TIME

 

One word. Simple. 

Yet, it is probably the most precious and most terrifying of all. Even death has no power over time. Well, that is if we will believe the phrase: "if it's your time". Think about those people who had been in serious accidents. They'd probably tell you that they had no idea how are they still alive. You, why don't you ask yourself? How many times have you been in situations where you should've bit it? I know I should've perished a long time ago, so why am I still alive? Because I still have an unfinished business? A mission? Whatever it may be, it just wasn't my time yet.

Do you know how much time you have left? I know I don't. The only thing I'm certain about is that I'm living on borrowed time, and sooner or later, I will run out of it. I'm sure that we all have the same dilemma. Why else would we live our lives like we are in a race? Like we are chasing something until we completely forget how to live?

These are just some of the questions that SB19 forced us to ponder on. From the moment we learned how to dream, we have been running on fumes trying to outrun everything and everyone, and for what? Because we wanted to achieve our dreams first, we implemented a deadline for ourselves. I have to graduate by 20 and have a stable job. By 30, I should have my own house, and before I reach 60, I should have enough savings to live a comfortable and happy life. What happens when we failed to meet our deadline? Utter disappointment, resentment towards oneself and the people around us, and the worse of all, the feeling that it is the end for us. If not ourselves, it's the people around us who would try so hard to put a deadline for us. You should have a good and stable job before you reach 25 and have your own house by 35. As if things always go our way. 

But what does this kind of pressure do to us?

If you ask me, I hated life and the people around me. I felt like a robot created to fulfill someone else's dreams and it pushed me over the edge until I fell hard. Only when I learned to let go and live in the moment that I finally felt happy. Perhaps many of you could relate, but let's talk about what this blog is actually about.

As the clock hand strikes twelve midnight, signaling the beginning of April 25, SB19 finally released the conclusion of Ikalawang Yugto's trilogy. Simula At Wakas (.) is the culmination of all the hard work, blood, sweat, and tears of these five incredible men. From their introduction in Pagsibol (?), to their strengthening in Pagtatag (!), they are finally claiming what is rightfully theirs. And if there's one thing you can always expect from an SB19 song, it's the deep meaning behind their beautiful music, especially their ballads. First on our list is TIME, an artistic yet painful reminder of the things we've been taking for granted. For example, our loved ones. We keep telling ourselves that we're working hard to give our loved ones a good life, so we can finally provide for them, but what's the cost of all that? The inability to spend quality time with the people we love, to watch our younger siblings or our own children grow, or watch our parents get old. What does that mean for an older sibling?

Being the eldest in the family, you wish to witness your younger siblings grow up and achieve their dreams. We want to know them as they grow older and develop into the people we knew they could be, but how? How are we going to fit everything in when we have to work so hard to achieve our dreams? That when we see them struggle, we just want to take their pain away? It seems impossible to manage your time, that you have to choose what to prioritize, and it pains you to know that you need to set them aside so you could pursue your dreams. After all, it's not just for you, right? It's for them, too. The question is, have we stopped to ask them if they need our presence more than anything else?

In SB19's newest EP, they tackled another terrifying and often avoided topic. If Mapa was the tribute to our parents and everyone who had been our guardians in life, Time is for us. We, who want to give back to our loved ones. MAHALIMA truly knows how to pull our heart strings, and this time, they dug in to the raw and timely kind of pain. The feeling of running out of time.

Rotting in bed, numb and upset

The hands on the clock are moving along and

Feels like I'm dead, but I'm here instead

Please make it stop, I'm always wrong and

In the first verse, we get the admission of feeling nothing and everything all at once. It's the realization that we've been trying to do everything and still haven't done anything at all. If you have been at that point in life, or is currently at it, you would understand this. It is the feeling of truly seeing the hands of time move no matter how much you try to stop it or slow it down. This is when you would stand in front of the mirror and practically watch yourself from your childhood to when you've already grown up. You might even see your parents, young and strong, lively and happily playing with you until things started to change, one year at a time.

 

Stuck inside my never-ending thoughts

I'm trying hard 'cause I know what it costs

When you get to that point in your life, you'll try to justify everything you've lost and missed by looking at those you've achieved. You will tell yourself, I did everything to give my loved ones a better life. I sacrificed so much because I love them and I want to see them happy. These thoughts will ignite an internal battle between your mind and heart, responsibility and personal happiness, and between love and duty.

