Achieving Happiness

The sun itself casts a shadow, and right now I stand under it and heave a sigh of relief and no small gladness.

I am more comfortable in the dark than I am under brightness. It’s one of the biggest contradictions in my nature — this struggle between light and dark; to move away from what allows me to feel free, and to embrace what will enable me to contribute to society and to the Movement.

I dislike crowds. I enjoy being alone. I find the company of most people a burden. Silence is a friend. Left to my own wishes and my own devices, I would be what I really am — a quiet person who has no problem being left alone, never needing to see other people (except the ten people closest to me) and never having to worry about what other people think of me and what I’m like. I hate small talk, I prefer large-scale talk about things that pierce my heart or jolt my brain or spirit into wakefulness. I am a person with a very short temper, and I scorn at stupidity and shallowness (of course, I also have my own brand of stupidity and shallowness, and I am sorry for those I sometimes inflict them on.)

Am having one of those peti-bourgeois existentialist moments when you ponder over the meaning of life and you end up  discovering that what you really are yourself is at odds with what you so wish to become.

I woke up this morning feeling like the Ina I was a decade ago. When I wore turtlenecks and black shirts and sneakers all the time, and my hair cropped quite short and the frames of my glasses made of black, nondescript plastic. I felt quite free then — I didn’t have real esponsibilities to anyone but to myself.   

I never liked pastels or prints. I hate form-fitting clothes. I don’t like tucking my shirts in. I take a stand against frills and ribbons; sequined thongs, slippers or heels. I’m not a girl in the usual sense of the world. I have the horrible, most unfortunate tendency to shun or avoid people who are ladylike or daintily feminine (am sorry, am sorry. Am an awkward 13-year old). I dislike gossip (in fact I hate knowing personal stuff about other people. Messy, chaotic details about other people’s interior lives.  I often cringe at what’s real, but I appreciate the imagined. The only emotional messes I can stand are those in books and movies. How’s that for being a sympathetic, empathic person).

When I’m with certain people - certain friends, I panic and talk too much. I struggle to find cheerful things to say, inconsequential anecdotes, bits and pieces of trivia — the rind on the orange, the blurb on the back cover of a Nobokov or a Dostoevsky, the incredients of an oatmeal cookie. I flounder and cast about for something to share, or to amuse with. I labor to find things in common with them because I worry about dead air filling the space between us.

I do so because I like these people, and I want them to like me back.

But sometimes, like now, it gets exhausting. My store of affability is depleted, and I don’t really feel like restocking.

My real friends would know what I’m really like, and why I am the way I am. Or the people who really care to be my friends would at least understand.

This sudden harmless inflexibility. This willful return to contented solitude. This respectful but insistent silence.

I spent the entire night the other night in the company of one of my bestfriends from college, Elias. We talked about the Ballad of the Flexible Bullet, the effects of nicotine withdrawal on perception, transdermal medicine, extending the limits of one’s tolerance, guinea worms, the lounge music-version of Rage Against the Machine songs, why Apple beats Microsoft,  the horror of realizing that it is possible to  fell in love with someone you will never fully understand or like (Kim, I’m not referring to you,ok? ), and whether morrocan mint tea beats vanilla almond (it doesn’t).

Then, as the night deepened, we moved on to the things that have caused us despair and anguish. The factors and considerations that forced us, for better or worse, to evolve.

Am not going into the details here, but the thing I realized is this - I am mostly defined by the things that have caused me pain. Elias said that I am so articulate when it comes to being…strange. The strangeness of how I view what most likley appears to most people as ordinary and aboveboard as possessing tinges of what’s dark and lonely.

I have such an affinity with things that are on the exact opposite end of happiness. It’s not that I like it, it’s just that, well, I feel things so keenly, so deeply that wounds are what transform me and when I heal, the scars form the building blocks of my nature.

I find balloons on their own as lonely, lonesome objects. 

In the Movement, activists bear wounds that are not really directly and immediately their own. At least most of the time. There is the collective sharing of pain, anguish and anger — and everything is directed against the system, the government.

But on their own, well, I cannot speak for others how they cope, but I suppose it’s always different for different people. The uniqueness of every grief is that it is suffered or borne always in ways unique to the person who carries it.

As for myself, I’ve always been more adept at handling sadness than I am dealing with happiness. It’s a fact. Maybe it’s because I am a writer, and in moments of deepest personal need, when strength is required to keep upright and sane and when escape is possible even if it is only through paper, I am capable of giving form and texture to the emotion by giving it image, by turning it into metaphor and thus, to a certain degree, remove myself from it.

Or maybe because I have lithium defiency or am slighlty schizophrenic.

In whichever case, these days I am exhausted, and I wish I could just stop trying to be…more friendly or pleasant than I really am. I think I would be more a more efficient person work-wise; but it’s almost sure that certain friends would a) ditch me; and b) just fade into the background because they will realize that they really don’t have anything common with me. Even now I have begun to let go of people I once upon thought I could never do without. It happens, I’ve been assured. This knowledge does not, however, comfort me.

