sometimes i become a god

I need alcohol.

When my brain throbs with pain, I know at once that my dendrites are supplicating to the gods for wine. The lambanog (native conconut wine) cocktail a colleague prepared last Friday finished off a long workweek with a bang. By the time the concoction ran out, fireworks were already shooting in my head and my bladder was discharging yellowish excesses by the bucket. I need that. Yet again. Especially now that my head pulsates like an sex organ yearning for fornication without a condom.

I'm not alcoholic. Far from it. Prior to the binge last Friday, I hadn't had anything to drink for a long time. I just love the sensation of getting drunk. Not crawling, bring-out-the-leather-whip-and-handcuffs drunk. Just moderately drunk. I'd like to keep things in moderation. Anything in excess deadens the mind. And mine has died a couple of times before. There's no need for repeated agonies. I'm compassionate like that. I let the worms I saw in my avocado yesterday inch away like free citizens, ready to infest another fruit or some leftover pizza in the garbage bin. I dared not kill them even though they decided to make their presence felt at the most opportune time, after I had already finished half of the damn fruit. It is their nature to burrow their slimy bodies into fruits and cause screams from the squeamish. What right have I to end their existence just because my mind has been conditioned to regard them as hideously revolting? Only gods can be that cruel. And I am no god. Not yet, anyway. I am a mere mortal whose brain longs for the promise of vodka.

Priests are so lucky they get to drink on the job and nobody gives a hoot about it. I haven't seen a Catholic priest in a mass for quite some time. A friend once lamented that she hadn't gone to church for a month. I said I haven't sat through a church service for over eleven years now. She, and the rest of my friends, laughed. They probably thought I was kidding. And I cannot blame them. In this country, to go against the grain is to get ostracized. Freak. Weird. Demonic. Heretic. I've been called several names before. None of them stuck. My complex spirit cannot be pigeonholed, nor can it be dampened by comments floating from the wastelands of parochialism. It can only be drenched by tequila until its filmy clothes cling onto its body like leeches. Imagine my bliss when I went to Europe and found out that everyone else, including those with stinky armpits, thought like I did! And they regularly had wine for dinner. Even the school canteen I usually ate at served Beaujolais, albeit not the best kind. I bet that's how heaven will be like, wine gushing forth from streams while naked people cavort in wild abandon by its banks. The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, of which I am an official member, describes heaven as having a huge beer volcano and a stripper factory. No wonder cherubims have paunches and archangels have dreamy eyes. But I don't dig beer that much. I was told wine doesn't give you a paunch. That's why I'm all for it. It merely chips off shame and drowns out logical thoughts until you're ready to take your pen and write sacred texts. But I go way beyond that when I am drunk. I become god incarnate, magnanimous and vengeful, silently surveying the mortals as they busy themselves in their inconsequential lives, mildly disturbed that they don't care being watched at all even as they go through the dull rituals of foreplay, each thinking of cheating on the other until their hearts beat in rhythm with the throbbing of their brains, their dendrites supplicating to me for just a drop of wine, which I willingly dispense like piss toward a yawning urinal. And then I'm left alone, with my own throbbing temples and supplicating dendrites, still in front of my computer wasting valuable time writing this stupid post.

I need alcohol.

you will see heaven, the angels, and god himself

On the day my mother was discharged from the hospital, our whole family was relieved. The second ECG showed a healthy heart, except that it’s a bit enlarged, which has been her problem since the nineties. It’s a relief to know that it’s nothing serious. The 2D Echo performed that morning also didn’t show anything alarming, thank Vishnu. The official results will still have to be interpreted by Dr. Bautista, the cardiologist with pimples the size of cherries and with a bad case of halitosis. We’re all ecstatic that nothing is wrong with her.

Before we left the hospital, my elderly aunt, whom, I think is my father’s cousin (I’m not really sure), visited my mother, carrying with her three oranges as get-well soon gift. She’s a cancer survivor. Three months after her husband’s death, she got so depressed her cancel cells got activated. They said it was cancer of the nose or something like that; her nasal cavity had been badly affected. She was eager to describe her near-death experience in vivid detail.

