shipwreck / unsent
“Everybody needs a shipwreck once in a while.”
Temptation Island (1981)
Walking around Makati after the storm that shook us all to the core, I couldn’t help but feel so powerless. I ran into people who had lost everything in the flood, cashing in on the mercy of their wounded brethren, wielding bags of clothes previously rotting in the backs of closets. I saw snails clinging to the northern part of seven foot walls. I wondered what kept them hanging on and if they intended to come back to the earth any time soon.
I wondered how you were. I wondered if you were safe. I whipped out my phone and started drafting a message.
I hope you’re dry. I pray the flood didn’t cause your family any damage. I hope you’re taking care of yourself. I’m no longer there to do that. Don’t worry about me. I coped, as I always do. Just take care of yourself and don’t waste the chances that you’re given. No one wants to live a life full of regrets.
I looked around. A woman was sweeping leaves and a dead rat off her front porch. A man in skimpy, borrowed shorts walked by. Just like that, I knew I couldn’t send this message to you. What we had was so furious*, so self-consuming that when it ended, there was nothing left to rebuild.
There’s nothing like mass devastation to remind us that we are all so powerless despite our greatest efforts. Try as we might, we still abide by three basic truths: Life is precious but fleeting. Love, by default, hurts and at the end of a great storm, there is a peace that numbs us all into submission.
I join the nation in mourning for all our brothers lost in the flood. What a terrible, terrible waste of human life.
 | Alanis Morissette Unsent Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie |
"No one wants to live a life full of regrets."
ReplyDeleteDo you regret drafting that message, Nyl? And if it remained unsent, would you regret it?
hmmm... interesting questions.
ReplyDeleteI did not regret drafting that message. You could say that that message (together with this blog post) was my way of letting out whatever I felt at that time. I guess it just kinda sucks that I was still worried about that person after everything that's happened.
On its unsent status.. nope. didn't regret that either. Baka lumaki pa ulo niya. haha
Awww, Nyl hehe. Thanks for answering; I thought the query might've been a little toopersonal - but I had already hit "Publish."
ReplyDeleteAnyway - I think I understand where you're coming from.
since when did 'rude'boy care about stuff like that?
ReplyDeletewith you, nothing's too personal. haha :D
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ReplyDelete@ Nyl : Oh, don't tempt me haha. My friends who have been on the receiving end of my bluntness would be wringing their hands at that.
ReplyDeleteI hate these bouts of maturity because they take the edge off my bluntness, paradoxically.
But you seem like a nice, bright boy (and cute, too!) so I'm wearing my Sunday best.
But as Wednesday Addams would ominously say: "Wait."
Nothing wrong with showing concern, unless of course sending the message was done with a different motive.
ReplyDeleteas long as it's sincere, i don't see any problem.
hug kita..hugs..muwaaaah
ReplyDelete@rudeboy ~ i think there's something very refreshing about bluntness. when i'm tired and sleep-deprived, i find that i am stripped of all social niceties and become like hitler in class. perhaps despite appearances, i am just as rude as you. :D
ReplyDelete*wait*
@engel ~ pretty sure my motives were wholesome. in fact, it wasn't really concern, it was more of curiosity. the intended recipient is from manila.
@period ~ thanks!
i like how you related the song with the post. very appropriate. (i can relate the most with terrence, marcus and lou, haha. *wink wink*)
ReplyDeletei guess in the light of what just happened, what we could do now is to reach out to those people who are in dire need of help in anyway we can and pray and hope that we could all rebuild our lives and start over again.
hmm.. mine's marcus and lou. oh, and i'm always terrance. haha i'm always someone's "best platform from which to jump beyond" themselves.
ReplyDeletei really wanna help out. i'm just bound by finances and logistics. haay.. i'll just offer my prayers and best wishes.
As for me, it was so IRONIC, after a month of our messy break up and i had decided to live my life without him. I still managed to see him and check if he's ok. I care for him. Maybe that was the last we'll be seeing each other, maybe not. After the storm some might change, some might go back to normal. One thing is for sure, LOVE is still there.
ReplyDeleteand that's what hurts, knowing that love is still there.
ReplyDeletei was really worried about that person so i texted a common friend. haha when she asked why i was still concerned, i just said i was testing the theory about masamang damo. haha
beautiful :)
ReplyDeleteJASON
http://laxamanic.blogspot.com
thanks! nice page too. :D
ReplyDeletewell, something is there.
ReplyDeleteyou know how there's this cliche about silence being an actual sound- how it's very loud and stuff? likewise, hollow can prove to be very heavy. that's what i learned from all this.
