ladilune

Dear October,

ghost friend

I've been meaning to write to you.

Who are you, ghost friend? Are you the forest, the sea, the tiny, pretty things you can buy in the city for cheap? Are you the books, the paints, a warm home cooked meal? Are you the lost letters, the lost days, lost chances? Have the past few years been any indication at all?

A few things I wish you are not: the spineless who cannot keep one’s word; the slimy who destroys without batting an eye; the ungrateful yapping with yet another complaint; the greedy who rots in an illusion of power... the dirty rat running around the room – scared, ferocious, small. Never be one who follows blindly.

In the past couple of years, fate has forced these many roles upon me. Who are you, then, my ghost? In Mary Oliver's Upstream, she writes, "In the beginning I was so young and such a stranger to myself I hardly existed. I had to go out into the world and see it and hear it and react to it, before I knew at all who I was, what I was, what I wanted to be...

"With growth into adulthood, responsibilities claimed me, so many heavy coats. I didn't choose them, I don't fault them, but it took time to reject them."

Contort yourself, break your back, twist your limbs, view yourself in the lens of others, or so they say. Never be one entrapped into such conditions of worth: Are you not loved if you are not the direct reflection of good by those who raised you? Are you not liked if you are not the perfect sidekick, never complaining, always strong, always wise, always serving some purpose? Are you not worthy if you cannot perfectly play the roles assigned to you, mostly as an extension of others? The trick, perhaps, is the acceptance of these roles but to not succumb to them ultimately. Because ultimately, it's about being a human, isn’t it? Not just one role in one linear story ‒ like in a book or a movie. You are alive, not a nacre on a stone, alone, unfaceted, and fine.

On being human: I will not let life just happen to me ‒ I'll respond to it wholeheartedly, sincerely. Living life is like a conversation, in that you listen and you give. I will also not force life to happen in ways I desire (and what is it that I desire?) ‒ it's almost impossible to swim contrary to the flow of the river. Nature has its own laws. Life happens outside and beyond us. And life includes us at times that it sees fit. I will respond to what life offers the best I can; I will dance to its rhythms. Dance, not just sit idly by.

This year is the epilogue of another decade in my life. Infancy to teens, they were hardly ours. The twenties were borrowed ‒ between these roles, such heavy coats, and the emerging self. I hope the next ten years or so, if it is ever given, shall be mine to partake in, to cherish, to share. And to see face to face with you, my ghost friend.

with love,

abelink

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Dear January,

attachment / detachment

The state of detachment goes both ways: it is ideal in a world of many changes and uncertainties, but it has its own pitfall. Who are we without our attachments to people, our professions, our favorite things, our homes, our cities? Who are we if not our parents' children, our siblings' brothers/sisters, someone's friend, someone's spouse, someone's lover, or our children's parents? It is said that our individual lives only truly exist in the mind, as a matter of perspective or perhaps as a grand illusion. Either way, the life that lies beyond our tangible selves is ultimately, perpetually, detached and apart from us; attachments are only formed in the mind, not exactly in the flesh and bones, well, except perhaps for a few instances: mothers and their sons/daughters in the womb, or men/women in the act of intimacy — but even these have their own natural limits. (One may ask: how about the rare cases of conjoined twins?)

The state of detachment is inherently true in the bodily sense, but the more difficult part is detaching mentally or emotionally. We may lose or get rid of an object, cut off a habit, move out of a place, say goodbye to a person, but that doesn't always equate to detachment. The supposedly detached will then become phantoms, or become our own private little gods, that haunt our days, our every action. Instead of the opposite, these phantoms still cling to us, are still attached, and the only way to lose them is to also lose bits of ourselves with it: we cease being its owner, its performer, its resident, its friend, along with all the possibilities and meanings that these identities may entail. To express detachment in more physical terms, it is like having one's limb chopped off; but then do we accept to live and adapt to a life without the functions of such metaphorical limb? Do we let the carved out part remain hollow? Do we learn to give up the infinite 'what-ifs'? Or I guess the more important question is can we?

yes

the diderot effect

Diderot's got a fancy new robe. He found that this new object did not fit in with his dingy room and his old, drab things. This was not who he was — old and drab. And it gave him a spark of inspiration: acquire new things that complement his new robe as well as complement his very person — who he thought he was or who he wanted to be. In other words, buy his way into a shiny identity. I also got a new room and along with it, a new rug, new linens, new knickknacks, all of which promised me the same: I'd become my ideal self, one purchase at a time.

We let ourselves be represented by the material things we possess or acquire; a big chunk of our identities are tied to the physical aspects of ourselves. Through the clothes we wear, we portray to the world that we are creative, or carefree, or fearless, or smart, or successful. And not just with clothes, there are so many other ways of expression: the limited editions we own speak of our uniqueness; the spaces we occupy speak of our taste or upbringing; the books buried in dust on our shelves speak of our intellect; the trophies we win at school or at work speak of our worth; and so on.

We are evolutionarily and socially wired to make judgments based on the physical image — on the external shell — of others. But with this hyper-focus on the 'image' nowadays, a skin-deep approach to our identities and values is slowly becoming enough.

an addiction to newness

In these times of limited movement, with the days becoming more repetitive and bleak, the ability to be happy is dependent on the pleasure of the new. A superficial source of novelty, and perhaps the most obvious, is retail. Shopping for new things may be comparable to the rush of a drug, especially shopping for useless junk because what is mainly bought for function is quite often more somber. Then, there's also social media, which is another way to ease the brain's craving for the new. This may not come as a surprise since we now know and defeatedly accept that most apps are designed with our addiction to newness in mind. Every time we open a social media app, we are presented with newer and newer content (through which we can infinitely scroll!) and some cleverly-placed ads of shiny things and experiences that we must — must — possess. And down into the rabbit hole of consumerism I go.

