I Am My Own Spirit Animal

Some 20 years ago, a young man named, Paul asked me, "Direk, ano ba relihiyon mo?" Unflinchingly I replied, "Freelance."

Yes, I was born and baptized, a Catholic and attended schools that required us to pray the Rosary, confess our sins and hear mass most every single day and twice on our birthdays. I memorized prayers and recited them mechanically after the morning flag ceremony.

Finally, on Christmas Day, 1984, I had an awakening when the famous Archbishop of Manila uttered the most distasteful words ever spoken on what should be the most joyous occasion, "This is the bleakest Christmas in living memory."

So much for uplifting, what?

As a teenager, that was all the push I needed to take my first few steps on my path to spirituality and enlightenment.

In the years since, I would be introduced to different people and exposed to an eclectic mix of cultures which conservatives might find strange. I may not be tied down to any particular secular denomination but I do subscribe to the concept of "spirituality" and "faith", though not in any capacity that a conservative would ever understand.

I have the calmness and non-aggressive timidity of a Buddhist; the passivity of a Taoist; the critical thinking of a Kabbalist; the irreverence of a Catholic; the straight-edged conviction of a Christian and the open-mindedness of a Humanist. I will do ablutions as I have genuflected in church as I have chanted, "dharma chakras" with "margiis" in a ghost town in Mabalacat, Pampanga.

I did all that and only out of respect for where I was and who I was with and not out of obligation. I have seen too many inconsistencies in organized religion in my travels as both witness and accomplice. I am a wanderer who will stay not one second longer than need be at any given point in this journey.

What I am in today's world is what I call a "LIVE-r"—no, not that organ that filters impurities in the body although filtering garbage that might enter my mind and soul is something of a preoccupation for me. I am concerned with the business of LIVING and not merely, existing. I know that my purpose on this earth is not to let myself get sucked into the mire of conformity and the pursuit of the temporal and mundane. I am not here to amass material wealth or aim for fame. The only validation of my existence will be how much of myself and what I've learned I would be able to share. 

It is not what I can take with me when I go. It is how much I would actually leave behind when I do. 


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