Fragments of the Quiet Mind

No one warns you that choosing a toothbrush can feel like choosing a version of yourself. Aisle 7. Fluorescent lights. Hundreds of bristles staring back at you. Soft, medium, charcoal-infused, biodegradable. Every choice is a quiet manifesto: who you’ve been, who you’re becoming, who you quietly promised to be after your last breakdown. You don’t say this aloud, of course. You just stand there, pretending to read labels, but really you’re grieving something. Maybe time. We outgrow people the same way we outgrow objects — silently, then all at once. The old brush sits in your bathroom like a relic—worn out, bent at the neck, holding morning rituals and midnight guilt. Throwing it away feels cruel. Not because it’s useful, but because it knew you when you weren’t. It was there the morning after you said too much. The night you didn’t say enough. It held silence between your teeth. Even the most ordinary objects become archives when you’re paying attention. And this new one—this seem...

Monday mornings feel like waking up in the aftermath of something unspeakable. The alarm goes off—not like a gentle chime, but more like a siren dragging you out of some place deeper than sleep. You don’t wake up so much as surface, disoriented, the bed a kind of shipwreck you were clinging to all night. The sheets are twisted like torn sails. Your body, waterlogged with dreams and dread, doesn't move. Not yet. It’s not just fatigue. There’s a kind of existential drag, as if the very structure of the week is built to resist your being. You stare at the ceiling like it might offer a reason to rise. None comes. The world beyond the blanket is already demanding something from you—your time, your answers, your alignment with a schedule you didn’t invent but are somehow bound to. The idea that Monday is a “fresh start” feels like a corporate myth. Nothing about it is fresh. What you feel is continuity—the heavy kind. Everything you didn’t finish last week is still there, waiting, as if...

It’s cold. September’s chill bites at my skin, a crisp reminder of change. As I settle into my chair, cradling my coffee cup like a small flame in my palms, warmth seeps into my fingers. I pause. It’s quiet. That early morning kind of quiet where the world still clings to slumber, and the air feels like an unwritten page, ready for the first strokes of thought. I flip open Simone de Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity , a book that demands a dance, not just a read. And there it is, a line that lands softly but hits hard: “The notion of ambiguity must not be confused with that of absurdity.” I pause again, letting the words hang in the air, heavy with implication. I know absurdity. Absurdity is waking at 3 a.m., eyes fixed on the ceiling, grappling with the vast question of existence. It’s standing at a funeral, lost in the ache of grief, or looking out over a teeming city and feeling the weight of how small we really are. Absurdity is that breathless silence that follows a profound ques...

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 everyt...

When we finally accept the fact that our lives are fleeting – everything ends… As nihilistic as it may sound, we are all subjects to the hour glass of time. The whole ordeal may seem unbearable and “un-romantic” but having an illusion of eternity provides us with nothing more than pseudo-ideals. Eternity isn’t a mechanical process quantified by time. Time isn’t the ticking of the clock, not the hour, nor the days but time is a living present.   We have to do away with our romantic designs of eternity – We want affirmation that our partners will love us forever, we want confirmation from people that everything’s going to be fine, we want to live with our loved ones for all eternity… But all of these are deceptions we tell ourselves for we cannot carry the burden of being trapped in time. Accept the idea that we are temporal beings. Our chronological limitation is what makes sense in this seemingly absurd world, but this limitation doesn’t mean that we cannot immort...

What if the universe is just one giant thought — like that embarrassing moment you had years ago that suddenly crashes back into your mind at 3 AM, uninvited and vivid, leaving you desperate to forget? It’s a cosmic thought, sprawling yet fragile, teetering on the edge of memory and oblivion. Maybe existence itself is a fleeting spark in a mind so vast, overwhelmed by the sheer weight of its own reflection. The stars, those ancient witnesses, might just be neurons firing in an endless dream, a pattern trying to make sense of its own chaos. Black holes? Not devouring matter but swallowing meaning — the universe’s own way of erasing parts of itself it can’t bear to face. We think we live in a place of permanence, but what if permanence is just the illusion of a thought clinging to its last thread? Time stretches like a fading echo, and reality flickers like a candle in a drafty room, trying to hold on to a story that’s slipping away. In this vast forgetfulness, we’re both the unive...

