On one cold evening
As another year passes
Here’s to the future.
Twenty-o-nine sucked
The next year should be better;
If not, vendetta.
The Year-Ender (In Haiku Form)
2
Yearly Archives: 2009
A Stream on Cruelty
Generally we call cruelty that which we do not have the heart to endure, while that which we endure easily, which is ordinary to us, does not seem cruel. Thus what we call cruelty is always that of others, and not being able to refrain from cruelty we deny it as soon as it is ours. Such weaknesses suppress nothing but make it a difficult task for anyone who seeks in these byways the hidden movement of the human heart.
- Georges Bataille, The Cruel Practice of Art (1949)
Daisuki Monogatari
There’s a movie in somebody’s mind, played over and over until the lines are committed to memory. The plot gets tightened in all the right places as it is run through the brain. Everyone knows the beginning of the tale, and no one knows – perhaps, no one cares – when and how it will end. What matters in the story is the long, sustained exchanges of glances, stares, and words.
The stutters and the stammers articulate the feeling of affection; walking side by side, arm in arm, with hands clasped together can provide the image. It could be, for all intents and purposes, frozen. The tableau of two lovers perhaps kept still in a starry night, or walking off into the sunset. No one cares much for the scenery, or the camera angles, but always – certainly almost always – the focus is on the couple. How they talk, how they spend time with each other, how they get to know each other in the course of that lifetime.
Love. It is the long, extended chronicle. It is fiction, yet too many times, the movie in the mind can be ever so true.
2009 In Experiments
It was not a fun year for people who lost their homes, for the number of people who died, and the degrees of tragedy can still be quite difficult to cope with. The varying degrees of sucktitude can be summed up in a very long blog entry that summarizes feelings of hate, rage, and all around anger for the year that was.
Yet in retrospect, it wasn’t all that bad. At the risk of sounding incredibly selfish, I think 2009 has been a great year for me.
Merry Christmas
December 24, 2009
Zola Café, Baguio City
Beers and cigarettes. Nothing new here, except that it’s been a long time since I’ve been back home. Nothing really ever changes.
There are times that I’m tempted to think that Christmas is just another day, but definitely not today. Not when your whole world changes, all your perspective changes, and you have a lot of things – an eternity – to look forward to. I don’t want to put all my eggs in one basket, but I guess I can put a nest egg on at least one. I guess there never really is a risk in that when you figure that everything really does fall into place.
It’s no ordinary day, or an ordinary Christmas day, at least for me. Life gives me a bit more meaning. Fate gives me an extra card on the table to play where it will always be a good hand. It will happen, so she says, and I trust that it will. What else can I do but enjoy the moment? Definitely other things else, but for now, I’d rather keep them unwritten.
Happiness is a wonderful miracle in a world full of sadness and despair. Merry Christmas, everyone!
By the Bay
I took a walk along the seawall by the Mall of Asia, and looked far out into the water. Despite the rank smell of trash and seawater, the bay looked serene. The big mall and all its cheery Christmas lights cast reflections on the water; much as I hate malls and open bodies of water, the sight was quite… well, cute.
It was quite weird to be walking there on your own, when every couple was on a date, and every family was out strolling. Kids were launching these glowstick-propellers, and caught them as they slowly descended into the ground. Couples were cozy together on the park benches, and perhaps the other side of the mall was filled with hurried and harried parents buying groceries for noche buena. I was alone.
Go figure, this has always been the case for me for the most part.
I took a puff of my cigarette and looked out into the throng of people strolling, walking, seated, whatever they were doing. A small concert was just around the corner.
Then, a short rainshower. No one ran to the mall. No one took cover. Everyone just enjoyed the night. The children still launched the glowsticks, the couples were still on the bench, the people were still walking along the park.
Here’s to Christmas, I whispered, and walked back to the mall to the tune of piped-in Christmas carols. I guess that I found out what Christmas really means.
Pyroclast
The lamps keep swaying, fully unaware:
is our light lying?
Is night the only reality
that has endured through thousands of years?
- Rainer Maria Rilke, Night