Pages

Saturday, December 31, 2016

Those Little Shards of Light


"As you get older, the questions come down to about two or three. How long? And what do I do with the time I've got left?"
- David Bowie

Let's get to the point - 2016 will forever be marked as one of those years.

I mean, screw cognitive dissonance. I'd rather not write a list of my struggles down, but this year has brought a lot of loss, sadness and fear. And perhaps least important among my personal troubles, I've not written as much as I'd like.

Then again, I'd like to think that maybe 2016 was meant to teach us some important lesson that we'd forget a year or two down the line. That's humanity for you, but I digress. That lesson boils down to the inevitability of change - and how scary change is (in more ways that one might think).

Our family attended Christmas Mass last weekend as a whole - something that hasn't happened in years (if not a decade or so). I remember the priest's sermon, particularly because I disagreed with it as he spoke. He emphasized the importance of a positive outlook in life, and the fact that we should always try to find the blessing in everything that happens to us - especially the bad things.

I could try to explain why such an outlook is a dangerous fallacy, but over the past few days I've come to realize that the lesson he was trying to say may have gone over my head. I was angry and frustrated at so many things this year. Maybe I still am - knots take a bit of time to untangle, after all.

I guess the priest's point was that we're living in very dark times, and at some point we'd need to look for those tiny shards of light in the darkness to help us find our way in this life. It's way too easy to lose one's way in this world. It's easy to overlook the little things that help us survive another difficult day and give us just that tiny bit of strength to keep pushing forward until things become easier again.

Despite the crap, I guess there were also a ton of cool things that happened this year.

That fantastic backpacking trip throughout Cebu (and Dumaguete) last summer.

Two (!) trips to Baguio.

An eye-opening week in Hong Kong.

Finding a new way to bond and tell stories via D&D.

Learning (and mostly failing) how to surf in Zambales.

And the awesomest girlfriend anyone could hope for.

I could list a lot more to fill a small book, but I'm way behind on my blog posts to recall everything. However, I'm pretty sure there's still a lot to be thankful for. A lot of small pieces of light scattered in the darkness that helped us survive into 2017.

So yeah. Even if you were such a dick, 2016, I'd like to thank you. We're tougher than we look, because we're made from stardust and all that positive mumbo jumbo.

Happy New Year (in a few hours)!

Later!

2 comments:

  1. I haven't visited here in a while, and I guess we all write less and less nowadays.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Arlet. Yeah, life happens. I won't let this blog die though. :P

      Delete