Fragments of the Quiet Mind

I woke up at 3 a.m. to go to the CR. Nothing dramatic. No nightmare. No existential crisis—just the bladder doing its biological thing. But on the way back, as I passed through the hallway, I noticed it again. That chair. The one in the corner. Beige. Woven arms. Slightly tilted, as if someone had just stood up and forgotten to fix it. Except no one ever sits there. It’s weird, right? How a chair—something built for sitting—can spend its whole life untouched. Like it was assigned a role and then silently exiled from it. That chair doesn’t serve a function anymore. It’s a fixture. A witness. A relic. And in the half-light of 3 a.m., it didn’t look lonely. It looked… patient. That’s when it hit me. What if it wasn’t just a chair? What if it was absorbing things? Regrets. Thoughts no one says out loud. That creeping, subtle unease you feel when your life is technically okay but still feels misaligned. Maybe that’s why no one sits there. Maybe that’s where those quiet feelings go to...

I walk through this world unshaken, Unafraid of the eyes that pass, For their gaze is ash in the storm— It neither shapes nor scatters me. I am not forged by applause, Nor do I bleed in their silence. My roots twist deep in blackened soil, Feeding on the marrow of my own darkness. I do not seek the light of people's approval, For I have tasted the abyss within— Cold, relentless, unbroken. And in this quiet certainty, No mirror need reflect me, For I am the shadow and the flame I simply... am

How can one even begin to grasp the true essence of Wittgenstein's words: "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world"? Here I am, amidst these silent witnesses of thought and ink, each volume a testament to the endless quest for understanding. Yet, as I stand here, I can't help but feel the weight of those very words pressing upon me, defining and confining my existence. Imagine this room as a labyrinth of language, its walls sculpted from every book I’ve ever read, every word I’ve ever spoken. Each turn, each passage within this maze is delineated by the constraints of my own expression. It’s as though my entire world is mapped out by the words I use to navigate it.  I find myself caught in a delicate dance with these walls, pushing against them, seeking to transcend their limits, only to realize that my every attempt is bound by the very language I rely on. Every insight I gain, every emotion I experience, seems to echo within this space, a reflection of...

  While cleaning out the garage, sifting through the debris of forgotten years, I found an old photograph tucked into a small box, yellowed at the edges, stubborn against the dust. I knew it before I even looked — the weight of it humming in my hands. A snapshot of a boy I barely recognize now: hair a little wild, a smile a little too sure, eyes chasing something just beyond the frame as if he believed the world would always wait for him. I wonder what he knew back then — or what he hadn't yet learned. How many choices still lay untouched before him, how many hearts would be gathered and dropped along the way, how many nights would stretch endlessly beneath a sky too wide to hold all the questions that would come. A boy smiling without knowing the cost of wonder. A boy chasing after futures that would later burn themselves down to ash. I am not haunted by what he hoped for — I am haunted by the purity of his not-knowing. Sometimes, I envy him — the unbroken faith he carried...

We were down to the last box. The walls were bare, echoing in a way they hadn’t since we moved in. There’s a strange silence to empty rooms — not peace, not absence, but something heavier. Like the air knows what’s no longer being said. I sat on the floor where the couch used to be. There was a faint imprint on the carpet — the ghost of comfort, or routine, or both. I traced it with my fingers like that would help me remember who I was when I still belonged here. You don’t realize how much of your identity gets stored in spaces — in chipped mugs and drawer handles, in hallway shadows and the way light used to fall at 4:17 p.m. And when you leave, it doesn’t all come with you. Some parts stay behind, hidden in the corners you forgot to clean. The real abyss isn’t the fear of what’s next. It’s this: The stillness between no longer and not yet. Where memory becomes unreliable, and the self starts to blur. Everyone talks about the grief of endings, but no one warns you about the sil...

