I am a college graduate and I don't have a "formal" job, whatever that means. I am 22 and I am half a day's worth of bus ride away from home. I am an agnostic, or I think I am, and I'm yet to graduate from this habit of soul-searching, all in the hopes of discovering a lost soul which, perhaps, may not even be there after all. I kill a few bottles of that intoxicating alcohol that has a horse for a name every now and then, and I have the belly to prove my point, although it's still far from the protruding ones you see among men in blue uniform, patrolling the traffic or chasing their fellow thieves in the dead of the night or in the brightness of the day. But going back, I cannot help but fold myself like an obsolete origami and reduce myself into a microscopic bacteria, thinking all the while that, hell, I maybe in this so-called quarter-life crisis.
Whatever that means.
Last night, I had an interesting conversation with my uncle, my mother's brother, together with my better half. And as usual, we had it over a bucket of that ambrosia, but last night we chose the one with less calories, the "light" one, for some dietary reason that only health buffs and the likes of Paris Hilton can begin to explain. Among others, we talked about our directions in life. He was nearing four decades of living in this mad world where equally mad people thrive and he's yet to attain financial security, although I would have to say he's neither totally deprived, in soul or in body, whichever way you prefer. He recalled some of his frustrations in life like the ones you see in telenovelas minus the frantic tears. Gathering some of the poignant sections down his memory lane and mustering the courage to spit them out from the depths of his lungs, I thought here before me is someone who must be just like me almost two decades ago.
For almost a full two hours, we talked, beer in hand and smoke on the other. And what revelations they had been. I seem to have been looking at my own reflection twenty years from now, not that we look alike for that seems to be the least of my worries. It's the thought that someday I might end up far worse that sends that crippling chill across my spine. The least of my worries is looking old and senile from the pressures of surviving on a daily basis. The most of my worries is failing to secure the coming days while at the full bloom of youth, like a bird failing to weave the nest, like an ant failing to save for the rainy days, or like a dog failing to burry the bone.
I can only surmise that the things I do today will take their toll on me sooner or later. Better later than sooner, I hope. But either way, God or Allah or Bathala or Buddha knows how these things have been raking my mind these past few days. I am quite certain my guitar won't be taking me any higher or farther; music has never provided me with life's quaintest satisfactions, although it has been one of my stoutest refuge, a source of inspiration in an equally inspiring life, or a source of madness in an equally mad world. This country has never been conducive enough to musicians, which goes without saying that you can barely feed two or three mouths by depending entirely on your craft unless otherwise you take the road more travelled by, which is mainstream music. Still, that doesn't build confidence when you're confronted with the illusion of a grand life, if not one that is simply breathable.
And still, freelance writing has given me my daily bread, but that certainly won't cure my starvation for the rest of my life. One day, these hands will begin to tire from typing, from pounding the letters in the keyboard, supplanted with a great deal of bravado for the sake of pleasing foreign clients whose faces I can't see and whose brains I can't find. One day, these fingers will begin to shake and this face will begin to grow wrinkles where they should be, and that day should be the time when I am no longer living in servitude to the demands of people who pay their way to corporate indulgence. But that day is not today, perhaps even tomorrow. It will be the same old routine until I beg myself to stop.
I have two younger brothers and I have to help them help themselves. I feel like an OFW in my own country just because I have to send them the fruits of my labor every now and then, all in the hope that someday they won't tread the same path that I took. At this age, it frightens me to think that sometimes I sound like a parent, or act like one. But that, I think, is the price I have to pay for being born the eldest among the siblings, a price that is none of my doing but one which I do not refuse to accept nevertheless. Which also tells a lot why there's no such thing as genuine altruism, but that's another story.
Imagine the scale of a nation suffering from an economic crisis while a portion of its population have their own personal crises to attend to. Life can never be any more mechanical and any less boring than that. Sometimes it makes you ponder on how fortunate people have to burst into hysteria just because they don't own the latest trendy piece of fabric or gadget in their body or hands. Sometimes it makes you think how rich kids have to worry a lot about the pimples in their faces while anorexic children in a distant neighborhood in the outskirts of the city are busy toiling for a day's worth of food. Sometimes it makes you wonder how crazy people can get just because they missed to drop-by at Starbucks, which they do religiously for the sake of socializing. Truly, we are social animals. We are social. And, sometimes, we are animals.
