On Randomly Organized Things

“We like to look for patterns and find connections in unrelated events. This way we can explain them to ourselves. Life seems neater, or at least less messy. We need to feel that we are in control: it is integral to our self-esteem. We also know, though we deny it, that we are not in control. So we settle for the illusion of control. What if we stopped fooling ourselves?”

– from “Everything Is Random. Deal With It.” By Jessica Zafra

We do it all the time, finding explanation for something that doesn’t need to be explained, labeling something that is intentionally left unlabeled. We all have the need to figure things out because if it doesn’t make sense, it’s not sensible. If it’s not sensible, we figure, there really is no point in waiting around and watching things unfold right before our very eyes. We are an impatient bunch of irrational beings in the guise of being rational. If rationality is what sets us apart from the other members of the animal kingdom, we aren’t really that “different” from them. We still act on instinct, the instinct being “to not believe in randomness”. How else do we explain the overrated use of the famous saying, “Everything happens for a reason.”?

I am no less guilty of this human flaw. I know no one who says, “Que sera sera.” without even a thin line of doubt playing around like a perky toddler in their minds. Knowing why is a NEED that is almost always never fulfilled. That’s just who we are. If we end up meeting someone in the silliest of moments, we say, “It must be fate. We met for a reason.” But the thing is, if only we can stop fooling ourselves, we should be able to see that it was a random twist of fate. It was meaningless until we start analyzing it in destructive ways that are infinitely many. When someone does something that is out of the ordinary, we say, “That can’t be for nothing right? That MUST mean something.” But the thing is, what if the other person just woke up one day thinking, “I feel like doing something randomly sweet today”, and didn’t mean for that random act of sweetness to mean something? It’s just the beginning of a way complicated problem that no one signed up for. We will all miss the point… and the point is simple, ENJOY THE RIDE EXPERIENCE LIFE and KEEP AS MANY MEMORIES AS YOU CAN.

So, I say, let’s just allow things to unfold. If people will stop over-analyzing, they will eventually figure things out. That is the beauty and wisdom behind justiciable controversies; unless there is a real issue at hand that’s not based on mere assumptions, we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves all the time. We should just let things fall into their proper places. After all, if things DO happen for a reason, the reason will have to eventually reveal itself to us in no time. If it doesn’t… we’ll always have beer, and that wonderful thing we call FAITH.

HAPPINESS; Retail and Wholesale

A few weeks ago, my friend and I were having one of our regular online conversations when he let me into his theory on happiness. I was ranting about not being able to sustain a stable relationship and the inconsistent surges of happiness in my life when he asked me, “What if in life, you are not really meant to find that one source of happiness? What if these broken episodes of happiness are what it’s all about? What if happiness is in retail?”

It made sense. In effect, my episodes of happiness have been consistently inconsistent. Yes, the episodes do end, but instead of thinking of these memories as being replaced by newer ones, let’s just say that our happiness is cumulative. It’s rational and a little sad for a romantic. All my life, I’ve had a lot of moments of happiness, from different sources, from different persons whom, at one point, I loved or at least cared about. Following my friend’s theory, my ONE GREAT LOVE does not exist, there are a number of fleeting loves that are like pieces of the grand puzzle that is happiness. The theory is so practical; it fits a lifestyle that is always on the go, a lifestyle that thrives on changes and mobility.

But the real question remains: In a world that is so fast-paced, should we be content with retailed happiness?

Our missing pieces are within us, we feel empty when we allow ourselves to feel empty. If we acknowledge that we have everything we need inside and that we are fabulous on our own, someone equally fabulous will come along and we’ll know that the time for retailed happiness has ended. There’s nothing wrong with retailed happiness, I think this is what makes us grow. If you already feel complete, content and ready to face the world alone, if you’re not looking for the missing pieces of your own happiness jigsaw puzzle anymore, you’ll find another already completed puzzle beside you, not to complete you but to complement you.

