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A Little Letter A Minute After Three

Hello, what is Meta Professional mode? I just intend to keep the followers and friends from the past to be updated with whatever’s happening with me. Suddenly, tadah! There are offers for ads and “subscribe to Meta Verified”.

How is me, you wonder? Heto, pagod.

In the wee hours of morn, I am eating my leftover ramen while trying my best to finish the books I am currently reading (for Pinoy Reads Pinoy Books and Nakita sa Booksale pero Hindi Binili). I wasn’t able to write creatively at the moment since my mind is vexed from frustrations of the Corporate, topped with difficult Market movements of Late-stage capitalism and looming anxiety of 5 days onsite expected later this year.

I miss my amigas. We only touch-base in our group chats. I miss the PRPB after-parties and/or walwal nights. And I miss the moments when I can just grab my bag and hike Benguet mountain ranges, or go to Palawan to feel the sea breeze. I may live in a “ivory tower” away from the floods, but I am not invincible not to feel lonely (or be out of touch with reality. yet. I guess?)

You can actually see my bogsa moments in my instagram stories, my older entries in my personal website. Tiktok contents are stale. Maybe I can put a video out sometime this weekend.

I hope you are okay, dear friend. I may be TTTHHHHIIIISSSS tired, but I make a point to set a time to destress. I hope you do, too. Take care of your health. With leptospirosis and coughs and colds around us, I hope you get yourself some vitamins. Don’t forget to drink water. And never forget to rest.

Because when we rest, we dream. And the further we dream, we envision.

And then, we rage against the machine.

“Bawat Kislap ng Mata Mo ay Ano?”

Lo-fi Aesthetics, Lyrical Obscurity, and the Construction of Meaning in Contemporary OPM

The fluorescent lights of a specific supermarket in Estancia Estates buzzed, casting a sterile glow over the meticulously arranged aisles. It was a Sunday afternoon, the air thick with multiple aisles of household needs — meat and vegetables, to kitchen cleaning items, up to the beauty section in the middle of the toiletries and toilettes. I was there, ostensibly for groceries, targeting a PHP 1,500 spending, but to make my chore a bit interesting, I tuned to the melancholic melodies of Dionela, a new discovery, his music streaming from my phone, a small island of calm amidst the consumerist chaos.

“Marilag” played, the familiar intro washing over me. But this time, something was different. I noticed the faint echo of an FM radio broadcast in the distance, a disembodied voice announcing the date: “September 20, 2005.” This unexpected intrusion, this ghost of a past broadcast, piqued my curiosity. Why this date? Was it a deliberate inclusion, a hidden message, or simply a sonic artifact, a byproduct of the lo-fi aesthetic that permeated his music? This seemingly insignificant detail, however, foreshadowed the disorienting experience that would soon unfold as I delved deeper into Dionela’s discography.

Dionela’s music, with its hazy textures and melancholic undertones, had quickly become the soundtrack to my life. It was the perfect accompaniment to my grocery shopping, the background music for my sacks of rice, the sonic balm for my anxieties with processed chicken and beef. Yet, as I delved deeper into his discography, a nagging unease began to surface.

The lyrics, while undeniably poetic, often felt… elusive. Lines like “D’Amalfi in a bar” and “Au in a Goose” floated by, intriguing yet ultimately meaningless. They were like cryptic messages in a bottle, beautiful in their obscurity, yet ultimately unsolvable. Was this intentional? Was Dionela deliberately aiming for ambiguity, inviting listeners to project their own interpretations onto his enigmatic verses?

This question, I realized, was the crux of my dilemma. Dionela’s music, with its emphasis on atmosphere and sonic texture, seemed to prioritize ambiance over narrative. The lo-fi aesthetic, with its intentional imperfections and grainy textures, created a sense of intimacy, a shared secret between the artist and the listener.

However, this emphasis on the sonic experience can sometimes overshadow the lyrical content. At its core, lo-fi is about finding beauty in the imperfect and unrefined. It is a counterpoint to the hyper-commercialized, overly produced content flooding mainstream media. Instead of striving for perfection, lo-fi embraces the raw, the unfinished, and the nostalgic.This emphasis on authenticity, on the imperfections of analog recording and the embrace of sonic imperfections, creates a sense of intimacy and authenticity. It invites the listener to “get closer,” to appreciate the nuances and subtleties of the sound.