(Sheesh. A return to full sincerity. I would recognize myself again, and I would be less exhausted. How pathetic my own, daily personal struggle is — to maintain an efficient, better version of me; the self who will not not wander off to smoke cigarettes in corners and not talk unless spoken to. She would not be a mean person, but she would not be friendly either. Merely quiet. "Please feel free to not smile at me; but I will issue my own version of quiet welcome and appreciation for your attention," she would say.)

Fornit some Fornus.

This isn’t latin, but it means good luck. Stephen King readers would understand.

Am 30 years old today.

I don’t feel like I’m 30.

I still feel like I’m, well, stuck at 21.

I  haven’t done even  of quarter  of  the things I’ve set out to do when I was high school: write a novel,  go  up to the Sagadas, learn to scuba dive, be an emcee at an MTV rock concert (kidding); but I do think I have at least a few things that have helped shape and mould me and how I view the world, how I respond to  it.

This  is  one  of my fiavorite short stories that I wrote  a few years back. Happy birthday to me!

Not so long ago, there was a small island not easily found on any ordinary map. On that island surrounded by the ocean and the sky lived a young girl whose name was Kaye. Kaye loved the island, and lived there with undisturbed happiness.

The sun would come up in the morning ; and as it dissolved into the day, she would do chores inside her little hut, singing to herself a song whose words only she alone knew. Sometimes she would pick flowers — cobalt blue and saffron yellow. The island was replete with liana and bushes and flowers of every color and hue, but she loved the blue and yellow ones best. She would string them together in a lei, and wear the garland around her neck and in her long hair that hung like a curtain around her waist.

Sometimes when it rained, she would rush out of her hut with her arms outstretched, laughing, catching the drops as they fell on her cheeks, her forehead, her lips.

Then, on an afternoon when the sun beat down and the breeze seemed to hide itself up in the clouds, Kaye would run to the sea shore , the sand would feel cold on her feet, giving way under her gentle weight. She would joyfully fling herself against the waves and swim as freely as any fish.

Then , come nightfall, the sun would sink into the ocean and Kaye would sleep on a bed of moss and a special kind thistle that didn’t have thorns. She slept to the sound of the waves and dreamed of the colors the sky took before and after the rains fell.

If Kaye loved the island, then the island also loved her back.She never wanted for food as the trees bore fruit, and the sea yielded fish. There was also wheat, and Kaye would harvest the golden stalks, thresh the grain, grind and pound it, and make bread out of it. Ever so often she would find a honeycomb left behind by a colony of bees. She would eat the bread with the honey, and be full.

The island provided for Kaye, and asked only one thing of her: it was to guard the lighthouse that stood at its exact center. The lighthouse looked like the beacons we know today, tall and slender buildings like barbers’ poles. Only this one was made of hardened mud, not cement and concrete.

Also, it wasn’t electricity that made it shine its brilliant, flashing light: it was fire. It was this fire that Kaye had to keep alive. It was this fire that gave the island its purpose.

The fire had to be continuously fed because it was what lit the beacon that shone for miles around. At night, the ocean grew dark, and nothing could be seen on or below it. It was against this darkness that the beacon shone — guiding ships that slowly made its way across the vast body of water, seeking land at the end of their journeys.

Without the beacon, the ships could ram against the giant rock formations, like coal-colored ice­bergs that protruded from the depths. Without the beacon, ships would be lost in the storms, and sink to the bottom of the ocean.

Daily Kaye gathered dry grass and fallen branches, and at night, she lit the beacon. It was this routine, this ritual that Kaye faithfully kept.

Until one afternoon.

Finding that she had not gathered enough branches, Kaye began to climb a tree. The tree she had chosen had dead twigs halfway to its top, and she thought it would be easy to reach them. She grasped a wizened branch when the one she was standing on weakened and broke.

Kaye barely knew what happened, and in a few seconds she fell to the ground, the broken branch still clutched in her hand.

She tried to stand up, but at her first movement, she was forced to sit back down. In her fall, she hurt her ankle; every time she moved, it sent a sharp throbbing pain.

Kaye hardly ever cried, but right then she did. Her tears flowed and her sobs grew desperate not because of the pain the twisted ankle gave her, but because of her worry: how will she feed the fire?

In the sky, the sun was slowly being replaced by the stars and the moon. Kaye watched the changing sky as she wept. She crawled nearer the tree trunk, and even though it hurt, she tried to stand, leaning heavily against the tree.

By then her tears had stopped, but sweat gathered in beads across her fore­head, and Kaye bit her lips in pain. She was breathing hard when suddenly, she heard a sound. Something so muted it as if it did not intend to be heard at all.

Kaye turned. At first there was only darkness, but soon her eyes adjusted to the gloaming. And then she saw.

It was a wolf cub.

