I call this journey my “solo walking Philippine Loop.”

But if I’m being real, calling myself one starts to feel dishonest. In reality, I have never really been alone, nor done anything “solo” for that matter.

On my first day in Negros, I met my good friend Ana. She introduced me to her friends I had never met before, and one of them randomly offered me a free place to stay.

“Sagot ko na ’yung free inn mo tonight.”

I never mentioned that I was on a budget. I never asked for a place to stay. I simply answered their question: “Where will you stay tonight?”

And I said I’d book a nearby inn because I had just arrived. Kuya Ryle barely knew my name. He barely knew what I do. He barely knew why I was there. A five-minute interaction, perhaps, was enough for him to offer a stranger a place to stay for the night.

How can I call myself a solo traveler when, the day after, I found the cheapest inn I could, only to realize it wasn’t actually a hostel? The tenant who was supposed to be there hadn’t arrived yet, so the room was available.

And that’s how I met Kuya Chris. We talked about corporate life, mountaineering, and side quests within the first few minutes of meeting. There was no electricity when I arrived, so he invited me to McDo for dinner. His first questions were:

“Kumain ka na? Tara, sabay na tayo.”

How can I call myself a solo traveler when people I had just met were already inviting me to hike and camp with them?

How can I call myself a solo traveler when, after I checked out, Ana messaged me and told me I could sleep at the house of her good friend, Potpot?

When Potpot, a medtech practitioner who literally had a shift the next day, stayed up and shared stories with us until midnight?

Her reason, in her own words:

“Pag mag-sleep ako, wala mag-entertain sa guests.”

And the next day, she sent me a screenshot of her boyfriend appreciating my work.

When, the moment I woke up, her father, Tito Janus, cooked breakfast for me? They don’t even normally eat breakfast together. He specifically cooked it for me.

How can I call myself a solo traveler when a family who barely knew my name immediately included me in their conversations? I already heard about their family history, their life stories, their drama, their everything.

I think as Filipinos, we sometimes skip the introduction part and go straight to telling each other our lore. Which is why it’s easy for us to see each other eye to eye.

How can I call myself a solo traveler when pedicab and tricycle drivers openly tell me about their stories on the very day we meet? They tell me about their struggles, their appreciation for life, their perspectives, their families, their problems.

When I feel floating, I hear stories from the ground. Stories from ordinary people trying to make sense of ordinary life.

These conversations are a constant reminder of why I do what I do—especially when I’m getting too busy with work and life shenanigans.

Working for three clients while trying to walk across an entire country is not for the weak. I can’t afford to travel full-time YET. Most days, I ask myself why, or how. Doubts and fears are especially loud when you stay in a place for long. And then these encounters happen.

When I’m too tired to remember why I will continue, the universe rewards me with conversations. Reminding me why I started in the first place.

They just seem to appear in the moments when I need them the most.

How can I call myself a solo traveler when Ana offered me her room because she was going to Cebu for a few days?

When her family; her loving, sweet, accommodating, accepting family, would knock on my door just to call me for meals?

One time, Tita Analyn told me:

“Hindi na kami nagsasabay-sabay kumain eh, pero wala kang kasabay kaya tinawag ko sina Praise (Ana’s siblings).”

When we ate together…

When we talked. About families, and about life in Negros, and about everything. I even almost got late for my check-in at Sipaway because Tita and I talked for hours.

How can I call myself a solo traveler when, after getting lost in Sipaway, a bunch of kids who barely knew my name ran toward me just to warn me:

“May barb wire diyan, Kuya! Sa kabila ka dumaan.”

How can I call myself a solo traveler when every time I got to Ankie’s Place, Kuya Richard was just so graceful and kind? He already memorized my orders, and we’re now FB friends.

How can I call myself a solo traveler when Ana—who knew why I was doing all of this—trusted me with her story, her wounds, her camera, and her gear so I could shoot the first episode of the “Walks of Life”?

She knows I’m bad at camera work. I am a writer, sometimes I direct short films, but I’ve never been really good with gear and technical stuff. We’re almost sure my camera skills cannot justify her stories, but she still trusted me anyway.

How can I call myself a solo traveler when my family, who I’m pretty sure would do everything in their power to make me stop this crazy trip, still tries to support me in whatever ways they know how?

Checking on me, trying to search for nearby inns when I don’t have signal, asking where I am, making sure I’m safe. I can feel the support from kilometers, ferries, and airplanes away, even when they don’t completely understand what I’m doing.

How can I call myself a solo traveler when every day, my girlfriend’s a phone call away? Trusting me with all these shenanigans and supporting me anyway.

How can I call myself a solo traveler when I’m already becoming friends with the people here?

And on my last few days, when I was supposed to book another inn, Potpot stopped me.

“Sayang ang pera. Dito, libre pa.”

And I stayed, again.

Before I leave San Carlos, I think the least I can do is acknowledge. I wish an article and shoutouts can justify my gratitude for these people, but I do not have enough phrases. Even if this reached 10k words, it still won’t be enough. Not even close.

It feels almost disrespectful to call myself a solo traveler when I have been carried by so many individuals.

On the days when my two feet get too worn out from carrying a 9-kg backpack, three clients, and the weight of my own doubts, the people I meet make the load lighter. They lift parts of the journey with me in ways they don’t even know. With them, nothing’s really heavy.

I came to Negros thinking I was going to do it alone. Calling this a solo walking adventure.

But everywhere I went, someone opened a door. Someone offered food, or gave directions, or shared a story, or offered a bed, or invited me to hike.

Someone checked if I had eaten, or worried when I got lost, or trusted me with their story, or reminded me why I was doing this.

I don’t know how I’m supposed to repay all of this kindness. Though I’m pretty sure they’re not doing any of it expecting something in return.

So, whatever. I’ll just do my best to make this work.

But I just want to say, in the past few weeks, I’ve relied heavily on the kindness of people in San Carlos.

To everyone who has been part of this journey so far:

I carry an immense amount of gratitude for you. I’ll carry it into the next province, and the next walk, and the next stranger I meet. Your kindness extends, and I’ll make sure it reaches all the parts of this country I’ll visit.

I have always known that Kapwa has no direct English translation… but every day, I’m reminded of its deeper Filipino definition.

This is Slow Onion. No, I’m not a solo traveler. This journey has never belonged to me alone. Welcome to Walks of Life.

It’s my 11th day in San Carlos, and if I’m being honest, I feel like I’m outgrowing the place.

I eat the same breakfast every day, almost at the same place—Titing’s Cafe, which is fun and all. I mean, I love that place. I love the conversations. I love that the people are nice. I love that regulars get to choose their own mug. I love that no one seems to come here alone. I just love everything about it.

I eat lunch at the same karinderya. I love Kuya Joseph and Ate Crising, the owners. I love that the food is cheap. I love that Kuya is so nice. I love that when I accidentally left my ₱20, he called from afar just to give it back. I love the way they always smile at me.

I use the same transportation. I love that I can ride the same ₱15 tricycle or pedicab almost wherever I need to go. I love that no one takes advantage of me, even though I don’t speak Bisaya. Which is quite new to me as someone used to Elyu, where tricycle drivers will literally charge you ₱100 for a less-than-1-kilometer ride the moment they notice you don’t speak Chavacano.

I talk with the same people.

And they’re all nice, by the way. I really can’t ask for more.

Ana is one of the best people I know. I love her family so much. I love that they let me stay with them for a few days, that Tita includes me in meals, and that she has so many stories about their family.

Potpot, Ana’s friend whom I had just met, was also incredibly welcoming and let me stay for a few days. So did Kuya Ryle, whom I had also just met. I didn’t ask for it; he literally offered it out of nowhere.

I got close with the inn owner I stayed with on the days I wasn’t sleeping in someone else’s house. Kuya Chris is just so wholesome and even invites me to camp with him.

I work at the same shops. I love the baristas at Sestra. I love that it has air-conditioning and fast Wi-Fi. I love that the staff at Ankie’s Place are nice too, so I can switch between the two from time to time.

I love how they always smile at me and talk to me. I love that they let me in even when the place isn’t open yet and tell me to just wait inside because it’s hot outside.

I used to have just two part-time jobs; now I have three.

And I work for the same three clients.

I love my job—or jobs. I love that they allow me to work whenever I want. I love that they help me achieve my dreams and fund my side quests without sucking the soul out of my life. I love that all my clients are nice.

I love everything about San Carlos and my situation, to be honest.

I’m in a place with a beach. I’m surrounded by nice people. The food is cheap. Transportation isn’t overpriced. Personally, I’d put San Carlos in my top five places I’ve visited so far.

I love where I’m at.

I love travelling. I love doing Walks of Life. I love everything about this.

So why the hell does it still feel like this?

I mean, why do I feel stuck just because I’ve been here for 11 days?

I can leave anytime. I could pack my things tomorrow and move on. But I’ve decided to stay because I still have some episodes to shoot with Ana, which I’m incredibly grateful for.

It’s just that maybe seeing the same view, repeating the same patterns, and doing the same shit every day is simply not me. Which is why I’m walking in the first place.

I need to go for a walk. I’m not here to settle, no matter how beautiful the place is.

I remember in early 2025, I was in Elyu, then Abra, then Sagada, all in the same month. Then I lost my job. Suddenly, I was staring at the same laptop. Applying on the same sites. Praying the same prayers.

Help me get out of here.

All while being in a loving house, with a loving family.

I thought it was just me. I thought it was a problem.

When I told this story to Ana’s family, her sister told me, “Ay, ganyan din si Ana! Nung nawalan siya ng work, araw-araw niya lang nami-miss travels niya.”

I think it’s a common denominator among solo travellers. Once you’ve gotten used to movement, settling becomes suffocating, especially when you’ve just started and you know damn well there’s so much more to see.

I want to talk to other travellers and ask them how they feel when they stay somewhere for quite a long time. Because for me, it feels like being a writer without a laptop, a pen, paper, time, or anything to write.

A singer who cannot sing, or a dancer who lost the ability to dance, or a creator who doesn’t create. Basically, an artist without art.

That’s how it feels right now. But there’s something I need to be careful about when I talk about being stuck. I wrote this to process my emotions, and now that people MAY be reading this, I don’t want to give you guys false hope nor be tone-deaf. So know that this is not the first time I’ve felt this way… saying “Just leave” without context is insensitive.

I should know. Not everyone can. Choice, most of the time… is a privilege. I acknowledge that.

I know I said I no longer want to write about my corporate experience, but I think this blog needs the proper context. Because this situation reminds me of when I was working in a BPO. Before all these shenanigans, I was a corporate worker at night and a college student in the morning… and I couldn’t afford shit!

At that time, I had a friend who was around my age and always travelled. I remember being proud of him whenever I saw his Instagram stories, but I was also lowkey envious of his life.

Bro was everywhere. Sagada, Boracay, Baguio.

And I knew he also worked so hard for his money, so more than anything, I was inspired.

But at that time, I was working the night shift while going to school. I couldn’t write. I couldn’t create. I barely had time for my hobbies, which, I believe, triggered an inner monster.

I was just existing, on autopilot, and this monster took control.

I didn’t feel like a human being anymore, and it affected how I treated the people around me. I remember coming across this quote that I held very close to my heart:

“In the absence of a creative outlet, artistic minds create chaos.”

True enough, I wasn’t creating anything, and the monster amidst the chaos persevered.

I felt like I had created something inside myself that just wanted to break free so badly that it hurt. It grew every day, and suppressing it in hopes of denying its existence did more harm than good. Eventually, it started exploding in ways I didn’t particularly like.

I was always on edge. I drank. I shouted when I was mad. I quit school. I resigned irrationally. I stopped all my passion projects. I felt stuck with that monster for quite a while. And the worst part was feeling stuck in the situation that created it.

I just wanted to be like my friend who could ride random buses to random places whenever he pleased. But this is where I think comparison gets dangerous.

We’ve all heard some version of: “Si ano nga, ganyan eh. Kinaya niya. Kaya mo rin yan.”

I’m not a fan of that. I feel like it’s bullshit. I’m a firm believer in the ever-famous social media quote: We may be in the same storm, but we are not in the same boat.

We have different privileges. We’re dealt different cards. We can tolerate different amounts of pain. We experience life differently. We are not all as strong, capable, or free as the person next to us.

So in times of negativity, I try to compare my situation ONLY with situations I’ve personally been in. And that comparison gives me some perspective.

Because two years ago, I was daydreaming about riding random buses to local places. Last year, I was everywhere, doing exactly that. Then I lost my job, and I couldn’t afford to travel.

I eventually landed new jobs paying less… I found myself daydreaming about talking to locals, talking to karinderya vendors, learning about people’s realities on the ground, travelling!

But instead, I clocked in and clocked out, and that’s it.

Now… I’m actually living that very dream. I mean, exactly that.

I’m sitting in karinderyas talking to vendors. I’m sleeping in strangers’ homes. I’m walking from one province to another. I’m meeting people I would have never met otherwise.

I’m doing the thing I used to pray for while staring at the same laptop.

And yet, here I am, feeling stuck again just because I’ve been here for 11 days. I wrote this to force myself to “fix it.” Writing about it leads me to another conclusion.

Honestly, this is just how I feel, and I don’t think I should be sorry for it.

I mean, being grateful doesn’t mean being happy all the time. Getting what you once prayed for doesn’t necessarily mean every day suddenly feels meaningful.

Sometimes the stars align, sometimes they don’t, and sometimes they align perfectly, but you still wake up feeling like shit.

That doesn’t make you bitter, nor spoiled, nor whiny, nor undeserving. Bitch, you’re a human being. You’re not ChatGPT, who can take being called the most offensive, meanest, insulting name imaginable and still thank the prompter for a good question. You are not AI. Feel! For what it’s worth, feel!

I don’t want to romanticize resilience. I don’t want college kids reading this to think that suffering is somehow good for them because it’ll make them stronger in the long run. The things I went through were negative. Being stuck sucked. Losing my job sucked. Working myself into the ground sucked.

Yes, I can’t deny that those experiences changed me. There’s a version of me now that knows this feeling ends, which is why I’m comfortable writing it. There’s a character I built from all of it, yes, that’s true. But it doesn’t change the fact that it sucked, and I don’t want to glorify it. Even if, let’s say, I make it one day, I’ll still stand by this truth.

I can be thankful for my experiences, both positive and negative, without invalidating those who are currently going through the negative ones by saying… it’s okay, it’ll get better. Because we don’t know that! If that’s how people will take our experiences, that would’ve been nice, but we can’t impose stuff!

And I hope the college kids who don’t like to work can focus on studying without feeling guilty. And I hope for companies to treat their employees better. And I hope for change. And I hope for a better government and better system that can prevent unnecessary suffering.

Both truths can exist! They don’t cancel each other out.

Sometimes you’re doing amazing. Sometimes you’re whiny. Sometimes you’re unhappy in a beautiful place surrounded by beautiful people. Sometimes you’re a Guru, so mature and full of wisdom. Sometimes you just simply aren’t!

Your inner self would rather have you be honest about that than force it to be funny and bubbly just because your life looks good on paper.

What do you think happens with those feelings when you pretend? Disappear into the void? Everything you ever feel will always be there, no matter how deep you bury it! They’ll find their way back and manifest in maybe even uglier ways… you’re just delaying it.

I wrote this journal to hopefully “fix” how I’m feeling. To hopefully kill my inner monster before it breaks things, but writing had a better conclusion: acknowledge it and let it exist. Don’t let it own you. I mean, I can’t always run away and fear it.

I have a warrior and a monster inside… and they both can co-exist. I mean, why did God make so many emotions if we’re not allowed to feel them? They’re there for a reason. Use them. Use them well.

I can love San Carlos and still want to leave. I can be grateful and still feel stuck. I can be living a dream and still have a bad day. Both things can be true, and that’s okay. I’m leaving in a few days anyway, after I finish the shoot.

I’m thankful for everything San Carlos gave me. Companionship, perspective, and life. But I cannot stay just because it’s good. I’ll end up resenting this place unreasonably if I stay otherwise.

I love this place, and it’s one of the best I’ve visited, but I can’t stay here anymore. And in a few days, I need to walk again.

I may change my opinion tomorrow, but as of writing, this is my honest current state. I don’t think it’s wrong, and I shouldn’t be sorry for how I feel.

Anthony Bourdain had his way of introducing us to different cultures—through trying their local foods. My version of this is visiting coffee shops.

I think cafés can tell you a lot about a place.

I am not in any way a coffee enthusiast. I can’t even quite name specialty coffees, nor can I differentiate between types of coffee. So, I don’t think I’m quite credible when it comes to coffee reviews. As long as it’s coffee and it keeps me awake, I will passionately devour that drink.

But as someone who works remotely, I’ve spent a good chunk of my days working in coffee shops. I do feel like I have visited quite enough cafés to formulate an informed opinion—or, at least, valid observations.

On normal days in my hometown, I spend so much time in cafés working. I open my laptop, put on my headphones, order a coffee, and disappear into my own little world. Sometimes, there are dozens of people around me doing the exact same thing.

We are together, but we are also alone.

In my place, or at least in my day-to-day observations, the coffee shop becomes an extension of the workplace. Except after around 5 PM, when students sometimes go to debrief or coworkers rest, a café is a place to answer emails, take meetings, finish a deck, write an article, or simply have somewhere to work outside the house—at least for me and most of the people I encounter in Calamba.

I don’t think there’s something inherently wrong with that. I mean, I do it too.

But based on my walks so far, I’ve figured coffee shops can mean something very different depending on where you are.

When I was walking in Barangay Buot-Tabu, I stumbled upon a café in the middle of the mountains of Cebu: The Havenarry.

The coffee was cheap. With my ₱150, I had already drunk three cups of café latte. There were kids around, and the owner, Ate Baby, who calls the kids “love,” seemed to know everyone who passed by.

