Achtung!

From now on I'll be posting all my new blog entries on my Multiply site instead: http://jjoson.multiply.com.

Blogger has simply become too much of a bitch to use. Thanks.

My AEGIS Write-Up [Incomplete]

It's been more than a week since the supposed deadline for my write-up and I still haven't submitted anything.

I've been trying to write myself a decent one in my free time - you know, a positive one that I'd be proud to read a decade or so later - but I just can't. I'm going to complete this entry when I finally get to write such a write-up, but in the meantime, I'm going to post the only thing I've actually been able to write. I'm warning you, it's quite depressing.

* * *

Jonathan found it extremely difficult to make himself an optimistic write-up (Aren’t college yearbook write-ups supposed to be optimistic because all of his children and grandchildren will probably want to read it?), so he decided to write himself a pessimistic write-up first instead.

Well, to start with, Jonathan feels that he has never done anything right during the four years he was in college (okay, three-and-a-half, if you insist on being technical). I mean, come on – to begin with, he’s in the wrong fucking course, for crying out loud. The last time that he felt he fit in Management Engineering was during the last drinking session that the last seriously drinking batch threw when before they graduated last year; yet, he’s only sat in on one Comm class in his entire stay in college and he instantly felt at home in it. And as such, he totally fucked up his grades. Yes, he knows he’s better off than most of his batch when it comes to comparing numeric QPI – but his is simply not just good enough to get him where he wants to go. What now of US MBAs and Ph. Ds? What now of the grand plan in life which he’s had since he was ten years old?

Jonathan doesn’t remember the last time he was genuinely happy – no he does, actually, but he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore. All he remembers of college is going home drunk, staying up late typing papers irrelevant to what he wants to do in life, staring at the computer screen trying to make sense of everything that’s happening to him, staying up in bed thinking of what he’s doing with his life, and well – simply being lonely.

To be fair, Jonathan has met hundreds of people in Ateneo (and hopefully has made an equal number of friends too), and he’s been able to travel to dozens of places in the Philippines during his stay in college – and yet he doesn’t understand why he just feels so fucking alone.

He can’t even finish his attempt at a write-up.

* * *

No way I can send that in, eh?

I asked a few close friends of mine to make me write-ups too, and this is the best that I received (Hey, just tell me if you don't want me to post this okay?). I just wish that I could actually write something like it for myself.

* * *

Jonathan Joson.

College made him different, that's one thing for sure. Outwardly, he became the party animal I always knew was inside of him waiting to get out. His blood has probably more alcohol content than anyone I could ever know. On the inside, he became just a little bit more pessimistic, a little bit more afraid of disappointment, a little bit more insecure, and a lot more experienced in getting hurt. That's Jonat, not as other people see him, but how he sees himself. You'll probably think he doesn't give himself much credit. And he doesn't. That's just how he's always been. Way more talented in seeing what's wrong with him than the things I find so beautiful about him.

You see, Jonat, as much as he might try to deny it, was never very good at being selfish. True, he wants love. True, he wants affection. True, he wants someone who'll see past all his faults. But doesn't everyone? From high school up to college, this hasn't changed about him: he still has the capability to love someone so deeply that every sacrifice in the world becomes meaningless in the process. He gives so much of himself when he loves, and I don't think the pain he's experienced in his life will change that when the girl who's meant for him comes along. (Yes, i believe that). His selflessness doesn't just manifest in the way he can love a person, but more so in the way he loves his family. I love the way his eyes light up when he tells me about how Jessica just commented that the moon is smiling, or how he gets so excited when he's telling me how big Jeremy's gotten. I love the way I can see he still finds hope in the way his parents hold hands while they're cruising around the mall. Jonat is amazing when he loves. I just don't think he realizes it.

The bizzare thing about life is that you can mean soooo much to one person and feel absolutely disgusted at yourself because of the next.

I find it horrible that some people can treat Jonat like dirt. I find it horrible that some people can't look at him and see what I have always believed to be beautiful. Because Jonat will always be the first person who found out when I broke up with my ex and was there to comfort me. That wasn't because I figured he was the only one awake, but because I knew that even if he'd been asleep, he would've gotten straight out of bed to get to me, to comfort me, and make sure that before he left, I could still look at myself and see something special. Jonat will always be the guy who was drunk, but was still determined to stand up for me in Bacolod, when my boyfriend was doing something wrong. Jonat will always be the guy who will keep on saying bad stuff about himself, but will never say one bad word about me. Jonat will always be the guy I know I can depend on to listen to something silly I have to say, and I will always know him as the guy who saved me and kept me standing at the lowest point of my life.