While the lo-fi aesthetic champions the beauty of the imperfect, it should not come at the expense of the authenticity of the lyrical message. Furthermore, the listening experience was disjointed by my own tendency to mishear lyrics. I vividly remember mishearing the line “Ibigin ka’y drama sa teatrong upua’y limitado, Bawat kislap ng mata’y kawalan, oo” as “Ibigin kita’y drama sa upuang ginawa mo, bawat kislap ng mata mo ay ano?” This mishearing, while seemingly minor, significantly altered the meaning of the song for me, highlighting the importance of clear and concise lyricism in conveying the intended message.

In Dionela’s “Sining,” the phrases like “Pinasala’y ikinamada / mo Binibining may Salamangka” felt incongruous with the otherwise smooth flow of the music, as if a disaster should be manually organized by fictitious persona. The juxtaposition of the archaic ‘ikinamada’ with the modern, almost casual phrasing of ‘Binibining may Salamangka’ creates a sense of dissonance, undermining the intended emotional impact of the song. This disjointedness, further exacerbated by the occasional miss of the musical beat, hinders the listener’s ability to fully connect with the lyrical message. Moreover, the phrase “You’ve turned my limbics into a bouquet” felt not only grammatically and medically impossible (limbic system is a singular noun that controls (1) Behavior, (2) Emotion, (3) Motivations, and (4) Memory), but also metaphorically jarring, its attempt at poetic flourish coming across as pretentious and ultimately distracting.

This elusiveness, while perhaps intentional, can be frustrating for listeners. In a world saturated with information and instant gratification, the demand for immediate comprehension and clear meaning is strong. Dionela’s music, with its emphasis on ambiguity and the subjective interpretation, can challenge this expectation, potentially alienating listeners who crave a more direct and accessible form of communication. “Oksihina,” in particular, became a personal pet peeve. Aside from gender-bending the Tagalog word for the Oxygen, the song title has been stylized in a Filipino slang that can be mistaken as a Japanese loan word. In my mind I asked, “If the muse is Oksihina, then what is the persona – a Carbon Dioxide?” The lyrics, we felt, were fragments of thought, poetic musings that lacked a cohesive narrative. They were beautiful, yes, but ultimately frustrating in their ambiguity. Also, the deliberate insertion of the bridge to mask it as a hidden message is only a reversed typeset of the first stanza from his lesser famous song “Musika”. It may be amusing to the other listeners (and can highly be mistaken as a regional language), but what is the intent of inserting a totally different concept and not even a tangent with the muse being the reason of existing? Am I missing the point? Am I too caught up in the search for meaning, for a clear and concise narrative, to appreciate the beauty of the ambiguity?

Perhaps this was the point. Maybe Dionela was not concerned in telling stories in as much as he was interested in creating moods, in evoking emotions. Maybe the music was not about conveying a specific message; it was about creating an atmosphere, an emotional landscape for the listener to explore. The “meaning” was not in the lyrics themselves, but in the quirks between the notes, in the way the music interacted with the listener’s own internal world. These lyrical oddities, while perhaps intentional, served to disrupt the flow of the music and hindered my emotional connection with the song. It felt as if Dionela was more concerned with impressing the listener with his gimmicky vocabulary and hipstery-malalim-na-tagalog allusions than with conveying a genuine, authentic message. These seemingly random and often obscure references served only to distract and frustrate. They felt like buzzwords, designed to impress rather than to communicate. I found myself constantly searching for hidden meanings, trying to decipher the cryptic messages, but ultimately feeling more lost than enlightened.

Dionela’s linguistic gymnastics, reminiscent of Facebook and TikTok influencers using deep words and non-vernacular vocabulary to seemingly uplift the authenticity of the work, ultimately backfired. The artificial mix of old Filipino words with a totally new slang, coupled with the misalignment of lyrics with the musical beat, created a sense of dissonance that disrupted the intended emotional impact. This “brain rot pattern,” as I have come to call it, was further glazed with a low fidelity tune that becomes relaxing and numbing between the left and right ears, subliminally making you ignore the poetics of the craft. After all, lo-fi is supposed to vibe and not critic.

