Watch Me Entertain Myself!

Sacha Guitry once said, "You can pretend to be serious, but you can't pretend to be witty." Oh yes, I'm the great pretender.
(pilot episode: 20 January 2004)

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Death Scenes

When I was in high school, I started imagined my own death scenes. At first those were literally movie scenes—we were shooting a movie and my character was dying. Usually I’d have no dialogue; I’d be gasping for breath while my co-actor (often a hot one from Hollywood—hey, it’s my daydream, hm’kay?!) in that scene would be the one with the declarations of love (usually masked in manly hetero-acceptable speech) and loss over me.

But as I grew older, real life scenarios replaced the movie scenes and real people replaced the actors. More than once I’d end up saving my crush from, say, getting crushed by an oncoming 10-wheeler—but I’d get fatally sideswiped. Yes, I have seen many a cheesy dramatic movie in my childhood.

What was the point of all that? After all, death was always the ultimate goodbye scene. I knew I got a kick out of imagining who would be gathered around me as I died, and what those people would say to me. It was my ultimate fantasy question: did I matter to anyone at all, and how?

Nowadays I don’t bother with the death scenes, because sometimes, even while living, I catch myself wondering: do I matter at all to anyone? And while my mind always says yes, there’s always a pinch of fear somewhere deep in my heart, somewhere where it’s cold and scared. I thought it was shoved way deep inside so no one, not even I, can feel it; but I was wrong.

* * * * *

I’m not being emo now, okay? One quick quip from Jamiedavinci is like being slapped silly, and I snapped out of it. All that muay thai kicking of his definitely has paid off.

Your mother thanks you, dear daughter.

4 comments:

jamie da vinci! said...

mader.... it's MUAY THAI..., tho it's pronounced how you spell it :) hay naku. you spoke to soon. i should give myself a self slapping as well. though now that i have had a good night's sleep, i'm considering my pseudo-emo moment to be a result of the past day's exhaustion. hope you are feeling better.

joelmcvie said...

@JAMIE: Emo slapper na, spell-checker ka pa! Tarush. O ayan, I fixed the spelling na. =)

ManilaRaunch said...

dont you ever wonder that maybe we're NOT supposed to matter?

I know it goes about everything we've learned and thought about since "i think, therefore, I am" but WHAT IF, we're just supposed to be happy doing our stuff, prepping stuff for the next generation and just go? regardless if we get a nod or not.

ang sarap kasi isipin that we matter to someone; romantic even; but there's also something to be said about doing a job well done and just going.

joelmcvie said...

@RM: Eh di in that case we DO matter... for the next generation. =)

Yes, I've wondered what if nobody and nothing really matters (cue in Madonna). Pero while it's possible, the human mind can always make meaning out of nothing--JUZMEH, andaming nagkakajowa dahil sa ganito noh, hahaha!

I'm just making my mind exercise.