Lost in the Urban Jungle

I've been away from the Metro life and had confined myself in a not so less mundane existence since I moved here in The Province of Laguna and it intensified even further when I venture into self-employment. Leaving the corporate world allows me to reflect more of my personal life and still have plenty of excess for the whole world in general.

   I don't get that chance to really reflect about life when I was heavily squeeze with so many responsibilities as an Administrative Officer of a human resource agency in the Largest Printing  Press in Asia. I don't get the chance to have a complete 8 hours sleep then and I don't have the time to even think for my own future but only that of the company's future...

   Your Company robs you of your personal dreams...not unless your dream is to make your employer enrich themselves...which I really did. I mean, I swore to myself that I'll push the best of the people under me and make them productive, and in so doing they push me upward as well and in the end my bosses benefits the most. Not a bad 20 or so years of my life...

   But I always wanted to be an artist and the best father there is, at least for my children...to compensate the lost time, and those moment that I haven't seen them growing up right before my eyes...

   It took courage...sometimes, honestly there are times that I've feel I have taken the wrong decision. But when I see how my long suspended art journal grew more steadily and more creatively evolving in a faster phase, I think I'm on the right track. As for my kids, I get more bonding time with them...(but trap too with the headache of being with them all the time...)

   

   Well, this blog isn't about reflecting on that area. It was about my visit the other day in Metro Manila for a business deal and also I took the privilege to see some friends and art exhibitions. I was just amaze how so short a time can make you so alienated with the previous life style that I use to know. It is not that I miss them...I was just shock how progress grew right before our very eyes. I didn't notice these before...maybe because I was within the process and not an expectant audience. 

   Did I welcome progress before? Probably almost anything it had offered including its sin. Now, the only thing that hooks me with technology is my laptop and cellphone...and by the way, I was able to blog more often too than I begun this page on the luxury of my old office 3 years ago. 

   I have to laugh to myself when I get lost inside SM Mega Mall...can't locate the way going to EDSA Shangri-La Hotel, and don't know where's the overpass for a bus ride...going to the mazes of shops, boutique, and winding pathways and alleys...

   I can't believe that I used to be a regular guest of the best hotels here when I used to work at a Research center and all I could do now is look at them with mix emotions,  and there's the shopping district, malls, and specially clubs where some crazy memory abound. It became like a pilgrimage when I took a ride from Mandaluyong City, to Makati City, and to Pasay City to see my childhood friends. 

   The good thing is that we are bringing the art in the mainstream by establishing those galleries within the shopping centers. I get the chance to see some of the best contemporary artworks first hand than simply browse them on electronic galleries...I miss doing my art walk, which was not that plenty here in Laguna.
   I don't want to pass this opportunity to visit the Kristo Exhibit at SM Mega Mall by Malolos, Bulacan artist where some of our Tagged ArtLover friends works are on display. (inset photo, left.)

   The busier streets...The excessive life...The buffet at Dads-Kamayan almost make my belly explode, not because I'm hungry or wanted to get more from the bill, which was any way paid by my friends but I tasted all the dishes that my palate misses. Actually, as I now digress, I had these food during parties when I get hired for face painting here in Laguna, and even better...YET...Well, its a different ambiance than going to the same restaurant or resorts here in Laguna. It somehow change the taste in a strange way when you are surrounded with high-rise facade all around you. Now, I appreciate all these "urbanize" experience even for a day. Something I took for granted before...and wasted. 

   Now, I'm back here in Laguna, which is fast becoming an urbanized place too...and the usual, fresh air, green fields and crystal clear rivers are replaced with subdivisions and factories...plus the fact that the exodus of city dwellers opted this place for the sheer beauty and accessibility. Now, the same tragic fate might engulf this former paradise to whom a popular song by the Rock and Roll Queen was dedicated.

   I'm not going to miss the city after all, it is coming to get me again.