I wore the toga then disrobed it. Next thing I know, my life was a total mess. Tonight, I’m off to the city, the alienating cradle for lonely people, for the same reason why I went there to and fro for the last four years of my seemingly purposeless life: to do something I do not want to do. I watch the people inside the bus as we plod the muddy path of a developing country where dreaming is mandated but achieving dreams is optional and the decisions we make are almost always dictated by external forces we cannot have a grasp of. Behind me is a crying infant in worn-out baby clothes who is beguiled by his satisfaction for his mother’s breast milk. The lady in front of me is a former teacher who used to be of astounding youthful Venus but has now turned into a withering rose whose thorns are gradually becoming dull and boring. The bus conductor, who dreamt of fiddling a cello and becoming big, has now settled for a clip and is now punching passenger tickets. Has he forgotten of his dream? Sadly, he hasn’t. Occasionally he’s being tormented by the grotesque sound of the cello, and the haunting music of what-could-have-been’s if he took risks in the past. In our own little thoughts and desires, we are Tantalus. Our dreams are there, only inches above or below us, but we can’t seem to find the means to pick them up and embrace them. Is it because we’re incapable of realizing? No. It’s because the world we live in has taught us that the way to our sublime happiness is the same direction that will lead us to callousness and selfishness. The happiness of others before our own. We all want to jump out of the bus and walk our own paths and rule our own lives. And because of this emotional struggle, we grew insensitive to each other and the only thing we have for one another is apathy.

American dream. Freedom and a promise of personal prosperity and success. Is there such thing as a Filipino dream? Most of us, the petite bourgeoisie  and the proletariats, simply live to die. All the happiness in the world is concentrated in certain places; some of them are Alabang and Makati. I abhor the rich and the poor, for the rich takes it all and the poor does nothing but whine.

After more than two hours of travel, I’m in my solitary room again waiting for the sun to rise and the hormones to resurge. Beneath this room is a darker room where an old hermit lives and talks to himself often. How do I know he talks to himself? Because loneliness has an ear for loneliness. Depressed people do not need to talk to communicate. Sadness is their language. Their eyes are their tongue. Thirty years ago he was a jolly young man whose only dream is to fall in love and have his own family. A few years later, he met his life’s greatest love and married her in front of the god he has been worshipping since the day he gained religious consciousness. After a decade of loving, the couple was still childless. Soon, he learned he’s incapable of reproducing, urging his love to live him in solitude. Having been deeply hurt by his wife’s departure, one night he tried to commit suicide. He slashed his right wrist with a rusty blade hoping this’ll end all his suffering. He lost consciousness but then regained it in a hospital nearby. He was saved, or was he? A priest came to him and told him that all his sufferings are a product of all the sins he committed in his life. “Death isn’t the escape,” the priest told him, “live in peace, away from all forms of self-gratification and pleasure. You have to atone for all the sins you’ve done in this life.” From then on, he imprisoned himself inside the sober room forever, letting the memories of his lost love torture him every tick of the clock as a sign of his submission to the “desire” of his god.

Across the street lives a young man who goes to a university but do not enter any of its classrooms. He is contented talking to the people in the canteen and watching the other students play sports. I went out to get something to eat and found him sitting on a bench in front of a sari-sari store. I was so drawn to him that I stopped and came up to him and talked. I asked him what he wants to do with his life. His plain response was “nothing.” Silence. And then he began to tell me his story.

He’s barely his parents’ only son. His mom had a miscarriage twice before they had him. Because of this, his parents gave him everything he asked for. They loved him so much that they fed him the most delicious food; clad him with the most expensive clothes; and sent him to the best schools. Due to the crises of adolescence, he started to lose control of his life and tried everything to ruin it: drugs, sex, alcohol, cigarette. Not being able to achieve the satisfaction he was longing for, he did worse things, oblivious of the fact that he has this congenital heart defect. This began to surface and he started to tire easily. Because of the pain and the fact that he cannot do the things he used to do prior to the emergence of his disease symptoms, he commanded his parents to do everything they can to give him back the life he once had. Not knowing what to do anymore, his parents cried in agony of not being able to give their son the best life. And then, the mother came up with an idea, a really selfless one. One evening, the son found his mother lying on the floor with a dagger entrenched on the valley between her breasts. He then knew what his mother was trying to tell him. “I love you, Son. Accept my heart as a sign of my selfless love for you. Take care of it and never break it. And every beat of it is me giving you your new life.” He frantically opened his mother’s chest like a young boy excitedly opening his first ever Christmas gift. He grasped her heart with a grin on his lips and tears in his eyes. He had the heart transplanted to him which gave him his new life. Learning about the fate of his wife, the father gave all his money and properties to his son and then jumped off a high cliff. He was embracing his wife while he was falling. Soon, the son went back to his old ways but then eventually realized how meaningless his life has become. Now that his doesn’t have his parents anymore, no one will check on him everyday. No one will prepare his meals and wash his clothes. He’s all alone. He has lost the zest to live.

After telling me his story, I patted his shoulder and told him: “We all come to a point when life seems meaningless and the only meaningful thing that can happen is death. But that isn’t how life must be. Everyday is a struggle, a fight within us. We mustn’t lose ourselves. When Pandora opened the box, she let all evil escaped into the world. But she was able to save one thing – hope. Everyday is a battle, and everyday is a battle won. We have to keep fighting to make it to that very day when the entire struggle comes to an end and the only thing we feel is absolute bliss.” I held his hand while whispering him: “Let’s hold on to each other.”

“To all the unhappy people in the world who, like me, will never resort to suicide.”

 

June 17th, 2010 by Jan Suing Jan Suing is a former editor-in-chief of The Lamp, the Official Student Publication of the Far Eastern University Institute of Nursing. He's a deist, a fan of Nietzsche, a movie buff and currently the epitome of quarter-life crisis. www.twitter.com/juansuing