

Headed to UP and I had a walk that I could never forget

It was so dark. Silent, I was alone, and if something happened there’s nothing I could do

Because in every city, bravery, like intelligent women, are unrecognized too

And I was really lonely, felt like I needed a siren

But I took a walk in dark UP, of all places, just so I could tell it then

Though I’d be here tomorrow morning, I just wanted to know your night again.

Diliman, Quezon City

After the incident, Jed Castillo was reportedly not available for any comment.