'Cause one day, we'll run out of time

Memories, we'll leave them behind

Many things we can't control

I hope you know, it's better to try

'Cause one day, we'll run out of

The moment will come when you will realize you will run out of time. Your parents will grow old, your siblings will grow old, and you will all grow apart. You will look back and realize that you don't even know them because you were never really around. But then, the thought of stopping and not being able to provide for them haunts you in your every waking hour. Knowing that if you stop even just for a moment, opportunities will pass you by and may never come back. What are you supposed to do? You will tell yourself, you're not getting any younger. You have to grab as many opportunities as you can or you would regret it, but the people you care about are not getting any younger, too. What about them?  

   

All of these are natural, no one's really in control

But we livе a little 'cause we know

Whеn we vanish, we don't really go

So I try to run an extra mile, hoping for a sign

If there isn't one, then I'm leaving mine

And for those behind, seek and you will find

There's no reason not to try

Watching everything from the backseat, it's beautiful

But at times, it gets really ugly, you already know what to do

When we've get nothing to lose, what we're not changing we choose

Fighting for whatever cause, if the light's dying

Don't you ever cease to refuse

In a moment of clarity, you'd realize that what's happening is inevitable, but what about you? Have you stopped and ask yourself how are you? Are you still doing okay? Do your smiles truly mean happiness? Have you been able to catch a breath? How about a good night sleep? You've been doing everything for everyone, have you done something for you? When you go out during the day, do you enjoy the sunlight and the clear blue sky? Or do you simply go with the flow and let the current guide you? Do you think that when you finally say goodbye, you would leave a mark? Would you be remembered? How? So many questions, but could you even answer one? SB19's TIME reminded us that we can always choose. We don't have to simply exist. We have to live, not just for the people around us, but for ourselves. Life has a way of sucking everything out of you, don't let it.

Stuck inside my never-ending thoughts

I'm trying hard 'cause I know what it costs

Time has its way of making you reflect about life as a whole. To think about the things we've done or haven't done. It's difficult to look reality in the eye and admit the truth. To face the fact that we have so many regrets and there is absolutely no way for us to make up for what we've lost. Our mind would be flooded with thoughts that it would feel like actually drowning. The price we pay for taking everything on all at once because we're trying hard not to miss anything, and yet it would feel most of the time that we still missed a great many things.

 

'Cause one day, we'll run out of time

Memories, we'll leave them behind

Many things we can't control

I hope you know, it's better to try

'Cause one day, we'll run out of time

Memories, we'll leave them behind

Darling, when push comes to shove

Your best is enough, it won't hurt to try

'Cause one day, we'll run out of

When we're younger, people will try to tell you what you should be when you grow up. You should be a doctor. It will give you a good life, they'd say. Oftentimes, they wouldn't even ask what you think. They'd just go about telling you who you should be. Once we grow older, we will start to think for ourselves and have our own plans. Many of the people in our lives won't agree with most of our decisions. They'd make us believe that they what's best for us, but they truly don't. Living a life where you're always taught to play safe makes it hard to believe that something is worth the try. It terrifies us to even think about thinking outside the box, because what's outside of the box is unknown. We often forget that in this world, the only thing we can do is to try.

 

Time and time again, it rains things I don't understand

I'm drenched all over, still, I endure all I can

And I'm well aware, there's no reset in this world

So I'll never ever walk away, with stones left unturned

'Cause if I'm leaving anyway, I'll spending every day

Scattering stars in the night sky, hoping it'll lead the way for better days

Savor every moment with me, while we're here

'Cause I know one day

When problems pile up, we often think that we've already hit rock bottom, we will suddenly face a firestorm of trials and tribulations. It would feel like walking in the middle of the storm, drenched in rain, and feeling all alone in this world. We knew we have to be careful of our decisions because it is us who would end up getting hurt, one way or another. But how can we make decisions when we have to think about everybody around us? We want to be happy, but we have to make them happy, too. We need to survive, but we must take care of the people we love. How do we balance the life we want with the life everyone else want for us? How can we find out who we truly or what we could be if we are too busy being who they want us to be? How long do we have until it's too late to see it all?

