Picture me going home from work, stuck in a crammed UV, further stuck in a traffic jam along Kalayaan Avenue. It’s pouring hard outside, a typical obnoxiously wet August in the Philippines. I was having a blast though — I was listening to ADÉLA’s new single Ain’t In LA, which has been blowing up a bit on TikTok. Perhaps 2010s nostalgia is to blame, but I was an unironic enjoyer of the song. Production-wise, it’s a track reminiscent of Bangerz (2013) by Miley Cyrus, ala We Can’t Stop complete with a deep, booming background voice and a crowd-singing final chorus. Lyrics-wise, it celebrates those with a burning ambitious spirit, but does not come from backgrounds conventionally associated with success.

By any metrics it’s a fine pop song, doing all the things a pop song is supposed to do: be well-produced and catchy, capture a euphoric but almost fleeting feeling of youth, and most importantly, elicit joy. Ain’t In LA is far from a groundbreaking, genre-shifting work; it’s far from being even the most “perfect” song within the pop genre (see Carly’s Run Away With Me). But it doesn’t really matter: it’s a simple, sentimental, and enjoyable banger!

Tenten!!!!!

While scrolling in that UV I found a post sharing an article on the 100 best movie sequels of all time — with Wenn Deramas’s Ang Tanging Ina N’yong Lahat (2008) landing on the 75th spot.

I don’t know what gay intern managed to insert this but it’s inclusion is 100% valid; I’d argue to put it higher. To me, not only is this film one of the best sequels ever made, it’s one of the best Filipino films of all time — a landmark comedy movie worthy of standing alongside giants in the national canon like Himala (1982) and Maynila, sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag (1975). Yup!!!! Dedma sa bashers!!!! ./.

I remember as a kid, a lot of people used to hate on Filipino comedy films, especially those directed by Wenn Deramas or led by Vice Ganda. They were painted as the archetypal Philippine cinema slop: shallow commercial cash-grab MMFF Christmas movies made to generate as much profit as possible. In short: mababaw and pampatawa lang.

Pero mababaw and pampatawa lang ba talaga siya?

When I first watched Ang Tanging Ina N’yong Lahat with my family, I remember it as this ridiculously funny movie — an immediate cultural touchstone of some sort, a movie my siblings still reference to this day. Every scene almost had a punchline, giving the film a ludicrous Joke-Per-Minute entry rate. As I grew older and more mature, I had some chance to revisit the movie. And the more I watch it, the more I see (and miss) the genius of Wenn Deramas when he made that film.

If you’re a Filipino, I’d assume you know the movie. (If you don’t I’m absolutely judging you btw). But the premise of the film was that Ina Montecillo, a single mother of a dozen children, was suddenly propelled to the country’s highest national position when she became a witness to the assassination of the Philippine president. Hence, the movie’s title fits the synopsis as it literally translates to The Only Mother of You All, as well as being a cheeky reference to a common Filipino slang phrase (tang ina n’yong lahat! or fuck you all!).

Whether the title came first and the story was just formulated to fit it, we don’t know. But it’s the work that perfectly encapsulates the kind of distinct, queer Filipino camp: almost like a National Inside Joke, a movie that only Filipinos with real lived experiences will get. The film feels boundless in its execution — ano naman kung hindi realistic na naging presidente si Ina? Ano naman kung walang sense at purely for the giggles yung mga nangyayari sa movie? It’s a movie that doesn’t take itself seriously, and through that direction it ends up as one of the sharpest, campiest, and most creatively liberated Filipino works.

Did I mention it’s also deceptively political? I think why so many people find Ang Tanging Ina N’yong Lahat funny is how it borders on absurdism; the story just being sheer ridiculousness you can’t do anything but laugh. But in many ways, it reflects how truly preposterous Philippine politics can get. Many aspects of the film critiques the ways our politicians get elected and perform: often through narrative than pure credentials, programs that prioritize optics than actual results, and mediocrity so unbelievable it’s almost like the Philippines itself is one, big setting for a comedy film. The genius of Ang Tanging Ina N’yong Lahat is that it pokes fun at us — sa ating lahat — on how crazy, weird, and ridiculous our national politics is: tang ina n’yong lahat, anong klaseng bansa tayo?

There are so, so, many sociopolitical issues wrapped in this rollercoaster of a film: the unfair domestic labor assigned to women, queer and respectability politics, the subpar education system, our dependence on foreign resources, etc. So mababaw and pampatawa lang ba talaga tong movie na ‘to?

We ought to take joy seriously

So I wonder why we look down upon films like this if it reveals so much about our lived experiences. Is it because it’s packaged as a comedy movie? What about pop songs like Ain’t In LA, that tackle very real topics like immigration and widening global inequality?

I think it has something to do with patriarchal standards and how those associated with women and queer people are not taken as seriously. But I also think it’s because pop songs and comedy films were both made in such a way that their primary purpose is to elicit joy in us. And weirdly enough, I think we view joy as something less important or worthy of discussion compared to its sisters, like grief or anger or despair.

I think we should change that. In her striking essay Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power (1978), Audre Lorde highlights the political role of joy. She argues that joy serves two purposes: first, to establish a shared reality among us (solidarity); second, to allow us to appreciate our capacity for happiness which can start our demand for a better world. She writes:

The political role of joy is so simple, yet so compelling, which is probably why we don’t think of it too much. Joy simply gives us reason and energy to attempt to fight back, to wake up in the morning amidst a burning world. In another quote, Rebecca Solnit describes the strategic importance of joy, how it “. . . doesn’t betray but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated and isolated, joy is a fine act of insurrection.” My friend, Jase, put it succinctly: joy is resistance!

I think the strength of works like pop songs and comedic films is their massive reach, how they often shape the ideas and beliefs of a lot of people without us even realizing it. So while we grapple with the task of building a better world, while we swim to the other shore: for the meantime, joy keeps us afloat.

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The past days in the office were unusually busy. My Outlook calendar was filled with consecutive meetings, mostly about our corporate sustainability target on water reduction. Me and my boss have been playing around with a bunch of numbers on an Excel sheet, brainstorming how we could reduce the volume of water our properties consume.

