When a year in the city and a long queue at the noisy cafeteria back to the elevator in your office building in the morning and in the afternoon a lifetime of four malls with rich pretty girls and flashy metrosexuals in gallant corporate attires before you get to the jeep and finally go home only to get off a long, long way before the household because all roads lead to shopping centers if not to the posh gym with blaring music that equally keeps you too busy with your expensive empty lifestyle to stop and search your soul, you do that everyday anyway.
When you can’t see because your eyes get blurry everyday but you came and accurately saw and conquered the most beautiful executive eyewear shining in its Italian scent and price and splendor even if you had a drawer full of eyeglasses and contact lenses of different expiring periods at home that won’t change the way you see things, you wear the glasses and fake that what you see is what it is and that is a steak and that is a vegetable that you’d later want to throw up in that classy restaurant without meaning to, and afterwards, wear the glasses anyway as a badge of extravagance.
When you want to live simply but there are just too much things to do and too many things to buy, and too many crowded places to go to with all sorts of urban dynamism going on in the commercial capital of the world where you buy the air that you breathe and you realized you chose all this but didn’t ask for all the money they had to pay for your sitting in your formidable workstation to conjure stuff, you work harder like mad anyway to afford pointless commodities and keep up with the tax you give to the government that you don’t believe in.
When you lose your faith one by one because you lost the love little by little and some friends tell you they envy you because you squander like there’s no tomorrow and ugly lifestyles sound superficially fine when they’re costly and they have no idea what they’re talking about in that dreadful metropolis jargon of theirs while you’re stuck in a traffic jam for two hours in a special hi-way that robs passengers of a hundred bucks where deprived houses continually squat by the side of the road along with naked children playing which you failed to notice when you were once happy a year ago because you had everything then but a year later everything is now stripped off its layers that it’s hard to stay happy.
When you realize you actually have everything but the spirit because your ideals disappoint you and principles in real life could get compromised, when you know you have changed and start comparing yourself with your seatmate, your officemate, with every young single strutting pedestrian in the city and get burned by their cynicism that you’d like to ask them how they do it so you might learn the art of not giving a damn, the science of turning off all senses while mixing and matching between what’s virtuous and what’s obscene, between nationalism and apathy, popularity and lavish coffee, bills and fat content, prayers and a litany of mortal sin, greed and cheap cigarettes, pride and love.
When you know you might have been or you might be one day or you might actually be one of the faithful people who are jaded even before they believe, one of the hopeful people who whine even before they try to repair things, one of the saner people who flinch even before they drown, one of the safer people who won’t dare fight a losing battle in the side of the noble, one of the braver people who never fought for anything in their existence, one of the enlightened people who complain all their lives without finding for themselves some moral cause to take, one of the driven people who quit and walk away even before things ended, one of the impassioned people who never knew how far they could go for love until they’re the most broken of all the broken people.
When you know that nothing, not the good people, not the broken ones, not the best things and not even regret could last forever and it’s no big deal because we all forget anyway and sometimes too soon so the things that you do don’t actually matter because we are all fleeting moments and pictures that turn to dust anyway sitting in your deathbed trying to recall the name of the priest whose sermons make absolute sense that you look forward to hearing mass for the first time in your life and where is he anyway when you needed him most so you get the next best thing cluttered in your office drawer and head for the piles of medicines and tablets for headaches and colds and pneumonia.
When there’s no real cure and you need at least one thing that’s true in your life; when people say they don’t know how to love and they only meant they don’t know how to decide; when you’re balled up on your bed thinking you had to do it then and there even if you wished you sounded more convincing the way you promised the world to give and resolved trivial conflicts in your head and wished you could buy trust and security so that somehow you can truly say you’re at peace with yourself and history but you’re not and you blew away the only chance so you lost anyway.
When damaged pride hurts so much more than loss and you promise to be good and get rid of the most natural compulsion to get wasted because you’re wasted anyway but not like the kind you were in college because you’re too old for that and you now have the excuse to walk the lonely and indifferent walk that screams of credit cards and scheduled spas and massages and appointments with salons while a cell phone constantly goes off in the background ringing the loud anger-ridden alternative music you listen to that you bang your head with it because you can’t be good, not now, not yet tomorrow, maybe next week but what the hell, you’re too weak to be good anyway that you wish you could buy goodness and faith and love and wear them just like that.
When you haven’t written for so long but still find it harder to write that you start making paragraphs sentences because you don’t care how it’s going to end and who’s going to read so you write anyway; when dancing without music frees your soul but all the lights in the city are out tonight so nobody’s going to see you while you dance the best and worst dance of your life, you catch yourself recklessly dancing anyway and when strumming your guitar and singing take you away but nobody’s going to hear because the contending thunderstorm outside obscure your voice and the things you did wrong, you compete with the rain and sing it out anyway; and when you thank God at night for the thunderstorm outside and for the frogs croaking but not for your heart breaking because you learned that you always love when you try to forget and you always forget when you fall in love, you love and forget whichever comes first but you live and thank God at night anyway.
When tomorrow’s another day in the city and a long queue at the noisy cafeteria back to the elevator office building in the morning and in the afternoon a lifetime of four malls with rich pretty girls and flashy metrosexuals in gallant corporate attires before you get to the jeep and finally go home and not get off a long, long way before the household because all roads lead to shopping centers if not to the posh gym with blaring music that equally keeps you too busy with your expensive empty lifestyle to stop and search your soul, you go out of your way to search your soul wherever it is anyway.
