Happiness Is A Debt You Owe To Yourself

Stop. You are not what you think you are. You are a cliche dressed in yesterday's clothes. You are not original. Just a copy of a copy that came a tad too late.

This. This is not your world. You try too hard in a place where you don't belong, and you expect to come out on top. Such a foolish thought! A fish out of water is what you are—running a race on wet fins and failing gills. In the end, you will only reek of the stench of frustration and disappointment.

Now. All things will fall apart. All will be lost if you don't decide to move now. You will tire of keeping up, and people will see you for what you truly are. This charade that you put up will slowly crack and crumble, leaving you with a pile of worthless rubble.

Take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Where are you headed, really? Do not be caged in other people's expectations. There is no greater woe than to be stuck in a mold you can't fill.

The Best Kind

Watching a pixie-haired Dakota Fanning slowly die of leukemia in Now Is Good, I realized how I'm inclined to like books and movies that feature hopeless romances, dysfunctional lovers, and death. For some weird reason, I find beauty in pain and lacrimation. I've watched Celine and Jesse spend a perfect day together, knowing they will have to part in the end. I've read about A and Rhiannon's painfully unconventional love story that does not end as planned. And to be perfectly honest, the only books by John Green that I've truly enjoyed are the ones where one of the protagonists die. I don't know what to make of this realization, but I bet there's more to it than just my sick obsession for emotional turmoil.

After giving it some thought, I've come to conclude that my affinity for their unfortunate circumstance might be due to the fact that they feel more "real" than others. As Augustus Waters would put it, life is not a wish-granting factory. In real life, nobody has it easy, and everyone ends up dead. This explains why even as much as I love fairy tales, I find some books and movies with happy endings to be off-putting. When the pretty white girl conveniently gets her way and lives happily ever after with the unbelievably hot guy, I find myself rolling my eyes. I prefer watching a perfect match not end up with each other, or a clever young girl fall for an emotionally disturbed fella. Something about their hopelessness is just so beautiful. I don't know what that says about me, but I do think that the best stories are the ones that hurt. The ones that cause you pain because you know there was something so beautiful that didn't last—not because they didn't want to, but because it just wasn't meant to.

“My dear," Rose said, "you might be surprised at how much happiness you can find in the pages of the shortest love stories."

- Before Ever After, Samantha Sotto

Graceless Heart

I am a box filled with Lego pieces. Outside I keep it clean, but inside I’m a mess – a mumbo jumbo of colourful pieces waiting to find order. To try and understand me would be futile, as all there is inside me is chaos. I am filled with emotions old and new, and I know not what to make of it. Is this what it feels like to be alive? If so, then why do I feel so dead? Ah, questions. It always ends with questions.

Thoughts on Pocket Photography

Much to my chagrin, I am no photographer. It is an art that I have not mastered, though I do try my hand at it once in a while. I am simply someone who is starving to make good art, and so I explore every field that I can until I do. Thanks to mobile photography (or pocket photography as others would call it), I get to practice taking good photos at my own convenience and not feel too pretentious. It gives me my quick fix of art during times when even doodling seems impossible. For a quick moment, it allows me to pretend that I could be a good photographer. Haha! So if you see me busy with my phone, chances are I'm on Instagram checking out and/or taking photos.

Oh, The Places You'll Go

A concept that I need to get a grasp of. As much as I want to be with my friends in everything, as much as I want to grow alongside them, life is a challenge I need to face on my own. I can’t rely too much on the comfort of having something familiar with me all the time because the world is a world of change and surprises. If I can’t deal with that, I’d lose the game even before I could start playing.