It may be unfair in my part to blame the external circumstances. Prior to any lockdowns, how else can we explain the dumb willingness to keep upgrading our perfectly fine gadgets? Or the urge to constantly travel to unchartered places? Or the habit of jumping from one hobby to another? Or the hard work of maintaining relationships once the allure of the new eventually wears off? Perhaps this addiction to newness simply is a product of a biological process that we are all slaves to. It may also stem from such blindness to living, such mindlessness, from not knowing what we genuinely need or want, and so the exploration of limitless choices, of what is new, can be most appealing. And that thirst for limitless choices is some sort of refusal to grow up and to settle on one kind of life, a starvation like that of Plath at the foot of a branching fig tree. Yet, one of the best gifts of newness is the ability to be present in the moment, to witness the unfamiliar with fresh eyes and clear mind; and so, perhaps an addiction to newness is the inability to be fully awake in our old, familiar conditions and environments.

The pursuit of newness, or the struggle to satiate an addiction to newness, is unsustainable — what is new will always become old, will always become familiar and predictable, and we may burn ourselves out in the endless chase for the next new thing.

invisible self, external shell

I grew up cultivating, at least self-consciously, only my external shell. Much of my time and energy was spent on improving only this part of myself. In maturity, I shifted my focus from how I look to how I think, fooled by the notion that you could only choose between either one's mind/soul or one's body. But I came to learn that balance must be maintained at all times, at all cost, which meant that I wasn't really obligated to favor one over the other and that people are more or less free or fluid in matters like these.

Last year, I re-watched one of my most favorite shows ever — The OA (on Netflix). The main character, called OA, mentioned in passing about the idea of 'invisible self', which at first I hadn't given much thought until later on when I outlined my own personal distinctions between what constitutes the invisible self and the external shell.

The Invisible Self: one's life philosophy, or what we choose to believe in, the values we hold and practice, the lessons we've learned from continual living; one's life meaning, which we carefully determine despite what seems to be an absurd existence; one's perspective or outlook, or how we see the world (e.g. an objectively fortunate person with a poor outlook will always be miserable and vice-versa); one's collection of memories and experiences, both the good and the bad; one's capacities, in forms of creativity or intellect; and one's openness and connectedness, or the ability to connect, with oneself, with others, and with the world.

The External Shell: one's bodily health and wellness; one's physical beauty or features; and one's quantifiable successes, in terms of education, career, finances, material assets, or milestones (e.g. getting promoted, owning a dream car or a dream house, getting married, saving up a million, and so on).

In the show I've earlier mentioned, one of plot points is that a person can travel across dimensions but the version of life in one dimension may be different from that in the other dimensions. The factors which can unpredictably change in a person's life may be what an external shell is: it is built on conditions beyond our control and is at the mercy of fate, thus there's no guarantee of its constancy. The invisible self, on the other hand, is one's inner hold, an inner power not as apparent as the shell, and is not as easily stolen or destroyed despite life's waxing and waning.

Cultivating one part over the other does not make a person worse or better; but to bank heavily on one's external shell, leaving the invisible self barren, is a set up for deep frustrations when disaster strikes. That said, it's just as pernicious to focus only on the invisible self, abandoning the external shell in ruins; as the iconic pop song goes, "we are living in a material world..." and we are, after all, material creatures who recalibrate our view of our lives in relation to this very material world we partake in.

And in conclusion to last year's story: this year we need a deeper frost

with love,

abelink

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Dear October,

I managed to squeeze in some time to watch all four seasons of The Handmaid's Tale. So excited for the upcoming seasons! Wrote about it in my journal and thought I might share it here. In case you have no plans of ever watching the show (although I suggest you should — it's good!), hopefully you may still get something out of this. Needless to say, be warned: spoilers ahead!

Just to give a bit of a context, here's the main plot of the show: In Gilead, a futuristic United States of America under a totalitarian patriarchal theocracy, fertile women who are considered as religiously immoral are given the role of handmaids — glorified baby-makers for the male commanders and their wives. Along with many other human rights, a handmaid's right of being a mother and being called by one's actual name are taken away by the State. Other women who may not be handmaids are still subjected to some twisted hierarchy with corresponding roles: wives, aunts, marthas, jezebels, and so on.

(14 September 2021)

Finished watching the four seasons of the Hulu series 'The Handmaid's Tale'. More seasons to come, I think. It is based on the book of the same name by Margaret Atwood. Not sure if I'll read it, to be honest. Add to my dystopian reading list perhaps?

There are a couple of things that I'm largely concerned about, or rather, things that mainly occupy my mind:

Re: June and Commander Lawrence

June is quite selfish and vindictive. She is self-absorbed and is only concerned about herself, her interests, her wants. But then I guess the whole series is her journey towards becoming the 'selfless hero'. But her intention, so far, on destroying Gilead is because Gilead destroyed her — it is purely for retribution. The outcomes are very heroic but her intentions are quite malicious. Case in point: the 86 children of Gilead that she smuggled to Canada. When asked what drove her to do it, she said that she wanted Gilead to feel the hurt of having your children taken away from you — not because Gilead isn't the best place for children to be raised and to grow up in, although she's aware of this fact, too. Personal vendetta is her driving force rather than idealism. She acts based on this and fuck the consequences, as her friend Moira remarked.

