Well, I think that’s a super philosophy, Sean.
I mean, that way, you could actually go through
the rest of your life without ever really knowing anybody.

From the movie, Good Will Hunting


This piece was written in second year college, as part of the course requirements of my Psychology 11 class. It’s good, I think, to once and a while be reminded how easy it was to wear our hearts on our sleeves. The names in this piece, of course, have been changed from the original.


Celine sits at the back of our classroom in psychology. I had not noticed her in the first few days of school, and it took a classmate of mine from high school to point her out to me. That was when she captured my imagination.

She’s really nothing magnificent, nothing quite like Claudia Shiffer or Cindy Crawford. But it is precisely this simplicity, this gentleness, this lack of flare and clutter that attracts me so much to her. So nice to look at, Celine, with her pony-tail, and her bangs parted at the middle of that strands of her hair fall ever so delicately on both sides of her face; a face that is at the same time quiet and eloquent, mysterious and simple, like a rose, or a star.

I could just spend the whole period looking at her, admiring her from a distance, tracing her face unto my mind. But unfortunately, she sits behind me; I have to make a reason to look back, steal a glance, and be satisfied with bits and pieces of her, mental snapshots of this rose, or this star.

That was why I was not surprised to learn that she already had a boyfriend, a classmate in Filipino as it turned out; God does have a sense of humor. I was not surprised, yes, but disheartened, very much: saddened to know that yet another of the girls that held the magic to my imagination was, like the star I perceived her to be, far and unreachable.

The story of my life, I told myself. And yet, even if I did have a chance, I still would not have gone for her. With distance, there is no hurt. With distance, there is no pain. With distance, there is no embarrassment or regret. It is a fear that I have always had, a fear that has kept me from risking, from opening up, from loving.

Not that I choose not to, but because habit hinders me. Perhaps it is trauma, as my friends tell me. It is indeed something illogical, even non-sensical, something which is borne by a fear of being rejected, of being passed over for not being good enough.

e.e. cummings has the most perfect poem for this reality:

somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

Love, cummings writes, has the power to open and close a person. It has the power to make or break a soul. This is probably why I am so cynical about it. This is probably why I am so cautious about it. This is probably why the movie Good Will Hunting hit very close to home: “He pushes people away before they have the chance to leave him. It’s a defense mechanism, all right?”

I’ve known this about myself for quite some time now, and it is a reality which I can’t really help. Fear sometimes is more powerful than attraction, or even emotion. Mas madaling mang-iwan kaysa sa iwanan. Kaya’t kung alam mong iiwanan ka, unahan mo na. Mabuti nang ikaw na ang mang-iwan kaysa sa iwanan.

And I guess it would be a case of life imitating art when some people say that Good Will Hunting is my movie, because, in some ways, it is. Not that I am any mathematical genius, but that I too am pushed against people’s expectations, conditioned to believe that failure is not an option, and that life is somehow a “Field’s Medal.” I understand, however, the logic behind such a philosophy, because talents indeed have to be utilized, and maximized, and honed, in order for them to be shared. But then again, it’s all just a matter of perspective. After all, happiness is often just a question of degrees.

This, I have realized, and this issue of being “pushed” is not much of a concern for me now. Life is too short for such “matters of consequence,” as Saint-Exupery writes. In the end, it is really a search for happiness that matters; that in helping others, we become happy, no matter what we may be: astrophysicists or brick-layers: to feel the beautiful emptied feeling of a toothpaste tube— all squeezed out, twisted whichever way, folded many times over, but scraped clean of all the beautiful gifts God has given to be given away.

But then, the problem is that something continues to be missing. Even after this giving, something continues to be absent. Perhaps I still lack the courage to write, “I had to go see about a girl,” whatever that “girl” may turn out to be: a dream, a person, a God. Because the reality of the matter is, I am afraid to risk and make myself vulnerable. I like to play it safe. This is why Robin William’s little monologue at Boston Common with Matt Damon was a hard knock on my head, a searing indictment against this unexplainable and inescapable fear:

I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. . . . known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. . . . who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever. Through anything. Through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleepin’ sittin’ up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes that the terms “visiting hours” don't apply to you.

You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. And look at you... I don't see an intelligent, confident man... I see a cocky, scared shitless kid.

I am a cocky, scared shitless kid, hiding behind my books, and my masks, and my walls, because there, there isn’t any risk. They isn’t any vulnerability. There isn’t any potential for disappointment, or even for pain. And yet still, I long for company, for tenderness, for love. It is indeed something very confusing, running away from the very thing I need, the very thing that will heal me from this affliction.

This is why in moments like these, through movies like these, I remember Celine, and people like Celine who hold the key to my loneliness, and my happiness. And I am envious.

At sa gitna ng pagka-inggit na ‘yon ang nakapangibabaw na damdamin ng pag-iisa. Malungkot, hindi ba? Sa katapusan ng isa na namang araw, madalas na bumabalik sa akin ang katotohanang, The greatest human need is to be needed. At bagama’t ako’y nangangailangan, ay wala naman ang sa akin ang nangangailangan. Sometimes, at the end of the day, as I sit alone in my idling car, the overwhelming feeling of emptiness embraces me so tightly that it almost drives me to tears. Malungkot lang mga-isa. Sinasabi nga nila, we live lives of quiet desperation.

At kahit na ilang oras pa man ako umupo sa loob ng kapilya at tahamik na magdasal sa Kanyang nangakong papawi sa lahat ng pag-iisa, hinding-hindi mawawala sa akin ang pangangailangan para sa hawak ng iba. God does not come down from the wooden cross to hug you. People do that. Kaya’t tuwing nakikita ko si Celine, at si Mico tuwing magkasama sila, o si Enzo at si Hannah, o si Carlo at si Issa, o si Raymund at si Karla, o sino pang magakaibigan o magka-ibigan, hindi mawawala sa akin ang pagnanasa para sa iba, para sa kanya, kung sino o kung ano man siya.

We are all broken people. Lahat tayo’y nangangailangan ng pansin, kalinga, yakap, reassurance, security, love. At sa ilalim ng aking maskarang akademico, at pagpapanggap-sigurado, ay isang takot at basag na taong hindi nakasisiguro na mamahalin nga siya ng mundo. Ngunit ‘yan ako: basag at insecure na ito, sinusubukan maging maligaya kahit nag-iisa.

Ang cute ni Celine. Sobra.