Taking off
Yesterday's mass had me on the verge of tears.
Our parish is administered by the same order of priests who managed the school I spent my elementary and high school days in. And from time to time, I'd suddenly find myself hearing mass officiated by a priest who I haven't seen since way back when. Of course, I don't expect them to remember me given the multitude of people they've come across with since they last "served" us little kids of Don Bosco. But somehow, in spite of the anonymity, there's a sense of comfort that these encounters bring. It's as if someone from your past comes back to reassure you that you've been with the right people, the people that God wanted you to be with. And that all the hardships and the heartaches that you feel right now are part of a carefully designed plan to make you better. At this point of me feeling a little lost, that message whispers: "Darwin, don't worry. You're still in the right track. Leave behind all your regrets and march on without any baggages in tow."
But yesterday's mass had a little extra kick to it. The readings talked about death and dying and Fr. Alex Garces talked about the purpose of living. At first I thought, great, yet another episode to compound my quarter-life existentialist crisis! I mean death, dying, and the purpose of life?! It inevitably bangs you in the head with questions of "What the hell are you doing? Life's short and you're lazing around waiting for things to unfold?!" Hay, I really don't know but sometimes, Christian values are a little hard to reconcile. On the one hand, you have patience as a virture and that everything will come in God's time. But on the other hand, you've got readings after readings of how you should utilize the opportunities that come your way and not squander all the potential that God blessed you with.
Anyway, those thoughts aside, I found myself teary-eyed as Fr. Alex proceeded with his homily. He talked about a book written by a holocaust survivor which centered on the meaning of life. I'm not quite sure if I got it right but with a little help from Google, I think the book's title is "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor E. Frankl. Essentially, he said that the meaning of life is defined by three things: (1) purpose, (2) the experience of loving and being loved, and (3) faith.
Upon hearing that, I felt the resurgence of anxious pangs beating my heart. Purpose, love, and faith - things that I need to come to terms with right now. I just can't seem to nail these concepts in my head at this juncture of my life. Worse, I feel as if I've already mastered these three ideas before I went out of school and until the "real world" started challenging my conceptions of myself and how I wanted to spend my life. Everything used to be so clear-cut to me: finish elementary, finish high school, finish college, get a job, make money for your family while serving others and trying to make this world a little better and since the immortality potion has yet to be discovered, die knowing that I've given my fair share to this world.
But no! Things didn't turn out how I pictured them to be. Simply put, life's not that simple. Purpose? My job's a right fit to my undergrad course but I can't seem to find fulfillment and joy in what I'm doing. Maybe I'm in the wrong sub-field but this too makes me wonder how finding your rightful place could be so difficult when you've already worked so hard to prepare for it. A lack of opportunities or a lack of qualifications? Either way, I've found myself immaturely blaming dreamweavers for peddling hopes about how I could have a successful career in my line of work. Along the way, we must've forgotten that life would mean bills to pay and a future to prepare for. Love? I won't even bother. Faith? Now there's something I still hold on to so dearly. Minus a clearly discerned purpose and with a confused perspective on love, faith becomes the only saving grace that I could, that I want to hold on to.
Maybe my generation got so comfortable with the "instant" mentality - that with the possibilities of today, not getting to where you want to be in the quickest time possible is a crime. Lest I be accused of being a brat who doesn't know the value of hard work, I must clarify that I grew up with my family having to struggle just to put me through a good school. My parents adhere to that Filipino notion of education as the only treasure they could bequeathe their children. But still, that fact makes me all the more wearisome of why I can't find my niche in this world. With my parents sacrificing a lot to, whenever possible, simply hand me what I need, the guilt of not being able to quickly take off after college becomes more difficult to come to terms with. My parents had to struggle to put themeselves to school, I on the other hand was privileged enough to have them sacrifice for me. So how come I can't seem to take off?
Through all these, to look at my past becomes a bittersweet solution. Reexamining the choices I've made inevitably brings forward sentiments of regret and disappointment while at the same time bringing a sense of reassurance. I figured that the world will move on and that living a day at a time could possibly be the best option at this point. A bittersweet past will allow me to prepare for a bittersweet future and in doing such I need to regain the strengths of my old self and the lessons of my earlier days. But then again, Keane's "Everybody's Changing" still rings in my head: "So little time. Try to understand that I'm trying to make a move just to stay in the game. I try to stay awake and remember my name but everybody's chaning and I don't feel the same."
