Castles in the Air

It's funny how we act on situations where power is involved. We like to be up there so that we would belong to a social class where parties, gatherings and fake smiles are projected.

We like to be elected into office for we fancy the title Honorable... Yet, could we indeed tag honor to our names when we do things against the word itself? Who would honor us, the people whom we bought for around eighty pesos or a bar of soap? Could we demand being honored?

You won't linger on a lot of questions. Your teacher in English (who was knighted in England for his prose and poetry) told you to avoid a lot of questions in your copy since it would confuse a reader. But, you could not help yourself but to ask such questions for you might have a headache if you'll contain them all inside your mind...

But then again, you like these characters in your ecosystem. For whom would you perform some sort of a dichotomy if they're not around? You knew long before how they are disgusted with you. They would even curse your existence, and would be happy when some sort of a malady would strike you...

But you like to study their kind too. Mark Gordon could not have the dough without those criminals. Stephen King could not create characters that would give Kathy Bates (Misery), Jack Nicholson(The Shining) and Morgan Freeman (The Shawshank Redemption) critical acclaim for acting... Freud, Jung and other scientist of the mind could have been unheard of.

You are a demon too. You are guilty of a lot of things but you try to be aware of what are these so that you could co-exist. That could be different from plotting things that would lift you to a higher social strata where there are lots of people who struggle to say things which they don't even understand!

Was this the set of thoughts by Thoreau when he decided to stay in Walden Pond? Was that some kind of an escape from a society that was slowly eating his sanity? Was the decision a sort of defeat for him that he could not do anything to correct his observed societal ills? Are there cases of paranoia and messianic thoughts inside you due to such thoughts?

Ah, more questions... Your professor is turning in his grave right now...

Still, like those self-professed honorary persons, you have the right to think what you think. You have the right to believe what to believe and you could choose to be mad if your capacities to hold on to your sanity won't be enough when the voices you hear inside your head would be unbearable...

Anyway, everything would be excusable when people tag you INSANE.

If you have built castles in the air
Your work need not be lost; that is where they should be.
Now, put the foundations under them...

However mean your life is, meet it and live it;
Do not shun it and call it hard names...
- Henry David Thoreau (Walden)

(Photo: F.Cos)

(Postlude: I was struck with the question: What thoughts would I think when I live here? It was so quiet and " away". The place was so serene I was afraid to listen to stillness... But when I saw the eyes of a local, I could sense his contentment... At a distance my students were taking their shots for their photojournalism session...)

Towards the Abyss

There are times when you have to confront the inner you: your fears, anxieties and even the pain that persists inside your heart. This is the time when you have to extract yourself from the noise of the people around and consider the inner silence...

These turmoils are part of your existence, you knew this fact long before. But why is it that there are persons who could not take such darkness that they succumb to the eternal abyss of death? They would curtail the future blossoms of hope by resorting to the embrace of the rope on their necks, the searing whispers of the sharp razors on their wrists or the toxic promises of those pills...

We are all insane. This sentence alarmed you when you came over a book from an academic. According to him, our only difference from those mumblers is our ability to control our individual sanity... But when would be the yielding point of such control? What is the breaking point of our iron will so not to scream and shout obscenities to the man on the moon?

Exhale! That's what that soul diva told you via her songs. These emotions bottling up inside could be released by looking at the horizon. The vastness and immeasurable space must overwhelm you. The tight feeling inside your chest is but fleeting...There are arms around you, hold them...There are shoulders at reach, cry on them...There are people who love you, love them back...

Still, the process of grieving and hurting must be savored for you could not proceed to the next level without that stage. Emptying yourself is not possible if denial is there...this could lead to the aforementioned abysmal darkness of surrender...

Is there a room for existential angst these days? It seems that all moments are being distracted by electronic glitches and technological claws. We could not pause for a moment without our cellphones' ring tone cajoling us to read texts. We could not concentrate on our R&R since we need to plant something on the virtual farm. We don't need to communicate with real persons in the Internet cafe for we have virtual friends... We could also malfunction when there is a brownout... We feel sad, irritated and forget about the sky, the stars and even the poems written by Rossetti...

Yes, we need to slow down. We must not fail to examine ourselves for we might not know what level of insanity are we into these time...

"Because I could not stop for death
He kindly stopped for me
The carriage held but just ourselves
And immortality..."
- Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

(photo: f.cos)