At one point, she asked one of the kids, “Kanino kang anak?”

And she knew the kid’s parents. She knew where their regulars lived. She knew the people who came into her place.

There was even an instance when a middle-aged woman came by, and they chit-chatted for hours.

The coffee shop was part of the neighborhood. It challenged my initial view of cafés as places to escape the community. Here, a coffee shop was a place where the community met.

Days after, I arrived in San Carlos, Negros Occidental…

I decided to rest in San Carlos for quite a while because I had been walking for three days at this point. I think my feet deserved—and needed—it anyway. After sleeping in an inn on my first day, I asked a pedicab driver to take me to a nearby coffee shop.

My city version of a café is one where I can work. One, perhaps, with a socket, Wi-Fi, and overpriced coffee because you’re paying for the place, not for the drink itself.

But then Kuya had a different definition. “Aight, bet. I’ll take you to our pride.” His thoughts, probably.

“Yan, native diyan,” he said when he dropped me off at Titing’s.

In my mind, I was hoping for an air-conditioned one, as I was planning to stay there for the whole day to work. But then again, it was just around 7 AM. I could still work in the afternoon, and a slow morning drinking native coffee would’ve been nice.

Everything went unplanned, but I stayed because of the vibe.

There were mostly old people having breakfast. They weren’t there to work, nor were there any laptops. Not even headphones in sight. No one seemed particularly concerned about how long they had been sitting there.

They ate, drank coffee, and literally just had conversations about God knows what.

They talked… and talked… and talked. I’m not exaggerating.

Locals came to Titing’s, intentionally to eat breakfast with one another. In my four morning visits, the everyday experience is the same. No one came alone (except me).

I was fascinated. Every day, people showed up, and they had at least one person with them. When was the last time we went somewhere simply to be with other people?

I mean, intentionally. Not to network, nor to have a meeting, nor to discuss work, nor to collaborate. Not even to sit beside strangers while everyone is individually staring at a screen.

I mean, just to eat breakfast and talk.

This is perhaps what I mean by knowing a culture through cafés.

In Manila, or Calamba, where life is faster and more expensive, a coffee shop, at least in my experience, is an air-conditioned workplace for those privileged enough to work remotely. Our individual productivity can continue outside the office through these spaces.

In the mountains of Cebu, or at least in The Havenarry, it is an extension of the community. In San Carlos, or at least in Titing’s, it’s simply a place to have breakfast with people you’ve known for years.

I then started wondering what all of this says about the way we define progress. If we measure progress through the language of capitalism, we know which places are “moving forward.”

Manila has a bigger economy. More businesses and infrastructure and jobs and money moving around. Its GDP contributes far more to the country than a small town in Negros, or a community in the mountains of Cebu.

And by many conventional measures, that means Manila is more “progressive.”

But what exactly are we progressing toward? I don’t mean this as an argument against progress.

I want better roads. I am all for better healthcare, better schools, and better opportunities. I am all for improved public transportation for all. I want people in the provinces to have access to the same things people in cities do.

But I wonder if, in our pursuit of moving forward, we sometimes forget to ask what we are leaving behind: Our culture? Our values? Our friends? Our communities? To be completely honest, I’m not writing this to give answers. I’m writing because I myself ask these questions.

Places change, businesses grow, amd cities expand. Amidst these transitions, communities can become more individualistic. In the language of progress (or convenience), the things that once required us to know one another turn into services we can purchase instead.

I don’t know about you guys, but I won’t normally go to LinkedIn for genuine connections. However, here, people are one click away. You see curated comments probably written by ChatGPT, but this is a good place to find opportunities in. Did anyone ever reach out to you on this app just to ask how you’ve been? Not to offer a job, nor to ask if your company has an opening.

It says something about how we’re seeming to view people these days. Do we even try to be friends with people anymore? Or do we just connect with those who can help us advance in our careers, land a job, or do something useful for us in capitalist terms?

Aside from this, when we get used to what’s comfortable, we start treating basic things as inconveniences. Why ask people for advice when we have AI? Why talk to our friends about our problems when we don’t want to bother them? Why go out when everyone’s just so busy these days?

This made me think about the coffee shops.

The kids at Havenary, the owner who knows whose child is whose, and the old people having breakfast at Titing’s. People who came because they intentionally wanted to be with one another.

Hear me out. I think we’re all in a rush, worried about how quickly we can move forward. But trying to keep up just to fulfill capitalism’s version of progress is filling a void. That shit’s insatiable.

There will always be another thing to achieve, another toy to buy, another place to reach, another version of ourselves to become.

So while we’re at it, I hope we remember what we are progressing for. I don’t think we should be afraid of moving forward. I think we should be afraid of moving so quickly that we forget who we’re moving forward with.

Living slowly and intentionally can be quite countercultural.

When everything is fast-paced, we abandon the slow details that are so essential yet so easily overlooked: the conversations, the connections, knowing the people in your own subdivision, and being known by your neighbor.

When I think about the future, I wonder what more humanity can lose in exchange for “progress.” In our attempts to satisfy the insatiable, we might lose our appetite for becoming human beings. For becoming ourselves.

We might become too busy to have normal breakfasts together. Too busy to know who regularly visits our coffee shops. Too busy to ask someone, “Kanino kang anak?” And too busy to know the people when the kids answer that very question.

I hope that moving forward, we consider slowing down. Actually, I hope we take a few steps back. We’re already losing so much with all these shenanigans.

Aside from the culture they reintroduced me to, I think Havenary and Titing’s were the prompts I needed. They ask something of us: to be with a friend even when it feels inconvenient, or sit with no other intention but to be present, or talk like normal people, or simply—to have conversations.

We can’t catch up with this whole progress thing; it’s too fast. We might as well just take our time catching up about our lives and stuff instead. We can’t be late to a race we never even agreed to run.

Slow down and ask how your friend’s family is doing. Tell them about the passion project you’re currently working on. Talk about something you’re excited about. Share something stupid that happened to you this week.

Do it without the need to monetize an interaction, or to make it useful in any capitalistic way.

Show up... for the sole spirit of showing up.

So when the insatiable system does what it’s good at—leaving people behind—maybe those of us doing this countercultural thing will be okay. Because in the first place, we never lost our appetite for looking out for each other.

Notes I wrote over breakfasts at Titing’s. Welcome to the “Walks of Life.”

All because I missed a few turns.

For starters, hi, I’m Slow Onion, I’m walking across the entire country, and making a documentary book and film about the people I meet along the way. I call this adventure the Walks of Life, and I started the journey last week.

Day 1

For my first voyage, I had to walk from Liloan, Cebu, to Toledo Port, where the ferry to Negros leaves. According to Google Maps, it’s just 58 km away. I could’ve finished the whole walk in one day.

Less than 60 km without the mountains is doable. I’ve done it before, so I should know. However, somewhere around lunchtime, I lost my GPS signal, I didn’t check my phone because I was reserving my battery, and I just kept going.

I was late to realize it, but I had missed multiple turns. My one-day journey turned into a three-day walking adventure. I walked almost a hundred kilometers, more than half of it in the mountains.

At first, I got a bit frustrated. I’d been walking since 5:30 AM. It had been six or seven hours, but Google Maps was getting farther and farther away. I mean, when I left, I was pretty sure Toledo was just 50-something kilometers away. Yet at around 12 PM, it was showing that I was still 50 km away.

That didn’t make sense. What do you mean I barely moved when my Strava suggests I’ve already walked more than 20 kilometers?

That’s when it sank in. I had missed some turns. I could remember that there should’ve been multiple turns, yet I just went straight ahead. However, I have this mantra: When in doubt, reroute. So I embraced my situation, and just like that, I took the longer path.

It helped that I asked locals. They told me I was heading toward a dead end, and suggested that I take an exit via a stairway—which was excruciating, by the way. I was already physically exhausted at this point. But the small conversations and interactions made this whole walking thing bearable. They reminded me why I was walking in the first place—to connect with people.

It was fun and all… and then I reached the mountains. When I saw the never-ending uphill, I already accepted my fate: No. I cannot finish this today. My pace at this point was pretty good. I walked fast, especially on the main road, because I was trying to finish this before it gets dark.

But what can I say? The climb never fails to humble me in ways I always don’t expect. I’d walked in Majayjay and Tagaytay before, so I already knew this was going to be challenging, but not like this. I spent the next five or six hours barely covering 13 kilometers.

When it started getting dark, I decided to stop and look for an inn—or any place where I could at least rest and stay for the night. Since I don’t want to walk at night, I asked a habal-habal driver if he knew any cheap places. He pointed me toward a hotel. The rate was ₱5,000 per night. I’m stretching my little money because it’s only Day 1, and I can’t afford to splurge that much just for one night.

So I asked Kuya if there were cheaper options. He then took me to a resort, which was also expensive, so he transferred me to another driver, Kuya Loreto, his friend. We went to the barangay hall to ask for options, cause his wife, Ate Celyn, works there.

When we realized we don’t really have much options, Kuya suggested:

“Samin ka na lang matulog, mas makakamura ka pa.”

Naturally, I would still pay, but he was right. Financially, it was definitely cheaper than a hotel.

Ate Celyn backed him up:

“Dun ka na lang, safe ka pa. Wala naman natutulog doon, kasi nasa kabila kami.”

There goes my first story. I slept at the house of a habal-habal driver I had just met. I paid for the lodging—which wasn’t much, by the way—but he said: “Ay, sobra ‘to. ‘Yung sobra, ibili natin ng pagkain. Kain tayo hapunan, tapos bukas, almusal tayo sa’min (sa kabila).”

I wish I could articulate how much this experience almost made me cry. I wish an article could justify how special communal experiences are to me, especially after we all became so hyper-independent after the pandemic.

We watched the news. He told me about his anger toward the flood control projects, how many people died during Typhoon Tino, and how it was the first flooding of its kind in the city. He told me how he, and so many people in Cebu, were furious about it. In the morning, we ate breakfast.

I told them about this whole Philippine Loop thing, and Ate Celyn couldn’t make sense of it. She even messaged me to say they were heading to Toledo and that I could ride with them if I wanted (I think she thought I was just broke and didn’t have money for transportation. Wahahaha).

I didn’t see the message because it was in my message requests, and I would’ve declined it anyway because this is a walking journey. But you get the point. The gesture and the hospitality and the kapwa spirit and the community. This is what I stay alive for.

Day 2

I was supposed to wake up early, but my feet hurt, so I overslept. I started walking around 8 AM… still in the mountains. This day was about nature and stunning views. Personally, mountains are my favorite scenery. The greenery, the rivers that appeared from time to time, and just everything about it.

For the first few hours, I walked beside a river. As if it was telling me, I am on your side. I remembered my article about Moana and Elsa, a blog about my calling that I wrote while I was at home, working, imagining exactly this. Now I’m here, walking my dream adventure, and a river is by my side.

I went down to the river, played in the water, and decided to rest for a while. I have this unmatched connection with rivers and roads that I cannot, no matter how much I try, articulate properly. I just love them both. So this whole reroute thing felt like a reward.

Google Maps led me to roads that were closed, so I had to reroute multiple times again. At around lunchtime, I stumbled upon a café, which was perfect because I needed a place where I could charge my phone, rest, eat, and work (Yes, I am not unemployed. I work two part-time jobs).

This is where I met Ate Baby, the owner of Havenary Café, and the daughter of a barangay captain. She calls the kids “love.” She’s naturally sweet with everyone, and she’s just so accommodating.

I asked if they sold water. She said, “Yes, pero yung service water namin, mineral din.” I mean, wow. She runs this business, but she still told me about an option where I could spend less. I was about to buy chicken wings, which cost ₱99, when she told me that their best-selling pastil was cheaper, ₱50. And if you’re a student, she said, it’s only ₱30. I mean, I was already going for the more expensive one. She could’ve made more money from me, right? Why would she tell me this?

The coffees were only ₱50. Elementary students eat here. And she accommodates everyone. I don’t know about you, but in the city—in Manila, in Calamba—we can barely name business owners who would do this… Who wouldn’t let money get in the way of their morals. Who would still keep their character intact.

Another special thing about Ate is that she asks kids she doesn’t recognize: “Kanino kang anak?” The kid would answer, and she would nod. I remembered my father telling us how small Lucban used to be. If you rode a jeepney, you would recognize everyone—even their parents, cousins, and life stories.

Now, we barely know the people in our own subdivisions. What does that say about us? About what we’re becoming? Food for thought.

I finished work around 3 PM and decided to keep walking because I had barely covered 10 km that morning. This was a shorter walk than Day 1, but a much harder one because of the uphills.

Around 4:30 PM, it started getting a bit scary because I was so exhausted. I would literally stop every 20 meters or so because the climb was the hardest I’d ever walked. My feet were starting to give up. They didn’t hurt; I was just completely exhausted. I hadn’t seen anyone for a while. Motorcycles would pass by at maybe 20-minute intervals.

So I was so happy to see an establishment. The first one I’d seen in the past hour. I was already out of water, so I asked Kuya Neri if there were any tindahan nearby, or maybe one of those piso water vending machines. He told me I’d still have to climb, so he just offered me his water instead.

I went on, and eventually got thirsty again. I finally saw a store. I asked if they sold water. Kuya told me no, but he offered me his water instead. Straight from the sapa. That’s what they drink there, he said. I refilled my cup with it, and Kuya filled my spirit with the conversations we had.

We talked about this journey, about how he wished me well, and about how he hoped I would complete this whole adventure. I told him about his peace I admire. He had chicken, goats, plants, and a sapa behind his house. I told him about how many of us work so hard to achieve this life.

I went on and finally saw houses. I cannot explain how relieved I was to see a neighborhood when I could barely see anyone for the past hour or so. I went to a barangay hall to ask if they knew of an inn or any lodging where I could stay for the night.

Kuya Porti told me I could stay there, in the hall, for the night. “Safety ka na rito, wala ka pang babayaran.” We talked for a while. I told them about this whole adventure, and they were all so supportive. They told me they were rooting for me.

The funny thing is, I left around 7 PM to eat at a nearby karinderya, and then kids approached me. “Kuya, kayo yung vlogger? May PH Looper daw sa bgry hall, sabi ni Papa.” They all came up to me like I was some sort of celebrity. They asked for my TikTok name, asked where I was heading, and basically interviewed me.

It was such a wholesome experience. “Kuya, finollow kita!” “Kuya, shoutout mo ‘ko ‘pag sikat ka na!” I will never forget these people. I then talked to Ate Pressy, the karinderya owner. We laughed about silly things. I told her I came all the way from Liloan, and she was naturally shocked. Then our conversation just flowed.

I eventually went back and slept on the bench. The Kuyas even gave me a piece of karton because they said the bench was cold. No ₱5,000-per-night hotel or luxurious lodging villa could ever replicate this experience. Not even close.

Day 3

I was physically exhausted, but the mountain views were natural chargers. At one point, I was just filming the forest, and the universe showed me this. I accidentally filmed elementary students getting picked up by motorcycles—free habal-habal rides for students.

I was caught off guard. I don’t think I can properly put into words how much I was in awe of the culture I had just witnessed. I mean, can you imagine this in the city? Elementary students? Our natural Manila instinct would probably say it’s unsafe. But this is a special place. The villagers here look after each other, and they are all so communal.

I followed two students, Josh and Kiel, until we reached the school. Unfortunately, no one stopped for them that morning. But we had a conversation, and they were the ones who explained to me that the rides were free and that they do this every day.

I eventually reached the city after spending the last few hours in the mountains. Those last few hours were beyond tiring. I stopped at a laundry shop to rest, where I met Ate Normy. She told me to keep safe and always update my mother, because she knows what it’s like to worry about your kid’s safety.

When I reached Toledo, I started asking around for a cheap place to stay, and the universe was just full of side quests. Kuya Arnold, a tsinelas vendor, invited me to sleep with them in their truck. He told me their story—how they had traveled all the way from Nueva Ecija to Masbate, and were now in Cebu, heading toward Dumaguete.

“Gusto mo sa’min ka makitulog ngayon, libre. Sa truck kami natutulog.” Guys, I would. If not for my need to take a bath, I would. I hadn’t taken a bath because there was no water in the barangay hall, so I told Kuya I’d come back the next day.

I’d just book an inn for the night. Kuya told me they were leaving the next day… so what a waste. But I still went with him and had a conversation with the three of them.

They told me their stories—how they do their business, how they travel from place to place, and how they make a living. I even bought a pair of tsinelas for myself. I’m still figuring out how I can tell their stories properly, but this is a good head start. Stories are everywhere. And I wasn’t even looking for one when Kuya approached me.

I always tell people that storytelling and writing are my calling, and this experience was a subtle reminder: I am where I’m meant to be.

Cebu to Negros was all about getting lost. I got physically exhausted because I hadn’t really prepared for a hike. But knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t have wanted to stay on the original route. I would’ve deliberately chosen the longer path. The harder one, the excruciating mountain roads, the uphills and downhills, the communities. I wouldn’t trade any of it for an easier path.

I could’ve finished the journey in a day. But then I wouldn’t have met Kuya Loreto and Ate Cecil, who let me stay at their house. Kuya Nilo, who gave me a cup of water. Ate Baby, who calls the kids “love.” Kuya Arnold, who travels from afar to sell footwear. Kuya Porti, who let me sleep in the barangay hall. I wouldn’t have seen the kids and their giggles, the mountains, or the rivers.

I experienced so much life, all because I lost my GPS signal and missed a few turns.

I think that’s why I’ve never been good at following maps. On mountains and in life.

At this age, for example, I feel like I’m expected to take the familiar route: study well, get a degree, find a stable job. But the safer road, the faster one, the one with fewer obstacles, has always felt a little suffocating.

I can’t live like that forever, I’m sure.

So, my first reroute wasn’t when I lost my GPS signal, missed a few turns, and ended up in the mountains. It was when I decided to go after my dream adventure, no matter how ridiculous it sounded.

