After staying-in the whole day, mad-dancing a sweat in the privacy of my place (that includes being naked... haha!), surfing channels, stuffing myself with fast food, fixing the pile of books, papers, CDs and DVDs stacked on chairs and my desk, I decided to meet up with a friend for a late-night craving for even more fast-food and a hang-out at a nearby cafe. I needed to get out, I needed to do something, I wanted to escape the imprisoned warmth of my room. Though my place was awash in the orange glow of the afternoon sun, a scene I usually love to immerse myself in, the heat gave me a headache, exacerbating my restlessness and boredom.
Conversations with this friend of mine usually hover from shallow flings to the abyssal world of metaphysics. And though at times I get frustrated and bored at how topics circumvent what we left off on in a previous meeting, I must say that what keeps me interested is the fact that our rhetoric reflects on so many truths about myself and my own life; even several truths that, in most cases, I refuse to accept or never realize. Discussions with a twenty-four year old can put a self-proclaimed twenty-six-year-old-old-soul to shame.
Just like before, three-fourths of our discussion went on about his current realizations about his unrequited (and long-distance) relationship with an ex. Probably I was groggy from this day's inactivity, but I couldn't help countering all he said with unspoken cynicism. Eventually I admitted to it after he mentioned that he had read somewhere that relationships were primarily based on the other's lack or need in something, fulfilled by the other. In this case, (he eventually pointed out) all my negativity was countered and complimented by his optimism (a characteristic this guy seems to be teeming with).
In the onset of our talk, over fast food and the distraction of noisy call center people, I couldn't help but feel confused at his current situation. I grew frustrated that he couldn't seem to move on. I then realized that I wasn't really listening to him. I was filtering most of what he said with my own cynical expectations. What I got then was that amid all his philosophies about coincidences, of reading the signs in his life and being so determined to understand his ex, was that he simply refused to let go of the reality that the other had moved on; and that he was just being played on. So I egged him on to admit these. My efforts fell flat when he did admit to it all nonchalantly. I grew even more frustrated.
I refused to admit that I had missed the point in all his sharing. I refused to see that he was simply happy at doing it all, willing to take chances, to embrace possibility.
Still wanting to prove myself right and able, I tried to explain further that the belief in coincidences and reading the "signs" were a result of one's desperate need to believe that something is real and true; an extended 'wishful thinking'. In such a science, things fall into place because we convince ourselves of it. I feel like what I had said fell on deaf ears as he continued sharing what he read from Deepak Chopra and what his psychotherapist told him. He felt that all the aspects in his life seem to be falling in one direction, outward, and toward his ex. I even chided that no matter how I 'sharpened my needle' to burst his optimist balloon, it never seems to be successful. Now I see that in our irregular meetings, I'm constantly charged to shoot him down.
In reality, I'm simply envious at the movement in his life. Compared to my current contemptuous sloth, who am I to judge his thoughts and ways as optimistic naivete? Compared to me who prefers resting on my dusty laurels and languishing in fabricated depression, he's working amiably toward goals. I was arrogant enough to remind him that his constant aims at lofty aspirations may end up in him falling and hurting bad. Again, it did not deter his spirit.
In all my efforts to make him see a bleak reality, I see how much I long to be in his place. All my warnings and discouragements, carefully articulated to sound smart and mature, was simply a resentment to all his advantages. Even his discourse of "sharing the love", that we are all child-like in need of attention and love met my unexpressed mockery at such 'corny' ideas.
Indeed he is someone to look up to. For all those brooding folk, he is someone to contend with; if not to argue with, for a window to see how many of us bitch about craving for the ideal, cowardly preferring to simmer in negativity, under the pretense of a pained, ruminating existence.
No comments:
Post a Comment