When the sun stands directly overhead and everything should be clear, why does the world feel most unfamiliar? At noon, shadows don’t disappear—they condense. Curl under benches, nestle beneath feet, cling like quiet facts. We confuse their stillness for absence. But absence, too, has weight. It doesn’t speak, but it hums. I saw a man once try to outrun his shadow. He sprinted down a sunlit boulevard like maybe speed could erase shape. But the shadow held. Didn't chase. Didn’t stretch. Just clung. Like guilt. Or memory. When he stopped, it returned—spilled calmly outward, patient and precise. Noon shadows aren’t dramatic. They’re honest. They don’t try to impress you. They simply say: you exist, and you interrupt the light. The brightest light doesn’t erase us. It outlines us. At noon, clarity sharpens into distance. Shadows don’t touch. Buildings stand apart. Trees withdraw their reach. Each object keeps its own darkness. Aphorism: Light doesn’t always illuminate—it isolates. The ...

It starts with a sound—a footstep, a laugh, a name said too softly. Then silence. Then the echo. And it never really sounds like the original, does it? Slightly stretched, slightly delayed, slightly lonelier. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. How echoes work. How they’re just sound waves bouncing off surfaces—walls, mountains, empty rooms. Science says they’re reflections of energy. But it feels deeper than that. It feels like proof that the past never really leaves. Just changes shape. I read somewhere that sound never truly disappears; it just gets quieter, swallowed by time. That somewhere, in some imperceptible way, every word I’ve spoken is still rippling outward, endlessly diluted, endlessly persistent. That haunts me. Because if that’s true, then all the things I’ve said in anger, in longing, in love—they’re still out there, decaying in slow motion. Still traveling. Still arriving. Maybe that’s why certain places feel heavy even when they’re empty. Rooms hold mor...

Tutal normal na lang ata ang humilata pag weekend at mag surf, manood or magdownload sa phone no? isang sabado, habang nagsusurf I decided to download some android games ( babala: wag magdodownload ng pirata– suportahan natin ang mga mukhang perang mga kapitalistang manufacturers at game programmers sa over priced games nila ) so pumunta ako sa isang sikat na forum para sa mga hackers.  Pagkatapos nakakita ng games , shift to super download mode at salamat sa PLDT dahil PAGKABILIS BILIS ng connection nila 😑😑😑.  While waiting, nag browse at napadpad ako dun sa literati section. Dahil wala namang magawa, inaliw ang utak sa pagbabasa ng original pieces na gawa ng mga tao dun sa forum. May mga poems, short stories at talaga namang mawawala ka sa realidad habang binabasa yung mga gawa nila. Ang nakakatuwa pa ay yung mga comments ng mga netizens at narealize kong sa comment pa lang pala, maaari mo ng masilip ang part ng personality at kung paano ang takbo ng utak ng bawat for...

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 ...

I never really liked commuting although I enjoy travelling. It’s weird, but what I mean by this is that, I don’t like the feeling of being inside of something. Enclosed, bounded and not doing anything – the feeling of being static while the world around you is moving. It’s not the speed, it’s the feeling of being able to go somewhere or achieve something without you exerting any effort but still getting that which you want to get.  It’s how I feel when I'm commuting, I just sit there then the next thing you know, you are already at your destination. What’s more than this perverted idea is perhaps because of this certain irrational fear that’s building up inside me whenever I’m inside a car, jeep, taxi or a van.  The stillness of the air inside the vehicle creates the very ground for my paranoid thoughts to germinate and breed. I find enclosed spaces fettering, but no, it’s not claustrophobia (because I don’t have issues with elevators), it’s just that riding makes me feel ir...

Puff… Hoping Rising Breathing Delightful Wishful Blissful Gratifying Transforming Loving Tragedy Agony Teary Falling Parting Dying... Dying... Parting Falling Teary Agony Tragedy Loving Transforming Gratifying Breathing… Rising… Hoping… Blow…

Even the moon, in its pale brilliance, hangs distant in the night, a beacon for all those who have ever reached out and found only the cool, indifferent void between them. It watches silently as we spin, caught between the fragile hope that one day we might touch the unreachable and the bitter wisdom that our longing is bound to remain unfulfilled. There’s a strange kind of beauty in this distance, an unspoken harmony between the ache of yearning and the starkness of reality. And perhaps it is in this gap, between desire and the understanding that it may never be met, that the truest part of us is revealed. In this silence, we learn not only the shape of our dreams but the contours of our limitations. The moon, too, is a mirror of sorts—reflecting not what we have, but what we wish we could become, the version of ourselves that is somehow both close and unreachable. I think about vulnerability in these moments. How we stretch, reaching outward, hoping someone or something will bridg...

