Absurdus

I went to the mall one sunny-rainy-sunny afternoon (if you are from Baguio, you will definitely understand what I mean by this) with one goal in mind: PAY THE BILLS. I did not expect the number of people pressed along an unbelievably long line from the cashier. I seriously hate long lines and at that moment, I felt trapped. I wanted to go away but I can't. I have no choice but wait.  While standing and being on queue, I can't help but wonder and dwell inside the confines of my thoughts. This practically is my way of surviving this impatience building up.

Once more, I started looking at faces, movements and reactions of people with me at the line. I was looking at how they deal with boredom. Most of them were busy with their cell phones, some were taking selfies, others were checking their social media accounts and some talking with their companions as they fall in line.

Anyway, what tickles my attention is when people are already at the counter, I notice that everything becomes 'scripted'. Both the client and the cashier would have a 'SPIELED-CONVERSATION'. They know what to say, the amount they are to give and sometimes not a single word is spoken and yet, the transaction is done... It is fast and efficient indeed but it makes me wonder, is it effective?

I also noticed that some cashiers are somewhat irritated with those ‘newbies’ who don’t know the process of paying their bills. I pity them. I can't imagine how it feels to be in that kind of work. I mean, It's burdensome to work in a scenario where everything becomes mechanical and seemingly in a perfunctory state. It becomes alarming to everyone when a bump in the routine happens.

I guess sometimes, that’s also true with life. With too much automation and technology, we often lose sight of the important and natural things that we are supposed to appreciate (and do). There are moments when our lives are like a pseudo-term paper. The worth is too superficial and deep down the crevices of it, is another persons' thought bastardized and abused by our very minds. Or worse, the paper we did is nothing more than a paper with big copyright infringement written all over it. we feel as if we did our part in research through Highlighting, CTRL + C and CTRL + V.

At first we may feel contented and happy of the outcome but sooner or later, we crave for originality. It’s like an advice we take from our friends – at first it makes us feel good and so we try applying it but along the way, we realize it’s too theoretical and so we disregard it. Again, we fall to the exact hell hole we are trying so much to move away from and back to square one we go.

Or perhaps, there are also moments we get so tired of thinking and committing the same mistakes over and over again so we strictly adhere to people's advice. Eventually, we realize the obscure truth of relativity. What works for other people will not always have the same effect on us. With this disappointment, we tend to shift to auto-pilot. It’s the time when there’s too much familiarity and we no longer see the point of what we are doing. Worse, we do things because we are told to do so.

We get bored with life not because we don’t know what we want to do, but because we exactly know the things that we want to do. Life apparently becomes a series of continuous repetition, a continuous déjà vu of things that happened in the past, recurring in an altogether way in the present. And with all these repetitions, we become nauseated in life’s circular madness.

I remember the students I saw at Starbucks on my way up to the 3rd floor of the mall. I passed by a group of teenagers earlier and saw them enjoying an almost melted shake. I thought, they must have ordered it hours ago. The repetition of a students’ life where they wake up early in the morning, try to beat the traffic just to go to school, save their allowances for a week so they can sit for 5 hours at Starbucks on a Saturday (and for some so they can look cool.), Trying to score for chicks (or friends) – and after which, they go home, spend Sunday with their family (trying to gain favor from their parents so that their allowances will be increased and with hopes that the next time they go to Starbucks, they would have muffins alongside their Frappuccino. And yes, maybe next time, they do have dates.)

I am not different from them. My yesterdays are similar with my todays (and I doubt if there will be a significant difference with my tomorrows.) We all want to make a change and do something sensible in this world but the problem is, we don’t know how to do it.

I have been told many times that I dwell on unimportant matters and I am demented to think of small things that are not really worth thinking about. Only a disturbed person would contemplate on this thought, and far lesser one to actually see the sense of this over thinking (and yes, I think I do have dementia. wait... if I think that I have dementia, does that mean I am sane?)

Anyway, what's the point of it all?  

There really is no finality to this question (There is no irrevocability to life questions) since it is the mystery of life that keeps us going... 

HOWEVER, that won’t stop me in trying to overcome the ignorance and curiosity. 

But then it all boils down once more to the very question raised, what can I learn from this thought?

I really don't know. I guess I am simply justifying my madness and fixation with the small things and try to blow them up in ridiculous proportions. Is this maybe compensation to something that I can't have or I can never understand? I am stifling at details trying to understand everything (which I know is impossible) but why do I still try doing it? Is it because that’s who I am? (giving credit to my misplaced sense of gaining wisdom.) 

I poke on things that are not supposed to be poked, I stir settled facts and try to present them in a different light (which most of the time is the result of my downfall.) I fear that I am doomed for this misplaced passion.

Clarification is indeed a very hazy notion. I want to clarify things and in doing so, I cut concepts to the smallest details. Most often than not, I fail miserably in trying to simplify things. I admit, I do have the tendency in making these simple things far more complicated than they already are. I can’t help but contaminate every fudging thing I touch (literally and figuratively). I can no longer identify what is simple from the complicated. It’s like my universe is located elsewhere, and this dimension they call reality is simply a place I am visiting. In this reality – I cannot be anything else.

The problem I guess is that I am too delusional of the things I desperately want to see and attain in my fantasy world. I have shifted to my universe – something too theoretical and unattainable and yet I still try to pursue it. 

Immaculate Bliss is indeed insanity and this is what makes my self-inflicted pain more dangerous. I have failed to draw the line between the ideal and the possible due to an over inflated sense of egoism. Because of this, I am a ridiculous dreamer ... A dreamer who is still in his bed and have forgotten how to wake up... 

I do not have time to continue my thoughts since it was already my turn to pay. It was the shortest 20 minutes of my life and I need to be contented with that short time of being lost in my own thoughts complicating simple things out of foolishness.

Anyway, I always have the jeepney to continue dreaming...