I wake up and my brain seems to continue dreaming, it spawns  many alternate realities, different images, impossible scenarios that already happened and could not be altered. It is said that this mental processing is normal for humans, it is a safety mechanism. It helps humans  imagine all options as to how they react against all threats and dangers. But overthinking can lead to paranoia and anxiety. It is a waste of time. And it has triggers in my case. A quick check of social media, FB most especially,  gives my brain thoughts to ponder. One image can reproduce thousands of images. And imagining these images  is something I hate to go through.

This is perhaps the reason why I love meditation. It is one act that redirects my thoughts towards a more productive outcome. It makes my mind stop meandering and I feel more fulfilled and joyful in the end.

Meditation is my clearest solution to my monkey brain that jumps from tree to tree.  It pulls me back to the ‘Now’ of life. What is happening right now?  I am sitting in my chair drinking coffee while  tapping on this keyboard and reflecting on life that I hope is rooted in reality, or whatever the reality we define is. For all I know this reality is nothing but smoke and mirrors, an illusion conceived by God. It doesn’t matter. Even the waste of time I try to avoid may not hold any value because based on physics, time does not exist in other realms of the Cosmos. Maybe the waste-of-time that  I fear is nothing but an illusion. The sages of the world, and some philosophers make it clear to me that instead of fearing time, I must enjoy it. To enjoy it means doing whatever comes to mind so long as it makes me happy.

What makes me happy? It is the day to day learning and clarity of thought. I enjoy fantasy but it should be coherent just like the worlds created by Tolkien or Anne Rice or Robert Jordan. The alternate reality they offer is one that is enjoyable. My alternate reality, however, is a result  of a distracted and chaotic  mind that  can never match the leaps and bounds of The Lord of the Rings, or the Vampire Series of Rice or the 14 or so volumes of Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. The writers of these books( who are all dead, sadly) are a few of the geniuses of the world, I am nothing but a frog compared to them, an amphibian croaking in the middle of the night while they are singing the aria of Ave Maria.

Ha – that is a weird metaphor. 

I don’t lose hope. Life thrives on hope. My hope is to be blessed with more years and some strength commensurate with my plans of travel for the remaining years of my life. I want my legs to take a hike in Mexico City or sit in a cafe on the roadside of Barcelona. Ambulate on the cobblestone roads of ancient Rome. Or sit by the side of the Mediterranean meditating on the ideas of Plato and Aristotle. I hope to enjoy the nightlife of Thailand and the shopping malls of Singapore. I want to be cultured by the culture of Japan. I want to visit the countryside of England and through imagination, recreate life to the scenes of old English lit classics I read as a young man. I want to wander the streets of Paris and walk on the garden conceived by Monet. So many dreams and hopes.  The thing I fear the most is what happened to the butler in the novel ‘Remains of the Day’ by Ishiguro. To confine oneself in the safety net of your job without venturing into the world outside and deciding to venture out only  when it is too late,  will make my life very sad and disappointed. It means either that there is nothing left now towards the end of my life or I am  taking stock of the corpse of my dead life. 

So I remember the two runners who were running at the Luneta as night descended in Manila. I know where they headed. I took the same route a thousand times before as a college kid. After Rizal Park, I would circle the Quirino Grandstand, take a detour to the right,  passing by the Army Navy club. I believe there is a Children’s Museum along the way  as I run parallel to Roxas Boulevard, then on my right is the American Embassy. After the embassy, beauty. 

