I Needed My Walden

15 Jul, 2026

Found this entry from my Google Keep just under a year ago. I'm posting it below to look at and ruminate on how much has changed since that 3:00 a.m. spiral.

September 30, 2025

I look at my phone (ironic, as I'm typing on it right now). 3:52 a.m. I was supposed to be asleep by 9 p.m. yesterday.

I shuffle, I shift, I roll around, I doomscroll, I shift again, I roll again, I comment on Discord, I lose myself in Instagram short videos, I lose myself watching (listening) to YouTube videos to "try" and put myself to sleep.

My mind is awake, yet here I am wondering why. This was the first day of a vacation.

To let go of my pastoral duties for a bit and focus on me and my wife.¹ To enjoy the beaches of Bantayan, the slow-paced life, the cheap cost of living, and the carefree and friendly attitude — the safe place and community.

Yet I rest listless (is this even correct?). Back to habits I espoused in the city life, the fast lane.

In the midst of my developing distress, a thought enters:

"What if the reason why I can't sleep is not excitement, but the horror of being alone with my thoughts?"

Preposterous! Says me as well. Yet the heart, as if on cue, nods in agreement, preaching to the thunderous choir of sedimented soliloquies (I googled the damn word) from the subconscious, clawing out like chained dogs from the unconscious suppression of their expression, crying out for me to acknowledge... Me.

Yet I do feel a certain lightness, a freedom, if you will, simply in writing the processing of these emotions down. We haven't even discussed anything yet.

I guess life, duty, and pressures from work, church, married life, and my lazy self have subconsciously suppressed the subconscious (if that makes sense).

I've always had to think a few steps ahead, or not think at all, or not engage. Never had a "blank" time slot such as this vacation to completely let go and be on a semi-remote island with my wife and my thoughts.

My wife slaves away at her call-centre job. I slave away at trying to write myself to sleep, frantically emptying all pent-up emotion, questions, thoughts, scenario analysis (??) out of this poorly organized repository of bad decisions called the brain.

Might as well take the time to un-fuck my thoughts (as I have said several times, each time I started to write, but to no avail). This time, though, it feels... different.

Cliché as it may be, it does feel different. Perhaps that is why Thoreau had his Walden, and Charles Foster Kane had Rosebud. It was not necessarily an escape (Thoreau. Kane was a terrible example, but I will not self-edit in a time when "edits" are almost always expected, mostly to the disadvantage of the truth); it was an unloading of thoughts — a silent, meditative unloading of unnecessary mental cargo into the ether, making space for creativity, direction, inspiration, and many more good things that nature can give without sacrificing much of herself.

This morning I yield to the writer in me. To document, to sort, to process my feelings. Perhaps then I will be able to write as a source of income, or write copy that makes me laugh (it still doesn't).

I diverted my thoughts. Back to the task at hand: being alone with one's thoughts.

I guess I needed my Walden — a place into which I can unload everything without affecting it or them in some place or form. Think trauma dumping without actually traumatizing the place you are staying in. My mind is just tired of me cramming all problems, concerns, and negative what-ifs into myself. Perhaps this was a way to unload, a reminder to let go of hurt, resentment, regrets, and such. I do feel much, much better already.

While prayer helps², somehow I missed the memo where I must permanently unload the issue being surrendered. This changes that. I will learn to let go.

I will end my writing prematurely, as my wife desires "intimacy."

To writing — may this be the start of a long, happy, fulfilling relationship.

P.S. I do feel some pushback (bah! Corporate speak) from myself right now — specifically, the department of procrastination and laziness. To that I say: Fuck you, I'm writing still.³

Present Day Ruminations

Looking back at this nearly a year later, the contrast is stark. That Bantayan trip forced a mirror in front of me that I wasn't entirely ready for, but desperately needed. As I read somewhere, at the time, I simply looked at the mirror, looked away, and forgot everything. Unrelated to writing however, there were events of that day that we could never forget.

September 30, 2025 (Tuesday) - 0300 HRS

18 hours later, around 2200 HRS Philippine time: Cebu—the main island we departed from to reach Bantayan, our main destination—would experience a Magnitude 6.9 earthquake. The island (and metropolitan Cebu itself) we were staying in was affected, and we were jolted awake. The quake lasted around 30 seconds officially, but it felt like forever (well, not forever, maybe just under 2 minutes). The chandeliers in the AirBnB swayed violently, and a thoroughly rough shaking of the surrounding area made it hard to get out of the house into a safe, open area. I was surprisingly calm—maybe too calm—and dressed up from boxers to a shirt and trousers.

We would only see the extent of the damage on Thursday, and boy was I glad to book one day in advance before our return trip on Friday, the 3rd of October. The port we sailed into from Bantayan was flooded on that same Friday, which would've extended our stay more than we would be comfortable with. We saw Bogo, the town that was most affected (surprisingly there were still passable roads to the City airport), was hit the hardest: a Jollibee branch that looked like it imploded on itself, landslides, and boulders where a house used to be (sadly I recall at least one person and a dog died).

The place where we stayed in Cebu city wasn't really comforting either—cracked walls in the elevator area. Our floor was on the 30th, and we had to take the stairs from the 29th because for some reason (or fate wanting to play a cruel joke) the elevator only worked until the 29th floor. Yeah, that was not a good 6 hours of sleep.

We made it back to Manila without any complications, but it was a (very nice) trip that was cut short. We're planning on going back there soon.

To let go of my pastoral duties for a bit and focus on me and my wife. To enjoy the beaches of Bantayan, the slow-paced life...

In a word: disgusted. I left this position because of the hypocrisy of it all. While sure, the Book has some questionable passages, it's the people that make it worse, for all involved. This is too much for this post, so maybe another time.

I guess I needed my Walden — a place into which I can unload everything without affecting it or them in some place or form...

I don't want to lose my Walden. I need it. I do remember what I felt at the time I wrote this: Bliss, not just peace. Bliss. The bliss that comes not from ignoring one's problems (though I agree that in some cases ignorance IS bliss), but rather realizing that you can take a break from it all, recharge, and get back into the world swinging.

Since then, I've gotten into a lot of things, a roller coaster of sorts in life, but I'm in a much better place now. It hasn't been a smooth 3 years, but me and my wife are doing better. The writing and the procrastinating thing: yeah it's still there, but I want to be better. Planning on using this writing tool to continue to untangle my thoughts, and just write, and be better. If I earn from this great, but the important thing is I get to be able to express myself better (like this old entry, but more polished). I don't feel the serenity or relaxation right now compared to when I wrote this, but seeing the post sparked a desire to go back to that state of blissful awareness if that makes sense.

But, one must work toward this state, and not wait for it to happen.

Baby steps