3.8.09

On Random Shiz

3.8.09
Exhaustion comes in many forms. There is the fatigue of the flesh, the feebleness of the mind, and the weariness of the *cardiac organ, depending on the events that transpire in an individual's life. This sense of tiredness may stem from the countless staircases that one has to climb in a day, or the pile of books one has to finish within two days, or the kind of life that one constantly sees from other people. Or the pressure from one's peers, the burden of having to wake up every morning. Once that sense of tiredness overcomes completely, one will know nothing save the persistent want for rest, to stop for a while. The body ceases all activity, but the worst case scenario is for the heart to tire of caring.

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Faith is a string wrapped around The Thing. Depending on who you are, that string may be tightly coiled- like a gnarled hand tightly clutched around a wad of dough- or slack- like the relaxed embrace of a dear friend. It could be entirely uncoiled, exposing what it had once hidden.

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I had an epiphany. We've been given enough shit to deal with that could last us more than a lifetime. Other people have been given more shit than they could handle. So they go over the edge. And they die. Just like that. Sometimes (those rare moments in human history when we actually give a shit), we care enough for a few lives to be saved. Or, we spend our waking moments worrying our asses off for the future of our country, planet, etc. We're not completely heartless. We do care, sometimes, when the ugliness and the stain of poverty on society presents itself right in front of our faces. We do care, sometimes, when the mistakes are so tangible and thick in the air that we can't breathe. Heck, we breathe in that miasma every single day we travel across the city, or walk to the sari-sari store to buy a bote of toyo/mantika/suka/etc, or go to the mall to shop/window shop, or watch the evening news (usually about who's pregnant, who broke up, who died, whose house was robbed/*insert random event of human suffering here*). We breathe in that fucked-up air of same mistakes every single second of our lives.

It's killing us, ain't it? We don't know, because we're so absorbed in surviving and studying and working and breathing. And seeing without really seeing. And hearing but not listening. And combing our brushes through our brains just to come up with a way to get by.

So here's my epiphany. It's a lot easier not to care. I've tried the other side, and it's given me nails on my fingers. And blisters on my toes. So I'd rather not care.

We'd rather not care.

Am I right? Or do you want to stone me now to death for saying that? I implore you to read. And dig. Don't just read. Dig deep and dig hard. Dig as though you're digging through a mountain of cash. That's the way to dig.