Sleep is a necessary state of existence - the one where we mingle with each other in forms beyond our physical senses when awake.
Sleep is the door to which we enter the metaphysical. The beyond.
Banukisms |
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Last night, I finally figured out the need for sleep.
Sleep is a necessary state of existence - the one where we mingle with each other in forms beyond our physical senses when awake. Sleep is the door to which we enter the metaphysical. The beyond.
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Ascendates Fiction allows us to dabble in truth. In ideas. To live in a bubble of our possibilities. Possibilities we cannot be in. Fictions are stories of us in a different mix of time and space. Lived out by the perfected, exaggerated, and created characters we so desire, or hate or feel nothing about, at any given moment. Reality, on the other hand, forces us to listen. To others. To have the strength to face honesty. To be honest ourselves. To our own selves. In between fiction and reality, life happens. (Where's the story at?) ***************** My 2014 is cruel, but marvelous. PS: Excuse me 2015, but I'm coming. My dad's dead.
The whole time that our family was going through my dad's cancer ordeal, DABDA was my emotional guideline. Every time I felt a wave of overwhelming emotions - be it anger, or depression, or the silent bargains I made, up to that bittersweet moment of resigned acceptance - I think, "It's okay. It's part of the DABDA process. Feel it. Let it through." DABDA was my prayer. DABDA is the emotional process we go through when faced with death to, well, overcome death. It is for us, the living. We have to define, categorize, and make sense of the undefinable grief that impaired us since death and loss knocked at our doors. In no particular order, we go through different levels of Denial and Anger, Bargained for better odds - longer time, more money, miracles and angels - then we get utterly Depressed, until we arrive at Acceptance. Some though, don't get there. Some get stuck at being angry, at denial, while some give in - for a lack of a better option - and accept. It was a Thursday when my dad died. A typhoon locally named Glenda just hit the country, and left most places without power. I broke a plate, accidentally, while preparing dinner that night. Fifteen minutes later, my mom gave me THE call. Maybe, superstitions too are real. I also bought fish that day. It was a random Thursday like any other, except my dad died that night. When my sister and I got home, I kissed my dead father on the forehead, and told him I love him. His forehead felt warm, but his hands were icy cold. He had a damp smell about him, like the stench of mud in the rain. Each second of that last moment was unsuperstitiously real. I thought of DABDA again the day we buried my dad. I made a mental checklist: have I gone through all of them yet? Already? Will I be okay? I wondered if I'm stuck at anger? Is my mother? I can only imagine the pain that my mother is going through right now. Are my brother and sister going to be fine? I rehashed the most painful memories of my father's last days - withered, and unable to speak - and I still feel a pang of anger. Why my dad? We could have used more time as a family, you know. He was just 52. With my dad at peace, seven feet under now, acceptance seems the only rational option left. Yet, it's hard to accept something that seems surreal - so real - when it happened. The way his cancer progressed too fast, too soon. How my father regressed and gave in to death too soon, too real. When time is not on our side, we feel powerless. After all, if DABDA is a prayer, time is god. But the night we buried my father, and when the fact that we will never ever see him again - ever forever again - sunk in, acceptance didn't prove powerful enough. My prayer isn't working anymore. My father gone is not any less painful just because I have accepted it, just because we have. In fact, of all, I find that acceptance was the easiest to do. With the strength of our brain's plasticity, and our heart's resiliency, our capacity to accept adversities seems instinctive. Humans as species survived because we are extremely well-adaptive. We'll be fine. I'll be fine too, I guess. There must be more to acceptance then. I find that DABDA's end is neither acceptance nor to be fine. It is not a linear process of well-orchestrated denoument, with the promise of an orgasmic catharsis in the end. Death is as messy as living. And we, the living, are left to deal with the mess of life's uncertainties and possibilities. This is hard enough even with your family complete, and all together. So, why did my father have to die again? Death, and overcoming it, is not the end. Far from a fresh start even. Living with it is the whole process. There is no overcoming death. There is only living it. Somebody, please, tell me how this is done. I make lists. They keep me sane. Here's what kept me busy last night: "Before 30s Goal: 1/5) backpack Europe/amerika/south america 1) be a big dog owner (and a macaw bird, too! I want one!) 2) done half way through my PH travel list 4/5) self investment: driving, diving license, coursera certificate on sustainability courses, MA, technical and creative workshops, in a relationship with a good mentor, cooking, swimming, shooting, krav maga and tantric massage 1/3) publish a book/make a film - simply: create and make something off of it 1/2/3/5)financial flexibility: (Min) 1 million worth of asset value: as a person + properties + business, investment (not including insurance), karu, library, furniture, etc 1 million liquid asset/savings What 31-35 looks like: 1/4) creator: anak(?!??!!!?) writer, direk 2/4) bahay out of the city 1/3) entrepreneur: owns businessesessss 4/2) live out your sustainability advocacy How 36-40 should be like: 1) hmmm, apparently, just tonight I realize that I want 6 and 8 year old kids by 40 Imagine: My twins making sand castles while I lay on the beach reading the economist, but really, I don't give a fuck 'bout the world anymore (kids are legit reasons not to give a shit) 'coz later that night, I'll