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more-extended-sense-blog · 5 years

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I, a Second Manifesto

These last questioning days, nothing has been, and I am saying this because I tried hard enough, reachable by the stretch of my arms. I said to myself that I will not cry throughout making this essay (spoiler alert: I did), so for the purposes of narrating everything that happened for the last two weeks and developing my skills, I am going through the structure of how I debate, and probably fix myself along with it.

But before that, I just wanted to make something clear: that for humanity’s sake, I cannot contain myself through the stretches of my battered body, that sometimes I would like to stab it with a knife so that there is a proper catharsis of pain and eruption. But I will not do that because I decided long ago that, no matter how much I hate myself and love to release myself from an existence of agony, I would like to experience the agony of existing.

The first thing I usually do is present what is happening. This is what debaters call the inherency, the status quo, the present state. It is frightening to describe the perils of what is happening, and despite your efforts to argue and justify why, you’re left with nothing but to defend on how it would be better.

On the first day of school this year, there was supposed to be nothing but the avoidance of anything related to the typical pain of starting anything. I had to realize that, indeed, I have to start my sophomore year somehow. So, on the first day, I’d realize the first question I have to face is whether or not I should kill the passion that makes me, at least, alive. The answer is easy: if I say no, I would start the whole phase again, and I am in the middle of this one. If it took me 19 years just to achieve whatever I did achieve during this phase, it might take me another 19 years to guarantee a safety net for another phase, and I don’t have any resources to do that anymore. When I decided I will kill the passion that makes me alive, I signed a death contract – that I’d be willing to sacrifice myself for that fulfilment of satisfaction I did not set for myself. So, I signed the contract anyway, because there’s no room for your satisfaction, only the painful settlement of your choices.

I don’t really need much more words than that to precisely sum up the status quo. But I, in the most part, suggest more impactful words to describe it. Next thing in my structure is to weigh in the contribution of the other house and respond. This is where your rebuttals come in. This is exciting because this is where you compare who made better arguments than who.

When my father got diagnose of kidney ailments, my parents argued that I should be more empathizing, that me being apathetical is not helping him develop the necessary strength that he needs. I decided I would completely ignore the implications of it and compartmentalize anything so that I could not feel any remorse of what is happening. And I gladly rebutted my emotions to feel nothing. But behind that is a great remorse of regret of not feeling anything. Long ago, I decided that if I could suppress any weak emotions, I would, and if there are any chances that I will feel any sadness, I won’t. These were the happiest months, so far – not because I decided to make myself smile but because numbness can make me feel strong. So, when my father got sick, in the best way that I can suppress it, I hold back any emotions that I can because dealing with emotions have proven to be tiring, at best, and fatal, at worst.

But, of course, that did not happen. I cried days because of the coldness of how days usually are, and all I wanted to do is to go back to the embrace of my family without the pang of apathy. During these days of weakness, my humanity is tested – whether or not I shall continue to live as prisoner of my stubbornness or go back and accept that everything is wavering. I chose neither, anyway.

Perhaps, I will stop talking about how I debate because, as with writing, I’m never good at it. But, if I am, I would likely kill it, anyway. It is a lost cause. The only thing that made me survive for the last month is my attempt to love myself – and for every effort that I did to so, what just came out is the ignorance of self-hatred. I kept on reminding myself that being worthy of love is inherent: people really do need to love themselves somehow. But what I didn’t realize is that I did not really learn to love myself, I just ignored the days when I tend to hate myself for the choices that I make.

Now that it is all coming back to me and everything is breaking, I have to face the revelations of choosing the options of never going back. I have to adapt to changes I never expected to occur. I have to kill my passions, my father is sick, I suck at debating, and I hate myself. Somehow, I manage to have them all clamped up in a box waiting to explode - and when it finally does, I, too, have to shatter.

I guess there’s no more words to end this manifesto. Tears are shed, words have been written. Once again, I wanted to end things that made me less human that I am, to end the things that I want to end. And I wish I have the choice to make it end.

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more-extended-sense-blog · 6 years

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The Reunion

There is a certain nostalgic euphoria whenever you have reunion with the all the dearest cronies you had during your early school years that makes you brighten up with memories that takes you back to time to being a careless, happy child. It could not be happier when you talk to your former classmates, speaking with enthusiasm, and just reliving the joy that was once had been there. With one wave of a hello and a little chitchat and then there you are – suddenly taken back into your younger years as you cherished the blossoming of your childhood.

