an EMPTY dream

I remember Julia’s character in the ever sweet and funny Nothing Hill.
There was this scene when after they (meaning, she and Hugh) made love, right after the world has sink in again, she asked how he felt. She said something like, is it like after you masturbate, the guilt comes in?

It was a funny scene with a funny line but such, is as profound, I think, as I am just but a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.

Today, I simply would like to write something about emptiness, about being empty.

Paulo Coelho, in his Veronika Decides to Die gave a picture of this. The line goes…

I'm still young, pretty, intelligent, I won't have any difficulty in getting boyfriends, I never did. I'll make love with them in their houses, or in the woods, I'll feel a certain degree of pleasure, but the moment I reach orgasm, the feeling of emptiness will return. We won't have much to talk about, and both he and I will know it. The time will come to make our excuses—‘It's late’, or ‘I have to get up early tomorrow’—and we'll part as quickly as possible, avoiding looking each other in the eye.

As I grow older, I feel like I understand better Veronika’s point of view. She said it perfectly, I am neither happy nor sad and bitter – so better end it now when I have nothing to lose. It’s pathetic though that she has not found anything to live for, even in the end of the story. I feel what Veronika feels, but unlike her I still hope that one day I would stumble upon that real reason. I can always say this and that, as my reason for moving forward, but that only makes me a good liar.

It’s tiring trying to fall each time, and then hit the ground. It’s even harder to try accepting when the road just gets rougher each moment. I feel empty, so empty deep within today – and you know what bothers me? It’s the fact that though I have reasons in mind, I don’t really know why I feel like this.

Is it because of the weather? my current krusada perhaps? Or is it my coming of age?
Worst, is it because of life itself? - that at some point of life man would really drift.

EMPTY – is a big word full of meaning.

Hai. Perhaps this is just because of my current situation, perhaps I need some break, some rest; for you know the heart could only take so much. Kung ang laptop nga has to sleep, perhaps I also need some of that, in every sense of the word.

In the end, I’d like to live up to Julia’s character than Veronika’s. She chose to face life while the latter succumb. Emptiness is but a phase, and as my friend would say daanan lang, wag tambayan.

I am empty, I feel bruised and crushed…
…and I give up - for now, just now.

This is nothing but an empty dream…
watch me when I wake up.

Lessons from the Alchemist

It's the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary; only wise men are able to understand them.

Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.

"And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it."


"People learn, early in their lives, what is their reason for being," said the old man, with a certain bitterness. "Maybe that's why they give up on it so early, too. But that's the way it is."

Hehad to choose between something he had become accustomed to and something he wanted to have. May naAlala ako 

"It's called the principle of favorability. When you play cards the first time, you are almost sure to win. Beginner's luck."

The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.

But the sheep had taught him something even more important: that there was a language in the world that everyone understood, a language the boy had used throughout the time that he was trying to improve things at the shop. It was the language of enthusiasm, of things accomplished with love and purpose, and as part of a search for something believed in and desired. Tangier was no longer a strange city, and he felt that, just as he had conquered this place, he could conquer the world.

When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.

The boy was beginning to understand that intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and
we are able to know everything, because it's all written there.

He learned the most important part of the language that all the world spoke—the language that everyone on earth was capable of understanding in their heart. It was love. Something older than humanity, more ancient than the desert.

"You must understand that love never keeps a man from pursuing his destiny. If he abandons that pursuit, it's because it wasn't true love… the love that speaks the Language of the World."

"One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving."

"Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World, and it will one day return there."

"My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky. "Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity."

There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure."