Fragments of the Quiet Mind

“Some songs ask to be felt, not performed. He chose the wrong answer.” I wasn’t even planning to watch. I was just flipping channels, letting boredom pick for me, when The Clash came on — that singing competition where emotions get belted louder than the lyrics. I stayed. Not because I follow the show (I don’t), but because I heard someone say he was going to sing Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls. That song doesn’t just play — it haunts . It’s stitched into the background of moments I don’t talk about often. Quiet heartbreaks. Long drives. Things left unsaid. The contestant, apparently, was a crowd favorite. Maybe it was his backstory, or his journey, or the way the camera loved him. I had no idea who he was. I didn’t carry his narrative. All I had was the song. And then he sang it. And I wished he hadn’t. He didn’t cover Iris . He performed over it — louder, shinier, emptier. What was once a song that bled quietly now sounded like it was trying to prove something. He turned a confess...

There’s a certain heaviness that settles over us, an invisible weight that we carry without knowing exactly how it’s come to rest upon our shoulders. It’s not the weight of physical things—of tasks to be done, of deadlines to be met—but something deeper. A quiet pressure, the weight of constant input, endless streams of noise that flood the mind. We are connected, yet distant, linked to a world of voices that all seem to say the same thing, and yet none of them quite reach us. We are told, over and over, that meaning is something we must chase, that it lies just beyond the horizon of our daily lives. But in the rush of things, in the swirling chaos of notifications and demands, meaning becomes a fleeting shadow, something we can almost grasp but never quite hold. Every day, we search—through scrolling screens, through fleeting conversations, through the next achievement or the next purchase—hoping to find something that anchors us, something that gives shape to the restless, shifting f...

Dense clouds of thought scatter across my mind,  a maze of jumbled words and fleeting fragments.  I try to catch them,  to shape them,  but they slip through like grains of sand.  In this chaos, there’s rhythm—a pulse that speaks of buried ideas and quiet aspirations, waiting to rise above the noise. Life feels like this sometimes— a storm of intentions,  emotions, and  scattered plans.  Yet, within the disarray,  patterns emerge,  connections form, and  meaning is born.  The scattered letters remind me of how, in the mess of daily life, beauty often hides in the most unexpected places. Perhaps the key isn’t control but surrender— to let the randomness dance,  to embrace the unpredictable flow,  and to trust that the pieces will align when the time is right.  The fragments may never form a perfect picture, but maybe, just maybe, they’ll tell a story worth hearing.

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 used to believe the world had a place carved out for me—a bright, undeniable purpose, a calling whispered through the chaos. A dream job that would illuminate the darkest corridors of doubt. But the truth I found was more elusive, more quiet. There is a shame in not having a dream, not because ambition is shameful, but because the silence of absence is deafening. It’s a soft, persistent ache—a question that gnaws beneath the surface when the crowd chants “Find your passion!” as if it were a command rather than a gift. I carry this shame not as a scar, but as a shadow—one that stretches longer than the daylight. It’s the shame of drifting, of not belonging to some grand narrative of destiny. Of waking every morning to a life that feels like a rehearsal without a script. And yet, I realize: maybe this absence is not a void, but a space. A quiet room where I learn what it means to exist without ceremony. This quiet room teaches me something radical—there is dignity in the ordinary,...

I used to think the universe was out to get me. Not in a dramatic, lightning-strikes-twice kind of way, but in the quiet, petty way it forgets to answer your prayers and lets your socks vanish in the dryer. You know, the small stuff that feels personal even though it obviously isn’t. Eventually, I stopped waiting for signs. Stopped thinking the traffic light was red because I needed to slow down metaphorically. Maybe it was just red. Maybe the universe wasn’t teaching me anything—it just was. Motionless in its vastness, humming its own tune, not even aware I existed. And weirdly, that helped. There’s a strange relief in realizing no one’s scripting your life behind the curtain. That fate isn’t micromanaging your heartbreaks or curating your triumphs like some cosmic film editor. Things just… happen. Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes you don’t. And it’s not personal. It never was. But that doesn’t mean it’s meaningless. You can still assign meaning. Stitch it into the fabric of or...

