Showing posts with label escape. Show all posts
Showing posts with label escape. Show all posts

Sunday, April 11, 2010

A Pig in the Cage with Antibiotics

In an attempt to jumpstart the mood and get myself in the writing zone, I'm back here, blogging on a lazy summer Sunday. The air is suffocating me with thoughts of beach getaways, but here I am, stuck instead at home, trying to finish a 4,000-word primer for a competition our company is joining.

Bah, adult life. But I'm not exactly complaining right now. I am too tired of whining -- note that this is merely an observation. 

I've never been the most responsible person on Earth, to be truthful, and adult life isn't exactly the best experience for a 24-year old boy who refuses to grow up. Mornings, like when I was a kid, are still the most horrible parts of the day -- waking up is still a drag. I still make a mess inside my closet every time I pull out clothes to wear. I still doodle when I'm forced to listen to long-drawn blabber -- just like in elementary, high school, and college. I am forgetful as always, yet I continue to resist making notes if only because creating reminders make me feel like I'm such an organized worrywart, which takes away the fun of spontaneity and surprises. 

Yes, I am inefficient. I am the gear that creaks and squeaks and goes all wonky. But somehow I'd like to believe that being this crazy, kooky person that I fashion myself to be makes me a whole lot interesting. I don't know when my aversion of becoming a bore began, but for as long as I can remember, I've always been that kid who tried to cross the line. Never mind if I ended up falling in a deep pit (which by the way was difficult to lie about at home, after I showed up with soiled clothes, bruises, and all),  or got punished for challenging authority (elementary days, discipline officer, nipple-pinching -- don't ask). 

The attempt to challenge the flow stems way, way back to my childhood, when I was forbidden to go outside and play. Our helper would lock the gate so my brother and I wouldn't be able to escape. But we were smarter (or stupider, take your pick): we'd scale the walls like the monster brats that we were, unafraid of jumping the height for the promise of the large playground that is the outside world. It was an ecstatic, rush-of-blood-to-the-head feeling. The defiance of imposed limits using ingenuity and lots of balls became a fruitful pursuit that led to fulfillment. It fuels my existence -- from then until now.

However, it doesn't make me a decent, respectable adult in the eyes of snooty companies and an uptight society. This is a world of rules, and I am trapped to slave away for the remainder of my days until the pension kicks in and I'm stuck in some senior citizen's home, waiting for Death to knock on my door at 2 in the morning with chloroform in my soy milk and arsenic-laced oatmeal cookies.

LOL. Happy Sunday everyone. :-)

Sunday, March 7, 2010

No More Walls, Only Burning Houses

"The only thing that stops you from becoming a champion is yourself." The popular tae kwon do athlete I interviewed awhile ago stressed this message which I found inspiring.

While his statement dripped with testosterone and locker-room psychology, there is a chunk of truth in it. A large factor that stops me from becoming who I want to be is myself. Every time I hesitate, I am likely to suffer the consequences of my hesitation.

In his sport, fear can make or break the battle. The moment you doubt your capabilities, the moment the opponent cracks your confidence, is as good as accepting your defeat. The second you stop believing in yourself is the crucial second you made a choice to lose. It is not the swift blow of a rushing kick straight to your face that spelled your crushing loss but the fact that you lost faith in what YOU could do.

Call it stupid, call it anthropic arrogance. But survival IS arrogance. The law of entropy dictates that everything is doomed to destruction -- gotterdammerung is the fate of the universe. The mere act of trying to survive is a testament of my arrogance against this destruction. Like the gods of Norse myth, I fight a losing battle but I fight it all the same because I refuse to be a victim. I don't want to believe I'm a victim. Despite the randomness of circumstances that shape my decisions and my situation, I would rather fool myself believing that I have a say in all of this than give up and lose heart and wait until I am struck dead.

Yes, it is stupid to believe that the glass is only half-full, that kismet blows us kisses all the time. But we need a lie to make us live. Reality is demoralizing and disheartening; we need a nice fiction for us to march yonder to that sunny hilltop where the blue skies are never-ending. There is an Anais Nin in all of us that screams, "Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another."

A champion goes out there without thought of loss, without provision for defeat. Plan B is for cowards. I give up intellect for something a bit stupid, and that is the stupidity that leads me to victory. I'm running inside that burning house of opportunity tomorrow. The noxious smoke will probably knock me unconscious but I'll never know what's in there unless I get in and risk it.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

What's So Wrong With Being Happy? Kudos To Those Who See Through The Sickness.

"Floating in this cosmic jacuzzi
we are like frogs oblivious to the
water starting to boil.
No one flinches, we all float face down."
- "Warning", Incubus