Gather Ye Rosebuds

We shall all die.

This is a painful truth that we have to accept, mortals of the rotten earth. Our bodies will deteriorate, we’ll get hit by a speeding cab or we’ll get infected by a deadly virus specially cultured to wipe out the entire earth so ETs can thrive on this planet.

Morbid. Yes.

But the moment you accept the reality that we will all soon fade away or not really fade away, but the reality that we can go somewhere else where death is a foreign notion, then that’s the time that we begin to really live.

The thought sometimes of dying scares most of those who have so much more to give. Those who have so much to live for. Those who have so much more to fight for. Those who have so much more to accomplish. But when we die, snap, we won’t get to say “not today.”

This May, I lost two of my family’s close friends. The first was my mother’s bestest friend and the second was my father’s good friend. I am not sure if it was my defense mechanism to not really process their deaths but I had to. Unless I want the rest of my days to be dreary.

Ever since I have discovered that I tend to get so caught up with funerals and make so much drama out of it, I have stopped going. I may see that people try to go on with their lives as normal as they could but I tend to notice the sad eyes, the blank facial expressions and the overpowering sadness that hangs between awkward conversations. And as much as I want to initiate conversations in a funeral, I have always believed that it’s better to shut up or not show up at all.

(This part right here contains spoilers for Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire fans.)

Or maybe because A Song of Ice and Fire has desensitized me to the brutality of death. Which reminds me that Jojen Reed’s death in the Season Finale of Game of Thrones Season 4 is really depressing in itself.

So what I am trying to say in this post is that life is short. The goal is not to live forever. The goal is to live the life that you’ve always wanted “in a numbered days”. Hashtag The Fault in Our Stars.

Forever is Hans Christian Andersen’s last word in every fairy tale because interestingly life will always echo across generations depending on how strong the voice you’ve raised in your lifetime. Although one may already be buried six feet under, if one has felt strongly about “things” in this world and has expressed it, then this voice won’t get drowned in society’s chaotic streets.

And I intend to raise my voice along with those whose voices are drowned out by the noise of confusion and oppression.

After all, my favorite quote is from The Newsroom’s “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.”

Soon enough, I will be done with my GE subjects and then I’ll decide what I want to do for the rest of my life. It’s not easy to decide though. In one of my conversations with former Peer Facilitators and overachievers Chester Sales and Rosevelle Galvez, I have been advised that money makes the world go round.

Truth.

But life is not all about money. If life is all about accumulating wealth, building big houses, getting the latest gadgets, traveling across the world once a month, or eating in a posh VIPish restaurant in the metro, then one should have been born an Aquino and go to a school in Katipunan.

What’s interesting to note is that when you talk to people whom you haven’t seen in a long time, they’d always ask how things are: Where are you working? What’s your course in college? Are you married already? [in that order].

Society seems to applaud the citizen with a string of titles beside his name, with a diploma to boast of from this and that school, with a stable job and with the one whose future is already set in the Rosetta Stone.

But why should I care with society’s standards anyway? Society’s standards is not really that reliable when it comes to predicting people most likely to succeed in life. Because society does not even ask this question: Is that what you really want to do? Are you happy?

Life is so short to just live up to society’s standards.

So talking about who has earned Masters and has gotten a law degree or who has saved up 1 Million in a bank, or who has bought 3 cars in a span of three years, bores me. Why would someone follow a path expected by society for everyone to follow? Sometimes, when one takes a detour, the journey gets so much more interesting.

One would argue, if life is short, why waste your life?

There’s no such thing as wasted life. There’s only wasted people. Wasted people are the ones who are too stuck at their own comfortable rooms that they refuse to go out, step on the grass, look at the sky and follow what they really want to be, where they really want to go.

And I don’t intend to be one of the wasted ones. I just have to gather my rosebuds while I may. Because death is, again, full of surprises.