Strangely enough, I realize that Jonat is the person who can be totally selfless when I want to become selfish.

Perhaps some might think I've been talking about the Jonat everyone knew in high school, but I'm not. Sure, his lifestyle has changed. His outlook on life has changed, too. But the past few years we've spent in college, I think I've spent enough time with him to know that his hurt justifies this. I've spent too many Friday nights drinking coffee and talking with him to know that he still can laugh at the corniest of jokes, that he can still appreciate the simplest of things, and that he can still love until there's nothing left of him.

Then again, maybe one other thing has changed about him. His dreams have become a lot simpler: He just wants to be happy.

Like I said, doesn't everyone?

On Milenyo

Since everyone else has seemed to write about (or post photos of) how the recent typhoon affected their homes and lives, this entry is going to be short and sweet. I still have so much work to finish tonight.

I woke up in the middle of the storm to a partially flooded apartment and the horrific pounding of rain against the windows.

The first coherent thought that formed in my not-yet-fully-conscious mind was:

It's the end of the world and I'm going to die alone. Utterly and completely alone.

Random Realizations # 6

I am overcome by an overwhelming sense of inadequacy.

Yun lang.

Midnight Entry # 7 - Greyscale

They don't make parties like they used to anymore.

Or at least that's the way I tend to explain the general dullness of the events that I to go to nowadays. I was supposed to go to this year's AJMA Shindig at BMW Libis, but it was getting kind of late, so I decided to take a cab to Embassy instead, thinking that I would have a lot of friends there to hang around with.

Well, as usual, nobody showed up. Everyone keeps ditching me. I hate it when people tell you that they're going or following and they end up not even texting you, and hence you keep checking your phone for the rest of the night to check if they've already arrived. Whatever happened to the sanctity of the spoken (or in this case, texted) Word?

Okay, enough ranting.

I guess what I just want to say is that things are just so dull. Everything's just not as vibrant and colorful as it used to be. Sure, there are some abso-fucking-lutely spectacular moments or parties in my life, but they're getting fewer and further between periods of maddeningly mundane boredom. And it doesn't matter if I have an fantastic new polo or pair of shoes, or if I have thousands of new interesting stories to tell: no-one's looking and no-one's listening. Everything's just so frustratingly mundane.

I know that I'm just probably getting older, and that maybe I'm still not used to how things are now. And yeah, I know I that it's probably time for me to move on to bigger, better, and brighter things - things that you all will probably tell me I deserve. But I just can't - I just find it too difficult; I don't know where I'm supposed to go. I need an overdose of deus ex machina in this story: a golden, oversized roadsign dropping down from heaven, pointing me in the direction I'm supposed to go, along with detailed instructions of what I need to do to attain what I want to get - no, what I deserve to get. I'm not saying that I'm a saint, mind you - but I sure could use that long-overdue dosage of good karma now. Hello universe, can you hear me?

I'm just so tired of this greyness. I want to see color again - even if it's just in the redness of a drop of blood before turns rust-brown, or in the sweet temporary deluge of hues that fills the sky in the few moments just before the sun peeks above the horizon.

Someone, something: please come along and color this pencil-sketch existence of mine the way children do with their first box of crayons - uncoordinated, offkey, lampas-lampas (yeah, that was what I used to call it when I was young) and all. Please.

And speaking of greyness: the Third Season of Grey's Anatomy has now officially begun. I actually have something to look forward to again. Whoopeedoo. (You've got to admit, that was a pretty witty segue.)

On the Cause of Loneliness

i. On Insomnia, And In Which An Idea Reveals Itself

I've been having trouble sleeping lately, and I don't really know why. I mean, there has to be some reason for being like this, right?

I know that I usually suffer from self-imposed insomnia, meaning that the tons of schoolwork I have to do just don't leave me with any time for decent sleep: my typical weekday night would be spent typing (or if I'm lucky, just editing) an average of ten to twenty pages for some major paper that was due the next day, or maybe studying at least five chapters of a thick textbook for an upcoming exam. But I'm currently having a relatively light week in terms of school work - meaning that I only have one major exam, one major presentation, and one major paper this week (the calm before the storm, perhaps?) - and yet I still can't seem to get enough quality sleep to lift me out of my general state of lethargy when the sun's up.

Ah, but I digress - and so early on in this entry, if I may note.