I refuse to believe there’s a linear path for all of us. What I do might not make sense to everyone else, but I have long outgrown the need to justify my ventures.

I may have lost my way, missed imaginary deadlines, and failed to reach Toledo on time. But in rerouting, I found the destinations I’ve always been looking for. If getting lost gets me here, I might as well keep getting lost.

This is Slow Onion. Welcome to the Walks of Life.

It was fun, of course. They’re some of my best friends. But it wasn’t part of the plan.

I need to walk in Cebu!!

So, naturally, I made a major route change. Instead of walking from north to south, I ditched my flight and decided to start the Philippine Loop from Cebu instead. My friends left yesterday, and I met up with an old pal—one of my childhood idols: Kuya Djong.

During my formative years, I listened to his weird and whimsical life stories, which are a major part of why I am weird today. My parents should’ve protected me from him, but it’s too late now. They’re suffering the consequences by worrying about my safety and my side quests.

I was just planning to stay here for a while—to reroute, rest, and plan ahead. I wasn’t, in any way, looking for stories. But Kuya Djong is Kuya Djong.

We talked about flood control, and how almost all the cars I see in the subdivision are new, because most of the original ones were wrecked just months ago by sudden flooding.

Lagpas tao, buong first floor, baha.

The weather has been nice lately in Cebu, but I wonder what will happen when the next typhoons come.

I asked Kuya Dij, “What’s the solution?”

“Walang solution. Sus, alam mo naman dito.”

Some residents left, while most just accepted the reality. I mean, what else is left to do?

He then pointed out a ₱5-billion flood control project.

“Inimbestigahan ‘yan, Kuya?” I asked.

“Hindi. Sana nga imbestigahan na.”

And just like that, we went from talking about flooded cars to talking about how things are supposed to work—and how they actually work. Something is seriously wrong with the way we run things.

He also pointed out a huge-ass former shabu hub that had operated for decades and was only raided a few years ago. The hub wasn’t hidden in some secluded area. You could literally see it along the way.

In a crooked system, stuff like this—with connections—thrives.

He then warned me about certain places in Mindanao: the killings, the reason why his mother left, the long-ongoing war.

We talked about the Ampatuan massacre and how it could have just been another normal day, another number added to the death toll, if there hadn’t been journalists there to tell the story.

Someone survived and told the narrative, so it became a national issue. But there, things like this happen regularly, and people just go about their day.

Sometimes, the difference between something being a tragedy known by a handful of people, and a national issue, is simply whether someone was there to tell it.

He also told me a story about a coordinator who once had a crazy college life.

The school was on another island, so the Tito he was talking about had to sell wood just to afford the ferry ride. Yes, pamasahe pa lang.

Then he would diskarte his way through college. He would talk to homeowners, feed their pigs, and do whatever he could in exchange for free board and lodging.

For lunch, he figured most students would rush outside whenever they heard the whistle because that meant ROTC was starting. Instead of running with the other students, he would eat the food they left behind. He would, of course, be late for ROTC and get punished with push-ups, but at least he was full.

After a semester, he jokingly said:

“Wala akong natutunan. Napagod lang ako.”

Of course, the story feels a little lighter now that we were talking about it in retrospect. But I wonder how many kids on the islands are still living this reality?

We then talked about another story from when he was once in Manila for a conference.

They were three kids, most of them still studying, and they were shocked by how expensive food was in the city.

“Grabe ang karinderya, ₱40 ang isang ulam. Sa Jollibee nga may 39ers.”

A karinderya owner (who was also Visayan), noticed they were speaking Bisaya, he said:

“Ako nang bahala. Bayaran niyo na lang for one order, pero lahat kayo may meal.”

They say no one’s going to save you. But these stories exist. And I am here today, in Kuya Djong’s house, having a conversation. They let me stay for as long as I need. They even told me about provinces where he has relatives we can contact if I ever need somewhere to stay.

Ever since the pandemic, communal experiences have been really special to me.

Anyway, Day 0 has been much more than I expected.

I’m writing this in gratitude—reminded of why I’m doing what I’m doing, and why I need to do what I need to do.

This is Slow Onion. Welcome to the Walks of Life.

I wanted to romanticize the kind of love that can survive the Philippine public transportation system. I mean, isn’t it romantic? Having someone willing to commute with you before either of you can afford a car. Being with someone who can withstand the hassle.

To paint a picture, here’s what our normal “commute date” looked like...

Tell me, how do you write a love letter when your LRT ride from V. Mapa to Doroteo Jose during rush hour feels like a scene straight out of a zombie apocalypse? Then you walk for I don’t know how long exactly, but it’s definitely tiring, climbing flight after flight of stairs just to transfer to the next train headed for PITX.

From PITX, you ride a bus to Alabang. If you have a little extra money, maybe you can book an InDrive or Grab... or GSM, a cheaper option. Otherwise, it’s another jeepney, then a tricycle.

Instead of writing a love letter, most of the time, all I could write about was the commute. I know, it’s easy to set this aside when you’re in love. But it’s difficult to romanticize any of it when, on that same bus ride, construction workers are asking for spare change because their contractor disappeared without paying them.

When parents and their babies sleep on footbridges.

When all I want is to read The Hunger Games on the train like the commuters I see in other countries, but the LRT is so packed that I can barely move.

When I know that on that same train, there are queer people hurriedly wiping off their makeup before returning to households that don’t accept them. People who can’t hold their partners’ hands or marry them for the universe knows why.

There are nurses about to start another night shift, and they’re already tired.

There are workers from Rizal, Laguna, Cavite, and places even farther away, forced to work in Manila because there are no opportunities in their home provinces.

There are working students who used to be musicians. How are they supposed to make music when they can’t even get enough sleep?

There are workers still wearing their company IDs, playing Scatter in the waiting shed. Gambling the little money they’ve earned for a little hope of pulling themselves out of poverty, not knowing it buries them even deeper. And worse, there are billboards of influencers and the elite trying to lure them even more.

There are fresh graduates with envelopes who, after months of applying, are still trying their luck.

There are elderly women forced to climb endless footbridges because our cities are car-centric. As if cars were affordable. As if they were even practical in an economy like ours.

In these characters, I wonder how many of them are underpaid employees who are already in their petsa de peligro. I wonder how many of them would message their friends asking if they have extra money and promise to return it in a week.

I wonder how many of them are writers who could write their Substack articles well. I wonder how many of them are talented but don’t even have the time to discover their gift, let alone make it flourish. I wonder how many of them just want to love, if only it were a sane option in this economy.

I know that, somehow, despite all this, I carry a bit of privilege. I mean, I still get to love... and I still get to write on Substack. We’ve reached a point where even loving or pursuing our hobbies is considered a privilege.

And whenever I complain here on Substack, I open the app and boom... someone from Vito Cruz has written about the same frustrations. Someone from Mindanao writes about another. Someone from Davao writes about their mother tongue. Different places, same rants, same country.

When Usec. Claire Castro gave Bongbong Marcos’s performance a score of 100 (or, if she’s being honest, 90%), all I could think was: maybe I’d give my commute a perfect score too—or, if I’m being honest, at the very least, a 9—if I ignored every single person I encountered along the way.

The grandmother climbing the footbridge. The queer commuter erasing part of themselves before going home. The workers. The students. The people whose lives revolve around train stations and bus terminals. The stray dogs.

If I ignored all of them, maybe reality would look perfect, or at the very least, a 9. It’s just me and my girlfriend, holding hands, withstanding the excruciating commute.

Me writing a love letter is the president giving the curated, edited, well-written state of the nation. But I don’t think that’s our real state.

Every time I read another Substack essay from a Filipino writer, I see those same people all over again. The real state of the nation isn’t in speeches. It’s in the articles we write. Or the ones we can’t. Because of the realities we have.

Lourd said that every time his boss calls, his mind immediately jumps to the worst possible conclusion. That’s it. There are no more projects. I’m out of a job.

Anthony Bourdain, according to Lourd, carried the same fear. Both of them lived with the feeling that they were one email away from unemployment. That one random day, their companies would snap and suddenly decide, “Yep, we no longer need you.”

I thought I was the only one with this fight-or-flight response every time my phone lights up. But the idea that workers, as accomplished and legendary as them, carried the same fear is both eerie and fascinating.

Will writing this get me laid off?

Years ago, during my probationary period at my first corporate job, I was anxious every time I received an email.

A co-worker had just finished his probation during my second month there, and the company decided not to move forward with him. From then on, every notification felt loaded.

To be fair, I understood the decision. We worked night shifts, and there were several times when he’d fall asleep in the middle of work. His output also barely met our boss’s standards. But watching someone leave that early taught me something I wasn’t ready to learn:

We were expendable.

At the time, I was paying for my tuition and just beginning to shoulder little life responsibilities. As a kid forcing myself into adulthood, everything felt like all or nothing. Every mistake felt like life or death. An email announcing my termination would’ve felt like a death sentence.

It didn’t help that it was my first time working in a corporate setup. If I’m being honest, most days I felt like I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.

I’m a writer, so I can get quite creative with the scenarios I overthink.

Every time the MS Teams notification rang, I almost always assumed: that’s it. They’re letting me go.

An email would follow, and in my head it would go something like this:

“Hi, Niño!

Your outputs are a mess. We found someone way better than you and way more dependable. You’re dragging the team down, and we hate you. We hope you never find a job again.

You’re fired! Don’t contact us again or we’ll sue you!”

But in reality, almost every single time, it was just a normal check-in or a list of tasks to work on.

In my second company, I had become much better at my job. I won awards, received bonuses, and even got caught up in the whole corporate-climbing trend.

But deep down, I was still just a struggling young adult who believed I could lose my job the moment the company snapped.

I remember one time… one of my seniors became frustrated with my work, because I couldn’t seem to get it right. She warned me that no one in the company was indispensable.

I still think about that warning to this day.

Within just a few months, I saw one co-worker’s contract end because she didn’t meet her KPIs. Another was fired after pretending to be sick when he was actually on vacation in Baguio.

For a while, I worked even when I was sick, because I was terrified they might think I was lying too. I convinced myself that I had to work harder and be more productive. I had to be liked by being more dependable, more enthusiastic, and more tolerant. If I ever slipped, in my mind, they could replace me without hesitation.

I won awards while anxious-ing my way through corporate life.

But when our client decided they no longer needed our agency, everything changed in an instant. All of the writers—including me—were laid off.

They kept the seniors and let the rest of us go… effective immediately.

In the corporate world, changes can be this drastic. No matter how well you perform, there will always be someone younger, faster, cheaper, or perhaps even an AI that can do your job better. One day, we’ll all be too old, or too slow, or too expensive.

In corporate terms, we become people who are “dragging the team down.”

They’ll suck the soul out of our lives and look for fresher vessels when we eventually run dry.

It doesn’t matter if you’re as whimsical as Lourd de Veyra or as impactful as Anthony Bourdain.

No one’s safe. Heck, even the biggest names you know aren’t, as long as they’re under a corporation. When the algorithm decides they no longer sell, companies can simply shift their attention to someone younger and hand them the next opportunity.

Now, however inevitable that reality may be, it has never sat well with me.

I constantly refuse to accept that narrative, even though I know my clients can terminate our contracts the moment they no longer need my services.

This constant pursuit of proving my value can be daunting, draining, and humiliating…

I refuse to believe that life is meant to be this way: being anxious every time we receive an MS Teams notification or a WhatsApp message. I refuse to believe our worth has a KPI.

No number of words, sales, or conversion rates can ever measure our worth. We are not products to begin with. We are a collection of unique and ever-changing processes, affecting every other process around us in beautiful and sometimes painful ways.

Some processes inspire us because they reached places we dream of. Some comfort us because they’re still unfolding. Others simply remind us that there isn’t only one way to live this life.

Regardless of the outcomes those processes produce, each of them is valuable in its own way.

So no, I am not replaceable in the way companies suggest.

Luckily, I found my purpose in writing. In this intricate, comforting, beautiful, painful, and healing process of writing.

If I treat it as a “service” in corporate terms… I know it isn’t the best in the world. I am realistic enough to acknowledge that someone will always write better, sell more, think faster, or work longer than I can. But I am also delusional enough to believe that I am worth more than what I can offer.

I don’t always have the best words. I can’t always come up with the most life-changing metaphors. I’m fully aware that many artists can write better prose.

But I refuse to believe I am replaceable.

I’m sure every “think piece” I’ve ever thought of has probably already been thought by someone wiser… and articulated it far better. But the build-up, the specific people I’ve met, the conversations I’ve had, the places I’ve been, and the life I’ve lived—those are what make mine mine.

This has made my entire Substack experience so much more peaceful. I’ve detached my worth from anything related to work, so I don’t particularly care how my writing performs. I was writing here when I had five subscribers, and had it not been for the sudden wave of Filipino communities on this app, I’d probably still be writing for those same five people (for myself, really).

I am not, in any way, trying to sell my soul here.

I’ll simply write about things that are too personal, too long, or too ordinary for anywhere else; with no audience in mind except myself.

This is probably why I love writing on Substack so much. Here, we aren’t pretty or ugly, successful or failures, viral or invisible. We’re just writers.

In personal writing, I’m not worried about keywords, SEO, the capitalization of H1s, H2s, and H3s, or whether an article performs well. I’ll capitalize things however I please. I’ll write too long if I have to. The only standard I care about is whether it feels true to me.

Writing long forms like this, and messy personal essays that probably won’t reach people or sell, is my way of saying I am special… and no amount of corporate propaganda can convince me otherwise.

Kinausap ko ‘yung batang ako kanina, tawa ako nang tawa. Tinanong ba naman ako kung nanalo na raw ba kami ng Palanca.

Kaka-18 niya lang kanina, unang beses niyang susugal sa kalsada.

Nagliliyab sa galit, sa passion, palong-palo, ‘kala mo talaga.

Hindi ko na pinigilan.

Alam ko namang buong buo na ang loob niya.

‘Yang mga ganiyang apoy, hindi ‘yan basta-basta naaapula.

Sabi niya, magsusulat na lang daw siya, tutal ‘yun lang naman ang kaya at gusto niyang gawin talaga.

O ‘yun ang akala niya.

Nagulat siya nung sinabi kong bumalik kami sa eskwela,

nagkaroon ng tipikal na trabaho; nag-align ang stars at natupad lahat ng kinakatakot niya.

“Hala?!” sabi niya,

sabay tanong kung best-selling author na raw ba kami ngayong 2026, o director na raw ba…

‘di kaya nanalo na man lang daw ba kami ng Cannes, Oscars, o Palanca?

Humagalpak na naman ako sa katatawa.

“Ni wala pa nga tayong nagagawang pelikula!” sambit ko habang nakangiti sa kaniya.

May pahabol pang “at saka ano ba,

VA na tayo! Wala na tayo masyadong oras kasi dala-dalwa lagi kliyente natin, minsan nga tumatatlo pa.

‘Di nga natin afford mag-resign sa isa!

‘Yung mga libro nating binabasa ngayon, may oceansofpdfdotcom na naka-imprinta.

Nung bumili tayo ng dal’wang libro sa Fully Booked, ‘yung wallet natin, nag hingalo na,

magfu-full time artist ka pa? Delulu yarn?” dagdag ko pa.

Hindi siya nakasagot. Pero tumingin siya saking maluha-luha.

“Ay, gagi sorry. Sensitibo ka pa nga pala. ‘Wag kang mag-alala,” agad kong ’pinambawi.

“Bakit boss? may maganda naman bang balita?” tanong naman niya.

“Wala naman! Pero ‘di magtatagal, makakayanan mo na rin ‘yang masikmura,” sagot ko sa kaniya.

“Pero boss, nagsusulat ka pa?” tanong niya.

Sa wakas, may maisasagot din akong maganda…

“Alangan!” tugon ko sa kaniya.

“Kung hindi, malamang ‘di na tayo humihinga.”

Ewan ko kung reassuring ba ‘yung pag-uusap naming dalawa

o nakakadismaya, basta!

Medyo nahiya ako sa kaniya.

“Di bale,” sabi niya, “nagawa mo naman ‘yung mga trip natin talaga.

Nag-gigs, nag-perform nang nag-perform nung passionate pa, pumunta sa iba’t ibang lugar para magkwento’t makisalamuha.

Medyo wack ka lang sa part na ‘di man lang tayo nakagawa ng mga astig na pelikula maski isa!

‘Yung mala Lav Diaz o Aamir Khan na katha.

O kaya naman nakapagsulat ng mga mala Phil Kaye o Sarah Kay na tula.

‘Di rin pala tayo kinuhang assistant director ni Jerrold Tarog, no? hindi na-invite tumula sa Words Anonymous, o nakamayan man lang nang personal si Anygma.

Na-cancel na’t lahat lahat si Bullet Dumas ‘di pa rin tayo nakaka-attend ng gigs niya?! Hanep! Ang onti pala ng na-achieve natin talaga?!” gatong pa niya.

Sa isip-isip ko: “Hoy, bata, sumasakit ka na magsalita ha. Kakaltukan na kita.”

Buti ‘yung mga huli niyang sinabi, gumanda-ganda na.

“De, joke lang, boss,” sabi niya

“Ang mahalaga, hindi ka nasagad. Ang tindi mo sa part na hanggang ngayon, may natitira pa.

Marami-rami ka na ring napudpod na tsinelas, kakalakad at kakahanap kung saan talaga tayo papunta.

Pero tingnan mo, hanggang ngayon, heto ka. Kahit puro kalyo na, naglalakad pa.

Nakita ko pa nga kanina sa Strava, may isa ro’n, 55 km ampucha.”

“Masaya akong kahit papaano,” sabi niya,

“paminsan-minsan, para ka pa ring bata.

May mga ginagawa ka pa ring mga bagay na walang nagdidikta.