To me, it seemed more like the hallucinatory effect of general anaesthesia, but what the heck, I had nothing else better to do so I sat up and listened.

She said she felt like she was breezed through something. “A tunnel, that’s a tunnel,” interjected my sister who pulled a chair by the hospital bed to listen attentively to my aunt.

Then she saw a troop of dancers in tattered robes, begging for some loose change. Somehow, she got transported to a place with an enormous well with a blazing fire inside.

“Oh that’s hell, you’ve seen hell,” said my sister, her nostrils dilating like my dog’s when it is in heat. She asked someone which direction she should take to get to heaven. She was told to go up a long staircase. The ascent was tiring. Eventually, she felt she was just being lifted higher because her weary feet were just too exhausted to go on.

“There’s an angel, you were being carried by an angel, have you seen it?” asked my sister.

She arrived in a breezy place of blue and immaculate white, which she thought was heaven. She saw kids of the same height and a man with keys, whom she believed was Saint Peter.

“Oh, you’re starting to mix it up with your own beliefs now,” commented my sister, who, being a born-again Christian isn’t exactly too euphoric about Catholic iconography.

A great book was opened and the man asked what her name was. Immediately after mentioning her name, the man flipped through the pages to look for it. As the man fingered through a page, he murmured: “St. Benedict, Joseph, and Mary…” My aunt’s name wasn’t there.
By this time, my sister's face was starting to sour.

And then, she saw a huge arched gate that opened out to a magnificent banquet hall. In the middle of the hall was a big statue of the Virgin Mary with flying thingies all around it.

“I think you’re hallucinating now. It must’ve been the anesthesia,” quipped my incredulous sister. (In this country, Protestants equate the veneration of Mary to pagan worship).

And then, after that, my aunt said the drug wore out and she found herself back to the operating room. But before that happened, she heard the song In His Time being played in the background. She has never heard this song before. She sang two lines to us and tears instantly raced down her plump cheeks.

My sister was quick to exploit the situation. “Do you know what that meant?” she asked. “God wants to save you. The fact that your name is not yet written in the book of life is proof enough that you need to accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior.” I quickly turned away, tucked myself in one corner of the hospital room, and tried to read John Bayley’s Elegy for Iris. The scene was getting more surreal than the hallucinations of a stoned rockstar has-been.

“Are you doing anything this afternoon? Why don’t you come with us. We can talk about your experience more.” When we got home, my aunt requested me to play Ballade Pour Adeline and Song for Anna on the piano. And then, I accompanied my father as he sang In His Time. The music had been cued. The lights were on. The stage couldn’t have been more perfect.

My sister got a bible and started the performance. “This will separate fact from hallucination. According to the book of Revelation chapter 3, verse 2 …”

It was too much for me. It’s time to do something worthwhile, I thought. So I went up my room, turned on my laptop, and surfed the net for porn.

plastic creatures

Boredom. Shrek and the dragon are on my desk. Plastic beings on particleboard terrain. I am their god, omniscient and wrathful. I tried placing them really close to each other once to see if they would fuck. They never did. Stupid, frigid, plastic creatures. Even my divine will is subservient to theirs. They desire—oh they do—passionately. And why should I forbid them to?

A few inches from where they stand is the desk’s edge from where they could fall off and lose one of their plastic limbs. And their omniscient god might not be there to pick them up as he is busy obeying the whims of a higher god who, in turn is busy kissing the ass of an even higher god who is probably filing her nails up in her posh office at the topmost floor. The hierarchy of ass-kissing can be confusing like mutant coffee blends. If Shrek and the dragon knew that I don’t give a hoot about them, can their plastic neurons still convince their plastic hearts that I am full of love and compassion? Would they think less of me if they knew that I also have less magnanimous gods to serve? Would they revolt if they found out that I tried to initiate a mating season for them, without their knowledge? But I love both of them, like a master loves his slaves.

