Blink and You'll Miss A Revolution*

Music is my only freedom these days. I tend to my iTunes like any proper hipster would: check out the blogs, feel the buzz, and add premium to the obscurer bands/songs. I find authenticity in ‘discovering’ music because I’m contrived like that, and for some reason, I subscribe to mimesis. That’s the most Darwinian I can get. But for the most part, music to me is all about the isolation, the non-standard, and the need to get legally high every now and then. And the narratives. Music adds another dimension, yeah?

Yesterday, I participated in a protest against the Philippine Mining Act at the DENR office. At the vanguard were the so-called indigenous peoples bearing placards of carefully crafted emblems of oppression. After all the chants and the street polemics we headed to the training center for the debrief. We ate crab and shrimp fresh from a barrio in Masbate, a mining hotspot. It’s all a part of work, I’d say, but in my heart of hearts, I am political.

I smoked up on the roof deck four stories up where the view over New Manila felt colonial. Towering Miradors from old houses pierced the canopy of the acacias. I’ve been told these are the homes of families who come mostly from Quiapo. There’s arrogance here, I guess. But I enjoyed the sun against my arms, and the heat from the asphalt coated floor.

I didn’t have my iPod then, but I wished I did. The decision I concocted to finally resign from work would have been easier, much more cinematic for sure. I’m so full of shit when it comes to life decisions, coz I don’t really have any criterion to set myself against. I just feel exhausted, that’s all. And when in doubt, remember, the physical is logical.

I would’ve loved me some M83 right there. They released a new album y’know.

*title from Cut Copy