have good food, wine and sex. Am good. (Seriously, I want that.) **second book **traveling motha of two Rest of my days: More creation. Create more. Make everything in your world better. End of life goal: not to become a sad old hag" (That's about right.) ******************************* My father's already out of the hospital. His condition is apparently way too advance for what we can handle. For what our money can handle actually. The doctors advised pallative care as our best, and most economical option, at this point. (Yes, I Googled it, too.) End of life care is what it is. Sweet way for the medical industry to say, "nope, no can't do nothing 'bout that. Next!" I'm angry. I felt robbed. In situations where choice is not an option, we're left with the barest: life and death. If life is no longer an option and you're left to deal with death...how? Just how do you do it? It's not as if, somebody came back from the other side, and wrote a book about it. All I know now is that days are very unpredictable. As if you're trapped in the mercy of your darkest and best selves. You are reminded of what's alive and dead inside you. One day, so angry and agitated. The next, so hopeful and poignant. Dealing with life and death tips you off your human balance. Sanity is precious in days of life and death. And on days like these, I create a bubble. A defense I put up to keep my precious sanity just right where it is hanging. Keeping it there - where it is hanging in a balance - is my day's work. A bubble filled with bright days ahead: dreams fulfilled, goals reached, while all my loved ones are alive and well. Nobody dying, everybody laughing. Bright lively days. In the next coming months, it seems that our family will have to watch our dad slowly wither. ********************** Bright lively days ahead. It's been a while since I was alone like this. Jazz in the background, soft lights, candles, wine and cigarettes with me and my thoughts. It's an encouraging ambiance to think of my pressing struggles: my father diagnosed with cancer, Alex leaving very soon, my love-hate relationship with creating, my formless ideas, money, and the lack of it. One thing I like about getting older is the honed problem solving skills. I try to deal with problems like I would my shopping and to-do list. A tick list I need to get done and fixed. It's easier that way.
Weeks of going to the hospital has still made me a bit of a Debbie downer though. And the trigger is: for the first time in a long time, I am seriously considering of quitting smoking. I have never been guilty of it, to be honest. Like Alanis in the 90s, I wear it as my fashion. A brand I see myself wearing - confidently, shamelessly. But since the "C" bomb, death, all of a sudden, seemed so real. And scary. So, I'm really serious about quitting smoking. And two things I know about myself when I get serious: I get things done, and I get sad. One reason is because I tend to humanize stuff that I put in my mouth - food, body parts, and etc - and through the years, smoking has been a companion. Quitting smoking is like high school graduation - it's ending a phase in your life, and starting a new one. (A better one.) It's like silently saying bye to an old friend - 'coz it's just not the same anymore. Quitting is the right thing to do, but...but, it takes a while to actually get myself together and do it. I guess that's why addiction is bad. It trumps over human rationality. It's the state of our savage selves caught in fear. Overcoming addiction is then overcoming our darker selves. Though my dad was no smoker and no drinker at all (the irony, eh?) - no bad and unhealthy habits whatsoever except, pork and women - I still took the news of his condition as my final blow: Just. Quit. Yet, I got stuck in the torment. The way the torment fills the void - the way habit comforts and soothes the unfamiliar, the changing, the living and the dying. When doctors discuss to you the statistics of how many people live after a stomach cancer surgery (10 is to 100), and the whole medical process and procedure that your family has to go through, and the expenses for all of that, and how they will tell you that in the end, only God knows when anyway, so just pray really hard - trust me. If you're a smoker, the first thing you wanna do is run out of that door, and smoke. You then process the reality - the immediacy, the meaning, or the lack of - of death while slowly, inhale...puff, and surely killing yourself. (The irony, eh?) It's true what they say about habits: cultivate the good ones, so you can keep them. Habits save us from despair, from chaos and emptiness. Our habits can, literally, kill us after all. I'm glad I have a good habit of cleaning and organizing my house (and just anything) when I'm worried about something. As if I'm de-cluttering my mind, too. I think it's a good habit, and I like to keep it. Meanwhile, I think the other thing that makes me sad about quitting smoking is the fact that I'm killing myself every day - and I know it - yet why oh why, do I like it. (Yah, scary I know. I have a lot of daddy issues, I guess.) I passed by Manila Bay when I was going home from the hospital the day we learned about my father's condition. It was a Tuesday. A rainy Tuesday, the 10th, same date as my father's birthday. Though it's been rainy, the sunset was perfect. I thought it was going to be cloudy and sunsetless, but I got a silverlining. (And I was very grateful. It was such a heavy day, and seeing something pretty and bright did help.) It was one one of the prettier sunsets I've seen in weeks, so it was something. It was the kind that, without any sense of direction, can be confused as either sunset or sunrise - as if, without sense of endings and beginnings only, now. I bathed in the warm bright light, and resigned at the thought that this too shall pass. (Both the sunset, and my woes.) Overall, I'm still in a good place. It's been a while since I was alone like this. Jazz in the background, soft lights, candles, wine, with me and - if just without these cigarettes - this would have been a better smelling ambiance. A couple of weeks back, I stumbled upon this article from HuffPo.
