I was scrolling through my phone watching YouTube shorts on a Saturday night when suddenly I realized I'd been doomscrolling for two hours. Frustrated, I put my phone down, lay on my bed, closed my eyes, and reflected on how I was wasting my night looking at nonsense things.
What should I have been doing? A lot of things actually. But none of them enticed my overstimulated brain.
I tried to think of new topics to write about, new books to read, or movies to watch but nothing piqued my interest. So, I continued closing my eyes and racked my brain for a good thing to kill time. Then I decided, that even if my heart and mind wanted to continue watching Youtube, I had to write something.
I opened my laptop, and the green logo appeared slowly as if it knew how much I didn't want what I was doing. The generic lock screen that I never changed reflected its light on my eyeglasses.
Then, I went to Google.
I went to my bookmark and clicked Blogger.com.
The list of titles which were a combination of pieces I've written, have started to write, and planned to write but never did, piled onto my screen:
-Birthmates to Soulmates
-The Alidon Test
-Four Sisters with Bangs,
and so on, and so forth.
I opened the one titled 'Ang Tinuwang Libod', and looked at the paragraph I started to write and cringe. Not today. The embarrassment of the memory still stung my nerves.
I clicked the sideward arrow and chose the finished piece 'Kaizen' and wondered when would I have the courage to upload it. Maybe soon, when vulnerability would finally be my strongest suit.
I exited the page and clicked the one titled 'The Live Bar Man'. It featured a man wearing a pink long-sleeved shirt and jeans while singing with a woman in what seemed like a bar.
Oh, this is it. What a timely topic!
So here we are:
This guy everyone was my student last year or perhaps the year before last year. He sent this picture to share with me that he spends his Friday and Saturday nights in a live bar one hour away from his apartment. It is not the usual bar that you might imagine. It still serves drinks but instead of people dancing, the customers go in front and sing any song with the live band in front of strangers. He said it's his way to socialize with people and share his love for music. He mentioned that he has been going to this bar every weekend for many years despite the distance from his place. What a dedicated man, indeed!
Just like him, may we spend our weekend nights doing the things that give us great joy and not guilt. May it be watching movies, drinking with friends, doomscrolling on TikTok and other social media sites, or just simply lying on our bed and doing nothing.
And just like my class with him, let us end this piece by singing the intro of one of his favorite Carpenters' songs:
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