No Hay Maestro Como Carne Propia

To refer back to "World Peace", I feel a sense of obligation to report to my online self and ‘imaginary owjens’ that I got the job. Many thanks all around. Naks, acceptance speech.

It’s been such an overwhelming two weeks having to suddenly relocate to Makati and just reset my body clock all over again to follow a more conventional routine. But more than that, after all the congratulatory text messages are inevitably erased, (fade in The Exorcist Theme)… reality rears its ugly head… (you just gotta love that phrase).

Don’t get me wrong, it’s as close to a dream job I’ve gotten, but minor setbacks just can’t be helped. The biggest challenge really is having such a sudden change in the people I work and interact with. It’s such a classic Carl defense mech to mute my personality as my way of being polite to a new crowd. I guess it’s really out of fear that I might come on too strong or that I rub people the wrong way on my first few days. And of course, nothing beats my "Blue Steel" of a poker face. Ah yes, it has pulled me through a lot and has driven away many a casual acquiantance. I am the absolute Master of Deadma, yes siree.

But lest I be accused of unadaptability or rigidity, I know I’ll make a helluva trainer (and colleague) soon enough. (Duts da espirit Carl) All I need is time to warm up my engine.  I’m really glad I’ll be handling a class on my own soon. That’ll definitely break my inner ice. Because I know that as soon as you give me  a podium or a platform or just a random group of people to look at me ("look at me! look at me!") my inner Billy Joe Crawford circa 1990 will just start marching around in knee high socks.

As usual it’s really just myself scaring myself that I’ll screw up such a good thing.

Of course, I don’t call myself the Impossible Carl for nothing.

just as wooden statues

of Lost Saints

in  old churches of Stuporous Stone

invoke Wars in absentia

so do You haunt me

And even as litanies of present joys

drown your distant Words

I still pray to my Gods

that I haunt you too

There’s this scene in "Troy" where Brad Pitt is on this ship about to attack the city and he says to his men something like " Immortality is on those shores. Take it. It’s yours!"

While my current state isn’t even 4% as dramatic and has absolutely nothing to do with immortality or even sweaty Greek warriors, I do feel like I’m in that same extended moment of anticipation right before something really huge happens. That moment where your nostrils start to flare up and your blood rushes to every single vein and vessel in your body and you’re suddenly aware of every single hair on your skin. (And no I’m NOT high)

Thanks to the resident good spirit of my workplace, Rome (It’s all your fault!), I finally took that chance to become a full-fledged trainer. In the relatively short but considerably challenging time I’ve spent with my current company, there hasn’t been a day that has gone by without me pining to get to this position. Sabi ko pa, “Just give me an interview and I’ll nail it.”. And with the same bravado as Achilles did on that ship, I feel in my heart that I did nail it. Hehe. At this point, I’ve really done everything I can on my part, and the time has come for ‘The Wait’. It just really sucks to be me at this point because of the fact that I’m so cerebral and paranoid like no other. Although I generally feel like I did well, this is the time when I go back to the tiniest of details and uncontrollably try to interpret it in as many ways as possible. Should I have said something more profound at that point? Was my answer too simple? Was it too wordy? Did I seem confident enough? Was I overconfident?

The worst thing really is the contemplation of failure. Shet talaga. I keep on imagining how I would feel and what I would do if I had to go back to the office and do that first walk of shame in case I don’t get it. Somehow because I’m relatively new and happen to know a lot of people at work, my application has become a spectator sport of some sort. In as much as getting it would just be beyond great, not getting would be just, Ouch. And to think the ‘impossible Carl’ has an elitist snob at the back of his mind always telling him he’s too good for most people. Ha!

Okay, I’m starting to obsess just a tad too much. I guess it’s time for me to pipe down and console myself with a Miss Universe inspirational speech- the kind that says whatever happens, what matters is that you tried and that the effort in itself makes you a better person.

Right. That and World Peace.

Even as our minds create logic and try to reorganize the world in neat little workable categories, the human mind itself is of the world, and as such, is itself as much a place of paradox as it is of reason.

