Awake

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Nothing beats beat poetry when one wants to be instrospective.  You can count on the beatniks to come up with lines that sizzle and fry your ass when you want to just laze around. 

Bob Dylan woke me up.  I was already content to just go through the motions of living (not happy, not sad, just negotiating my way from one day to the next), and his verse shook me up really good.

All this time, I was trying not to go for excess.  I tried to just reach out for the low hanging fruit; to not get too frothy in the mouth when I am excited over something.  You can call it Zen or minimalism or whatever.  I was hoping to achieve contentment (you know, the kind where you wanted to celebrate simple things like watching a jeepney smoke-belch its way through traffic).  I got containment instead. 

I was too stubborn to accept the reality of containment.  I refused to acknowledge it but my subconscious found a way to get through to my thick skull. It didn’t require a hacksaw or  a jackhammer or any other wrecking implement to get me back to my senses. It only took a few words– Bob’s.