Kasi sa dulo, isa lang naman ang mahalaga sa’kin talaga.

Ang tumanda tayong kahit papaano, sa maliliit na paraan—malaya’t masaya.

“Basta sana kahit anong mangyari,” hiling pa niya,

“ano man ang mga maabot natin, o sa’n man tayo mapunta...

sana maipangako mong magsusulat at magsusulat ka.”

Sa’n ko kaya naipatong ‘yung passion ko?

‘Yung makulit… tipong hindi nasasaway. ‘Yung matapang… tipong hindi takot masaway.

Kuba na ko kaka yuko, hanggang ngayon hinahanap ko pa rin,

pero sure akong nandito lang ‘yon sa’min.

Huli ko ‘tong ginamit, nakapagsulat pa ‘ko ng libro,

naka-attend ng gigs, nakapag-perfrom, nakapag-direk ng music video—

putcha, saan ko ba kasi ‘yon huling nilagay?

Naitapon ko ba? Hindi naman ako gano’n ka-tanga…

O baka? Baka naiwan ko sa jeep sa sobrang abala.

O ‘di kaya nahulog sa gitna ng mga time in, time out, saka mga kailangan kong ipasa…

Tangina, baka naiwan ko sa kubeta?! Baka nabasa?!

Hindi eh. Sigurado akong nandito lang ‘yon.

Malakas pa ‘yon nung huli kaming nagkita.

Ang mga gano’ng makulit pa,

hindi basta-basta nawawala.

Ang kinakatakot ko—

baka naglayas.

Pero bakit? Eh parehas kami no’ng galit.

Gusto nga no’n baguhin ang mundo.

Bakit naman ‘yon aalis sa tabi ko?

Saka kumakalam pa sikmura non...

Hala! paano kung kakatanggap ng sweldo, nabusog na siya?

Baka kung ano-ano nang nabibili nalimutan na niyang gutom siya!

O mas malala—baka kinain ng sistema?!

Nanakawan pa naman ako last month ng cellphone,

di kaya nasama sa nakuha?

Nalooban kaya ako nang di ko alam?

Baka naman na-misplace ko lang?

Sa kakatrabaho.

Saan ko naman hahanapin ‘yon eh ang laki-laki ng mundo?

Anyway, sa susunod ko siyang makita,

sana para pa rin siyang etong bata…

Hindi iniisip ang buhay, pera, o kahit anong tungkol sa pagtanda.

Tipong ‘di niya kailangan pagkakitaan ‘yung mga hilig niya…

tipong tumutula siya kasi—

wala lang, gusto niya lang tumula.

We’ve heard it, and we’re sick of it. I know.

But trust me, when I say having a job can feel so unfulfilling, no matter how much it pays, I mean it in the most I-work-two-jobs-and-if-I-lose-one-I’m-pretty-much-done-for way.

I have been working as a freelancer since I was 17. I had my first corporate job at 19. I was a working student in college. I worked an eight-hour shift every night, then went straight to school after that gut-wrenching shift. And I have never been unemployed since.

So, to set things straight, I am not, in any way, coming from the point of view of the elites... not even close. If anything, I probably need money more than most of you here, and I’ve been more desperate for work, out of necessity, than almost anyone I know.

Yet a job—a high-paying one, one that can pay all my bills and loans, or in its grandest form, one that’s considered a conventionally “nice job”—sounds pretty bleak to me personally. Truth be told, I don’t want a job.

And no, this is not in a whiny way, or in a spoiled-rich-kid-who-has-a-choice way, or in the insufferable-spoiled-Gen-Z-who-can’t-work way the older generation sometimes brands us these days. (To be fair, I have worked with people like that, and I know what you mean.)

The thing is, I’ve won Writer/Employee of the Month twice in my most recent full-time job. I have a memory of working two full-time jobs at once, plus a part-time job alongside freelance gigs. I can pretty much say that, for most of my life, I’ve been a workaholic.

It became my personality and my branding among my friends. I was the college kid who never slept and romanticized resilience so much it consumed my identity.

I just seem to resent the idea of it more with every passing year.

Now, at 23, I don’t even see myself working in a bleak office for the next two years, no matter how much it pays. When my older friends tell me about their six-digit salaries—which are awesome—I wonder why I’m no longer amazed. I mean, I’m proud of them, at the very least, but that’s just about it.

I am no longer amused by job titles, no matter how good they sound. Which is so weird because there was a time when I would die to be in those places.

I mean, I dreamed about it. I aggressively chased it. I worked the extra, extra mile, worked unpaid overtime just to meet metrics, and willingly traded away my time.

You can’t fake passion, no matter how well you perform. For a time, maybe, but it wears out. Achievements can only cover up so much. They can’t fill a void this deep. A deep longing. A deep purpose.

Now that I’m sort of getting older (or at least adding more years to my life—not to offend those actually adulting who rightfully still see people in their early twenties as kids), I’m starting to dream deeper rather than higher.

I’m no longer aiming to climb the corporate ladder, and I’m no longer amazed by the success stories of those who climbed so high.

This thought is reflected in how I view “success stories,” especially when the success in question is becoming financially rich. Like when I watched The Pursuit of Happyness, for example, where Will Smith plays a struggling father. It hits deep because you can really feel for the character, and I’m happy with the ending... but I still have reservations.

The story revolves around his extreme financial distress and everything he goes through simply because he lacks the financial capacity to overcome life’s hurdles.

Watching him dream of working at that “fancy company” reminded me of when I was barely eighteen in Santa Rosa with one of my best friends, Alec.

To us, BPO companies were prestigious offices that could solve all our problems. We’d been warned about the burnout, the stress, and the gut-wrenching nature of the work, especially if we ended up in toxic accounts.

We didn’t really care. We were just hungry for work and desperately needed money.

I remember practicing our opening and closing spiels, asking each other to “tell me about yourself,” and watching YouTube tutorials on the way.

I remember barely having enough money that we couldn’t even afford extra rice with our pares.

I remember how hopeful and uncertain we were, with absolutely no idea what we were getting ourselves into.

I remember standing in line with another eighteen-year-old behind me and a single mother in front of me. All of us are taking our chances. We were there the whole day.

I remember making it to the final interview around 3 p.m., only to hear,

“You’re not ready for this account.”

I remember pleading with the HR interviewer, trying to see if desperation worked in the adult world.

“Sir, I really need the money. Please accept me, and I promise I’ll be the best agent imaginable.” He said no firmly and respectfully. We went to nearby companies to try again. Three rejections in one day.

I can still remember the humiliating ride home and the existential crisis that followed. Alec was a class valedictorian. We graduated from a science high school. Yet we couldn’t even get a job. We tried applying online. (I was sending at least twenty applications a day. This is not an exaggeration.) Rejected. Every. Single. Time.

Now, going back to Will Smith. The movie ends with him finally getting hired. And celebrating. Of course it’s inspiring, I should know. But I couldn’t help asking... What’s next?

Yes, it’s a massive achievement, especially knowing everything he’d gone through. But because of my relationship with work, I was worried about what came after, more than how I was supposedly happy for his feat.

Because that scene reminded me of finally getting hired after three months of what felt like a humiliation ritual. If I remember correctly, Alec eventually worked at Amazon. Meanwhile, I got accepted into a BPO company—as a communications specialist on the marketing team… paying better than the role I was actually aiming for.

I remember receiving the offer, excusing myself for a moment, and jumping inside the bathroom.

But as I said, it wears out…

At some point, balancing school and work simply wasn’t practical anymore, health-wise. There were days when I literally got nosebleeds from exhaustion.

So, I looked for a job with a better schedule. Hopefully, a better salary too (which I thought was the point by the way).

When I landed one, I thought it was the goal. I MADE IT! An agency working with law firms in the U.S. And boy, it paid so well. That was when I became a full-blown workaholic. I romanticized my labor, I was okay with the setup—winning awards, or trying to win more awards, or chasing recognition from my seniors, or hopefully, promotions, and so on.

But as I’ve been saying, it wears out…

Then I started traveling on the side. Traveling made me write again. I’m talking about personal blogs—stories and essays like this. Without forcing myself, I discovered that I love writing about the people I meet, the animals, the scenery, the culture, and, most importantly, life. This is where my dreams began to grow deeper rather than reaching higher.

Then, on a random weekday, our CEO sent a heartfelt apology. Half the team was laid off. We lost a major client on a random Wednesday; what could we really do about it?

Before that, I’d already seen an “underperforming” coworker get fired. Then another one for not meeting KPIs, replaced by someone more productive, more dependable, more obedient. In the corporate world, we’re merely chess pieces: disposable.

The players can sacrifice us, replace us with better pieces, or remove us entirely for the good of the company. That whole concept has never sat well with me.

Then I remembered my travels, and some important characters: Abby, the owner of the Airbnb I booked. At first, our relationship felt transactional. She provided a service. I paid for it. Pretty much how most corporate relationships work. The thing is...

I’m still on Abby’s Close Friends list on Instagram to this day. We’re still connected, like how she’s still connected with many of my friends from La Union who also stayed at her place.

What I’m trying to say is, I’m starting to realize I long for connections that don’t feel transactional. I want to meet friends and writers who feel as deeply as I do because I live for that feeling. I don’t want to network with influential people just so they might help me land a job someday. I don’t want to build relationships because they might become useful later.

I want to connect with the volunteers, and the working-class, and the burnouts, and the runaways. The people I share struggles with. I want to understand the lives of fishermen, tricycle drivers, minimum-wage earners, victims of misinformation, and local business owners.

I want to know their stories. Learn from their perspectives. And hopefully tell those stories because, at my core, I’ve always been a writer and a storyteller.

There’s so much to unpack here. And I want to do my part. Like the journalists I admire who challenge the status quo, I want to make an impact.

But you need a job for you to do this!

I know, and it sucks. I’m just saying… I’m not interested in that, even though I’m participating. I just refuse to believe this is the point of my life. I’m more drawn to unemployment-maxxing, and I’d do what it takes to remove myself from this game of chess.

Be it writing on a weekday, or writing (I mean, really writing—blogs, essays, and articles I’m passionate about, not compromising my soul) knowing damn well it can’t pay my bills, or actually taking matters into my own hands and trying to become a journalist in my own way...

I refuse to believe I’m just another chess piece.

I want a deeply fulfilling life. And no corporate job, no matter how much it pays, can ever fill that void.

When I lost my high-paying job, to be honest, I had already detached myself from it. Or maybe from the whole idea of the corporate ladder. So it didn’t feel like the end of the world anymore. Unlike how it probably would’ve if I were two or three years younger.

If anything, I deliberately looked for jobs that paid less but were enough to cover my expenses, while giving me more time to actually live. I deliberately searched for work that would allow me to live.

I’m grateful for my work now. It’s light enough that I can still write blogs like this on weekdays. My previous jobs paid significantly better, but I’m happier in my current position.

I’m far more afraid of never making documentaries about the things I care about, than having what society considers a “failed career.”

So perhaps having a deep purpose is my answer to the question: Why is having a job so unfulfilling, no matter how much it pays? And I mean this in the most middle-class way.

No, I haven’t met Maui the demigod just yet. I haven’t seen his fear and vulnerability behind the songs. I haven’t calmed a raging lava monster nor saved my dying island…

I mean the confused Moana. Her version that sings with the village, convincing herself she’s where she’s meant to be, knowing damn well she’s called to cross the sea.

My calling is an obsessive ex singing Silver Springs. Following me down ‘til the sound of her voice haunts me.

Or a high-pitched voice, keeping Elsa awake no matter how much she tries to ignore it.

One thing about this voice is that it doesn’t sing during your break time. It doesn’t vocalize when you’re killing time while waiting for something.

It sings when you least expect or want it to. When Arendelle’s been chill and safe and at peace for the first time. When you’re okay with your job, when you have a loving relationship, when everything’s seemingly okay.

Going back to Moana, I am not, in any way, expected to become the chief of my town or anything similar. But at the very least, I am, like all of us (I’m assuming), expected to get into a good school (or at least aim to), get a degree, and land a decent job. Save up for a while, hopefully marry well, and raise a loving family.

This life plan doesn’t sit well with me.

Like Moana, who keeps sneaking her way into the waves, I’ve been mischievous, stubborn, and troublesome.

I started passion projects to give buskers a stage, created documentaries featuring young artists to hopefully give them the attention they deserve, and hosted weekly gigs until the crowd could sing with the local artists, even and especially when they were performing their original songs.

Like Moana’s father dragging her back, reality humbles me every single time.

Moana singing along is me working multiple jobs. I’ve been working since I was 17 to justify my shenanigans one day. When I stopped going to college, I already had a corporate job at the age of 19, so my parents couldn’t really do anything about it.

But when it came to passion, or calling per se, I tried so hard to ignore my waves.

Landing a decent job despite my unhinged life decisions is me proving them all wrong. I can still make it in the capitalist world despite taking a different route. But if I’m being honest, I never really dreamed of anything like this.

The island gives us what we need
And no one leaves

But when I was working one day, I decided to travel on the side… and boy, did I ever feel more alive. That’s when the ex-lover singing Silver Springs, the voice calling Elsa, and the waves summoning Moana all sang at once.

Like the grandmother validating Moana, walking 55 km, having conversations with strangers, listening to alcoholics, learning about the struggles of fresh graduate tricycle drivers, listening to the rants of a local fisherman, and hoping to tell their stories somehow—that is my calling.

If the village isn’t looking, I would also like to dance with the water, the undertow, and the waves. I like that it’s mischievous, and I like how it misbehaves. As Grandma sang:

The village may think I’m crazy

Or say that I drift too far

But once you know what you like, well, there you are

Pa, Ma, and villagers of Motunui; I want to be like Kara David, Bertie Gregory, Atom Araullo, or Maria Ressa. In my own way, I want to be a journalist.

Last year, I started seriously thinking about walking across the country and documenting the people I meet along the way. I’ve thought about it an unhealthy number of times, to the point that I bring it up in almost every blog I write. I bring it up in almost every conversation I find myself in.

I know it’s hard to find your purpose or figure out what you want to do in life. But it’s also hard to know it, yet lack the capacity to pursue it.

As if the universe were on Motunui’s side, I lost my high-paying full-time job, accepted new jobs that paid less and required more work, took on more responsibilities, and reached a point where going into the waves became borderline impossible.

To add insult to injury, someone stole my phone somewhere in V. Mapa. The very phone I was supposed to use because iPhones have at least a decent camera, while I still can’t afford my dream gear.

However, since it’s like an ex-lover haunting me, I refused to give up, and I decided to haunt it back.

I landed two part-time jobs that allow me to work anytime. They don’t pay much, but they’ll be enough (hopefully) to sustain my crazy dream. I have no gear yet, not much training, but just enough rage to fuel my walks.

I’ll be in Cebu for four days this August 6. With no itinerary, I’ll walk wherever my feet take me, hopefully to reignite my spark. When I get back from this trip, I’ll finally ride a bus to Ilocos and begin the dream side quest that’s been haunting me.

I’m writing this, and all the articles I’ve written so far, to keep myself sane. Because not being able to pursue your dream can be quite daunting. Clocking in and submitting deliverables, knowing damn well you could’ve been talking to karinderya owners, eating with local vendors, walking with stray dogs, and telling all their stories, can create a monster.

Writing, although it’s not as grand as walking across the country, is enough to keep me grounded.

Me without writing is Geloy Concepcion without his camera, Steve Irwin without the animals, or a president without a country.

As The Smiths sang:

See the life I’ve had? Can make a good man turn bad.

So I’m grateful for Substack, notebooks, and WordPress for keeping me grounded… but this is me begging the universe to help me write the Walks of Life. Who knows where this article will lead?

Universe, please, please, please, let me, let me, let me get what I want. Lord knows it would be the first time.

Going back to the song, I’m now at the part where Moana’s grandmother finishes her lines…

And if the voice starts to whisper

To follow the farthest star

Moana, that voice inside is who you are

I may or may not finish my dream side quest one day. I may or may not cross the seas or follow the farthest star…

But I’m taking Gramma Tala’s advice.

I’m no longer silencing the call. That voice inside is who I am.

For context, I am the youngest of five siblings. My eldest brother died when I was ten, and my three older sisters have been my heroes ever since.

As young as five, I always knew I had their backs. Whenever I was done using the toilet, for example, I’d scream, “Tapos naaaaa!” and one of them would come clean up after me. Not that they liked it; it was just the way of life.

Now to the serious part…

As a kid, I’ve been hyperaware that we weren’t rich. In junior high, there was a time when my parents asked me not to attend school for a day, as they didn’t have money at that time for my daily allowance. (I still did because it was our exam, and my father still went to school at lunch and gave me allowance, I’m not sure where they got it though).

I was the kid who looked at the price tag before even saying I wanted something. I wouldn’t point at toys or chocolates and ask my parents to buy them. I’d look for the cheapest option first, then ask if we could afford it.

Don’t get me wrong, my parents were awesome (my mother’s here on Substack)

I mean, we didn’t have the fanciest shoes, the latest phones, or the grandest meals, but we always had dinner together. We talked about our days, our problems, and our failures. So no, this isn’t about family issues.

I’ve just been reflecting on the guilt of being the youngest sibling in an Asian household.

Rightfully so, we’ve seen countless stories about eldest siblings being pressured to succeed, to be responsible, to have so little room for error. We even have songs for it.

The thing is, I’m well aware of that too.

On paper, I’m probably not the type of kid you’d want as a parent. I got a tattoo last year. I went cliff jumping off random rocks in La Union. I hiked in Abra during the height of political tensions, fully aware there could be “encounters” at any moment. I walked over fifty kilometers just for fun, sometimes accompanied by a stray dog. I’d disappear into remote islands with no signal for days at a time. You can only imagine my mother’s prayers for my safety.

Now that I’m about to do Walks of Life (walking across the country and making a documentary out of it), I can’t help but wonder what my sisters’ crazy dreams are. If they have any. And whether they’ve ever had the same room for error I’ve always had.

