Make sure everyone is smiling

   So today was a pretty happy day, and only "pretty" happy because I was aware of the fact that only I fully enjoyed it. Being aware of others sucks balls, because once you're aware of even one person who's not enjoying the whole thing, it kinda ruins the whole thing, even if that person isn't even a close friend, it's sad when someone is left out, and you know there's nothing you can really do about it.
   I guess sometimes not caring does give you that full package of happiness, but it would be the same thing as being imprudent to others, like a small case of social ignorance, but it's better than pretending not to notice, cause eventually it's just gonna dig deeper into your conscience, and you'll be bugged by it all throughout the day. To care or not to care?
   Though, my point being, maybe life is happier when things are simpler, though that doesn't necessarily mean you have to be ignorant to be more happy, you just have to make things... simpler. Don't overthink and circumstance, and just go with the easier choice. An electric current goes through the path of least resistance. Just be the current. Don't make things complicated and harder to go through, and don't let yourself go through something harder if the task is simple enough as it is. Even Nike got it right by saying "Just do it". Make things easy, don't stress yourself

   Now, if only I could follow my own advice.

 

A Lesson in Liquor

   I never thought that I'd do what I just did. "Inuman" or drinking. I thought it would be the cause of the downfall of my life. But my expectations were betrayed with happy outcomes.

   I suddenly got invited to drink by a very dear friend of mine, and I thought "why not?", experience is the best teacher, but as any innocent young man, I had my own doubts and fears of what was to come. I was incredibly reluctant to go at first, because 1) Alcohol. 2) 3 out of 5 of the people I drank with were people that I didn't know very well, and I felt really out of place. 3) I had an incredibly bad vibe of the place where we drank, and even more so of the place that it was located on.

    And so after some agonizing small talk, and anxious walking, we got to the place, sat down and waited for some sisig and some alcoholic beverage. It wasn't anything heavy. The alcohol literally tasted just like grape juice, but it had enough to get you a little drunk. I listened to my friends talk about stuff and I remained observant. To my surprise, after 3 drinks or so, I... felt amazing. It's like my mind just woke up from stagnancy. I just felt the fears melt away. I joined in conversations without listening to my inner fears or doubts, and it was a blast. Liquor is literally liquid confidence. A little bit of it and you're unstoppable. I actually stayed for only an hour but it felt more than that. It felt like the night went on until I realized I had to go home. I was proud of the fact that I wasn't drunk at all, just really, socially active from the intoxication. So I left early, saying that I'll stay around more next time. I kinda wanted to see how far I could get, but it would be a bad time to try it out. So I left the place, and I hung out with a few other friends and told them about what we did, and talked about being drunk, effects, and all that. It's not as scary or frightening as a lot of people envision it. It's actually a great way to socialize, but you really need to know your own limit or tolerance. Everything goes to the flip-side when you're breaking the limit, to the point that your judgement just goes haywire.

    In the end, it was great. Leaving my own comfort zone was enjoyable. Though I couldn't get off the alcoholic energy boost on the way home, and right now I feel a little hungover, but it's worth it. As I said before, experience is the best teacher, but it's the most punishing if you push it too far. It's those little risks in life that leaves us with little nuggets of knowledge for survival. Life is better when you live it.

    And to that, we drink.

[Void]

   So it's 12:14 AM, I have to get ready in 7 hours for school. I'm awake for absolutely no good reason, other than typing up whatever this is. If I sleep now, it'll just be for a second. Clap your hands or snap your fingers. That's the duration of my dreams when I sleep. It's been void for a while. On the bright side, the well-rested feeling never goes away when I wake up. The down-side? I'm always emotionally tired.

    I haven't been dreaming anything for a while, so I decided to check why with a little psychoanalysis, and some little facts on dreams. First off, I kind of picked up a trivia that people dream more than once every night, but we usually remember only 1 or 2 dreams when we wake up, whereas some instantly, or quickly forget the moment they wake up. So maybe I do dream, I just remember absolutely nothing about the dreams. But I didn't really feel like I was dreaming anything on the past month. It just felt really empty, like the little moments when you blink, there's almost nothing in that moment.
 
    Secondly, I've been thinking of dreams as figurative dreams. What you dream is what you subconsciously or consciously want. You dream of a girl, a future, a job, an event, anything that you might actually want, maybe you've dreamed of it, and if you haven't, you probably will soon enough. Also, if you think on it frequently, maybe you'll dream about it the moment you sleep. Maybe stimulating the specific neural pathway will increase the chances of you eventually dreaming that on your next snooze. Just for the heck of it, try it out. Thank me later.

    Lastly, dreams may often be flashbacks from the past. If dreams were products, your memories would be the ingredients. Sometimes these dreams might even appear as big coincidences, as if it was some sort of prophecy. Heck, sometimes they even serve as predictions, just without the specific date. Dreams almost have the most subjective timing ever. Sometimes they appear and it feels like destiny.

    So what does it mean when you don't dream at all? Maybe you don't have plans or dreams for the future. Maybe you just want to float on in life. Maybe you just didn't want to access any memories for a while, in case you suddenly pluck a really shitty memory. Or maybe your dreams aren't so memorable, so you just discard them the moment you wake up. Regardless, if you're dreaming, you better cherish it. It's one thing to rest the body, but it's another to rest the mind. A dream is like a summer vacation that lasts forever, in your mind, for around a few hours. It's your mind's R&R. Enjoy it.