What I want to say (I think) is that my periodic bouts of insomnia lead me to often epiphanic periods of reflection; I mean, hell, I wouldn't want to spend hour upon hour of tossing and turning in bed being unproductive, would I? And thus I often spend the wee hours of the morning thinking about stuff.

I went to bed last night at around two in the morning (my first Tuesday isn't until one-thirty in the afternoon), and despite changing positions at least a dozen times, I didn't get to finally doze off until the sun rose. And so I spent at least four hours thinking about the same thing that I had been thinking of these past few sleepless nights (which itself is a product of certain recent conversations I had with some close friends) - that people our age don't seem to experience magic anymore; yet, they long to feel it more than anything else. And thus they spend the rest of their lives on a fruitless search to feel magic again but never really succeed. This, friends, is the reason for loneliness.

ii. An Attempt at An Explanation

I think it's best to start out by saying that I had a very happy childhood.

Picture this: I was a fat and bouncy little boy (but not fat-disgusting; rather, it was more of fat-adorable - my cousins used to call me applecheeks in an I-want-to-squeeze-you-until-you-suffocate kind of way), and was unfortunate enough to be the only one among my siblings to inherit my father's myopia, leading to me having to wear glasses at the rather early age of nine years old.

In other words, I looked like a fat nerd and played the part.

Being the firstborn kid, I was the object of experimentation of my parents (a rather boring combination of an accountant and a physician), who decided to rear me - for the early part of my life at least - on hundreds of books, Sixties music, and a series of supposedly-English-speaking-but-decidedly-not yayas from the Visayas.

My parents both had nine-to-five jobs, so my formative years were spent reading classics and encyclopedias (I wasn't allowed to watch TV at that age, except for Batibot and Sesame Street), running amok on the streets of Parañaque, watching rented Disney movies on Betamax, and learning English from my yayas. My parents enjoy telling me a story about one evening when they came home from work to find a two-year-old me practically peeing in my diapers to tell them about something I had learned from my yaya that day:

Me: Mami, Dadi, my name is JeeJee (my family calls me JayJay)! The kulur (color) of an epol (apple) is reed (red), and look - I'm holding a fidder (feather)! See, a fidder, a fidder!

Yaya: Yees, veery gud JeeJee! Yur doing gud! Ate, Kuya, ako po nagturo sa kanya! Ang galing po no?

Mom and Dad: [after a long pause] Ahh, oo. Magaling nga. [Trying to stifle laughter]

So yes, English was the first language I learned to read, write, and speak in (I know I'm not as fluent in spoken English as I used to be - blame Zobel for the poor English it taught in 1991, as well as for exposing me to exclusively Tagalog-speaking classmates), and this meant that I didn't make a lot of friends in preschool and grade school. My peers spent recess time talking about UltraMan or BioMan, while I tried in vain to tell them about Aslan the Lion, the Swiss Family Robinson, or Robin Hood.

But I didn't really care back then. All I knew was that I had a new book to get lost in every week, an entire house to play make-believe in with my brother Michael, a big enough garden to dig up insects and worms in, a near enough neighborhood playground to run to after school, enough paper airplane and origami books to keep me busy on rainy days, and enough toys to make up for my relative lack of friends. All these made me the happiest boy that there ever could be. My world was one of dinosaurs, make-believe wizard friends, imaginary trips to other planets, and detailed schemes of wondrous new machines that I drew up, and everything in it was novel, exciting, mysterious, and yes - magical.

[Digression: It's sad how little boys nowadays don't read about dinosaurs and planets and stars as much as my generation used to. Or how they don't spend time biking, climbing trees, or doing stuff outdoors anymore. They're just growing up too quickly. I think cable TV and the Internet are to blame. What do you think?]

And thus, this is the magic that I'm referring to: the feeling of wonder and excitement that you get when you realize that there's a whole world out there to discover and explore, as well as the knowledge that you face it brave, optimistic, naked, and inexperienced.

iii. And Thus An Attempt at an Exposition

My puberty announced itself with an unexpected outburst of hair in places I never thought it could grow in, as well as a sudden revelation that girls - who I never thought I could actually understand - were actually interesting, pretty things.

It also seemed that the experimentation my parents did on me when I was younger paid off quite well, because the sheer amount of stock knowledge I had built up meant that I never had to study seriously during the whole of high school, thus leaving me all of my time for dealing with newly-discovered things.