It’s Friday now, thankfully, and I have been worried about this potted plant of mine in our house. It’s a Mussaenda ‘Dona Luz’ I bought in our local palengke, which I bought because Luz is also the name of my grandmother who recently passed away. The nonstop rain this week have been filling the pot with rainwater. I was worried the plant’s roots may rot due to overwatering and lack of oxygen.

So when I had the time this weekend, I moved this heavy potted plant to a place with less rainwater. I gathered the perennial peanut plants I have been propagating and divided them into cuttings. I placed them in a bunch of small black nursery bags. Then for two hours, I studied a few notes for my upcoming board exam this December. Eventually I got tired of studying, so I went to my local gym which was 5 minutes away if you walked. I worked out for one or more hours, I think, until my forearms were weirdly sore. I noticed that a bit of water was leaking from the roof of the gym and into the walls, soaking an electrical outlet. This could be a safety hazard, I thought to myself. Should I talk to the staff or property manager?

I went back home, ate dinner, and sat down to try working on this graphic design piece I’m making. And then I felt a feeling I have not been feeling in a long, long time.

I felt lonely.

I knew this year was going to be busy for me. And I enjoyed how busy I was. I enjoyed filling my schedule, I enjoyed studying, I enjoyed observing how hard I’ve been working. I enjoyed knowing that I have been extremely productive, probably the most productive version of myself yet.

Then this feeling came out of nowhere. It’s entrance was not explosive; it reminds me of the leak I saw at the gym, or this leak in a certain wall of our house. It’s entrance wasn’t disruptive nor destructive, but enough for you to notice it’s presence. It’s like a usual leak in the wall: you know it’s been here before. And when it’s not there, you notice the mark it leaves behind, if you look carefully.

I felt ashamed, pathetic, that it managed to leak inside me again. I thought that if you could be busy enough, productive enough, your filled-up calendar could act like some sort of waterproofing material. I thought: so, am I not busy enough? Not creative enough? I conjured a few hypotheses in my mind: maybe it’s because I haven’t seen my friends in a while. Maybe it’s just the cold weather, or perhaps I was just a bit tired from work.

…

Or maybe I do need someone. It feels bad honestly, to need someone or something. It feels like I’m all muscles and fat, with no skeleton to prop me up.

I felt this before and I did what most people do. I’ve tried dating apps, casual sex, you name it. Sometimes it did lead to fun and interesting situations, I admit. But I don’t think what I’m looking for is in there. Those connections aren’t really the type that would make you want to write a Substack article, or create a watercolor painting, or anything that would trigger a more creative, expansive version of me. Hell, sometimes the loneliness is a more effective initiator of creativity.

So where is it? Where is he, who will solve this feeling?

I remember this story about soulmates. Apparently, Zeus originally created humans with four arms, four legs, and two faces. Then, as the unofficial Greek god of male insecurity, he feared the power of the beings he created and so, split them in half. Thus, humans have one head, two arms, and two legs, and we were destined — or cursed — to find our other half. I don’t know if this story is a legitimate part of the mythology canon, or if soulmates are true. But right now I feel lonely and this story promises a solution to that, the solution being your other half.

But if it is true, that he exists, then he must be somewhere. I don’t know what he’s doing… it better be something productive. I wonder if he’s also wondering what his other half is doing. I don’t know what he looks like, what type of music he listens to, what inside jokes and secret language we’re about to make. But I miss him already and it fucks me up how long it’s taking for him to reach me. I feel pathetic, like Penelope waiting for Odysseus but without the promise.

But maybe I’m also his Odysseus, and perhaps he also feels like Penelope — this act of unbearable waiting. Maybe this busyness of mine is the tumultuous voyage I’m required to go through. My work is the cave with the Cyclops, my board exam is Circe’s island. Perhaps I’m going to meet a future ex-lover, a Calypso of some sort, before I eventually return back to my other half.

When I do return and meet him, I think it’s gonna be like loneliness but the opposite. Like loneliness leaking instead of bursting out, it’s not going to be disruptive nor destructive. It’ll feel like extreme familiarity, like it was supposed to be here all along.

I don’t know when or whether that will even happen. I don’t know how long this individual voyages of ours will take. I don’t know how many Calypsos we will encounter on our way to each other’s arms. If he’s out there, and possibly reading this article: I’m trying to be patient, but it’s taking you so long to get here. Can you hurry up?

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But mostly, I view my life in the lens of an author. It’s no wonder we describe a period of our life as a chapter — subconsciously, we view our life as a sort of novel in the process of writing itself.

As a 23-year-old, I only have a handful of significant chapters compared to older people. I’m still discovering new characters, new settings; often unexpected and coming from nowhere. I’m still not sure what genre my novel is, or whether other people will find it interesting to read or not. I admit, the chapters as they are right now feel clunky, with no cohesion and clear thesis statement.

I think about the people I admire. Often, they have authored themselves so well that their greatness can be described in one clear, concise statement. I find myself thinking: How can I be like that when I grow up, when I have authored a handful more chapters?

But right now I feel like a rough draft. Just a bunch of passages, a collection of paragraphs that probably still need a lot of editing. And I know a lot of people my age feel this, too. In an era where everything — including yourself —must be curated with a clear branding/direction, to know you have not yet specialized into anything can be a bit stressful.

This feeling reminds me of the song Cranes in the Sky. In an interview, Solange narrated how she often saw cranes towering in the skyline, building skyscrapers and infrastructure in the booming city, one steel beam at a time. She said they felt heavy. In a weird way I felt like those buildings: under construction, an eyesore, a loud mess.

Writing is how we reclaim control and generate meaning

There have been so many times when I have been at the mercy of external conditions. Times when I had to change my carefully curated plans because something out of my control happened. Like when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, or when my father was laid off when the labor unions were cracked down.

In times when I feel like I’m losing control, I turn towards writing. I author myself; I attempt to package the crushing confusion through words. There’s a certain power in writing, especially in writing about your life… You may not have control over the circumstances that happen, the people you engage with, the things you feel. But you do have control on how you write the narrative: the words you use, the tone, the theme, what you want to emphasize; perhaps you could frame it in a more meaningful manner. Do not underestimate this ability of yours, ever.

