Author: Evan Tan
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To Rage Against the Dying Light
Zambales sunset, March 2016 “Why are you so forceful?” The words hit me like a brick. I was talking to a friend earlier, trying to motivate him to start on his fitness routine. He had reached out to me a couple of weeks ago, saying that he had wanted to begin finally. The thought…
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The Potential Project
“So ephemeral is that will-o’-the-wisp, Success!” – “Half a Sheet of Paper”, August Strindberg (Photo taken during New Year’s Eve 2018) Never enough.In my unending mission to improve myself, I constantly pummel myself with this phrase: never enough. There’s always something left to be done. There’s always room to improve myself. There’s always a better…
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The Immutable Laws of Silence & Distance
Colored panels (Beijing, 2018) What a strange feeling, to realize that you can never really touch anything. I type this inside a speeding car, believing I am sitting comfortably, except my body doesn’t even truly touch the seat—instead, the electrons of this seat repel the electrons of my body, ensuring that I am only ever…
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The Observer Effect
The other day, I was watching a video on Facebook about a group of filmmakers who were caught in a predicament: should they rescue the emperor penguins which were trapped in a ravine, or should they let nature run its course and uphold the documentarist’s code of non-intervention?
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Wherein, I Try to Capture a Feeling: A Week in Shanghai
Terminal 2, Pudong Airport, Shanghai (2018) There is a gap we do not talk about, the in-betweens. We always talk about point A’s to point B’s, one goalpost to another, the beginning and the end. It’s the middle spaces that get lost in what we talk about: the gray, fuzzy areas that are undetermined and…
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A Necessary Fear
This was a draft I began writing in August 2014. I am not sure why I didn’t get to finish this. I am publishing this now with some thoughts I’ve added, four years later. Today I had an anxiety attack. It wasn’t the first, nor the worst, but it crept from behind and surprised me.…
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I Did A Thing
A still from “Delia & Sammy”, a feature length finalist in CineFilipino 2018 Okay, indulge me please.
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Bookends
I am writing this as I’m taking a break from packing all my belongings in a large suitcase, seeing all the things I’ve accumulated over the past few years. I am moving out of my unit this end of April–the end of my two-year lease in this studio and a four-year stay in this building.…
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Begin at the End
Indonesia, 2012 Time. Recently, a friend and former colleague passed away in his sleep, much to the surprise of all of us he left. He was young—in his early 40s. You could say there still was more to life at that age. But life goes on. We amble forward.The inevitability of death shouldn’t be that…
A Writer from Manila 