Time

Memories, we'll leave them behind

Many things we can't control

And I hope you know, it's better to try

'Cause one day, we'll run out of

Time

Memories, we'll leave them behind

Many things we can't control

I hope you know, it's better to try

'Cause one day, we'll run out of time

Memories, we'll leave them behind

Darling, when push comes to shove

Your best is enough, it won't hurt to try

'Cause one day we'll run out of

One day, everything we are going through right now will be nothing but a memory. Things to look back when we finally have nothing to do but sit and watch young people go about life the same way we did. Eventually, we will finally see the end of the line for us and no matter how much we want to go back and change things, but we can't. All we can do is to try and live in the moment, not just for ourselves, but for the people we care about as well. This was perfectly expressed in the music video they released for track.

The music video showed an older woman fixing herself up for something important. She looked so happy and excited, and it was heartwarming to see. The next scene showed her on a video call with a much younger woman. They are representations of a mother and a daughter who love each other despite their distance. We—all of us are either the parent or the daughter, right? A parent who would do everything to give their child the best of everything the world has to offer, or a child doing their best to finally give back to their parents.

I'm not the best daughter in the world, but I'm doing what I can to take care of my parents, as I am sure all of do. But in all my years in this world, I've seen many who did everything for the people they love, specially their parents. Those people are unbelievably resilient and strong in character. They are the most selfless people I've ever known and no matter how hard I try, I could never comprehend. They have so much love to give and are willing to only take so little of anything.

The photo above shows the mother taking her medication. She may have developed some sort of sickness, or perhaps she must simply be feeling her age catching up to her. That scene alone is very true for all of us. When we're younger, we think our parents would never get old. They're our superheroes, the one who would always take our pain away. But as we grow older, so do our parents. That's when we realize that they're not immortals, that they're just humans who grow old and eventually die. It's just that sometimes, it takes us a very long time to realize.

Though, this scene doesn't just apply to parents. Those of us who had been working hard for so long would eventually find ourselves in that same condition. Physically weak and sometimes sick, and most of the times, keeping up the appearance that we're still okay. It's not easy, but to us, it was the only choice.

If MAPA is a tribute for parents and guardians who had given themselves for the people they love, TIME is a reminder for the rest of us to slow down. In the music video, we saw how the mother tried to hide her sadness from her daughter, but more importantly, how the daughter did her best to hide how she truly feels from her mother. We saw her slowly sinking back into her own personal hell after talking to her mother. Her smile quickly disappeared as exhaustion and reality set in, just like the rest of us when placed in the same situation.

To protect the people we love and to avoid them worrying about us, we'd hide behind bright smiles and lively personalities. We show the world that we are strong and always okay, so no one would worry about us. We sleep, wake up, hustle and grind, smile for the world, repeat. It's the only way for us to keep going despite the cruelty and difficulty of this world without 

Living in such a routinely way to hide from the reality could so monotonous and dull. It's like walking on a straight line within a dark tunnel. There's nowhere to turn to, nothing to see but darkness and the light at the end that seem to go further and further away instead of closer. At least that's how I'd describe it. The more we work so hard for something, the more our goals seems to be so far away. Because of it, we would work harder and more focused without realizing that we've been missing so much.

Some of us won't realize it until we we're sitting at doctor's office, waiting for the doctor to tell us what our condition is, or when we're lying on a hospital bed, fearing our for lives. That is not an exaggeration but a fact, and I am speaking from experience, as I'm sure many of you could relate. I didn't realize I was simply going through the motion until I was diagnosed with a medical condition. It was curable and I got better, but it taught me to stop and see what's right in front of me. It wasn't love that blinded me but realizing that I don't actually have all the time in the world opened my eyes.

 

This scene was the simplest yet heaviest. It's exactly what I was talking about. I was lucky I got a second chance, but the daughter in the music video didn't. She worked herself until she ran out of time. Whatever her reason may be, the strong urge to give her mother a better life or being pressured to do so, he gave everything to achieve her goal and lost in the end. The music video is a reminder for us to take it slow, live in the moment, and be present. We can't chase time or outrun it, and it's pointless to even try. 

Life is not supposed to be about hurrying up or jumping from one goal to another. It's about truly living. Watching as the world evolve, as changes take place, learn through our journey. We're supposed to take it one day at a time, not jump ahead or stay back. This is a song that reminds us to stop and truly look at what's right in front of us because sooner rather later, we will be running out of TIME.