You see yourself “locked” in a room with laps together and arms above them learning shapes and the color of water that trickles down your window. You learn that nine increased by another nine is eighteen, that f(x) is a function problem, that rizal is our national hero, that America was our ally in the WW1 and the idea tickles your bones, that the fluid running down your spinal column is the sinuvial fluid, and the 1/tan is the inverse if tan (am I right with this?). You climb a notch higher and learn ad hominem and bramantip, that baroque and renaissance arts are not the same, that the current ratio is the quotient of total current assets by total current liabilities, and that section 2 of article XVII provides for the people’s right to propose amendments to the constitution.

Then you get out of college, you run away from the classroom and you see yourself in a totally different dimension, a place where people say that we kids know nothing about, a place we only know as re-a-li-ty. You begin to wonder how 2 years of pre-elementary, 6 years of primary, 4 years of secondary, and 4 regular years of tertiary (1-2 years of extension if necessary) education, a total of 18 years of you life, had conspired on you only to learn afterwards that everything is bull shit; that rizal was just some chick magnet, who spent all of his money in Europe before the next remittance arrive; who happened to be damn intelligent and a hell of a writer; that america was our ally to protect its interest in our natural resources; that f(x) will not solve how much fare you have pay; that being a CPA will not spell happiness.

This is life as you should know it. You are broke for the longest period of your life, you are stuck in this stagnant existence trying to seize greatness. Only now that you are learning how to ride the bus and never really pay for it, or walk two kilometers because you are two peso short of the minimum fare. Every time you think about how did you get here you are amazed on how you sedated yourself with the idea that you can write, you know people and people know you .

It feels like learning shapes and colors one more time as if you have not learned any because in this dimension we call reality, nothing we have perceived inside the school are what they seem. You can now stop denying, stop saying you and start saying I.