Speaking of idealism, Commander Lawrence is the idealistic one. He is considered as the brilliant architect of the Gilead economy. He's been placed in a powerful position where he can actualize his ideas — 'to create a humanity' in his own words, or to create a utopian society. He called out June for being useless due to her selfish intentions and lack of vision or lack of contribution to the collective. Commander Lawrence, compared to June, has idealistic intentions — saving the environment, reducing carbon footprints, increasing the birth rates, maximizing fertility rates, and so on. Yet, he has found himself creating a monster instead, which is Gilead. And June knows that he feels guilty for having looked at people as statistics and commodities only serving Gilead and that this has taken a toll on his beloved wife's mental stability. June, after being called as 'useless' by Commander Lawrence, fought back and told him that 'he's worse than useless' for having created such a place teeming with suffering. But towards the end of Season 4, Commander Lawrence is perhaps resolved on cleaning up the mess he made — I don't know, he's quite a difficult character to read, quite morally ambiguous, which may be why I find him the most interesting.

Perhaps June and Commander Lawrence are the thesis vs antithesis, and their teaming up will result into a synthesis of sorts: Commander Lawrence with his collective vision and June with her acts of heroism and her bravery. I'm quite excited on how this will play out in the show. It's so well-written! (And of course, the source material is great too, I presume).

Re: June and Janine

June, or even Emily and many other handmaids, can clearly see their misery and they're willing to do anything to get out of their situation. Janine, on the other hand, is such a fascinating character because she sees beauty in whatever situation she's in. She knows things are wrong but she tries to see the good and don't easily dismiss it. Even during her days in the 'colonies', she was able to appreciate the wild flowers growing in the radioactive wastelands and also encouraged two of the women to celebrate their love and get married. Emily scolded her for it and compared their lives to that of cows — they are to toil to no end and then die unceremoniously; they don't get to celebrate and get married or whatever. Janine replied, 'But we're not cows.' It's such an innocent and funny response but it does hold meaning.

If I'm in their shoes, will I adapt an outlook like that of Janine's? She focuses on the tiny blessings, she appreciates beauty wherever she can find it, she doesn't complain too much, she's quite simple-minded, easily contented, and she seems happier than the rest of the handmaids. However, this kind of mindset also blinds her to the truth that her situation, as well as that of many other women, is just so fucked up. She has become so passive to the many abuses of Gilead. Ignorance is a bliss indeed; or in Janine's case, choosing ignorance is a bliss.

Then there's June — her constant discontent have empowered a lot of women to fight back and rebel against Gilead. She lacks vision, yes, and she acts without thinking of the consequences. But she's getting things done, and her actions may just propel things into a better direction and destroy Gilead. She knows that the current conditions must be changed and improved, because whatever small goodness that exists in such a place as Gilead is rare and scarce, impermanent, and somewhat illusory, even pointless. So, in other words, her discontent is what is needed — even if along the way, there are casualties to such discontent and it guarantees more suffering in her part.

This can be related to the hustle culture of 'staying hungry', of aggressiveness and go-getting. People are encouraged to want more and more and more, and to want better. But this is at the cost of mental suffering, a myopia of goals, an overwhelming need for productivity and monetization, and a bottomless cornucopia of desires. It's a daily hell but at least we are 'progressing'.

On the other end of the spectrum are most of the eastern philosophies, most prominently, Buddhism. Suffering is everywhere — there's no escape from it. There may be degrees to suffering but they're all suffering just the same. In principle, we are capable of adapting ourselves to it. Happiness isn't achieved through making external conditions perfect but by being able to control our view or outlook on things. But then, this mentality may tolerate the cruelty or the misery of our present condition, not just for us as individuals but to so many other people. You may be able to be happy and contented, but you remain in a cycle of poverty or abuse.

I guess this isn't really a matter of 'either/or', is it? The world is in need of balance — of the thesis-antithesis-synthesis. I will follow the philosophy that serves me at a given time — does that make me without core? without conviction?

(Present time)

Addendum: Frankl on suffering

Reading the book Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl feels like receiving a warm hug from someone, even a stranger that you least expect, and such embrace feels so comforting and oddly familiar.

The last couple of years have been rough on almost everyone. I've been fortunate and so grateful to not suffer too greatly in comparison to a lot of people around the world, but my circumstance also somehow makes me guilty of even daring to think that I suffer; I must not complain at all, or even feel an ounce of despair, because other people have it worse.

Frankl, also the main proponent of the Logotherapy (a psychotherapy that focuses on finding one's own meaning in life), talked about the concept of 'provisional existence of unknown limits'. This global pandemic seems endless, limitless, isn't it? Does it get better by the end of 2021? By 2022? The first few months of 2023? Even with the vaccines, worse variants of the virus are still cropping up, hospitals find it hard to cope, oxygen supplies are running low, and superspreading events keep happening.

We're living with such an uncertainty, making our lives within this period rather provisional — sort of like in a limbo — thus we refer to the end of this pandemic as 'back to normal' because this time right now is not at all what we're used to and may not want to get used to. Because of this uncertainty and departure from normalcy, it is harder to have hope and belief in the future. Our sense of time gets distorted as we become more concerned with the immediate, that is, surviving and not getting ourselves and our loved ones hospitalized or killed from an invisible enemy.