He was big enough to be a full grown wolf, and his coat was a shiny brown ,as were his eyes that glowed like embers in the dark. It was most unusual for a wolf to be alone, as wolves as a rule live in packs; but this wolf cub had no memory of solitude because neither did he knew anything of companionship.

Like Kaye, the Wolf Cub did not know that he was alone because he had never before been in the company of anyone else. The Wolf Cub stopped in front of Kaye, his coat wet and dripping and smelling of sea salt. He seemed surprised at seeing Kaye, as if he expected someone, something else in her place. For a moment they looked at each other, saying nothing.

Then the Wolf cub spoke.

“Who are you?” he asked. “I am Kaye,” she whispered.

There was bewilderment and wonder in her voice. Kaye had never seen or talked to anyone else in all her life on the island.

“I am a wolf,” the Wolf cub said. “I heard sobbing, so I swam across the water . Kaye hung her head. “It was me. I was crying, but I didn’t know there was anyone who would hear. “Why were you crying?”

“Because the fire in the lighthouse must never go out, but it soon will because there is no more wood to feed it.”

The Wolf Cub said nothing. He sat as if thinking, his forehead furrowed.

“Across the water, on my island, there is much wood to be had. The trees drop their branches when their leaves turn brown and die. Sometimes the trees themselves fall down, and they lie there or rot away. Mushrooms and lichen grow on them.”

Kaye did not answer. Across the water? Another island? She had never left her own island before. “I cannot walk, much less swim,” she explained. “I have hurt my foot.”

The Wolf Cub looked at her with his sad, brown eyes He took a few steps forward and stopped a breath away from Kaye. “Then I will gather the wood for you.”And the Wolf Cub ran back into the darkness. The Wolf Cub returned within a quarter of the hour. He emerged from the sea a tree branch between his teeth. The branch, miraculously, was dry.

“I know this is not enough, but I cannot carry more than a branch at a time,” theWolf Cub said. He looked at Kaye. “ You must go with me. I will gather the branches, and you must tie them in a bundle on my back,” he said.

The Wolf Cub found a long, hard stalk, and gave it to Kaye to use for a crutch. Together they went to the seashore and slowly waded into the water The Wolf Cub cautioned Kaye and told her to hold on firmly to his coat. “ I will not let anything happen to you,” He said.

The water was numbing cold, quite unlike when it was daytime and the sun warmed the ocean. Kaye shivered as she clung to the Wolf Cub’s fur, but said nothing.

The Wolf Cub began paddling, swimming in slow but powerful strokes. Once or twice, Kaye nearly lost her grip because the cold and dark made her sleepy; but before she could let go, the Wolf Cub would bark loudly, and Kaye would awaken.

“We are almost there,” the Wolf Cub assured her; and soon enough they had crossed the distance of water that bridged Kaye’s island to his.

As soon as they reached the shore, the wolf cub ran swiftly into the forest. Soon he was back with a branch in his mouth, then another, and another until he had gathered enough to feed the fire. Kaye took a ribbon from her hair, tied the branches tightly together in a bundle.

“Will this be too heavy for you?” she asked the Wolf Cub. The Wolf Cub shook his head. “No. Tie it around my back, and make sure to make a firm knot.” When Kaye had finished, the Wolf Cub had the branches strapped to his back. Again and again Kaye asked him if the ribbon was too tight, or the bundle too heavy. Again and again, the Wolf Cub shook his head silently.

Then they were ready to swim back.

The return journey seemed much shorter to Kaye. She kept awake, one arm hugging the bundle, the other the Wolf Cub’s neck. Her heart shed the burden of its worry, and soon they reached the shore of Kaye’s island. ‘

“Where is the fire that must be fed?” the Wolf Cub asked. “ I will help you feed it.”

Soon, a giant stream of light was seen flowing from the lighthouse. The light cut through the darkness, across the water, and stretched towards the horizon and over where passing ships might encounter danger. Kaye saw the light, clapped her hands softly in happiness.

The Wolf Cub returned. “The light is beautiful, and the fire burns strongly with the wood we gathered.” “Thank you, Wolf Cub,” Kaye said, and she threw her arms around him.

The Wolf Cub did not return to his own island, and stayed on with Kaye From morning to evening, they stayed side by side, and watched the sun set, the moon rise, and the fireflies reveal their tiny delicate light at night.

The Wolf Cub told Kaye of a beautiful orchid he had once found growing on top of a mountain slope, and Kaye gifted the Wolf Cub with the blue flowers she loved so much. When her ankle healed, Kaye raced with the Wolf Cub, running into the ocean spray, laughing at the Wolf Cub’s efforts to run slow so as not to leave Kaye behind.

The Wolf Cub carried with him a curiosity about his sur­roundings. His eyes lit up with every new discovery he made. Sharing these discoveries with Kaye, however, gave him even more pleasure: Kaye responded with eagerness to what he told her.

“What does a crystal cave look like?”, she’d ask. And he’d tell her.