Being a rough draft means we still have more pages to write on

Working in the field of landscape management, whenever I see idle spaces ideas almost immediately pop in my head. This can be an urban edible garden. This can be a bioswale. This can be a xeriscape. The abundance of lack seems to give room to potential ideas.

I realized, then, that our perceived crudity is a privilege: that we have a lot of negative space to expand upon. That we are still at a stage where we can be creative with our decisions; that we can still somehow select the genre, themes, and words we will write. As James Baldwin wrote in Giovanni’s Room: confusion is a luxury.

Confusion is a luxury not everyone can afford

But I’d argue that confusion is a luxury not everyone can afford. Many are forced —typically by socioeconomic conditions — to settle immediately into a stable career, to calcify themselves into a marketable, value-generating asset. Often, to the detriment of their creative spirit. Not everyone can afford to experiment and still be confused, especially as one grows older.

This is my case. Everyone says you’re allowed to make mistakes when you’re young. But when you’re in your 20’s, with no safety net nor generational wealth, mistakes are expensive. A wrong career pivot, an unwise pursuit of graduate studies, or an uninformed purchase. All of these can derail you for months or even years.

So the pressure is on. I have to author myself to the best of my ability. I can’t control how the world might look like in the next five years or so. But for the meantime, I write.

Update #1: Wala pa ko asawa
Update #2: Hindi rin ata ako makakanood kasi need ko mag-ipon. Nakaltasan kasi yung cutoff ko ngayon gawa nang two days of leave without pay (umattend ako graduation ceremony ko).

Malungkot ako sa Update #2. Lagi na lang ako nagco-compute paano ko tatawirin sarili ko hanggang sa next salary. Pero medyo nagulat ako na hindi ako nalungkot kay Update #1. Hindi naman necessarily masaya, wala lang akong pake.. ganun…..

Akala ko malulungkot ako na wala akong jowa. 22-year-old me would probably be sad. Pero for some reason, 23-year-old me became unexpectedly different. Akala ko pag may trabaho na ko, may disposable income kahit papano, mas mag-eexplore na ako sa dating, sa landian, etc. Pero for some reason, mas lalo akong tinamad?

I went the opposite way. Mas nag-double down ako sa career ko. Lately mas tambay ako sa LinkedIn kesa sa Bumble. Nag-iistalk ng mga taong may career path na I find interesting kesa sa mga pogi. Gusto ko kasi i-reverse engineer yung career choices na ginawa nila. Thinking about paano ko ipo-position sarili ko sa industry. Kesa lalaki ang iniisip ko, ang iniisip ko ay ang magiging papel ko sa nation-building…..

SOBRANG…. huy sino ka dyan!!!!

Pero totoo ‘to! Di ko alam kung dapat bang mag-alala ako na baka mababa na pala libido ko at sign na to ng health problem, pero as in nawawalan na talaga ako ng pake. Minsan nagw-worry ako kung sinasayang ko ba prime years ko, kasi sabi nila 20’s daw ang prime years natin? Sabi nila sa gantong edad daw tayo pinaka-fuckable (di ako papayag)? Kaso kasi wala talaga akong motivation to actively date! I don’t find it an interesting endeavor to pursue right now.

Akala ko, when I’m working in my early 20’s, gagawa ako ng food web/roster/mycorrhizal network ng mga makakalandian ko. Pero instead parang mas interested ako bumuo ng network of mentors that can vouch for me. I love being in love with my potential knowing not reaching it can destroy me!

So never na ba ko iibig? Di ko alam! Actually, sinusulit ko nga ‘tong period na ‘to na wala akong pake sa lovelife. Kasi feel ko the next time na magmamahal ulit ako, kayang kaya nito sirain lahat ng smart choices na ginawa ko sa buhay ko. Pero at least pag nangyari yun, may material ako pangsulat sa Substack diba? Lemons to lemonade!

Aware ako gaano ako ka-naive, ka-immature, and ka-idealistic pakinggan. Literally the most stereotypical early 20’s person…. but I actually love it :p

I know being ambitious can bite me in the ass someday. Maybe the heartbreak awaiting me is that hindi ko kaya maachieve lahat ng gusto ko maachieve, no matter how hard I work. Pero sa late 20’s self ko na ire-reserve yun. For now, bilang 23-year-old, ang task ko ay maging naive and idealistic and obnoxiously in love with my potential.

Kayo ba? Same ba tayo ng sentiments? Comment down below! Huy bat naging vlog…

I have a favorite story about the concept of a leap of faith.

Picture a very young man: my grandfather — whom I have never met, as he passed away before I was conscious enough — ran away from his family in Nueva Ecija. He then became homeless, sleeping around in random buses across the plains of Central Luzon. To survive, he decided to help in some karinderyas along the way. Meal by meal, he managed to build a life from scratch, from grit and courage mixed with some superb cooking skills. Apparently this was the reason my mother is such an excellent cook (he taught her all the skills she knew).

Because of his estrangement to his family, my grandfather chose a new surname which ended up becoming my maternal surname. He purchased a humble piece of land somewhere down South of Pasig and married my grandmother. I always think about this story, because my entire maternal side existed simply because one day he decided that he needed to run away from his family.

We never knew what his real reason was for doing that. But it was, by any definition, a leap of faith. He was probably my age when he did that, or perhaps even younger. Sometimes I think if he felt scared at the time as I do now, as a young person. Did he feel hopeless? How did he manage being alone, sitting in all those buses? Did he feel regret? How did he manage to create our beautiful family from nothing? What’s his recipe for deriving hope from thin air? Starting everything from scratch, he had every reason to be hopeless. Yet, almost unreasonably, he still tried — and now we’re here.

I think a critical nature of hope is how unreasonable it is. One does not justify hope. There will be situations where it seems more reasonable to be hopeless, but choosing to be hopeful is often the better (and more interesting) choice.

Perhaps hope is, in its very core, an irrational evolutionary instinct — the very reason our people have lasted, an innate mechanism saving us from extinction. The best and most enduring things in life are those that have no practical reason but to simply celebrate life. Maybe that’s why our ancestors painted caves with their hands.

