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Is there a vending machine for tender pleasures like wasting time in bed on Sunday mornings next to someone you’re very fond of? Let me know. My pocket is filled to bursting with coins.

Self-voyeurism

Have you ever had that disconcerting feeling of being totally detached from your very own life and you’re reduced into powerless self-voyeurism? Like you’re observing your very own proceeding in confusion while your conciousness frantically waves from a distant trying to catch up with your empty shell?

In the past few weeks, that kind of blah-ness is quite a pervasive condition on me and no matter how I struggle for clarity or directional shift, I can’t help but get this perpetual twilight zone smog. Names, faces, events and emotions are reduced into one incoherent blur and many times over I get the absurd disposition that my life is one protracted stretch of horrific and surreal scenes strung together.

Despite the abundance of daily stories to write about, that creative spark seems to have taken a holiday. Missing. Out of reach. Elsuive. I should console myself of the thought that life, although not that spectacular in excessive ways, have been quite permitting. There’s nothing much to whine about and for that I’m thankful.

Omnipresent as ever is that pang of sadness. It didn’t help me that I have a few striking episodes of total astonishment over complete strangers who remind me of that one absolute deficit that’s somewhat within grasp but remains perversely unreachable, dodging me, rolling with teasing laughter. Being swaggering and self-absorbed.

I woke up in the middle of the night and lethargy descended like a malicious cloud threatening a predictable downpour. I remain very still, lying in bed, wide-eyed, bated-breathed, naked, waiting for something to hit me.

Cataclysm

Maybe the cosmos is sending cryptic signals. And I, being appallingly irresponsible, ignore the encrypted messages and choose to take the statements as they are: basically amusing pseudophilosophies slash individualistic mantras that spark amusement, and on certain neurotic cases, deep thought. I’m not talking about earth-shaking utopian suppositions. I’m talking about T-shirt inscriptions that I see being worn by people while wandering aimlessly in the mall. “Real Men Don’t Need Viagra”, “Porn Star On Training”, “I Wish These Were Brains!” worn by a big-bosomed woman, “You Say I’m A Bitch Like It’s A Bad Thing”, “The Only Bush I Trust Is My Own”, I saw this shirt worn by a Vegas stripper in protest of President Bush’s policies. And the cringe-a-holic, perverse in a mad hilarious way shirt I saw: “I (Heart) Mahal!”

Again, I ask

Five questions still dangle in my head like infuriating specks of cheerful-beyond-belief clouds that just won’t give me a break.

1. What’s the point of all this?
2. Why struggle?
3. Why can’t I be a bonafide asshole and just let it be that way?
4. Why can’t I bear the thought of being directly involved in inflicting hurt?
5. Why am I so bad at being too close for comfort?

As a human capable of this thing called thought process, the more I try to rationalize with shallow pseudophilosophies or recycled self-empowering tepid attempt at self-consolations, the more I flaggelate myself by mentally kicking my own shins.

It’s possible that I am hitching the rational train in full throttle. Am I a human train wreck?

If everything is so close, almost within my grasp, then how do I explain the little slivers of restraint and self-doubt that prevent me from being so happy? Maybe this is one of those moments where I am actually feeling depressed but too engrossed with petty distractions called academics and living to actually take heed and do something about it. Maybe after all the avoidance, I just want to slump on the couch next to a fond breathing thing which will prove my delusions wrong.

Or maybe a quick fix of Oreo McFlurry will dispel this supposed decline. Maybe I am feeling this to remind myself that I am very much capable of hurt despite the mounting jadedness. Maybe it’s just me. Which, with great possibility, is definitely all there is.

Pencil full of lead

You must be a very sad man, the message goes. It shows in your writings.

I am very well acquainted with how it is being sad, I reply. But writing dons its own wings and charts its own flights. I have nothing to do with its cheerless expression. All I remember is I was looking at words assembling themselves into something I am quite familiar with. Eventually they make sense. I know of joy as I know its reverse. They are constant visitors who seldom arrive simultaneously. They choreograph their stopovers with mutual respect: the other won’t knock while the other is in the middle of an enraptured conversation with the owner of the house. They both know it is rude to barge in, to disrupt. While the other dwells in the room, the other is patiently waiting in the outskirts of the fields, counting heartbeats until his time is due.