Anyway, my first growth spurt, at the age of thirteen, came with a rather dramatic loss of weight, as well as with a realization that I had inherited a not-too-bad set of genes from my parents. In other words, I found that girls could actually like me (initially at least), and that I could like them back - and rather shamefully I admit that this, friends, was the driving force of my adolescence (I know I'm not alone, you know). Yeah, I still read at least one book a week, still built complicated cars and machines from Lego with my siblings, knew how to assemble a computer from scratch, and spent hundreds of hours playing Fallout 2 - but this was all at home, away from the prying, critical eyes of people who were often too quick to judge character.

And yet, the magic now seemed to reveal itself - not too immaturely, I hope - as the thrill of the chase, or in the uncertainty of baring your heart to another person and hoping that she sees the same thing that you see in her. This whole thing was novel and exciting, and that made me love it.

Everything went well initially (because in hindsight, I now realize that girls were as inexperienced with this sort of thing as I was), but I soon found out that despite the outward physical change, I was still a geek at heart. True, I had found my athletic niche (it turns out I was good at pummelling people on the mat), discovered that I had the discipline to work out (yes, I was actually quite buff back in high school; now I'm just plain beefy), and found myself using a series of extremely effective perfumes, but these couldn't change the fact that I just didn't know how to act around people.

I was more comfortable in the classroom breezing through exams than going out on group dates with girls (Remember how, back in the early part of high school, we went out on class excursions after quarterly exams to watch a movie and eat dinner out? And all the guys - often from the same clique - who liked girls - also from just one clique - bought them roses or stuffed animals and whisked them away to a scenic corner of the mall to profess their undying love for them); I was still more comfortable talking to my good friends about white dwarves and black holes, Greek mythology, and car specs than trying to woo a girl over the phone (while listening to Sunday Slowdown on 89.9, of course). And well, being used to going to kiddie parties to simply run amok among the confused smaller children, I wasn't really good at the whole going-to-the-school-dance-in-your-swankiest-outfit (which was, back then, a long-sleeved polo tucked into your best pleated khaki slacks, topped off with shiny brown leather shoes and your lucky boxers) and-asking-the-girl-you-like-to-slow-dance thing.

And thus this led to the inevitable series of girls-you-thought-you-were-in-love-with, dozens of failed courtship attempts, and an equal number of minor heartbreaks, all serving to lead up to the sudden appearance of the one girl (okay - maybe two or three) who comes along to sweep you off your feet, makes you forget about everyone else in your past, and makes you feel totally helpless. In my case, it was my best friend in Junior year (you know who you are), and I guess that I was lucky that she accepted me for the geek that I was.

We didn’t get together, but I guess she was responsible for making me realize that the magic I was talking about earlier still existed in its full extent, and that it was basically still the same feeling as before, only a lot less selfish. There was still a whole world out there to explore and conquer; only this time I had someone to rule it with. And I knew that had to face it with anxiety, uncertainty, and apprehension; only this time I knew that I didn’t have to face it alone. That made all the difference.

iii. The Crisis of Growing Up (Complete with Illustrations)

I hope that rather long and honest discussion of my past served to help you understand my definition of what I perceive magic to be. I hope you don't misread me by thinking that it's just some cheesy definition that love (or something like it) makes me feel.

For the purpose of the next few paragraphs, I'm going to reiterate what magic is: a general sense of wonder or awe regarding the world and your personal future which leads to a feeling of excitement and courage to face the world openly as the person you are.

Now, my main point is that people our age generally do not feel this magic anymore, not because we have stopped believing in it, but because we simply cannot afford to anymore. Such an attitude does not lend itself kindly to college or working life - all that matters now is having to meet deadlines, attaining independence and financial stability, or meeting short-term goals in order to gain that elusive long-term goal. We've all had to assume this pragmatic, adult mindset because we simply can't waste time dreaming anymore; after all, we've all already got these visions of what we want to be, we already know how to get there, and well, we're not getting any younger, are we? Hence we simply can't afford to make any mistakes anymore.

And well, maybe it's just me, but everything's reducible to mere numbers now - like how even the most complicated computer programs can be reduced to a series of ones and zeroes, or how employees of a multinational company are simply a set of productivity and profitability measures, or how seemingly random events are caused by a set of stochastic variables that can be forecasted using simple regression analysis. It's just not fun anymore.

And well, to put things bluntly - things by themselves don't seem to be magical anymore. Dinosaurs are now simply huge reptiles produced by the process of evolution, made extinct by the failure to adapt to a changing climate; Stars are simply orbs of hydrogen and helium that emit light because of continuous fusion reactions, and twinkle because their light has to pass through our planet's atmosphere; Time travel can never theoretically happen because it requires that an object travel faster than the speed of light - which according to the theory of relativity requires attaining infinite mass. Lewis Carroll - the author of Alice in Wonderland - was a pedophile; Mark Twain - the author of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn - was a depressed, depressed man; Sigmund Freud was a homosexual (nothing against gay men), sex-crazed fiend; and Ramon Magsaysay wasn't really the protagonist that history has portrayed him to be.

