still burning

We start where everything starts. Potency. A block of wood. Plato spoke of it. Mr. Magorium made use of it. And it was where Ms. Musical Molly realized that she had what it takes, that her fingers’ “quirks” are really up to something.

We all have blocks of wood. We are all stumps of wood. And it is up to us to sculpt ourselves. Or to sprout little new verdant leaves.

And yet.

As with everything in life, there’s always a catch attached. Today’s would be that this beautiful fact of potencies—dreams, so to speak—is easier said than done.

When you were but a young sapling, you felt that staying strong and unbent in the face of the world and its mighty winds would be doable, or easy even. As a sparse-feathered sparrow, you ventured an inch off the nest, and you thought that you were an eagle ready to conquer the azure realm.

And yet.

The first gusts threw you down on your feeble roots. You looked up to the heavens, and a prayer escaped your lips. It’s tiring to face the world. Mother Nature’s first push was also your first fall, your first crash landing. Thump. It’s a harsh forest out there.

And yet.

You did not long for the protecting arms of the Ents. You did not pine for the comfort of the nest. No. You believed that you were strong—you could take the next winds, the eager hard earth. Failure was the material that could take you up among the hard elders who makes less than a creak. It would take you to the clouds so that you can look down upon the earth with the eyes of a conqueror.

And yet.

You turned out to be just another jester’s material. Fit for entertainment. You remained the block of wood that you are. The potency longed for the act. It would have been even nicer to have someone cut you down and sold you to some sculptor. You were a fine wood, after all. You could have made a glorious statue for everybody to gawk and be amazed at, shake their heads, and wish that they could be as grand. But you could also have been a mere paperweight on an ignored table, gathering dust. Do you want to trade for the bust by the corner? He may have been some great personality. But you could have just been that—a bust, a recreation for some ancient has-been.

Even then, it could have been a good existence. You would want to be a bust than some firewood.

At first, you laughed at the glorious statue. He was getting old. His fine contours were cracking, smoothness was roughening. He was drooping, disintegrating. Should have been better to have moss clinging to it. You also mocked the paperweight. It couldn’t breathe anymore, much less cough up the dust that became his rags of a clothing. Secret holes inside were making him weightless. And the bust? Oh, that poor bust was anything but. He could hold anything from coats to bowler hats. And then his polish ran out. His nose fell off.

At least you were a firewood. There was some warmth in you, some light, some fire. Yes, you could help a great big pyre fit for a mighty king. Playing small, you could still cook something. Yup, now you’re cooking. Food for the brain. Nourishment for the soul.

Even as just another piece of fuel, you made your tiny licks and left your marks. You smiled as your warmth provided for the creation of some things more than a simple wood—paper and the ink blots that posed as words and thoughts. Ink blots. More like a child’s doodles. But it was all right. It’s good, I’m good, you told yourself. There will be master scribes on my way. Oh, and how you burned! You burned with the eager fires of youth! Every little thing that you touched burst aflame too. Hot! That was what you were. Blazing!

Until.

You realized that you could break off even just a splinter of you. Some charcoal, and you could be a pencil and do your own doodles. Hell, you could make more than some blots!

But.

It was too late. Everything around you was nothing but embers already. Every fucking splinter. And so you burned and you burned. You discovered how it was to feel burnt out, but you added more meaning to the term. How is it to feel burnt out but still burn? For Christ’s sake, how! It was all you could do for a prayer. But you prayed even more. For Death. Ashes. For even though you could feel every fucking inch of you sting with the flames, you gave off no warmth. Sunshine on a gray and cloudy winter day.

Man, oh, man, are we not just exaggerated bovine creatures? We trade our souls for some cud to chew on all day. The one thing that sets us extremely at odds with those four-legged, five-stomached mooers is that we grow our own grass in the summer and make our own hay for winter. Fucking overrated!

Spit for some futile act of defiance, will you?<

0115 hrs

 

a step farther

It rarely comes easy. Rarely, or not at all. So where would you go? And what would you do? Something in me says that it is a fool’s endeavor to go on seeking easier things, an easy world. You gotta roll with the punches, man. Trudge on. Wearily maybe, but trudge on. And yet, to where?

In twenty-four years, I have begun to stack bricks up, seeing to build towers of dreams. But today, what do I have? One-paragraph manuscripts, a half-baked degree, unfinished dreams, unrealized goals—all things unfinished. In the world of successful men, one must at least complete one journey to have a name, to make it—big or small—or risk to be a mere shadow of the gods.

You start with clay, mix it up with some straw, form it into bricks, and let it cake dry in the sun. The next day, you stack it one brick on another with some mortar to hold it in place. Higher. Higher. And higher. Then consult your blueprint to get your bearings. Sweat trickles down your eyebrow and into your eye. The sun beats down on your bent back. Go, struggling man, go. Pause for some water. But do go on for chrissakes . . .

Then you realize that your bricks are not cooked enough, your blueprint not grand enough. Sit down in the shade, dear brother, and think again. Think. Think. Think. Measured by your own critiques and weighed by the perceived biases of the world entire. Not enough. Wanting.

You discard your blueprint and dig your heart again for more spectacular dreams. Dreams of conquests and laurel wreaths. But this time, dig deeper.

Now comes the thought that you do not want to tinker with bricks and mortar after all. Too primitive. You want to try and plant an orchard. No, raise sheep. No, make strong bows and sure arrows and head for the forests of the unknown. Too hard. How about wait for a flight of geese, shoot one down, and make quills from the feathers? Yes, a scribe would be grand.

I could record victories of men great and defeats of the lesser folk. I could tell the world to come of laws and legends of the ruins and the freshly painted edifices of today. The wakings and sleepings of men and their stories could propel me to my own awakening in the world of struggles. And if great men and vanquished folk run out, I could create my own tales of heroism.

One word, a clause, a sentence, a paragraph. “Why does it not read like the work of a master?” you ask yourself next. “I cannot do this,” you tell yourself the second moment. “I’d leave the geese in their flying.”

Another dream quashed before its infancy. Abortion. Murder. But who carries the guilt? Who is the culprit? “A dream can only be killed by the dreamer,” a master scribe once said. Heavy chests accompany guilt. But what could you do? Whine? A whine is a whine—it does not accomplish anything. Even whining about whining itself.

There are new dreams to make. And more to kill. But the heart is weary of chugging them out only to be rent by the uncertain mind. The stomach cries out for food to fill itself. And the soul is disillusioned for belonging to a fickle man. A fickle man creating a field of one-brick palaces, a sea of ruins. Learn from the resilience and the determination of a dog, why don’t you.

And so you take the path yet again for a dogged trudge. Doggedness. Trudging. Then again, quo vadis, seeker?

The author of this little piece was born on December 24, 1983. He spent his childhood and half of his adolescent years in the sleepy town of Guiuan, Eastern Samar. He is now twenty-four years old. He once dreamed of flying fighter jets after watching Top Gun and being introduced to Tom Clancy’s world. Yet for ordinary reasons, he proceeded to enter the seminary after his elementary years. Four years in the minor seminary introduced him more to God, literature, and Latin. He left priestly formation after four years and decided to take up a bachelor’s degree in electronics and communications engineering but veered to human resources management the next year. After two years in a Cebu university, he left for his native Eastern Samar and went back to the fold of the seminary. “Advised to continue his philosophical studies outside the seminary” on his third year, he packed his bags and turned his back from the formation. He, however, completed his philosophy degree. He now works as a copyeditor in a self-publishing company in Cebu City—not anymore really—after a half-semester stint in law school. He thinks that he still does not know where to go. Or whether he will make it—big or small.

gotta do more gotta be more