It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us to
be careful
be realistic
remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”
It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.
a lot of things have been happening in my life lately. i am overwhelmed by the responsibilities people trust me with. i want to know why they think i am capable of these things. i think i am. but not now. not when i am suffering so much. i hate my life. everytime i think about what is happening inside of me i want to die. nobody knows this except the person who stumbles upon this journal.
i think people love me because they need me. and this is truly painful for me. maybe it is my own fault. maybe i am imposing my standard on others. but no matter, it hurts me so much to realize that i am only loved when im needed. thats not love. i am not basing this realization solely on feelings. i know. i have seen people do so. i cannot discuss the details. it is painful and every face i see brings me so much desolation. the price of loving? yes. and it has caused me a certain cynicism.
--to be continued
i think people love me because they need me. and this is truly painful for me. maybe it is my own fault. maybe i am imposing my standard on others. but no matter, it hurts me so much to realize that i am only loved when im needed. thats not love. i am not basing this realization solely on feelings. i know. i have seen people do so. i cannot discuss the details. it is painful and every face i see brings me so much desolation. the price of loving? yes. and it has caused me a certain cynicism.
--to be continued
February 15, 2005
All shall be well. This has been my slogan since I begin to understand that life doesn’t always go the way we plan it to. Eversince I accept the way of life I have now, I experience nothing but trouble. First, there is this restlessness that always plague me. I seem to always think that all I do is not enough, that there is always something MORE. I may blame it all on the Jesuit educational system that influences my way of life but I seem to remember that ever since childhood, I’ve never believed in mediocrity. I am always confident that someday I can do something for the world. Something extraordinary. Something wonderful. Something More. In all the things I do I have always strived for beauty and originality. I used to equate my work then with what I am. But gradually, as I find God and falls in love with Him, my work began to take on new meaning. I am full of awe at what this love can do. At the same time, I am afraid of what this love can make me do. And so I find myself loving people because it is asked of me. Somehow, my heart recognizes that the only way I’ll find myself is in getting out of myself. For years I have been preoccupied with who I am and what I am. Yet when I begin to love people, I see how easy it is for me to appreciate myself. All I need is to dare to love and love truly without recompense. And it’s like a petal unfolding itself. Then I begin to see that when I learn to truly love, there is no place for mediocrity. One cannot be mediocre when one is in love.
Then why this restlessness? I believe it is because loving does not stop with the people I loved first. It is not exclusive nor stagnant. The true test of loving lies in being able to let go. Even if I feel my soul torn apart, my heart broken to a hundred pieces, my body tired and my arms too weary to embrace another broken soul. Love is truly love when time and distance do not become a reason for forgetting but a reason for looking forward to the next meeting. The challenge then is to love more, to find people to love, to be restlessly in love.
But I find it hard to love sometimes. Right now I am beginning to think twice about restlessness. As I said, it brings me nothing but trouble. Because the world doesn’t see love the way I do. Because the people I dare to love do not know that I am loving them with all that I have. Because the world has placed limits on who I can love, until when, which places, and for what reasons. For this, I am frustrated to the point of tears. I begin to think about mediocrity. Is there such a thing about being good at mediocrity? I see so many people being content with what is there. They no longer feel the need to love more because they have people to love who love them back. I envy the peace they seem to show the world. Why cannot I love the same way? Why can’t I just love those who love me? Why must I search the earth for more people to love? Why must I always dare to love to be more?
If I give in to mediocrity, must I also forget my dreams? Then I will be merely existing and not living. I am merely functioning as a body and forgetting all about my soul. I will cease to love because I am tired of restlessness. It only leaves me with a hundred broken pieces that I don’t know how to patch or even mend. I will no longer fulfill my destiny. There is no More. Nothing wonderful. Nothing extraordinary. I will just exist and wait for end without excitement or fear.
Yet this feeling, though tempting and an easy escape to a hassle-free life, is fortunately fleeting. I am selfish because I love myself too much to die without a struggle, to die without having to fight for my dreams, to die without having known the pleasure of being loved and the pain of being rejected, to die without the excitement of the dare, and to die even without the restless spirit that has moved me to be MORE. After the entire struggle, I still know that all shall be well.
