"Discardia is celebrated by getting rid of stuff and ideas you no longer need. It’s about letting go, abdicating from obligation and guilt, being true to the self you are now. Discardia is the time to get rid of things that no longer add value to your life, [to] shed bad habits, [to] let go of emotional baggage and [to] generally lighten your load."
I haven’t chronicled much about my life after the break-up last summer. Not all my close friends knew about what happened, and if they had not approached me, I could still possibly be in their list of already-taken friends. What happened to me after that surprising death has barely been unheard of. Some were afraid that I died with it too, but I am glad that the way I have been living my life since then has proven such an assumption otherwise.
To let go of an almost three-year relationship and then say that you actually have felt more alive after is indeed a plausible accomplishment. I lost something, but I also gained more. Our journey was halted, but the alternate route allowed me to continue. By discarding, I have lived.
We did love each other immensely (I could say), but it still wasn’t enough to connect our separate views on life. We were the best of friends, but I guess we could never have passed as the best of lovers. Our relationship had been a toil, and I knew it was, but I was too afraid to acknowledge it. He was my comfort zone, and I was too afraid to even step out and compare. Even if our relationship was clearly headed to damnation, I was still allured by the warmth of its burning fire.
I don’t know if this only applies to my case, but haven’t we gotten the notion that keeping is virtuous while throwing away is not. We keep pictures, books, and the like. Everything we throw away is considered trash. So we keep and we keep, for yeah, why would we even allow something, which have been of use to us, to be considered as trash in the end? We keep because we believe it is the only way to cherish.
But oftentimes, we fail to notice this disclaimer: If everything is kept, everything eventually will also pile up. Your room, your own little world, becomes cluttered by the same things you kept because you didn’t want them to turn into trash. And so as result, there is no more enough space for you to even stand on. No more enough air for you to breathe in. So watcha gotta do? You have no choice but to still throw things away.
And I guess discard is a better word to use than throw (that’s why I love the word discardia). Discarding is essential to give us space to grow. Discarding is essential so we can have more room to acquire the things we now more need. We discard not because we consider something as trash, but because we just no longer need it to stay. But the thing discarded (and consequently even replaced) doesn’t imply it is no longer useful, because even if it is discarded to the mountains of Smokey (haha, Smokey Mountain I mean!), the meaning which that discarded thing has stamped to your life will always remain. As what Sir Jope said, “What you have now is brought about by your past (where the discarded thing came from), and what you will have in the future is brought about by what you do with what you have now (historicity).” If now means a cluttered room, then aren’t we supposed to be sensing a room makeover?
And so early on the post-breakup stage, I already chose to discard all the “emotional baggage”, all the guilt, all the if onlys, all the what ifs. But I also chose to welcome all the new lessons, all the new company, all the new time to be spent with my family and on overnight stays and gimmiks with my friends (which I was not permitted to do so before!). I chose to build a new world again. And to continuously build worlds, I believe, is to continuously discard and gain. I also learned from Philosophy that one does not need to see evil to recognize what is good, because what is evil is evil and what is good is good. But Sir Jope also mentioned about via negativa—we experience something we must experience because we don’t have such an experience before. We can’t keep everything because we have our limitations (our room is bounded); we can’t experience everything all at the given time. So the only key is to discard, so we can also gain. But an emphasis on this other disclaimer: one should discard wisely.
I was also supposed to talk about how Philosophy has affected me so much, but I think it deserves another entry. Besides, this post was guided by the subject anyway (and this post is already too long!). I remember submitting my first paper to Sir Aurelio who asked us where we are in our caves and were we willing to go out and finally face the light which is the truth (in relation to the Allegory of the Cave). What else can I say but describe my current condition back then. My paper had these final questions: “Ngunit ano nga ba ang katotohanan dito? Ano ang naghihintay sa akin? (What’s the truth in all of this? What is waiting for me out there?)” He asked if we could talk, but before we had the chance, he was already replaced by Sir Jope. Nevertheless, my Philo class with Sir Jope became my way out of the cave. I gained a lot of insights and because of Philo, I believe I am a better person now (haha!). I may not have perceived the truth clearly yet (because accdg to Sir Aurelio, even outside the cave, there are still shadows), but with all conviction, I know this is one profile of the truth: I am not your usual break-up dumpee. Hahaha!
So Happy Discardia, it is.
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