The beauty I saw in Manila Bay in my youth  is totally different from the beauty I see today. Both beauties are equal although the one I remember was more natural. Today’s is quite man made, designed by urban planners and maybe landscapers. The beauty I see today is awe-inspiring, driven by the new highrises taking shape with matching lights ascending to the sky while my feet are taking leisurely steps on the imported-from-Italy dolomite sand. It is nice but at my age, nothing beats Nature in beauty. My timing for this visit to Manila Bay is quite unfortunate. There is endless repair and construction along the bay, something unheard of during my old days. I imagined myself coming back to the old Manila Bay that I remember but what welcomed me was a fenced-off-limits bay due to its massive reconstruction. And whatever view I imagined while away is now hidden behind tarpaulins and temporary tents/camps for laborers. There is a clear indication of big money operating here, profit is the more appropriate word. And given the level of  corruption in this country, I can see how this is degrading what used to be a natural beauty.  The spot where I used to sit in my old days, a spot I chose because ordinary folk congregated there, is now occupied by Oceanview with hotels and paid parking spots. They took the spot I loved and privatized it and started charging  a hefty entrance fee to visit. As if what God had gifted to all  Filipinos is now privately owned by some little moneyed god.  I entered the Oceanview and proceeded to the approximate spot where I used to sit and meditate. To get to it took me to ride  an escalator up to the second floor, then I passed through glass paneled doors and then stood alone and stared at the bay in an open balcony of sorts. Gone are the coconut trees and the assorted people who gathered to chat or even debate during my old days when we gathered in this same area and talked. A lot. I remember the last debate I listened to between two college kids from the  nearby universities. They argued for and against the closure of American bases in the country. One said we must get rid of the bases because, should there be a war between China and the US, we would get caught in the middle of  crossfires; as if we will be protected by mere non-involvement; as if the weapons of mass destruction will be carefully calibrated so they could fly over the Philippine skies because we are such a special people that they will skip and avoid us. Well, the bases disappeared and we all know what happened next. One of the superpowers  took advantage of our perceived weakness. 

Oh I am now too old to even contemplate geopolitics and whatever schemes superpowers have in their agenda. The only sad thing is, the Filipinos I used to enjoy listening to are gone now. There is this little mini-Disney World that took over and I am left standing on its second floor in an unknown eatery watching the bay all by myself. I could still do this because I could afford it. I cannot imagine myself the same opportunity as a twenty year old  because there won’t be money in my pocket. And there are little scattered structures now that are standing between the bay and Roxas Boulevard. The ideal concept of me driving by the bay with open windows to let the wind blow on my face, is totally lost. They turned the bay into a business conglomerate, reclaiming and putting artificial islets, ignoring the fact that there are lots of potential places in the Philippines that could offer the same opportunities, but no, they’d rather expand the bay  shore with artificial islets. It would probably have been much better if those little reclamation areas were designed as barrier reefs, planted with mangroves and other vegetation that could reduce flooding. Especially in a city that is considered the most vulnerable to climate change in the world.  But what money can be made out of that? Who cares about being submerged if the rich have a highrise to reside in? The corrupt money-makers don’t give a damn. Let the poor bear the brunt, let them even die. 

Sadly, this is the same struggle I dealt with while living as a young man in this city. Worse, the generation that does this wanton wealth building through corruption belongs to my generation now. I am a part of the generation that will be condemned by the children of the children of the children of our children when, in the future,  the city is eradicated from the map after getting  submerged out of greed and  apathy of its citizens to the environment. Because we didn’t give a damn so long as we added more zeros to the number of our assets. The enemy is the same, and we are him now, an evil wearing a different clothing,  obsessing about accumulation of wealth as a sign of blessings from the same God who fumes over the suffering of the poor due to what these ‘blessed’ rich created.

But I won’t get myself started over this now. I simply honor Manila Bay as my only respite in my impoverished youth. This was the place where I meditated, prayed, asked God for guidance and even confessed my  sins. It was the only venue for me. It was my altar, my oasis, my rescue place. I thought it was my gift from God. The evil made other plans for it now. So I will search for another place where God still reigns.  But I am sure of this:  once God’s eyes see what the devil has done, he will level it back to bring it to where it must be.

Thankfully,  I wrote stories about Manila Bay in the darkest hours of the country. I have stories stored both in my heart and Google drive. I feel alright if I won’t see the same old Manila Bay anymore  as long as my past experience there was recorded. I have published these stories somewhere on the Internet but they seem to be more for my reading alone. I don’t delude myself with readership. I even think that I am perhaps my sole audience, so there is a likelihood I am the only one who reads me. But then, there is God who is the most important reader of all. I want to get back to the now,  old stories as my way of remembering my personal past. And of course my stories are fiction, they aren’t real but I want to think they reflected the reality of the old time —