“They told me to follow my passion... I met myself.” Desire. It is the myth that drives us, the silent commander whispering in our ears, promising that with its pursuit, we will find ourselves, or at least, something greater than our current selves. In truth, it is a pilgrimage—the search not for glory, nor for destination, but for the inevitable unraveling of what we believe we desire. I have wandered these paths myself. The road is slick with promises, paved with assumptions, and lined with false guides who declare, “Follow your passion, and you will find fulfillment.” Yet, each step I took, every inch closer to what I thought would fulfill me, led me to a chasm where nothing could breathe. The pursuit of passion is a paradox, for what I once thought would liberate me only bound me tighter to the expectations I created. Desire, as I have learned, is a shapeshifter. It wears the masks of ambition, love, and ambition once more, seducing us with its promises of meaning, fulfillment, ...

“In the silence of the soul, we find not what is missing, but what has always been there.” — Unknown In the moments when faith in people wanes—fragile, like a thread unraveling in the wind—there is an unsettling realization that perhaps the world was never meant to be understood, only endured. Every disillusionment, every broken promise, leaves behind a taste of bitterness, a subtle erosion of trust. And yet, isn’t there a strange comfort found in this unraveling? The bitter, gnawing emptiness that follows seems less an end than a turning point, a shift toward something darker and deeper . The quiet that follows a loss of faith is not just absence; it is a kind of hunger . It is not silence for its own sake, but a silence that cradles the soul like a mother’s arms, soothing wounds that once bled too openly. We leave behind the noise , the promises of connection that only hollowed us out more. What was once a cacophony, demanding our attention, has been replaced by something more ...

Memory isn’t a photograph. It’s a murmur in a dark room. A smell, a shift in light, the sudden ache when a song you forgot you loved finds you again. It arrives uninvited, but familiar—like someone who used to know you well. I used to believe memory told the truth. But lately, I’m not so sure. The more I revisit the past, the more it changes. Not drastically, not all at once—but like a shoreline slowly pulled into new shapes by the tide. One day you notice the sand isn't where it used to be. There are scenes I return to that feel real but never happened. A conversation with someone who never said the right thing, but in my memory, they do. A touch that never landed, yet still leaves warmth. I don’t think that’s lying. I think that’s longing, trying to make sense of itself. Sometimes, I miss the version of me that existed in those imagined moments. The me who was loved better, understood more clearly. And maybe that’s what memory really is: not a record, but a refuge. A softer w...

Behind the mask lies a magnanimous battle between the self and the illusory projection one portrays. Usually, the self gives in, conditioned to believe in the phantasmal personality projected. The projection then crosses the boundaries of fantasy and reality, making the illusion appear’ real’ and when the self suddenly realizes he is being eaten up and decides to remove the mask, it’s already adhered to his face, it’s a part of him – the mask becomes him. The pain is excruciating.  In removing the mask it’s inevitable that the face will also be affected Surgical scalpels, blades and knives will be used… and upon doing the task, You are left faceless, No personality, No identity, oblivious of who you are, you become - Nothing…

It’s not a person I miss. It’s the deafening silence that swallowed all the chaos—the void left when the noise finally quit pretending it mattered. That hollow pause where the echoes of all the fights, laughs, and empty promises died slow and cruel. Funny how the silence wasn’t comfort. It was a black hole sucking up what little was left of hope. Not absence, but annihilation. I don’t miss the noise. I fear the silence—that pitiless quiet that forces you to meet yourself, no distractions allowed. Because sometimes, missing isn’t about who’s gone. It’s about what never really existed.