My father and the day I became a man

In stereotypical queer Filipino function, I have quite a complicated relationship with my father. While we can be a normal father-and-son most of the times, there have been instances of conflicts, here and there.

There are parts of him I despise, one of which is my perceived lack of courage from him. I always despised this. For instance, he has this inability to say sorry — clearly and verbally. It’s like the word doesn’t exist in his vocabulary. What he would do is he would distance a bit, and then slowly, try to act normal with you as if nothing happened. Sometimes he would do a favor for you, if the mood is right. But he never said sorry.

Except for this one time. It was a December night, and it was my 21^st birthday. In the Philippines, they consider the 21^st birthday of a guy to be their transition to official manhood. Whatever that means. But this means the 21^st birthday is supposed to be special, and often the celebration is more extravagant than what is normal, I suppose.

It was a normal day for me. I expected this. It wasn’t a sad day to me though, far from that — I managed to organize a small celebration outside with my friends. I was lucky to land a scholarship, so I had my own money. But my family wasn’t rich and I knew this, so I did not expect any celebration whatsoever. Ever since my father got laid off in 2019 after years as a factory worker in a manufacturing company, we have been financially insecure and only really started to recover when me and my siblings started to work. Allegedly, the higher management of his foreign-owned company cracked down on their labor unions, and it just so happened that my father had a position in their unions.

But I was contented that day. I was simply lying down in my bed, when my father came back home. He was quite tipsy — I think he drank with my uncles that night. He greeted me a happy birthday, and hugged me (as he frequently did, I think it’s his favorite love language). Then out of nowhere he started crying and apologizing. It startled me: first, I never saw him cry, not once in my life. Second, I also never heard him say sorry so sincerely.

He was apologizing that he couldn’t give anything for my 21^st birthday, considering it was supposed to be special. I said it was okay and that he should calm down. I assured him I was happy and contented (which was true). My mother tried to make him settle down; I felt a bit awkward as I was not sure what to do so I simply went back to my room.

I appreciated his sincerity because I knew the courage for someone like him — a man so emotionally distant, so crystallized by our patriarchal society — to apologize and cry in front of his son, in his 21^st birthday no less. But that moment confirmed to me that if I want my dreams to materialize, I had to be brave enough to give it my all as we are not as privileged as other families. I think that was his birthday gift to me: he showed me what kind of man I should aim to be.

For someone like him, I guess crying and saying sorry is already an act of courage; a leap of faith. I just wished he had more moments that reflected that.

The concept of seed dormancy

I think about my grandparents, my aunts, my mother and my father, all of whom didn’t really get the opportunities I got. I wonder if they would have made it farther had opportunities been more accessible and present for them. Sometimes I imagine a world where they are my peers instead of my loved ones who came before me. Had they gotten the same opportunities I have, I think many of them would surpass what I can achieve. Especially my mother and my aunts, which are some of the most hardworking people I know. There’s a lot of hard work, talent, and intelligence present around the world — but only a select few really materialize.

I remember a concept about seed dormancy when I was still studying agriculture as a student. To put it simply, there are situations in which seeds do not germinate because there is something inherent in the seed that is impeding the process, what we call endodormancy. On the other hand, there are situations where the seeds themselves are “willing to germinate”, but the environment is not conducive to it —whether it’s a lack of water, oxygen, improper medium, etc. I like to believe that we are much more similar to the latter situation: that we are, really, a bunch of seeds with very similar attributes and potential. What differentiates who gets to germinate is the environment. If you’re lucky enough to be planted in which resources and opportunities are readily available to you, your growth is guaranteed. If you’ve been given just enough, you may need to exert twice the hard work and effort just to attain the same amount of success others had.

Sometimes I wish that in an alternative universe, those who came before me were luckier. I hope the world there is more equal and forgiving to them. But I also remind myself that regardless of this wishful thinking, we are already here. And that we have to make do with what is here, to do something we find interesting and respectable.

A leap of faith

Young graduates like me would know the deafening lack of optimism given the state of the world. Greed has become what is rewarded — what is considered the ruling strategy. AI disrupting the workforce and blurring what is true and what is not; continued environmental destruction; and a global rise in corruption and fascism. Economic “progress” have been reported in numbers but not felt by the majority of people. One could wonder where all the wealth being generated is going to. The question is obvious: why try when everything’s becoming worse?

I think a leap of faith is being asked from us. I recall a line from the movie Conclave (2024), on how the existence of doubt is what precisely makes faith possible. Anyone who has done a leap of faith inherently experienced fear and doubt before jumping: without those feelings, it would have been a normal leap.

My grandfather decades ago has done exactly that — a leap of faith. And that leap led to his daughter, my aunt, being able to work in Japan and opening countless doors for us. Her leap led to me being lucky enough to wear this Sablay.

I’d like to think that he’s now asking me to do a leap of faith as well. That despite how much we do not know where the world is heading towards, I must attempt to live a fulfilling, meaningful life; to fight for my right to be happy and to love; to ultimately try and make the world a little bit better. Those who came before me had way less than I have now and yet did their best to cultivate joy with what little seeds life gave them. I ought to try to do the same.

This Sablay is my personal offering: my way of ancestral veneration to those who opened these doors for me, to those that have leapt first. I guess it’s my turn to jump now. Salamat po!

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I have a notoriously bad case of perfectionism. When I am in the ideation phase of a project, I curate a specific vision — a specific result — a rubric that determines whether that project is successful or not. Anything outside that specific result is deemed as a failure. So whenever I am in the process of executing an idea and I am observing that its trajectory is not towards that goal, I end up not finishing the project at all or getting burnt out after.

This happened to me at work. I was assigned for a specific task and admittedly, I was not really satisfied with the outcome. I ended up getting so disenchanted and burnt out that I scheduled a spontaneous hiking trip at Mt. Makiling with my friends, just to feel some sort of distance from that task. Instead of being curious (I wonder what factors led to this unsatisfactory outcome? Can these factors be corrected so the result can be improved?), my perfectionism led me to simply just avoid the task altogether because it was taking a mental toll.

Anyways! In that hiking trip we visited a spot called Flat Rocks at Mt. Makiling, a portion of a creek that originates from the mountain down towards the UPLB campus. While my friends were basking in the cool water, I was doing a watercolor sketch of the spot.

