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A Century-old Quest
November 11, 2006
Others, meanwhile, are too preoccupied in their career or family responsibilities or their future or themselves that they fail to notice love trying to make itself recognized. Sometimes, people are too engrossed in fantasizing and romanticizing that they miss out the real kind of love trying to get their attention. Some of them, however, have become skeptical, perhaps because they have been faced with harsh realities in loving or that they have learned from the many broken relationships they had before. Perhaps also they are just being realistic and are finding it hard to be convinced that someone can actually love them well enough to jump with them trough life’s ebb and flow.
Some people, on the other hand, are simply content for having found love in other forms than romance. Yet there are those who are ready to fall in love and be swept away into the strong current of romantic love affair but never really finding that special half whom they can entrust their hearts. It seems that despite having received propositions of affection, their hearts can’t seem to beat faster for a special person whom they are utterly secured… and the quest continues.
In the end, no matter how we have consumed ourselves with lovers “here and there” or with preoccupations that seem important to us, a part of ourselves longs to fall in love. And that when that desire is so strong and it happens that we are brave enough to plunge, we discover that the unknown is worth discovering. And no matter how busy we are, skeptic or cynical or unmoved and unaffected, we cannot evade the fact that we want someone to grow old with. And no matter how exhilarating being in one relationship to another is or how liberating being alone can be, being with one person to another just gets tiring, so does being alone.
On Getting Old
November 8, 2006
One day we’ll look at the mirror and see wrinkles forming on our once gleaming faces. We will notice that our skin sags and that it has lost its elasticity. Our muscles become less flexible and our vision fails us, so does our hearing. One day, we’ll walk a bit stooped and our muscle and joints will ache with every movement. We will notice that our walks have grown shorter and slower, our hearing becomes less audible and our energy depleting.
When that day comes, we can no longer jump as high or worse, cannot jump at all. We wont be able to run fast or not run at all. Then we look at the mirror and no longer can see the trace of youth that was once there during our glorious years. We realize that we can no longer do the things we used to and that we have limited time to figure out where it all went. Time has consumed us and we have aged. Good thing if upon aging, we have become wiser… for wisdom is, I believe, the greatest consolation of being old.
One day, I will be the old just like the folks I see on the streets with cane and grey hairs, with callous hands and all the symptoms of being “soon to expire.” But perhaps I’ll be happy because I am going to live my life best while I have the energy to make things happen and while am at the prime of my youth. Carpe diem (seize the day!), as the saying goes. And when I have enjoyed my youth without apprehensions, explored the world while I can run and walk and travel, wore the clothes that express my mood and my identity, expressed my feelings to someone freely or my thoughts through my writing, made way for the things I desire to accomplish, then growing old will be graceful. And I would embrace it as a fulfilling retirement. Having aged would be a refuge from a once busy life and it wouldn’t be so bad a thing. It would perhaps be a rewarding experience to have lived that long with the opportunity to sit back and reminisce the glorious days of long ago.
So those who are young and able, live life to the fullest. Seek your heart’s greatest desire. Know your dreams and attain them because life has given you the chance to run miles, to walk with a friend or special someone and share the journey, to taste pain and joy through many relationships that will spice your life, to learn and be wise. Someday, all these chances will be gone and if you have not made the most of the opportunities laid on your path, and have ignored the promptings of your hearts, you will sit back and evaluate the years that passed just like old people do… only with one big difference – you have many regrets of the things you could have done but didn’t do. Then you realize you no longer have the power to conquer all of your dreams.
Friendships
November 1, 2006I’ve been here in Manila for a couple of days already. Been running to and fro — meeting old friends here and there, trying to reconnect old ties. It always makes me happy seeing them, catching up just like the old times, updating with news of what we’ve been doing since we separated ways.
I admit that if there is one thing to cherish having worked in the metro right after I graduated back then, it would be the friendship that I have built with everyone in the office. How can I forget our night out gimmicks, the one week straight at starbucks and the many dinner during overtime. And Yup, the escapades in the remote areas of Batanggas, Tagaytay, Laguna up to the North reaching as far as Sagada, Banaue, Baguio and Vigan. I’ve reached as far as Mindanao and was blessed to have stepped into the shores of Cebu because I have friends who wre equally adventurous in journeying with me. I loved the thrill of island hopping in Anilao and the taste of victory of conquering Taal by stepping into its very crater.
I loved camping with them on mountains or sharing poses inside caves whenever we go spelunking. I wouldn’t forget the mummies of Ifugao or the hanging coffins, or the night just watching the sky while we were on a hill under the stars. I would always cherish waking up in the morning hearing the rush of flowing water at the many falls we’ve visited. I loved the smell of grass while lying atop them or the sight of sunrise while clouds were just at eye level. Those were the wonderful times I would never dare trade. Those were happiest moments I am just grateful to have been part of.
However, as all journeys end, my friends and I had to separte ways to discover new thrills, to venture into different fields, to meet new friends, to trust again, to be cared for by others and make memories with them, too. Friends are life’s best gifts… If we have found the best kind, life becomes bearable despite its oddities. There is security in knowing we have the kind of people who will stick with us through and through.
In life, to find two or three people whose friendships have been tested by time and streghtened by shared experiences is worth a smile. This is always a good reason to come together for a while and sustain that beautiful relationship.
Kindness
True kindness does not end in good thoughts about people alone. Any good thought should manifest in a good act. It should show in open hands ready to grab another one helplessly needing a pull from the pit of his own misfortunes. True enough that good deed is not merely praying for people but of doing something to people. It is the deed which is the culmination of a good thought and noble desire. A good heart does not rest on good intentions alone, but is the foundation of a rightful act of touching people’s lives by example.
You touch not merely by the person that you are, but who they are or what they become because of you. Did they realize the need to respond to others more sensitively, did you inspire them to do an act of service that improved the situation of others, where by your example they likewise desire to share their blessings? Touching lives is planting in them the same seed that grew in you, the seed of humble and noble desire to love others, even in the littlest way you know.
Kindness, therefore, is a prayer that culminates in a deed. It is loving a stranger by filling his stomach that hasn’t received food for days; it is picking up a bum on a restless street to feel the comfort of a nursing home; it is cleaning the wounds of people in their worse physical condition; it is healing brokenness of a restless heart eager for recovery. Kindness is listening to someone even in his silence.. for there are silent anguishes, there is a loud cry in the heart that could not break even into feeble into uttering.
Kindness is seeing people — seeing their need to be loved and to feel belonged. And upon seeing comes responding…That is my idea. That is the seed that keeps growing in me. Exactly, I do not know if it’s a sprout or a growing tree, I am just thankful it was planted there.