The article reports about a letter written by the genius Kurt Vonnegut to a high school class back in 2006. The letter is, no less, filled with with just the right wit at just the right timing. A charming piece of correspondence that says so much about the man. A year after he wrote that letter, he died. The letter moved me in ways I didn't expect. The way it captured - so swiftly, so casually - what it is exactly that draws a lot of us into creating...to art, to our hobbies - to things that move us yet, we don't know why. (And has caused a lot of existential crisis for all of us, drama queens.) It is, simply to, "experience becoming". To that, I offer a short prayer. ************************************** A Prayer From A Writer I was reading this letter written by a famous writer Who, by now, lives six feet under But, in his glory days, must have been the best lover. After reading his letter, I have been repeating this prayer: “Dearie, Experience becoming. Now and later.” They say we should listen to the old and wiser, So, his words, I’ll hold dear - now and forever. Maturity is a curious case. We grow-up believing that at some point somewhere, it will come to us. Then, things happen. Adult things happen - leaving school, failure, worst job, best job, marriage, kids, more kids, failed marriage, broken heart, being broke and loosing someone. Real life things happen, and alas, it has come.
I find this tricky. Nobody is ever ready when big real life events happen and shake our lives. In this case, we are forced to grow up. We have to be mature - however we know how - to get through. Baptism by fire is still the most effective rite of passage in life. But only when it does not keep us from opening ourselves up to the world. This is the part I find tricky. How can you keep yourself from thinking the world gets you when, really, it hurts so much? In moments of divine pain, all you hear is blah. Everything you see is darkness and there is only one truth: this, this devastating event is happening now. Why? The need to answer why is our one-way ticket out. The answer as to why has shaped human affairs for millenia. From philosophers to scientists to religion to Eat, Pray, Love. In our own lives, making-sense of "why" help us go forward. We assign meaning to things to make them bearable. Here's where the danger comes in. Assigning meaning is a consequence, not a cause. When meaning becomes a cause, we become more in control of our lives. This is when we really grow-up. Maturity and finding life's meaning are composites of a vicious cycle. They feed each other. As one consciously decides to be mature, one's life meaning is forged. As one consciously lives a meaningful life, the responsibility of maturity becomes inevitable. Either way, it is a conscious decision we have to make. We don't only become mature people because bad things happen to us, we choose to be one as a result. Conversely, we can be mature people even if good things keep on happening to us. But that's not really how life goes, does it? So now, how? How do we find meaning and grow up? 1) Believe That you are right and that you can be wrong. But one must believe in something at any given point. Believing is a skill. It must be learned, unlearned and honed. When you do learn it, use it wisely. When you unlearn it, admit it then hone it, so you become better at it the next time around. The first step to believing is honesty. Honestly ask yourself why you believe in something. You will be surprised at your own answers. Believing is both a mental and emotional journey. You cannot believe something you don't feel. You cannot believe something you don't understand. Same way that you cannot un-believe something you feel and understand. Ah, what a tedious business. Who wants a tedious life? Then again, whoever said it's easy. That is why you have to... 2) Be grounded It's tedious, that's why you have to be grounded. Digging deep mentally and emotionally is dangerous that you might end up getting stuck there somewhere without realizing it. Consciously being grounded helps you keep back on track, to go back to basics, to answer the most pressing and practical questions: It also makes us realize that it's not always about us. Being grounded is the first step to taking action, to movement, back to life. Life is, after all, movement. But movement requires force. Life decisions that are not grounded are chaotic movement. Life decisions that are grounded on shaky beliefs are dangerous. And how do you know? When you can't... 3) Open up The act of opening up takes courage. Insecure people can't open up because they are scared to be wrong. They are scared to be judged. Judgmental people think they got it right. Both groups of people have something in common: they don't know how to connect. And these people can't generally laugh at themselves. Mature people who find their life's meaning aren't scared. They decided to face the darkness within head on - went to hell and back. That's how they see that proverbial light within. The danger here is demanding the same thing from other people. You cannot expect other people to willingly open up as you do, but you cannot help not to judge them either. But here is when it becomes ever more pressing to consciously choose to grow up and find your own life's meaning. Because you will learn a good sense of... 4) Timing You will always get it wrong. When and what to say to a friend in distress? When to ask for help only to feel more vulnerable ? You always get it wrong both ways. When to take risks, how to manage them, when to let loose and when to stop. Life doesn't rain on us checklists and guidelines on when, how, where things should be done. What life always does, however, is to constantly rain on our parade. Whoever said life is perfect is probably dead by now. Death is the anathema of meaning. It is because of death why we need meaning. But most people get it wrong about one thing: they equate imperfection to death. Figuratively, of course. Life is not perfect, what a cliche. Still, many people don't get it. Still, the difference between the rest of the world and those mature people who find their life's meaning is that they... 5) Don't give a damn. |
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