Vestigial Notes

If this is going to be a part of my whole life story, I wanted this biography to start at the end –where I wanted to go and what I wanted to accomplish. I wanted to be a man of knowledge like the great philosophers. Perhaps like the elemental avatars one can mostly find in storybooks, I wanted myself to bend not the four elements but the truth. I wanted to be strong and I wanted to fully understand my emotions. But before anything else, let us not forget my name. My name is Christian Felix Robles. Though names are the ones usually remembered, kindly remember the man and not the name. Because it is the man, and not the name, that did the great of things.

On October 22, 1989 the wisdom of creation opened itself to me.
In my mind I was dancing and excited on what the world look like. I wanted to see the colors people kept talking about, but all I can see is darkness. I spotted a dim light blurring my eyes but that was all I can deduce. I realised that creation takes time, and that you can’t be completed by just having the world. I sensed that I lack something. And I sensed that sooner it would reveal itself to me. I feel there’s someone that’s enveloping me but still I can’t remember. It was a stronger force than that of my mother. And I wander the darkness to find the sky. But there was none. Life inside mom is comforting; life outside her was blunt and stranger.

On December the very same year the wisdom of salvation opened itself to me.
I was baptised and I felt the stronger force inside me. I understand at the back of my mind and my heart that God exist and I am loved. I understand that the fire in my father’s candle was my light and my guide. I felt my parents love and God’s love. And I proclaim in my cry that Jesus is the Lord, and the source of my life.

On October 22, 1992 the wisdom of love opened itself to me.
I saw it in the shining small and starlit serene dark eyes of my mom, and in the warm gentle fingers of my father together with their unbreakening smiles. They showed me that dinosaurs are bed friends and moons aren’t only the sattelites but also their eyes, as they watch over me in my peaceful sleep.

On October 22, 1995, the wisdom of selflessness opened itself to me.
I learned that things break if you let them be played by your friends. I learned that not all moments are euphoric like the spinning carousel at the park. Onetime in our lives, we would have to cry over the shattered honour and beaten colors.

On October 22, 1996, the wisdom of trust opened itself to me.
I became a river flowing in rage of my own life. I became ephemeral, disoriented and zigzag. I wanted to explore all the mountains in the universe and I forgot to dream about my purpose. I was lured into nothingness. And that the only way to go back, is to trust God and His will.

On October 22, 2002, the wisdom of independence opened itself to me.
In the chaos that lay behind the bars of the towering flags and pillars, I saw the gates of a cruel life in the arms of being alone in highschool. I remember the crayons I keep to color my life. I remember the times I used to color the book myself and I cry because I missed doing it. Somehow, when all thoughts lead to loneliness you have no choice but to fall in love.

On October 22, 2005, the wisdom of humility opened itself to me.
Life is not something that we should play like our old toys, and love is not a simple thing. I have to be more careful juggling the balls of truth in my hand and I have to be more truthful about myself. Crying becomes natural, and being a man doesn’t seem to be any special, than being different and aloof. To break the stones is to break yourself.

On October 22, 2008, the wisdom of courage opened itself to me.
Courage is essential to those who want to succeed, mature and break the stones that guard the oceans. I need to let go of a broken love and be free. The emotions we keep are emotions that could make somone care for us. But sometimes, those are also the same emotions that would make love go away. There would be no mercy for true love: only pain and grief, if we never learn to move on.

On October 22, 2009, the wisdom of happiness opened itself to me.
Booze and cigarettes brought me opium at its best. The little practice went a long way and I was led into the darkest place in the universe. It was fun to be there, knowing that if the way towards there is easy, so was the way to go back. But I was wrong. Life is one of the mysteries this universe has. And being happy is more than the orgasm that one feels when having sex. Like light itself, it has no boundaries and can’t be confined in extraordinary moments. It is scattered, flowing with millions of particles making it up. Its real meaning lies beyond the numbers of stars and sands in the ocean combined. Being truly happy is not as easy as I’ve thought it is.

On October 22, 2010, it was different.
Because all those wisdoms pressed themselves upon me and smashed themselves together.
I became suddenly anxious of the future and feared its coming. I fear death like the unholiest men. Somehow, I felt that all the wisdom I tried to keep for myself escaped my soul and ran away. And when they all turn to dust and left me broken, there is nothing left in my life. I thought I cannot anymore move on and take a step forward. I thought that my life is over and it is time for me to enter either the door of madness, or the door of death. Indeed, I was terrified. But like light itself, like the only shining star in the deepness and blackness of the cloudful night, God found me. And it is only a matter of time, that I believed and realized, that even if a man wandered so much and got lost in the vast and cruel universe, even if there’s no hope anymore, the Man on the Cross would still unconditionally love him, and would still die for him.

“Thus, in the coated night-drifting melody of the sunset, I openned my eyes and saw the waves of the ocean rant against the ancient stones. I told myself I wanted to be strong as those mechanical juices of the earth that holds the truth about the universes. I told myself that like those streams of water that flow endlessly, unexhausted and steaming gently in the heat of the sun and enduring the coldness of the beckoning twilight, I would let my emotions flow and touch the hardest hearts. I would break free the undeserving spirits of this cruel world, and I would discover the wisdom not all men had come to know.” –Robles, CF in ‘The Beckoning’