When it’s proper, appears in full glory, brimming with a smile. That’s how it is, I conclude, don’t let the words confuse or mislead you. Don’t assume too much. Nor attempt to understand anything too soon. Like you, I await the coming and going, alternating the anticipation, as steady as the rhythm of night and day.

No wonder we are sad.

Elevators are a source of amusement to me. It’s the very definition of proximity and distance being tossed in a warped blender. You are crammed to the point of your privates being scrunched to someone else’s body parts and yet you carry on like those body parts do not exist. Maybe Leo Buscaglia is right. It would be fun to freak people out when getting in the lift and brightly announce, “Hello! My name is Ken and I want to know you!” They’d be so agitated and scramble out of the doggone box screaming, “There’s a psycho in there and he wants to know me!” The thought of someone knowing us well threatens us. We yearn for closeness and opt for detachment. To reword another brilliant writer: it’s like giving a handshake while wishing our arms are way longer. No wonder we are sad.

A sense of reality

Something in me stirred.

After a short-lived but intense burst of astonishment, I become all-too-aware like all the switches in the world flicked on, unfastening bolts of currents, and, swiftly, everything is illuminated. Like all the lanterns of the universe burned in precisely choreographed combustion. It was exhilarating. Saddening, too.

I was watching a DVD of Closer, a movie which, for the longest time, I have postponed seeing. It is so many things to different people. Cynics and jaded people (AMEN!) would hail it a piracy of their private lives. Romantics would view it as one complex but fascinating puzzle. Realists would declare it an honest mirror. Absurdists will proclaim it as a study of stark reality. Every acclamation about this multifaceted composite of modern relationships is well-earned. The movie never loses its rhythmical series: brisk, sly, funny, bleak, cruel, honest, blunt, unapologetic and above all, mystifying. This is the kind of rabid writing that makes people like me insecure. It never revels on profundity but you feel the looming sadness, the yearnings, the melancholy and the imminent gloom hovering above the characters’ heads. You root for them, you want them to be happy, but like you, they are as confused, fumbling around, making the most of what they know. They are no longer confined in celluloid fiction. They inhale the same air, their breathing, rising and falling to the slow rhythms of your pulse. You are one with them in confusion and desperation.

One brief scene flashed that floored me: Anna hugging herself in the partially lighted attic. I gaped. Mike Nichols has just plagiarized my life.

The scene wasn’t protracted but the sensation it enthused in me disengaged a twinge of recognition, making the fleeting moment seem too personal. It hit me like a a sudden downpour of anvils plummeting towards my head. In that attic I see myself balled up. Staring vacuously, consumed by meaningless thoughts, kissed by possessive silence.

It is in this attic where I can similarly breathe freely, where I am free of any form of judgment except my own. It is where I go to avoid, to think, to reflect, to wallow, to be lost. It is where I can be the real me, stripped to the core, with nothing to apologize or make amends for. It is where I deteriorate into a beast, or get reacquainted with vulnerability. It is where everything liquefies, with nothing to hinder my thoughts but the sound of my own well-paced shallow breathing. It is where I am emancipated from weariness of choices or grope for meaning. Or, at times, it is where all notions of significance are rendered unnecessary.

Everyone has a perfect private spot. Some people have secluded hills, beaten old paths, hollow trees, consoling meadows, beachfront cottages, an unblinking gaze, or the warmth of an embrace to get lost into. I have an attic in my head. To other souls it’s dank and inhospitable. It’s reeking of depression, guilt and indelible melancholy. It’s not the most flawless space in the world.

It’s not a home — a home is what you temporarily occupy. It is a room of sadness that you inhabit all the time. You may be sidetracked and laugh for a moment, but you’ll know when it’s time to flee unto the room of discontent, look at yourself, and see incandescent sadness smiling back.

You return the courtesy with absolute comprehension. You wistfully smile back knowing you’re truly home.

Plight

Talks about moral issues can be unsettling for many. Religion, politics, sexuality and gender bending are some of the topics that are best tackled with a ten-foot pole. They are also listed among the no-nos for social conversations. Try brushing them up and you’re damned for the rest of your waking hours. The said subjects are relatively touchy that by mere remark of any of them one gets both cheers and jeers, flak and encouragement, praise and censure with no one came out unscathed.