Nothing's new or awe-inducing anymore, and anything relatively novel that you encounter still makes you go, been there, done that.

A Set of Illustrations:

1. Did you ever notice that as a kid you were always so excited to go to the local fast food branch? As a kid growing up in the South, I spent most of the school week longing to go to the nearest McDonald's or KFC branch (which were literally the only fast food chains in the Parañaque/Las Piñas area back then) during the upcoming weekend, and then proceed to feast on their fried chicken whose recipe we couldn't replicate back at home. Well, now I practically eat in Jollibee everyday. Sure, I try their new products once in a while when I'm feeling adventurous, but I generally stick to my trusty two-piece ChickenJoy meal.

2. When you were younger, I'm sure you used to think of alcohol as some major milestone that you had to overcome to prove your maturity to yourself. You were all like, oh shit it's a beer oh no i want to try it but i might get drunk and start singing out loud or whatever it is that drunk people do oh no oh no what the fuck i'll drink it anyway ... blech that was some foul shit but hell i'll finish the bottle anyway. Now we (or at least I) use beer to water down my meals.

This pragmaticism extends itself to relationships with other people as well - you've dealt with almost all kinds of people already and nothing's new anymore. Despite not wanting to objectify people, you can't help but notice that their behavior seems to fall into certain patterns that you can deal with using your own set of behavior patterns.

Another Set of Illustrations:

1. I'm sure most of you men can relate to this. Do you remember the first time you tried courting a girl back in grade school or early high school? I don't know about you, but I sure as hell didn't know how to pull it off back then. I think I made a script that I memorized to tell the embarassed girl how I felt without tripping all over my tongue, complete with I-love-yous and you're-the-best-thing-that-happened-to-mes. Well now, you already know what to do - just tell her, "You know what, you're hot yo!" (I'm kidding, but you get my point right?)

2. Or do you remember the first time you've held a girl's hand? It was like, oh shit oh shit she's in the seat right next to me and her hand's just right there on the armrest next to me argh argh do i have to say anything like "How do you find the movie?" or should I just grab her hand but shit my palm's just to freakin sweaty oh fuck here it goes ... oh shit oh shit I can't believe it I'm actually holding her hand I can die now oh fuck what next? should i squeeze it or what? my hand's going numb fuck. But now, well I'm sure you don't even have to think about it. Get my point?

3. One last example - do you remember your first kiss? I'm sure you were all, here it is here it is oh shit she's looking at my lips does that mean it's time? oh fuck here i'm leaning in she's puckering up oh crap oh crap oh crap should i open my mouth? should i tilt my head like this? oh shit collision Mmmmmmmmmmmmm holy shit my vision went all white that was fucking good but there's drool all over my mouth but what the fuck Mmmmmmmm. "Let's do that again, shall we?". But now, well, you already know how to do it properly, and things just lead to each other, and sooner or later someone's going to say, "Your place or mine?". Where did the uncertainty and the thrill go?

What I'm trying to say is that things just aren't magical anymore, and I believe that all of us, in some way or another, still long for things to be the way they were again. At some point or the other, the future simply won't turn out the way we expected it to be, like how college didn't turn out to be the venue of intellectual discourse and education that I once saw it as, or how being a yuppie suddenly lost all its glamour when I actually started working as a summer intern.

And yet, out of the sheer human ability to hope, we still believe that this magic can happen again, if we work hard enough for it, and so we slave away the rest of our life building up a figurative house that we hope is good enough for magic to inhabit again. And sure - sometimes we manage to invite it in for biscuits and a cup of coffee, but it never stays long enough, and so we try again, and again, and again, only to end up disappointed and lonely in the end.

iv. A Very Vague Conclusion Brought About by Insomnia

I don't know, maybe I'm simply being too pessimistic again. Everything just seems so mundane to me now, and I hate it. I want to discover something new, the way I discovered dinosaurs back when I was way younger. I want to find something to devote my life to, the way I desperately wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid, before I found out that I had weak eyes and was too short.

Or maybe I'm just bored.

In Which He Has a Bad Dream

I just woke up from a very bad dream.

I haven't had any remember-able dreams in a very long time, and now that I did have one it had to be like the ones I used to have.

