On laughing

I’m in the first semester of my second year in grad school. I do not  know whether this is doing me any good or I am ending up more confused than when I entered. I know that I am going somewhere, I should; I do not know, though, whether this somewhere is a place I want to be in hereupon. At so many points in the classes I am taking this semester  I would catch myself participating in esoteric discussions about topics I am clueless or talking about concerns of very little significance in my life. I even had moments in complete trance where I talked at length in class but had no idea what the words that come out from my mouth meant.

It’s funny.

I guess my then-unrealized sense of humor is now put into very good use these days. When people feel lost, they gather themselves together by laughing out loud at the cruel world before them. I just lost my compass, but I could only laugh at everything.

I am happier nowadays.

Half-way done with my quarterlife crisis

http://www.stratejoy.com/

I turned 25 four days ago. I’m now exactly in my mid-20s; not a very consoling idea considering that I only intend to live until my 40s or 50s. That means I am already suffering from my mid-life crises, which is way grimmer.

I always believe that the 20s is the best time for somebody to commit as many mistakes as he can because when he is in his teens he’s not mature enough to reflect on and learn from his mistakes, and it’s already quite late and a bit shameful when he’s in his 30s and still keeps on committing major gaffes. The 20s gives one both a just-right level of maturity and an excuse for being a fool.

I still have five more years until I run out of reasons for being less of what I should be, for being profligate, for being too smart that I rejected so many opportunities to become somebody, for being carefree and irresponsible  about so many things, for loving very passionately and falling out of love just as quickly.

But until I reach my 30s, I would never stop living this life to its brim, until it overflows. I would cherish the daredevilry, the risque attitude I have cultivated after nine years of living by myself. For sure, I would remember this part of my life as the most exciting, the most colorful, and a major turning point in my going-to-be short life.

Writing a synopsis of one’s life this early a stage is a formidable task. I am smacked in the face with a blank page; I got nothing much to write because nothing much has happened to me. Except for some occasional minor storms, my life is dotted with negligible doldrums that fail to develop into full-fledged hurricanes; I would consider my life just a few notches above boring. I have lived a fairly comfortable, untested existence.

The supposed daredevilry and risque I was referring to above were nothing but an empty rhetorical device called hyperbole that a man in his 20s has a penchant of using and abusing; his grandiloquence unbridled. I have hopelessly projected, using this blog, divergent images of myself and the life I live from what is truly real.

I’ve been employed in not less than ten different jobs since I left the university, changed careers paths in not less than five times, and I am currently holding more or less four jobs. I spend most of my time working more than anything else. I work for plus-minus 16 hours every day, leaving me with a measly 8 hours for sleeping, eating, bathing, reading, writing, studying, traveling to work, but still being able to maintain a beautiful relationship with one of the most interesting and lovable persons I have met. I get exhausted at times, but I am far from being burned out.

I’ve been involved in more or less five serious relationships, had taken part in more than a hundred-and-one flings (more or less, as I already lost count), but in all these five serious relationships, I profess that I loved as passionately and burned red-hot I got singed from the inside. And from these mistakes, I learned a lot, in fact.

And gladly, I’ve begun quite recently to take everything, especially when it’s a matter concerning love, at a more even pace. This allows me and my partner to relish those simple moments of having simple dinners together, looking at each other’s faces while eating home-cooked Kare-kare, sitting by the beach, watching a movie about witches and the Devil, exchanging sweet-nothings, or simply cuddling at 5 in the morning (two hours before work starts, painfully reminding us that we’re adults ergo we have to work no matter how hard we dupe ourselves that we’re apathetic Frenchmen).

At this point, I’d say I am a happy man, though I know happiness is on a never-ending flux. Being a ‘happy man’ is as dynamic a phrase as the images inside the kaleidoscope you’ll find in the header of this blog. If there’s one thing experience has imparted on me that I will never outgrow, it’s being able to remain hopeful and eternally starry-eyed about what many surprises tomorrow will shower me with. Though this does not figure in my generally cynical posts and jaded thoughts, I am a believer of beautiful tomorrows. Probably this is the reason why I remain a happy man despite the hurts, frustrations, disappointments, heavy traffic, oily fast food, fake people, skyrocketing rent, demanding graduate school, and sleepless nights.

I am happy to celebrate this phase of my life and look forward to many more years of writing, working, yes loving, and living.