1.  Hindi ang pagsisimba kada Linggo o ang pagdarasal kada oras ang basehan ng pagiging mabuting tao kundi kung papaano ang aplikasyon ng pananalig at pananampalataya ng tao sa kanyang pamumuhay. Ang pananalig ay di nakikita kung gaano kalaki ang loyalty mo sa religion mo kundi kung gaano kalalim ang connection mo sa pinaniniwalaan mo . Hindi lamang sa simbahan maaring makita ang Maykapal kundi ito’y makikita rin sa atin kalooban. Minsan kailangan lang nating manahimik saglit at makinig, eventually, mararamdaman din natin yung connection. 2. " The universe is not made up of atoms, it is made up of tiny stories " ika nga ni Joseph Gordon-Levitt  sa kanyang children's book na the Tiny book of Tiny Stories, sabayan pa natin ng "The world is made up of facts, not of things" na sinabi ng pilosopong si Wittgenstein sa kanyang Tractatus. Napaka radikal na sabihing ang pisikal na anyo ng mundo ay walang katotohanan, di naman yan ang punto. Maganda ding pagisipan na s...

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...

As I ran in this cold early morning with the wind flowing through my hair, the mist and the sweat mixing together in a health hazardous unity (pneumonia). The sun isn’t up yet and I can still see the dark sky filled with stars, I am left dumbfounded with a realization as I was staring at the universe above me. My dreams are so ‘ostentatious’ and ‘grand’, or so I thought but those dreams mean everything to me… perhaps, I look at things based on my subjective egocentric perspective and that it’s actually not me staring at the universe, but the universe enveloping my consciousness, pulling me closer to it’s majestic grandeur and vast oceanic mystery. It’s more logical to say that the universe is the one staring at me. I am just a tiny and insignificant creature whose dreams aren't as magnificent as I thought they were. I mean, I don’t matter to the universe, who am I to be noticed by it? I feel like an ant… struggling to be noticed, struggling to exist. or worse, i am an ...

In the realm of the egoist's mind, A tale unfolds, both cruel and unkind. He sought to make all his own domain, To see the world as but an extension of his vain. In his imagination, he turned all to self, No taste for others, no joy to delve. The capacity for good, now lost in the haze, His ego consumed him in a selfish blaze. But as death claimed him, the final call, No longer tethered to this earthly sprawl. He got his wish, to be solely confined, To lie in the self, to explore what he'd find. And what he found there, a bleak abyss, A Hell of his own making, an eternal hiss. No connections remained, no touch with the real, In his self-made prison, he began to feel. No longer could he revel in the joys of the other, No longer could he share, love, or discover. The egoist's plight, a tragic descent, To be trapped forever in his self-content. For life's true beauty lies in the shared, In the capacity to love, to be aware. But he, in his ego, severed those ties, And now i...

As I strolled through the sunlit streets of our neighborhood, feeling the gentle warmth of the morning,  a familiar figure came into view—the "Kuya" with his Taho cart. His presence, though seemingly modest, represented a ri tual woven into the fabric of daily life, transforming the ordinary into something profoundly reflective.   "Manong" has been a comforting part of the neighborhood’s daily rhythm  which made this supposed morning walk into a moment of quiet reflection. The Taho he sold was more than just a treat. It was a small, sweet indulgence that combined silken tofu with rich caramel syrup, offering a fleeting but genuine comfort. The steam rising from each cup seemed to promise a moment of warmth and simplicity amidst the busy pace of life.   What struck me most was the deeper role of  "Manong"  as he engaged in this daily ritual. His smile, warm and genuine, was not just a courteous gesture but a bridge connecting him to the lives of those ...

Do you hear the echoes, reverberating through the corridors of your mind? Memories, elusive and unforgiving, wrap their tendrils around your thoughts, playing a relentless game of hide and seek. Forgetting, they say, is the logical response to life's tragic joke. But perhaps, just perhaps, you spoke too soon. In the depths of your melancholic streaks, something stirred within you. Terrifying existential thoughts danced with ideas, casting a flickering light upon the shadows of your understanding. It's as if, in some peculiar way, you have been granted a glimpse of enlightenment, a fragment of comprehension in the vast tapestry of existence. Memories themselves do not inflict pain; it is our perception of them that does. The labels we attach—embarrassing, painful, blissful—those determine their weight. See, some souls cringe in utter humiliation at a person who stumbles down the stairs, while others doesn’t give a rat’s-ass and merely shrug on it. It is the lens ...