Kahit ba naman sa panaginip ganon pa rin. Nakakainis naman.

In Which He Goes Out of Character

I was feeling like a blob of shit last Saturday, so I made a spur-of-a-moment decision to go to an overnight retreat I was invited to earlier that week. And yes, it was a Christian retreat (collective gasp): CYA's Crossroads retreat, to be specific.

After organizing, facilitating, and co-facilitating at least a dozen retreats and leadership seminars, it really feels different to be a retreatant once again.

And yes, if you're wondering - I used to be active in parish- and school-based Christian organizations way back in high school.

What happened to me? I don't know. Why am I like this now? Why am I so different from the guy I used to be? I don't know. You tell me.

Random Realizations # 5 - Today

Negative vibes thrive in places where you've had some of your best-ever experiences. No matter how good the music is in a club, how fun the people you with are, or how hammered you are, you get this nagging feeling that it was better - or more importantly, that it could be better - than it currently is, and you'll end up on a couch either a) watching people dance or b) reminiscing the night away.

Right Pao?

* * *

I woke up today with a very bad taste in my mouth, like I just knew that something really disastrous was happening or had already happened today, but I didn't know what it was.

It's already five in the afternoon and I haven't gotten rid of this feeling yet. I just want this day to be over and done with, right now. I feel really sick.

* * *

Here's to missed opportunities, regrets, innocence lost, betrayal, needless conflict, things-that-were, things-that-could've-been, and the hopefully proper resolution of whatever happened today that made me feel this weird.

The Second Most Disgusting Thing I've Seen This Year

I present to you: THE HIGAD TREE

The Beginning of the End

Forgive the other ominous title; this entry is actually kind of mundane.

I'm having my photoshoot for the yearbook this coming September 22, and well, I have to ask you guys for two things.

First would be an idea for my informal shot. My original idea was to pimp myself up in a white sando, a black vest, black pinstripe pants, and a funky fedora, then bring two appropriately dressed girls along (Yes, two of my friends actually agreed to be my bitches for the shot. Haha.) But apparently you're not allowed to bring anyone into the studio anymore; and neither are you allowed to bring anything even remotely suggestive of cigarettes, alcohol, or drugs, so screw that. Another idea would have been to bring an electric trimmer, shave my head after my formal shot, and pose a la Edward Norton in American History X - but scratch that option out; I just shaved my head recently. Now I don't know what to do for my informal shot. Help me out, people. Give me ideas. I want my shot to be something that I'd be proud of twenty years from now, something that I could show to my kids and say, O anak, ang astig ng tatay nyo noon no? Comment to give suggestions.

I'm also required to submit my write-up when I show up for my photoshoot, and quite honestly I have no idea what to write about myself. Quite a number of my friends have told me recently that I've changed a lot since the start of college (in a very negative way, I may add), and my perception of myself hasn't really changed since then, making whatever I might write really irrelevant. And thus I'm asking for your help again by giving me ideas to put in my write-up (or writing me whole write-ups like we used to back in high school, if you're up for it). Again, comment if you want to help me out. Or e-mail me.

That's it for now.

Thank you. This really means a lot to me.

Anxiety Attacks

I've been having a series of anxiety attacks lately - you know, those incidents when you find that you just can't move (literally: you can't get out of bed, peel your ass off your seat, and you generally just lack the initiative to overcome inertia and do something new) because you're scared of taking risks and facing the world because you know that you're just going to fail.

And yes, I know that this fear of failing is irrational; I know that I won't ever succeed at anything unless I take risks. It's just that I can't help what I'm feeling, and it affects me. Whenever I try something remotely risky, I just can't help but think that I'm going to fail at it. I try to block out my thoughts but they just keep coming back. And hence I end up failing anyway.

The latest anxiety attack happened just this evening. I was fairly okay the whole day, until I received a rejection letter from Shell in my e-mail which basically said that I totally fucked my interview up. And to think that I was already so hyped up to go to Phuket.

I just feel so scared of everything. I don't know what to do.

A Eulogy: Of the Mothman, Higad Season, and Killer Sting Rays

Disclaimer: All facts about the Mothman and the circumstances of Steve Irwin's death were plagiarized from Wikipedia.

I. Lore: Everybody Loves a Conspiracy

The Mothman is one of the more famous figures of modern cryptozoology. Described as a six- to seven-foot tall humanoid creature with moth-like, flight-capable wings, its claim to fame was when it appeared to at least a dozen people in West Virginia in the late 1960s. Shortly after, the Silver Bridge – which connected West Virginia and Ohio – collapsed, bringing down 47 people with it. These events inspired the 2002 film, The Mothman Prophesies.