When you’re the youngest sibling, you try to be as light as possible. Weightless, even. Especially when you know your sisters are already carrying so much, no matter how strong their arms have become.

I studied in a public elementary school and worked hard to get into a science high school because it was practically free. The first time I went to private school was in senior high, when I transferred to Letran, where all my sisters had finished high school. (My mother used to work there.)

The thing is, at the time, my eldest sister was the only one working among the siblings.

My parents were struggling financially, so Ate Toni, the superhero that she is, put on her cape for the first time.

When your parents pay for your education, and you know it’s already beyond their means, there’s guilt, yes. But at the very least, you can tell yourself it’s their responsibility. In my case, it wasn’t. It was my sister who stepped in. She had barely graduated herself, and now that I’m older, I realize how clueless she must have been about adulthood.

The following year, during the pandemic, I decided to stop studying because I knew it wasn’t practical anymore. It was the peak of hustle culture, and I completely bought into it.

Like a caterpillar forcing itself to become a butterfly way too soon, knowing damn well it’s not yet time for metamorphosis, I forced myself to work at a young age.

I joined baranggay spoken word poetry competitions to raise startup money for my comic book, only to fail in the end. I started a buy-and-sell shirt business and got scammed. I launched another small business, then bumped into a car while delivering orders. Our tiny profits barely covered the damages.

Eventually, I went back to school, ashamed. I just wanted to be less of a liability.

I’ve witnessed superheroes growing up, and I don’t always want to be the civilian they keep saving. So, I made my own cape from scratch. “Now fly,” I told myself as I jumped off the fiftieth floor. Only to realize halfway down that I had no idea what I was doing.

My sisters saw me falling and caught me again. “Are you dumb?” they all seemed to ask. I was trying so hard not to become a burden that I ended up becoming an even bigger one. Had they not caught me, they would’ve been the ones paying my hospital bills.

This time, I tried to become a better son. A better brother. I aced my exams when I returned to senior high and graduated with high honors, while taking on freelance jobs on the side to help pay for my education. At the very least, I promised myself I would make my sisters proud.

College was different. By then, all my sisters were already working, and for the first part of my stay at NU, they paid for almost everything, while I covered whatever I could through freelance work. I directed wedding films, produced advertisements, managed social media pages—I accepted every gig I could find.

Because once again, I couldn’t stand always being on the receiving end.

Like a kid forcing his way into adulthood, I took matters into my own hands.

Halfway through my first year in college, I landed my first corporate job. After countless rejections from BPO companies because I lacked corporate experience, one company finally hired me. Not as an agent though, I got hired as the team’s communications specialist, because my experience was somewhat relevant to that position/field–marketing.

Finally, I thought. I can now move guilt-free. Unaware of the life I’m about to live.

I worked from 11 p.m. to 8 a.m., then attended classes without sleep. I remember riding two jeepneys after work once, then missing an exam because I was late. I was crying while walking home because I couldn’t even afford an Angkas ride at the time. I had just missed an exam, I was exhausted from work, and I was still goddamn broke because my salary was barely enough to cover my school fees.

I never told my family how much I was struggling. One thing about being the youngest is that you convince yourself nothing you’re going through is particularly special. Either they’ve already experienced it, or they’ve experienced something worse.

Besides, what would happen if I admitted I was struggling? I’d become a civilian again. Eventually, I convinced myself I had finally become a superhero too.

Since my sisters were no longer financially responsible for me, I decided to leave college after my second year and focus entirely on work. Health-wise, staying in school while working wasn’t sustainable anyway.

Besides, I was already working in the marketing field. I figured it made more sense to build a portfolio than finish a degree for a career I was already pursuing. My first job wasn’t worth it though, health-wise, I’ve always known I just accepted it to gain experience.

After resigning, I found an even better-paying job with a more flexible time. This time around, I can finally give to my parents, share some responsibilities, and take on the hardest ones sometimes as I’m finally in a position to help.

Then I burned out. I went traveling.

I told my parents I would stop giving for a while, as I have this side quest I’ve been really aiming for. (My parents have never been the type to force their children to provide, my sisters simply chose to. I think eldest siblings are naturally like that. I just try my best to match their energy.)

God, I was everywhere. For the first time in years, I realized I’d been taking life so seriously that I’d forgotten how to have fun. I found my dreams, my purpose, and a life much bigger than my day job.

But then, in the middle of traveling, I suddenly wondered if my sisters wanted to travel that much too. To splurge on themselves. To see mountains, talk to strangers, and swim the biggest waves.

Like turtles always finding their way back to shore, the guilt eventually caught up with me.

So when I returned home, I decided to become responsible again.

However… I don’t know what the universe is plotting, but I lost my full-time job on a random Wednesday. After working my ass off and winning the employee of the month, month prior, our whole team got laid off because we lost a major client.

To be honest, yes, it’s sad. Yes, it’s unfortunate, but it didn’t destroy me anymore. Maybe because I’d already experienced so much life through traveling, and because I’d discovered my passion and purpose, I’m now well aware that life is much more than paychecks and day jobs. I can spend weeks applying and looking for a new one anyway.

But then I wondered...

What if it had been my sisters instead?

I once read my eldest sister’s journal. She wrote about her options, and a high-paying job is non-negotiable as she had too many responsibilities at home. My sister Rose has side hustles on top of her full-time work. My sister Nikki has stayed in the same company for six years because she can’t simply resign whenever she wants.

I wonder if they also feel like they have room to fail. Or do they pressure themselves to keep winning?

I’m no longer obsessed with becoming financially stable as soon as possible. I’ve long outgrown the phase where I’d work two jobs. Sometimes three.

But I realized, it takes privilege to outgrow this phase.

Now that I’ve intentionally chosen work that pays less but gives me more time to pursue my dreams, now that I’m preparing to walk across the country, I can’t help but think about my sisters. I don’t even know if they have dreams as crazy as mine (although I’m pretty sure none of them dreams of walking across the country or anything similar).

But I refuse to live in guilt.

Reflecting on this, I’ve realized their biggest gift to me is endless possibilities. A future as grand as becoming a journalist, and as crazy as walking across a country.

They didn’t sacrifice so I would spend the rest of my life feeling small, apologizing for being the youngest. They sacrificed so I’d have a dream as big as this, with the freedom to become whoever I wanted to be.

I can’t fail in life because I can’t fail my heroes.

Now, I’m dreaming of becoming a journalist, featuring the stories of the marginalized. Like Kara David and Atom Araullo, but my bigger role models aren’t big names. They’re Ate Toni, Ate Nikki, and Ate Rose, the heroes who taught me how to fly.

Before I take off, I would like to honor my sisters. Of all the things they inspired me to have, a good career, a better life, a stable family… the best one yet is a deep purpose.

Now that my sisters have grown into superheroes enjoying their lives, I am nothing but a proud civilian. I’m still stitching my cape together. Some days, it looks more like a blanket than something a superhero would wear. But every time I look at my sisters and remember how patched their capes were, yet how they flew anyway… I think everything will be okay.

I learned from the best. After all, I’ve witnessed them fly my whole life.

When my wings don’t feel as strong, or when my shoes are worn out, I have a cheat code to carry on. I’ll just remind myself that I have sisters to make proud.

One thing about not having a “personal brand,” or limiting yourself with rules and guidelines, is that you can write whatever you want. Which is so simple and cliché, but also liberating and wild.

When I was working as a legal content writer, all we did was read about the laws in the US and write about them. My life revolved around the nuances and detailed differences between DUI and DWI in different states, visa technicalities, and divorce.

When I also had a short-lived “content creator” career (which I thought was the goal), I felt so limited by writing only what the followers were asking for. I was so conscious of what the public would like, and because we had a specific theme, I found myself writing only about teenage love (which isn’t bad; it’s just that I didn’t want to keep writing about that).

Which is so wild because there was a time when I was just writing freely on WordPress, Blogspot, and in my personal journals. So, when I started Substack, I never really intended to do anything more than just write.

I was writing with no followers (five subscribers for a year) which was so liberating because I COULD WRITE WHATEVER I WANTED!!! Like, I could write about photography knowing damn well I take ugly-ass pictures, or The Hows of Us, or my passion, or my life, or music, or activism, or anything. Literally anything!

When my Mother’s Day essay about the mother tongue kind of went viral on TikTok, that’s when people started noticing my account and subscribing...

But I made sure not to let it affect me! Now that I’m close to reaching 400 subscribers (which, to me personally, is a lot!), I made sure not to pressure myself into writing similar niches if I’m not feeling them, and to just be me.

Which is exactly why I write 3,000-word memoir essays about my life that no one asked for, or book reviews about Syrian literature that moved me, or essays about my previous Catholic life, or my friends, or, in this case, books that I love.

Recently, I’ve been receiving a lot of messages from younger writers. Like, real young writers asking for advice... which is so wild because I literally just came back to writing for myself, and everything else was just collateral damage.

I guess what I’ll say is: Write backstage, write onstage, and write with the audience. Wherever life puts you, write.

There’s this interview with Lourd de Veyra that’s so close to my heart.

40:35: “Hindi titigil ‘yung totoong manlilikha sa paglikha, kahit wala na siyang audience.”

Write before, during, and after the adrenaline rush. There’ll be days when it’s high, like when a post goes viral or when you get paid a lot for a writing gig. It’s good, yeah, but don’t live for it. Trust me, it’ll fade. One day you have 131,000 views; on the next post, you barely have five. Write anyway.

Because writing, as always, will never be about the product. It’s not about what you produce. So the output, as grand as it is, is not the point. If you see it that way, you’re probably one of the people who believe AI can replace us. AI can replace the product, but it can NEVER replace the process. Not even close.

The reverent, intimate, poignant, and magical process of writing. Writing about the things that interest you, writing your trauma, writing your anger and confusion and grief. Or writing memes. Or writing about a book or a song. Heck, writing about your dog because it’s so cute!

Just write. And another thing: do stuff beyond writing. Live.

Sabi nga ni Ricky Lee sa kaniyang writing manual, “Hindi ka tuturuan ng librong ito kung paano magsulat. Buhay ang gagawa no’n.”

At sabi nga ni Gideon Lasco: “Mabuhay.” As a call to action. Live!

Lastly, I’m a recent fan of reading, and I would say reading has helped me a lot as a writer. So, here’s a list that probably won’t reach thousands of people, but I’m going to write it anyway.

The thing is, this article probably has way too many words, but who decided blogs should be a maximum of 1,500 words? Or that they should only be about one topic?

I feel like writing this today, in one article. And it makes me feel good, so I’ll post it.

Books I’ve read so far in 2026 (with my personal ratings):

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott (5 stars)

The first book I intentionally finished. I was so hooked because Anne writes so well. She’s humorous and relatable, which made the reading experience so smooth.

She talks about her life and her writing. I feel like this book can even be tagged as self-help, in the sense that she gives readers advice on writing and life, but it’s more of a memoir than a guide. As a writer wannabe, I related to so much of what she wrote, so I would definitely recommend this to other writers. If you’re a writer who wants to get into reading, I think this is the perfect book to start with. Easy to digest, funny, and insightful all at once.

A View From the Ground by Atom Araullo (4.3 stars)

A well-documented collection of journalism essays by the one and only Atom Araullo. Like his documentaries on GMA, Atom’s essays, more specifically, the realities he has witnessed and shared, are heartbreaking but necessary.

They sparked something in me that makes me want to use every little privilege I have: the ones you’ve stopped recognizing as privileges, and even the things that shouldn’t be privileges at all, but basic rights.

I was expecting this to be a five-star read, so maybe I just put it on too high a pedestal. If that even makes sense. So I’m giving it a 4.3.

Some People Need Killing by Patrica Evangelista (5 stars)

Now this is well-written.

Patricia is so profound, eloquent, and professional. I thought I already knew everything about Tokhang. This book proved me wrong.

She didn’t just write about the bloody drug war; she also contextualized it by discussing historical events like the Ampatuan Massacre and the EDSA Revolution. Of all the local books written in English that I’ve read so far, I’d say this is the best-written one.

Austin Kleon’s Show Your Work, Keep Going, and Steal Like an Artist (4 stars)

I’m rating them as a whole because they affected me in similar ways. They’re feel-good self-help books for artists. I finished all three in, I think, two days because they’re short and easy to digest.

Most of the advice here is stuff I already knew, if I’m being honest, but it matters that Austin Kleon was the one who said it. Like me writing this essay with ideas readers probably already know, I think Austin wrote these books for himself first. So I’m giving them four stars. If anything, my biggest takeaway is this: write the book you wish existed (which he said in one of these books, I already forgot which one exactly).

Also, I read these while I was working three jobs. Austin mentions having a day job, which, to me, was liberating. Seeing people like him, Anne Lamott, and heck, even Stephen King work jobs they didn’t necessarily love to sustain their art is oddly comforting. That’s where the personal connection clicked for me.

The Philippines Is Not a Small Country by Gideon Lasco (4.8 stars) -

Dito pala sinabi ni Lourd de Veyra yung:

“For some reason, it’s the writing doctors who see the bigger picture. Always the damn doctors.”

Gideon Lasco is a Filipino physician who just writes so well. This is a thoughtful collection of essays about our country. I like his perspectives and the way he challenges how I see things. Like when we say, “Only in the Philippines,” whenever something bad happens. Gideon argues that it’s simply not true. He has traveled extensively and has witnessed the same corruption and injustices elsewhere.

The Philippines is not a small country, and, according to this book, that is partly why it has become so vulnerable to exploitation and corruption. Instead of simply accepting our circumstances, he proposes a different way of looking at them: choosing hope despite the chaos. Like Macli-ing Dulag (who is one of my personal heroes), who died fighting for a cause and successfully stopped the construction of the Chico River Dam.

Kulang na Silya by Ricky Lee (5 stars)

This was my first time reading Sir Ricky Lee’s work. He is a National Artist for a reason, and he absolutely lives up to the title.

He writes in Taglish, which honestly surprised me because I expected deeper, more formal Filipino. But that only made me admire him even more. He writes the way we naturally speak, which made the book so much easier to read. I think I finished it in about two hours.

Reading this book was both necessary and inspiring because Ricky’s life itself is inspiring. He was an activist imprisoned during the 70s. He talks about that experience, his trauma, his grief, his journey as an orphan, and his move from Bicol to Manila with almost no idea what awaited him. He also generously acknowledges the people who helped him along the way.

Ricky Lee is my real-life John Keating. I know we’re not supposed to put people on pedestals anymore, but please let me have this one. Aside from being one of my favorite writers, he’s also one of my favorite human beings. My respect for him only doubled after reading this book.

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (5 stars) -

I already knew this book for two reasons. First, I think it’s practically general knowledge. Second, I loved the movie and even tried reading a physical copy back in 2015. The problem was, I wasn’t really a reader back then. It was just one of my many attempts to become one (which, I believe, failed).

Reading it now, as someone who genuinely enjoys books and as a young adult, I appreciated it so much more. I honestly feel like, on the right day and under the right circumstances, rereading it could make me cry. Reading it as an aspiring writer (and simply as someone who loves art) hits differently.

Grown-ups, indeed, are odd. I hope I get to meet the Little Prince somehow in this lifetime. Maybe not in a desert, but whenever I need him most. Perhaps when I become too occupied fixing my adult-life airplanes.

Or better yet, I hope I get to live a little like him: meeting strange planets and stranger grown-ups, watching sunsets, and counting how many I can see in a single day.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (4.5 stars)

This is tagged as a novel, but I don’t think a lot of stuff is happening. I love his writings though! It feels more of a poetry book/memoir than a novel. Also, every line is quotable! Like, wow!

Not a personal top 3 book (this is a good book btw), but Ocean Vuong is definitely a top 3 author for me. He writes so well!!

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (4.5 stars) -

When the title made so much sense, I was gagged! As an ambitious person who wants to read Fyodor, I went for classics. Luckily, the writing here is not that intimidating (but it still took me a month to finish WHAHHAHA me problem, I read everyday so sometimes I sneak in different books. If I can remember it right, I finished all Austin Kleon’s work during me taking a break from this book)

I recently discovered that this book is required reading in some parts of the world. I’m honestly glad none of my schools required it though, because I probably wouldn’t have appreciated it as much if I were forced to analyze it line by line. But I completely get why. Such a NECESSARY book. A story of how prejudice operates in everyday life.

I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokpokki by Baek Se-hee (2.5 stars) -

Not for me. It simply didn’t resonate with me, I am not the target audience.

The Mountain Is You by Brianna West (2.5 stars)

This is where I realized, I am not the target audience of self-help books. I only read this because it’s the only book I recognized in my favorite coffee shop, so I picked it up, and yep, not for me.

Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom (Originally 5 stars, I don’t know what to rate after knowing Mitch is a Zionist)

Especially now that I’ve read historical fictions about war, it matters to me which people support, so I can’t stop thinking about how he’s a zionist after learning all this from Morrie.

Good People by Claire Betita de Guzman (4 stars)

A collection of relatable stories. I get all the characters and I don’t agree with all of their decisions, which I think is the point. If you’re searching for easy to read books that are thought-provoking, this one’s for you. ”good and bad” label is not black and white, and that we can’t really judge people is what this book said to me.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (3 stars)

Listen, I wanted to like this book. I’ve read it at the most perfect time so a major part of me convinces myself that I love it. I have a dream “personal legend” so I thought this book would resonate with me! But I can’t ignore its tendencies. This book feels so patriarchal (and dare I say sexist). The way it portrays wars and women cringes me. It’s written by a man and it manifests in the ugliest way possible?

One of my most annotated pages was when Fatima talked about women who wait. Like… What about their Personal Legends? Why are men meant to pursue their legends while women are expected to wait and see if their partners come back?

