I don't have anything intelligent to write. I don't know what I'm doing writing an article. I have no business writing one.

So what am I doing here? Well let's start with the title. A glass jungle is a metaphor. It is my own term for what we daily experience in this urban ball and chain which we call Manila. Matter of fact, the glass jungle is just about any city where you, yes you the reader is trapped in. Can you feel it? Those walls closing in. That palpable weight of the city crushing down on you. I don't know how many of you out there feel this. Maybe it's all in my head and this is just paranoia talking. For all I know, everybody is just happy with the way things are. But if you're anything like me and living is becoming a heavy burden, then step right in, for you are now in the glass jungle.

Miles and miles of concrete and asphalt. Tower of steel and glass and labyrinthine streets as far as the eye can see. Swarms of people moving any which way they like. Night walkers, day sleepers, ghost, vamps, camps, cats, dogs. People, who make you, break you, shape you, and fix you. Filing, sorting, collating, storing. And in all this, there you are. A lonely speck on the face of the grinny surface of a city. Drowning in silence and loneliness while the volume is cranked as loud as it'll go. Making friends with people you hate just so you won't be alone.

Reaching out for any human contact frantic for the next touch and desperate not to let go. And just as you're about to get there... BAM! Glass. You can see through it, but you can't get past it. There is a wall between you and that person that could give you comfort, that no amount of shouting can or screaming can overcome. Do you know that wall? Have you felt it? I feel it everyday.

We all walk around carrying own means of distancing ourselves from those we chose to hide from. As surely if we were carrying a glass cubicle wherever we go. It could be cynicism, aloofness. Perceived superiority, class or ethnic differences, materialism, spiritualism (or lack of it), anything or everything just as long as it keeps as insulated from everyone else. And just as surely as alright jars will kill mice, we are slowly dying from the lack of love. The irony is we see everyone else and their glass cube. The tragedy is we can't see our own.

My dear friends, I can only speak for myself when I say I want to break down the wall. Perhaps you are comfortable in that safe sealed box, and want nothing to do with the world outside. In which case stay put. But if you're like me and want to bust out, this is the trumpet blast. Wake up! Drop the facade and the shields. And reach out. Feel the sun on your face and smell that smoke. See both the beauty and ugliness of life and perhaps for once get involved. Break out now before the entropy renders you helpless. And in later years when you look back you'll say that this was the moment when you started caring. Loving and most importantly this might be when you start feeling.

Now I know why I'm writing. I write because I have something to say. This is me breathing. This is me stepping out of the glass.