The 'provisional existence of unknown limits' can be a form of suffering, and suffering can kill the spirit. This incorporeal death leads to the eventual death of the body, as Frankl witnessed during his time as an inmate in the Nazi concentration camps. I mean no disrespect by comparing our experience with this pandemic to such a horrendous time in human history, but Frankl himself said that the suffering of the prisoners of war due to this provisional existence is just as true as the suffering of people who are facing joblessness or homelessness and such other precarious situations, like a global pandemic.

There can be meaning in suffering. According to Frankl, "An active life serves the purpose of giving man the opportunity to realize values in creative work, while a passive life of enjoyment affords him the opportunity to obtain fulfillment in experiencing beauty, art, or nature. But there is also purpose in that life which is almost barren of both creation and enjoyment and which admits of but one possibility of high moral behavior: namely, in man’s attitude to his existence, an existence restricted by external forces. A creative life and a life of enjoyment are banned to him. But not only creativeness and enjoyment are meaningful. If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death, human life cannot be complete."

But Frankl has emphasized in his book, repeatedly, that the suffering we face and give meaning to must only be a suffering that's beyond our control. It is foolish to continue to suffer despite knowing that there's something we can do to end it. We take June's route when we know we can act to end such suffering, and if we can't, we take Janine's route. But then it's quite tricky to recognize the perfect moment to stop rolling the great stone uphill, just as the curse of Sisyphus. When do we know that suffering is actually beyond our capabilities and our control? When do we stop fighting / struggling? That's life, I guess, it takes practice.

'The soul's weapons in the fight for self-preservation'

This has gotten long but let me just quickly include some ways to cope according to Frankl. First, love as a source of strength: during his time in the concentration camps, memories of his wife and their life together was what gave him fulfillment in his heart. Perhaps this is because the ability to love, or having the chance of loving — not only limited to the romantic kind — can make a person feel more connected to his/her world rather than alienated and cut off from it, and connectedness can make us feel important, that we belong, comparable to a crucial piece in a big puzzle.

Another way to cope is by cultivating one's inner life: this place can offer refuge to a person from the 'emptiness, desolation, and spiritual poverty' of his/her external world. A rich and lush inner life is like an oasis in a vast desert. This inner life may consist of one's own memories and experiences, spiritual faith, principles and beliefs, dignity... anything that cannot be as easily stolen or destroyed as material possessions or social status.

Third, appreciation of the beauty of art and nature: even in the direst of places, such as a Nazi concentration camp, there exists beauty, in forms of art and nature. And no, art isn't only confined to galleries and museums nor it is exclusive to wealthy people; for as long as there is human creativity and sincerity, there art breeds as well. Art and the majesty of nature can make one's suffering smaller in scale. And Frankl might even argue that it is through suffering that one's receptors to beauty is and must be heightened.

Fourth, a sense of humor: just like with art and nature, we can diminish the size of our suffering with lighthearted jokes. "The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living. Yet it is possible to practice the art of living even in a concentration camp, although suffering is omnipresent," Frankl said. So dank memes, anyone?

And lastly, a sense of gratitude: in recent years we've learned through scientific studies how important gratitude is to our well-being. But since time immemorial, gratitude is already appreciated for its mysterious ways of alleviating mental suffering. In the Stoic book by Marcus Aurelius, 'Meditations', he started off by expressing his gratitude to the many people in his life who have influenced him to become good. I followed this practice and eventually realized how much I love my family and friends and kind teachers, and then I, too, felt so loved in return. So simple a task yet so much impact.

Take care and be safe you who reads.

with love,
abelink

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So —

It's been more than a year since my last letter in this blog. Admittedly, this isn't the first attempt on making some sort of a comeback. I tried writing several times before and often started with what happened in my life while I was gone, trying to fill in the gaps. But when writing, I would also think: who in the world cares? What's the significance of something quite trivial happening to me to some stranger on the internet? (especially right now with what's going on in the world).

Perhaps part of the reason why I stopped writing in this blog was because I found my words rather inconsequential compared to the more important and interesting books and essays out in the world. I mean, how do my words compare? Do my words even carry weight? Or am I just wasting time?

Sorry if this may be coming across as a pity party — that's not it at all. My overthinking brain would operate like that, finding reasons and hidden motivations to my minutest of actions, always trying to understand why would I be doing something and for what. In this case, why would I keep writing here?

In one of the books I read last year — The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera — this line jumped out at me: "culture is perishing in overproduction, in an avalanche of words, in the madness of quantity." I got a bit concerned that I might be contributing to this overproduction, to this disastrous avalanche. But with social media — a space where people are encouraged to post more and more content, whether it be necessary or not (because if you don't post about something, it may as well didn't happen, right?) — anyone can unwittingly be guilty of this madness.

After some time, I saw this blog for what it was — a graveyard of thoughts and words and images, much like the rest of the internet, if you really think about it. I had always been preoccupied with the thought of death — especially that of my own — and during the cursed year of 2020, death hung heavier in the air because of the global pandemic.

If I were to die, what would my epitaph say?

It dawned on me that the words I write here, the letters in this blog, could form part of said epitaph. It's another way of looking at our actions: the things we do, the things we make or create, every goodness we cause, every evil we inflict, will eventually become a memory that we leave behind for people to remember us by, and all will simply become our epitaphs when we die — the whole of our lives reduced into a few words over our graves.

But I'm still alive, doing my best, writing this, and so I don't want to dwell on this morbid imagery. Death and life are two sides of the same coin, aren't they? And I'd rather see this blog as some living, breathing thing as opposed to some graveyard, even though it is that, too. While I live, it also continues to live.