Happiness in retail is just a prelude to wholesale happiness… and wholesale happiness begins when we are not looking for happiness for ourselves from other people anymore

On Fountains and Everything that’s Needed to be Said

So, here’s what I’m presently looking at, there are two sets of fountains in front of me, the first set is newer and nearer, but it’s not working, it’s like a pond that’s so calm and steady with a hope or a threat that it WILL work or be active one day. The other set’s working really fine, unruly at times, but moving, and really enticing. Of course, what’s conventional is the set that’s working. Why? Because you know that it works or at least that it has been working longer. I’ve seen fountains before and they SHOULD be working, moving and attractive. They should be able to catch your attention, make you smile and endearingly distract you when there’s nothing to look at anymore. The problem is that it’s far. I’ve been near that fountain before, I have played with the water that gracefully flows and flirtatiously spurts like a ballet dance step. I have been attracted to it before, and it never stopped working, only that it got farther… or I walked away from it or someone else acquired it through extraordinary prescription. But once in a while, in those rare moments that I am alone and lonely, I look at it and ask myself, “Should I walk back and play with it again?” But it’s not a decision that I can make really, because someone else is playing with it now, looking at it like it’s the only fountain for her and they look good together. Even I am convinced that maybe, they are meant to be together and I just paved the way for them to see that. I looked and admired it first, but I was too chicken to call it mine.

Now, the other set, it started out fine, it WAS working… but there is no consistency. It’s nearer, it has witnessed a number of good times too but not as numerous as the memories that I had with the former set. I interact with it almost everyday, with a few moments of emotional connection that makes me think, “This set’s not bad… not bad at all.” The problem is, I don’t know if this set is willing to move with me, for me or if it’s just one of those fleeting connections that work because we’re just both there, because I happen to be walking away from the other fountain and IT was the next fountain that caught my attention. I look at the now under repair fountain and hope that one day, it will work again. It’s soothing, knowing that it’s there, available and not in a hurry. Heck, I don’t even know if this fountain is for me. I look at it and see that it attracts and is attracted to the other passers-by that are constantly wondering what it is doing here, not moving, not flowing. I like this set of fountain, but I don’t know if I like it enough to ignore the working fountain that’s right behind it.

Here’s the thing, I absolutely think that making a decision will be a lot easier if only the second set of fountain can stop being so unpredictable and aloof. If only the first set of fountain can stop moving for a second to give me a chance to clear my mind and look at the other things that the second set of fountain is capable of showing me.

It will be a lot easier if I’m not calling them fountains. It will be a lot easier if everything that’s needed to be said will be said without having to resort to silly metaphors like fountains. i.e. First fountain, “LEAVE ME ALONE!” Second fountain, “I LIKE YOU… for now.” Eunice, “STOP TALKING TO FOUNTAINS.”

Yeah, I’m crazy. But in a world where things are so predictably unpredictable, how can you not give in to moments of insanity?

On Life and Electric Tricycles

I found a new addiction… riding electric tricycles from Market Market to Bonifacio Highstreet. It’s a great experience, more like riding a modern calesa. I have one little idiosyncracy though, I ride at the back. While everyone’s trying to ride it the traditional way, I always seem to find myself riding alone at the back of the trike. I was, for a few days, wondering why I like doing it… then, in one of those eureka moments, one of those “aha-now-i-know-why” moments while I was once again smoking my first stick of the day on my way to my newfound home in Highstreet, it hit me why. Riding the electric trike like I want it is similar to how I live my life. I walk away but I linger. I want to be able to walk away without completely turning my back on that thing I am walking away from. I walk away but I try to bring with me the memories, I want to be able to look at these things from afar, remembering what I did, why I did it and who I did it with. The IT being anything that I’ve tried out at least once in my life, that “it” being something that at one point made me so happy and at one point, made me almost tap out from the unbelievably torturous pain.

I don’t like fleeting things, contrary to popular belief. I can easily move on, I can easily walk away, but these things are disappointingly not fleeting, they’re stubbornly permanent. These are things that I know have forever changed the way I looked at things., the way I feel things, the way I handle things. To walk away is the easy part, especially if life or fate have their own way of compelling me to finally leave, the hardest part is to not linger, to not try to hold on to the things that are still there but should be walked away from. The hardest part is to deal with the memories. I’m masochistic that way, I keep everything, not only in my heart but in my brain, in my room, in the now dusty corner of my shelves. Everything’s just a few steps away from me, may it be a journal that witnessed how I cried millions of tears for something that seems too mundane now or the already withered petals stuck in between pages that symbolized a chapter that needs to be forgotten but will never be.

