My eyes are heavy with the sands of sleep. Of late, I’ve been averaging only four hours of snooze time each night--violently lacerated by minutes of abrupt wakefulness somewhere around 2am (always somewhere around 2am). Each sudden stirring is spurred by a feeling of urgency more imperative than a simple need to take a midnight leak. It’s closer to an emergency one erratically springs up to. When nothing else matters except accomplishing what is demanded by the moment, without the requisite five-minute car engine rev up before activating the A/C. Then as rapid as it arrives, I suddenly settle down, somehow get my bearings straight, and stabilize to an irritable condition regretting the time wasted after the whole business turns out to be just a false alarm.
I permit myself to attribute the sleeplessness to occupation-related stress. The daily workload is immense and daunting I can’t even imagine where to begin. I’ve barely finished the first task when three more come in. Somehow, I am beginning to feel unflattered by the faith my superiors are willing to wager on my behalf. In such instances, an artist-friend would have normally delivered such a blistering commentary: “Thank God, I have close friends: coffee and cigarettes. They keep me company for at least five minutes. Five minutes of pure, unadulterated loyalty.”
To this, I would have prudishly pointed out, “Cigarettes and coffee will stab you in the back, eventually.” To which, with a dismissive gesture of a hand, he would have nonchalantly retorted, “Puh-leese, spare me the health advisory. I can read ads. I am more than capable of looking after my own.”
Vices. Such inventions have been the objects of discord between fellow men; inspiring numerous arguments between husbands and wives and a mouthful of exchanges between parents and children. Like any preoccupation, cigarettes and coffee determine either humanity’s redemption or downfall. I am quick to add that many geniuses were born out of far worse vices and more hedonistic affairs. Whatever the preference, the power of suggestion has always been the poisonous tipping point. That feeling of invulnerability and freedom that unreasonably goads one to continue experimenting on new but nevertheless perilous things.
One irrelevant and random thought can always lead to enlightenment, so they say. The apparent suicide of former Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief Gen. Angelo Reyes and the side-stories bred by it are still the content of print and broadcast media nowadays. The Inquirer gave a though-provoking sub-heading for one headline regarding the AFP’s last rites for Reyes: “vilified in life, honored in death.” The sarcasm is thinly veiled, qualifying it as one of the wittiest, subtlest subtitles I’ve seen in recent years that any newspaper could be capable of coming up with. The editors of Inquirer could be credited for being smart-ass folks indeed, and no doubt they seem to take their jobs seriously.
Ask any random Filipino and they would readily say as-a-matter-of-factly that Reyes was a coward for taking his own life. Definitely not the bravest and noblest thing to do for a soldier of his supposed decorated stature. The logic is simple: if he was so innocent, why would he take the easy path and end his life instead of facing his accusers?
The absurd part about all of this is the State’s duplicity and political act of omission. The government often has a misplaced penchant for selectivity, turning a blind eye on an official’s blatant and overbearing crimes while purely focusing on his past good deeds, if at all. Social Justice, to be restorative, is not just about convenience achieved by simply ignoring the finer, unsavory points. As my above-mentioned friend would have been inclined to say: “Spare me the half-full-and-not-half-empty-glass argument.” In his time, Reyes was responsible for instigating the bloody war policy in Mindanao wherein hundreds of people died, combatants and civilians alike.
Suicide as an uncalculated act is the height of unreason and cowardice. Lack of foresight is a result of emotional imbalance. Only Reyes will know what really went on in his head during the final minutes before he pulled the trigger. Did he ever think that by killing himself he could shield his family from further public scrutiny? Did he even think that ending his life would, by extension, also end the possible vilification and implication of his family in his alleged dastardly acts? Granted, he has at least succeeded in gaining a semblance of sympathy from some camps (mostly those who were involved in corruption anyway), although I would bet my month’s worth of wages it was hardly sincere.
Even his most grandstanding accusers have backpedaled and took their tirades a notch lower, rarely mentioning his name among the involved, as if anticipating a potential political backlash. But his gainful participation in the pervasive corruption in the AFP simply cannot be overlooked. Although death can be a fitting punishment, suicide is far from an act deserving absolution, and even far less for one to be granted a hero’s status. Suicide is the ultimate escape, a convenient excuse and most cowardly act to finally end one’s haunting guilt and cheat his way out of culpability.
Only a few people may be aware but exactly two days from now, February 20, Kurt Cobain, a truly gifted artist and vocalist-guitarist of the band Nirvana would've celebrated his 44th birthday. Cobain, too, took his life 17 years ago. His death, however, eclipsed his career far d
ifferently from that of Reyes since the former's depression was something deeply personal, real and unimagined (well, if you discount his psychedelic trysts with an assortment of chemicals, which never resulted in a truly sober moment that is, so probably not). But his despair was truly genuine—a culmination of a dysfunctional childhood, overwhelming social pressures, a shaky marriage, an artistic intellect bordering on insanity—and not a product of any misconduct except towards his own. I take this opportunity to issue an open dare to the emo-types out there. You guys can learn a thing or two from Cobain if you really want to live up (or die) to your trendy, overly celebrated codes.
Nirvana’s last standalone studio album, In Utero, was probably Cobain’s best literary output before the frontman—whether deliberately or arbitrarily (since he was mostly drug-inspired)—decided to assume the band’s namesake state: the ultimate bliss accorded by death.
A college professor once remarked that Cobain was reputed to have been artistically influenced by the works of celebrated Beat generation writer William Burroughs, especially his novel, The Naked Lunch. My professor even added an interesting tidbit that Cobain had an unconfirmed homosexual affair with Burroughs. The iconic writer had reportedly been involved in several homosexual affairs in the past and was even said to have made romantic but unrequited advances on his contemporary and fellow Beat pillar, Allen Ginsberg. At the very least, going from point A to B, Burroughs appeared to have been Cobain’s mentor.
The Naked Lunch is a first-person running narrative of an institutionalized junkie. I read The Naked Lunch when I was a college sophomore. The book was numbingly difficult to read and the images Burroughs conveyed were absurdly jarring and teeth-gratingly raw somewhat similar to a skin test administered by the hand of an untrained nurse. It was a chore to read, indeed, and definitely not the best reference material for someone who’s just starting out to develop his own voice and style. But a few things did rub off, fortunately, like how to wholly surrender to one’s stream of consciousness when putting thoughts onto paper.
His sexual orientation notwithstanding, Burroughs was very ardent about his political views. Thus, he once commented: “Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact.”
As if Burroughs was still among the living, the quote seems like a pointed and interminable commentary about the Congressional investigations being conducted by our esteemed Representatives and Senators on the AFP slush funds. Like most intentions, as sure as any suicide letter is almost impossible to decipher, theirs are the hardest to measure. It’s up to the living to interpret the act of the dead to whatever purpose suits them.▼
