Fragments of the Quiet Mind

It hit me in the middle of a Tuesday, eating reheated sinigang beside a cracked window and a dying plant I no longer had the guilt to water. The sun had that lazy 3PM slant, and for once, I didn’t feel the need to conquer anything. No new goal. No side hustle. No "next big thing." Just soup, soft silence, and the soft rot of my once-capitalized ambition. Once upon a time, I was starving for more—more recognition, more meaning, more numbers that moved up. I used to equate stillness with failure. Rest with regression. I wore burnout like a badge. I treated exhaustion like proof of my importance. They don’t tell you that ambition, unchecked, is just a prettier name for self-erasure. You wake up one day and realize you’ve been chasing a version of yourself that exists only in PowerPoint slides and LinkedIn bios. The cult of “potential” doesn’t believe in sabbath. It demands worship. Metrics. Motion. A productivity app for your soul. But what if I told you the most rebelli...

There is a dangerous comfort in the allure of light—an intoxicating promise that the path is clearer, the way easier, if only we stay within its warmth. But light can deceive.  The light we chase often conceals more than it reveals, casting shadows where the truth lies hidden, muted beneath the glow. We are taught to seek clarity, to avoid the darkness, as if the absence of light is inherently perilous. Yet, is it not in the shadows, in the absence of external illumination, that we come to see ourselves most clearly? To shatter the lamps is not to reject light, but to abandon the reliance on artificiality, on the comfort of being told what is good, what is right, and what is true.  The pursuit of truth often lies in the untamed, in the darkness that offers space for reflection and revelation. It is in this darkened space that we are not shielded by comforting assumptions but confronted with the rawness of existence.  There, in the absence of blinding lights, we have no c...

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...