I'll see you again in the long run.

with love,

abelink

p.s. "writing letters addressed to the fire" from evermore by Taylor Swift ft. Bon Iver

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Dear March,

Found myself alone in a part of the city that I do not usually go to. Without steady connection on my phone, I could not look up exactly where I was or book a ride to get myself out of there. Public vehicles were also nowhere in sight. I was unequivocally lost and alone. I panicked, as you do in such situations.

A few weeks ago, I decided to finally quit my job. After going back and forth over the idea since last year, I finally found the reason and gathered enough courage to do it. For the past three years, I have formed habits, built friendships, settled into a predictable pattern of routine, and so on. Now, all of that would have to change.

Someone told me that being ordinary is the biggest temptation there is. To be ordinary means not pushing yourself out into the unknown for fear of losing what is already familiar and secure. As I become more and more of an adult, I get it - change is hard. To feel lost during a transition is hard. To make yourself malleable to new situations while still holding on to your values is hard. To feel like you are back to square one after all the effort is hard. To face the possibility of loss is hard. It is much easier and more convenient to remain where you have always been. But I also come to understand how necessary it is to grow and to let go of things to keep sane. Or to put it differently, some dreams and some ideals may have to die, especially those that have ceased to be yours or are not yours to begin with.

Change is inevitable, regardless if you ask for it or not. As much as something good can bring about change, tragedies can also inflict it. And in these chilly hours and minutes of uncertainty, our doubts can be more pronounced than ever (like in a blossoming of a new love, or when starting out a new job, or moving into a new city). Perhaps, having doubts is a sign of an eagerness to do better rather than just confidence faltering. And so when change happens, the best that we can do is to have the strength to cope and to adapt, both of which I am still learning to master.

As I found myself lost in such unfamiliarity, in such a place quite foreign to me, I did panic. And it did not do me any good at all. After a brief moment of fear and confusion, I looked around and observed where I somehow ended up. I headed towards a street with a much busier traffic and waited outside a convenience store. There were some taxis passing by but all of them were already occupied. Waiting and not knowing what to do felt scary and deeply embarrassing. But recalling the words so well-rehearsed in my brain, I came to believe that I will get through this: I will be fine as long as I am strong and quick on my feet.

Came across something that I wrote a couple of years ago relating to change:

It's 5 a.m. and I woke up to such a mess in my desk (after a long night of working on my journal). Creation is chaos; and beauty merely a process of selection. Or elimination, however one looks at it. When life gets messy, or when faced with tough decisions of getting rid of things (or people in your life), perhaps something of beauty is about to take form.

And that is one consolation out of all this mess and instability we call 'change': perhaps something beautiful is about to take form.

with love,
abelink

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Dear February,

the last of the fading light

There is a deliberate time delay in live television broadcasts which a quick search says is exactly seven seconds. Its purpose is to have a bit of time to screen out whatever is undesirable for tv; sort of like a breathing room. I keep putting off taking stock of the events of the past couple of months, partly because whatever it is that is happening is not yet done and because I need that time delay to let things sink in to me. If I react too quickly, or conclude too easily, I may make decisions that will eventually fall apart in the long run. I need to squeeze out, as much as I can, the last of the fading light.

During the past several months, I have also encountered questions which I thought I have such ready answers for but have actually become more perplexing than ever. December last year, I climbed a mountain for the first time and as I struggled through felled trees, wild roots, and sharp boulders, or as I slid off a slippery path in the dark, scared for my life because a single misstep might mean death, I have realized how nature, despite its beauty and majesty, is chaotic and brutal and cares very little about the individual.

“Anyone who has been among mountains knows their indifference; has felt a brief blazing sense of the world's disinterest in us. In small measures, this feeling exhilarates; in full form, it annihilates.” (from the breathtaking documentary Mountain by Jennifer Peedom)

What then is the point of kindness, especially to the ones who will not do us any good in return?

Kindness is contrary to how most of nature operates, which is, ultimately, getting ahead for one’s own gain and survival. Kindness is, in a way, abandoning the self just to put others in the forefront. Have I not been shown any kindness — even once and no matter how little — I will never be able to grasp the answer to such a question. There may be no point to it, but kindness begets kindness: we try to ease the pain of others because we know how it feels to be eased of our own by another. As simple as that.

a sense of an ending

In Sofia Coppola’s film, Marie Antoinette, there is a scene at the end in which Louis XVI and his family were in the carriage as they were forced by the revolutionaries to leave Versailles for good. The queen, Marie Antoinette, was looking out at the window, calm but sort of remorseful.

As they passed by the palace gardens bathed in golden sunlight, Louis asked her, perhaps in mockery or perhaps because he was too out of touch at that point, “Are you admiring your lime avenue?”

She looked at him, with a resolute look on her face, and replied, “I'm saying goodbye.”

This scene stuck with me ever since but I could never comprehend why it felt so significant. But as I got older and as I became more sensitive to endings (not just the ones in films), I could now make better sense of that particular scene.

Some moments in the mountains: sitting by the river at dusk, washing off mud on our feet. Sunlight shining upon the mossy rocks. Sunlight after a long, cold evening. The taste of coffee by the hearth while the cats slept and purred. Taking naps at midday. Fog in the morning. The satisfying ache of the body. Being alone at camp and shouting at the mountains. Sharing meals with good people. Sharing jokes on the trail. Sharing music the morning after. Cold waters to wash off the grime. Shortness of breath. The silence of the woods.

