MAKING SENSE

by Clifford Marshal Ablaza

    I DON'T need this! This endless hunt for a  perfect world of automatics; these gadgets that only make me dumb and lazy and over-dependent over their mechanical abilities that encompass, and even overlap, my expectations and happiness; this fuss about the latest of technological breakthrough that feeds only man's craving for splendor and sense of false grandeur; this endless system and state of mind of trends and conformity and a melee of genres to belong to; this monotonous babble over the ideal life and the ideal way to live it, and the ideal people who can make it happen; this new-age revolution over who could stand at the spotlight of global stardom and attention - oh, they only make my life seem so complicated and demanding and very incomplete. Though they offer a handful of conveniences, I only need simplicity in the middle of the complexity that this world has turned out to be.

    I don't need this! This houseful of luxuries and petty wants that we bring home from this world of purchase even if there are more families and children on the streets who barely even know how a warm bed feels, how a proper meal tastes like, how a good home brings comfort, how a day passes without worrying about about where they'd spent their nights with only trash-fire and the same old rags to give them refuge; this age of credit cards and gift certificates and instant cash - it's amazing how our world turns around the scent of paper and ink made to represent our worth in the World Bank, as if we don't already have enough apathy revolving around us; this loss of the children inside our souls - the hope, the promise, the sincerity, the future - we consider it as just a distant memory stripped of its spirit and vitality; this attempt of portraying that we know enough already to bully anybody, especially those who we surmise are less learned than we are - on, but life teaches much more than the facts written in books or signs on the sidewalks or protest lyrics painted on walls; they are only novelties in our life, and I need purpose so that I know where I can put my feet on regardless of how shallow or foolish others would think of it or me.

    I don't need this! This debate over which the best religion is; this confusion over what pill is best to make everything appear so dandy and a lot easier to digest; these tendencies of burning our or being just too tired of the general framework of the routine way we live our routines lives and lifestyles; this insecurity over the best body, or the best clothes and accessories, or the best car and house and stocks; this callous confusion over the best hobby to spend our leisure time with, that would calm our tired nerves and mind and that wouldn't bore us or make us angry or bitter; this pursuit for the fulfillment of a lifetime that we could be proud of and tell about when we grow old and have our own children; this restless culture of rushing to the streets when we are discontented over the direction the country is headed to; this unconvincing innuendo over wanting the best leaders and the best government; this contest over who the best country is and how they can overpower the rest of the world - they have a point and a lot of idealism, and a lot to prove - but they only boggle my mind over what or who to believe in. I need peace that I can sleep on in the middle of the world's confusion and the third world war.

    I don't need this! This insatiate search for other life forms in the final frontier - the feeling that we are not alone in the universe is enough consolation to our feeling of inadequacy and being too small, somehow we are not the only dust particle there is; this never-ending exploration of the atmosphere and the oceans and the ravines to prove that there is still more than what we know, and that there are a lot more mysteries of the Earth than meets the eye; this age biological weapons and missiles and guns, and whatever else material they have invented to make tension eat up the last ounce of hope and left in the hearts of men; this city of 12-floor buildings and novelties and dot-com companies and buses and material-hungry thugs - something always comes for a price; this urgency over packing our bags and our life out of abortions and clones and divorce and massacres - they only show how overwhelmed we are with the world and the illusions they show to make it appear that all things have answers - but this infinity is just so great and vast and unfathomable that I only need silence in the middle of loneliness and the lack of real answers and the questioning of faith.

    I don't need this! This suicidal regard to teen magazines that makes me think I am inferior from the rest of mankind - they are only there to make me think that I lack something and need to change the way I look and feel; these advices, whether the cheap or the expert ones, that only make me feel so childish and worthless and a mistake - I should know my own indecisions and how I can make up for them; this discontentment over that I receive from people who care for me - nothing will ever be perfect in this world, I should never make demands; this age of bottled-up angst and Charlie Manson mindsets that only prove that we are all in the verge of losing our sanity; this self-righteous, but otherwise nonchalant and mouthy and petty, morality that we parade on the streets to make people think that we are so complete and grounded inside, instead of the rotten bag of selves we hide; these products and by-products of politics, and more politics, that only drive us to the direction of being good talkers and pseudo-expectants of a ghost society; these sidewalks and movie houses and darkened city corners that rob respect out of our youth and age as well - oh there are still so much to make me worry and anxious and too scared from these truths. There are no words or situations that could satisfy this monster upon our stairs - but I only need the sky, and the stars, and Christmas trees, and poetry in the middle of all these breaking hearts.

    I know the world is just too much to take and to understand and no wisdom or amount of patience will be able to lay down enough reasons to give us strength and guidance to surmount this roller coaster. But, then, there's simplicity, and purpose, and peace, and silence, and poetry and the fact that there is one Force that protects us form the urgency and the madness and the disenchantment of it all. I don't really need to stand out for the entire world to see, as long as I know that where I am is where I find contentment. I only need this - and nothing more.