Go on the journey, they said. They never said there wasn’t a destination. And you forgot to ask.
#bestnine2018
I’ve been getting increasingly bad at social media in the past two years. I’m really losing track of all messages and whatnot. (Funny because I was literally social on the internet before it was cool. Old-school forums ftw!) Also, whenever I get to the end of the year, it always feels like I haven’t done quite enough. Like there are too many projects in the backburner, too many awesome things that need to be done but weren’t. Mostly because of the daily grind of everyday life, and the inevitable unproductivity brought about by either illness (boy, there was a lot of that this year) or anxiety attack (ditto). But whenever I take my year in review, it’s always a pleasant surprise, the amount of things that were done. (Even if sometimes they weren’t exactly what was planned.) So yeah. This is basically just a bit of thinking out loud and a big thank you to everyone who shared this big rollercoaster ride even if I’ve been terrible at keeping in touch.
As for 2019… I have a feeling it’s going to be a good year. A better year. And (let me just hold back on this a little bit) full of a bunch of things I didn’t see coming.
A few days ago, a classmate asked me what I wanted for Christmas. Without batting an eyelash, I responded: “I want a happy life.” But now that I think about it, that’s not necessarily true. Happiness is easy (well, to me at least), after all. It’s a slow night walk in the light of the full moon, seeing how many constellations I can recognize. It’s watching the bustle of shadows around the rainbow-colored lights at Centrio Mall. It’s watching one of your favorite illustrators go live on Instagram on a piano, drunk and playing some of the happiest music you’ve ever heard. And that’s just a fraction of all the happiness I’ve found in the past 24 hours.
No, even that is not enough for me. If happiness was enough, I would have stopped a long time ago. I would have long found my space in the world, and sat in one corner, content to watch the world go around me.
There’s a part of me that also wants to live in discontent, to want to be more than just an observer of whatever beauty is out there. I want to make order out of the inevitable chaos. I want to fight fights that I know I cannot win, but in fighting anyway I know that I have made some difference. Even if nobody will ever thank me for it. (Hey, validation is so overrated anyway.) Even if nobody will ever know.
I guess that’s why I’ve been in so much internal turmoil lately. Because it’s so easy to choose happiness, so easy to be happiness. But I also know that even if I choose to give in to it, one day the fire of discontent in me will either call me away from it or burn me alive.
Don’t get me wrong: there are times when I just have to sit still and let the world be. But I also know that for some reason – be it genes, or my personality, or my (according to online tests anyway) “high risk” for attention deficit disorder, or the admittedly shady thing that people like to call “purpose” – I cannot sit still for long.
Think happy thoughts. 🌈🌈🌈
Realized we haven’t had a doge post in a while so Imma fix it.
Straight off the press. <3
borrowed semi-truths by Gari Jamero
Ang Pagsasara ni Raymond A Ybañez
It’s been such a busy last few weeks and it looks like it will continue to be. On the bright side, there are lots of things to look forward to! Like shiny new books straight from the press, fun new projects, and ice cream!
A Random Musing for Today
Did you know that, for about a quarter of the price of a carbonara at a fancy café, you can make two servings at home that taste much, much better? All you need is about a hundred grams of dried pasta, an egg, garlic, some cheap cheese, and a bit of pepper. Maybe some bacon or tuna, if you’re feeling it. But I’ve been trying to cut down on meat lately.
Anyway, I almost didn’t believe the recipe when I saw it. After all, every single serving of carbonara I’ve eaten before then always invariably had cream in it. Still, it looked legit. After all, the person demonstrating the recipe on YouTube was decidedly the most Italian man I have ever seen. And so when I added the pasta water and the yolk in towards the end of cooking, I was amazed at just how creamy the sauce became, even when it did not have a single drop of cream. The Italians were right.
(On an unrelated note, I recalled all the cooking shows, TV ads and recipe giveaways of the past thirty years of my life, realizing that cream in carbonara was a lie that Nestlé has fed us for generations. To give us a reason to buy more cream, I guess.)
Looking back at the video of the Italian guy cooking, though, I realized that (at least per recording time) this was not a person cooking for a restaurant. This was a person cooking for a home. For a family. With a recipe that was probably passed down from an Italian grandmother who lived in destitute times. Most likely, she had some semolina flour and some eggs, maybe some garlic and pepper, cheese from the farm, and only a strip of pancetta to feed a family of four. Then, she worked with what she had to make sure everybody walked from the dinner table full and satisfied that they each had their fair share of pancetta. And the end result was carbonara.
Many, many years and 10,000 kilometers later, I have rediscovered her recipe in an experiment to figure out the best ways to eat well as a money- and time-deprived student in a sad period were the local economy is going downhill. And it made me realize just how much the best things in our lives have been built by necessity, moreso than creativity.
When that grandma had only a few things on hand, she made a delicious meal that would be passed on for generations. When people were dying left and right from disease, someone had to figure out how to make antibiotics, and also vaccines. When sprawling out into the suburbs was impractical, we figured out how to build higher. When the US was at risk of the Russians hurting its pride, it sent men to the moon to prove they could.
On a personal level, I have done many things for want of -something-. I wrote the stories I could not read, just mostly because there were not enough of the stories I wanted at the local bookstore. I made the art I could not see in person, because there were barely any galleries or art shows when I was growing up. Back in college, I made my own review notes painstakingly in the library because I could not afford my own books (or, more accurately, because I made it a principle not to spend more on my education that necessary.) It may not have been the most convenient way to go through life, but these all helped me learn skills that have been incredibly useful.
I guess it is not plain abundance, but also scarcity and the yearning for something better that pushes us forward. So today, I am thankful for what I do not have.
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DISCLAIMER: While it is true that necessity and scarcity can drive innovation, this DOES NOT mean that it’s OK to deliberately deprive people (or to create an inequality) using that excuse. If you’re one of those people who think that poor people have to suck it, as a poor person I swear I will find you and stab you.
The #artforeveryone exhibit runs until September 2! Make sure to stop by to see the @arkadia.collective <3
When you gotta do art things but you also gotta study. Don’t need to give anything up. Time management lang yan.
Also, come visit the #artforeveryone exhibit at the 5th floor of SM Downtown Premiere! We’re open until September 2!
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