Fragments of the Quiet Mind

Ang karakter ng isang tao ay di nabubuo in an instant, kundi ito’y nakakamit sa pamamagitan ng mahabang proseso at mas mahaba habang pasensya.  Sa pagbuo ng isang matatag na karakter, kalakip nito ang kawalan, heartaches na nakakapang-emo, masasakit na aral at syempre sandamakmak na kamalian.  Mangilan ngilan lamang ang mga taong kilala kong may malakas na karakter dahil di lahat ay nagnanais makaramdam ng sakit. Ang pinakamagandang istorya ay isinilang mula sa  hindi maipintang dusa at ang pinaka appreciated na pagkapanalo ay yung mga winning moments mo na iniluwal mula sa pasakit. Kanina habang nagkakape, meron akong isang former student na isa na ding instructor ngayon (yehey so proud of her!). Nakiupo sya sa pwesto ko at sabing: “Sir, ibang iba kasi karakter mo kapag nagtuturo ka. Gusto kong gayahin estilo mo.” Bigla kong namiss ang pagtuturo. Mag iisang taon na din pala akong atrophic and I am struggling to make sense of this fudging world.  Habang nag iisip, ...

The golden melting sun froze in his spot.  He is filled with shock and distress and other anthropomorphic emotions one can think of as the beautiful moon hastily passed by his territory. Overwhelmed by the freakish-synchronicity-twist-of-a-plan from the universe (or perhaps the lack of it.), the sun gave out a hopeless painful sigh and allowed the clouds to cover him. In that place of cloudy smokes and caffeinated thoughts, the sun was filled once again with chaos deep inside him. Together with the erratic molecular movement of his own fire and the amorphous swirling of emotions deep within him, chaos... chaos... and more chaos breeds.  But.... deep within that absurdity and chaos, in that short glimpse of the moon, a spark of calmness was lit. He stared at the moon and peace was felt as he reminisced how they both followed the same orbit in the past. He saw the moon smiled as she walked without looking where he was. The sun shed a tear, not because he wasn’t noticed, but be...

There are people who reappear in your life like forgotten melodies—uninvited, unexpected, but strangely familiar, as if time had simply paused between verses. I received a message from someone I once quietly loved. Not in the way songs describe love, but in the way certain names make you look up without knowing why. We were young. We had no language for what we felt, only small gestures—saving coins to share cheap candy, sitting on a bench that didn’t belong to us but somehow did. When she left, I was too young to understand what leaving truly meant. But it was my first rehearsal with absence, and like all firsts, it carved itself into me without consent. It wasn’t the kind of heartbreak that made you weep into pillows—it was quieter than that. Like a door left open on a windy day. Years passed. I thought the memory had dulled until her message reopened it like a wound that never healed properly, just scabbed with time. She said she was back in town. Wanted to have coffee. Wanted t...

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.  ...

Wishing to be alone at times so as to understand the self does not necessarily mean that we are shutting ourselves off from people. Sometimes, it’s just that we don’t want others to be sucked in our depression or perhaps sometimes, we just owe time to ourselves and to provide us an opportunity to understand a small part of our personalities. We move away from people for their and our sake. In doing so, not many would understand it. Some would even think of us as pompous bastards which usually result to haters. Indeed, some people hate what they don’t understand. Even though I want to say that we are not responsible for what people think of us (or what people say about us), the truth of the matter is that; it’s still painful to hear words and exaggerated stories people make to pull others down.  Life is like this. No matter how you struggle to move forward, there will always be people who would prove you otherwise. It doesn’t only happen in schools or in work, but it happens in alm...

I was watching David Blaine’s magic ‘trick’ (it was a trick where he calls two people in a deep relationship to participate) and he would test their connection with one another by making one person close his eyes and he would touch the shoulder of his partner. The abysmal thing with this is that the person who was closing his eyes would also feel the touch even though during the entire ‘trick’, David never went near the person who had his eyes closed (what more touch him). It was really a mind boggling trick as it made me think about it hours passed after watching it. As a skeptic of magic and the supernatural, I found myself grappling with the how and why of this phenomenon. Could it be that David orchestrated a behind-the-scenes dialogue with the participants to create an illusion of authenticity? As much as my rational mind seeks to debunk the spectacle as mere illusion, a subtle part of me yearns to believe in the magic of possibility. The presence of high-profile figures like Will...

The desire to be alone at times in order to understand oneself does not necessarily mean that one is shutting oneself off from others. Sometimes, it is simply because one does not want others to be affected by their own depression, or because they need time to understand a certain aspect of their personality. Moving away from others is done for both our and their sake. Unfortunately, not many people would understand this, and some may even view it as pompousness, leading to negative comments and hate. Although we are not responsible for what others think of us, it can still be painful to hear the negative words and stories that people use to bring others down. Life is like this. No matter how you struggle to move forward, there will always be people who would prove you otherwise. It doesn’t only happen in schools or in work, but it happens in almost every conceivable place and time. As critics, these people would wait for you to do something wrong or say something stupid – which is the...