All shall be well. This has been my slogan since I begin to understand that life doesn’t always go the way we plan it to. Eversince I accept the way of life I have now, I experience nothing but trouble. First, there is this restlessness that always plague me. I seem to always think that all I do is not enough, that there is always something MORE. I may blame it all on the Jesuit educational system that influences my way of life but I seem to remember that ever since childhood, I’ve never believed in mediocrity. I am always confident that someday I can do something for the world. Something extraordinary. Something wonderful. Something More. In all the things I do I have always strived for beauty and originality. I used to equate my work then with what I am. But gradually, as I find God and falls in love with Him, my work began to take on new meaning. I am full of awe at what this love can do. At the same time, I am afraid of what this love can make me do. And so I find myself loving people because it is asked of me. Somehow, my heart recognizes that the only way I’ll find myself is in getting out of myself. For years I have been preoccupied with who I am and what I am. Yet when I begin to love people, I see how easy it is for me to appreciate myself. All I need is to dare to love and love truly without recompense. And it’s like a petal unfolding itself. Then I begin to see that when I learn to truly love, there is no place for mediocrity. One cannot be mediocre when one is in love.
Then why this restlessness? I believe it is because loving does not stop with the people I loved first. It is not exclusive nor stagnant. The true test of loving lies in being able to let go. Even if I feel my soul torn apart, my heart broken to a hundred pieces, my body tired and my arms too weary to embrace another broken soul. Love is truly love when time and distance do not become a reason for forgetting but a reason for looking forward to the next meeting. The challenge then is to love more, to find people to love, to be restlessly in love.
But I find it hard to love sometimes. Right now I am beginning to think twice about restlessness. As I said, it brings me nothing but trouble. Because the world doesn’t see love the way I do. Because the people I dare to love do not know that I am loving them with all that I have. Because the world has placed limits on who I can love, until when, which places, and for what reasons. For this, I am frustrated to the point of tears. I begin to think about mediocrity. Is there such a thing about being good at mediocrity? I see so many people being content with what is there. They no longer feel the need to love more because they have people to love who love them back. I envy the peace they seem to show the world. Why cannot I love the same way? Why can’t I just love those who love me? Why must I search the earth for more people to love? Why must I always dare to love to be more?
If I give in to mediocrity, must I also forget my dreams? Then I will be merely existing and not living. I am merely functioning as a body and forgetting all about my soul. I will cease to love because I am tired of restlessness. It only leaves me with a hundred broken pieces that I don’t know how to patch or even mend. I will no longer fulfill my destiny. There is no More. Nothing wonderful. Nothing extraordinary. I will just exist and wait for end without excitement or fear.
Yet this feeling, though tempting and an easy escape to a hassle-free life, is fortunately fleeting. I am selfish because I love myself too much to die without a struggle, to die without having to fight for my dreams, to die without having known the pleasure of being loved and the pain of being rejected, to die without the excitement of the dare, and to die even without the restless spirit that has moved me to be MORE. After the entire struggle, I still know that all shall be well.