And veer from them, I shall. But not altogether and not so fast.

Allow me then to ‘temper’ one moral subject by dissecting nationalism with outmost objectivity (I can feel the rush of my neurons shooting out conflicting views each one wanting to be heard… talk about objectivity and chaotic views at once.)

We are again at the threshold of changing the course of our history. With the national elections at hand, it has never been timely to talk about nationalism than now. Not the stuff we have heard on political rallies, seen on talk shows, and read in the editorials. But the nationalism which translates into sense and cents, to bread and butter or simply lack of them.

Personally, I submit that the best barometer for the economy is the queue of calls at the US embassy, snaking warm bodies at the Foreign Affairs and folder-tucked hopefuls at the overseas placement agencies.  The leftists, rightists and centrists have all the labels for those joining the exodus. Some label them as ‘cowards’ for turning their backs on armed struggle for change; ‘opportunists’ who know where to butter their bread and butter them good; ‘leeches’ who leave their prey dry or after they have their fill; ‘traitors’ for feeding whatever remains to the vultures in the political arena. But if there’s anything balmy and ironic at the same time about name calling, it’s how the government calling them the ‘present day heroes’ if only for sustaining economy yet subject them to indignities, if you know what I mean.

Nationalism today has indeed gone a long way — down the pits. Commercialism has invaded his sacred turf, dressed him up with Versace, sprayed with Chanel, shoed him with Valentino and put up for sale to the highest bidder. Nationalism has long been prostituted, mangled and disfigured right in our very homeland by our very own people long before Human Rights advocates put up their placards on the streets quetching for justice. Nationalism has become chic that even the authorities are having a hard time recognizing him.

In the face of clear and present danger when the boat is sinking and life is on the line, wouldn’t flight be more prudent than fight?

Bottom line: expediency. Expediency in the light of survival. In this regard, nationalism together with its moral ramification takes a back seat hoping it will not get lost in translation.

More strings of invidia

First, a lie: it is quite incongruent of me to occupy a certain fondness. I am neither invincible nor reckless. I have chosen to remain in that comfortable point between blue and grey, suspended in contentment and forestalling, equally impartial to bliss and ache. Acknowledging a lie — its intangible presence, molding it into reckless declarative — doesn’t necessarily make it sincere either. Yet I am diffidently celebrating it — in spite of myself, in spite of my many misgivings, in spite of my inability to properly honor its subtlety, its nobility. It is imprudent to argue with enduring patience and admirable diligence.

I fear I am depleted of genuine excuses.

The more I rationalize the less logical I become. Nonetheless there is one thing I hold true: it never was, and definitely not, an intrusion; it calmly revels in dignified liberty, tolerant, steadfast and downright respectable in its self-defeating magnetism. The manifestations sprout from overlooked corners, edging progressively, like a sprout in search of much-needed  illumination. All at once everything dissolves into cliche bouillabaisse. Even the most maudlin lyrics of schmaltzy songs make unqualified sense: seamless, translucent, blinding in its probabilities. Also incredibly threatening the very spirit of self-preservation.

From a subjective vantage point I can sum up the significant options: heed its  beckoning or bolt the floodgates of consent.

Either choice seals a complete decline and fall. Icarus, in a sudden burst of recognition, realized its cruel wisdom whereupon plummeted in complete rapture. While I sit by the turnpike, a spectator to the great plunge, consumed with amazement, dread, compassion, shame.

And envy.

Chug, chug, chug!

I am a raving maniac, I know. Which kind of conceals the fact that I have really nothing to say or account for the past few days except another series of drunkenness that I deserve a permanent stamp on the forehead that screams: Alcoholic Synonymous! Let us survey the assorted poison I’ve been gargling: weng-weng, check. The ever staple beer, check. Jägermeister, check. Now that’s premature fogeyness for you. And that’s how I spent much of the past few days. This week, I’d hit the pool, swim the toxins off until my lungs burst, go into a perverse vegan diet, jog around the flat. No wait, let me check that: wedge the iPod into my ears, yank the volume all the way up, hold the iPod arm length and dance like a hormonally crazed rhino charging around randomly in nothing but white briefs. Someone kick me in the face. Or in my shins.