It is a god’s prerogative to dispense love like that, as much as it is a tyrant’s entitlement to warp history, defiling the sacred and valorizing the iniquitous. I, too, am a plastic creature in a bigger particleboard terrain. But I do know what my gods have done and are doing. And I will not fall for some cheaply engineered trick to mate with another plastic creature. I live my life guided by my passions, consciously avoiding the edge of the desk lest I plummet down the abyss, knowing fully well that my gods will do nothing but stare and mutter “oh there goes another one.” I wish I didn’t know.

Ignorance can sometimes conjure wonders. Bliss, as they say, comes with it. And solace, too. Ignorance makes you look forward to a glowing future, however nebulous, however implausible. Ignorance, like faith, promises troves of dreams fluffier than your pillows. But once you believe, you get shackled to the whims of the gods. Then they pull the strings and start the puppet show to the shrieks of a rowdy mob demanding carnal entertainment. You get used to the charade and start believing that the show’s thin plot is your life.

Jester’s hats.

Luscious Frills.

Painted smiles.

Satin dominoes.

On the other hand, those who are cognizant of the grim truth have grown morose and brooding, but unshackled. Free to obey the dictates of their hearts. Free from the grip of hollow institutions. For they know that institutions stand for nothing but the interests of their founders. Beliefs are spread not necessarily because of the noble goals they preach. So they trod on with scabby feet, nursing their troubles with reason. That can be hard. That is why some vainly wish they could cling again to the solace that empty rituals bring.

I am part of that pack now. I am way past the point of no return. There are times when I do miss being in the comfort zone of a puppet show in which every scene is contrived and sure. But I cannot stand having shackles on my feet and hands. My outlook is a lot clearer now, grim and raw, yes, but clearer. Life can be grim and raw, too. At times, I even think that the abyss at the edge of the desk holds things more concrete than fluffy dreams. I will get there. In time.

And then the plastic creatures on my desk will rejoice at the loss of their omniscient and wrathful god.

the sanctity of a virgin hippo

It was one of those rare occasions when my family actually managed to persuade me to sit through a Sunday service. It was my aunt’s birthday. We had been invited by her congregation to do this birthday tribute thing during their church service. Since I haven’t seen her in months, I agreed.

I settled on the last pew at the back, trying to look like a meek, saintly parishioner like the rest of the flock. With an idiotic grin plastered on my face, I shooed away obscene thoughts and switched on my holy mode. I had gotten the the-holy-ghost-spanked-my-ass look down pat ages ago. But I’m getting rusty at it now, having no occasion to practice it in. If I remember it right, it’s something akin to looking as serene as a virgin hippo while suppressing a stiffy. It’s great to play holy once in a while, which is probably the only thing a lot of churchgoers are good at.

No sooner had I put on my best hippo face than tirades against sinners and decadent bastards came shooting from the pulpit like disgruntled fireworks. For a while, I thought the pastor was directly speaking to me. How about telling me something I don’t know yet? I’ve been told countless times that I’m gonna burn in hell with fire and brimstone and all that shit. And then good old Lucifer (or Lucy, depending on his mood), dressed in a satin teddy and Winnie-The-Pooh slippers and with a pound of mudpack smeared on his face, would just watch while quaffing vodka from a cup fashioned from Hitler’s skull and, gasp, he won’t even offer me a sip! Now that’s scary. Imagine an eternity without vodka—that’s torture only Job can endure. I should make friends with the devil now to ensure my endless supply of booze in hell. Oh, but I digress, I’m supposed to look holy. Suppress the stiffy; hold back the shit. Virgin hippo look.