It was the 19th birthday of one of our friends and a former schoolmate, and she decided that she will celebrate another year of existence with her former schoolmates at a beach near our town. Fortunately with our group, we kept in touch since we live in the same town and we just got off high school and were heading into college. And since it was the last weeks of our summer vacation, a lot of us had joined her to celebrate her special day.

One could definitely tell how excited everyone was, stretching the last days of summer before we put our faces to our college life. The day gave us the perfect opportunity to have fun on the beach with the welcoming weather and satisfying ocean waves. We could not be more thrilled with the looming enjoyment ahead of us.

Everything was on place and everyone was on their right track into plummeting over a wondrous day. But then I hear murmuring in the middle of a suspicious silence overpowering the sound of the loud ocean waves. Then, the next thing I know three people are staring at me and laughing about something someone had said.

Then the murmuring got louder and, suddenly, shouts are pouring over me with taunting words and tormenting tones. Words that are so strange but so familiar but equally as hurtful as it was before. Everyone continued with their punch-lines and phrases crippling me into this sad and bargaining person. They looked down to me as they butted their phrases to me like what they were when we were children.

“When I see a black little body with a dangling black little cock, then we know it is him.”

“Eat this chicken butt because that’s what you always liked, isn’t it?” “No, he doesn’t like butts, he likes dicks!”

“Talk with someone your own level, smarty-dickhead.”

“Hey, you so dumb.”

“You have no chance on having someone because you’re so ugly.”

It was on that moment that a certain monster of the past unexpectedly visited me right in the middle of a joyous day. A monster that in 6 years of trying to hide from it has finally showed claiming me as his favourite victim. A monster so powerful that it hit me straight to the heart with unbearable sadness and overwhelming anger, crippling me like a powerless pawn.

It was the monster that haunted me for years during my primary school life. It has all those short but hurtful words, it has those quiet but judging eyes, it has all those heavy but pungent laughs, and it has all those teeth that ate my innocence. Then it took me back six years when I was a young, innocent boy hungry for compassion inside a crowd of children who had no other joy but to hurt that little boy.

It was that boy in front of those kids showing them all what he got, only to be reciprocated with laughter, only to receive taunts that made him believe he was worthless. He jumped and talked to his classmates and asking them to be his friend, and yet looked down because of his unappealing skin colour and disturbing appearance. He tried to be friends with everyone but became the laughing stock everyone could just watch to laugh.

I tried to live for the next six years forgetting that boy that I sordidly regretted knowing, only to find out that I was still that boy.

I built up walls and fences and guarded security so that I could just shove away that crippling boy that I regretted being. The torments build me a character so that everyone could see me as a new and developed self that is worthy of respect. I built enough guard for me so that I could defend myself from the harms of those belittling eyes and battering judgments.

But right on those moments, on the coast of that beach, surrounded by the people I tried to please for 11 years, I have realized that the monsters of the past never changed but only grew bigger to punch me with the realization.

No one had a perfect childhood. But you don’t have to remind me of my painful one.

As a refuge, the school was my consolation from the inadequate affection I receive from home. I was hungry for the embrace of a friend and the feeling of approval from the people that I knew. I was supposed to have at least someone to share everything with, but I ended up being dragged by my face on a grass, having an annoying chant because of my ugly smiling, or being continuously insulted as being queer.

The most painful thing a child could experience as a child is to have his childhood broken until he does not want to be a child anymore. Every Christmas and every birthdays, I always wish to be born again and rewind the time and do everything right – the right way how to be happy, the right way to fight back those children, and the right way to be a child. Because, seemingly, I always thought that I was living the wrong life. Why aren’t I enjoying what everybody is calling the peak of their happy life? Why aren’t I the child that enjoys his youth? Why aren’t I just one big happy child?

I was aware of my features – I was smart and I could be best at something I invested effort in. But I know sometimes I tend show my overpowering competitiveness, I tend show my boastful stance, and I know how annoying I can be. But after all, aren’t we all imperfect flawed creatures? But you didn’t have to point out and fixate all my flaws as if it’s the only thing that made me human. You didn’t have to belittle me in so many ways that I see myself as the worst version I could ever be. No one told you to do that.

But in the end, as I see myself in that situation at the beach, they created once again the monster I always feared. The one that I will carry for the rest of my life.

Once, I didn’t believe that history repeats itself. But somehow, it is perhaps true. History repeats joining the pain with it.

That day did not went on as happy as I expected. All the time I spent myself holding back my tears and trying not to burst my anger at anyone. That day I ended up crying at my room accepting the fact that people still think of me as worthless and as ugly as I was when I were a child.

There is a certain nostalgic presence during reunions. But with reunions also comes a monster of the past that never left you, as it eats you whole out of your existence.

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