After picking that 5-kilogram sack of Jasmine Rice, I went straight to the cashier. The musical experience mirrored my tape receipt. The spending of PHP 3,343.18 doubled the initial budget, driven by a strange impulse fueled by the same kind of “lo-fi” experience – the soothing background music, the dim lighting, the effortless flow of the shopping cart. I emerged from the supermarket with a mountain of unnecessary items – a surplus of paper towels, a collection of hair ornaments I did not need, and, most tragically, no broccoli for my planned stir-fry. My Sunday experience mirrored the effect of Dionela’s music – a pleasant, even enjoyable experience, ultimately leading to a sense of disconnect from my original purpose and a slight feeling of regret.

Perhaps we are in a dystopic social media phase where we must re-engage with an art that numbs us from the realities of the world. The allure of the lo-fi aesthetic, with its promise of authenticity and intimacy, can inadvertently mask a deeper engagement with the art itself. In the pursuit of creating a “mood,” we may be inadvertently sacrificing the power of storytelling, the ability of art to challenge, to provoke, to truly resonate with the human experience.

Ma-edad

I woke up at 1, felt the hungry pangs at 1:30, and ugly cried at 2 AM. This is me in the last few hours of my life at 37 years old. Before I cried, I made sure to cook myself a survival meal, grabbing the last 2 pieces of cheese dog and the last two eggs from my fridge. Told myself that before any breakdown, I need to have a build-up. After eating and cleaning up, I hovered to my little bedroom, and there it was. That sack of Jasmine rice, being part of my sundo from the tiresome trek. Took a good long look, before happy-crying again.

I suddenly remembered an Instragram reel about the Japanese Kanji called Ma, where there is stillness between the sounds, or a moment of suspension in the middle of a motion. You can depict it in pauses before you speak, in understanding of poetry, or in my case, sitting in the right side of the black van, traversing SCTEX at 3AM while staring at a moonlit sky with a huge cumulus cloud that seems to be not moving, just staring back at me.

At these little moments of travel, I feel like I was in a snippet of a Japanese anime film, when the main character is in transit, while the sunny sky and cottony white clouds are just there. Ever present. Omniscient.

This year is about these moments. The Ma. I saw life events unfold before my eyes. I saw my youngest brother finally graduating and starting the grind of the corporate. I saw my only sister living the hipster lifestyle and getting married before flying to Tokyo. I saw my eldest brother uprooting from his first and only IT firm in PH, and venturing life in DE. I saw my younger brother digging the lights and sounds from the solid ground called Okada to a moving boat of Norwegian Cruise lines. And I saw myself moving out of the family bungalow and moving in to this new high-rise enclave. In the middle of all these moving parts, the stillness is my mode of surviving: normalizing the daily life of adulting while seeing my life savings getting tanked in. In the online world, I saw two endings and a beginning. I saw two colleagues from graduate school died, for different medical cases and reasons, and one close friend from graduate school gave birth, days before her birthday. In a wake, I decided to see old classmates and co-officers, and ended up explaining my phase of why I decided to unfriend them all and just lie low in the ground zero called Facebook. With a coffin at the background of our conversations, I found myself in aghast of a life event recently disclosed by a colleague, to the point that I even guffawed at my school crush who is afraid to look at the face of his dead friend, while he is trying to psychoanalyze me of my corporate woes. (He knows. I just don’t tell it to his face that I was fond of him. Anyway, he is a far away memory — a note different from this Ma I was traversing.)

I was traversing my existential dread, two nights before my birthday. And after almost two years of getting cancelled and deferred of this trip, I was able to finally get out of this little world of toiling for my mortgage and just hike. That highest peak in Luzon. Pulag. Finally having that little time and financial freedom I have frequently craved.

And somewhat, at the back of our heads of us all, there is also something moving — this big sack of rice at the back of the black SUV, traversing tollgates and expressway, perhaps to celebrate my milestone, meant to be eaten and shared with people who matter.

The one driving is the matter.

“San ka punta?”
“Mt Pulag. Isang taon nang delay so itutuloy ko na, finally.”
“Ingat ka. Pagbaba mo, payat ka na.”

I wish.