Several theories have arisen to explain what the Mothman is, and perhaps more importantly, why it appears to people. The most feasible explanation is that the witnesses all mistook a large bird – perhaps a Great Horned Owl, a Great Grey Owl, or a Sandhill Crane – for a humanoid figure with wings. However, the more sensational (and hence more interesting) explanation is that the sightings were modern apparitions of a moth-like creature that figures in the mythology of some Far Eastern and Native American tribes – that of a “pre-ordained, archetypical” entity which tries to warn humans about impending heinous crimes at “pivotal moments in mankind’s cyclical history”. This is the interpretation that the aforementioned film seems to sell.

I think that I’m actually starting to believe in it.

II. Analysis: Mothbabies? Mothboys?

I saw three higads today.

Higads are the general Filipino term for any species of hairy moth caterpillars (sometimes called itchyworms in other cultures), which tend to cause a range of annoying to severe skin allergies on any human beings who are unfortunate enough to come into physical contact with them.

To say that I am frightened of higads is an understatement. I absolutely despise, abhor, loath, scorn, hate them. Aside from my extreme phobia of jellyfish (I almost died from a jellyfish sting), they are the creatures that I hate the most. Just seeing one makes my neck break out in rashes. And yet, they seem to love me. I’ve been predisposed to higad attacks since starting formal schooling, you see, and they have this tendency to land on any patch of skin that I leave bare – underneath my collar, on the front of my neck, on my nape, or on either arm – and crawl a couple of feet around my body before I actually notice that they’re there, and at which point I break out in nasty red hives which only an overdose of antihistamines, three good baths, and two bottles of calamine lotion seem to cure. And it certainly doesn’t help that I now study in a school whose campus practically crawls with higads from August to October every year.

I saw my first higad while running to my Theology class from the West parking lot. It was rather small - hanging conspicuously from a tree in the courtyard between De La Costa and the SocSci building - and so I easily avoided it, secretly scoffing to myself that I got the best of it.

Nothing eventful happened directly after that.

I saw my second higad after my Operations Research class. It was 10:30 AM, and I had an 11:30 interview in Makati, so you probably imagine how badly I was rushing. I sprinted to the car from my classroom in JGSOM, jumped into the driver’s seat, and as I was just about to turn on the engine I noticed this huge one-and-a-half inch long higad on the windshield right in front of me. I couldn't stop thinking how disgusting it was – dude, it had these beady black eyes on its front end and a yellow forked slimy tail on the other. It made me cringe, so I turned my wipers on and flashed my secret, evil smile while I watched it get steamrolled to higad hell.

Bad move, Jonat. Let’s just say that – in spite of twenty minutes of continuous wiper operation and draining my car’s whole store of water-detergent mix – there’s still a sickly green streak on my windshield.

And my Shell interview for the Gourami Business Challenge – well, I completely bombed it. I got stuck in traffic, got lost, and had trouble parking, so I arrived almost twenty minutes late, which practically guarantees that I’m not getting the slot. And the interview itself – God, it only lasted fifteen minutes. That was the weirdest interview I’ve ever sat through. It made me feel really bad, though.

The idea of the higad sightings being portents of doom came to me while I was smoking my post-interview cig in the parking lot. Maybe they served the same purpose as the Mothman, only on a smaller, more trivial scale. Maybe when you see them you’re supposed to say to yourself, “Hey, something bad might happen to me today. I’d better keep my guard up.”

True enough – less than five minutes later, a crazy bus driver almost sideswept me off Ayala Avenue (one more inch and he would’ve ripped my right side mirror off). That pissed me off so I drove right beside him, rolled down the window, and gave him the finger while screaming: “Putangina mo, gago! Marunong ka ba magdrive, tangina ka bumaba ka nga para sagasaan kita, impakto! Puta ka, ano sumagot ka, leche”, which I can’t really sorry translate into English without retaining its impact, sorry. Anyway, the asshole didn’t go down to talk to me, but I felt better anyway, so I drove on.

I got to school uneventfully (relatively. that is – I saw a white M5 on McKinley Road which drove slower than my mom, what a shame; and still took the wrong exit from The Fort and ended up on the south-bound lane of C-5), and arrived at least five minutes early for my next class, so I decided to hang out in the CTC SPG while waiting for the bell.