Lourd de Veyra said it best in 2007. Tangina Mo Andaming Nagugutom sa Mundo Fashionista Ka Parin.
To that, I salute with my middle finger. Tangina Ito Na Yata Ang Quarter-Life Crisis.
Whatever that means.
Last night, I had an interesting conversation with my uncle, my mother's brother, together with my better half. And as usual, we had it over a bucket of that ambrosia, but last night we chose the one with less calories, the "light" one, for some dietary reason that only health buffs and the likes of Paris Hilton can begin to explain. Among others, we talked about our directions in life. He was nearing four decades of living in this mad world where equally mad people thrive and he's yet to attain financial security, although I would have to say he's neither totally deprived, in soul or in body, whichever way you prefer. He recalled some of his frustrations in life like the ones you see in telenovelas minus the frantic tears. Gathering some of the poignant sections down his memory lane and mustering the courage to spit them out from the depths of his lungs, I thought here before me is someone who must be just like me almost two decades ago.
For almost a full two hours, we talked, beer in hand and smoke on the other. And what revelations they had been. I seem to have been looking at my own reflection twenty years from now, not that we look alike for that seems to be the least of my worries. It's the thought that someday I might end up far worse that sends that crippling chill across my spine. The least of my worries is looking old and senile from the pressures of surviving on a daily basis. The most of my worries is failing to secure the coming days while at the full bloom of youth, like a bird failing to weave the nest, like an ant failing to save for the rainy days, or like a dog failing to burry the bone.
I can only surmise that the things I do today will take their toll on me sooner or later. Better later than sooner, I hope. But either way, God or Allah or Bathala or Buddha knows how these things have been raking my mind these past few days. I am quite certain my guitar won't be taking me any higher or farther; music has never provided me with life's quaintest satisfactions, although it has been one of my stoutest refuge, a source of inspiration in an equally inspiring life, or a source of madness in an equally mad world. This country has never been conducive enough to musicians, which goes without saying that you can barely feed two or three mouths by depending entirely on your craft unless otherwise you take the road more travelled by, which is mainstream music. Still, that doesn't build confidence when you're confronted with the illusion of a grand life, if not one that is simply breathable.
And still, freelance writing has given me my daily bread, but that certainly won't cure my starvation for the rest of my life. One day, these hands will begin to tire from typing, from pounding the letters in the keyboard, supplanted with a great deal of bravado for the sake of pleasing foreign clients whose faces I can't see and whose brains I can't find. One day, these fingers will begin to shake and this face will begin to grow wrinkles where they should be, and that day should be the time when I am no longer living in servitude to the demands of people who pay their way to corporate indulgence. But that day is not today, perhaps even tomorrow. It will be the same old routine until I beg myself to stop.
I have two younger brothers and I have to help them help themselves. I feel like an OFW in my own country just because I have to send them the fruits of my labor every now and then, all in the hope that someday they won't tread the same path that I took. At this age, it frightens me to think that sometimes I sound like a parent, or act like one. But that, I think, is the price I have to pay for being born the eldest among the siblings, a price that is none of my doing but one which I do not refuse to accept nevertheless. Which also tells a lot why there's no such thing as genuine altruism, but that's another story.
Imagine the scale of a nation suffering from an economic crisis while a portion of its population have their own personal crises to attend to. Life can never be any more mechanical and any less boring than that. Sometimes it makes you ponder on how fortunate people have to burst into hysteria just because they don't own the latest trendy piece of fabric or gadget in their body or hands. Sometimes it makes you think how rich kids have to worry a lot about the pimples in their faces while anorexic children in a distant neighborhood in the outskirts of the city are busy toiling for a day's worth of food. Sometimes it makes you wonder how crazy people can get just because they missed to drop-by at Starbucks, which they do religiously for the sake of socializing. Truly, we are social animals. We are social. And, sometimes, we are animals.
Lourd de Veyra said it best in 2007. Tangina Mo Andaming Nagugutom sa Mundo Fashionista Ka Parin.
To that, I salute with my middle finger. Tangina Ito Na Yata Ang Quarter-Life Crisis.
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