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BY RHICK LARS VLADIMER ALBAY
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Saturday, December 31, 2017
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My Facebook essay writing contest entry
IT’S New Year’s Eve! And you know what that means?
It’s the annual Facebook essay writing contest. It’s when millennials spill their guts and are weirdly compelled to shed a few filters off their Instagram-friendly façades to muse about how the year may have or have not changed their lives — on social media, of course.
Strap yourselves in and brace for an FB wall flooded with Camera360 mosaics, overrun by cliché quotes plucked from the shallow depths of the internet and the slight possibility of pseudo-heart-wrenching revelations. Happy New Year!
‘EVERYTHING IS A CYCLE’
It’s kind of surreal: the feeling of being genuinely happy after a year that has been virally labeled “the worst” and may have been the most heartbreaking for some of your peers.
What with prejudice, hate and division taking over not just the Philippines’ but most of the world’s politics; the string of legends passing away (Carrie Fisher, our warrior-princess, drowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra); and the struggles of being a young adult (underemployment, corporate struggles, academic failings, and not yet graduating *cough, cough*) — 2016 will surely go down as “one the worst years in recent history” or maybe until 2017 proves everyone wrong and comes out worse.
From my teenage years and onward, my unspoken mantra is “everything is a cycle.” I love how this short phrase could connote so much — from mortality and karma to the esoteric magic of circles (Google it, hahaha). Its manifestations are everywhere.
Then I start seeing the cracks in my hack personal philosophy. I abhor routine, I continuously fall back on bad habits, I hate that I’m making the same mistakes over and over. I’m bound to my tiny little circle, and I feel suffocated.
In 2016, I’m thankful I gradually learned to break through this bubble of mine and get past it: I became more open to new friends, tried new things, embraced diverse beliefs — “and that has made all the difference.” (Yes, I found a way to slip in Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” probably the most overused and misunderstood poem.)
This year I also discovered that I’m not cut out for the “normal” our society and education has instilled in us — go to school, get a job, become a new-age slave, step on other people to get ahead on the corporate ladder. I’ve seen how the prospect of this rattles and bewilders many people.
I think I can express it best through a quote from one of the books I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading and rereading this year, “NW” by the English iconoclast Zadie Smith:
“Not everyone wants this conventional little life you’re rowing your boat toward. I like my river of fire. And when it’s time for me to go, I fully intend to roll off my one-person dinghy into the flames and be consumed. I’m not afraid.”
Come in a blaze of glory, 2017. I’m not afraid./PN
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