My friend Javin was there, and the first thing he did when he saw me was to pull his collar down to reveal a huge red higad rash. I laughed at him, saying that I had a few close calls that day too, while lighting up a cig. A few puffs later, my roommate Tony comes along and asks for a light; I didn’t have my lighter with me, so I handed him my cig. And get this – when he returned my cig to me there was a fucking higad on his hand! What the fuck. That was the tipping point. I told him to keep my cig, and I ran for cover in my classroom.

Things suddenly made sense to me. Higads – moth babies – are mini Mothmen, sent to both torment and shock us into becoming more aware of the crazy, dangerous world which we live in. And being me, I just felt that I had to share my epiphany with the world, and so I was composing this entry in my head while driving from school back to the condo.

III. Fact: The Mothbabies’ Message

I was in my condo lobby, waiting for the elevator to reach the ground floor, when I got a message from my baby brother, who never ever texted me before.

namatay si steve erwin :(

Shocked, I replied: Ha? Ano? Teka check ko yung internet. Paano daw?

He replied: jellyfish raw

I found out later on that he died because a stingray’s barb pierced his chest (allegedly lethally piercing either his heart or a lung) while he was filming an underwater documentary. He was forty-four.

I swear that I was almost brought to tears when I heard that. Steve Irwin cannot die. He is invincible, and I expected him to live forever – like Batman, Ozzy Osbourne, and Imelda Marcos – and yet he died. Because of a fucking sting ray. Hell – it wasn’t even a shark or a crocodile – it was a motherfucking sting ray.

And yet he’s dead. I may have always made fun of his redneck-ness and his stupid accent, but deep down I was envious of him, because he was doing his heart’s delight and he was undeniably happy because of it.

I wish I could say that about myself.

So here’s to Steve Irwin, to childhood heroes, and to lives well-lived – CHEERS.

Rest in peace, mate.

When a Loved One Suffers From Clinical Depression

I borrowed this essay from the multiply site of a new contact of mine. I know I'm not the type of guy who plagiarizes quotes or essays from other websites, but trust me - this case is particularly different.

Why?

Can I just say that this topic is particularly close to my heart?

Yeah, I guess that would do.

* * *

A Reflection by Melissa G. Lim:

Whenever I clear the dishwasher, my mind very quickly brings me back to those days, not too long ago, when I couldn’t do the same without experiencing a panic attack. I had often asked why such a simple task would cause my heart to race and bring about so much fear. It was so senseless and yet the fear was so real. My body would shake and I couldn’t wait to get the task over with. I would then have to struggle to the couch and then roll into a fetus position to calm myself down. If I had not experience it myself, I would scoff at the very thought.

My mind now wanders on to what my husband and children thought and felt. I know how it pained them to catch me in such a position. I know, because, although they didn’t say anything, their eyes spoke so clearly. Today, I constantly thank the freedom which I experience- the freedom to get up readily and willingly and to be able to walk around and do whatever I want in the ABSENCE of fear.

From time to time, when the children and I pray together on our drive out, Jeremy, our son, would thank God, similarly, for the activities he is involved in and he would then lift up those who cannot enjoy the same. I believe Jeremy and I pray similar prayers because we both have survived clinical depression. Perhaps we were allowed depression into our lives to teach us how to value life and to enable us to lift others in prayer and in action.

Depression is such a horrid, agonizing, dark living hell. Unless you are in deep sleep, each moment, each micro-second, is experienced as such. What has prompted me to write today is to plead for the others who are suffering at the moment. Be there, touch and let the other know that you still TREASURE his/her presence. Listen and allow the other to voice what he/she is experiencing. It may be senseless to you, but what he/she is experiencing is very real. MINIMIZE pointing out that the individual has so much to live for. It will only make the other feel worse because those positive outlooks just slip right through their fingers. For those whose chemical balance is in synchrony, positive outlooks are like “secure rocks” which can be stepped on to bring the individual one step closer to happiness. It is so sad and frustrating that the depressed cannot “catch” and “hang onto” these words. As frustrating as it is, BE THERE, HOLD the person’s hand, and WALK with him/her…step by step.

I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude of love to each of you who reached out to me, showing me that I was still a valuable citizen of planet earth in the midst of my brokenness. It took several of them, many who I had least expected and who I now treasure so dearly, who took a moment to touch me or to say hello and others who managed to take one or more steps with me. Not everyone can be there, but the COMBINED little gestures of love and the numerous prayers and medication is what kept my spirit alive.

An Appeal

Someone either make the situation clear to me, or get me really really drunk to the point of total apathy tonight.