The pastor was now mouthing something about faithless but highly educated people being fools and about how screwed up this society is because we are now more accepting of homosexuals, pre-marital sex, and progressive thoughts; and about how worldly the world has become (duh?) and about the Bible being an indubitable source of all wisdom and Catholics being idol-worshipping pagans; and so many other unprintable assertions. The pulpit is perhaps the only place I know from which bigotry can emanate unchallenged. That diatribe was something only people like Pat Robertson would be delighted to hear. Or was that Pat’s avatar talking? I heard his dildo-wielding spawns are walking the earth, clandestinely making their way to Venezuela to murder its president by butt-fucking him nonstop with high-powered vibrators the size of Bush’s missiles. Could one of the spawns have found its way here, and somehow took on the body of this pastor to spread Mr. Robertson’s gospel? Creepy. This world is really fucked up big time.

Spawn or no spawn, I found myself checking my pocket calendar just to be sure if it was still 2005 and not 1105. Sitting through that sermon and thinking about Pat Robertson’s dildo gang made me feel like we slid back to the Middle Ages. That may not be such a bad thing—if they already had vodka back then. Which reminds me, I should give Lucy boy a call. Now where did I put that bitch’s number?

the rite of the wretched

In a strange dream, I find myself walking amid the ruins of an ancient cathedral. The vaulted ceiling has long caved in, leaving a yawning hole that sucks in the harsh heavens. I cannot tell if it is day or night, but everything seems to have the sheen of dusk and the lust of dawn. The tainted walls still stand looking like a confused chessboard with gothic apertures where stained glass once held court. Scattered on the cracked granite floor are shards of colored glass, decapitated heads of stone gods, grimy vestments, empty reliquaries, and brass candelabras. So that’s how they look when stripped of sanctity, forsaken by the gods they used to symbolize. Like an archbishop on his way to the high altar, I wade through this mass of desecrated objects while sniffing the rotting air. Floating near the walls, spirits of dead cardinals scorn me. With my frosty eyes, I order them to return to their sarcophagi and mind their own decomposition. You have had your time to corrupt the masses. It’s time for eternal repose now, or perpetual damnation.

Up on the altar, I see numerous headless gods smug in their own niches. They loom large and regal like buffoons. Upon their feet is the long, marble table where sacerdotal cult masters once transubstantiated wafers into flesh of the Tortured One. Around the table is a pack of maimed, toothless, and stinking paupers. Some are dressed in tattered brown robes, some have slung tainted curtains on their bony frames, and some are totally naked. I understand at once that this is the rite of the stinking, the damned, and the wretched. The sweet revenge of the despised is to claim the high altar of their masters and recreate the ritual all over again, according to the Gospel of their own Torment.

They all pause and regard me with vicious eyes. One of them leers and sticks out her lesioned tongue to me. A couple stops from their dull fornication and look at me blankly. A naked man motions me to come forward with his dagger.

I walk toward them, unflinching. I suddenly realize that I, too, am naked. With my flesh quivering and my genitals dangling limply with every step, I come forward, letting them ogle at or deride my nakedness. Somehow, I know exactly what I’m there for. And I know exactly what to do.

Without saying a word, I climb on top of the marble table and lay there. They congregate around me like a pack of wolves salivating on their prey. I hear a surreal chant from one of them. It is hard to tell which one. At the end of the chant, the naked man raises his dagger and says an incantation in a strange language. I close my eyes.

Then I wake up.

And I realize that it is not a dream at all.

yup, sometimes i do pray

‘Was rummaging through my old files last night when I stumbled upon this prayer that I hastily wrote for some program at the Department in March last year. It was for “He Says, She Says,” an informal discussion conducted annually by the Workers’ Welfare Research Division.

Out of desperation, Adie asked me to lead the opening prayer. She very well knew that I’m not into that prayer thing. And neither is she. So, probably to escape a possible fix by leading it herself, she delegated the opening prayer to me and gave me no room to say no. The bitch!

The program’s topic that time was the emergent concept of “housebands” or husbands who take the traditional role of homemakers, which is oftentimes unjustly appointed to women. The topic is already passé and does not merit further exposition. But, since this is an extremely macho and chauvinist society in which males think that taking on anything conventionally associated with females degrades their masculinity, this topic would make an interesting, if not controversial, point of discussion.