When you can’t see because your eyes get blurry everyday but you came and accurately saw and conquered the most beautiful executive eyewear shining in its Italian scent and price and splendor even if you had a drawer full of eyeglasses and contact lenses of different expiring periods at home that won’t change the way you see things, you wear the glasses and fake that what you see is what it is and that is a steak and that is a vegetable that you’d later want to throw up in that classy restaurant without meaning to, and afterwards, wear the glasses anyway as a badge of extravagance.
When you want to live simply but there are just too much things to do and too many things to buy, and too many crowded places to go to with all sorts of urban dynamism going on in the commercial capital of the world where you buy the air that you breathe and you realized you chose all this but didn’t ask for all the money they had to pay for your sitting in your formidable workstation to conjure stuff, you work harder like mad anyway to afford pointless commodities and keep up with the tax you give to the government that you don’t believe in.
When you lose your faith one by one because you lost the love little by little and some friends tell you they envy you because you squander like there’s no tomorrow and ugly lifestyles sound superficially fine when they’re costly and they have no idea what they’re talking about in that dreadful metropolis jargon of theirs while you’re stuck in a traffic jam for two hours in a special hi-way that robs passengers of a hundred bucks where deprived houses continually squat by the side of the road along with naked children playing which you failed to notice when you were once happy a year ago because you had everything then but a year later everything is now stripped off its layers that it’s hard to stay happy.
When you realize you actually have everything but the spirit because your ideals disappoint you and principles in real life could get compromised, when you know you have changed and start comparing yourself with your seatmate, your officemate, with every young single strutting pedestrian in the city and get burned by their cynicism that you’d like to ask them how they do it so you might learn the art of not giving a damn, the science of turning off all senses while mixing and matching between what’s virtuous and what’s obscene, between nationalism and apathy, popularity and lavish coffee, bills and fat content, prayers and a litany of mortal sin, greed and cheap cigarettes, pride and love.
When you know you might have been or you might be one day or you might actually be one of the faithful people who are jaded even before they believe, one of the hopeful people who whine even before they try to repair things, one of the saner people who flinch even before they drown, one of the safer people who won’t dare fight a losing battle in the side of the noble, one of the braver people who never fought for anything in their existence, one of the enlightened people who complain all their lives without finding for themselves some moral cause to take, one of the driven people who quit and walk away even before things ended, one of the impassioned people who never knew how far they could go for love until they’re the most broken of all the broken people.
When you know that nothing, not the good people, not the broken ones, not the best things and not even regret could last forever and it’s no big deal because we all forget anyway and sometimes too soon so the things that you do don’t actually matter because we are all fleeting moments and pictures that turn to dust anyway sitting in your deathbed trying to recall the name of the priest whose sermons make absolute sense that you look forward to hearing mass for the first time in your life and where is he anyway when you needed him most so you get the next best thing cluttered in your office drawer and head for the piles of medicines and tablets for headaches and colds and pneumonia.
When there’s no real cure and you need at least one thing that’s true in your life; when people say they don’t know how to love and they only meant they don’t know how to decide; when you’re balled up on your bed thinking you had to do it then and there even if you wished you sounded more convincing the way you promised the world to give and resolved trivial conflicts in your head and wished you could buy trust and security so that somehow you can truly say you’re at peace with yourself and history but you’re not and you blew away the only chance so you lost anyway.
When damaged pride hurts so much more than loss and you promise to be good and get rid of the most natural compulsion to get wasted because you’re wasted anyway but not like the kind you were in college because you’re too old for that and you now have the excuse to walk the lonely and indifferent walk that screams of credit cards and scheduled spas and massages and appointments with salons while a cell phone constantly goes off in the background ringing the loud anger-ridden alternative music you listen to that you bang your head with it because you can’t be good, not now, not yet tomorrow, maybe next week but what the hell, you’re too weak to be good anyway that you wish you could buy goodness and faith and love and wear them just like that.
When you haven’t written for so long but still find it harder to write that you start making paragraphs sentences because you don’t care how it’s going to end and who’s going to read so you write anyway; when dancing without music frees your soul but all the lights in the city are out tonight so nobody’s going to see you while you dance the best and worst dance of your life, you catch yourself recklessly dancing anyway and when strumming your guitar and singing take you away but nobody’s going to hear because the contending thunderstorm outside obscure your voice and the things you did wrong, you compete with the rain and sing it out anyway; and when you thank God at night for the thunderstorm outside and for the frogs croaking but not for your heart breaking because you learned that you always love when you try to forget and you always forget when you fall in love, you love and forget whichever comes first but you live and thank God at night anyway.
When tomorrow’s another day in the city and a long queue at the noisy cafeteria back to the elevator office building in the morning and in the afternoon a lifetime of four malls with rich pretty girls and flashy metrosexuals in gallant corporate attires before you get to the jeep and finally go home and not get off a long, long way before the household because all roads lead to shopping centers if not to the posh gym with blaring music that equally keeps you too busy with your expensive empty lifestyle to stop and search your soul, you go out of your way to search your soul wherever it is anyway.
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