To put that in Dr. Phil terms, take myself for example. One of the things about me is that in as much as I can be such a hopelessly insecure wimp, I also have moments wherein I feel like I’m surrrounded by idiots. (fine, not moments. more like a general tendency. hehe) Now, while it is entirely possible, and probable even ,that my circumstances are such that I do mingle with the less ‘fortunate’ (or less burdened?) it just disturbs me to think that I can be one of ‘em I’m-so-much-better-than-you-so-you-should-all-die people. Part of the reason I can be like that is probably because I feel like I expect such great things of myself, so in turn it irritates me when other people don’t measure up to that or don’t expect as much from themselves. That being said, it doesn’t seem so paradoxical after all. My quasi-superiority complex is probably a defense mech for my aforementioned insecurity.

But like I mentioned to my friend Rome during a drinking binge/oppurtunity for catharsis, such a "condition" can actually be a good thing in that you can actually be the bigger man in most situations and just use whatever you have to understand, and more importantly be of help to, others.

One of the cases in point: I recently got a semi-promotion at work. I’ve been downplaying it so much because it doesn’t really give me a raise, just a title and additional responsibilities to coach newbies. And I feel like even with it, I’m still unacceptably underemployed, so much so that I fail to appreciate that fact that it STILL IS a promotion and that it gives me the oppurtunity to teach and help.

I know a little ambition can’t hurt, but it just gets tiring to always be so hungry for more. The superego strikes again.

I read in the paper last week that a majority of Filipino college graduates wait an average of 18 months from graduation just to get hired.

And that got me thinking. I’m on my 14th month from graduation, and what do I have to show for it?

A decent paycheck that passes for ‘large’ by economically repressive Philippine standards, and a job that allows me to be blissfully bored and oblivious after the shift ends.

Granted, this is more than what most fresh grads (I still am ‘fresh’, technically. right? ) can expect in this country. And at 21, I’m probabaly too young to stress myself over my sense of self-definition in terms of really knowing who I am and what I really want to do with my life.

But the fact that my circumstances allow and even encourage such ambiguity worries me, because if at the end of the day, we are content with the thought that the ‘real’ bottom line is how much we’re earning and whether or not we can at least stomach the things we have to do for it, then the difference between 21 and 61, is just alot of 15th’s and 30th’s strung together.

My point is, although I should probably give myself slack for not being the Nobel Peace Prize winner that I feel like I ought to be, the search for Self is not solely for the senior citizen. And to abuse a current cliche, I actually liked it when Audrey Tautou in ‘The Da Vinci Code’ said that we are what we protect, what we stand up for.

And that makes me feel better because I at least have things I believe in and that I am willing to stand up for. And that’ll make for some pretty interesting blogs.

It’s frustrating to read other people’s blogs and realize: shit, I probably have the most boring blog there is. And the thing is, I’m not bored with my blog per se it’s just that, as usual, I tend to speak to myself when I write, sort of making drafts of my thoughts, to try and put them in perspective and ultimately to check my own paradigms. If that’s not bad enough, I say it in verse- for lack of faith in the literal to capture the whole spectrum of meanings that come with the Metaphor.

(bored yet? hehe)

I don’t know. Maybe I just have an urge to "sell out" like all of ‘em other blogs that say such "witty" things that make other "witty" people go visit again and again.

Then again, writing only for oneself is only good in that it prepares one to better communicate with others by refining the thoughts one wants to articulate. Talk about "toothless wit and speech". haha.

Alas, such is the dilemma of the autistic philosopher. (fine, i know it’s such an assuming label, but hey, I do have a diploma to back it up).

Maybe now I can start trusting my (literal) words and my hypothetical owjens.

take my limbs

from taught muscles

to twitching digits

and make them your Own

across moist pink plains

riddled with bloody roots

each slice and and stitch

is arousal and titillation

to your blunt sophistication

and as the Revolution struggles to rage

from upholstered slumber

of toothless wit and speech

You are Silent Strong and Still

Pied Piper

And for every Special Offer

each rebel Rodent

is Mam/Sir

valued Customer

from second to slow second

of sudden

suspicious Silence

You own Me

and then

i remember

how You became you

After lofty Languages lost their meaning

and arcane Films got lost

in themselves