Mad World
Book in Hand: Many Waters by Madeleine L'Engle
I swear, if I receive another Friendster Update about Blogs I will throw something really hard at the computer monitor. Why can't they just live and let live? It's one of the blinks Friendster probably never saw... they're creating a goodly number of people who are actually hating the very sight of their company name in their emails. Mad-vertising.
Half of the people who are on my "friendster network" are people from high school, sometimes elementary pa, na I barely know anyway. I could never turn anyone down, and if they can still recall my name, they probably voted for me in the student council and the least i could do is to accept them as friends ( see how simple my philosophy in life is). My point is, I don't care if someone I met twice ten years ago has updated their blog. I'm just not that kind of person. The networking kinda sort. So please stop sending me "so-and-so has updated their friendster blogs". But who's listening?
Speaking of madness...
I walk the filthy streets of Intramuros to get to work. I don't have the protection of an encapsulated car to separate me from the world. The people I meet are often down on their luck, depressed and/or oppressed. It's part of the job. I never realized how close to the brink of madness the human populace is. But my vantage point provides me a very good view of it now.
The other day, I've had very close encounters with the mad kind, twice. Yesterday, once.
Last Wednesday, I was on my way home when I heard this man shouting at the top of his voice asking someone to kill him. "Kaya ko kayo, patayin nyo na ako, pag oras ko na, oras na!" You get the idea. I think he may be in trouble with some underground gang. He was swinging his arms widely and when he happened to glance at me, I saw the wild look in his eyes. Possible high -- that guy. Hoping to escape something but summoning up false bravado to not completely lose it. He was barely there though.
Not five minutes later, upon boarding the bus a man sat down next to me. He was reeking of that slightly acidic smell of workman's sweat. Immediately, I noticed he was speaking too loudly to the conductor. Then he sang loudly along with the music. Then he started cursing non-stop from Lawton all the way to Kasunduan in Commonwealth Avenue. He often stopped his tirade to talk to himself. Did you see that monologue part Gollum had in Lord of the Rings : Two Towers?
"Babatukan ko siya pag baba ko..."
"E di, batukan mo nga. Pero baka ambagin ka."
"Hindi subukan niya."
"Wag na lang baka hindi ka pa makauwi ng buhay."
"Okay lang yun. Demn! Syeet! Sanafabitch!"
As in. It was like that.
I was dead terrified he'd go even more insane with him sitting right next to me. But the bus was full and I didn't want to stand up just to get away from him. More than that, there's also this unsettling kind of sadness that grounded me right where I was.
This is the world, huh?
Half insane, half hopeless. Despair cannot touch insanity. So more people are choosing to go crazy than completely fall into anguish. It was crazy to sit right next to a crazy man. But I just suddenly didn't care. I told myself I can allow to have that insanity into my life because ----- I was there. The life I live is inescapable for the moment. I have to learn to stand firmer and just take it as it is. Prepare for the consequences.
I could have left it at that. Or rather, God could have let me off at that --- 90% jaded about life. He could've let something awful solidify in the core of my soul which believes hope is gone and insanity, or possibly death, is the only way out. But no -- we have a trickster God who wants us to believe the worst so we could understand and be amazed about what is best.
Yesterday, i met a mad man again. He was possibly around 50 or 60 years old. Oh, yeah, he was old. He's the principal of a school in the outskirts of tanauan, batangas. It's his job to manage a school of 1,700 students every single day of his life. When we talked with him about a possible computer education program partnership his eyes watered as if he was going to start crying. He listened carefully to our pitch, and afterwards he launched into a passionate raving about the school.
A poor school, but we manage through bayanihan. We can sustain the program because we want to. Pag gusto, kakayanin lahat.
Then because gently prodded, he began to tell us a little about his life. How he worked through the ranks, how he married a woman from the area and moved his life to wherever she is for the sake of love, how proud he is of the school he works in. And you can see in his eyes, every word rang true. His eyes were watering because he does feel like crying everytime anyone converses with him about his work, his life. He loves it that much. To the point of madness.
It can be like that as well.
We can love this world, no matter how hard life has become. We can be grateful of our existence because it allows us to be with the people we love and to do the work we love to do. It gives us a chance to feel, to sense, to change things.
It's just another kind of madness, but one I prefer over the anguish-driven kind.
Love is madness which I can live with.