So, that was my realization for today. I don’t turn around and walk away, I walk backwards. It could be because I’m holding on to my optimism, or because I just can’t let go or I don’t want to let go. It’s fun and emotionally tiring at the same time. But I like it that way, in the same way that I predict to be hooked in my electric trike addiction for a long time, until the bar perhaps. Until I need to walk away and find a new addiction. I refuse to make life pass me by, I will look at it straight in the eyes and say, I’m moving on bitch, the past looks smaller and smaller each second, and I love it.

ATM

ANTI-TORPE MOVEMENT

Naisip ko lang, since andami naman nagsasabi na guys like to play games and since a lot of the girls I know are tired of the same old, “Could he be too shy to ask me out?” conversations, panahon na para magkaron tayo ng mga pambawing hirit sa mga parinig ng mga pa-fall na guys. At least din a natin masasabi na pa-victim tayo. I mean, kung makikipaglaro tayo, might as well make it a good game diba? What better way to make it a challenging one but to push it to the limit, un tipong pag ito di pa nya sinagot ng maayos, malamang di talaga nya ako gusto… Ito lang naman ang mga suggestions ko. (Feeling ko applicable din ito sa mga guys e, kasi girls naman are not less guilty sa mga ganitong hirit.)

1. Nagte-text ng quote in the guise of a message na sinend sa lahat with the hope na magreply ang object of affection.
Solution: Reply by saying, “Kung ang perang ginastos mo sa pagu-unlitxt ay pinantawag mo na lang sakin, di mo na sana kailangan maghintay ng reply ko. HEHE” (importante un HEHE)
2. The guy goes, “I want to go out… I just can’t seem to find the right girl. Why?”
Solution: I dunno, I ’m always right… And well, I’m a girl. (insert laughter)
3. The guy goes, “I want to go to ____, but no one wants to go with me.
Solution: I’m NO ONE. (insert flirting fiasco smile)
4. The guy goes, “I want to watch ____.”
Solution: Ok. Let’s watch it. (insert “why? We’re friends right?” Look)
5. The guy goes, “I’m going out on a date with this girl.. but I’m not sure if I should go.”
Solution: You shouldn’t. (use your poker face) If he asks, “Why?”, do the “looking at him from under your eyelashes” thing, smile and say, “You know why.”
6. He goes, “I usually like (insert description that totally doesn’t fit you)
Solution: Then maybe you should stop liking the general rule and start going for the exception. (res ipsa loquitur)
7. He goes, “My ex… (insert really sweet story)
Solution: (faraway look) Past, present… I wonder which matters more.
8. He goes, “Dude. (insert whatever)
Solution: I see that we have decided on our terms of endearment. (paluin sya ng mahina sabay takbo sa washroom)
9. He goes, “So I went out on a date yesterday. It was great.”
Solution: Then why are you here? (silence) I mean, yo should be with her, alam mo na. FOllow through.rimo rico
10. He goes, “I don’t know if I’m ready to go out again…”
Solution: (do the what-the-fuck hand movement) Demmit. This isn’t a date? (innocent smile)

This is at the risk of being dubbed as feelingero at feelingera at well, desperate. Pero at least the absurdity of thinking about the other person can stop di ba? I mean, isn’t it more absurd to talk about something that isn’t really "happening" with your friends and spending a lot of time analyzing. At least pag ginawa mo ‘to, simple lang yan.. Either ge-game time na kayo o mare-realize mo na, “He’s just not that into you.” Suggestion ko lang naman kasi uhmm, paulit-ulit lang ang mga sitwasyon e. Down with paranoia and stupidity na ito mga girlfriends! HEHE. (see? The hehe makes a big difference!) Steady lang. Para sa mga nagba-bar, WAG NYO GAWIN. Mahirap na. haha.