So I excitedly sprinted to BY Building to say my first prayer in ten years. Here’s what I said:

“In the name of…

[I deliberately paused for a while here. Juliet later said that she was already about to make the sign of the cross but stopped when she heard what I said next. Hehe. That’s exactly the effect I wanted to achieve]

…political correctness, our invocation this morning will not be centered on any particular religion.

“Let us all bow our heads and invoke whoever or whatever god we worship.

“Let us ask for the guidance of the spirits so that our program would become a success. Let us seek enlightenment rather than divisiveness; tolerance rather than bigotry; and open-mindedness rather than parochialism. May we open our eyes to the realities of our time, and consequently, discard ancient, obsolete gender roles. May we accept the evolving and increasingly inter-changing responsibilities of both genders and strive to discharge them without prejudice. Let us supplicate to our respective deities so that we may be given the strength to understand that taking the responsibilities of the opposite sex is not tantamount to self-degradation.

“May we learn to think critically on our own and not be clouded by the myopic dogma of powerful religious institutions. May we learn to accept that we need to change our perceptions first before we could aspire for true gender equality.

“And, finally, let us invoke whatever supernatural being we believe in for guidance so that we may arrive at a higher level of moral progress that would afford us to regard every person not merely as a woman or a man, but as a human being.

“That is all.”

After that, I was never asked to lead a prayer again.

the good is NOT oft interred with the bones

On the day the Pope was buried, the wind in Vatican City was frosty; the sky overcast. Millions of mourners in dark habiliments were weeping and applauding at St. Peter’s square, under the icy, blind gaze of grossly gigantic stone saints lining up the basilica’s roof.

Here at home—at the Rizal Park to be exact—the tired sun was still unforgiving even in its last dying rays. The wind stirred the dust into grotesque swirls and the heat was enough to make your armpits stink like a dead rat.

With white flags saying “We Love You John Paul II” and families sitting on picnic mats complete with picnic foods and big bottles of distilled water, the mood seemed too festive for a funeral.

The expressions on the mourners’ faces ranged from mildly concerned to totally indifferent. There were stalls selling cold drinks, potato chips, tacky trinkets, clothes, mats, and Vishnu knows what else.

There was a flurry of buyers around multi-colored balloons being hawked to kids who had no idea why the whole world was fussing about the death of this old man in funny robes. They might have been thinking that this festive ambience was the standard in mourning trends. What a cool send-off!

I wouldn’t miss that send-off party for the world. That’s why I whisked my heretic ass to Manila’s funeral gathering for John Paul II to be among the faithful and the fanatical; the devout and the hypocritical; the holy and the holier-than-thou; the mourners and the simply curious.

After combing the DVD stalls of Makati Square to buy pirated art films, I, together with Oliver, rushed to Rizal Park to catch the last rites for the dead pope. The ceremonies were broadcast live from the Vatican through big screens that had been set up in front of the Quirino Grandstand. Up onstage, Bishop Bacani was stoking the passion of the crowd through a rousing speech that I didn’t care to listen to. I heard the papal nuncio, the Vatican’s ambassador to the Philippines, was also there. It must’ve been really sad for him to get stuck in this scorching tropical country and not be able to attend the burial of his big boss in Rome.

I was mainly interested in the high mass in the vast St. Peter’s square. In an impressive showcase of ritual, drama, and style that only the ossified Catholic Church could deliver (actually, it’s the only thing they deliver best), the pope in an unbelievably simple casket, bade goodbye to a world that loved (and, to some extent, hated) him.

I must admit it was hard not to notice the guy’s charisma and drive. Even a non-Catholic like me was awed at how this untiring pope circled the globe to speak boldly against social injustice, corruption, and all forms of inequities. He even rebuked Marcos personally in 1981. He should be lauded if only for bringing the highbrow office of the Holy See to the common person. That, alone, is enough reason for hordes of faithful and faithless to mourn his death.

