Burn this Bridge if We're Not Going to Cross It!

This is my most favorite House Season 7 Episode: Unwritten

A writer, after finishing her final manuscript locks in a vault. Talking to a boy, later on revealed as a pigment of her imagination, who asked her what she will do then since writing was her life.

She pulls out a gun from her writing table drawer and points it to her mouth but before she could pull the trigger, she had a seizure… Her Maid comes to her aid.

Topic of discussion on a Friday: Suicide

I went home to Laguna last weekend and as always - had conversations with my friend Zeus, just like our usual conversations such as emotional, financial, career and other struggles in life, we talked about suicide. Because we were talking about performance arts - man choking himself in a mall, woman rolling on the street of Manila in a blood drenched wedding gown, man tying himself on the back of beetle-bug etc and Suicide as a form of performance art Ala Black Swan minus the hallucinations.

I don’t see suicide as a form of cowardice and there have been several commitments of suicides currently in the Philippines. Have I mentioned that a few years ago, three children have committed suicides in our Barangay where Zeus and I live? All occurred in a month.

Zeus said it’s fine to commit suicide if it weren’t for emotional reasons such as committing suicide since you have accomplished your goals in life. 

You're done with the purpose you have created yourself so end your existence but leave a beautiful mark in this world. End world hunger/poverty/war/pain then kill yourself.You will surely have monuments, songs, poems, photo-collage as tribute to the good deeds you've done.

Perhaps for him it’s fine to commit suicide after achieving whatever you want in life, which is pretty much the case of the writer in House’s episode. The writer in that episode was in pain in which I’m not going to divulge further, go watch House, it’s therapeutic, eye-opening, entertaining and so much more.

I agreed with him in some ways. People die for little to no apparent reason every day. One gets held up in the middle of the night, discovering he only has P50 in his pocket ends up bleeding to death near some gutter in Aurora Blvd, people die from diseases every day, abortion (legal/illegal), car crash or negligence, forgetting to breathe etc.

I wonder why people look at suicide as though it’s a very bad thing.

Considerably it’s economically and earthly positive, one less human taking oxygen so more oxygen for everyone, less carbon footprint, less animals butchered to satisfy his or her taste buds, good for worms if the corpse was to be buried or less space taken up if cremated and more.

In a romantic sense, it’s tragic. It can either be meaningful or meaningless, depends on the romantic level of the person. One less collection of laughter and tears, one less person to talk to (to some at least) or share insights with, etc.

It’s very tragic if the person who killed himself or herself is a very beautiful, genius and talented person.

I haven’t had any closer friend or relative who have committed suicide, I’m pertaining to the successful ones. The not successful ones, I now see them as emotional vampires who try to manipulate others into succumbing into their emotional needs. In which I’ve admittedly had once been a victim. I sometimes think I’m too nice for my own good. Ugh… Teens.

The only thing that’s worst than suicide, is FAKE/FAILED Suicide! People will always have the presumption of the person who attempted it needed validation of their existence. Although people do a lot of bizarre things to validate their existence because well, it’s utterly depressing to be alive when no one thinks you exist.

People are well, messed up in some way or another. Is suicide the answer? I don’t know. For some it is. I don’t promote it but I don’t really think of it as such a bad thing. We will always have different views on it I suppose.

Zeus and I have unfolded the discussion on killing one self when the emotion and urge is just too strong.

It’s passionate alright, but could often lead to a beautiful mistake just like any acts of ardors, it’s often irrational but the defense could be… it could just be really hard to bear.  

Perhaps it’s the only Romantic Gesture that hasn’t really died yet.

"For you I'd bleed myself dry..." 

 Yellow by Coldplay

It’s Hard… It’s always Hard. – HOUSE MD

I always thought that life is a challenge in a way and sometimes I challenge myself further.
Back in college we used to have rounds on who will clean the bathroom and sometimes just to put some spice, I would clean it using a toothbrush. Yes, a toothbrush... brushing every square tile of the bathroom until it's sparkly clean.

Taking my leave...

I took a two day leave from office work because I thought I was going to Baguio. Unfortunately the trip was cancelled, because I wasn’t exactly sure if I wanted to go there, although it would have been nice.

So I had to make plans for my long weekend. I was riding the train this morning on the way to SM North Edsa, traveling for me means time for meditation and pondering with life. It was the holiday, I took a leave but if I went to work today, I would have earned 30% more of my daily rate.

I realized I was only writing articles because I wanted to eat, I wanted a place to stay and keep myself from asking money from my parents but I still ask money every now and then… Anyway, the things that I do at the office are somehow hindering me from finishing my projects. I found my weekends and evenings insufficient. It’s not enough, I need more time to finish my projects.

My friend Cholo told me to always organize my priorities. Apparently a tornado ran through my priorities and everything just seemed chaotic, which is exactly how I like it.

While traveling, I had this feeling of really wanting to be a monk someday. Perhaps climb a mountain, live there and wait for the end of the world. To throw everything that make up this non-sense of a world we live in.

Every day I see people, trying to make it through the day, trying to reach for their dreams, trying to feed others, trying desperately to alleviate pain, trying not to be in pain, trying, struggling… dying.

A few weeks ago, I have graduated in this Spiritual University that has 8,500 centers across the globe. They call it, graduate of the “knowledge”… and there are things that I know that I can’t share with anyone. A lot of things are kept in the University and only for its students to know and grasp, this knowledge… is not for the faint of heart.

If one knows the past, the present and future… how would one live it?

Would one die alive? In our university, to die alive has a different connotation unlike in our contemporary society where “To die alive” means you are either depressed, heart broken or devastated and doesn’t have the will to live anymore, to make it short, it means “suicidal”.

When suicidal comes into mind there are several people and things that pop in my head, people such as Maningning Miclat (Filipino-Chinese poet) , Sylvia Plath (American Poet/Writer), Pyramus and Thisbe (My favorite Mythological love story, second was Eros and Psyche), my ex-girlfriends…

They all have one thing in common, their deaths were romantically inclined except for my ex-girlfriends since none of them were successful (mind you, I wasn’t the reason for them being suicidal, they were already like that when I met them. The other one, though she did try to slit her wrist when we were still seeing each other, has issues – Not me)

I think I know why Sylvia killed herself and I don’t find it cowardly at all (she inserted her head in an oven). I suppose I’m a writer because I tend to romanticize almost everything or I could just simply be a romantic in the wrong time and age. It takes more guts and gonads to take your own life than another’s. There’s certain courage to point a gun to your head and pull the trigger however, there’s a difference with pre-meditated suicide and suicide of passion.

Here's a list of suicides in fiction and their methods for entertainment purposes. Ex: Madelyne Pryor, mentally commits suicide by forcing her mind to shut down (Wow... :U)

There’s a Great Wall of China difference with being so overwhelmed with your emotions that having a gun within reach compelled you to grab and blow your brains out to planning every single detail on how you would take your last breath by preparing the gun, perhaps by buying or borrowing, then commencing to the procedure of your designed death. The former has passion and lack of rationalizing while the other was determined and had willed it. But the end has the same answer to the deed… for some sort of twisted moment in the Universe… it was the only answer that presented itself to them, the rest was overlooked, ignored. It was that one sole answer to life, there was a void in their doomed yet beautiful life that only crossing the Rubicon could fill.

I’m afraid I would have to cut this short, I realized today that I would take leaves as often as I can even if they’re unpaid. I just realized my priorities… and sitting in a cubicle inside a lame office is not on top of the list.