February 14, 2005: Valentine’s Day
Tonight I speak of sadness. The way it has shaped the way I am speaks so much of how it has been present all my life. Sadness is the prelude to loneliness. It is when I feel sad that loneliness begins to eat at me. I remember the first time I felt truly sad. I was about nine years old. It has not stopped raining for five days. I cannot play and go to the mountains. The ground is soaking wet and miniature rivers are forming in the unpaved road in front of our house. There is something about the rain that touches me. There is a certain violence and at the same time gentility in the way it strikes the ground. As I sit on our windowsill watching how water seems to turn pebbles shining like gems, I am struck by the utter wretchedness the pebble must feel. To be so helpless out in the open, with no shelter from the driving rain, in my young mind I pity the small pebble. Then amazingly, I saw a lone ant slowly winding its way towards the pebble. It climbs up, seems to look both ways, then slowly climbs down. The question, “Are they talking?” comes unbidden in my mind. I remember that in the utter desolation I felt because of the rain I began to question the natural purpose of things. Questions like, “Do pebbles get lonely? Did the ant quarrel with a friend? How did the rain feel falling on the ground? Does it hurt?” race through my mind. Inexplicable sadness engulfs me for I do not know the answer to those questions. Moreover, I cannot ask anyone. My parents are busy and I only see them at night. The questions are also beyond the intellectual capacity of my yaya who is glued to the afternoon radio drama. I think about God but even he seems to be silent. Perhaps he thinks the questions too childish or too obvious to be answered. I gaze up at the dark sky as thunder rolls and I feel angry. At the rain for being so cruel, at the pebble for not striking back, at my yaya for being so selfish, and at my parents for not being there when I am sad. I did not cry, I did not shout nor curse. Yet I know the moment my soul begins to understand sadness. Sadness happens when I cannot do what I want to do. It happens when I am being treated unfairly and cannot strike back, and it happens when the person you need the most is not at your side. So at a young age the rain teaches me sadness. Everytime it rains I become sad and I can gaze at the pebbles forever. The pitter-patter of the rain is like a heartbreaking soundtrack. It is the time when I cannot even escape into my daily daydreams. I cannot even muster the excitement of climbing the mountain alone when the sun shines again. I am stuck. Like the pebble, I just let sadness engulf me. For a moment that seems like eternity I wallow in the rain. In this moment of sadness I feel so alone. Not even my dreams make sense anymore. For the rain has totally exposed me. I am helpless. There’s nothing I can do but wait for it to stop. And even when the rain finally stops, sadness has made its mark on my soul.
Tonight I speak of sadness. The way it has shaped the way I am speaks so much of how it has been present all my life. Sadness is the prelude to loneliness. It is when I feel sad that loneliness begins to eat at me. I remember the first time I felt truly sad. I was about nine years old. It has not stopped raining for five days. I cannot play and go to the mountains. The ground is soaking wet and miniature rivers are forming in the unpaved road in front of our house. There is something about the rain that touches me. There is a certain violence and at the same time gentility in the way it strikes the ground. As I sit on our windowsill watching how water seems to turn pebbles shining like gems, I am struck by the utter wretchedness the pebble must feel. To be so helpless out in the open, with no shelter from the driving rain, in my young mind I pity the small pebble. Then amazingly, I saw a lone ant slowly winding its way towards the pebble. It climbs up, seems to look both ways, then slowly climbs down. The question, “Are they talking?” comes unbidden in my mind. I remember that in the utter desolation I felt because of the rain I began to question the natural purpose of things. Questions like, “Do pebbles get lonely? Did the ant quarrel with a friend? How did the rain feel falling on the ground? Does it hurt?” race through my mind. Inexplicable sadness engulfs me for I do not know the answer to those questions. Moreover, I cannot ask anyone. My parents are busy and I only see them at night. The questions are also beyond the intellectual capacity of my yaya who is glued to the afternoon radio drama. I think about God but even he seems to be silent. Perhaps he thinks the questions too childish or too obvious to be answered. I gaze up at the dark sky as thunder rolls and I feel angry. At the rain for being so cruel, at the pebble for not striking back, at my yaya for being so selfish, and at my parents for not being there when I am sad. I did not cry, I did not shout nor curse. Yet I know the moment my soul begins to understand sadness. Sadness happens when I cannot do what I want to do. It happens when I am being treated unfairly and cannot strike back, and it happens when the person you need the most is not at your side. So at a young age the rain teaches me sadness. Everytime it rains I become sad and I can gaze at the pebbles forever. The pitter-patter of the rain is like a heartbreaking soundtrack. It is the time when I cannot even escape into my daily daydreams. I cannot even muster the excitement of climbing the mountain alone when the sun shines again. I am stuck. Like the pebble, I just let sadness engulf me. For a moment that seems like eternity I wallow in the rain. In this moment of sadness I feel so alone. Not even my dreams make sense anymore. For the rain has totally exposed me. I am helpless. There’s nothing I can do but wait for it to stop. And even when the rain finally stops, sadness has made its mark on my soul.
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