The black van I was riding took more than six hours of trip, as I was sleeping in and out of the zigzag motions and waking up with fuzzy feeling of being lost as I see a new pick up point. The last stop seems so far away. From Baguio city, it’s another 3 hours bypassing the Agno river protected landscape and finally arriving at DENR office of Bokod, Benguet. The van ride was an ordeal of sorts: sitting in a third row, feeling the motions of the wheel, like riding a roller coaster and experiencing prolonged centrifugal force. That, plus the intermittent internet connection, another solace (or addiction) that this geriatric millennial possesses.

From our breakfast place, we went to see a doctor to check out our general health as a hiker. He put his almost-depreciated blood pressure counter, before issuing the medical certificate that I am not hypertensive or asthmatic, and fit to climb. He mentioned that I need to watch my breathing as I see his trodat stamping the Php150 piece of paper with his signature and dry seal fixed in. I almost told him not to worry much about me, but worry more on buying new medical gadgets for his profession. I walked out of the clinic a bit disappointed, as the patient-doctor engagement is shorter than my quality checks in my investment banking gig. I reminded myself to stop vaping minutes before a medical checkup, so that my veins will not contract and the stress I currently carry will be more transparent and sincere. Plus, to buy myself a BP and heart rate monitoring machine. After all, I decided to live independently (and with minimal cause of concern for the immediate family).

This piece of paper went to the tour coordinator, and we proceeded inside the DENR office. We registered our names, listened to the reminders of the rangers, and hovered over to the souvenir section and across it, an altar of sorts. Thousands of 2×2 photo ID, expired licenses, and some print-out profile pictures of people who hiked Pulag in older years. I don’t remember seeing this seven years ago. I don’t even imagine that this is just a fraction of the people who hiked since the first time I got here. Ma: these friendly and excited smiles, threaded by staple wires and make-shift paper strings, inviting me to come join in the experience. Rats, I forgot to bring my own photo.

Final stop for this arduous moving is a homestay situated near the edge of Kabayan, Benguet. If I trek from this house to the jump-off point of the Ambangeg trail, it will be another 40-minute walk. Far from the maddening crowd of tents and noisy waterworks of their barangay hall, I slotted myself in a little sofa within the common area, while waiting for the other occupants of my would-be bedroom for the night, hoping that I can get the lower bunk for the space, or at least a spot where I can peacefully snore at the top. Hikers before us are moving in-and-out of the bedrooms and toward the washrooms, cleaning up their muddy pants, socks and trekking shoes, rushing to pack all their other things, as they are more than two hours overtime. No clearing today, someone says. A whispered warning, perhaps, that not all hikes are awarded with the sea of clouds by the Gods. Maybe there was one person trash talking the mountain as they trekked, as they left the homestay with long faces and a backdrop of a rainy afternoon.

That rainy transition was a haze as I write this long prose of my sentiments; I don’t exactly remember what happened. I took a shower. I thanked the Lord for the working heater. I dozed off like a log. And then I woke up with a cloudy night sky of Benguet.

Early night. Either I read, or make a small talk, or just listen in with my hike mates, or chime in with little stories of my hike from the pre-pandemic years. “Pre-pandemic” sounds so long ago. Just like my birth year. Archaic. I was born in the waning years of the old millennium, where the first peaceful revolution erupted in the ASEAN, ousting the dictator who robbed us of opportunities and future leaders, and burdened us with ODAs in form of TRAIN Law. Goodness, is the millennial age group traversing the same tropes of the Gen X now? Maybe this is why I do scheduled breakdowns and reminded myself that it is my life mission to break this generational cycle of trauma…? Is it really?

So this millennial called out solo joiners (like me), and did a scrabble game. Few rules to play by on this one round: (1) No scoring as when the letter tiles run out we end the game, (2) Two-letter words are doable, (3) No acronyms, no colloquial, no memes, and (4) No yeeting or throwing off tables. A tricky round, as three of us aren’t as much verbose as writers of New Yorker, and two of them are happy with just putting letter N to complete the article AN across, and the proposition ON down. The most complicated word on the board was THRASH, and I even explained the nature of this english word. Told them it was not just about bad-mouthing, or cussing. It was whipping, it meant pain. I placed the tiles signifying violence. And some flashbacks of my younger years in #TheBank meant confronting bad managers who just lolls about, earning six-digit figures and flexing about golf and girls, a boasting personality that I loathed in my old household. Thrashing. Some people do needed thrashing. But with the energy I have to give just to inflict violence is not worth it. My retirement pay is on the line. It is better to be resigned, both to the feeling and the daily minutiae of the cruel capitalism. Does Ma exist in a capitalistic climate? Can we achieve Zen in a seemingly selfish activity? That, I cannot answer. What I believe is this: this activity requires a system of check-and-balance, a metric of quality, and a clause of reciprocity. If that is Zen to some, maybe there is Ma. Perhaps it can be seen as a month-long production without errors, and without PnL impacts, and keeping our performance bonuses optimal. #TheBank is a fast-paced world where the expectations are asinine, but our compensation is somewhat saline.