However, I got the 25th anniversary edition, so the foreword was so good lol. I should’ve stopped there.

As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh (10000000000000 stars)

My favorite book of all time. If you’ve been reading for a while now, or if you’re a new reader, or you want to get into reading, this book’s waiting for you. This book made me cry so hard!!!! I’ve never cried that much for ANY media!

I wrote an essay about this:

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (5 stars)

“For you, a thousand times over.”

I still haven’t recovered from As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow, and then I finished this within the same week. I don’t think I’ll ever recover from either of them; and I don’t think I should. After Paulo Coelho (and being turned off by the internalized sexism in the much-loved The Alchemist) and after learning about Mitch Albom’s political views, I had pretty much lost hope in male writers. Somehow, I just don’t seem to enjoy their works as much anymore. Then Khaled happened.

Another 6-star read. Poignant, emotional, and the kind of story that stays with you for the rest of your life. Tbh, it felt like a slow burn after reading Zoulfa Katouh. It had me in the beginning, then somehow lost me somewhere in the middle, though I think that was mostly because I kept comparing it to the book I had just finished: so that’s probably a me problem. But it got me again approaching the end/latter part of the book.

It hit me in the gut, and just when I was trying to stand back up, it kicked me again and landed a full-blown punch to the face. It never let me recover. You didn’t deserve this world, Hassan and Ali.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (100000 stars)

God really created men and then sent Khaled Hosseini as an apology... Just wow. What a heartbreaking literary masterpiece and a powerful gift to humanity. Also, what a devastating reality for Afghan women.

This is the only book I’ve had to stop reading multiple times because it felt too heavy (usually, I only do that when a book is getting boring). It now ties with As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow as my #1 book of all time. I love everything about this book, but I’m still not okay. I don’t think I will be for the next couple of weeks. You have my heart, Mariam.

I found my genre by the way, I realized I’m into historical fictions, so my TBR’s full of it.

It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War by Lynsey Addario (4.5 stars)

As someone who has recently been enjoying historical fiction, I think journalism and memoirs like this are the only nonfiction books that can captivate me to the same extent. The writing itself isn’t exceptional (not bad by any means, I’ve simply read better), but the story is so inherently compelling that every chapter feels like a page-turner.

Besides, I think Lynsey Addario was a photographer long before she was a writer. The photographs are stunning and add so much to the reading experience. I only wish I could get a physical copy in my country.

This book (and Lynsey Addario’s life) resonated with me deeply. Beyond her extraordinary career, it was the smaller, more personal stories that truly made the book shine: her family dynamic growing up, the early glimpses of her fearlessness when she jumped into the ocean as a child, her sense of calling, motherhood, and everything in between.

–

P.S. Writing this was so liberating and so much fun. I’m pretty damn sure most of you won’t read this far, but if you’re still here, geez, we really need to touch some grass. Kidding.

What I’m trying to say is: writing should make you feel alive.

Write it badly. Write it knowing full well it won’t perform. Write a story that only interests you. Write about a song. A book. A dog you saw on the street. Write about politics, heartbreak, your friends, your childhood, or the weird thing that happened to you on a random Tuesday.

Write because you’re angry. Write because you’re grieving. Write because you’re in love with the world. Write because you don’t understand it.

A year ago, I was afraid I had forgotten how to write. Today, I spent an entire afternoon talking about books nobody asked me about. If I’m being honest, I can’t think of a better way to spend a day. I’m alive!

In 2025, I realized I'm passionate about travelling, side quests, and writing about them. It was a dream I never knew had been planted in me, and for a brief moment, everything aligned. I was finally able to make it grow.

Like in Novo Amor’s song (not an OPM, I know), my dreams felt honest, kind, and on fire. For a brief moment, my dreams were my finish line.

However, the stars misaligned again and I lost my job on a random Wednesday. Without a college degree, finding another one became much harder. I could no longer afford to travel, but I still found little ways to make life feel adventurous.

I went for long walks. Like... really long walks.

Months later, news of the flood control corruption dominated the internet. I was furious.

Aside from the people who died, the homes that disappeared underwater, and the lives permanently altered, I couldn't stop thinking about what corruption steals beyond money: our lives.

I can’t accept the concept of corruption and flooding. Like how the rain always falls from the upper floors, but the goddamn flood always lingers on the ground.

With floods and corruption, it's ordinary people who suffer. It’s the workers who spend hours commuting, the students who postpone college, the artists who postpone art...

It's us, dreamers, who postpone our dreams. We are the aftermath of corruption.

Our hobbies we can't do. Our dreams we can't pursue.

structured rants from systemic scars

Why we don't have hobbies: A day in the life of a "time-poor" Filipino

Honestly, when I got to Europe and heard people talk about their gap years hiking in Patagonia, skiing trips, volunteering in Peru, or even just their “pilates before work” routine… I felt so small. I look back at my life in Manila and recall that it was just work, eat, sleep, repeat. From the outside, it would seem that I am a lazy person wasting away …

Read more

9 months ago · 6260 likes · 107 comments · Tisha Evite

At the height of all that anger, old memories came flooding back.

The comic book I couldn't finish at seventeen because I simply didn't have the means.
The debts I couldn't pay at 19 while trying to keep a passion project alive.

The school I had to stop at 20 because I chose to work instead.
The passion for writing I abandoned at 21 as I couldn’t even find time for it.

(I used to message my late brother’s account when it gets heavy—di pa kasi ako nagsu-substack noon)

And the silver lining... the chance I had again at twenty-two when I solo traveled.

But even in this, I still found reasons to be angry. I was no longer furious for myself; I was mad for the fresh criminology graduate I met in Abra who spent months looking for work despite having a degree.

For the people I met in the remote islands of Polillo, where electricity and running water were luxuries, yet Imee Marcos tarpaulins were somehow everywhere. For the machinery they probably stole from us that could have ACTUALLY helped these communities.

For Forrest Gums, the stray dog who walked with me for ten kilometers, whom I desperately wanted to adopt but couldn't.

I was so mad about everything that I wanted to walk out. Then comes a dream… again. To walk across the country and make a documentary about the characters I'll meet along the way.

I'll call it Walks of Life.

It's been a while since I've been this passionate about a project again. However, passion alone, like love, cannot suffice.

Last year, at 22, the stars weren't on my side again. I was juggling two jobs that were barely enough to make ends meet. I couldn’t leave either of them without finding another client.

Dreams, indeed, are expensive. But I refuse to stop writing and singing and making art and living and dreaming and loving.

So, these OPM songs, I think, are for us: dreamers who cannot pursue their dreams (or at least not yet).

For the college kids who didn’t take art courses. 
For the corporate workers who were once part of local bands, now barely singing in bathrooms before going to work. 
For the writers who can no longer write from the heart, stuck in jobs forcing them to use AI. 
For the filmmakers who have stories but no budget. 
For the photographers who don’t even know about their talent because they couldn’t afford a camera. 

For the dreams we have to stop—or simply set aside.

Mahal Magmahal - Esremborak
Mahal ngayon ang magmahal
Mahal kita, pero mahal–

Mahal na ang bigas 
Pati lata ng sardinas 
Kung mamahalin kita ngayon
Sabay tayong magugutom 

'Di sapat ang sahod ko 
Kahit tapat ako sa 'yo 
Anong silbi nitong pagmamahal
Kung lahat din ay nagmamahal?

To my dreams. Love, I don’t know how, but I've somehow reached a point where I've stopped begging for miracles. I'm no longer asking you to happen tomorrow. If anything, all I want to tell you is this: 

Wait for me. Don’t go anywhere I cannot reach. Don’t run too fast. I will catch up.

If it's not too much to ask, love, wait for me to love you properly. In the ways you're supposed to be loved. When I'm ready, I'll come back for you. I'll pursue you again.
 

Waltz of Four Left Feet - Shirebound
Sapat na sa 'kin ang ganito
Ang pagmasdan ka sa malayo
Kapag kinausap walang masagot 
Hininga'y lagot 

Hindi ko naman yata ikamamatay 
Kung hindi ko mahawakan ang iyong kamay 
Handa 'kong mabuhay sa aking kalokohan
Kung wala ka sa 'king buhay walang kalungkutan

Love, in case the stars do not align... 

In case, in the end, after all the waiting and yearning and dreaming, we realize I cannot afford to walk across the country. In case I don’t make it to the point where I can pursue you in your fullest form—a documentary book about the people I meet along the way—I promise to still write to keep you alive.

Writing, activism, and pursuing art aren’t limited to one form anyway. 

Still identifying myself as a writer, joining groups filled with people who talk about writing, and still writing passionately, reverently, and authentically in this economy is me still loving you… maybe not as grand, but it doesn’t make it less. I will love you, and continue loving you, in ways I can afford.

Nang Tahimik - Geiko 
Mamahalin na lang kita nang tahimik
Idaraan na lang sa mga awitin
Lagi kang isinasali sa mga panalangin
Inaro ta ka 
Sana'y sabihin mo rin

They say Filipinos are yearners. Kundiman, our traditional love song, even supports this claim through its etymology.

Quoting Taas-Noo Pilipino, 

“The term “Kundiman” is believed to have originated from the Tagalog phrase “kung hindi man” meaning “if it were not so” or “although it is not so.” This phrase encapsulates the sense of longing and unrequited love often portrayed in these songs.”

In case this dream is an unrequited love, I will still dream as I will still love. I won’t let the outcome or my circumstances define our relationship. I am a dreamer, and no outcome can ever take that away. Maybe it isn't the grand love story I imagined. But it is still love.

I am a writer, and I love to write. I may or may not win Palanca awards one day. I may or may not walk across the country and write a book about it. I may or may not be able to pursue my dreams in their grandest form. But whatever the outcome, however impossible it may seem, I will still write.


Keep Me - Novo Amor
This is not an OPM song, I know, but I’d like to think Novo Amor is my dream, asking me to keep it on fire.

To keep it honest, keep it kind, and keep it as my finish line. 
And my answer to that is—

Love, you don’t even have to ask.

Photo credits:

Bawat Daan - Ebe Dancel 
Nag-iisang tiyak sa isang libong duda 
Silong sa iyak at pagluluksa 

Kung puso ko ay imamapa 
Ikaw ang dulo, gitna't simula

–

Bawat kanan at kaliwa 
Kung timog man o hilaga 
Ang bawat daan ko 
Ay patungo 
Ay pabalik…
Sa'yo

Photo by:

Merl and I just broke up.

I wish I had something melancholic or inspiring to say…

We were planning costumes for our upcoming anniversary, and it came from nowhere. We didn’t fight, as we never really do. There were no raised voices, no slammed doors, no betrayal. If anything, it was one of the most selfless conversations we’ve ever had.

She asked for space.

Us, 5 days before the breakup.

The thing is, we’ve been thinking about the future and the life we aim to build ever since the beginning, to, of course, see if what we have in mind is compatible with each other.

In almost everything, we are on the same page. We’ve actually been thinking about marriage next year.

But before this, we both agreed that we still have lives we need to build before asking someone else to build one with us.

She has one last year of dentistry ahead of her, and she’s planning to lock in and never miss an opportunity because she’s thinking of relationship responsibilities. I have this side quest I’ve been dreaming about for months now—walking across the country and making a documentary about it.

“For what it’s worth,” we told each other, “Do it.”

So we let each other go with love.

This was supposed to be a sad day.

I shouldn’t be able to function. I shouldn’t be able to work properly. I should be crying in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering where everything went wrong. I know. I’ve been here. I’m quite familiar with what I should feel.

Except... nothing really went wrong.

And no, this isn’t toxic positivity.

I just can’t seem to grieve in a place where there is still so much love.

I told my friends what happened. And right after my chat…

Alec commuted all the way from Pasay.

Vince drove over despite having an exam at five.

Krizza and Dania left work just to be there.

Kerby called and said he was on his way.

Christan, despite reviewing for the boards, still came.

Karl traveled all the way from Cabuyao.

None of them had the right words to say. Then again, I wasn’t looking for them. If anything, I wouldn’t ask them for comforting words. I’m the writer in the friend group. But love’s language has always been beyond my understanding. And as my friends arrived one by one, I thought maybe showing up is love’s mother tongue.

I loved Merl. I loved everything we built together. I loved everything about our relationship. And I have nothing bad to say about it.

It is both painful and liberating to let go on a random Monday and be reminded that nothing in this world is really in our control.

If anything, I think the silver lining is the people, characters, places, or whatever it is that’s capable of loving, or at least making me feel loved. That relationship, as grand as it is, is just a part of a huge heart capable of love. When it breaks, and you check the cracks, suddenly, you see people you don’t even expect to be there. Like friends, doing nothing but showing up.

Romantic love is beautiful. But so is the friend who spends hours commuting just to sit beside you in silence.

So is the friend who leaves work early.

So is the one who stays up with you ‘til 3 am just to make sure you’re okay.

Today, I lost one kind of love. But I was surrounded by so many others that grief never stood a chance.

I mean, how can grief convince me that a romantic relationship is the only source of love when today it came from Pasay, Villa de Calamba, MCL, Cabuyao, Bunggo, and Bagong Kalsada?

I went to a café hoping to write an article to process how I feel, like a lost boy, knocking, expecting grief to answer... but instead, love, in the form of my friends, showed up at the door first.

Isusumbong Kita Sa Substack Kong May 5 Followers!

Naging inside joke ko ‘yan sa mga kaibigan ko tuwing may sinasabi silang masama tungkol sa mga litrato ko.

Hindi naman ako writer (or at least, hindi professionally). Nakahiligan ko lang talagang magsulat nang magsulat. At nagkataong masaya magsulat sa Substack.

Hindi nito nababayaran ang bills ko (may marketing job ako para ro’n).

Hindi rin naman ako nito napapasikat (lima nga lang ang followers ko sa substack).

Kaya kung tatanungin niyo kung bakit sulat pa rin ako nang sulat, ang masasabi ko lang…

Well, pinapanatili ako nitong nabubuhay.

Hindi rin ako potograpo. Isang araw, naisipan ko lang talagang bumili ng camera.

‘Yung mga nasa gallery ko, puro hindi naka gitna, tabingi, o ‘di kaya medyo malabo ang kuha.

‘Yung mga nasa Instagram ko naman, puro pangit ‘yung timpla—minsan sobrang dilaw, minsan sobrang pula.

Pero kuha pa rin ako nang kuha. Iba-iba na rin ang narinig kong komento tungkol sa kanila.

'Yung girlfriend ko tuwang-tuwa. Lagi niyang sinasabi ang gaganda raw ng kuha.

‘Yung mga tropa ko naman yamot na, antagal ko na nga raw mag-send ng pictures nila, pagka-send pa ansasama.

Pero kahit anong opinyon, ewan ko ba. Basta rewarding na sa’kin yung parteng nakukuhanan ko sila.

May sinulat akong article tungkol dito: On Taking Bad Pictures - Slow Onion

July 03, 2026

Naalala ko, pinost ko ‘yang essay na ‘yan sa Tiktok nung March.

Last year pa ‘kong nagsusulat sa substack, at hanggang nitong March, lima pa lang ‘yung followers ko. Tropa ko pa ‘yung dalawa, tapos bot naman ‘yung isa. Ironically, noong panahong kakaunti pa lang ang nakakabasa, saka ko pa natutunang magsulat nang malaya.

Matagal ko itong hinilom.

Sa mga naging kaibigan ko sa Substack, malamang alam na nilang minsan ko na ring sinubukang maging “content creator” (like as a career ha, hindi hobby), influencer, or basta sobrang na-stress ako kakaisip kung paano ko ba pagkakakitaan ‘tong pagsulat-sulat na ‘to.

Ang kaso, sa mga nakabasa na rin ng blogs ko, naikwento ko rin kung paano ako na burnout gawa nito. Kung paanong ‘yung dati kong hilig, na gagawin ko naman talaga kahit walang nakakakita, naging bayad na pagtatanghal.

Dahil bayad, kailangang kong mag-adjust sa mga nagbayad.

Ang mga sinusulat ko nung mga panahong ‘yan, tungkol sa mga bagay na hindi ko naman talaga gusto. Gaya ng message of the President ng kompanya ko dati, o ‘di kaya naman love letter sa isang page kong sumikat, na hindi ko naman talaga totoong gustong isulat. Kumbaga nagkataon lang na ‘yang mga ‘yan ang patok sa merkado.

‘Yung pagsusulat, putcha ginawa kong paninda.

Tuloy, antagal kong hindi nakapagsulat. Nagtampo siguro siya. Siguro kung nakakapagsalita lang ang pagsusulat, sinampal niya na ko sa mukha sabay sigaw ng:

Lintik na ‘to! Pagkatapos kitang isalba, susubukan mo ‘kong ibenta!

Naka ilang sorry ako sa pagsusulat at hingi ng kapatawaran.

It took me years of unhinged side quests, random bus rides to Elyu/Abra, a stray dog, volunteer works, and a lot of new people para lang ako makapagsulat ulit.

At nung nagkabati kami, na-discover ko ang substack kung saan pede akong sumulat nang sumulat, tungkol sa mga sarili kong bubog, hinihilom kung sugat, o kahit sa mga bagay na ‘di malalalim—basta kahit anong gusto kong isulat.

Para akong millennial blogger na post lang nang post sa wordpress o blogspot kahit ‘di naman nasagi sa isip nilang imo-monetize ‘yon one day. Para akong nasa taong 2010 na nagpo-post ng selfie with Domo, Retrica collage na sobrang dilaw, o kung ano mang trip kong ipost.

Sobrang tagal kong hinilom ang sarili ko para lang maging authentic ulit, mag-post sa Tiktok kong may 100 followers, at substack kong may 5 subscribers. Kaya nung mag-viral ang isa kong sulat tungkol sa mother tongue, hindi ko alam ang mararamdaman ko.

Para akong presong bagong laya tapos nagkasala ulit.

