I'm so happy it hurts

Over the course of the week, I had these realizations about happiness:
Don't be too happy that you could whine about it. (after talking with my friends about the adverse effects of someone's ultra-happiness)
Too much happiness is bad for one's sanity. (same case as previous entry)
Don't think too much about being happy. Just be happy. (random thought)

So late last night, it just came to me, this song about happiness which hit me as an echo of the principles in Milan Kundera's "Unbearable Lightness of Being". I just started singing the song while waiting for a ride home. The song's lyrics are just 7 sentences, each repeated x number of times.

I'M SO HAPPY

"I'm so happy, yeah" (x times)
"I'm so happy, yeahoooooooo" (x times)
"I'm so happy. Yahoooooooo" (x times)
"I'm so happy, yeaaooooooow" (x times)
"I'm so happy, yeaaooooooowcchhhh" (x times)
"God, I'm so happy" (x times)
"God, I'm too happy" (x times)

I think I really was too happy yesterday. I was too happy I could feel my insides burbling then boiling. Bursting in the seams with happiness! Can you imagine if a person could really explode with happiness? Like happiness was a bomb inside you and it could go off when you're too happy, killing you. And when you explode, you'll splatter bits and pieces of you on other people. I don't know if you can kill anyone if you hit them with an eyeball hurtling at top speed. Maybe.

New gig

I'm on a good roll these days. Things are picking up well. Tomorrow I'll be meeting with old friends and colleagues and hopefully new ones at Zabadani's to work on the next literary arts event. It's going to be the third installment of the Poetry Night series supported by the Davao Writers Guild and Young Davao Writers. But next time, we'll be pumping things up. We'll be putting some spice into the plain readings. There will be perfomances, visual presentations, and music! I hope more people will get into it in the following days. I don't think I'm anxious. Just hopeful.

"Why do you write?"

I remember that question being thrown at me like a dry morsel during my first semester as a Creative Writing student. It's a very perplexing question that I needed to gnaw on for a long time. The question felt as existential as asking myself "Why do I exist?" I think I went on to say that cliche, unimaginative line "I write to express myself," which any CW teacher would accept as literary juvenilia and totally ignoble because they'd be more impressed if one would say "I write because I am" or "Because I want to challenge the literary canon."

Now, I think I should have said "I write because I am obliged." That would have been more practical. There were really a lot of things obliging me to write aside from being enrolled in the CW course. Outside of class, I see a lot of things and live through things that needed to be written to be understood. Growing up, I had gradually become aware of the fragility of the present and the past. Experience grows old and sometimes fades with memory. I think writing an experience is totally living it. When writing, one considers an experience like one would a photograph or a painting. One looks from afar to see the big picture and then one looks closely to see the details. And then one turns the canvas or the photograph around to see what's behind.

*****
I think this will be a never-ending essay. I will write more on this in the coming days.

Meanwhile, visit http://whywewriteseries.wordpress.com to read what drives other writers to write.