And some moments from the past several months: staring at the rain outside the window, waiting for class to begin. Staying up late at cafes. Getting lost at a convention and ending up listening to an inspiring lecture about appreciating beauty. Calm Sunday afternoons in the car, listening to old songs. Walking around an empty city. Writing in my journal. Sunsets. Being alone in restaurants. Delayed flights and a good book to kill the time. Seeing my best friend and talking about all sorts of things.

Life may never run out of moments in which the heart will be filled with awe, but at the same time, with such bitterness, because beauty is — and will never cease to be — ephemeral. I thought of this as I washed dishes by a brook during the last sunset of our stay in the mountains, or as the group pack up camp, or as we make our descent, with our minds already filled with thoughts of home and going back to the arms of those we have left behind. The end of any good thing give off such feeling: the kind which we may first mistake as delight, or gratitude, or perhaps even serenity, but is really that of an aching farewell.

As the days close in to some kind of an ending, I am comforted by these words from Generation Why by Weyes Blood:

Going to see end of days
I’ve been hanging on my phone all day
And the fear goes away
I might not need to stay
On this sinking ship for long

with love,
abelink

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Dear December,

It is easier to explain why you no longer fit into your clothes: you may have grown tall or gotten fat, or the clothes may have shrunk in the wash. But when you no longer fit into a certain place, or a certain group, you recognize it as such but cannot easily point out why. There are times when I am struck with certainty that it is time to go and look for some place else. And in these moments, I can also be quite certain that I will be burning all the bridges home, may it be an exaggeration or not. But such confidence runs dry when it is time to list all of my reasons. And perhaps it is carelessness in my part that I resort to ridiculous notions of:

no one cares about you anyway;

no one wants you around anymore;

the circumstances are too difficult and it may just break you.

But then I have also realized that perhaps feeling like you no longer belong may just be because you have outgrown the place and the people, just like how easy it is to outgrow your clothes. Perhaps, due to some significant cause, you have grown or turned into someone that may be drastically different from the person you once were or from the person that everyone can recognize. Or, you may have re-discovered a part in you that you’ve lost, and now, in an environment that has made you forget or has prevented you in the first place, you try to rekindle and nurture that part again, but in vain.

We expect people to remain as they are, especially when we like them for being a certain way. And the same is expected of us. The people who have always known us - may it be our parents, our childhood friends, the nosy distant relative - expect us to remain the same, but often, we cannot. The pressure to live up to such an expectation make us stay in a place or stay with people that may no longer suit us. And to stay feels like regressing and throwing away whatever progress we have made with ourselves.

I have not yet taken the first step towards the next place (and admittedly, I don’t even know where that is). But I keep reminding myself to be still and to listen, and to be patient while waiting for the right time to go and as I gather the courage to fully embrace the person I am and have become.

with love,

abelink

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Dear August,

My friend and I met up and talked about isolation. The week prior had been rough as I had to deal with letting go of people. Then, it seemed like asking for more when I went on to live alone for a week in a city so strange and vast. Yet, ironically, the solitude afforded me solace and a most welcome company, that is, myself.

I was also at a point in my life where I most needed directions. Where do I go from here? Might as well share the time when I literally got lost for nearly an hour. Getting impatient to wait for a taxi, I decided to walk from my hotel to my destination. At first, I was feeling confident that I got this; navigation might not be my strongest suit but I wasn't too bad at it either. The northern star was this tall building which I remember was near my destination. But along the way, I lost sight of the building, thanks to the old giant trees, and found myself confronted with several stairways and pathways which led to even more uncertainty. I whipped out my phone for a map but that confused things further. The second best option was to just ask around for directions. Some answers were jumbled but asking around helped. I found the right way at last.

That week spent mostly alone has given me such clarity and focus after some time being lost: I cannot be here; I cannot be this kind of person; I am not this kind of person to begin with. But it's okay; I'm okay with abandoning station to head to a more suitable place.

Nostalgia also hit me hard after meeting up with three of my writer friends. I realized how much I miss our carefree summer in the mountains three years ago. For a while, I could not explain how I was feeling after that wonderful (albeit short) evening. But it felt like this: going back to your childhood room after a long time of being away; much older now and quite worn; that musty smell of the house, which escaped your memory for years, was now all too familiar; then, you dusted off the shelves, cleared out the cobwebs, swept away the dirt on the floor, doing your best to make the room bright and new again; building yourself a home out of an old room. It felt so nice to be so sure that I have not given up on some dreams yet.

In the morning of my flight back home, a college friend asked me why I hated the big city so much compared to my sleepy hometown. I guess, it's because you got to put on a metal suit every day to shield yourself from all sorts of harm and danger. You got to be strong in a different way. In an exoskeleton kind of way. Like a fortress. Very much unlike the kind of strength I wanted - vulnerability, honesty, gentleness. You got to be loud, to speak out, to have a certain opinion on everything. But hate was too strong of a word; it's not remotely close to the right word at all.

But what is it that you like at least? Despite the recent events, I remain to be optimistic about people. The people in the big city, or at least the people I know, are good people. They are intelligent and amazing. I hope to be like them.

Also, living in a shrunken world, that is, a world confined to daily routines and usual territories, you tend to forget that there is life outside of yours. Being humbled by the big city, I let go of some troubles that are not worthy of losing precious sleep over. The world is big. One must only remember to not lose sight of the northern star again.

with love,

abelink

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Dear June,

The long stretch of road is daunting; but it affords me time to mull things over, to just see and just exist. No use in trying to put into film these passing scenes on a moving window, the light peeking through every roadside tree, these mountains and these oceans; they all end up blurry and shaky. Better yet to capture a feeling than chase a memory with a tangible thing such as a photograph. Though, one tries to do both anyway.