I swear, if I receive another Friendster Update about Blogs I will throw something really hard at the computer monitor. Why can't they just live and let live? It's one of the blinks Friendster probably never saw... they're creating a goodly number of people who are actually hating the very sight of their company name in their emails. Mad-vertising.
Half of the people who are on my "friendster network" are people from high school, sometimes elementary pa, na I barely know anyway. I could never turn anyone down, and if they can still recall my name, they probably voted for me in the student council and the least i could do is to accept them as friends ( see how simple my philosophy in life is). My point is, I don't care if someone I met twice ten years ago has updated their blog. I'm just not that kind of person. The networking kinda sort. So please stop sending me "so-and-so has updated their friendster blogs". But who's listening?
Speaking of madness...
I walk the filthy streets of Intramuros to get to work. I don't have the protection of an encapsulated car to separate me from the world. The people I meet are often down on their luck, depressed and/or oppressed. It's part of the job. I never realized how close to the brink of madness the human populace is. But my vantage point provides me a very good view of it now.
The other day, I've had very close encounters with the mad kind, twice. Yesterday, once.
Last Wednesday, I was on my way home when I heard this man shouting at the top of his voice asking someone to kill him. "Kaya ko kayo, patayin nyo na ako, pag oras ko na, oras na!" You get the idea. I think he may be in trouble with some underground gang. He was swinging his arms widely and when he happened to glance at me, I saw the wild look in his eyes. Possible high -- that guy. Hoping to escape something but summoning up false bravado to not completely lose it. He was barely there though.
Not five minutes later, upon boarding the bus a man sat down next to me. He was reeking of that slightly acidic smell of workman's sweat. Immediately, I noticed he was speaking too loudly to the conductor. Then he sang loudly along with the music. Then he started cursing non-stop from Lawton all the way to Kasunduan in Commonwealth Avenue. He often stopped his tirade to talk to himself. Did you see that monologue part Gollum had in Lord of the Rings : Two Towers?
"Babatukan ko siya pag baba ko..."
"E di, batukan mo nga. Pero baka ambagin ka."
"Hindi subukan niya."
"Wag na lang baka hindi ka pa makauwi ng buhay."
"Okay lang yun. Demn! Syeet! Sanafabitch!"
As in. It was like that.
I was dead terrified he'd go even more insane with him sitting right next to me. But the bus was full and I didn't want to stand up just to get away from him. More than that, there's also this unsettling kind of sadness that grounded me right where I was.
This is the world, huh?
Half insane, half hopeless. Despair cannot touch insanity. So more people are choosing to go crazy than completely fall into anguish. It was crazy to sit right next to a crazy man. But I just suddenly didn't care. I told myself I can allow to have that insanity into my life because ----- I was there. The life I live is inescapable for the moment. I have to learn to stand firmer and just take it as it is. Prepare for the consequences.
I could have left it at that. Or rather, God could have let me off at that --- 90% jaded about life. He could've let something awful solidify in the core of my soul which believes hope is gone and insanity, or possibly death, is the only way out. But no -- we have a trickster God who wants us to believe the worst so we could understand and be amazed about what is best.
Yesterday, i met a mad man again. He was possibly around 50 or 60 years old. Oh, yeah, he was old. He's the principal of a school in the outskirts of tanauan, batangas. It's his job to manage a school of 1,700 students every single day of his life. When we talked with him about a possible computer education program partnership his eyes watered as if he was going to start crying. He listened carefully to our pitch, and afterwards he launched into a passionate raving about the school.
A poor school, but we manage through bayanihan. We can sustain the program because we want to. Pag gusto, kakayanin lahat.
Then because gently prodded, he began to tell us a little about his life. How he worked through the ranks, how he married a woman from the area and moved his life to wherever she is for the sake of love, how proud he is of the school he works in. And you can see in his eyes, every word rang true. His eyes were watering because he does feel like crying everytime anyone converses with him about his work, his life. He loves it that much. To the point of madness.
It can be like that as well.
We can love this world, no matter how hard life has become. We can be grateful of our existence because it allows us to be with the people we love and to do the work we love to do. It gives us a chance to feel, to sense, to change things.
It's just another kind of madness, but one I prefer over the anguish-driven kind.
Love is madness which I can live with.
hmmm...you actually turn off the email update or something from friendster so you won't get any...hope that would work.
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