Puddles

He negotiates the orphaned parking lot in casual, oblivious strides. It just rained that afternoon and the mood is somehow mild — flanked by gloom and temperance. A faint howl of diminishing wind echoes across skyscrapers and dampness brushes his cheeks. He is neither cold nor warm, he is sure of it, which is both a surprise and vaguely familiar. That kind of sensation. The grass still shivers from the downpour and he notices the gleam of ecstasy from every blade. They seem to fluctuate in elated sways — perhaps in celebration of deliverance from the curious rage of sweltering summer. He notices things like that. No matter how unmindful he appears, casually walking in an abandoned parking lot, he never fails to notice. There were puddles. Seven, to be exact. He counts puddles as a matter of habit. There is no significant reason or neuroses to justify, he just counts puddles because there seems to be a perverted jot into this bizarre habit. He dares not disturb any of these miniature lakes — for he is gripped with alternating waves of awe, wonder and respect for nature’s ability to reinvent itself: puddles are miniature lagoons — a miracle, really — that chose to build a provisional home in a fragment of space and transience of time. This, he understands. He is then gushed with indulgence and a smile races across his mind. Moreover, he knows that puddles are celestial mirrors. They contain secrets revealed in a flash, soon to be soaked into secrecy by the hunger of loam and sand. So he is grateful to notice these common marvels. For these puddles make him remember those eyes. Little ponds he can drown in.

Ephemeral

May 23, 2009
07:23 P.M.

Dear James J. Crist,

It seems to me that whenever I stumble into something really amazing, the minute I touch it, it dissolves into oblivion. Nothing but a faint aftertaste is left. Testament of how ephemeral things and people really are.

Boorishly,
The Struggling Dweeb

P.S.
I think I might have really forgotten how it feels to pine for affection. What must I do?

Too many demons, too few angels

1. For someone who has not read the book, I find Angels and Demons quite entertaining, what with its breakneck speed and rich production values. This then forces me to grab the book and read it, for I heard there were a couple of subplots which were overlooked by the director. Nevertheless, this latest Dan Brown-inspired religious action thriller (three genres you don’t usually see together) is nail-biting and entertaining altogether.

2. It’s a harmless entertainment which hardly affects the genius and mystery of Christianity — less bashing of the church.

3. Where Angels and Demons succeeds is in its sequences of violence, disturbing images, awesome backdrop and celestial speed. With much of the story set in Vatican City, we get to see the intricate architecture of the churches, which massively promotes Rome. Meanwhile, the acting and some of the effects come so fast that if you take a pee, you may miss a murder.

4. Anyone can fly a helicopter.

5. Ewan McGregor’s performance here is probably one of the highlights in this film. He brilliantly chews up every scene he is in as Camerlengo Patrick McKenna who is temporarily manning the Papal office while the cardinals are in the conclave.

6. The church was not portrayed as anti-science at all. In fact, Galileo would have been really happy about the establishment of the Vatican Observatory.

7. There were a couple of heavy philosophical exchanges along the way, including the big one, “Do you believe in God?” posed by the Camerlengo to Langdon. The professor quickly replies that the existence of God is beyond his mind to determine. “And your heart?” asks the priest. “My heart is not worthy.” Ron Howard does an even-handed job of balancing the scale.

8. The room which holds the antimatter was totally unguarded, making it easy for the assassin to break in by stealing someone’s eyeball to get past the retinal scanner.

9. Vittoria Vetra’s purposes are: (1) to explain that the battery will indeed run down, (2) to request her father’s secret journals from Geneva, although they were never actually read, and (3) to run along everywhere with Tom Hanks, to bore us with urgent conversations.

10. That’s a lame way of suicide. Come on, you could do better than that.

Before I go into that

I am having a hard time starting to state my views on the topic that has generated an ever widening gap of opinions on the relevance or should it be the insignificance of Dan Brown’s fictional account of the life of Jesus and the atrocious side of it in his Da Vinci Code.

I don’t want to go to the extreme of backlashing Dan Brown or his book for being a threat to people’s faith or for causing such hype and religious pandemonium that characterized our present day and gradually heightened on the account of the Da Vinci Code movie. I haven’t seen the movie yet but I have read the book, viewed several documentaries and was able to browse through some apologetics written on it. And I must say, it was rather interesting.