Although he was not as bold as one of his predecessors (sorry I forgot his name—he’s probably one of those Pauls, or Johns or Sixtuses, whatever) who let fresh wind into the musty cloisters of the Church through Vatican II, he still had his own way of reaching out and, to use the hackneyed phrase, “touching lives.”

Just hours after his death was announced by the Camerlengo, everyone who, in one way or another, had contact with him was quick to recount how the man changed his/her life. It was as if there was this mechanics-less, free-for-all, weep-till-you-drop contest on who could outdo each other in telling Pope John Paul II stories.

There was this woman who felt like she had already attained eternal bliss because the pope smiled at her, forgetting that the Pontiff smiled at the crowd in general, not to anyone in particular.

But such is the effect of a famous man. His tiniest friendly gesture can be interpreted as a magnanimous offer of heaven’s bounty to which we, lowly humans, swoon and rejoice in gratitude and deference.

Unfortunately, he only excelled in that department. His doctrinal conservatism made his image akin to that of an archaic, totalitarian archbishop straight from the Dark Ages. At a time when the Church was struggling to make itself relevant in a world of increasing commercialism, capitalism, modernization, and globalization, John Paul II’s medieval views on women, gender equality, homosexuality, divorce, and contraceptives stifled the growth of the Catholic Church and flung it back to Neanderthal intellectualism.

But alas, all these have been forgotten, having been washed off by tears from profuse weeping. A person’s value appreciates after death. Good qualities become magnified a hundredfold; the bad ones are discreetly swept under the rug. Shakespeare was wrong when he said that “the evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones.”

When we die, the evil that we did gets buried in the collective subconscious of the people; the good gets enshrined on a pedestal.

In much the same way as history is written by the victors, our personalities get re-invented by our loved ones after our death. In the case of someone as well loved as Pope John Paul II, it is easy to underscore his good qualities (which, in fairness to the man, really made a difference in the way many Catholics regarded their faith) and forget about his sickening conservatism. This early, he’s already up for sainthood. In a Church that desperately protects itself from the hurtful lashes of change, I don’t doubt that this conservative pope will become saint and be one of the Church’s role models.

His doctrinal constipation notwithstanding, he still was a great religious and pop icon. For that, I laud him. And for that, I went all the way to Rizal Park to watch his funeral on a big screen along with thousands of mourners, hawkers, and pickpockets.

Toward the end of the three-hour long ceremony, Eastern Catholics also gave their last blessings to his body, a fitting tribute to a man who had a proclivity for ecumenism. This was the part that gave me goose bumps. Their unadorned chanting (as opposed to the refined swelling of the Sistine Chapel’s boys choir) was raw, painful, and moving. It was almost like wailing.

Amid cheers and riotous applause, the pallbearers then ushered the wooden coffin into the darkness of the massive basilica to bury him in the crypt underneath. By this time, the sun had already set. The mourners at the Rizal Park were already holding lighted candles.

While the choir at the Quirino Grandstand was singing “Hindi Kita Malilimutan” (I Will Never Forget You), we made our way out through the still thickening crowd. I could only hope that the next pope would not be of the traditional mold. A female pope perhaps? Ok, maybe that’s asking too much. A non-Italian, non-European, non-linear thinker pope would do. But one has to look outside of the College of Cardinals to find that person.

there is no heaven or hell

“We’re just organic matters that would rot after death. Nothing follows after. ‘Might as well make the most out of our one lifetime,” Mhel said while we were in an FX last Thursday. (I was on my way to German class; she just came from the Bureau of Immigration to process some documents so she could return to New York for a two-month vacation.)

Nothing indeed, follows. You die, you rot, and become fertilizer to flowers and shrubs. And then the world keeps on turning.

All we could do at the moment is speculate about what lies ahead after death. Or, if you’re the religious type, you could lap up whatever the Bible, the Koran, the Vedas, or any sacred book says about the afterlife.

“Do you think we would have any recollection of our past lives when we get reincarnated into something or someone else?” she asked, becoming suddenly interested in the Hindu concept of death and rebirth.