“How do butterflies look when they first crawl out of the chrysalis?" she would prod. And the Wolf Cub would describe.

“Why does a waterfall roar so loudly?” , she would wonder, and the Wolf would explain. Kaye loved the stories her friend told her, and it got so that she wanted to see for herself where the stories actually happened: she wanted to visit the other island for a look and see. The first few times they swam to the other island, Kaye clung tightly to the Wolf Cub.

Kaye knew how to swim, but she did not have the confidence to swim by herself. The Wolf Cub urged her to swim further on her own. "I’ll be paddling right beside you, and I won’t let you sink.” Kaye trusted her friend, and though she still possessed some fear of drowning, she resolved to be less afraid. Every other day they swam across the other island, and every time her fear grew less and less. Soon she was not afraid at all, and the Wolf Cub was pleased.

They visited the other island early in the mornings, early enough to see the grass still wet with dew, and the luminous mushrooms growing on fallen trees faintly glowing it the half-dark, half-light.   

With every visit, they went deeper and deeper into the other island. They turned over rocks and listened to the centipedes and their hundred feet hurrying for cover. They followed a long line

of ants, watching them carry on their backs to their hill home smaller insects, green aphids that the ants milked like cows. They played hide and seek inside  caves where blue and copper-tinted crystals grew on the roof.

Then there was the day when Kaye dove from the top of a waterfall that stood taller than a house. She stood at the edge, where the water rushed  from the wide river and plunged to the bottom. She looked down where the Wolf Cub was waiting, and plunged, slender like an arrow, into the calm waters of the lake below.         

She emerged sputtering, laughing, and she playfully splashed the Wolf Cub who was caught unaware as he stood on the bank, waiting  for Kaye to surface. 

Near the waterfall, the Wolf Cub found a smooth, round shell that did not belong anywhere but the sea. He gave it to Kaye.

            "How did it get so far from the ocean?" she said, as she turned the shell over with her candle-like fingers. "It’s pretty brave to have come all the way here by itself."

Kaye made a small hole on one corner of the shell and pushed her hair ribbon through it. Instead of the flowers, she wore the shell as an ornament around her neck.

To anyone who had seen them together, Kaye and the Wolf Cub made an unlikely friendship. But there was no one to see, and thus it did not matter; and even if there were anyone to see , it still would not have mattered. Long into the day and deep into the night they talked and laughed and revealed to each other stories of themselves. 

The Wolf Cub stayed close to Kaye, but whenever it was time to eat, he would leave Kaye and disappear into the forest.

"Why do you leave when it is time to eat?" Kaye once asked her friend. " Where do you go?"

But the Wolf Cub only shook his head. He could not explain why, but he wished for Kaye to never see him eat. Somehow he felt that it would frighten  in Kaye and hurt her. This  was the last thing he wanted, and this was what he also feared most.  This secret fear, this secret worry were the only things  he did not share with her.

The days passed quickly for Kaye and the Wolf Cub. They knew no boredom in each other’s company, only a happy knowledge that they had each found a friend.

One afternoon Kaye pointed at the cliffs that stood at the distance, seeming to guard the island.

"I have always wanted to go up those mountains," Kaye said.  They listened to the waves whisper poetry. Again Kaye gestured towards the shadowed peaks behind them. "From its top one could see for miles around, the way an eagle would see the world when it takes flight."

The Wolf Cub shook his head in wonder. "I have climbed mountains before, and I never found anything interesting about them. All there is up there are more trees, shrubs, and rocks."

            Kaye smiled. "We must go up there, and maybe we’ll find what you have missed." 

Even though it was nearly night, Kaye and the Wolf Cub began climbing the mountain. Their path was barely lit by remaining sunlight, and the early fireflies that flitted to and fro. It was a slow journey they made, because Kaye had to rest frequently. As for the Wolf Cub, he found no difficulty negotiating the moun­tain. He did not mind having to wait for Kaye, but while she rested her feet, he would climb ahead, find  flowers or blades of sweet grass, and then bring them back to Kaye.   

Soon they had reached the top. By then all light had fled from the sky and the only source of light was the full, round moon.

They stood together and gazed at the moon. The clouds tried to conceal it, but they were not enough to cover its fullness, and the wind blew the clouds away and further where they could not block out even the moonlight.

"See how beautiful it all is!", and Kaye spread her arms wide, as if embracing what lay before them. "The heavens are a wide cloak spread with diamonds, and the ocean a blanket of blue." She pointed at the light house. "There is our fire - isn’t it beautiful, breaking open the darkness that way?"

To all this, the Wolf Cub said nothing; but merely gazed his friend.

"It is now that I realize that there is much sadness in gazing at beauty alone." Then Wolf Cub let out a howl that seemed  a song, one that Kaye did not understand, but knew meant that the Wolf Cub was happy. While the Wolf Cub howled, Kaye sang her own song, and together the music they made echoed all across the mountain, down to where the  lighthouse burned its nightly fire.