The spot was beautiful. The dappled sunlight penetrating through the canopies above illuminated the ancient flat rocks that we stood on. The fast water was controlled by an arrangement of boulders, creating multiple jacuzzi-like pockets of stream. It was a perfect outcome — made even more incredible by the fact that this beauty was spontaneously made by nature. It was not created through a landscape design plan, but simply geologic processes and a lot of time.

Working in the field of landscape management, I realized just how different we look at nature and at ourselves (and by extension our works). When we admire the forest, we are at awe of its natural, spontaneous beauty. We do not dissect it into its imperfections as there is no concept of an imperfectly aesthetic forest. We do not think: this tree looks weird. This fern should be 300 mm in height instead of 500 mm. This rock should be here instead of there. We take it generously, all in — with awe, compassion, and curiosity. Perhaps we should look at ourselves the way we look at trees: a radical acceptance of all its beauty and weirdness and the inherent right to exist in this world.

It struck me. I should be living my life like that, too! Instead of imposing rigid outcomes, I should instead be curious whenever a different outcome arises.

2 Review of Related Literature

Back when I was still in the university as an agriculture student, I remembered doing a shit ton of laboratory experiments. In experiments, we formulate a hypothesis: an educated idea on what we think the result will be.

Oftentimes, I know what should be the result of each experiment. The outcome should align with the theoretical concepts we learn in the lecture. So whenever I get data that is not aligned with the formulated hypothesis… I get stressed out. I brought this up with my professor one time, and his response stuck with me. What he said was that in science, it is absolutely fine (and ethical) to accept a result that is not aligned with the hypothesis. Instead of attempting to modify the outcome (which is unethical btw), it is more correct to instead be curious why that happened. Instead of crucifying yourself and your work, it is a much better learning experience to ponder on the factors that contributed to this result. A different result should be looked at as interesting, not wrong.

A similar idea to this paradigm is growth mindset. Instead of looking at ‘undesired’ outcomes as failures, they are seen as feedback that allow the person to adapt and improve. Multiple studies show that this mindset allows us to be happier, creative, more productive and open to both challenges and possibilities.

3 Methodology

My wonderful friend shared this video to me recently. The creator, Lexi Merritt, shared her methodology on how she plans her life like an experiment by visualizing her plans as a science fair board. Her methodology is roughly divided into four parts:

1. Setting your vision for the next three months and assessing how they align with your values

2. Setting abstract or superordinate goals (if you’re curious on what superordinate goals are, you can read this very interesting piece)

3. Create action menus, consisting of Things You Can Do when you are either high or low energy. What’s wonderful about this idea is that it literally is a menu — a set of options aligned with your superordinate goal where you can choose what you want to do.

4. Setting results and targets. But rather than your stereotypical rigid targets (I should…), she advocates for setting them through a lens of curiosity (I think…)

I highly recommend watching her video and trying it out for yourself. It is a fantastically creative way of planning your life. Support her channel!

4 Results and Discussion

The wonderful thing about this mindset is that you can literally apply it anywhere. You can use this mindset, for instance, to change how you think about dating and romantic relationships. Example: many of us are terrified of being upfront, confessing, or attempting to ask someone on a date because we are imposing a result (that the person also want us back and we will be happily ever after). So we end up just not doing anything at all.

But shifting into this experimental mindset, we instead think: I wonder what would happen if I express my romantic interest to them? If they accept, great! If not, then it becomes an exercise on navigating disappointment and moving forward.

5 Conclusion and Recommendations

Through this mindset we stop seeing the world in a rigid binary lens of Success and Failure. Instead, we see the world through a lens of curiosity and compassion. We start seeing its true nature: that the world is a vast, wonderful playground. It is a laboratory of experiences. It is an incredibly, unbelievably complex web of things where so much interesting things arise — from the trees and insects and soil fungi of the forests to the complex social relationships we operate on.

The world is your laboratory. Try things and see what happens!

Hence, I believe creativity is an imperative part in living a meaningful life. Practicing creativity is important because art is how we create meaning, and meaning is quite literally as important as exercise and proper diet for a healthy life (see this article on the importance of meaning). But recently, I have been finding it incredibly difficult to cultivate creativity. Being creative demands time and resources, two things that have been quite lacking in my life recently. While I do have a job (thankfully) as a source of income, this income primarily goes to necessities and savings. And it’s really not that much so my disposable income isn’t as big.

Wala akong time nak…

A bigger concern to me right now is my perceived lack of time. My work takes up five days a week, and the almost four hours of preparation and commute ensures that I’m too tired to do anything else by the time I reach home. And I want to be good at it, which entails consistent effort and intention on my part to continuously improve. Which leaves two days for me. I also want to do well in my upcoming board exam, so I dedicate at least one day for reviewing every week. I am also committed to working out twice a week.

So, I have a day left for rest or Other Things. And it doesn’t help that these Other Things are a shit ton of things I want to do. I want to explore cafes with my friends and hang out. I want to meet new interesting people and dance in clubs. I want to hike and draw rocks and ferns and trees. I want to try creating DJ mixes. I also want to try joining dance classes. I want to finish this book my friend gifted me and I also want to write Substack articles. I want to expand my graphic design portfolio in Behance, just in case I pursue a part-time job. I want to explore public parks in Metro Manila and assess how good they are from an urban planning/landscape architecture perspective. This November, I’m also planning to enroll for a graduate program offered by UP. Sometimes the sheer amount of things I want to do just ends up paralyzing me and I just lie down and scroll. (I’m doing my best to avoid this I swear!)

And mind you I will be pursuing all of these while living expenses are shooting up due to wars initiated by a bunch of greedy people. Also it’s like 40°C outside…. I NEED to get sedated actually

The Case of Budots Music and How it gives me Hope:)

So if having time and money is the key to creativity, then the best creative works should arise from people who are wealthy and have all the time in the world, right?

