I love you, Jack and Bonus

On June 15, 2015, one of our dogs gave birth to five puppies. The last to come out of the womb was noticeably frail, but he survived. We named him "Bonus" as a shoddy attempt to play with the Filipino word "bunso". Five days ago, he passed away.

My childhood desire to have a dog had been fulfilled eight years ago when a mischievous little brown puppy found himself under a neighbor's rooster cage. Days later, we named him "Jack." Today, he passed away.

Both of them died of a fatal disease.

The more important the bond, the more we seem to take it for granted. Such a consistently essential element of our lives, like the air we breathe, only makes its presence felt through its absence. The reality has to become a cold phantom; only then it will become more substantial. It is the cruelest of ironies. A touch is warmer when it is no longer at our grasps. A voice is louder when it is no longer heard. We would only realize that their traits which we found annoying were not character defects, but their character.

No amount of regret will be able to overcome the border of life and death, but this truth does not stop me from desperately conveying to Jack and Bonus that, up until the end, I cared. I had the opportunity when their pleading, love-longing, alive eyes lit up at my very presence, but there were times when I consciously ignored them. They showed me through their energetic, wagging tails that they were glad to see me, but I was not able to appreciate those sincere gestures all the time. A pouncing approach of love and respect was oftentimes reciprocated only through half-hearted head-patting and belly-rubbing. For humans, life is about competition, busyness, and social niceties; for them, it is only about affection.

The selfish part of me keeps saying that Jack and Bonus should have held on a little longer. It keeps convincing me that seeing them getting thinner and thinner, having difficulty in breathing, and not being able to stand up is better than seeing them in a pain-free peace. Despite that, I told them my last request: rest if they could not take it anymore. They had considered our feelings up until their last breaths, letting go of life when we were preoccupied with our dreams.

Jack and Bonus' eyes that used to be sparkling then stared at nothingness, unmoving and vacant. Decomposition took over, stiffening their formerly eager legs. Still, I was in denial. When I called their name, I could have sworn that their tails had wagged for the last time. Their mouths were open not because they had died a painful death; they were just sleeping. Their lungs were full of life, expanding and contracting in a healthy manner. I was tempted to stay in that blissful fantasy forever, but the reality of my grief eventually freed me from my delusions.

I weep because I expected Jack and Bonus to experience a painless, un-premature death. I weep because, even if they tried hard to hide it, their suffering was evident. I weep because them being liberated from agony meant that they had to die. I weep because three years and eight years are not enough. I weep in the realization that, tomorrow, next week, next year, and the year after that, I will never see them anymore no matter how hard I look at their usual spots.

What saddens and frightens me the most is the notion that, in time, my capacity to recover will make me forget about Jack and Bonus. Their deaths will just be another of the many inevitabilities of life. The land where we rested their bodies will just be another place I will step on without remembering them. This post will just be another blog entry where I had expressed my grief. Their names and their stories will just be another piece of discussion in times of reminiscing the past.

Eventually, I will accept that Jack and Bonus are no longer with us. I do not want that. I have accepted the most meaningful eventualities of my life up to the point that their normalcy makes me ignorant of what their significance is anymore; the thought of Jack and Bonus belonging with them sickens me.

I love you, Jack and Bonus. Sleep well. 

In re: "Anarchism has changed my life"

Recently, I have stumbled upon a thread in which the OP (original poster) tells how anarchism has changed his life. My thoughts provoked and my desire to express myself stoked, I have decided to write my own:

In accordance with the current system, one has to amass money through wage labor to be successful. If one works "hard" enough—which is to say, to sacrifice a lot of his time, health, and freedom—she could earn enough to even start her own business. However, if the pay is "good" enough, she could decide to settle with the job that she already has, providing for her needs and wants sufficiently. It is a life where most of her consciousness is spent on working for 8 or so hours a day, a life tunnel-visioned entirely on selling her services and person to a corporation and earning money. Money. Money.

I simply do not find meaning in that kind of life, and this is even before I had discovered that there is such a thing called "anarchism."

In a world where obedience and conformity are virtues, I am too "stubborn" and "proud." It prefers competition over cooperation, declaring that an economy and lifestyle based on "mutual aid" are unrealistic. People's voices are reduced to a single count of a vote to elect representatives who in turn make their decisions for them. The majority are poor because they are "lazy," and the minority deserve the state they are in because they have worked "hard" for it—in reality, it is only the case because of labor exploitation. The justice system blatantly turns a blind eye for individuals that are "too big to jail," and instead judges that stealing a loaf of bread is a more major offense than plunder. Hoarding private property is not being greedy; it is being a business genius. It is a world of grave inequality, preferring to always have the "right" sets of beliefs and ideologies instead of respecting the uniqueness and the freedom of thought of other people.

Somebody convince me that that kind of world is meaningful.

Anarchism has changed my life because—to borrow a sentence from the book of cliches—it made me realize who I truly am. I have always thought that there is something rotten in this world, and I am so fucking glad that I am not alone on this one.

And as a man that is incapable of "extreme" direct action, I have and will rely on my writings to give my readers a different, creative, and fresh perspective on what is currently happening. If you would allow me to share, I am currently working on an adventure fiction set in a fantasy world with anarchistic elements. One of its major components is the accurate analogy between the story's antagonists and the current system. Frustrations and brain-wracking aside, I have hopes of at least writing my story's first chapter by the end of the year. But that is beside the point.

Based on the current system's standards, I am an "unsuccessful" man. But if being successful means to be a mindless drone that chases money—a processed paper, a modern slave, ruthless instead of empathetic, and wealthier instead of wiser, then I would rather be unsuccessful.