Fragments of the Quiet Mind

I found myself talking to the walls during the lockdown. Not in the way people think—no dramatic outbursts or madness—but in that quiet, desperate way you mutter to empty spaces when the idea of being seen has faded. There’s a loneliness that’s not cinematic. No rain, no music. Just the stale company of your own silence, broken only by the endless ping of emails and notifications. But those messages weren’t from people. They were from apps, brands, employers. “You’re essential,” they said, while handing me crumbs and expecting gratitude. The virus separated us physically, sure. But the system? The system kept us isolated long after the virus faded, turning our loneliness into a subscription model. I noticed how every notification wasn’t about connection, but consumption. How grief became a product you could journal through, exhaustion a badge of honor, and self-care a market segment. Capitalism didn’t care if I was broken; it only cared that I kept buying the illusion of healing. I ...

I used to believe in karma—naïve, I know. That moral ledger balancing debts and credits, handing out justice on time. Turns out, karma’s broken. Or maybe it never existed, just a myth we told ourselves to sleep at night. The worst people don’t just slip through the cracks. They built the cracks. They thrive in the ruins, stacking money on the bones of those who trusted them. It’s not a game anymore. It’s a machine—greedy, ruthless, and programmed to reward the cruelest operators. The bad don’t just get ahead—they consume whole worlds, leaving scraps for the rest. And here we are, pretending fairness is around the corner while the cold truth settles in: the world belongs to those who take without guilt, who use without mercy. Kindness is weakness. Empathy, a liability. The soul is currency no one wants to buy. Sometimes I wonder if the good are just ghosts in this system—forgotten, erased, slowly fading into silence while the vultures feast. No grand justice is coming. No reckonin...

There’s a specific kind of shame I feel when I’m not doing anything. Not just laziness. Not procrastination. Something quieter. Something more existential. Like I’m betraying the invisible boss I carry in my chest. The other day, I laid on my back for an hour. Just... laid there. No productivity podcast humming in the background. No stretching to justify it as “restorative.” I watched the ceiling peel in silence and felt like I was doing something wrong. Like the world was moving without me and I was failing to keep up. The guilt didn’t come from outside—it was internal, insidious. A ghost of every achievement post I’ve ever scrolled through. Because the grind doesn’t clock out. Even when you do. We talk about rest like it’s a reward. A treat after obedience. But I’m starting to think real rest—the unearned kind—is dangerous. At least in a world like this. A world that romanticizes burnout with cute mugs that say “Rise & Grind” and calendars that look more like confessionals...

It’s funny how the deepest questions—the ones that keep you up at night—suddenly have a price. Not in pesos for a coffee or a jeepney ride, but in recurring monthly fees. I wasn’t just lost in life anymore. I was lost in the marketplace of self-help apps and online courses, all promising to fix the parts of me that feel like they’re falling apart. “Subscribe now for ₱399 a month,” one app blared, offering me peace of mind I never thought I needed to buy. My existential crisis had become a product, and I was the customer. Every month, I’d pay just to get a little closer to understanding myself—except the closer I got, the more it felt like I was leasing my own identity. I downloaded reminders to breathe, to journal, to meditate—each with a small fee attached. It’s like the more I tried to fix myself, the more I realized I was trapped in a cycle of consumption disguised as healing. My suffering wasn’t mine anymore; it belonged to the algorithms and marketing teams that turned my confus...