Fragments of the Quiet Mind

It’s not the knife that breaks you. It’s the hand you thought would never hold one. I’ve had people talk behind my back. I’ve been insulted, excluded, underestimated. I’ve had strangers throw shade, coworkers act petty, random people online say stupid things. It stings for a second, but I forget about it by the next day. Because honestly, I expect that from people who don’t know me. Who have no investment in who I am. It doesn’t really get in. But what stays—the thing I carry—isn’t from enemies. It’s from people I trusted.  And it always catches me off guard. Every single time. Because you never expect it from them . The ones you let in. The ones who knew your soft spots. The ones who said, “I’m here, always.” The people who didn’t just know your story—they were in it. And then, somehow, they become the ones who hurt you in ways no stranger ever could. It’s never loud. It’s not some explosive betrayal with dramatic exits and slammed doors. No, it’s quieter than that. It’s the u...

There are stories we shouldn't have to write. Only silences we’re forced to translate. I read about a fire today.  A mother. Three children. A house that turned into a question no one knows how to answer. The most dangerous thing about depression is not how loud it screams, but how politely it knocks. It comes dressed like fatigue. Like waiting. Like trying one more time.  Until one day, it forgets to knock—and burns the door down instead. No one chooses to become unrecognizable. But pain does that. Not in sudden, cinematic moments—but in hours no one sees. When a woman looks in the mirror and no longer sees a mother, a daughter, a wife—just a thing that hurts too loudly to exist quietly. And what do we do? We wait. We say, “Let’s talk tomorrow.” We say, “Kaya mo ‘yan.” We say, “Magdasal ka.” And then we look away. We build systems that take reports but not responsibility. We believe in due process but not in urgency. We leave people at the edge and call it patie...

This is w here the light breaks just to drown. Hope isn’t some pretty thing. It’s a slow burn that keeps you awake at night, fooling you with a whisper, “Maybe this time.” It digs its claws in, even when everything screams you’re done. Hope’s the hook you can’t shake, even when it’s tearing you apart from the inside. Despair doesn’t wait politely. It crashes in like a storm, cold and sharp, and it doesn’t care if you’re ready or not. It doesn’t dance with hope—they fight. It’s brutal, ugly. Despair wants to swallow everything whole, leaves no room for mercy. There’s no peace between them. It’s a war you didn’t sign up for, but you live it every damn day—grasping for that fragile flicker, even as the darkness tightens around your throat. You hold hope like a lifeline but feel despair pulling the knot tighter. No balance. No graceful dance. Just a mess of broken promises and shattered dreams. Hope keeps you chasing ghosts; despair waits, patient, knowing it will win. And the worst p...

I remember the night I stopped resisting the dark—the moment I let the shadows fold me in like a cloak, heavier than grief and colder than loneliness. It wasn’t surrender. It was survival. When the world’s light scorches too bright for a soul already cracked, sometimes disappearing feels like the only refuge left. To be unseen is not mercy. It is exile without borders, a slow erasure traced in invisible ink. You become a ghost in your own life—there but forgotten, present but hollow, a whisper no one listens for. The ache isn’t in being alone, but in knowing you’re erased, erased with such precision that even memory begins to doubt you existed. Invisibility is not absence; it is a wound disguised as silence. There’s a brutal kind of violence in invisibility. It is not peace. It’s a wound kept open to the cold silence, a place where no one cares to search. Being unseen means you live on the edge of absence, your name forgotten like a language no one speaks anymore. And yet, from thi...

I’ve been thinking about how good I am at understanding people. Call me an airhead and proud, but really, I am good at it. Maybe too good. It’s like my brain is wired to read between the lines, catch the half-hidden sighs, the subtle shifts in tone. I can sense when someone’s tired before they say it, when a smile is just a mask, when words are doing damage beneath the surface. And I do it so naturally that I barely notice I’m doing it. I make excuses for people before anyone else even feels the sting.  They didn’t mean it.  They’re hurting.  It’s not personal.   I rehearse their backstories and soften their edges, as if by understanding them better, I can protect myself from being hurt. But here’s the thing I’m only now starting to admit to myself: while I’m fluent in everyone else’s pain, I’m utterly mute about my own. When I withdraw, I hear the word “cold.” When I set a boundary, it’s “too much.” When I flinch at a careless comment, I’m “overreacting.” No one ...