Our parish is administered by the same order of priests who managed the school I spent my elementary and high school days in. And from time to time, I'd suddenly find myself hearing mass officiated by a priest who I haven't seen since way back when. Of course, I don't expect them to remember me given the multitude of people they've come across with since they last "served" us little kids of Don Bosco. But somehow, in spite of the anonymity, there's a sense of comfort that these encounters bring. It's as if someone from your past comes back to reassure you that you've been with the right people, the people that God wanted you to be with. And that all the hardships and the heartaches that you feel right now are part of a carefully designed plan to make you better. At this point of me feeling a little lost, that message whispers: "Darwin, don't worry. You're still in the right track. Leave behind all your regrets and march on without any baggages in tow."
But yesterday's mass had a little extra kick to it. The readings talked about death and dying and Fr. Alex Garces talked about the purpose of living. At first I thought, great, yet another episode to compound my quarter-life existentialist crisis! I mean death, dying, and the purpose of life?! It inevitably bangs you in the head with questions of "What the hell are you doing? Life's short and you're lazing around waiting for things to unfold?!" Hay, I really don't know but sometimes, Christian values are a little hard to reconcile. On the one hand, you have patience as a virture and that everything will come in God's time. But on the other hand, you've got readings after readings of how you should utilize the opportunities that come your way and not squander all the potential that God blessed you with.
Anyway, those thoughts aside, I found myself teary-eyed as Fr. Alex proceeded with his homily. He talked about a book written by a holocaust survivor which centered on the meaning of life. I'm not quite sure if I got it right but with a little help from Google, I think the book's title is "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor E. Frankl. Essentially, he said that the meaning of life is defined by three things: (1) purpose, (2) the experience of loving and being loved, and (3) faith.
Upon hearing that, I felt the resurgence of anxious pangs beating my heart. Purpose, love, and faith - things that I need to come to terms with right now. I just can't seem to nail these concepts in my head at this juncture of my life. Worse, I feel as if I've already mastered these three ideas before I went out of school and until the "real world" started challenging my conceptions of myself and how I wanted to spend my life. Everything used to be so clear-cut to me: finish elementary, finish high school, finish college, get a job, make money for your family while serving others and trying to make this world a little better and since the immortality potion has yet to be discovered, die knowing that I've given my fair share to this world.
But no! Things didn't turn out how I pictured them to be. Simply put, life's not that simple. Purpose? My job's a right fit to my undergrad course but I can't seem to find fulfillment and joy in what I'm doing. Maybe I'm in the wrong sub-field but this too makes me wonder how finding your rightful place could be so difficult when you've already worked so hard to prepare for it. A lack of opportunities or a lack of qualifications? Either way, I've found myself immaturely blaming dreamweavers for peddling hopes about how I could have a successful career in my line of work. Along the way, we must've forgotten that life would mean bills to pay and a future to prepare for. Love? I won't even bother. Faith? Now there's something I still hold on to so dearly. Minus a clearly discerned purpose and with a confused perspective on love, faith becomes the only saving grace that I could, that I want to hold on to.
Maybe my generation got so comfortable with the "instant" mentality - that with the possibilities of today, not getting to where you want to be in the quickest time possible is a crime. Lest I be accused of being a brat who doesn't know the value of hard work, I must clarify that I grew up with my family having to struggle just to put me through a good school. My parents adhere to that Filipino notion of education as the only treasure they could bequeathe their children. But still, that fact makes me all the more wearisome of why I can't find my niche in this world. With my parents sacrificing a lot to, whenever possible, simply hand me what I need, the guilt of not being able to quickly take off after college becomes more difficult to come to terms with. My parents had to struggle to put themeselves to school, I on the other hand was privileged enough to have them sacrifice for me. So how come I can't seem to take off?
Through all these, to look at my past becomes a bittersweet solution. Reexamining the choices I've made inevitably brings forward sentiments of regret and disappointment while at the same time bringing a sense of reassurance. I figured that the world will move on and that living a day at a time could possibly be the best option at this point. A bittersweet past will allow me to prepare for a bittersweet future and in doing such I need to regain the strengths of my old self and the lessons of my earlier days. But then again, Keane's "Everybody's Changing" still rings in my head: "So little time. Try to understand that I'm trying to make a move just to stay in the game. I try to stay awake and remember my name but everybody's chaning and I don't feel the same."
posted by darwin at 7/03/2006 10:26:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home