Magdagdag na lang kayo ng suggestions nyo. Antok na ako.

When People Act Stupid

(Para sa lahat ng mga tao na may issues ngayon, para sa inyo ito… sabay-sabay na! haha)

We almost always don’t say what we really mean and they, most often than not, never get it… we all end up disappointed with a little less faith in finally finding the one. The thing is, a lot of times, we don’t know what we want, even if what we want is staring at us with a neon sign that states the most obvious, “I am the one.” We go out with people thinking that maybe, just maybe, things’ll turn out great, or at least sufficient to let us get by, but it never is. Why? Because we’re adorably stupid that way. We look for our prototype: the artists, the gorgeous, the dreamer, the one… and anything outside that really stupid box that we have jailed ourselves in is just not it. Yet, we don’t even have to go outside that stupid box, all we need is to look out that teeny-tiny window (yes the box has windows, don’t even ask why) and watch everything unfold… right before our very eyes. How many times have we uttered these words about our friends? “If only they’d realize that they’re perfect for each other, then they will finally be able to stop blogging all those words of melancholy that just affects us, then they will stop talking about each other behind each other’s backs with the look that says, ‘Why can’t he/she see me the way I say him/her?”

We see it happen daily, the girl talks about the guy, with reservations, because well, they’re just friends… the guy is in love with someone else, or he just isn’t being clear about what he feels for her. We have spent hours, days, months and a lot of fucking years discussing and trying to figure out, WHERE HAVE WE GONE WRONG? I know where… you waited. And of course, the guy, he doesn’t talk about the girl with his friends, he’s worse, he spends a lot of time with the girl... flirts with her a bit, once in a while, he would be really sweet and then he takes it away by not showing up in one of those “casual dates” that they “casually” set. It all turns sour and uhmm, the guy just doesn’t know why. I KNOW WHY… You waited too. Then the guy and the girl goes on with the same old dance, they hang out, they continue to be friends, and at the back of their minds they know. They CAN’T NOT KNOW.

Men and women act stupid ALL THE TIME. That is just how life goes. If only, instead of waiting, they smiled and said,” I WANT TO BE WITH YOU.“, then things won’t be so fucked up anymore. We all know them, heck, we are them. It’s funny… painfully funny. So you laugh, the kind of laugh that tries to say it all… and smoke like it’s the last time you will.

Last Night, I Started to Dream Again...

“Throw away the chains, let love fly away… Until love comes again, I’ll be ok.”
- I’ll Be Ok, Amanda Marshall

Last night, I started to dream again. After hearing a cat make the sound that triggers a million of memories, after hearing a friend deliver a supposedly good news and after successfully ignoring all the pent up, unresolved and destructive emotions I have bottled up in my already bruised heart, I started to dream again. It wasn’t like one of those dreams I had, I dreamed of you. I was half-awake, half-hoping and I saw you holding my hand like it was supposed to be that way. I saw you, smiling like I imagined it to be. Smiling like your smile was and always will be the sun in the solar system that is my life, I saw you put your arms around me as we let life and time pass us by like a heavenly good movie.

Last night, I started to dream again… in that dream, there were no promises, only possibilities. In our dream, there was no pain, only moments where we have to ease the pain in both our lonely hearts trying to find our way home, trying to find our way to each other’s emptiness. I can clearly picture you, how you secretly look at me with a hidden message that says, “I am glad I finally found you. “ I can clearly picture us, a picture not of what if’s but of what it already is.

Last night, I started dreaming again… and when I woke up, through your dreams I told you, “Thank you. I’m glad I found you too.”

Love Letter no. _______.

To You Who Haven't Come,

I have always wondered how we’ll meet or how we’ve met. Will it be like a scene from one of those sappy romantic comedies? Will it be like any other meeting that I constantly have? Will I make you laugh? Will you make me laugh? Did I get your attention, did you already get mine? I still picture you to be someone with the perfect smile, a smile that’s genuine, infectious and well, charming.