I found myself on the couch again, a cup of lukewarm coffee forgotten beside me, the familiar cartoon flickering on the screen like an old friend with secrets. The colors felt sharper now, the jokes less innocent and more like whispered truths I hadn’t noticed before. Episodes I once watched for simple laughs now unravelled themselves, each character’s struggle echoing parts of my own hidden scars—fear, hope, and the quiet ache of growing up. I realized that rewatching cartoons after therapy wasn’t about nostalgia. It was about decoding the language of my past self, translating childhood magic into adult meaning. What was once just silly hijinks became mirrors reflecting wounds I was only just beginning to heal. The heroes weren’t perfect; they were flawed, trying, failing, learning—the same way I had to. There’s a strange comfort in this. Like meeting a younger version of yourself, not to rescue, but to understand why you carried certain stories so tightly. The laughter feels bitter...

Words we never speak don’t vanish. They settle like dust in the corners of our minds, silent witnesses to what we dared not confront. The weight of what’s left unsaid is heavier than any shouted confession, because silence folds itself into the architecture of our being. Every pause, every withheld truth, becomes a shadow trailing our steps. We carry them like scars, invisible but raw—reminders of moments when fear or pride won. They echo louder in empty rooms, haunt the spaces where connection should have bloomed. It’s strange how silence isn’t peace. It’s a prison built from broken promises to ourselves. We tell ourselves it’s mercy, kindness, or strength—but mostly, it’s fear wrapped in politeness. The words could’ve freed us, but instead, they chain us to regret. And regret isn’t just memory. It’s a slow poison that colors the way we move, the way we love, the way we see ourselves. It’s the weight of words that became ghosts—always there, always watching, never quiet. Eventuall...

I remember walking home that night, keys in my pocket, but my mind somewhere else. Not on the usual routine, not on the streets or the streetlights — but on a hashtag I’d been seeing everywhere: #YesAllWomen. It caught me off guard. Because I’d never really stopped to think about what it was like to carry fear like a second skin. I’m a man. I don’t have to walk faster. I don’t have to rehearse rejection in my head. I don’t have to dodge the way a stranger’s glance can weigh heavy, or how a joke can sting deeper than it seems. But the stories poured out—millions of them—carried on the backs of women I know and don’t know, stories of exhaustion, of rage, of invisible wounds. Stories about the daily calculus of safety that no one should have to learn. I had thought I understood. But #YesAllWomen taught me how much I hadn’t. It’s easy to think violence is only in the news, or in the shadows—something far away, someone else’s problem. But it’s woven into the ordinary—the classrooms, t...

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...

Amidst the depths... When life has scraped the marrow of your being,   and hardships outnumber the stars in the night sky. Yet, in that abyss, there lies a flicker, a spark of resilience refusing to be extinguished. For it is in the darkest moments,   where the strength to endure is forged with every breath,   and the embers of hope persist against the odds. Amidst the depths,  a transformation takes hold,   where wounds become scars,  and vulnerability turns into fortitude. With each trial endured,  a fragment of wisdom is gained,   a lesson etched deep within the dark crevices of the soul. And as the weight of the world threatens to suffocate,   the spirit within rises,  defying the gravity of despair. For even amidst the depths,   there exists an unwavering belief,   t hat the human spirit is indomitable,   and from the depths,  it shall ascend,   t o pierce the night with a beacon of resilience.