Naalala ko bigla si Aziza mula sa librong A Thousand Splendid Suns—nung kinailangan siyang ilagay ni Laila sa bahay ampunan. Noong hinabilin siya doon, bukod sa pagkawalay sa kaniyang ina, nakita niya ang side ng mundo na walang deserve makakita. Puro horror, abuso, at mga bagay na hindi dapat nakikita ng kahit sinong bata.

Nung nakaipon si Laila, sinigurado niyang bawiin si Aziza. Ganiyan ang pakiramdam ko sa pagsusulat, sa wakas, magkasama na ulit kami ni Aziza.

At nang mapansin ng 100,000 mahigit na katao ang isa kong post, ang initial instinct ng pagsusulat ko, siyempre para ring si Aziza. Takot na takot, iniisip kung ibabalik ko na naman ba siya sa bahay ampunan.

Ito siguro ang purpose kung bakit ko ito ulit sinulat. Ngayong hindi na lang lima ang followers ko sa substack, at hindi na naka-private ang Tiktok ko, gusto kong i-reassure si Aziza at sabihing ‘wag siyang mag-alala, hindi ko na siya ulit ihahabilin pa.

Magsusulat ako ng personal essays na marahil ako lang ang makaka intindi. Sobrang habang blogs with super personal references, ‘di bale na kung basahin ng followers o hindi. At gagawin ko ito nang gagawin hindi para sa kahit na sino, kundi para lang sa aking sarili.

Minsan memoir, minsan tungkol sa blurred pictures, minsan book review, minsan tungkol sa graduation ng mga dati kong classmate, minsan love letter ko para kay Merl

.O minsan naman—wala lang. Kinakausap ko lang talaga ang sarili ko, tapos naisip kong gusto ko siyang sulatan.

Ang essay na ito, ay para sa sarili ko tuwing gusto niyang maalala kung bakit siya nagsusulat. Tol, sana maalala mong minsan, nung hindi mo alam kung kanino magsusumbong kapag nasakit ang ‘yong mga sugat, wala kang ibang nalalapitan kung hindi ang pagsulat.

Kaya kahit anong mangyari, kahit ilang followers pa ang madagdag o mabawas sa Tiktok mo at substack, sulat lang nang sulat.

It almost scared me.

Years later, I’m surprised to realize my fear was misplaced. It wasn’t that I’d envy all of you for reaching a finish line I left years ago. Our paths were never meant to be linear anyway.

My fear was something entirely different: becoming strangers.

I no longer know some of you, even though all of you still feel so familiar.

You’re all so different now (in good ways)..

Far from the versions of you frozen in my memory: as freshmen who were terrified of change yet somehow excited for it. So sure of yourselves while being completely confused. Carrying hearts full of doubts but somehow still finding room for dreams much bigger than yourselves.

We had no idea what the future looked like.

I’m almost one hundred percent sure none of us imagined it would look like this.

I don’t know how all of you are feeling right now. I can’t pretend to understand what it feels like to finally wear that toga because I only know it in theory.

But I do know one thing: I’m so goddamn proud. It almost feels like it’s my own achievement.

Maybe it’s because the versions of you that live in my head are still eighteen, looking forward to nothing but this moment… which somehow makes this milestone feel special to me too.

I left school midway through my second year to focus on my then night-shift marketing job. While all of you stayed, I unknowingly preserved everyone in my memory.

To me, we’re still the kids in O Week stressing about barbecues. We’re still the same group sharing fries at McDonald’s Milagrosa, asking stupid questions like,

“Kung magiging instrument ka ni God, ano at bakit?”

The circle eventually belonged to other circles.

But in my head, it was the same group hanging out at Pia’s resort in Pansol.

Somehow, my mind refuses to believe that Jastin, whom I used to drink beer with at Café Kalsada/Shell on random Wednesdays, now wears a toga.

Or that Jethro, whom I randomly ran with on weekends, has officially graduated.

Or that the same people who joked about Prince’s community service, Clark always being late, Pol being perpetually single, Kris nursing another heartbreak, Pia wearing tsinelas at SM, and Andre assigning me the easier tasks because he knew I was juggling school and work... are now adults beginning entirely different lives.

Life really is strange.

One day, we were all wearing the same blue polo from Monday to Wednesday, our PE shirts every Thursday, and whatever civilian clothes we could piece together on wash days.

Back then, we all looked more or less the same.

Now all of you wear togas.

Soon enough, we’ll all wear different uniforms again.

Some will wear white coats, some will wear business suits, some will wear company IDs around their necks, some will wear aprons, some will wear hard hats, some might spend months wearing pajamas while figuring life out…

Some will build companies, some will build families, some will leave the country, some will stay exactly where they’ve always wanted to be, and some of us will probably end up somewhere we never imagined.

School, for all its difficulties, decided almost everything for us.

The subjects to take, the classrooms to enter, the deadlines to meet, the exams to pass, heck, even the uniforms to wear. Friendship was easy back then.

We didn’t have to make time for one another. We simply had to show up in the same classroom every weekday.

Life after, however, is different.

Nobody hands you a syllabus. No professor tells you which dream to pursue or which mistake you’ll regret. There are no worksheets anymore. Only blank pages; open to possibilities that are both terrifying and beautiful.

From here on, friendship becomes more intentional. Keeping what we have alive will be something we choose; there are no classrooms nor weekdays left to do it for us.

Perhaps, this is why graduation feels so significant.

Graduation was probably the last time all of you unknowingly wore the same thing. Soon enough, life will start dressing everyone differently.

Years from now, I probably won’t know all of your job titles.

Or the number of companies in your resume…

We won’t possibly know how much money each of us made or exactly where our careers took us.

Heck, we probably won’t even know what uniform everyone else is wearing anymore.

But I hope we never forget the uniform we once shared.

The blue polo.

The PE shirts.

The Wash days.

McDonald’s Milagrosa.

The classrooms.

Random Wednesdays at Eli’s house.

The gigs at Café Kalsada.

The stupid conversations that somehow became core memories.

I’ll always remember all of you before life became so serious.

Before deadlines became real, before careers and responsibilities and bills. Before we all started becoming people with calendars instead of classmates.

And wherever life takes us, whatever uniform we end up wearing, I hope we never stop recognizing each other beneath it.

I hope one random message in the group chat still gets a reply.

I hope we still celebrate each other’s little victories.

I hope we still find time, every once in a while, to go to Mau’s Dan Bam.

Because long after the uniforms are gone, I’d like to believe that we still belong to the same class. That we mattered to one another beyond just being classmates. Beyond just being people who happened to share the same classrooms while chasing the same diploma.

That we became part of each other’s lives in ways a transcript could never record. That what we built was something worth carrying long after graduation.

To the people I used to wear the same uniform with, whatever new uniform you end up wearing next, I hope you wear it well.

We might not know each other’s lives anymore, pero sabi nga ni ninang Phoebe Bridgers,

Anyway, don’t be a stranger.

The post in question | wizardofbarge

Looking back, I’ve spent most of my life doing things that don’t make much sense. And true enough, in doing these silly things, I’ve somehow managed to make sense of a world that often doesn’t.

Another story time that no one asked for…

I’ve always been a silly kid. When I was in Grade 3, I was the class treasurer. In Bucal, or at least in our section, everyone had to wear a foot rug (shoe cover). Anyone who forgot theirs had to pay five pesos, which would go toward photocopying exam papers and other class materials. To cut the story short, I collected around ₱50 and somehow lost all of it.

Photo Credits: Bucal ES Facebook

My teacher was furious. She shouted at me and said she’d talk to my parents the next day. The thing is, I had always been the quiet kid, I had never been scolded before. I was the type who covered both ears whenever the classroom got too noisy (a complete contrast to my now extroverted personality btw.)

An angry teacher was already too much for my eight-year-old self, so the thought of her telling my parents felt catastrophic.

The next morning, before anyone woke up, I sneaked out of the house at 4:30 a.m. and hid in an empty lot overgrown with tall grass, convinced it was the perfect hiding place. Before leaving, I wrote my parents a letter, which I unfortunately threw away right after being found. Turns out, they did not notice the letter as they were obviously too busy looking for me. The letter went something like this: Mama and papa, babalik po ako in 2 or 3 days, basta ipangako niyo pong ita-transfer niyo ako sa Baretto Elementary School (the nearest public school to Bucal).

I thought of the most eight-year-old solution imaginable: start a new life from scratch.

Meanwhile, rumors spread like wildfire.

“Naku may bata pa namang nabili lang ng suka kaninang madaling araw, kinuha ng puting van”

Others insisted it was a black van, others even said pink.

The truth was way less suspenseful. I was perfectly safe, crouching in the tall grass because I thought I couldn’t let my head peek above it, completely unaware of the chaos I had unintentionally caused.

Looking back, I can’t imagine what my family went through. From the stories I’ve heard, Kuya punched a wall, Ate Toin pretended she cared, Ate Nikki cried like how she always do, my mother pulled a full Sisa looking for Basilyo and Crispiin–wandering around the neighborhood imagining every terrible possibility, my father bargained with God, and Ate Rose had her own air time saying, “Kung kapatid ko lang ang kapalit ng bahay na ‘to, ‘wag na lang.”

Family picture for context: Ate Toni, Mama, Papa, Me, Ate Nikki, Kuya JC, Ate Rose

Around noon, they finally found me under the scorching sun. Everyone hugged me so tightly that the attention itself felt suffocating. I never meant to create all that drama.

This is a bad example and probably shouldn’t be added here, but I thought it’s one of the silliest things I did as a kid, so adding it here feels silly as well.

–

In Grade 2, my classmate Desiree and I pretended we were possessed. Years later, Desiree admitted she was only acting because she thought it would be funny. Maybe she was just feeling like the main character that day. Me, however, did it because there was an upcoming quiz I hadn’t studied for.

Looking back, silliness has always been my way to make this life… well, a little more colorful.

Like when I decided to stop going to school to write a comic book. Or when I started a clothing brand at 17 with no idea how it works. Or when I was in line in our city hall to ask for funding for a silly little project I created for artists. OR when I walked with no destination in mind for 13 hours.

It’s safe to say, I am just the type of person who’ll ditch work to go to Montauk, but unlike Joel from Eternal Sunshine, I am not hearing Clementine in my mind, I just feel like it.

In silliness, I find myself in, let’s just say, interesting places.

Not so long ago, I somehow got accepted as a legal content writer, even though I knew I wasn’t qualified for the job. Ever since I submitted my application, I knew I wasn’t qualified for it, yet I tried anyway. With no degree, connections, nor relevant experience, I still firmly believed I got hired for the vibes.

I got close with HR right away, told her about the book about motherhood I wrote when I was 18, projects for artists I did as a 20-year-old artist wannabe, both completely unrelated with the position I was applying for (legal content writer, writing blogs about laws in different states of the US). Somehow, I still made it through to the next round.

During the trial period, my lack of relevant experience manifested in every possible way; I missed every obvious loophole, failed to follow basic content writing guidelines, and got an assessment score of 2/10 (purely based on my outputs).

However, I had already established myself as the Gen Z kid, light in the darkness of a then stressed team in a stressful job writing legal blogs for law firms handling different specializations. So maybe the HR or the department heads were feeling a little silly that day and thought, fuck it, we can train him anyway.

I’m pretty much sure I got hired purely for the vibes.

Since it paid well, I had the means to go to La Union for a month and a week and work there, trying the digital nomad lifestyle. Staying in a hostel, I met random housemates who were just as silly as me. Someone left his job and life in Manila to pursue aromatherapy. The host left corporate life and decided she’d become an Airbnb host.

Sometimes I just feel like watching turtle hatchlings get released by volunteers protecting them, and I somehow end up hearing a speech from Canada’s ambassador.

Like Forrest Gump, who had no business ending up in the places he found himself in, I somehow end up in pretty amazing side quests.

To add more fun, I thought Elyu was too crowded during weekends, so I woke up one Saturday and told my housemates, “Gusto kong pumunta sa Abra,” for God knows why, before even washing my face. I literally woke up and chose violence. And so I did. I went to the bus station, packed two shirts and two pairs of pants, and let life happen. I didn’t know what was waiting for me in Abra, but I for sure loved every bit of it.

On another random Saturday, I decided to go to Baguio for an AA convention and listen to foreigners share their crazy stories of alcoholism.

On another weekend, I thought, why not go to Sagada without researching the place? Without any agenda, I walked for a day and climbed trees just for the love of the game. I purposely left my laptop behind so I wouldn’t be tempted to do anything related to work.

I never expected anything because I thought the very act of going there randomly was silly enough. So every little surprise life threw my way ended up blowing my mind: listening to birds, coming across a grandfather cutting his grandson’s hair, or realizing that strangers, both locals and tourists, almost automatically smile back when you smile at them.

A few simple joys of being communal people, reminders that we’re not as separated as we think.

Sometimes, the world shows me its silliness as well.

I once went to Infanta Pier on a random Thursday, hoping to visit Polillo Island with the sole purpose of seeing a white-sand beach. I was informed that the Coast Guard wasn’t allowing tours that particular day. However, a cooperative helping people in the nearby remote islands told me I could join them as a weekend volunteer, helping carry food for everyone and materials for their family planning seminars.

Nowhere on my bucket list had I written, “Meet and live among field workers on an island with no signal for three days.” But well, sometimes you just have to let life happen and go about your day.

Although sometimes, the world’s silliness can be quite confusing.

Like when I lost my job on a random working day. We were informed that half the team was getting laid off, effective immediately after our shift. We couldn’t do anything about it. But again, as Wizard of Barge suggests, “We must remain silly to survive the horrors of this world.”

Since I could no longer afford both bus rides and inns, I had to choose one. Yet I refused to let those limitations stop me from going on my little quests. So on a random weekend, I woke up at 4 a.m. to go for a little walk. 55 kilometers. From Calamba to Lucban. For 13 hours.

My friends thought it would’ve made more sense if I had registered for an official ultramarathon. At least I’d have a record, they said. But who sets that rule? That it’s only valid if it’s official? I call myself an ultramarathon finisher because that’s just how it felt.

And why did I do it, you ask? As Forrest Gump suggests, sometimes we do things that, well, just don’t make no sense.

In the silliness of aimlessly walking, I met a dog somewhere in Bagong Kalsada. She walked with me for about 10 kilometers, and I named her Forrest Gums. (I would’ve named her Rocky had I read Project Hail Mary at the time.) I had meaningful conversations with a karinderya owner who helped me feed her. A volunteer educated me on the proper way to help stray animals. I saw stunning views. And a sari-sari store owner in Majayjay asked me, Dios ko po, ano ba ginagawa mo sa buhay mo? when I told her I was from Calamba and was walking all the way to Lucban.

There’s an unexplainable joy in saying yes to all this absurdity. Think of Walter Mitty fighting a shark or longboarding across Iceland when he was supposedly stressing about losing his job. That’s how it feels. It makes him forget about his toxic boss and the collapsing company he worked so hard for. And in my case, it made a problem as big as getting laid off seem so small.

The following week, I searched for the nearest beach and told myself to go for another walk. I didn’t make it because I wasn’t able to overcome Tagaytay. I did not meet any other Forrest Gums, nor did I have a conversation with a karindirya owner.

Instead, I got stuck in the rain while walking, which is still way better than the feeling I had years ago of being stuck in a job I never wanted to do. Plus, then again, it was another 50-kilometer walk on a random Saturday, which I also consider a day well spent.

On some days, I’d go on a budget trip to nearby falls with my girlfriend. And sometimes, on a lucky day, who could’ve predicted that a local man would approach us in the rain and hand us a huge-ass leaf, saying, “Native ‘yan.”

And now, even after losing my full-time job, struggling to find a new one that matches my wants and needs, accepting part-time jobs that pay less, barely helping me to get by, and having a dream side quest I can’t pursue just yet, I still find ways to get silly and offend the world that thinks it can steal my sparks.

Like writing a blog in the middle of my shift. Or perhaps watching the sunset every day and writing a journal to document our daily conversations (yes, with the sunset).

Or making a book club with random members, some I know, some I don’t, then typing a long-ass message saying, “Thank you for saying yes,” knowing damn well I never messaged anyone beforehand; I just straight-up created a group chat and, voilà, welcome to the club. (who wants to join our reading club btw, free for all)

Losing a job, landing in one you don’t particularly like, missing opportunities, spending years watching things not go your way, or going through major life transitions that look nothing like what you imagined can, of course, be disheartening beyond words.

Adult shenanigans can pull the soul out of our lives. But I don’t know; this silliness, this persevering, relentless, tenacious silliness, the one that once hid in the tall-ass grasses, pretended to be possessed, and walked all the way to Lucban for God knows why, holds on so tightly that no amount of life’s mundanity can take my soul away.

Sometimes the silly world rewards me. I end up on a huge-ass rock, cliff-jumping with a foreign housemate I barely know.

Sometimes I end up saving my drowning friend. Sometimes I end up in the emergency room.

But most of the time, if I’m being honest, I just end up—writing. Writing everything down and feeling alive once again.

I was supposed to be sad right now, looking back at the dream life I once had. But the silliness of writing this is so powerful it almost feels euphoric.

If I’m being honest, sometimes I hate being a silly writer. I wish I’m someone interested in ordinary things. Like a normal job with a normal degree. Maybe I wouldn’t have ended up in all these ridiculous places. Maybe I would’ve lived a simpler but unchaotic life.

But then I write it all down.

I revisit all the silly decisions, the silly friends, the silly mistakes, and the silly places I somehow found myself in, fully intending to regret them. Yet somehow, writing is so silly that it changes the narrative. 2000 words after, I no longer wish I had lived any other life. I suddenly become so thankful I’m a silly writer.

