Sunday, April 09, 2006

The Princess and the North Wind

I entered college with the dreams and the means to make them come true. I never lacked for anything: money, friends, confidence, and love. I never doubted anything about what I can do and achieve. I collided into college equipped with everything this materialistic and competitive world can ever give me. Then why?

I finished my first year less than what I have been. I finished a failure.

I became engulfed by excessively brilliant and over-talented people. Even my ego couldn’t save me. Maybe it’s because I have a better grasp of reality that I could not lie to myself, who knows? But I was dwarfed. I felt myself getting littler and littler every day I am with these supermen (O Nietzsche, where art thou heaven?). All my ego-defense mechanisms went down, and here I am, a loser.

Sir Ronald, when I was in third year, taught me how to write. He can be called my mentor. He told me once that a writer should never pity himself. I said, of course not. I levered him a gaze that told him, how can you ever suggest that to me? But even then I was afraid. The thought of a new world was not far away, and I was not very sure about how I would hold myself up when the day comes.

And come it did.

Everyday I sunk into a deeper pathetic apathy. I let my friends do everything for me. They filled out the forms; they asked people to be friends for me and they asked the people for interviews and schedules. I gave them the impression that stuff like that were below me, stuff like pathos and empathy. But hell they were. I was simply afraid. Afraid? Me? Yes. Yes, Geronimo. Yes, Betch. Afraid. Afraid that maybe everything I do can be done better by everybody else, and they did. Including you guys.

That fear drove me into apathy. How many times, Cc, have you told me that you hate my complacency, my ennui? But of course ‘ennui’ is a big Hungarian word for you. Ennui. Indifference. I hate it too. Not caring is almost the same as not feeling.

I told you once that everything was mechanical. They are. I was stuck in a world of machinery, of gears and cogs and regularity. The worst of it? It was me who put me there. I studied and studied, but it’s all pointless! Pointless! There was nothing of me in it all.

My mom shoved an article under my nose the other day. You know, one of those in the Youngblood column of Inquirer. Its title was ‘Passion’. Like many other Youngblood articles shoved under my nose countless times, I was ready to put all of it at the back of my cobwebbed mind. For some not entirely meta-understandable reason, it’s stuck in my head. I see these successful people on TV, and ask myself: can I ever be like them? I dreamed to be them.

The dream is still there. The passion for it is somewhere taking a ride with the Princess on the North Wind.

Passion. Where is my passion? When I was in high school I loved to sing and play the guitar for people. I loved to write and speak my mind. All these, though, are almost gone now. There was simply no time, what with all the photocopied pages and pages and pages to read and memorize. Somewhere in the process, I lost my passion for what I do. I lost myself in the mechanism. Not that I don’t know what I want anymore. I just don’t know where the strength, the motivation, and the passion are to get them.

That is my failure.

So this is a problem. I am drained just detailing it. It is not the course I’m taking. The course even encourages my former passions: speaking my mind and writing. It’s just that I don’t! I could do better, but I don’t! I defeated myself in a battle against myself. I let me second-guess me and my environment. I sunk into a muck of my creation. I said once that I know where I want to be. But this, all of this, is not what I want to be.

Obvious, eh? Here’s yours truly suffering from a severe degradation of self-esteem. Now I know what those guys at Youngblood write about all the time, a lot of them being Iskos and Iskas themselves. They have been where I am. See, I don’t really put all of their words at the back of my mind. I rarely do. Now I need all their survival tips, along with my instincts to get through this. I will. I’m sure of it. UP may have taken my passion and my self-esteem, but I know how to get them back.

Even the Princess found the kingdom east of the sun and west of the moon, after her ride on the North Wind. My task can’t be harder than that.

6 Comments:

Blogger marX said...

*smiles* you have the passion. cguro dormant lang pero you have it. stay smiling!

7:59 PM  
Blogger Jan Robert said...

hey, passion? you do have passion, passion for writing. sabi nga sa kanta, "don't lose your way, with each passing day. you've come so far don't throw it away." pero di ko sinasabi na ayaw mo na. sabi mo nga motivated ka ng course. siguro kailan mo... wala. nakaya mo ang isang taon sa UP... makakaya mo pa sa tatlo pang taon... we just have to have lessons of life... don't give up! Robert is here to help. Sabi nga ni Marc, smile :)

5:41 AM  
Blogger najjems said...

UP? saang campus? takot na ko...

3:05 PM  
Blogger Ferretti shoes said...

hey 'najjems',kahit sang kampo ka mapadpad, pagdadaanan mo rin ito. freshie? hm. prepare yourself psychologically this early. say goodbye. once youre in, lets see if you can come back.

7:28 PM  
Blogger Ferretti shoes said...

can i have a career in terrorism? hahahahaha! hi robert, marc. salamat sa 'suporta'. ano ba 'to, magpapakamatay na ko? hindi rin. matagal ko nang napuna ang lahat ng ito, ngayon ko lang naisulat. balikan niyo yung entry ko nun, "Nothing More Than Glass" sa August archives. i was optimistic, even until now. it's a challenge i'm sure a lot of us are facing, but not articulating.

7:32 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

hei lizzie.. hehe.. i felt the same SAME damn thing.. but inspiration is just there.. somewhere in the corner of our creativity.. :D hihi.. just have to try better.. sai nga ni donna sken.. "you can do better.. you just don't aim for it.." so there.. :D

3:50 PM  

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