ReplyDeleteondoy did shake us to the core. e must do something. now na. http://www.povertyphone.com/2009/09/climate-change-f.html
ReplyDeleteThis is life but aren't we glad that we're not giving up?
ReplyDeletehmmmmmmmmm kanino kaya dapat ise-send yun?
ReplyDeletehumans have the hardest time accepting or making a relationship with their aloneness. since silence is its clearest expression, i notice we do everything we can to silence silence by any means possible.
ReplyDelete@LOF ~ isn't that a bit oxymoronic? can you really have a relationship with your aloneness?
ReplyDeletesilencing silence. i like that. :D yes, we try to fill our days with meaningless activities so we can ignore the silence in our lives. dammit, you always hit the nail on the head. hehe
@yj ~ kilala mo na yan. haha
@carl ~ i'm glad a lot of bloggers have chosen to use this avenue to help out the ondoy victims. good luck!
@peenkfrik ~ well if we give up, where would that leave us?
thank you but I think its more like the self describes the describing self -- you're the guy with the hammer. on the other point, it is really making a relationship with our whole/greater self -- which is a singularity and alone.
ReplyDeletei suppose i always saw the word 'relationship' as an agreement between two people. to have a relationship with your aloneness would be like saying that your singularity takes on its own persona. until you acknowledge your aloneness and singularity as a force big enough to be a separate entity, i doubt if you can ever say you're in a relationshop with your aloneness.
ReplyDeleteego and Self -- as separate entities that can relate?
ReplyDeletedefinitely. but then again i didn't really do my homework. i always saw Self as your default and ego as who you try to project.
ReplyDeleteits probably just semantics. for me, Self is the whole thing, ego is the thing we are conscious of that interacts with the world, persona are the masks we put over the ego/Self to the outside world.
ReplyDeleteshucks mas una tayo nagkikita kesa mabasa ang post mo... sorry tamad lang ako lately...haha
ReplyDeletewell it's a good thing you didn't send that message i guess... or not. i don't know. but if you think it's gonna do a lot more harm, like lalaki ulo nya then don't...
@LOF ~ well that makes sense. as for the persona, what can you say about people who never take off their masks? would it be possible that your 'persona' becomes your 'self' in time?
ReplyDelete@Carlo ~ oo, baka lumaki lang ulo nun. haha yeah and you know what happened after, right? i finally got my answer. haha hanggang leeg daw baha sa kanila.
someone who over-identifies with his/her persona suffers from narcissism. they may have a fantasy that the persona become the self, but it ends up producing more neurosis (since the persona is not the whole self). the idealized self (as experienced as the persona) is not the Self (capital S, whole self). we all have a shadow -- content we can't accept in ourselves.
ReplyDeletei.e. a guy who acts super macho and everyone sees as super macho. sleeps with lots of women, treats them like objects etc.,. but secretly he is gay (it may even be unconscious to him). he rejects it. yet, it is his shadow and will haunt him. the more he overidentifies with the macho persona and keeps the gay stuff unconscious, the more gay he becomes (he may fixate on gays in obvious and socially inappropriate ways; he may engage in behavior he believes to be homosocial but his peers see it as homosexual behavior, etc.,) he might just have a split that he is somewhat aware of: over identify as macho and then simply suck cock on his way home to his wife every night.
i completely agree. it's just like jewel's pieces of you. you hate them because they are pieces of you.
ReplyDeletebut re:narcissism, i'm a little torn about this. i think people who never take off their masks are anything but narcissistic. in fact, it's their lack of self-esteem and their wish to seem more than what they think they are that forced them to create a persona. it's like marimar (sorry, bad metaphor in 5...4...3...) needing to be bella aldama because her last incarnation was too weak, too immature to handle complex plotlines like revenge and anger. she put on a mask because she was week, not because she had become narcissistic.
ps. internet explorer doesn't have spell check. boo. pardon my errors.
maybe we disagree with semantics? narcissism, esp. in its more unhealthy varieties, affects those who are too weak and too immature to handle the complexities of life. someone who has genuine self-love is not particularly narcissistic. (narcissistic parents are a primary source of the problems of their children later in life.)
ReplyDeleteps: firefox rocks.
it probably is just semantics. my concept of narcissism was borrowed from myths and fables. haha
ReplyDeletemy friend once said, never regret anything that happened in your life. you will not be standing right here right now if you did.
ReplyDeletelove,
nobe
www.deariago.com
www.iamnobe.wordpress.com
your friend must be very wise and i'm also assuming s/he went through a lot of hard things too. i suppose you can't really grow up if you don't go through the hard things. in that sense, i'm a little grateful i suppose.
ReplyDeleteAmen.
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