Purpose, eggs, and table salt
The evening descended over our narrow, silent kitchen. It was past midnight when I thought of fancying myself with calamansi-flavored pancit canton and a sunny-side up egg.
Clandestine meals became a nightly ritual, either to pacify my hunger or to ease my mind, oblivious to the ungodly amount of sodium inundating my kidneys. The familiar, loud beeps of the induction stove permeated the nascent Tuesday morning. While the crickets gathered in a chorus, I placed the pot of water to boil. Beside the stove were the hard noodles, naked and pale yellow under the incandescent light. In the short distance, the packets of flavoring rested quietly beside the sink, waiting like patient companions to be wed to the soon-to-be softened noodles.
As I watched the vapor rise to meet the moonlight’s fingertips, it made me think of how each one of them came with a purpose: the boiling water coaxing the noodles into softness; the sauce and pulverized seasoning to elicit a reaction from the taste buds; and the meal born of their union to appease my growling appetite. There, I had a moment of epiphany—one that told me, in some way, that humans, in the face of suffering and meaninglessness, muddle through adversity with faith that their purpose will bring forth deliverance. While we are tethered to one fate, that is, to live, we are also wanderers in duty and pilgrims in responsibility.
When confronted by an idea as immense as purpose, it naturally breeds caution and skepticism. Purpose can be a two-edged sword; it does not always speak the language of affirmation we hope for. In one form or another, purpose devolves humans into a state of combat, fiercely and restlessly attempting to outmaneuver the other, forsaking their common humanity, all for the sake of proving one’s unparalleled greatness.
I do not dream of greatness; I only strive to live each day worthy of love. Yet in all its cruelties, the world demands greatness first before granting such. Everything comes with conditions, and those conditions come with their own twisted set of conditions until it becomes a repulsive cycle of boundless demands and blunted humanity, slowly removing the kind in mankind.
But what becomes of me if the place I thought would teach me to become more of a person and less of a sack of bones was the same place that would render me questioning just about everything? What if this place has succeeded in becoming my new source of growing resentment and apathy toward all things known and unknown?
And now, I find myself standing on the other side of it all, and yet all I learned was that there is little distinction between dreams and nightmares. With time, fantasy and reality soon become indistinguishable.
With the turning of each day, I operate like some heavy-duty machinery that requires oiling once in a while to keep going. It wasn’t the gold-plated medal resting on my chest that I longed for; it was their affection and admiration. In the glimmer of their eyes, when they sing me their praises and veneration, I feel seen. It is in those borrowed moments of recognition that I mistake applause for absolution. Yet when my skin makes contact with my soul, I feel completely human.
Perhaps that is why I dread the day when the medal rusts, not for the loss of its luster but for the silence that follows once it no longer shines. It’s frightening that tomorrow, the paint on my medals will wear off, scraping away peels and vestiges of their sympathy for me. Perhaps this fear is misdirected. I fear someone else’s approval slipping out of reach, the applause fading before I have learned to clap for myself.
For two decades, I built my sense of self from the ground up, only to place greater importance on being seen with acceptance than embracing the notion of being that it is already sufficient and whole. I feel my heart sink at the thought of the day I must finally confront my true skin—a ghoulish reminder of mediocrity and slightness.
“But fear not,” I say to myself. If ever it shall come, then it shall. Its arrival may be unceremonious yet foreordained nonetheless.
And just like that, the egg on the pan is one daydream away from getting burnt and forgetting, too, how much salt I dashed on its poor fragile dome. But no matter how soggy your noodles or how badly burnt your eggs get, there will always be a dinner table we can walk back to.
Fulfilling our purpose may not be as easy as boiling noodles or frying an egg, but even a moment’s pause can reshape the way you see the long and winding paths of life. In the interest of goodwill, we ought to lay down the guilt of this lifetime’s would-haves, could-haves, and should-haves, for with what salvation cannot afford, grace often does. To be unmoored from the weight of uncertainty is to allow the wind to carry your sails toward a different shoreline.
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James Kyle N. Miguel, 22, is a public administration graduate from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines Manila. He finds purpose in breathing life into the worlds within his mind through the art of language and writing.