There are some thoughts I remember. Others seem to travel to experience things beyond themselves, to step out of their own familiar world, to escape. Yet, for me, it has always been to be overwhelmed by this feeling of belonging to nature - that wherever you are, there is growth and there is death; whoever you are, there is joy and there is misery.

Will some memories be lost now if I don't put them into words? I do have such fear. How else will I remember that time I did not want to give back love; or that certainty that some people you can talk to about certain things and others not; or the first time I saw a crater of a volcano so up-close?

How else will I also remember seasickness; or waking up to a new city, cold and barefooted; or that dread of rejection and finding out I can live with it after all; or a longtime dream finally coming true as I do something as mundane as lining up in the checkout counter or getting lost as I try to find my bus?

Yet, I have realized that not all moments are to be recorded and kept, as it can leave you too preoccupied with the thought of preserving each second for some distant future instead of just seeing and existing. Also, what good is there in going somewhere, in traveling, when as we go, we pack up a few changes of clothes, some bottles of soap, our extra fancy shoes along with our old poor habits? Do we try to discover something within ourselves, or do we simply try to bring home the cheapest souvenirs we can buy from an overpriced shop? This I have learned: flow with water, try not to resist the waves; dance when you can, sleep if you must.

During the past several months, I also come into terms with being loved for being human, and for loving people because they are not some ethereal creature who can do no wrong. There are days I don't share too much about: days when I'm rude to people; days when the mess in the apartment makes me mad; days when I get an upset stomach; days when I'm simply upset; days when I think everything is absurd; days when I get so bored but also at my wit's end trying to figure out what to do. Life is a constant mess and it usually is the annoying puddle rather than the rainbow, but still we continue to live.

I don't know where I'm heading with this; I usually am not sure. I guess, I just want to put together all these days I have missed out on writing about. Or perhaps, to capture a feeling for all these days lost. Anyway, I'm just leaving this song here.

with love,
abelink

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midnight

Words rolled off the tongue at midnight, I found. Anyone could promise you anything, worst of all love or friendship. But such promises gave little consolation. If anything, what a promise could set us up for was the disillusion.

We got lost on the road. And I fell asleep and missed the first moments of dawn. By the time I woke up, we somehow found the right way and everything looked too bright.

sunrise

We wondered if we were at the right place. We were the misfits at that seaport, sticking out too much. Fishes fresh from the catch began to stink. Men shoved ice into containers full of already dead ones, while others were loaded into trucks. The boat we were waiting for soon arrived.

mid-day

By mid-day, my heart sank from sadness. I never truly knew its face until now. As we were used to, such thoughts were swept under the rug. Because there, almost within reach, were the sea and the islands. Yet there I was, too, feeling selfish and foolish.

At the top of the hill, you could see everything down below. But when you try to reach out, you might slip and fall into the rocks. I wondered how it would be like to live in an island and be cut off from the rest of the world, as if that would be worse in a city without a village.

Stepped out and saw them in the harsh sunlight: experiencing bold things, diving deep below as if sky caved in, all the while not caring much about anything, least of all, of me.

before dusk

What do you do in a situation where you’re awed and humbled?

You memorize: through the images captured with a crappy camera, through superlative words, through film-like scenes replayed and condensed in the brain. It cheapens it. But it has to be done; otherwise, the feeling will be lost forever, as it is already fleeting the minute it begins. Eventually we go home and forget, but not if we diminish something profound into several poor pictures or into a romanticized memory.

Back to the question: when you’re in such a situation, you say sorry.

night

Then, it settled. I crawled into bed and slept like a log. It felt like flying as we were riding the motorbike through the narrow paths heading towards the sunset. But I held back and did not tell anyone what it meant. It was only mine to keep from now on; no one else wanted it.

But such lies we convince ourselves with.

new day

Others got better at hiding behind cruel jokes. And as we were wrapped in darkness in a cave, this oneness overcame me. I, too, could learn.

For weeks, I had lived with this disarray and disquiet. But when I did not plunge into the water and worry about things later on, not out of resistance but out of some sort of contentment, this I also found: there’s courage in taking constant action, but also courage in keeping still.

with love,

abelink

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Restless summers end. Now there is time to catch one’s breath and there is a bit more room to grow. Summer unfolds through conversations, crossing oceans, bus rides. What remains is a pile of thoughts for mulling over. After all is done, what has changed over the course of a summer?

Midnight on the road; nothing to see but the measured interval of roadside lamps. I breathed in the air that carried with it scents of the salty sea, the molasses from a sugar mill, kalachuchi trees in full bloom, detergent from a gas station.

I replayed the events that took place hours ago. There was a beautiful sunset on the way to the bus station. How does one look at it – an end to a day or just a start of a night full of promise? I’ve decided to only say what I mean. That way, I wouldn’t be regretting a word. But how often I say things just to be polite, to be mean, to be some person I pretend to be. What to make of it – that sunset, that little encounter, the words I said and the words other people told me?

ii.

We docked in an island they say was enchanted. And there was the blue ocean, the nice weather, the old churches, and the ancient giant trees; and I got a bit selfish. Why were there so many strangers? All these weren’t here only for me, but I wished I could be that special.

iii.

There were actually no plans of keeping in touch with people I haven’t talked to for six years. But there we were, cramped around the table, eating soup and laughing at some silly joke. When someone reaches out to you, you got to take their hand because sometimes you regret it, but often you don’t.