I don’t know how you look like, I don’t know how you want your coffee, I don’t know the way you dress, but I am sure I’ll recognize that smile. It has always been about the smile, I guess. The one whom I thought was you could make my heart melt with just a semblance of a half-smile. The one whom I thought was you made me dream of his smile, made me want to joke around just so I can get a glimpse of what heaven must look like. I don’t know why, but I just know. Your smile will give away your soul. It will be the kind of smile that will not only be inviting but comforting. A smile that not only escapes your lips but also adoringly affects your eyes, your cheeks and my heart.

I have always wondered how we’ll meet. And I look forward to smiles that are infinitely many. I look forward to smiles that will sufficiently replace words. Most importantly, I look forward to smiling back at you. To love is to find a million reasons to smile, no matter how happy or difficult things might be.

Smiling back,
Me

The Shift to My 25th

I am now officially 25 years old, another year ended and so another year shall start. My year 24 was quite difficult issues-wise. It wasn’t even about love, it was about responsibilities, friendships, my family and everything that’s a level higher than falling in love and getting hurt in the process. There were a lot of times when I felt like I was at my happiest, but it sure wasn’t without moments when I felt like I was at my lowest. A lot of tears have been shed, a lot of words have been haphazardly exchanged, a lot feelings were unconsciously manifested and a lot of past issues have resurfaced. My 24th year stuck with the usual formula of what a Eunice Monsod year must be like, difficult but interesting. I was never in the boring side of things. Of course looking back, the most vivid of memories was the day I found out that I was officially graduating. My senior year in the law school was great but knowing that I was on my way out was legen… wait for it… dary! It was the main issue baby! Then there was that obiter dictum that was my short-lived affair to remember. Some things went right, some things went wrong… at times there was love, at times there was the hope of finding love.

So it has come to this, I am in my quarter life, in the words of Dial, “1/4 ka na ng 100!.” That is of course without hope that I’ll live that long but knowing that I am on my way to experiencing the (hopefully) better years of my life make me smile and get teary-eyed. Yes they will be better, because what is life without that possibility of improvement and of achieving new things right? There is nothing like a life that is difficult but well-lived. Yes I have issues, not the high school issues that we usually brush off, real mature issues that are too challenging even to someone who has gone to hell and back and back and back… if I could shield the people I love from feeling helpless, from feeling disappointed and from feeling that they are doing things wrongly, I will. Yet, these are the things that inspire me to reach not for the nearest star but for the farthest but most magnificent of them all.

I cannot say that I have lived my life quite perfectly, but who has? I don’t aim for perfection, I aim for progress. I am in my 25th, with, regrettably, a lot of mishaps unflawlessly resolved. I made a number of bad decisions in my 24th, but I have gotten passed them, maybe not with flying colors but with rejuvenated vigor that only pain can bring out in me.

I am in this battle, maybe handicapped but not disabled and unable. I am in this battle, bruised but not waiting around to be saved. I am in this battle, alone but not lonely… In the words of Richard Fish, We all are alone anyway, it’s just easier to take in a relationship. I don’t care how long it takes, but I will be someone someday. Heck, I already am someone, now. As for that Carrie Bradshaw / Ally McBeal in me, go on girl… Maybe I have already found my Mr. Big, or maybe I have moved on from my Billy, but I am my own Carrie, I am my own Ally, I am Eunice. I am fabulous. :p

Happy Birthday to Me… but why am I celebrating something that happened 25 years ago? Happy living to me! Because my life starts everyday… and it ends when I say so. The operative word is Happy. Happy. Happy. I already am. To be Happier, that’s the plan.

YOU KNOW what I MEAN (The Pacquiao-Hatton Fight.. err, Sleepover)

Ewan ko sa'yo Hatton, at mas malaking EWAN KO sayo MAYWEATHER Sr. You're better than Roach" YEAH, in the Ho-hum department!

Anyway, the fun part was Pacuiao's new obsession with the phrase, "I mean..." There really wasn't much to explain about what he meant, the bottomline is.. Pacquiao kicked Hatton's sorry ass if YOU KNOW what I MEAN. :p

Mayweather, please please give us a way better fight! At least reach the 3rd round or uhmm, fight or something.