Then it was all over. Kaye turned to the Wolf Cub and gently stroked his head.

They began to descend. The Wolf Cub led the way, securing footholds, making sure that they would not collapse under Kaye. Kaye followed carefully behind, but she let her mind wander, and return to the mountain top. 

She smiled remembering the bracing wind, the brilliant sky, the gladness in  her friend’s eyes as he howled at the moon. She was still thinking these thoughts when the ground beneath her suddenly gave in the way the tree branch of long ago did. This time, however, it would  not be a short distance to the ground but a long fall over jagged crevices and unforgiving rocks.

            Kaye lost her balance, slid and fell — her hands flung out. Swift as lightning, the Wolf Cub grabbed Kaye’s hand with his sharp teeth, arresting her fall. Kaye gave a cry, but it was the Wolf Cub who felt more pain. He bit Kaye’s hand firmly, his teeth puncturing her hand.  He guided Kaye’s hand to a root that ex­tended itself from under the rocks. Only then did he let go. 

Though the pain was a fire Kaye reached out with her free hand and gripped the root. With wrenching effort, she pulled herself up.

The Wolf Cub quietly retreated into the mountain’s shadow, watching Kaye, watching her nurse her wounded hand.

The wound bled and the blood streamed unevenly down Kaye’s hand and onto her skirt. Kay ripped the hem to tie  around the wound, and  soon the makeshift bandage itself turned red.

When she looked up, the Wolf Cub was facing away from her and had begun climbing down.

"We must go on. It’s not far down, and your wound must be cleaned." He did not look at Kaye; and Kaye, struck by the sudden change in her friend, could only follow. 

When they reached the bottom of the mountain, Kaye waited for her friend to speak. She wanted very much to thank him, but something told her that the Wolf Cub did not want to be spoken to. The winds had strengthened; but instead of making her feel alive, it made Kaye shiver, bringing to her mind images of ships

dashed against rocks by stronger, more brutal winds. The silence grew and not even the chirping of the crickets in the bushes could attenuate it. 

It was not the wound that hurt Kaye - it was her friend’s silence.

Finally, the Wolf Cub spoke.

     "I hurt you. I did not intend to."

He spoke with such anguish that Kaye’s heart nearly broke. She reached out with her wounded hand and tried to touch the Wolf Cub’s face. She was startled when he backed away growling.

"I hurt you. I had forgotten we were different, and I am a fool for forgetting." The Wolf Cub began to back away. "I am a wolf. I belong on my island as you belong on yours." Then, slow­ly, he walked away.

Kaye had never seen his friend act so, and again she reached out to him, her palm open.

The Wolf Cub barked angrily.

"Keep away," he said. His voice was so low that Kaye could hardly hear him; but the sadness, the grief that was in it was as  audible as the crying of the wind around them. Still, the Wolf Cub retreated, and step by heavy step, he disappeared into the forest.

Kaye stood alone on the empty beach. At a loss, her fingers found the shell necklace. She took it off, and it seemed as if an  eternity passed as she clutched it tightly in her wounded hand. She traced its curves, felt its smoothness, and then slowly returned it to its place around her neck.

            The winds blew clouds over the moon. Kaye remembered the lighthouse, and the fire, and soon she too was enveloped by the darkness, as she walked the opposite direction where the Wolf Cub had disappeared and swam back to her own island.   

They never saw each other again. Or perhaps they did, after a long time, or maybe soon after when Kaye’s wound had healed. But whatever might have happened, there is always, always the fire. Every night, even as the rest of the world slumbered, the lighthouse shone its beacon across the waters. # 

Sa mga nagsasamantala , mula sa aming inyong ninanakawan

Kaya mo bang ibenta sa akin

ang hanging gumagalaw sa pagitan ng iyong mga daliri,

Humahaplos sa iyong mukha, sa iyong buhok?

Meron bang limang pisong hangin,

mabibiling habagat Na maari mo sa aking ibenta?

Saan kaya may dalisay na hanging

Pwede kong mabili?

Hangin (hindi naman lahat nito) na nagpapasayaw sa bulaklak,

Sa halaman at damo sa iyong hardin,

Sa iyong nabakurang hardin,

Isang guhit, metro o kilo ng hangin.

                        Dumadaan ang hangin, marahas minsan o madahan tulad ng paru-paro.

                         Walang may-ari nito, Wala.

Kaya mo bang ibenta sa akin ang langit?

Ang langit na minsan ay asul,

Minsan naman ay kulay ng pagkalimot at alikabok;

Ang bahagi ng langit

Na akala mo’y nabili mo na kasama ang mga puno

Sa iyong asyenda, katulad ng pagbili mo ng bubong ng iyong mansyon.

Ilang libong dolyar na katumbas na langit,

Ng isa, dalawang kilometro nito Isang dipa ng langit, kung anong gusto mong ibenta.

                                     Ang langit at ang mga ulap

                                     Kapwa nating kayang nakikita Walang may-ari sa kanila, Wala.