The time we spent in the mountains was one of the loveliest memories of summer, in which there were hearty meals, cold spring waters to swim in, singing songs with a guitar, and drunken conversations I oddly would not take back.

iv.

Sitting at a balcony after a sweaty nap, I heard no sound at all, not even the swaying of trees because there was no wind. I looked up and saw hanging at the doorway was an old, beaten up windchimes, which made me wonder how much of its life was actually spent on creating sound. We should get out of the house and explore this island instead of sleeping the day away.

So, the rest of the afternoon we trekked for ten minutes in the woods that led up to a beach they named paradise. Not quite. We squeezed places into an hour, spending five- or ten- minutes somewhere touristy and the rest at a back of a tricycle. I thought the island was eerie. If we end up at some local’s hut with our hands and legs tied up, I wouldn’t be surprised. The sunset was strange, too. For a second, I thought we were mystically trapped in a painting where the setting sun gave some light to the cows grazing on a grass field.

The next day, we went back to an abandoned house near a diving cliff. Last night, we were the only ones there, groping our way in the darkness, making sense of the graffiti on the walls. I jumped off of the cliff into the ocean. I wasn’t really afraid of the fall; I was more afraid of how to get back up.

with love,

abelink

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Dear May,

We left at four in the morning while the rest of the city was still asleep. I sat by the car window and wrapped myself snugly with a scarf. I listened to Petit Biscuit and began to doze off. One time I woke up to look at the dawn outside the window, which was casting this dreamy, bluish glow on our sleepy faces. It felt like a scene belonging to a film, especially in the ending, just as the credits were about to roll in darkness.

We arrived at the beach after five hours on the road. The sound of the lazy waves and the smell of the ocean draw us in. And then I said to myself: welcome, summer.

Right after dropping our bags at our inn, we got on a boat to cruise to other islands. No time for rest; we must swim and do summer-y things. We went to a cave in the middle of the sea and to some other rocky islands where we went snorkeling. Got a bit drunk by midday and took a nap on the beach. Drank some more, laughed way too loud, and did not notice the sea changing tides. After some time, we went on a walk and looked for starfishes and urchins and baby fishes.

The sunset was breathtaking. Again, it felt like a scene straight out of a film, with children running around in their cute swimming outfits, fishermen heaving their boats closer to shore, laughter in the air, and that golden magic hour light. We sat on the beach and as it got dark, we lied flat on our backs to stare at the stars. I swore the star-speckled inky sky could have swallowed me up.

I took a shower and saw in the bathroom mirror how red I got. My sunburns hurt but I was so happy.

I woke up early the next day at around six a.m. We went to bed rather late the previous night, talking about mythical creatures and folklore, among other things. Took a walk along the shore during sunrise and collected some shells. We then went to a clifftop restaurant for fruit shakes. The view on the top was comparable to a painting, except this one was alive with sounds of the sea and with the salty taste in the wind. Lounged in the beach some more, and thought to myself how this was paradise.

But because good things end eventually, we must also get back to the city before the election day. It was sunset when we reached the city. Only photographs and the sand in our toes remained.

with love,

abelink

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Dear August,

In Alice Munro's short story collection, Too Much Happiness, there's a piece called Face. It was about a boy who had a big, wine-colored birthmark on his face. This birthmark gave his father a reason not to like him, even calling him, "a chunk of chopped liver."

He had a childhood friend named Nancy, the daughter of the woman who was staying at their guesthouse. The two children became inseparable and most of the story was about their adventures. One day, Nancy found a can of red paint and smudged her face with it to look like the boy with his birthmark. The boy was offended, thinking it too red when his face had, as what he thought, a brownish hue. He ran to his mother and when she saw Nancy's face painted red, all hell broke loose. The mother insulted her and called her names and when Nancy's mother came to rescue, a nasty confrontation followed. Nancy and her mother moved out and the two children never saw each other again.

Later on, the boy heard the news that Nancy intentionally scarred her own face.

ii.

There are things you do for other people in which you mean well but may end up being misunderstood. Did Nancy paint her face red to mock the boy? In the end, as if for restitution of a lost friendship, she ended up actually scarring her own face. Perhaps what she was trying to tell the boy in the first place was: we are the same; there's no need to be alone. But the boy, insecure despite the facade of strength, reacted too quickly and saw it as an insult.

If we are on the receiving end of a gesture, we must first understand its purpose - if it is for malice or for something good. It is easy to be carried away by emotions but we need to discern what we feel so we can act in a way that we will not regret. Sometimes, it can be too late to take back whatever we put out in the world. Although instant reactions may be the most sincere, or the most raw, I still believe in the right timing, in silence and in stillness when you know you may say or do something harsh. Tact need not to be stripped off of honesty and sincerity, but it is to be considerate and sensitive, not just to others, but to yourself.

iii.

The boy, now as an adult, had a dream where a few lines of a poem was recited to him. After much looking, he found the whole poem:

There is no sorrow

Time heals never;

No loss, betrayal,

Beyond repair.

Balm for the soul, then,

Though grave shall sever

Lover from loved

And all they share.

See the sweet sun shines

The power is over;

Flowers preen their beauty,

The day how fair!

Brood not too closely

On love, on duty;

Friends long forgotten

May wait you where

Life with death

Brings all to an issue;

None will lone mourn for you,

Pray for you, miss you,

Your place left vacant,

You're not there.

- Walter de la Mare

with love,
abelink

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