“Here's what's not beautiful
about it: from here, you can't see the rust or the cracked paint or whatever,
but you can tell what the place really is. You can see how fake it all is. It's
not even hard enough to be made out of plastic. It's a paper town. I mean, look
at it, Q: look at all those culs-de-sac, those streets that turn in on
themselves, all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those paper
people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm. All the
paper kids drinking beer some bum bought for them at the paper convenience
store. Everyone demented with the mania of owning things. All the things
paper-thin and paper-frail. And all the people, too. I've lived here for
eighteen years and I have never once in my life come across anyone who cares
about anything that matters.”
~~~
I
started PaperTowns last week and, as my reading progress has been slow the past
few months (I blame the beautiful and incredibly annoying works of Maganda Pa
Ang Daigdig and Noli Me Tangere), conquered roughly 200 pages of this very popular
Young Adults novel. So while Q searches for his Margo, I decided to brush off
the spiderwebs of my newest blog in order to start my new years resolution: to
carpe diem.
So while I have neglected John Green’s
masterpiece for days, I’m starting to understand how most of my friends would
tell me “Papertowns > TFIOS”, when Amazon would say otherwise. And, I’m
still grappling with this thought so I’m sorry if I sound like an incoherent
mess, while I consider Augustus Waters an amazing boy who any girl would die to
be with- especially since he wrote Hazel an epilogue (An. Epilogue. Who. Does.
That.); and while I know I’m starting to go all Holden Caulfield on him, I do
believe that there’s something not quite right with him. Which is why I prefer
Q – yes, Quentin “I need to find that slice of hotness called Margo Spiegelman”
Jacobsen over him.
Now, it’s
not that Q is as amazingly perfect Augustus Waters seemingly is (we’ve already
established the fact that Augustus Waters is the standards which most guys fail
to meet)- actually, it’s quite the opposite. Q is a flawed, annoying, clingy,
and above all, average teenage boy. His ‘I’ll find you even if you don’t want
to be found because you’re wrong if you don’t want to be found’ seems fairly
selfish compared to Waters’ ‘I’ll write you a goddamn epilogue, even if it
means trying to formulate proper, coherent paragraphs while I’m suffering from
terminal cancer’. Q is selfish- or at least, he seems like one from the reader’s
point of view. However I’d like to also
point out that while his character is the personification of teenage stupidity,
his character is also the synecdoche of us teenagers- especially those who
consider themselves as socially inept beings. Who here has not dreamt of going
to prom with the date of their dreams? Who here has not dreamt of actually
being respected by his or her peers and enemies? Who here has not dreamt of a
Margo Spiegelman (or in my case, an Augutus Waters)?
Oh John
Green, you awaken the hipster within me.
What’s more is that Augustus Waters seems like
such a Paper person compared to Q. I’ve seen Augusteses or Augutii in my real
life, even liked one at some point during my first year life (dear god, do not
ask about that), and they turn out to be fake Augustus Waters. The ‘I’ll write
you an epilogue’ line can work in books- it worked on Hazel Grace and it
certainly worked on me as well. However, I need to constantly remind myself
that my life is not John Green’s next best-seller. That sometimes people as
geeky and as sweet as Q can actually come through in the end; that maybe he (or
you, if you relate to Q) doesn’t need to be perfect in order to be great, and
that maybe being yourself can lead you to something that goes beyond that
initial scale of greatness- something which only you’ll be able to see.
But wait, here's the twist in all of this. Somehow I feel as if I need to be in a PaperTown to become who I am. To become a real person- to know how to change. It doesn't make sense but being in a fake area, acting as fake as a person can be, can change a person. For the longest time, I've come to hate my fake self. I've come to hate how I disliked everything and everyone- how I tried to be a god-forbid hipster, in order to be liked. I wallowed in self-pity to become a perfect person. And frankly, that just sucks.
But without going through all the fake, I wouldn't have been the person I am today. Reading this, you may assume that I'm the real deal; that I removed that Invisibilty Cloak and prostate myself infront of all of you- if that's what you're thinking, then you are so wrong.
I'm still paper; and, while I see the road to un-papering myself as a perpetual one, I'm ready to travel and wait for the end. Each day of being paper is another day of becoming what you really are- a masterpiece.
And
that’s why right now, I’m okay with being a paper person in this PaperTown.
My life
now may not be the life I’ve always dreamt of having, but it will always be
that real goddamn life which I sure I will be thankful for in the future. STC
may not be the place where I am able to fully spread my wings, but it sure as
hell is the place that prepares my multi-colored, symmetrical butterfly wings to sprout just in time for the real life. The
Philippines may not be the place to be (well, it’s not for me), but what kind
of person would I have been without it? That maybe I’m not the person I wish I
am, but I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t be anyone else in this whole world in
the near future.
So, right
now I’m still among the many blank bond papers, placed inside a Manila
envelope- just waiting. Waiting for an FBI correspondent to use the paper for a
super-secret document. Waiting for a
screenplay artist to write the first draft of his new blockbuster hit on me. Waiting
for a better Ica to finally do something to me- something that will ultimately
change my life. Right now, I’m a goddamn paper person- and I’m okay with that.
~~~
Side note: The sudden burst of optimism frightens me. Please ignore the last two posts, and try to focus on this one. You won't regret it. I hope.