It is said that the human brain is hard wired to remember the negativity and pains more than the positive memories. Like, we remember the mistakes we have committed in our exams more than the correct answers we've had. Simply putting it, the brain can't cut the crap because it remembers the crap more than the happy moments. I’ve been reading an article about neuroscience (and positivism) and a recent discovery suggests that a person with high cognitive capability can actually use his higher brain regions to control emotions and shut off (or subdue) the lower regions that make people remember traumatic instances that happened in their lives. In a way, it’s like rewiring the already hardwired brain to shift perspectives and focus by using In-tention and attention to overcome the negative bias.  Just imagine how powerful that brain must be. It would be really cool to have that kind of ability and have the skill and power to manipulate the thoughts you want to remember.  ...

4:30… An image of yesterday keeps recurring on this eternal present as I sit on this plank that looks like a bench in my park. It used to be our park, but now it’s just mine. In not so far away from where I sit, I see images of how we used to be. Images so clear and etched in my memories that the gravity of my thoughts and emotions forces it to appear in the present...  Very light drizzles of rain are pouring down but the good thing is that the soul tree is there to somewhat shade me from the frosty drizzles. Majestic tree, I thank thee eternally. I called in sick today, not that I am physically sick – but my brain and heart are crazily spiraling inside me. I am sick in my soul and it is no less better than any physical disease there is. Anyway, I already told my boss of my plan and it really doesn’t matter anymore if I still adhere to policies or not. Nothing matters anyway. While I was lost in my thoughts, Scars on Broadway started playing in my ipod… The classic guitar pluc...

TBR 2014 is perhaps the most memorable run I’ve had for some reasons:  First, it was my first official full marathon,  secondly, it’s practically chasing your DREAMS  and lastly, it was run specifically summarizing my life at that point.  Six months before the big race, my left foot started playing a painful tune. So, I thought, "Hey, let's have a doctor jam session!" Turns out, Doc told me to rest and quit my long-distance running because my ankle was hosting a uric acid party. Apparently, running would be like adding an extra beat to the pain playlist. Plus, I was given some dietary restrictions, like watching what I eat. Did I listen? Nah! I turned a deaf ear and went on to conquer not one, but two half marathons. And guess what? The day after those "fun"-runs, I transformed into a limping maestro. Every step felt like a cruel punishment. But you know what? I'm just a stubborn virtuoso who finds solace in the symphony of agony. On November 24, 2013, lif...

To suddenly come to the realization that I bring nothing but pain and hatred... Is this because of the belief that  happiness is possible in a seemingly futile case?  In this futile attempt in trying to reach for dreams, we seldom think of consequences, and technically, we end up killing people close to us. I guess people have  to weed out all remaining hope in this utterly meaningless condition. In as much as this kills us, staying away is the most sane option. It’s as if the entirety of our situation where people once believed in the achievement of goals and dreams is now turning into a realistic nightmare where they are weighed down by their very definition of universal concepts regarding justice, love, hope, bliss and others – but the saddest thing is, people don’t actually agree with an objective perspective of how things are. Most often than not,  concepts are defined through people's pompous and subjective understanding of everything. What's worse is the stu...

Nakaka… ...Panibago ...Lito ...bato… Palagi na lang bang ganito? Mga alaalang pilit bumabalik Tulad ng Tubig Umaagos ng tahimik Dumadaloy Tumatahak Pumapatak. Mga oras, araw, buwan binalot ng karimlan Ilaw sa kadiliman Muli bang masasaksihan? Panahong tinikman sikretong kasiyahan Ikaw at ako Tila Dugong dumadaloy Nagbibigay... ng buhay... ng Pag-asa... ng Sakit... Sa isat isa Mga araw at gabing naglalakad masayang magkasama may halong pangamba Nalulunod sa salita At mga pangakong Itinali sa mga tala. Ngayon Kailangang lunukin ang pagdurusa Nag iisa Hapdi ng Alaala Wasak na pusong di na maaayos pa. Pag gising sa umaga, Nangangamba Ako kaya'y Naaalala mo pa?