For me, Ma is seeing beauty outside of this spectrum of profiteering. It is also outside the mode of grinding, or the life hacks of adulting. It is appreciating beauty in the never-ending flow of energy. A pregnant pause in a long monotony of routine.

Ma is this hike.

So after dinner, I prayed for a peaceful sleep, and lesser rain for the night, for us to manage the dark trail in the wee hours after midnight kicks in. I settled on my top bunk and set aside my hiking bag, filled with worry on the nonstop rain, and a hope for a less grueling summit chase.

I remembered waking up at exactly midnight, and a note to self that I needed to change into my hiking apparel. Three layers of clothing — a dri-fit shirt, a waterproof jersey, and a fleece jacket. Then this long pair of stockings, a pair of black leggings, and another pair of socks to absorb the shock from my low-cut hiking shoes. My headlight filled with used AAAs about to die in four hours, a medical kit in terms of wounds, medicine and other first aid needs, and a liter of water — half the initial advise of rehydration. DENR estimated that the night-hike takes five hours of assault and four hours of backtrail descent, but I gave myself a total of 10 hours to do this task. With half liquid intake and a heavy jacket in tow, I had to take note that my stamina is not the same as my first climb seven years ago, so the steps should be slowly but surely. I am also not letting myself be rested for more than 15 minutes, as I get sleepy legs easier, now that I am way past the adult puberty phase. My lower back is there like a haunting machine, and my weight bears all the stress from living the concrete jungle (where dreams are made of). Adding up to this were my pre-menstrual pains in my lower belly.

In the night trek were absent views of flora and fauna, and the tendency of the trekker was to focus more on the footsteps and the grip of the shoes as it stepped on the muddy earth. You got to be conscious of your light source, on your sense of balance, and your breathing patterns as it kept changing in the thinning air of the trail. I was part of the tail-end of the pack, while declaring myself as a medic for the team, I made sure that I have the access of the sweeper guide since I have the slower pace. From the jump-off point to Camp1, you can make it in 30 mins. I did it in an hour, with lots of 2-minute breaks. From Camp1 to Camp2 is a long 2.5 hours of hike on the mossy rainforest and thinner air, and I did it for 3.5 while my headlight is dwindling. From Camp3 to summit takes 1.5 hours of a 45degree gradual assault, traversing Pulag’s lesser famous peaks. I did it for more than 2 hours. It was a long walk of ASMRs of heaving sighs and gasping breaths, of gulping little portions of water, wind hustles as strong as the sea waves, sounds of the poncho repelling the rainwater and the early morning dew, and rustles of the fleece jacket getting heavier as it captured more drizzles than what was initially designed to. The darkness triggered my survival mode. I tried my best to catch up with the others, felt anxious as I was feeling my heartbeat and breathing patterns. Icy cold wind froze my fingertips and feet felt the stings of the cold splashes from stepping on the mud mistaken as a stone path. The hike was not fun at night, and it exhausted in the same way with the auditor energy from the current production day onsite. Where was the beauty in doing this grueling rite of passage? Had I been budol-ed? But rather than thinking about disappointments, I waited for more light, pushing on to the highest peak with grit and with fear of hypothermia at the back of my head. At 7AM, I still wasn’t at the summit, but finally there was light. There was no need for me to depend on the headlight that was declared dead an hour ago. I took a long look on the last stretch of the climb to the top, and of those colleagues who went before me, battling the cold and the fog, and the sad reality of another day of No Clearing. No sea of clouds. There is wonder in watching the hikers facing the challenge head-on, and it inspired me to push through the pursuit. Ma is that weak light of the morning sun as we are all walking within the fast-moving clouds drifting through the dwarf bamboo grassland.

