I am currently reading Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore and as always I am transported to another world where reality is just a one possibility. Unintentionally, Murakami’s novels never fail to give me momentary escape from the noise and hustle of my own miniscule world. Is not that I am depressed or anything that’s why I need escape. In fact, I do not need one. Let’s just say that whenever I flip each page of his books, another part of me unfolds on my very own eyes; that seemingly insignificant things are beginning to have meaning and that I am able to comprehend life for the very first time. I am still half way through the book; still unable to do marathon reading since my lifestyle wont let me do it. Nonetheless, savouring every iota of his thoughts in such a languid fashion is still much more fulfilling and revealing.
As always, Mukami had given me another epiphany. This time, it’s rather morbid. One of the characters had mentioned that in a person’s life he/she does not have control on where he/she will be born, but he has control though on where he/she will die. Then it hit me, where do I actually want to die? Or maybe, let me question rephase the question. Should I die, where do I want my soul to go? Or given a chance to have my soul leave my living body temporarily, where do I want it to stay? I only have one answer in mind: in UP Diliman.
Indeed I have spent the most important four years of my life in UP Manila, and that my stay in UPM had made me the person that I am right now, and that UPM had been and will always be my home away from home. But I should say I left my soul in UP Diliman and I want it to become one of its denizens. Without a doubt my stay in UPD is rather brief, one academic year as of yet to be exact. I went there armed with a pragmatic design to establish my life. No more, definitely no less. Yet I got more than what I expected to receive from my stay there. Most of the epiphanies I had in my life had happened there. For one full year I was there all by myself. I have no friends around, I do not know any one, I have no idea what to expect. In other words, I was left to my own devices. For someone who had been very much dependent all her life to the people around her for almost everything, from choice of food for lunch to a choice of perspective, being alone is a breath of fresh air. Furthermore, I was in UPD during the time when my disposition is in disarray. I have no where to go and I have no option to go back from where I’ve been. I was lost in the void of uncertainty. But it was my choice to be alone to begin with and it was my choice to find life’s direction in an unfamiliar place. So I had and will never have regrets.
It was solitude, not loneliness. With this solitude, I found silence within. With this silence I found inner peace. With this inner peace, I found myself. Upon finding myself, I reckon I was able to see through my soul. For someone who is always so loud and quite used to live life in a hurry, my UPD experience had force me to slow down and contemplate. It made me look at life in a different perspective. Hence, Murakami made me realize that should I let my soul wander I will never let it stray away from the place that made it become more real and more complete. For in this place I will always be in eternal bliss.
pebi talking in gibberish again around 9:20 PM
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