Cave

    I've been extremely confused on what to make out of what had happened on the past few days. I won't go into much details, since I already did on the previous post, but things are starting to get out of hand from my perspective. It's that panicky, I-can't-even kind of feeling you get after receiving a bulk of homework, for the sake of your understanding, let's say around 9 home-works and a project, due 2-3 days from now. You're just mesmerized by the things you'd have to do to get a high grade- let alone pass- all of the subjects. Yet, that's only an analogy. Imagine having that kind of work, but there is no deadline, it's purely emotional, and all the things you have to do seem hard at first glance, but remain impossible at the second. Any groan is acceptable, but not enough to even justify how daunting all those tasks are. But the catch is: they're all self-imposed.

    I wouldn't impose such things on myself. Though maybe I did because of my morality. There are times when you should, or shouldn't care, about the consequences of your actions, and morality should kick in at some point so that you don't get swept away by "Social Natural Selection". Unfortunately, this isn't one of those times. At this point my morality doesn't know what to do. I'm pretty sure all my life HASN'T been leading up to this point where I'm miraculously in right now, but I'm here nonetheless. A good example would be being forced to be something, like a class representative because no one else was good enough, or everyone else capable was just too lazy, so it had to be you, and you can't really turn it down, because you just feel like it would be bothersome to decline it, so even though you had the power to say no, you just didn't, yet you still feel like you were forced, because... Protagonist Syndrome. I do confess that I have that syndrome to some degree, but I guess experience and fear of being socially ostracized has developed my morals and discipline, so that I don't commit horrible, horrible faux pas. Digressing on my own morality, and back to the current situation, I'm definitely not prepared for what's to come. I could plan the weeks ahead for things I could do in my mind, but now everyday is a mystery, but not a good kind of mystery, the mysteries that you read on horror books or movies. The weird noises you hear at night that you tell yourself and convince yourself that it was just a cat, or it was just some wind. It's that kind of mystery you get after reading the words "As he turned around..." or "He opened the door, only to find...". Every day is another deadly, if not dangerous, cave to explore.

    Now you know what it feels like to be a hobbit, suddenly pushed off into a deadly journey just for a friggin' mountain kingdom. Now you know what it feels like to be an adventurer that was just pushed into that line of work. Now you feel sympathy for every cowardly character that wouldn't dare enter a deadly dungeon.
   
    On the bright side, no dragons, deadly monsters, and instant death traps! And if you DO survive, you get to learn!

    Time to enter the cave.

You gotta have a little...

   Bull load of events today, from having a meaningful recollection, up until a little promise to keep me going. As per usual, dissecting time~.

    So today was our recollection, and in a typical recollection, you'd just have some bonding moments with your blockmates/classmates, have some fun activities, know more about each other, and even though you should've really recalled certain memories and experience, some people don't. I'm one of those people, but I found something interesting. Something I thought I'd discarded and would never go back to. Faith. Well, I guess I haven't exactly discarded it. I still believe that there has to be someone upstairs calling all the shots down here, and I guess we all have some faith to some degree, but today I learned a different kind of faith. It was more of a persevering kind, the one that's vague but strong and dependable. The kind of faith that assures you that everything will be alright. It's a little less devotion to a certain dogma, but a little more than just positive thinking. I found it through sheer meditation. The recollection facilitator gave activities that involves in staying quiet and focusing on the inner. He asked us to "find God's message". At first I was skeptical; who else but myself would say something in my mind? Obviously, only I could talk to myself in my head, but Religious Education taught me that God is present in human experiences, so I gave it a shot. I'm a kind of person that was conditioned to give up because of a certain inferiority complex with a dash of high expectations. I was a kind of person that didn't have any plans for the future, and had no specific or grand goal in mind. On the road I'm walking on, there is no pavement, no sign, no direction. But... I gotta go somewhere, right? Suddenly the words "Keep Going" just popped up my head. You could say it was just some neurons firing up and coming up with those words, but it just felt surreal. I didn't expect to come up with anything, but something popped out. Well we could still argue on and on about how those were my actual inner thoughts, but maybe that's a part of what God is too; we all have a little bit of him as essential goodness.

    I got soaked in the rain, had a good time with some friends, and then got home, it was my nephew's birthday! Changed my clothes, played a little League... and the most amazing thing happened. A few months back I had ended a wonderful friendship, which also served as something similar to a relationship. What I thought had been ended, was more of something suspended. I never expected her to talk to me again after what seemed like a parting of ways. We did some catching up and eventually, I made things clear with her. I did still love her, and I did tell her that it was her choice on whether we're to build something in between. She told me that it could be possible, but we should place our studies first, which I respected and also planned to do, and so a promise to wait was made. To be honest I've never done such a promise before, but I don't intend to fail on keeping it. I guess it all boils down on whether this was all a coincidence, or part of a grand scheme laid out for me. Despite all the doubts and worries, I'm still keeping my word, besides, no one else would be able to make me smile like she does. To some she might be a disaster, but to me she's a keeper. I just do hope I get to keep her when she lets me.

    I don't know what to make of what had transpired today, but it was something that snapped me out of it. I really hope I can Keep Going. I hope that things just keep getting better from now on.