At the summit, I took my picture with the group and my own person in the DENR stone mark. After seven years, I conquered the highest peak in Luzon the second time around. My phone vibrated: it was him.

“Msg me immediately. Need mag-book ng hotel? I need to go back by Tuesday kasi.”

I saw this message and I was like — Was he even serious? — I do plan to stay in the City of Pines after the hike to rest my tired knees and manage the other trip home during my birthday. I did not reply. Instead, I just looked at the landscape tagged as Playground of the Gods. Were they playing me? Was I trash-talking during my assault and so they went on thrashing at my feelings of hope? Why did they grant me this beauty when all I faced at the onset was a path full of mud and a climate full of drizzling cold?

Well.

I started the descent more consciously. Another patch of ASMRs of heaving sighs, gasping for thin air, and gulping a little portion of water. This time around though, I see the beauty of the mossy rainforest, them being there as I back trailed the humble beginnings of my night trail hours earlier, and backtracked the story of the doctor who flew away without telling. Maybe he is trying his best to woo me and win me back. After all, he came to my tiny home a few times after I unblocked him to send a random cat meme from summer. After four hours, I finally touched down the jump-off point and I was ready to go back to the homestay to clean up the mud, to get myself a hot shower, and to pack up the rest of my things and go back to Baguio.

At the city of Pines, the phone dinged from all his messages of hotel location, activities to do next, and asking if I preferred a room service instead. I replied no, as I deserved a dinner from a pretty place since my birthday arrives in few hours. I went straight to the hotel and upon there, I realized that I was never sure as to what name did he book the room with. Heck, just wing it. I texted back the confirmation and the room number, and upon him knocking, we went out to a bistro across the hotel, with a nice view of the city and grabbed some good lasagna.

We caught up with each other’s stories of charts, medicine launches, research reports, latest Pulag situation and plans to re-hike it with him, my dilapidated trekking shoes, my muddy trekking pants, and his retail therapy of checking in deals from Japan to window-shop some hiking gears and apparel. I also disclosed about fast-tracking my savings and apply for an EU visa to visit my brother, and Japanese visa to visit my sister. He wished for a time freedom, as he also wanted to see his mom and sisters in Japan, and finally able to shop for Gundam merch. In the middle of all these story telling, I zoned into his watch, seemingly new, counting the moments of our togetherness, right in the middle of the influx of families and couples taking their respective dinners and desserts.

Happy birthday, bb.

It wasn’t even midnight and yet, this greeting made me teary-eyed. I appreciated this gesture of picking me up in this cold city and decided to stay with me overnight. At least for that night, I will feel less lonely and less alone, and not succumb to the downward spiral of negative emotions and ruminations of pain. After long weeks of total immersion to the banking profession, I felt seen. I was visible in his eyes. And he took notice.

We were about to get to the hotel lobby when he immediately remembered grabbing something from his car. It was chilly and I was feeling more sleepy, I sheepishly went with him. Suddenly, he opened the trunk to grab a warmer pair of shoes while showcasing his most pragmatic present: a half cavan of an export-quality Jasmine rice. All the way from the Marikina central market. I shouted excitedly about this huge sack of a gift as I remembered my rice stash now down to less than ten cups, left in my tiny home.

Ma. Such beauty to be able to receive an expensive treat. When I was younger, I would laugh at him and reject it, preferring more to a bouquet of flowers since I can afford to buy my own food. But now that I am also a victim of hyperinflation and large debt-to-equity ratio, anything that can be eaten is good. Especially if that food is top quality. What a huge help to save more and push through the travel abroad for next year. I hugged him and told him my thanks, and I imagined this sack of rice is also like me, two days before.

Ma is that sack of rice in motion. It served as a witness of this little milestone. Ma is grabbing the opportunity of feeling happiness in unconventional ways, falling fast and hard and hurting bad, and yet going back to falling again. Ma is retracing the hurt and the wounds of the past, acknowledging toxic traits and traumas. Ma is creating a path for personal healing while figuring out the future. Ma is us just listening to each other, attuning to each other’s thoughts and re-asking ourselves of our personal dreams.

Ma is him choosing to be an anchor of an evermoving Me.