If we were to believe in reincarnation, I said, I think we’d start fresh again, like a tabula rasa. But somehow, we would probably have faint recollections of our past lives, like snatches of hazy dreams that we suddenly remember in our waking hours.

So that explains our déja-vus? she inquired.

Not exactly, I replied. It’s more like, it explains the stuff we seem to be unexplainably passionate about.

Like me, I’m crazy over religious iconography (I’ve visited the San Agustin Museum in Intramuros more than six times and I even bought a coffeetable book on its extensive collection), cathedrals (holy week or not, I do my visita iglesia in any city I end up in—I gawked at the interiors of Baclayon Church in Bohol, walked the sprawling stretch of the basilica in Lipa, lost myself with the devotees of the Sto. Niño inside the cathedral in Cebu, marveled at San Agustin in Intramuros, meditated inside the cathedral in Lourdes, France, wondered at the Notre Dame de Paris, and drooled over St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome), and religious rituals (I once squeezed my way inside the Manila cathedral at 6 a. m. one Holy Thursday just to witness the elaborate renewing of vows of all priests in the archdiocese).

I do all these despite my lack of belief in institutionalized faith. What explains all that, then?

I must’ve been a monk in my past life. Hell, I even listen to Gregorian chant, both the real thing and the contemporary group that sings pop songs chant-like. I know Panis Angelicus and Salve Regina by heart. For a time, I even taught myself Latin not so much because of Cicero as because of my fascination with ecclesiastical pomp and ceremony.

But then, I’m not entirely sold out to the idea of reincarnation.

It sure is a more creative take on the cycle of life than Christianity’s boring images of fire-and-brimstone-lair-with-naked-horny-demons-cavorting-all-around or homosexual-archangels-with-Gaelic-harps-floating-on-fleecy-clouds.

I find something remiss about the whole concept of karma. I find the whole reward and punishment thing childish. Do good things and you’d get better karma and be part of the royal caste (or you’ll go to heaven with naked, gorgeous angels); be a complete ass and you’d get bad karma and get reborn as a flea (or you’ll go to hell with demons who are more frightening than Michael Jackson).

Jeez, give me a break. I do good deeds because I know it’s my obligation to my society. It’s what I should do as a human being. I don’t care about rewards after death, or heaven or hell or about becoming a cherub with a sissy outfit and large hairdo when I die. I do the right thing simply because it’s the right thing to do.

This is a screwed-up world and the only contribution I can do is to make the world better by living my life well. To hell with hell and reincarnating into an amoeba inside someone else’s ass!

But I digress. Let me go back to my conversation with Mhel. I told her, the least we could do is to live life to the fullest. “Drink life to the lees,” as one romantic poet said (was it Cooleridge? Alfred Lord Tennyson? Hell I don’t remember). Do whatever you think would make you a better person and would help others bring out the best in them. Swim in the sea. Dance in wild abandon. Talk to the flowers. In the end, we would be nothing but fertilizers to these flowers anyway. I’m sure you’re familiar with all those sickening forwarded emails instructing you to pause and stop and smell the flowers and admire the sunset and all those crap. I don’t need to repeat them.

There might not be another life after we die. So, go ahead and take charge of your life now.

Gloomy and hopeless perspective? I don’t think so. On the contrary, believing that there is no heaven or hell makes me more alive, it gives me more reason to reach out to my fellow human beings (you have no idea how much I could sacrifice for another human person, friend or stranger), to make myself better (even if I don’t have much direction), and to live like there’s no tomorrow (I hate that cliché).

And speaking of doing what you want, I’d probably be flinging my ass off again to Marikina to join their Good Friday procession. Their religious icons there are fucking great, man. Almost every event in Christ’s last few days is represented by larger-than-life images borne by exquisitely ornate floats. It’s a fashion show of saints, if there ever is one. You should go see it.

Enjoy your holy week! Oh, and please, go easy on the flagellation thing, it’s so counterproductive.