Rational Insanity
By Bryan Mari Argos

The fine art of moving on

I clean my room thoroughly every week. There's not much to clean really because my room is packed with stuff. I have a single bed in the middle surrounded with a huge writing desk and a dresser to my right, a bookshelf at the foot portion, and a huge closet to my left. This leaves me with a u-shaped walking area that leads from my dresser to my door. Although I clean my room ever so often or when I need to, I have this one time every year when I “throw away things”. This time of year is usually during the Monday of Holy Week. I consider this my annual personal recollection. What I do is I sit on my bed, open up all the drawers, the closet, the file boxes, and piles of books or magazines and carefully go through each one of them and pick out which and which should not be thrown out.

This is my “pamalandong” or my time of solemn recollection when I look back to the year that was through the things I have accumulated in my room. I would go through each letter, bill, note, and piece of paper and think about the memories attached to these little things. My basis for throwing things out is not whether the memory attached to the item is sad or happy. I keep it whether it's sad or happy as long as it serves to remind me of something I have done or achieved that I consider worthwhile or if it reminds me of something that I still plan to do – just so I won't forget to do it when it finally comes around again. In other words, I keep what I believe I NEED and throw away things that I don't need anymore, whether in spirit, emotion, or in action. You might ask me why I sometimes end up throwing away things that remind me of happy times in my life, like the empty bottle of perfume that brings back fond memories of my rowdy days, or the small pieces of memorabilia me and my friends would usually spirit out of bars we have been to in the past. You see, sometimes, we cannot move on if we hold on to a memory, whether it is good or bad. We tend to dwell on that memory and hope that we could repeat it in our lifetime. This is not the person that I am. I need to throw away things that remind me of happy times as well because I want to make more new happy memories. I don't want to keep on repeating something just because I was happy doing it. I want to do something else and find out for myself if what I did made me happy or not.

In contrast, I sometimes keep things that remind me of sad things. Marz, a friend of mine once explained to me why he wanted to sing or listen to the songs he had shared with special people in his past over and over again. It's not really a masochistic sort of explanation; it's just that it's a bit difficult to do – considering the pain and memory overload you will have to go through every time you hear that particular song. Well, Marz said that the reason for his wanting to hear these special songs again and again is so that they would become so common to him that time will come, they wouldn't mean anything anymore. This is also the same reason why I keep some of the things that bring back painful memories. I even display these things prominently sometimes so that when I get used to seeing them all the time, their significance will inevitably fade away save for the important reminder that I should avoid such mistakes in the future.

If you walk into my room, you will see many things. Not all the things that I display prominently represent sad memories and you wouldn't know which represents such. I also have happy things displayed because I want to make sure that the moment I walk out of my room every day, I have a subtle smile on my lips – a smile I can share to all the people I meet – the secret of eternal youth.

When I am done sifting through all my things I would have about two black trash bags full of stuff ready for the trash can. This contains from small bits of paper to huge, empty canisters of food or biscuits. Imagine if I were to carry this much baggage on a plane trip? This would be ridiculously easy because I could pack them wisely (which I do very well) and be on my way, but imagine this much emotional baggage I would have to carry in my heart. This now is so much different from just the physical baggage. What I throw out represents a whole year of unnecessary baggage – bad memories, good memories, fun memories, painful memories – all doomed because I believe they will be of no use to me anymore as I move on to the next stage of my life. Whatever is left inside my room are things that are still necessary - bad memories, good memories, fun memories, painful memories – all kept within the confines of my sanctuary, being my sources of strength, a little nostalgia, and sound judgment for things that I will have to face again for the year ahead. The critical aspect of this exercise is the possession of the wisdom necessary to know the difference between the things that you need and you don't need. My secret – hold on to the inner child in you, listen to its voice, it is, most usually, right.

Be rational; be insane, every once in a while! TTFN! Have a Holy, Holy Week!

Hello to my dearest readers, Chan, Vic, Vincent, and Rex, Alex, Arvin, Corz, Jim, Kiara, Malikh, Mr. Pampolina, Audrae, Franz, Hendrick, Janice, Jay, Jim, Jonathan, Mark, Marz, Mel, Pres, Nhonoy, Niel, Piper, Rheavil, Joey, Alma, Rodolfo, Ecker, Ryan. Hello also to a new addition to our RI Barkada, to Miss Dieter of Lapaz (sorry you didn't tell me your name, hehe) to Ian of Bacolod but who is in Iloilo right now, to Narle, Sunny and to Anuj of CMC, I love you all! Byers! Salamat gid sa mga walang-hintong text and reactions nyo! Now you won't have any reason to miss Rational Insanity because TNT is online, check us out at www.thenewstoday.info, text me at (0920)9254269, or email me at prague@eudoramail.com.