In the past…

It might seem like the natural order of things: The young look forward to the future while those with most of their lives behind them happily into reminiscence. But it becomes a problem when the starts living completely in the past and ignoring the present.

So someone who is unhappy with their surroundings might find it easier to retreat in the past. Indeed, there are many reasons why the past is so important to many senior citizens. Elderly people are often marginalized in life as actively as young people. If older people are fully valued and taken seriously, then they go about their lives and the present day much more positively.

Memories and old stories are not necessarily bad. Many young people begin to take account of their lives as they get old, and that dredges up a lot of memories. Instead of living silently in the past, older people should seek contact with the younger generation. Psychologist and gerontologist recommend that the middle-aged people should be sure to maintain contacts and keep their spirits up. That can means games, dancing, sports or advanced crossword puzzles. Old people should read a newspaper, watch the news, and make dates and then discuss it all. But the old stories should not be lost under any circumstances. Young people should ask older people to write down their experiences and impressions. After all telling stories from old times is not just an expression of boredom or dissatisfaction. Many interesting memories are nice and above all, interest the great grandchildren.

I haven't slept 'normally' for days. Thank God for powernapping. :)

So here I am: sitting on a chair, typing in front of the 24-inch iMac, hoping to get a decent realization as I write. Goodness, has it really been that long since I last blogged here? All apologies; I didn't notice, see. I really had to make a new entry because everytime I would see my "recent entries" ung depressing entry ung nababasa ko. So I’m here hoping that this entry will be much more cheerful than the previous one. :) And it took me a hell week to realize that.

I just watched Brokeback Mountain for the Nth time on HBO. For some reason despite it being a really cheesy movie and full of romantic crap that I'd usually be laughing and scoffing at,I keep analyzing this movie. It’s one of the saddest movies I’ve ever seen. And perhaps what makes watching the movie such a heavy experience is the constant holding back from melodrama, a total absence of catharsis. In heath Ledger’s troubled eyes, you can sense all the pain and rage he feels as a captive of his circumstances: the trauma and repression from his childhood, the imprisonment of an inauthentic marriage, and the realistic assessment of a world that shows no mercy upon those who deviate from the accepted norm. And when the final twist in Ernis and Jack’s torturous relationship occurs, what makes the scene so gut-wrenching is in fact its utterly banality. No sweeping soundtrack, no flashback montage of their good times up on the mountain, no rain to mirror the internal state of someone whose meaning of life has been lost forever. Nothing except the anguish of Ledger’s face under a brightly – shining and ultimately prosaic sun.

Brokeback Mountain embraced homosexuality like never before, enough to bring extended smiles among gays and irritable the gender conservatives. With its tagline, “Love is a force of nature,” this Ang-Lee directed film proved that once you are lucky enough find the love of your life you get to keep it. Of course actually getting to that point is the tricky part but the assumption there is that true love actually does exist. Brokeback Mountain breaks the mold by showing how one can just as easily find love but not hold onto it.

I didn’t shed any tears while watching the movie, not because I didn’t want to, (I had made sure that the handkerchief with me was particularly absorbent that day), but because there was nothing to help me get into crying mode. For indeed, the tragedy is definitely present but the film is able to remind us that the tragic, not just can, but often actually exists in the very ordinariness of our lives. And so even if no tears were shed, what the movie left me with is a lingering, painful, and strangely familiar feeling of unease, which I couldn’t quite fully identify. That is until I finally realized, it was heartbreak.