Ang ulan naman kaya?

Ang tubig Na pinagmumulan ng luha, bumabasa sa iyong dila,

Ang tubig na mula sa sapa, isang sukat na halagang piso;

O ang mga patak mula sa ulap na mabulak, mataba;

o tubig na mula sa bundok, maski yaong mula sa mga kanal na iniinuman ng mga asong gala…

Ang karagatan kaya? O isang ilog? Isang libong pisong halaga ng ilog?

                              Ang gumagalaw na tubig, umaawit, bumubula

                              Tumutula ang tubig sa paggalaw

                              At walang may-ari nito. Wala.

Kaya mo bang ibenta sa akin ang daigdig?

Ang walang hanggang gabi?

Ang liwanag ng araw, ang hininga ng mga hayup at halaman?

Malalagyan mo ba ng presyo ang mga gubat,

Ang buhangin sa pusod ng dagat,

Ang usok ng mga buhay na bulkan o ang mga kalansay ng nakaraan,

Ang kasaysayan ng daigdig, mga likha ng sibilisasyon  -

Kaya mo bang ibenta ang daigdig? Lagyan ito ng tarheta, ibalot, ibenta?

Ang daigdig na ito ay hindi sa iyo. Ako man ay may bahagi dito. Walang may-ari ng daigdig. Wala. #

Truly, in ignorance there is bliss.

Things you don’t know won’t kill you.

These days darnnit I can’t shake my depressing and angry thoughts out of my system. Am on my way to becoming like Esther Greenwood (Sylvia Plath’s protagonist in the Bell Jar) , only without the attempts to slash my wrists or hide under the house with the spiders.

Nothing normal nothing normal nothing normal.

Or maybe the state of things in Philippine society is actually what’s normal, only things are just speeding up their worsening process.

Am still shocked, am still appalled, I still get angry. When will I ever adjust?!!!

In the last five days, two Anakpawis leaders were gunned down. The last time I blogged, I wrote that three were killed. Now, add two more to the list.

This wretched government’s like an Energizer Bunny from hell — it just keeps going and going and going.

When I read the newspapers everymorning I feel like upchucking. So today I read the news in the afternoon and just stuck to the funny pages and the lifestyle sections. Holy crap — it’s a totally schizophrenic country. The lifestyle and leisure pages feature haute couture and updates in the lives of 1)Ruffa Gutierrez and the extravagant christening party she gave for her one-year old daughter Venice; 2) Heart Evangelista and whether she’s developing a relationship with the Ang Panday co-star Jericho Rosales; 3) Butch Dalisay and his wish that the Young Adult fiction in the country would take-off; and 4) The latest shows on MTV.

Then there are the pictures of Tip Yap in, I think, Disneyworld Hong Kong or someplace where female activists don’t get slapped around and mashed by a squad of lecherous looking police in front of the media at 3PM.

Holy freaking hell. My headache got worse reading the fluff pages. I couldn’t reconcile what I was reading with was actually going on — with the things I am actually aware of — the looming anti-terrorism bill, the calibrated preemptive response, the weekly increase in diesel and LPG, the political killings and damn him to hell and may he break his neck again and again next time he climbs the stairs any stairs Maj. Gen.Jovito Palparan the Butcher of Mindoro is up for a commission on appointment hearing tomorrow at the senate.

Last Friday I went with Ka Bel and the the rest of the staff to Bulacan to consult with the residents of the urban poor communities who are affected by the infamous Northrail Project. It was a gut-wrenching, heart-shattering experience seeing Filipinos rendered homeless, forced out of their houses and made to accept P6,000 (that’s what the NHA and the HUDCC are giving families. Funds to build their new houses with. I guess the money’s enough for a chicken coop.)

I’m not even going to mention the mudslides in Guatemala, and the intensity 7.5 earthquakes in Pakistan.

I’ve taken to consulting my Magic 8 Ball, and everytime I ask it if things are ever going to get better, the answer that floats up and show itself through the ball’s cloudy plastic window is "NO."

Goddamn Magic 8 Ball, wouldn’t even lie to me and help me keep my sanity intact!

In J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, there is such a magical device called a pensieve. The user fills it with his or her thoughts (mostly comprised of recollections and memories) when he or she feels much too burdened with far too many of them swirling like so many tornadoes in his/her head.

At the person’s leisure, he or she can then sort out the thoughts and memories and analzye them at will. Review them, and take stock of unfortunate mistakes, regrets, and perhaps then gain the gift of possible recovery or remedy. 

This blog is my pensieve.

These days my head is so full of thoughts that I often get headaches. (This is not a mere figure of speech — it’s the literal truth. I’ve been popping paracetamol tablets with my meals.)

Yesterday’s violent dispersal of the Walk for Democracy (sponsored by human rights organizations KARAPATAN and the Ecumenical Mission for Justice and Peace or EMJP) courtesy of the PNP made me see red and left me emotionally spent. This morning’s state-sponsored attack against a similar protest rendered me numb with anger.   

