4.3 million
According to the website World Population Review, I come home to the top two most populous cities in the Philippines, with a combined population of 4.3 million — Quezon City and Manila. I study in a university in the latter, for about five years now, and the other city saw my childhood some twenty years ago. I come back to QC during the weekends, seeking the comfort of my sister’s daughter, our dogs Snow and Ash, and the chaotic ruckus in our quaint little suburban neighborhood.
It’s interesting to observe the subtle differences (or so I perceive) between the residents of the metropolis. While only kilometers apart, I’m starting to believe, based on my astute observations, that the people in Manila (the hotpot of cultures, of migrants from other cities, provinces, municipalities) walk a tad bit faster than the people in QC — maybe to get to their destinations quicker, since there are a lot of destinations traversed in Manila, whereas the feet in QC walk in a more relaxed fashion, especially within the numerous malls it houses. I wonder, do they call that city home, too?
While it’s very easy to appreciate the beauty of mundanity in both of these cities, the gentle thrum of the transit line bringing people from here to there, traffic lights that people don’t necessarily follow to the dot, food stalls, malls, and everything else, it’s equally easy to be overwhelmed by the urban hell. It does not help that I just rewatched Everything Everywhere All at Once yesterday at 3AM. Obviously, thoughts fester in this labyrinthine city-brain of mine.
I imagine electric lines wrapping around my body, livewires seeking every crevice, vehicles crashing around me perpetually, even the steps of feet becoming roaring stampedes while I lie on the bed, contemplating. 4.3 million now sounds terrifying, because it’s easier still to be sucked into a vortex of having to talk, interact, connect with so many people all at once. These cities are alive, but they’re pretty alienating, too.
And I guess certain imbalances in my inner self applied this claustrophobia onto my relationships and friendships as well. For the past two weeks, I’ve been in an ambiguous emotional cloud. After several bouts of personal development and spiritual awakening, I’ve grown to value my inner peace, being content with seclusion and minimalistic ideations of conversation and relationships. But at the same time, I’ve been yearning for the most profound, prolific connections with the people I also call home. Suddenly, the most populous cities in the country felt empty, and I was the lone resident in them.
It’s hard to want alone time and simultaneously feel so goddamn lonely.
It’s a convoluted mystery of having to untangle expectations for myself, for others, as well as diagnosing my needs and wants in relationships. I really love being in love with myself, prioritizing self-care, meditation, and pure, guttural contemplation about my personal life’s questions: The Great Unknown, The Answers I Wish I Could Begin Seeking. This was influenced by the beginnings of the pandemic, when I literally had to force myself to sit in quiet and drown in my own thoughts for long periods of time, aligning my religious beliefs and my daily practices. But then my medical career started clawing at me, and what were once pillars of inner peace slowly began turning into afterthoughts, acts I did after showers, a whisper. The intentional life simmered down, and I do wish to regain a sense of balance and spirituality some time, but I have to recognize that right now, I am dwelling in the mundane.
Being intentional and deliberate in my actions and beliefs is important to me now. It is a way to maintain and uphold the value of something in our lives. If one values religious beliefs and practices, then one might want to build an altar for devotion. That kind of thing. Then I realized that intentional living doesn’t only pertain to my own lifestyle, but that I also value it in my connections. Because aren’t meaningful connections built on altars as well?
I am peeved by superficial interactions, the type to be plastered across social media, and I often ask, “why?” or even “so what?” — I find it bizarre to have to prove to everyone that we’re doing this, that we have this relationship, when it does not impact me, at all (nor does it impact our connection!). Further, I do not find comfort in time spent doing non-intentional things, especially if I feel like it was just brought up out of obligation, out of courtesy. I am not an afterthought.
I never thought it would boil down to it, but now I know that intention, or the lack thereof, is really a metric of stability or insecurity for me. I have not verbalized this before (because of the impregnable fortress afforded by my previous meditations and self-love — that which are crumbling at the moment), but I do want to feel appreciated. I do want to feel valued. And being intentional with approaching me, as I am intentional with everyone around me, is a growing standard that I am thankful to realize.
I do not want to be bombarded by cars daily, or by the noise of the metro, the lights we don’t really follow, and at the same time compete for value in the urban jungle. I’m part of the 4.3 million, but I’m not just a statistic. And the same goes for the other way around, I do want to continue and improve on being intentional with the people I love. And given that I have such limited bandwidth for people, I am more able to give that to those most close to me. I do have regrets, moments in time where I could and should have done more, but the past is unchangeable. What I can only do now is to commit to be more intentional.
Being overwhelmed by the two most populous cities in the country puts such a burden on its inhabitants to sift through the smoke and the pollution and figure out the best move forward. Being consumed by everything in the city allows us to detect what’s really important. The metropolis might be hard in that regard, but maybe that’s really its intention.