Not exactly. Let’s take the case of Budots music. Budots is a Filipino dance music subgenre that was pioneered by DJ Love. With its high-pitched hypnotic melodies and incredibly catchy beats, Budots music was born in Davao and eventually took over the country. In this article, DJ Love described how he grew up in the slums where violence was commonplace. Using his love for music and choreography, the DJ concocted a sound that he hoped would transform the violence into an energy of enjoyment instead. So Budots, a distinctly Filipino sound, emerged from a distinctly Filipino lived experience: a mixtape of rural landscapes, of tight internet cafes, of coconut wine and of Filipino ingenuity. Instead of being constrained, DJ Love used his lived experiences to create Budots music as a response to his material conditions — a sort of alchemy, turning perceived disadvantages to inspiration instead. The best works of art often arise from genuine lived experiences that involve some sort of friction and a desire for a better world.

I guess this is the part that I’m still learning: the alchemic process of creation. How do I convert the things that I perceive to be hindering me into inputs that allow me to be more creative, more tender, and more forgiving? How do I use these conditions to push me towards compassion and action?

This is not to romanticize systemic problems, of course. It is absolutely true that poverty pushes people to survival mode. When budget is constrained, groceries and shelter and fuel take precedence over other things — like art and leisure time and meaning-making. I guess what I want to point out is that, despite these constraints, we must do our best to still stubbornly pursue creativity. The pursuit of creativity is a process that is essential to being human. And this process leads to miracles — to bodies of work — that have the potential to transform the world to a better place, whether in big or small ways. It could be a poem you post in Substack that makes a grieving person a little less lonelier. Or it could be seismic works of art that spark social movements and revolutions. All of these come from the process of creativity.

As much as our works are constrained and inspired by our world, we must remember that we and our works, in turn, shape the world back. Perhaps our task is to shape a world with less constraints, less injustice, less inequality — and instead with more inspiration and tenderness. Maybe one of you will work towards a Philippines with a better transportation system so we could have more time for meaning-making! Maybe one of you will design streets and homes with more greenery and shade, allowing us to live and create more comfortably. Maybe one of you will write poems and articles and novels that speak to our collective anger, mobilizing us towards a world with less greed.

We have a lot of work to do!

It started when my friends spontaneously invited me to go to BGC after work. One of my friends had to debrief about his job interview earlier that day and the dilemmas he was currently facing. After debriefing at a cheap local cafe, we decided to roam around BGC and we stumbled upon an evening market. More importantly, an alcohol brand was serving free canned drinks with 7% alcohol content (they were very good btw) so we obviously took THREE for each of us. Most importantly, there was a DJ that was playing a setlist. Most most importantly, we were the only ones in that night market dancing to the DJ’s setlist which is….. is this Tagalog

We really liked the DJ so we searched for his socials, and I stumbled upon his online portfolio. And wowww I want that for me. I also want a portfolio of my creations, my work, my labor…. A singular thing that encapsulates what I’m capable of creating to make the world a better place. Sobrang OA!

As a horticulturist working in the field of landscape management, I wondered what kind of portfolio I could create. We’re not necessarily designers so I probably wouldn’t be able to make the typical portfolio of a landscape architect. Perhaps I could include the management programs and events we formulate and implement for our assigned properties. This is something that I’m still wondering about.

But aside from my career, I was also thinking about my other interests: graphic design/visual arts, writing, and dancing to music. I already have a Very Unrefined portfolio of my graphic design works which I want to improve on and expand. For writing, well maybe my Substack can serve as my portfolio?

And then my very recent idea of trying to be a DJ. I enjoy dancing in clubs and listening to music, so I was thinking that learning how to DJ might be a fun side quest for me. Personally I think the work of a DJ is highly interesting — you must be able to tap into the collective energy of the room; be able to pull from multiple sources of songs, samples, and interpolations across generations of music; and command the collective energy of the crowd such that they become a mass of bodies basking in a singular feeling. In many ways, a DJ’s work is similar to a priest conducting a mass…. which I also considered exploring back then :P

So I decided from now on, 28th of March 2026, that I will dedicate my 20’s into building a portfolio that I will be proud of. And not just a portfolio of works I can use for my career (well, that too!) — but a portfolio of lived experiences, friendships, triumphs and losses, and moments I can someday write about. I hope that this pushes me to live more actively and intentionally.

I’m almost five months into my first job now. I realize that if you are not actively shaping and building your life, years can pass by quickly without you noticing. Just like how an artist creates with intention, I want to build my life according to a vision and direction that I set for myself. So that’s my resolution: to live life as if I’m building a portfolio I’d be proud of, brick-by-brick. One interesting experience at a time. Maybe you’d like to consider this, too?

Random closer: check out this house remix of NewJeans’ OMG I’m obsessed with recently:

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As a 23-year old, I observe something that’s been increasingly more common: people coming in and out of my life. Biglang palit ng topic??? Wait lang ico-connect ko din yan. Being in your 20’s means we are now tasked to curate our own journey. In a train system, this means we now choose which stations to enter, when to leave, and what places we’d like to explore. Life is no longer the high school field trip where we are in a bus filled with the same set of people, exploring the same set of places. It’s now more of a railway system where people continuously enter and exit our lives as we traverse the train stations. Oh diba na-connect ko?

This change in how our relationships move has been a lesson, one that I am still learning. Meeting people in transit means acknowledging that eventually, they will be departing at some point in the journey. And the very human reaction to this is, of course, to be sad! Aww. But does that mean we shouldn’t pursue establishing connections with the people we meet in transit, given their impermanence?

My response to this is: no! Why? Read more to know the answer…..anubayun!!!

Meeting people in transit does not diminish its transformative capacity

People do come and go. When we are joined together at the station we meet them, we start knowing who they are. We discuss things together, share a few jokes here and there. Talk about our planned journeys and how similar and different they are. Why are you here, on this train? Where do you plan to go?

Eventually, one of us has to leave. My last station is here. We share a meaningful goodbye and wish them well. Another piece of grief we carry forward, with many more to come.

But despite their departure, we have not fully lost them. Whether we are aware of it or not a miracle has happened: in our temporary connection we have transformed each other. When we have loved someone, it is impossible to lose them because we are permanently changed by the connection. Maybe we now consider watching a movie they recommended. Or maybe we know about how important it is to plant native trees for tree-planting activities, because they kept talking about it. Or maybe we have become more hopeful, with a revitalized perspective on life because we have met them. Because I knew you, I have been changed for good…. Naisingit pa talaga!

