"Before taking a dive, feel the water first.  It shouldn't be too hot enough to burn you yet warm enough to rouse you in."

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It's funny how the facilitators kept on repeating the word 'rest' as the very essence of a spiritual retreat while I was at the rear part of the room listening and yet preferring more the literal meaning of the word 'retreat' than the said essence.  True, retreat is a "rest" and the refuge in Caleruega, Nasugbu, Batangas is magnificently conducive to anyone who wants to liberate himself for a while from the rigors of a stressful life these days.  But one of the thesaurus meanings of the word which is to GO BACK hit me just harder.  Yes, if it means travelling back to the "caveman days" when muscular and almost naked cavemen were hunting boars using their huge clubs for their cavewomen then so be it.  No pun intended, really.  But practically, to go back is as simple as the word 'simple.'  To go back to a simple way of life that is.  Yes, those simple things that underline life's greatest.  Like listening to a person's life stories than listening through your iPOD earphones.  Like feeling the warmth of even a single pat on the back than the warmth produced through the vent of an overused computer.  And the sensation of burning eyes due to a weep brought by a whispered appreciation than due to tired eyes caused by too much burning of midnight oil.  There are many important things that were discussed by the retreat facilitators and the most 'striking' for me was the indifference of many people towards the other.  I've been somehow guilty of this and I strongly realized that I deserve to be persecuted by some of my classmates by a simple reason of NOT talking with them.  Most of my classmates gave me the blue one symbolically remarking that I'm a mysterious kind of guy whom they want to know well, only if they really mean it.  And that's collectively one tough evidence I could hardly rebut.  From that moment on, I started working on it and the work is in good progress.  The retreat I went to was my first and unhopefully the last.  I had attended numerous spiritual talks and they were no different from the recent retreat I attended for 3 days and 2 nights just three days back.  But the big difference is that my heart has grown fonder than anything else in my lifetime on those days I really had not just fun but also an adequate portion of what philosophers have tried to define so flowery called happiness.  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, from his book The Little Prince, says it so good that an essential thing is invisible to the eye and happiness is never an exception.

The nights were cold and at times I can't help to keep my body from rhythmical shivers.  Yet they were all compensated by the warm moments with someone the same way inevitable drama was compensated by laughter.  I did feel that the time during ONE moment when I was seeking for something essential froze for three hours to listen not just to the words coming out of my mouth but also to the thumps vibrating through my chest.  The moon was even full enough to flash a wide smile.  I can't even explain up to now why I am suddenly writing a style way beyond my range but all I can say is I'm now taking perhaps the most riskiest dive every man has to take.  And that is to plunge into someone's heart and though I'll crash face first, believe me, every single frame of the animated fall is the sincerest of my intention.

As I stepped out from my father's junk(which is by the way our car), I saw my classmate way back in 1st year high school who was formally dressed up in red, curious, I approached him at the waiting shed where he was shading himself from the rudeness of the sun while gazing at him perhaps aware of what my intention was.  No, I didn't give him a blow in the stomach.  I just asked him as a cloaked form of catching up an update why he was so dressed up damn respectably.  He answered, "I'm about to be interviewed."  So our conversation went the usual.  I then asked him where he's applying for a job and he said it's in Makati.  Well, good I should've remarked that   This good friend being a fresh graduate of a computer-related course was needless to say applying for a job which is computer-related.  As I was in the fx on my way to school, I again began to realize how time has really flown swift.  Parang kailan lang.  I whispered.

Just a month ago at the tricycle terminal, I met my girl friend(notice the space in between, she's a friend) and considering the long time we had never conversed, it was indeed a great relief for both our sakes.  And so I asked her the customary, "how have you been?"  I was about then to utter a profane word due to sheer enthusiasm but I had quickly seen she was accompanied by her father and so I behaved myself.  I proceeded to ask how she has been doing as a writer and she answered with a reserved grin that she's now the editor-in-chief of PNU's Torch.  Well, I soon reacted with amazement for that's definitely one hell of a feat.  Being a f*ckin' EIC for a University, come on, that is so good to be true!  Giving you a little trivia, somebody has yet to step up to break her record for being the person whom I chatted the LONGEST over the phone.

Both encounters simply knocked the sleeping daylights out of me and I soon became conscious about just how I've been living my life.  It seems to me that I've never been so contented with it.  I shared to my seatmate just yesterday this mild tirade by saying this: "Noong high school ako, gusto ko nang mag-College, pero ngayong College na 'ko, gusto ko nang mag-trabaho!"  I guess it's normal to dream but my impatience, I believe, is NOT!  I'm sort of pressured by both my good friend and lady friend, his quest for a job and her early accomplishment in life respectively.  Thing is, I'm just tired of studying the same way most of our house helpers got tired for being one!  But the only difference is I've got no choice.  Call me a revolting freak for simply having a thought of transcending while being f*ckin' stagnant on the same sickening ground and I'll give in.  Just when, o God, will I rise from this comfort zone?!  Believe me this time, I'm willing to take a risk I've never taken before.  Maybe not!

Even from the beginning, I won't talk unless somebody walks on me to flicker a casual conversation.  Which means to say, I've struggled to move a toe and thus to take a risk is a laughable matter.  In high school, there were many instances when I can make a difference but I simply rebuffed all of them with all my might.  I could have been a campus writer had I not declined the summer training just because I was foolishly exemplifying my "low-profile" self.  A typical RC, a NOBODY, has been purposely aligning himself as much as possible to the "lowly" to the unpopular despite being aware of the fact that he could have been so f*ckin' elite had he only chosen to become one.  But a typical RC also has included in the package to be so damn confined in a box suffering perhaps from childish nervousness because of the fear that he might break in on top due to the overwhelming pressure he has never experienced at the first place.  And up to now, I'm too broke to extinguish the accumulated toll.

Contentment, actually the main thing I've been driving at, is a whirlwind of sorts.  I've just read the blog(I've just stumbled upon) of my pretty batchmate in high school whom I was never close to and I can say she's one cream of the crop.  Her features in our school paper can prove that out!  I don't have an idea as to how many students she had influenced through her write-ups but definitely her phenomenal construction of words made them awesomely relaxing to read.  In her blog, she emphasized how "fortunate" she has been in life at large.  For one, she studies in Ateneo.  Yet she's a little confused as to what kind of life that could somehow trigger her to rise above from her already elevated base.  So I guess, contentment is a matter of perspective and we all have our "own."  A beggar, who has no food to eat, would badly wish for the dump truck to arrive for him to search for a rotten food best enough for a pig as well as best enough for him.  On the other hand, a middle-class chick would not call a day "complete" without a Yellow Cab on her plate.  And you just can't compare both instances!  Every standpoint, no matter how "high" it seems to many, is LOW!  Which has moved me to write that there's no such thing as contentment.  Human desires are just limitless at face.  

In my perspective, it seems to me that my present platform has been a little shaky and I've realized I was put to this sort of TEST and I need NOT to escape from it no matter how intense it will become.  I admit I'm a little agitated by the quake but still composed.  And that's what I'll do for the rest of my life.  Contentment would still exist if you don't give a damn about being shaken.  It's therefore a "fallacy" to stress out that contentment doesn't exist since everybody has experienced a "quake" at some point.  Besides, every quake is merciful enough to stop in time.

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Contentment is, after all, simply refined indolence - Thomas C. Haliburton