Back To Basic

This week was a return to basic, literally.

I am out of town for a week now and my laptop charger broke down so I've nothing better to do (I am thankful that I was able to get a replacement after 5 days). In addition, with just the local channels available on TV, I am left with no better choice but to pick up a piece of paper and a pen to write. I had to revive my lost love affair with writing as I knew it.

I really didn't miss writing. I think I have fallen out of love with the physical act of writing. For a while now, I never had to use a pen and a paper aside from the few times I had to sign a greeting card or have my signature in some documents, a few post it notes to remind me of a few things, and in exceptional circumstances when I had to give my number to some cute guy I meet in some places where no electronic device is available to save my number(i.e, E, O-bar ). Other than that, everything has been done electronically.

My love affair with the physical act of expressing my thoughts and emotions through an ink etched in a clean sheet has been atrophied from the sheer lack of use. Everything these days is done electronically. I write on my very handy laptop, and eventually modify and edit everything, until my thoughts and emotions reach their written form. Which brings me to a realization that the little innocuous technological innovations have totally changed my habits and views more than I can tell, and not just in superficial ways.

Come to think of it. Writing these days seem to be as simple as a work of magic. You essentially have the first draft that simply morphs into a final material through constant tweaking-- a little cut and paste to move one paragraph to another, insert or change the words to whatever you feel is appropriate, scrap a large part which you feel atrocious without the traceable paper trail of the evolution of your piece . In short, your first draft can be as good (or as bad) as your final. What we get it one big blur of revisions.

The same goes with how we live these days. I have to be honest that I have been consumed by the convenience of living a fast paced life, recognizing nothing but today and what today presents. It is of little to no importance how things came to be, but what matters is that things are what they are. I didn't care how my laundry goes from my hamper until it is picked up and all the process involved until it reach my closet ready to be worn. What matters is that I have nice clothes to wear  for a meeting or a night out.

My last conversation with J before I went out of town points to more or less the same lesson-- we only see what is presented to us, and what happens along the way is almost always, if not forgotten, taken for granted.

After finding out about my HIV status earlier this year, I have been mostly caught up with the idea of just going along. Nothing mattered to me more than the fact that I am HIV positive, and that I am limited to the label. I won't exaggerate though, like as if I have gone helpless and all. That will be mad! Just that all the decisions and outlook have mostly been influenced and brought by the recent fact that I am HIV positive now. Everything I knew seemed to have been of less to no significant. It has presented me with a final draft-- a half-baked prose.

As we enjoy an afternoon sun for a Sunday tapa treat in Greenbelt, I told J about my plans, and how I would like to live my life based from how I know my life now. I told him about how I see my life in the next few months, my immediate plans, my aspirations, but all in no more than five years. I didn't want to tell him how I see things after five years. I was afraid they are not going to happen. I was afraid that five years may come too fast and as much as I would like to still do things, I may prove to be already incapable.

I know the picture of HIV has alienated me from myself. I have gone myopic.

Looking back at the things I shared with J, it looks like something is wrong. I have only seen the revised writing of my life without the realization and the reminder how I got a picture of now.

I know I have tried to change and correct a few things to adopt to the current situation. For sure, I have made some bad choices before in the same way that I have had bad choice of words. I have scrapped and revised them as I found convenient. I have also tried to rearrange my life with a little cut and paste. In the same way that I have tried to revise my life based from what I know now, the whole (re)writing seem to have been nothing but one big blur of revisions.

I got into thinking that it is sometimes interesting to go back and see the scratched-out phrases with the red pen to correct my errors and go though the actual act of checking words after words for possible misspelling. The exercise may prove to be more tedious, but at the same time teaches us to become more honest and careful should we decide to rewrite. Honest as we can look back at our original idea and do not simply replace any equivalent no matter how conveniently shift+F7

The red marks of my previous experiences need to be more apparent as I (re)write my life this time. There are things I would like to revise, and the red marks hopefully guide me as they have guided me along the way.

The leanness of off-the-cuff writing of our lives may easily and conveniently be replaced by the soulless, bland pap of over processed writing, but it is always nice to try and go back to the basics.


**PS: This entry is drafted on my niece's 2nd grade paper, those with wide red and blue lines, and a Mongol 2 pencil.