I ran this morning. Gray sky, nothing special. Weather that doesn’t force you to feel anything. Usually, I wander without purpose. Today, something stopped me. Time is a trap. We pretend it’s limited, but it isn’t. So we rush through it—steps, choices, life—until it all blurs. The small things disappear. The smell of earth, the quiet air. Gone. A song got stuck in my head. “I’ll stop the world and melt with you.” Unwanted. Persistent. How did it get in? Maybe fate. Maybe nothing. I don’t believe in destiny, but here I was—stuck in the sound, stuck in a loop. The world paused inside me. I didn’t move. The day went on. Hands trembled—not from connection, but from the weight of existing. Scars on skin—maps of past failures. Nothing clean, nothing clear. I touched a cheek. No softness. Smoke? Habit? Grip loosened—like sanity slipping. Wanting to let go, but afraid of the emptiness that follows. I kissed a cheek. A stupid move. A laugh broke the silence. A glitch. A mistake. Coffee a...

It was supposed to be a simple Sunday—a light, breezy day where life just flows, no plans, no structure. You know the type: the kind where spontaneity is your guide, nudging you in whichever direction the wind blows. After a satisfying run in the rain—my body alive with the rhythm of the droplets—I found myself wandering toward the cathedral. Not because I had to, but because something deep within me craved that connection to something larger than myself. Spiritual, not religious—that’s the badge I wear. I just wanted to pray. Just wanted to whisper my thoughts into the vastness, to reach out to that elusive spirit that weaves through everything, binding us all. But when I arrived, I was greeted by a tarp—a drab banner of rules pretending to be divine law. "Dress codes," it proclaimed, like some sartorial decree. “No shorts, no sleeveless tops,” it warned, as if God had suddenly developed a taste for high fashion. Seriously? Instead of communion with the divine, I turned on m...

Alright, listen up—my muse is in full-on concupiscent mode lately, which is a fancy way of saying she won’t let my brain rest. So here I am, trying to capture the experience without smashing it to bits under the weight of words. If you came here expecting a highbrow academic paper... nope. You can bail now. This ain’t that. Picture me: balcony, laptop, coffee, and my muse—lusty as ever—deciding now is the perfect time to show up. Since writing without smokes is like trying to dance without music, I grabbed my umbrella and braved a rainstorm on steroids. Oh, and did I mention I live half a kilometer from civilization? Cows, horses, crickets—mountain life perks. Welcome to the wild. Made it to the store and here’s Manang with the bad news: “No Marlboro, kuya. Nobody buys those anymore.” I blinked. “Champion lang po.” Champion? I thought I was gearing up for a symphony, not a fight with a cigarette. But whatever, I bought it. Back on my throne (balcony chair), I lit my Champion… Puf...

lipad demonyong baboy...  Hatawin pa ng insulto ang kasalukuyan...  Sisid banidosang butiki.aliwin ang sarili sa mga kolorete upang mapagtakpan ang kamangmangan.  Napakababaw ng mundo, walang kwentang pananaw.  Nakaangat ka man baboy ka pa rin, nakulayan ka man butiki ka pa rin.

I'm really not into waiting... in fact, i detest it. At this moment, i am waiting for the rain to stop (because i'm too vain to bring my umbrella when i left the house this morning. I kinda thought that my my prophetic prowess can control the weather.) As I gaze at unfamiliar faces, it's kinda silly how they attempt to run through the rain when in fact, it's futile to brave this kind of weather. People rushing to go home, all too busy with their matters-of-consequences...  Pitying these people as i try to Justify the Cartesian idea that these people are engrossed with nothing but metaphysical illusions of reality. Do their matters of consequences really matter? The heck...agawid ak ketdin.