Detachment and Impurity

The feeling of change brings about a kind of pang whenever one is caught unprepared (which is most of the time). That pang turns into disgust, however, when one scrutinizes further upon the transistasis that is going on.

Two cases can be cited, one self-inflicting and the other obliging. For some adequate reasons of more gravity and immediate need, the latter case becomes more disturbing. In one of the bottom populations of the impoverished places of a poor country, the people are wrapped in a dimension of self-deception. At such a time of exploration, one would be startled as to how extensive this "curiosity" is, and it can rightfully be called an atrocity instead. The intricate workings of the young mind is at work, but given ample exposure to the vices of the elder populace this sophistication is mingled with sin that develops into a unique evil itself. The newly elected members of the legal world boast of achievements even senior citizens would admit to have gotten just now. Machismo perspectives, feminine initiation rites, and heterosexual norms are simply too vulgar to both the moral and the innocent perspective (though these two can be taken as one and the same). The peak of popularity by physical wealth i.e. beauty, wealth, power has shifted, and is not on the old social structures as one might think but rather on the youthful organizational units. The devil should be this desperate, and the end of the world this near.

The former would entail a more personal insight, and a much more emotional bearing upon the discussion. As a person living a life that is stable, one would bear the woe of unfulfilled dreams and unquenched aspirations. That is, one who stays with his homeland feels stagnant and low. On the other end, however, the person who pursues his dreams would end up being haunted by the feeling of loneliness, coupled by a doubt upon the true value of his goals. This person moves on to a brighter future, but leaves behind too many memories that might only remain as they are. The things he leaves behind would haunt him every now and then, and he becomes lured to the illusion of selective homeostasis even when he himself is changing rapidly. Every so often he clings to the hope of participation even amidst his being alone among a crowd of strangers who know each other. He endures loneliness, seeing the refuge of his birthplace as a source of hope. If by chance, however, he is able to return, he realizes that he is no longer welcome to that place, that the people have changed just as he did. He longs to feed on the fruits of his past, but realizes that the trees have become too old to flower. Instead the field is blossoming with new kinds of plants, all of which are foreign and all too unfamiliar for him to eat.

And he feels detached. From the world.

And to complicate things what if a transition through social classes is involved? What if it was a poor kid who was able to break free from a lack of opportunity, tastes something of the privileged person's lifestyle, but he realizes that it is too temporary and that he still is not welcome in such a society, and when he goes back to his own world finds out he has changed too much to be part of it, and has instead become a civilized yet down-to-earth person too poor to take part in the modern world yet too moral to follow the brash ways of his own kin?

Butuan, I see too much evil in you.
Davao, I have to leave you for my future.
Manila, I cannot afford your ways.
Heaven, am I welcome?