It's 2AM and she's singing a song
It's 2AM and I haven't written my Theo paper. Which is due at 3PM later today. I've finally figured out what I want to write and how--it's just a matter of actually writing it--but for some reason, I feel unsettled, anxious, perturbed. In angst. Be not surprised that I have Sia's Breathe Me on repeat once again.
I think I care too much about this Theo paper. I am far from comfortable with traditional theological language, but I care too much nevertheless; I care so much that I want to get it right. I care too much because I want to believe in what I'm going to write. I don't want this to be some bullshit paper--I've written so many of those already; I want this to mean something. To me.
Somehow I expect to cram every image and every word into a three-page paper. And hell, I didn't even go on immersion.
It's 2.03AM and I need to sleep so that when I get up in five hours, I can start writing a Theo paper that means something to me. In the meantime, I think that in the light of recent national and Ateneo-based events, it would be a good idea to leave you with this wonderful poem by Otto Rene Castillo, who died at the age of 28 after having been heinously tortured in a variety of painful ways. His fingers were cut off one by one, the poor Marxist.
Apolitical Intellectuals
One day
the apolitical
intellectuals
of my country
will be interrogated
by the simplest
of our people.
They will be asked
what they did
when their nation died out
slowly,
like a sweet fire
small and alone.
No one will ask them
about their dress,
their long siestas
after lunch,
no one will want to know
about their sterile combats
with "the idea
of the nothing"
no one will care about
their higher financial learning.
They won't be questioned
on Greek mythology,
or regarding their self-disgust
when someone within them
begins to die
the coward's death.
They'll be asked nothing
about their absurd
justifications,
born in the shadow
of the total lie.
On that day
the simple men will come.
Those who had no place
in the books and poems
of the apolitical intellectuals,
but daily delivered
their bread and milk,
their tortillas and eggs,
those who drove their cars,
who cared for their dogs and gardens
and worked for them,
and they'll ask:
"What did you do when the poor
suffered, when tenderness
and life
burned out of them?"
Apolitical intellectuals
of my sweet country,
you will not be able to answer.
A vulture of silence
will eat your gut.
Your own misery
will pick at your soul.
And you will be mute in your shame.
--Otto Rene Castillo
And if it were your turn to be asked, would you be able to answer? Or would you, too, remain mute in shame?
I think I care too much about this Theo paper. I am far from comfortable with traditional theological language, but I care too much nevertheless; I care so much that I want to get it right. I care too much because I want to believe in what I'm going to write. I don't want this to be some bullshit paper--I've written so many of those already; I want this to mean something. To me.
Somehow I expect to cram every image and every word into a three-page paper. And hell, I didn't even go on immersion.
It's 2.03AM and I need to sleep so that when I get up in five hours, I can start writing a Theo paper that means something to me. In the meantime, I think that in the light of recent national and Ateneo-based events, it would be a good idea to leave you with this wonderful poem by Otto Rene Castillo, who died at the age of 28 after having been heinously tortured in a variety of painful ways. His fingers were cut off one by one, the poor Marxist.
Apolitical Intellectuals
One day
the apolitical
intellectuals
of my country
will be interrogated
by the simplest
of our people.
They will be asked
what they did
when their nation died out
slowly,
like a sweet fire
small and alone.
No one will ask them
about their dress,
their long siestas
after lunch,
no one will want to know
about their sterile combats
with "the idea
of the nothing"
no one will care about
their higher financial learning.
They won't be questioned
on Greek mythology,
or regarding their self-disgust
when someone within them
begins to die
the coward's death.
They'll be asked nothing
about their absurd
justifications,
born in the shadow
of the total lie.
On that day
the simple men will come.
Those who had no place
in the books and poems
of the apolitical intellectuals,
but daily delivered
their bread and milk,
their tortillas and eggs,
those who drove their cars,
who cared for their dogs and gardens
and worked for them,
and they'll ask:
"What did you do when the poor
suffered, when tenderness
and life
burned out of them?"
Apolitical intellectuals
of my sweet country,
you will not be able to answer.
A vulture of silence
will eat your gut.
Your own misery
will pick at your soul.
And you will be mute in your shame.
--Otto Rene Castillo
And if it were your turn to be asked, would you be able to answer? Or would you, too, remain mute in shame?