This damn silliness, be it as grand as going on side quests or as simple as reading when I should be working, writing an unrelated article about art during a work meeting, making a playlist for a book I just read, stubbornly reading a classic novel for three hours a day even if I still don’t make it halfway after almost a month,

or painting. badly.

or searching for keywords that will make my blog go viral, only to intentionally avoid using them as my way of pissing off the algorithm that expects me to trim down my articles,

or choosing to love, I mean romantically, in this economy, does, in fact, shield me from the horrors of this world.

Peter Dinklage reads a love letter to New York City - YouTube

Peter Dinklage is an established actor. He has the accomplishments to back up these words, and it’s safe to say he’s earned the right to say them. Unlike him, I have no business sharing this quote. I am almost 100% sure no former school would ask me to deliver a commencement speech, but I do believe I am, in fact, a bumblebee, ignoring these laws and flying anyway.

Now here’s the thing. I have a hundred reasons not to believe this claim, just as I have a hundred reasons why I shouldn’t be writing. Today, I’ll only cite 15.

Story time that no one asked for:

1. I never even dreamt of pursuing it as much as I like it.

I’ve known myself as an artist (writer wannabe) ever since I was a kid. I memorized my sister’s assignments before I even went to school, and I was really drawn to poetry.

However, art school was nowhere near our radar, and we didn’t really know much about it (I mean, who thinks about where they want to study when they’re a kid? Let alone know what to pursue). All I knew was that in a local science high school, you didn’t really have to pay for anything. Which leads me to the second reason why I shouldn’t write.

2. I was from a science high school. I had no business doing art, or writing, or anything related to it.

I feel like people like me, who didn’t grow up rich, are fully aware of their family’s financial situation even as kids, so my goal really was to get there so my parents could be spared from school fees.

Now, imagine an artist with teenage rage sneaking his way into a Science High School. Fortunately or unfortunately, I barely got in. I stuck with the branding of a happy-go-lucky kid who doesn’t study because I always belonged to the bottom 10 of our batch. This is where, unconsciously, the effects of patriarchy got me. All roads lead to patriarchy)

3. I mistook masculinity for indifference.

Well, as bell hooks suggests, feminism is for everybody. I recently discovered that there are actual studies explaining why women usually perform better than men. It’s because nonchalance (not caring, or pretending not to try) is more common among boys. I mean, I’ve always thought studying was uncool, and pretending I wasn’t trying actually worked for me.

I saw it on a TikTok content that then leads to a study.

I’m not even trying, so I’m not ashamed to be in the bottom 10. The thing is, I was trying, and acting nonchalant about it was just a defense mechanism. I mean, it was embarrassing to admit that I was trying and still couldn’t keep up at school.

In retrospect,

I could’ve tried harder.

My saving grace was writing. I would fail at almost anything in class, but I would, in fact, excel in writing.

My parents, at some point, just got used to it. Every time they went to school for card-giving day, our adviser would talk to them privately.

“Ma’am, Sir, paki-push pa naman po si Niño na mag-review.”

I had a teacher who would hand out our examination papers from the lowest score to the highest, and I would always get my paper first.

So receiving a compliment from my English teacher meant everything. It was a compliment that I still remember to this day.

He wrote on one of my essays and told me that I wrote so well. It meant the world to me.

Every Thursday, when I was in Grade 7, I would perform at UPLB as part of my sister’s thesis. I would look forward to nothing but Thursdays at Ginhawa because, there, I was someone else. I wasn’t in the bottom 10 anymore. I wasn’t a try-hard, happy-go-lucky kid who didn’t care about his studies. I was the youngest writer performing at UPLB.

It’s safe to say I’ve always been called to be a writer. However, I was too embarrassed to call myself one. I could’ve stopped the act and embraced that I was actually trying to be a writer. But then I was so corrupted by my internalized fragile masculinity that thought writing just wasn’t for boys.

4. I make fucked-up life decisions.

Fast forward, and the fragile masculine urge to be nonchalant and not care about school led me into a deeper misery—alcohol.

I mean, the only way for me to be a writer (that’s what I thought) was to be like Franz Kafka. I’ll write about addiction and trauma and rebellion because real boys drink and never write about love.

I dropped out in senior high school because I wasn’t really attending school anymore. I was blaming my parents for my brother’s death. And I would write about the pain. God forbid a 17-year-old angry and rebellious writer thinks he can conquer the world.

I confronted my parents and told them I would stop going to school because I was going to work on a “project.” My first of many messed-up decisions. Boy tried to pull a Josh Mojica, except instead of Kangkong Chips, a comic book would create an empire for me. Think of Marvel and Mars Ravelo and what they did. God knows how highly I thought of myself and my writing—it exceeded heaven.

Guess what? Nothing went as planned (please act surprised).

It was the pandemic, and I joined barangay spoken-word poetry competitions to fund the artists illustrating my writings. Since Barangay La Mesa could only hold so many competitions, I wrote for contestants from other areas, and we would share the prize money. Since I was ambitious, I invested in buying and selling shirts to grow the funds for the comic book.

Guess what? I got scammed. I couldn’t pay the artist. And the only thing left to do was stop the project and admit that I couldn’t pull it through. I lost friendships and trust because of it, which I still carry with me to this day, by the way (the price you pay for a dream so grand with a hand so small).

5. Kapitalismo, ‘di ka matiis.

   

I found another way of trying to make a living out of writing. I landed my first clients as a social media manager, who would pay me 3,000 PHP (which, by the way, meant so much to me at the time. We weren’t rich, and I can’t even remember owning more than 500 pesos in senior high school, except maybe during Christmas). And when I was able to save 10,000 PHP, which in adult terms meant 100k to me, I went all in.

I thought about what every 18-year-old aspiring businessman can think of… of course, I had to start a clothing brand.

As a kid who didn’t really know anything about the industry, I only knew the stories behind my shirts, the purpose, and the drive. But business-wise, it couldn’t really scale. The materials were cheap, I didn’t know anything about costing, and it was just meant to fail from the beginning.

Guess what? We sold only half of the shirts. To rub salt in the wound... while delivering them with my good friend Cedrick, we bumped into a car. All the small earnings we had barely covered the damages. Am I in a series of unfortunate events? Are the gods mocking me? Whatever was happening, in short term, I failed again.

6. I was writing for the wrong reasons.

The next obvious step was to make amends with my parents, put my pride aside, admit I was wrong, and go back to school. Which I did. And as part of the apology (and a silly belief that I could still pursue writing), I made a page for my mother. She’s a writer who doesn’t really understand social media. I am Gen Z, so I thought, why not market my mother?

And I did, successfully. I was editing her posts, ghostwriting (90% of the time, really), so we thought we’d rebrand it from Aui V. to Love, Mama, a virtual mother, because it wasn’t really just her anymore. And it felt dishonest for the page to still be called Aui V. when it was really the two of us.

Love, Mama was a blast. We reached millions of people. We eventually launched merch and books; everything I had imagined for Lamat Komiks. But it never felt fulfilling.

I wasn’t really writing about stuff like this. I was writing letters people wanted to read.

Recently, I attended a film showing with a pep talk afterward. It was Kidlat Tahimik’s Mababangong Bangungot. Kidlat, the father of independent cinema, described films as his babies. In Hollywood, and in other films under the “entertainment industry,” the main goal is to earn money. At the end of the day, they’re part of an industry, and it’s business after all.

So film directors, as the parents of these “babies,” have no choice but to filter their children and compromise. You have to cater to the crowd. You have to gather funding. You have to shorten or expand your film to fit the accepted runtime in cinemas. And after all the compromising, all that’s left is a product. If you’re unlucky enough, you might even end up with a kid you don’t recognize.

And that’s how Love, Mama felt. Writing as a product. As something people would consume.

7. No one really cares about the writers.

So I had to do more personal projects. Then came Project Nix. Now that I was earning a little and getting the platform I had dreamed so much about as a kid, I remembered my dream when I was 17, trying to write a comic book.

“I wish there were local projects aimed at helping creatives like me.”

And as a now 19-year-old delusional dreamer, I thought: Why not create the space I needed when I was 17?

I messaged creatives (some I knew, most I didn’t) and pitched my project: a collective for artists in Calamba. I was everywhere. I was so excited about it that I went to every SK office asking for support. I lined up at city hall with a long-ass project proposal, and of course, no one entertained me.

“Hi, sir. We’re Project Nix, and we’re doing local projects for artists in our city.”

I was there almost every day for a week, and to no surprise—no one really cared.

Still, the project lived on. We were kids, burning with passion. Cafe Kalsada was always full whenever we were doing gigs featuring local artists. Artists from different disciplines were reaching out to be featured in our documentary series. We were invited to create campaign materials for Leni during the election period. I even performed at her provincial rallies.

However, reality can humble you in ways you do not particularly like.

8. I am not rich!

I realized a growing project needs funding to be sustainable. I was handling people, and I knew deep down that I was no leader at the time. But with the connections I had so far, I was able to land clients: wedding films, promotional commercials, and everything we could make money from with the pool of talents in Project Nix. I was directing and writing everything, and whichever team members were available would shoot the videos.

9. I am a coward.

One ordinary day, as a creative director who had capitalistic views on art, a client did not pay us. I did not have a job to pay the photographer from my team because I myself hadn’t been paid either. It reached a point where I didn’t even know what to say anymore, so I disappeared.

But you can only hide for so long. I faced him and tried to help him get the money from the client. The client paid him partially, and I told the client, “You no longer have to pay me. Just pay the photographer,” because I don’t know anything about boundaries. (Believe me or not, I never dreamed of becoming rich from this. God forbid, I just wanted to do my art.)

10. I feel too much.

My good friend, who was the co-founder, rightfully cut me off after this incident. Most of the photographers from the team later unfollowed me on social media as well because, well, we weren’t doing any projects anymore anyway.

Which hurt. Because I thought we meant something more than our projects—friendship, perhaps. I thought I was actually helping the art community.

11. I ran out of sparks.

In hopes of continuing to support my ideals and projects, I looked for jobs. Real jobs that I could do on the side so I could also support my studies.

After months of rejection, I finally landed a night-shift marketing job. From 8 AM to 5 PM, I was attending classes at NU Laguna. Then my shift would start from 11 PM to 8 AM.

This job was supposed to fund my art. Instead, it sucked my soul out of me. I experienced extreme burnout and decided that I no longer liked this life. I quit school. (I was already funding myself at this point, so my parents couldn’t really stop me. Plus, I was paying some bills as well, so as much as they disagreed, they knew it wasn’t a rebellious decision anymore.)

Eventually, I left my job as well to look for a better one. Bills and debts haunted me every day. I started questioning my decisions, and while doing so, I was unconsciously forgetting that I am a writer and that I should be writing all of this down.

When I landed a decent job after three months of applications, it paid well. It allowed me to work anytime. But I was no longer my passionate self. I couldn’t care less about people. I was no longer aiming to do projects for artists. I would pay some bills at home, but the rest of it? Hell, I was going to travel.

In traveling, luckily, I met people who became my saving grace. I was falling into the hyper-independent propaganda of not really caring about anyone else in the world, yet the people I met through my travels kept me sane and grounded.

They were volunteers and risk-takers who cared deeply about people and about this planet. It inspired me to do the same. And through this, through traveling when I could have been funding a passion project and writing, I subconsciously still met the right people who would lead me back to what I’m supposed to be doing: making projects, caring, loving, and, most importantly, writing.

After months (maybe even years, to be honest), I was finally able to feel alive, feel like myself, and write again. For the first time in years, I wrote a blog. Then came another blog. Until it became my habit once again.

I had already found comfort in writing blogs no one actually reads. But I do it for the love of the game. It’s not as grand as publishing a book, releasing merch, or doing projects, but it does what matters most: it keeps me alive.

12. I get ahead of myself.

Then came a dream side quest: making a documentary on my own. Walk across the country and make a book about the people I meet along the way. I had the money to fund it anyway. A personal project. Regardless of whether it sold or not. Just for myself.

13. Life’s a bitch!

However, the universe has its way of ruining things. My company lost a major immigration client, and half of the team got laid off. First in, first out. I was one of the people who lost my job.

At this point, I was barely getting back on my feet, barely getting my spark back, and a setback this huge slapped me in the face to remind me of my place.

14. I am delusional.

And yes, I know. We hate Ted Mosby. But sometimes I feel like him… foolishly still in love with my Robin: writing. Now, I’m working a job that pays less. I can barely afford my side quests. The very side quests that keep me alive. I thought that without them, I couldn’t write.

15. I haven’t proved myself enough as per accomplishments.

But for God knows how, and for God knows why, I am writing this 3,000-word essay that people probably won’t read. It almost certainly won’t reach thousands or millions, yet I couldn’t care less about how it performs. I cannot do the dream side quest right now, yet I still find a reason to write: a book documenting the messy middle.

What I’m saying is this: I am still writing. I don’t have Peter Dinklage’s acting credentials to justify why he keeps acting. I am not in any way planning to get rich from writing or make a career out of it. I have a hundred more reasons not to write.

But before the 15 reasons I cited, or the hundred more I didn’t, I have only one strong reason why I still write that can overpower them all—I am called to write.

To be fair, I tried to run away from it multiple times, but every road leads me back here. I don’t know if I’m just a slow runner, so writing always catches up with me, or if I’m just too bad at directions that I unintentionally find my way home. Either way, it’s inevitable.

If I’m going to be practical, realistic, and hell, even just think for once and listen to the clear message of the world, then I probably shouldn’t pursue writing. But then again, there’s this voice that keeps Elsa awake no matter how much she ignores it, or these waves that pull Moana no matter how hard she convinces herself she’s content in Motunui.

My practical brain tells me to raise the white flag. My huge heart says: Paint on it. Make it a canvas. Write something.

Pursuing writing (or at least staying creative), is the most delusional act that I am still doing.

Writing on a Substack without thousands of subscribers. Putting my journals in public without getting paid, nor with the goal of getting paid.

I haven’t accomplished nearly enough to compare myself to the bee breaking all the aerodynamic rules. But I guess that lack of accomplishment only adds to the reasons why I shouldn’t write.

So writing, still damn writing, is my version of the bee flies anyway.

As someone new, of course I didn’t know who to reach out to or talk to—ask for recommendations from, or bawl with—so I tried sneaking my way into online communities. And boy, did I feel so small. The community is full of insufferable, out-of-touch beings with moral superiority complexes they aren’t even trying to hide.

These are the people who will slap their sablays in your face when they’re losing an argument. Or unsolicitedly show you a room filled with trophies and medals just to prove a point.

Trying to find a decent community made me feel like a youngstunna trying to take a decent picture in the streets of BGC. I wouldn’t even be surprised if they were among the people trying to police the skaters.

I’m only in the first chapters of Toni Morrison’s Beloved, a book about slavery, and I find the resemblance between the Garner couple and elite readers funny. They think they are better people. Mr. and Mrs. Garner’s slaves enjoy certain privileges; they are better owners. But does that erase the fact that they still participate in a slave-owning system?

Elites, readers or non-readers, I see you all as wolves.

Not being the alpha doesn’t exempt you from the pack. You are still a wolf preying on us. When all is said and done, you still crave the blood of the sheep. This system, this fucked-up system you call out, benefits you. Outside your curated socials and blogs, would you give up your comfort?

If this bothers you, howl. Maybe I am talking to you.

—

Going back to reading, I find it ironic that when you check their Fable accounts, they have five-star reviews on books about refugees, slavery, and dismantling tyranny. Yet in real life, they are on the other side of the war.. or worse, far from it while enjoying its aftermath.

When I started reading, I thought books could save me. I thought communities would be my refuge. Surprisingly, it’s not in books that I learned about class war. It’s in the reality of the book community.

I have been obsessed with books. Ever since I started reading, I couldn’t stop. But I just realized I have been learning backwards. I am becoming one of the out-of-touch people I hate. When was the last time I had a good conversation with a stranger?

Last year, before I got into reading, I hiked with tricycle drivers in Abra.

I spent half a day talking to a family running a small lomi house. I ate tilapia with fishermen I had only just met. It was through them that I heard stories about the struggles of the working class, the reasons there are NPAs in the area, and the community’s relationship with them.

I listened to the struggles of a fresh criminology graduate who couldn’t find work—who said thankfully, they had a tricycle, so he could at least earn a living driving it.

I was walking from Calamba to Lucban and other random places, and encounters like these (with a stray dog) taught me so much about life. I also learned from a volunteer what people can do to help animals like it, and that people like them, who try to make this place better for dogs, actually exist.

But now, here I am, in my own bubble, just reading books.

And to be fair, books have made me more empathetic. When you spend enough time inside the minds of the people you read about, it’s almost like consuming hundreds of “day in the life” vlogs. If that doesn’t help you develop emotional intelligence and a deeper sense of compassion, then I don’t know what will.

What I’m saying is, reading ALONE will not suffice–which is funny cause the reading community can feel so exclusive.

Ocean Vuong is right. Books will not save us.

Most of the readers I know who identify as feminists adore Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Never mind that its author openly advocates traditional gender roles—an outlook reflected in the book itself, where women mostly wait while men pursue their personal legends. (I’m not calling you out for liking it, by the way. It was simply an observation that was difficult for me to catch at first.)

The life-changing Tuesdays with Morrie was written by a known Zionist. Harry Potter was written by a transphobe.

I’m not saying this to cancel these authors, I’m not even a fan of them. What I’m pointing out is the contradiction.

So yes, read books. But don’t forget to do what matters more: touch some grass.

Photo from Rick Maquiling’s Facebook Meme

Meeting people you say you fight for. Talking to strangers. Listening deeply.

Hindi eksklusibo sa pagbabasa ang pakikiramdam.

If the reading community is BGC, then please don’t become the misinformed security guard. Make room for the youngstunnas. The people not wearing Uniqlo. The very characters you cry for in the novels you read.

All I’m asking for is a little self-reflection. Because maybe, without realizing it, you’ve become the very person you hate in the novels you love.

Maybe you’re already part of the bigger problem.