This government will stop at nothing to crush it opponents.

Since Sept.1, 2005, five Anakpawis leaders in Central Luzon were brutally killed by members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. The victims were active in the movement to oust the corrupt and illegitimate president, and vocal in their protests against the bloodthirsty campaign of that monster Jovito Palparan who is currently deployed in Central Luzon after wreaking havoc in Central Visayas and previous to that, Mindoro.

One of the murdered victims was a school teacher. She was stabbed in the heart, and she bled to death even before the driver of the tricyle she was riding when she was attacked by her killer (who was also a passenger) knew what was happening.

Another one of the victims was shot repeatedly until he died, right in front of his house. His bullet-ridden body sprawled in the dust of the waning early evening.

How does one make sense of all this violence?

Everyday when I open the newspapers I am afraid of reading more bad news, and every day my fears are confirmed. Every day too I grow to loathe my cellphone –  I fear receiving more text alerts of more Kasamas killed by the AFP.

The other day the Justice Committee in Congress railroaded the approval of the anti-terrorism bill and the Arroyo rah-rah men and women are demanding that it be immediately passed into law before session breaks later this month.

Now this killer of a government has suspended the JASIG, and more or less 90 leaders, support staff, and consultants of the National Democratic Front (NDF) are in danger of being arrested (and worse — summarily executed. This government has proven it wields an iron fist eager and prepared to crush unarmed, unprotected civilians and  political opponents) .

Sa gitna ng lahat ng ito, ng kaguluhan ng aking isip, sa gitna ng pagkabalisa at pag-aalala para sa mga Kasama at kaibigan, para sa masang patuloy na dinadahas at pinagkakaitan ng karapatan,  naiisip ko ang aking asawa.

It’s his birthday tomorrow, and I have not been able to get him a gift — not even a card. My main source of comfort and happiness, my best friend and most beloved.  How I wish I could greet him with a cheerful heart and a genuinely happy smile; but I haven’t been able to feel anything but grief and anger in the last few weeks. I’ve been too preoccupied with work, and the burden of outrage unexpressed weighs heavily on the heart. (Nakakasuka talaga ang gobyerno. Kasuklam-suklam! Try working in Congress sometime. It’s torture day-in, day-out.)

I suppose this entry is will just have to serve as my birthday greeting to him. Sigh. I wish I was in a more cheerful frame of mind, but I’m not - and all my thoughts are swathes of gray and blue.

For my best friend Kim, happy birthday. Thank you for being you, and for being there for me. Am eternally grateful to the Kilusan for bringing you to me. My soul finds sanctuary in yours, in your most casual embrace, in your silliest, corniest joke, in the way you grasp my right elbow when we walk side by side.

Sometimes this is all I want to tell this killer government, and the detractors of the Kilusan: Ang mga aktibista ay mga tao din- nagmamahal, nagpapahalaga sa lahat ng bagay na nagdadala ng pagkatuwa at pagkagiliw; at ang pinakamataas na mga pangarap na aming tangan ay sila ding mga kipkip ng masa ng kanilang mga puso at isip: mabuhay at magtaguyod ng pamilya sa isang lipunang makatao, kung saan may tunay na katarungan, kalayaan at pag-unlad.

But then, what do you expect from a government who kills even children and newborns to protect itself and the rotten system it represents? What does this government know about love and beauty and the genuinely profound things in life?

It has no respect for life. 

I’m going put away the pensieve now. I’ve unburdened my brain for the evening.#

I’ve always been fascinated by penguins-those tuxedo-wearing,flightless birds who live in the coldest places on earth. My favorite penguin is named Opus - he’s the neurotic but good-natured, naive and paranoid Emperor penguin who has been immortalized in Berke Breathed’s comic strip "Bloom County."

Opus has at least twice ran for president, and considering who has had to run against (the likes of George Bush Sr), it’s a shock that he always lost. Opus’ platform included planting daffodils in deactivated minefields, a ban on animal poaching, murdering the government’s foreign policy on territorial defense and military operations, and free herring for all.

Penguins. Aren’t they the coolest (forgive the pun) animals?

I’ve already seen the latest penguin documentary by the people of National Geographic –"The March of the Penguins." Its narration is plainly written, straightforward  but beautifully compelling as told by Morgan Freeman.

The narrative thread is wound around the mating and breeding habits of Emperors, and how the specie survives through the harshest of environmental conditions. Penguins mate, give birth, and raise their young in 9-month cycles.Can you imagine living in minus 40 degree-weather? And trying to build a family right then and there? The mother and the father take turns taking care of the egg, and after it hatches, the chick.

It’s nothing short of a miracle how they do this. They do a sort of synchronized dance to make sure that the egg is passed from between the stubby legs and from under the thickly-feathered belly of the mother to those of the father’s.