The empty realization regarding a universe so vast handling all possible combinations and permutations of synchronistic events is too profound for my tiny mind. Reading a book about reincarnation and hope makes me a complete sissy.  I mean, hope should be simple, right? After the storm there’s a new dawn, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, it’s not how many times you fall down but what matters is the fact that you stand up every time you fall down and all those Facebook and internet memes about hope. It brings hope to people in search of it. (it should give hope or presumably, die hoping.) Then here comes reincarnation, where your soul based on your past karma will be thrown in another space, another time – a theory where, in a grand scheme of things, order will be put in place as your soul will be raped and ripped somewhere, it can be in the past, present or future. (well technically as a subject, you will always be in the present, but you get my point. Since I...

What’s the worth of utterly accepting life in all its’ pains and glories through complete surrender and having a full  Dionystic attitude? Does Nietzsche's ‘ amor-fati ’ justify the absence of regret and resentment?  In the first place, how should I begin with this rambling?  The answer perhaps, is through another question about regret and a pseudo-philosophical treatment of this. Such is life – too easy to say, yet indescribable in many aspects. It’s just difficult to understand it, additionally, it’s difficult to limit life into something that just randomly happens. We are thinkers and being such, we clamor for reasons behind everything. There SHOULD be a reason behind life and there must ABSOLUTELY BE A REASON for everything that’s happening. (without thinking we're just crazy to assume that there is a magnanimous ecclesiastical destiny that governs life) Life is maybe a very simple concept but was (and is) subjected to multiple definitions. I am even wond...

I have bliss book. It’s a small notebook where I bring and write my epiphanic thoughts that out of nowhere reveals itself to me. At work, while exercising, inside the bathroom – anywhere and I mean, ANYwhere. I’m glad I brought it in my belt bag when I had my run this morning. While resting at this familiar bench, in a familiar park and this familiar feeling, I started jotting down. I had tiny useless ideas running through my head while I was running and I tried to remember every detail so I can write those down. As I sat on the wooden plank, I had this ecstatic feeling that somewhat liberated me from my dark plight. It’s different when I’m writing down my thoughts onto blank pages and when I’m encoding it on my blog. There’s no fear that it will be psycho-analyzed and judged by people on the internet. Writing on my small notebook is very redemptive, and it feels amazing. I never thought i'd be back to writing again. I never even imagine that i will be writing ...

We spend so much of our lives waiting for the big moments, the grand gestures, the dramatic shifts that promise to mark us with significance. But what if the truth is tucked away in the moments that slip by unnoticed? The small ones. The quiet ones. Like the way the sunlight hits the window just before dusk, painting the room with that strange golden glow. Or the way a friend’s laugh sounds after they’ve told a joke, something familiar but still warming. You might not remember these moments, not by name, but something in you changes every time they pass. It’s easy to think that life’s meaning lies in the milestones—the promotions, the graduations, the weddings, the great victories. But what about the moments before all that? The pauses, the silences, the ones where you were simply there , breathing, watching, existing. The times when nothing “big” happened but you felt everything. We often overlook them, these small moments. We think they don’t count. But they do. Because somewhere ...

Do you believe in soul mates? I don’t. It’s absurd, isn’t it? The idea that there’s someone out there who completes us, who fits the missing piece we feel we’re missing. Maybe it’s just human nature. We all want to connect, don’t we? We crave understanding, the sense that someone else gets us, sees us for who we really are. We search for it in a thousand different ways. Some people create gods and deities to give meaning to their lives. Others wrestle with cognitive dissonance, clinging to beliefs that make the absurdities of existence feel manageable. And then, there are those who disconnect completely, hoping that silence will speak louder than words ever could—hoping someone will hear their unspoken plea. I run. That’s my escape. I don’t just run away from things, I run to something. In each stride, I feel a connection—a thread tying me to something bigger than myself. The hard ground beneath my feet, the wind slicing through the air, the scent of pine trees as I breathe deepl...