The controversy has never caught me offguard. The reality that Brown has never misrepresented his book as fact should not have alarmed the religious community. Second, true that some archaic documents helped Brown weave his story on a very contentious plot, the Gospel of Judas was never considered a canon scripture and is fictitious in itself, a product of second century Gnosticism. That and many other Gnostic writings can never outweigh the overwhelming evidence of thousand manuscripts that support the canon scripture. So personally, I’m still wondering why such fuss.

On the other hand, I am not altogether discrediting Brown and his literary work; in fact it has shed some light on important historical issues that ever shrouded the Gnostics. The Da Vinci Code is a perfect archetype of the Gnostic thought. The Gnostics are a socio-religious group that thrives on self-made realities embedded in their future archives. From the Greek ‘gnosis’ which means knowledge, they claim to possess this ’secret knowledge’ that sets them apart from the uninitiated having received greater light that made them superior than the inept. They are the forerunner of the Knights Templar, the Rosicrucian and many other clandestine societies including the present day Freemasonry. A scarlet thread runs though these organizations along with their vows of secrecy — the ‘light’ that they all claim to possess.

Another quite interesting point is the allusion to the lost grail. A subject that has been hinted in Gnostic texts, chronicled in legendary journey by the Templars and ritualized by the Masons and add to that the secret society mentioned by Brown membered by prominent persons like Da Vinci and others.

So what have we got here? I believe, that more than the publicity the Da Vinci Code is getting and the festive appeal of its religious facade is the ‘light’ — the knowledge that all other modern day Gnostics share, the neo-pagans and the start of the Great Initiation. The wait is not that long, it was a tedious effort, subtle and shrewdly planned not just for years but for centuries. The Da Vinci Code could be that catalyst the age-old Gnosticism waits — the answer that lies beyond the light.

Sore

Instead of one, I have two toothbrushes occupying the opposite holes in the toothbrush canister like a quarreling couple giving each other a cold silent treatment. And what’s more odd is the fact that I only use the one with blue-tipped bristles, so far, absolutely rendering the other (magenta-bristled) a disgraceful virgin in the gum-rubbing department.

I have no personal distaste or aversion towards purplish hues. It just doesn’t strike me on purely aesthetic level, that purple color. I figure the two brushes were packaged as “his and hers” for the price of one. Since I am a bonafide el cheapo who is too goshdarn lazy to rummage around the grocery for the dental hygiene rack containing toothbrushes packed in singles, I allowed myself to be lured by the promise of saving and discount — virtues that have no perceptible effect whatsoever to people like me who are full-blown morons in budgeting and financial proficiency. One of my heedlessly adopted principle is best summed by credito ergo sum. I spend therefore I am. Misers can just go and stuff their prudent throats with bland oatmeal for life while I munch on Frito Lays and other junk.

So there. That pretty much explains why I end up — and now stuck — with two toothbrushes occupying the opposite holes of the canister. The canister was designed to hold four toothbrushes. It’s made of translucent plastic in vivid blue — a striking color balancing the tightrope between vermilion and cyan — that appeals to design-savvy freaks like me.

“Like a swatch from a Van Gogh canvass!” I’d describe to anyone willing to listen, thereby announcing to the entire blogging universe my shameless and irredeemable geekness.

If I, ahem, allow my self-neurosis to reign supreme I’d admit to having peculiar thoughts that the Violet-Bristled Brush may be feeling neglected and awfully lonely. Maybe in the middle of the night, the two brushes would have conversations, where Violet Bristle would break into devastated sobs and Blue Bristle will come quick with consoling encouragement that a time will come when I, the pathologically callously irresponsible owner, will pick Violet Bristle and finally initiate its immaculate quills to the rancid decay swelling in between my teeth.

“I hope so, too.” Violet Bristle nods in dreamy assent, braving a smile and wiping snot off its imaginary nose. Then it brightly tells Blue Bristle, “but that would be the day when you’re worn and rendered pathetically useless.”

It’s safe to bet Blue Bristle is sore. Annoyed, scared and worried.

But above all, very sore.