The most miraculous transformation, however, is when two people decide to change their itinerary just to spend more time together. When the destinations don’t matter as much as the person we experience the journey with.

Hence, even if the people we meet in transit will eventually depart at some point, it is essential that we intentionally cultivate caring relationships with them with the time we have. Because if we don’t, we miss out on miracles and their transformative capacity.

Grief and gratitude go hand-in-hand

But won’t it hurt, to pour care and effort in a connection that will eventually end at some point? The answer: yes, it will hurt. The neuroscientist Mary-Frances O’Connor described grief as a “. . . heart-wrenchingly painful problem for the brain to solve”. But this reminded me of the scene in the film Call Me By Your Name (2017) in which Elio, confronting the grief of his first heartbreak, talks with his father. In the scene, his father graciously says:

“We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to make yourself feel nothing so as not to feel anything — what a waste!”

The risk of grief, then, does not outweigh the magic of cultivating human connections. To care and love for one another, no matter how short- or long-lived, is always worth it. If one ought to live meaningfully, one must also learn how to manage the inescapable grief — to perhaps convert this feeling into something more creative and useful.

This is where gratitude comes into play. Gratitude does not erase the fear that comes from losing, but it does make us more grounded and present. By viewing our relationships through the lens of gratitude we are able to see how lucky we are to have experienced and transformed each other, allowing us to live in a “state of uninterrupted marvel”. The British neurologist and naturalist Oliver Sacks once wrote:

“I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written.”

In a weird way, both gratitude and grief comes from the fact that life is temporary. Despite how different our journeys will be, we will all end at the same train station. If we experience life and each other for eternity, there is no grief. But likewise, if we will never lose each other, we will also take each other for granted — there is no gratitude as well. They come hand-in-hand.

And so I have been learning a lot to let people go with grace and generosity; to be excited for the new people and places they will explore while also acknowledging the very real sadness that comes with their departure. In grief, I also hope that in their next station they will be surrounded by people who are funny, interesting, creative, and caring, just like me…. EME!!!!

I used to be scared that whenever people left my life, I would be less and less capable of loving. As if their act of leaving takes something from me that could never be returned, never replenished. But I realized that this fear was rooted in my all-too-common tendency to look at love as something that is experienced instead of something we do. Love as a noun, not as a verb. Many people have this tendency too, which is why most of the time what we worry about is How to be loveable. But we do not dedicate much thought on How we could love (properly).

Some argue that we should try to look at love as the latter: as a technique, a way of looking, a methodology. For instance, Erich Fromm (1956) describes love as an art form. He argues that people ought to intentionally learn both the theory and practice of love, much like how one studies color theory and practices painting. And if love is indeed an art, then it requires knowledge and effort.

Figure 1. An excerpt from Fromm’s The Art of Loving (1956):a quote from German Renaissance philosopher Paracelsus.

Chapter II Body

The epistemic nature of love. Perhaps saying that love, especially romantic love, and knowledge are inherently intertwined can cause some eyebrows to raise. After all, it is trendy (and fun) to exhibit some extent of delusion when it comes to romantic love. But the Irish philosopher Iris Murdoch argues that true love involves a commitment to knowledge and truth. In 1959, she wrote: “Love is the perception of individuals. Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real.” Eleven years later, she condenses this into a simpler statement: “love is knowledge of the individual.”

In a paper by Mason (2021), the Murdochian idea of love means that one is committed to understanding the beloved “. . . justly and in its full complexity”. Love is necessarily truthful and is continuous — it progresses towards an ever more adequate understanding of the beloved. Perhaps what makes this idea of love difficult and even unattractive is that seeing reality as it is can cause us to perceive outcomes we do not desire. If looking at something lovingly (and therefore truthfully) leads us to the conclusion that it is simply not for us, was the ‘love’ we did ingenuine? Mason argues otherwise. She explains that “the ultimate appraisal of the object will be just and truthful – but not necessarily [always] positive. Indeed, the connection to virtues such as honesty and justice suggests that loving necessarily involves possible negative evaluations as well as positive ones.”

This is why love can be described as, at times, difficult. It involves surrendering to reality as it is; an act of relinquishing control. This frightening dimension of love is echoed by James Baldwin in one of his most personal interviews. On the topic of dealing with homophobia as a writer, he said:

“It’s very frightening. But the so-called straight person is no safer than I am really. Loving anybody and being loved by anybody is a tremendous danger, a tremendous responsibility.”

If true love — which entails a commitment to knowing — can indeed be terrifying, then we can see why constructing a fantasy idea of someone or something we claim to ‘love’ can be easier instead. Likewise, being ‘loved’ because we have curated an image that we think other people will love can feel safer. Someone wanting to know who you truly are — even the parts you deem ugly — can feel outright terrifying.

But maybe this is why so many people, even those inside romantic relationships, sleep not with their partner, but with the feeling of loneliness. Loneliness comes from the feeling of being unseen and unknown. When we hide who we truly are, we feel that we do not actually exist. Maybe this is why it is human nature to tell stories of our experiences. When we tell other conscious beings our stories, we make them known. We conjure them into reality. We know they existed and we know they were real because someone other than us knows them. A witness, of some sort. If the story in your mind exists only in that space, is that story even real? This is why telling is important.

Love, then, has no uniform look. Love can be as easy as celebrating the beloved’s conventionally admirable traits. But love can also be as difficult as letting go when the situation is asking us to do so. Both of these require us to look at reality for what it is, and to accept what it means for us.

Chapter III Conclusion

We can say, then, that love is not a thing that simply happens out of nowhere, as if it’s a fluke that occurs with no prior intention or effort. Love is not a temporary event that has a start and an end; an opportunity that is given and can be as easily taken away when someone leaves. As the philosopher Iris Murdoch argues “. . . [love] is not simply an episodic attitude, but a deeply important character trait” (Mason, 2021).

Love is a way of being. It’s a methodology. It’s my way of seeing the world — and I’m not as scared anymore.