Two seconds that the egg is exposed to the brutal cold and it freezes solid, and there’s no hope for the embryo inside. There are only two colors in the antarctic , and they’re even considered non-colors: black and white. The seemingly endless blank expanse is broken by the black and white of the penguins, and the deliberate and calculated movements they make to keep warm,but at the same time make sure that the eggs are never dislodged.

The father foregoes eating for four months months as he protects the egg, and the mother leaves to feed and fill herself with fish and krill. It’s at least a seven days’ walk to where the ice breaks and the ocean is exposed from where the penguins nest, and there is only cold, darkness and silence.The walk back, in the meantime, is often longer as the topography changes and shifts (glaciers form, cracks in the ice, small avalanches that put barriers in the path).

I’ve always thought that animals and their rights should be respected and protected. This world is as much theirs as it is ours; but humanity continues to ravage and plunder the planet, destroying even the very habitat and source of food for thousands of species.(Of course when I say ‘humanity’ I am mostly referring to the actually inhuman and inhumane multinational and transnational companies and their operations: waste-dumping, mining, logging,chemical testing,etc).

Watching the documentary, I was filled with such awe and respect for animals in general and penguins in particular. Call me cuckoo, but I believe there is genuine emotion, genuine love between animals and their families. In March of the Penguins, the birds would stand close to each other and appear like their hugging and kissing.

Penguins are such…sentient creatures.One sees and feels their grief when an egg freezes, or when a chick is similarly lost to the biting cold. The anguish is palpable, unmistakable in the body language, the gentle movement of the father prodding the chick’s lifeless body.

Happiness and relief –heaven in such a godforsaken place! - resound when the mother, father and chick reunite. The chirping and calling noises are such heartfelt sounds, the communication between parent and offspring. The mother gently teaches and prods the chick to take its first steps, to play and to mingle with other chicks. It’s a scene that pinches the heart, tweaks it something joyfully painful.

All this has, as usual, gotten me to thinking about my own specie, my own  tribe.

Majority of the Filipino people build their families, raise their children under economic and political circumstances that are every bit as harsh as those environmental factors penguins have to contend with.

Even worse.

Instead of the killing cold, there are the killer prices of basic commodities and medicine; the high electricity and housing rates. In the far-flung regions, the provinces and way up in the mountain areas, farmers and their families are always under threat from the military and their massacre operations. If penguins struggle to keep their chicks warm, the Filipino masses fight to keep their families alive and together despite hunger, disease and high levels of criminality which is the inevitable moster-child of a depraved, decadent ruling culture and a profit-oriented society.

The biggest enemy of penguins and their families (aside from lion seals and killer whales which are their natural predators) is the cold; and they flock closely together to generate collective heat. The Filipino poor also should huddle together and unite to build the strongest front against their collective enemies- the destroyer of families, killer of dreams, the blood-sucking System and the government it currently represents in the Philippines.

If animals like penguins can survive the brutality of endless winter (even in the summer, the South Pole is a landscape carved and painted in ice), mate and raise their chicks and defend themselves from predators, then shouldn’t people — the exploited and oppressed — be able to defend themselves as well and fight back?

Penguins only have their fur-like feathers, their sharp beaks. They waddle through the Antartic or they belly-flop through it (their tummies are like tobaggons, and they heave and push themselves along when their legs get tired). Sure they swim very well, but sometimes not fast enough for the ocassional sea lion.

People — the Filipino masses and the Kilusan that represents them- what do we have?

We have everything the ruling classes have except for the stolen wealth, the insatiable greed, the dead conscience, and the ruthless desire for more endless control and power over the nation’s resources.

Their only superiority lies in the physical weapons they have. Outside of that, patas na ang labanan (in fact we’re even superior. Who runs the factories and cultivates the land? Even without the ruling elite, the working classes can run this country. Of course, this with the help of patriotic economists, scientists, teachers, doctors, artists, engineers, writers, chemists etc etc. Professionals and creative souls whose loyalties lie with the poor majority and the country and are not enslaved by love for personal gain and individual achievement).

There is always strength in numbers. This is something we should always remember. This is something the exploited should take advantage of, and wield both as shield and spear. This is why the exploiters always try to divide the people — make them think that there are other ways by which they can achieve their goals and overcome the viciousness of poverty, want, inequality. 

Other ways than through collective struggle, through the righteous dictatorship of the working classes and the Kilusan that represents them.

Penguins protect each other and their chicks against the cutting wind and the storms by forming one huge mass of bodies, and they put the weaker ones in the middle. There is always a sense of collective unity — the instinct that they can only survive if they help each other. This lessens the casualty rate, and increases the chances that the majority will survive and a next generation of stronger, hardier penguins will follow. 

Let us shield ourselves from the relentless storm and fight for the next generation of Filipinos. The predators cannot maim or kill all of us — even with their ripping claws and poisonous fangs, they cannot destroy an entire people determined not only to survive, but to overcome.

If penguins can do it, so can we.#