Philosophy Club

There have been close to 100 realizations that have occurred over the past two months that have spontaneously sprung to life inside my mind during a wholly inappropriate moment (Math tests (especially Math tests), rides in the car, when I'm about to be late for homeroom, when i'm singing the national anthem, some crack my classmate makes, something i overhear some teachers saying, etc...

And all if them have gone down the drain because I have failed to jot them down or remember where I jotted them down, or completely forgotten what I meant to say when I jotted them down such that the notes make absolutely no sense to me.

So today, I headed over to the Chapel with Mr. Maraña and 5 H4 Xaverians in tow. We took one side of the chapel--the prayer group thing took the other side.

It was great. I realized could remember more ideas than I thought I could. There was that recent business of the Octopus (which I completely angsted about to a friend, mostly how I hadn't realized how much I missed riding rides until I had ridden one, and I missed that adrenaline). What began as a simple tradition (I ride the Octopus every year in the school fair) turned into a sweet obsession that I couldn't seem to get enough of (I ended up riding it thrice). When we entered the chapel, we all sat down and we began talking. Mr. Maraña first offered us some Pezz (double "z" right?), accompanied by a simple anecdote of his childhood, then mentioned how graduation was on everyone's minds (they were in H4). This one guy who was super pilyo suddenly pointed at me and jokingly laughed "I'm so sorry." then later, "HA HA!!!!"

Then we started talking and, as is characteristic of teenage boys, and really, just boys, we ended up talking about girls and sex.

Mr. Maraña had some suprising and rather uncommon statistics on these topics. Yes, that's right, statistics.

Later on, people began leaving and we tied up "culture of the states, as opposed to that of the Philippines' ". Turns out, all these H4 dudes were students of Mr. Maraña's, I think. Or at least mentorees. Or people who had known Mr. Maraña at least slightly well for more than a week (I've "known" him well for about... one day now.)

Oh, and we started a tad late (4:41 in my watch, which means it was somewhere around 4:38 pm) so we consequently ended pretty late (5:53 in my watch).

Still, swapping ideas with those H4 guys (who looked kind of shallow at first, but turned out ... well, I wouldn't say as deep as I had hoped, but definitely did not disappoint--especially this one person sitting beside me that looked kind of like a jock but was suprisingly insightful) was so relieving for me. It's like, that whole part of me that needed this ineffable depth to be aired was so fulfilled, I felt really light inside for the first time in ages. That's something that, as hard as it is for me to admit, none of my friends can really give me.

And why is that? It's like Mr. Maraña said--this kind of stuff is taboo in normal society. We do surface things--never penetrating that glossed over surface of limelight and Fool's Gold. We may talk about simple, everyday events with ease and gusto, but if anyone dares to venture further, people back off and the buzz is stamped out.

Having that hour of complete freedom and, although I didn't really do much but get warmed up with the depth aspect, just knowing that I had the option was so absolutely liberating, I felt really deep and really high at the same time. It was nothing like Canada. But I loved it all the same.

I had this intense urge to mention intellectual orgasms quite a few times, and several instances would have allowed me to whip it out and garner laughs, but I refrained, because, I suppose, there was that stigma. I buried that hunger for depth (another one of Mr. Maraña's ideologies) long ago, and it's going to take lots of coaxing and change in environment to dig through all those shallow layers.

Perhaps I can never be Kenn-deep, because he's a completely different league on his own, but I'm gonna try to be Allen-deep as much as I can. I'm done with people telling me how to be. It hurts a lot.

Anyhow, when we finished, we had a little more Pezz and we headed off. He asked me what I intended to do over the weekend, and then eventually got me rolling on the whole Canada thing.

This is what surprised me.

I said some things that I had only just realized when I said them. I said that after Canada, I didn't wanna be here, and that the only things keeping me alive were those little things in between the big uber-topics (like Religion, Politics, Work and School), like Sunrise, and Anger, and Fears, and Riding Rides. I surprised myself, really. He looked quite affected by that.

Then he asked me if I was "into art... at all". I asked if he meant "The Arts" such as literature, etc... and I mentioned that I wrote a lot.

Next week, we do a repeat.

I felt so good. So daaaaang good.

Audren was having a bad few days. It was unnerving seeing him so down, and uncommunicative.

I'm sorry, Audren. But remember, Jess has his reasons. Have faith.