See the original post here in instagram:

I wrote this piece a year ago, 19th of January 2025, back when I was less mature and kind of sad and still processing a lot of emotions.
It’s less of a polished piece and more of an outpouring of what I was feeling.

It’s a product of its time. I promise I write a bit better now!!!

Chapter I Introduction

I feel there’s a certain atmosphere, especially among queer people, that love is a very, very elusive thing. To some, they believe it is simply unattainable. Getting your heart broken makes you understand this. Believing something does not exist can feel better than constantly looking for it all the time.

The process of getting your heart broken and healing it takes time and energy. Even if you have done this process before, I don’t think it ever gets easier. And sa dami ng need naming gawin, i-achieve, and ipasa at this age... I get why dealing with a broken heart — even just risking the possibility of experiencing it — is something that many of us do not want. In certain situations, I think it can be considered an objectively stupid move. There’s also a risk of breaking other people’s hearts which feels awful too. Despite these, in this paper I will argue why I do not agree with the phrase ‘wala nang pag-ibig sa mundong ibabaw’ anymore.

Chapter II Review of Related Literature

It seems that this kind of atmosphere on love is not a new thing. Sa book ni bell hooks na All About Love (1999), she writes: “Youth culture today is cynical about love. And that cynicism has come from their pervasive feeling that love cannot be found...” Chappell Roan sings in Casual (2022): “You said, baby no attachment.” In one of her most popular songs, Tina Turner (1984) asks:

“What’s love got to do, got to do with it? Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?”

Nakikita natin that cynicism on love is a knee-jerk reaction to getting one’s heart broken. It’s not something that occurs within us spontaneously; this attitude is formed because of a painful experience. Seeking love is something we were born with, rejecting it is something we learn. But since it’s a learned thing, it’s also something we can unknot and unlearn.

Chapter III Methodology

Last year, I got my heart broken. This will serve as the methodology for this paper. And since I can say that I’m successfully over it naman na, I think may credibility naman ako kahit papa’no to talk about this. Back when I was still processing my feelings, I was walking with a friend when I said: “Parang ilusyon nalang siya [pagmamahal] ngayon.” In agreement, she blurted out the phrase: “wala na atang pag-ibig sa mundong ibabaw“. (Author’s note: We were saying these phrases as a joke omg!!! Di talaga kami ganyan magsalita.) I was a bit surprised to see how much this phrase resonated among my friends and peers.

This kind of outlook may be most prevalent among gay men and their dating scene (wala akong citation for this). Our dating meta is this: to allow yourself to emotionally invest and be vulnerable is naive; to consciously choose to do this is stupid. It seems that when dealing with men, you have to prepare for getting hurt. Maybe that’s why taking things casually is the dominant romantic zeitgeist of our times.

It makes sense. Can we blame people for looking at love like this? From experience masasabi ko naman that this perspective is highly effective in protecting yourself. Romantic dating is now a strategic game of losing the least. Hindi pwedeng ikaw ‘yung mas lugi. And what’s the best way to do that than to not take things seriously? Since there’s this inner belief that everything will not work out, might as well take it casually na lang and not invest too much. This way, there’s little to no process of moving on. You can proceed to your next experience as soon as possible. Life becomes a series of transient fun moments and experiences. There is no need for a heartbreak stopover.

Chapter IV Results and Discussion

There was a time last year that I was mad at myself for being so naive and inexperienced. At that moment of high emotions, I was walking inside the campus at around 9 PM. Inisip ko, if I was more rational, more experienced, maybe I wouldn’t have gotten hurt like this. I would have known that emotionally investing that early in a connection was a stupid move. If I did not set myself up to be vulnerable, there would be no need for me to be walking like this late at night. In fact I would probably be already talking to the next person.

Out of nowhere, may chinat akong other friend if she’s interested to hang out sa Freedom Park since taga Women’s Dorm lang siya. We talked about what I was feeling at that time. She said she was surprised, it’s her first time seeing me that way. I always had a rational, invulnerable image to my friends.

But she was about to surprise me more. “May sasabihin rin ako sa’yo“, she told me. “May crush ako ngayon“. She liked someone. This someone was someone I knew. Sobrang gulat ako kasi — for context — my friend was someone you would never think had any interest in romantic matters. She told me later that this was her first time being in love, all her life. “Ga’no mo na siya katagal gusto?” I asked. “Almost two years.”

Eventually walang nangyari sa kanila and she had to get over it. Meanwhile, I still had to undergo the hard work of processing your feelings. So yes, walang winner between samin. But if I didn’t experience heartbreak, I wouldn’t have walked on campus that late at night. I wouldn’t have called my friend, and she wouldn’t have told me her secret. We expect heartbreak to normally make us less vulnerable, for us to harden our hearts more. But in that moment, when I chose to be vulnerable with my friend, my heartbreak made our friendship deeper. There I saw that being vulnerable can be contagiously liberating. Imagine if I chose to maintain my rational, all-knowing-never-emotionally-affected image that night?

Chapter V Conclusions and Recommendations

With this, I say: I disagree with the phrase wala nang pag-ibig sa mundong ibabaw. But one may argue: if effective nga ang current dating mindset natin ngayon in protecting ourselves, what’s your argument for advocating vulnerability? Here is my answer: in a dating world where ang meta is taking things unseriously, with no emotional depth whatsoever — allowing yourself to be vulnerable is our form of counterculture. That’s it, to be honest. Wala na akong other arguments other than the fact that it’s a form of rebellion. Aware ako kung gaano ka-weak ang argument ko, hence I am not expecting anyone to be convinced with my sentiment. You may even sense how naive and inexperienced I am, still, based on this essay I wrote. And of course, there’s nothing wrong with choosing to engage in purely casual relationships if all parties understand (duh).

But can you imagine a world with no emotional depth in our relationships? I think it would be much, much less vibrant. There would be little contrast, if at all. So yes, I do believe na merong pag-ibig sa mundong ibabaw and that it is important to push back on the cynicism that is increasingly becoming our dominant outlook on love. To those that have found it, congrats on being employed! Because what is love, if not meaningful work? To those who have not, we will continue sketching a roadmap that will help us find it. And we will keep trying, and trying.

See the original instagram post, here:

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