simplify life

Peter, at the age of 28, is two ranks away from becoming the captain of an international ship, after just seven years in the sea.  While others envied him for his stellar rise, he suddenly stopped, and decided to go home, and restart life by going back to school and study another course.  I asked him why, and he said: “ I have whispered so many dreams to the surging waves, and whilst my time in the vastness of the ocean.  For once, I want to sleep in my own pillow where my heart rests at peace”.

I dreamt of becoming a lawyer with lucrative practice, and be a politician.  After just five years into law practice, I was in the law firm where clients have to secure appointments, and a firm where I could launch my political career, one partner being a congressman already.  Then suddenly, I realized that I wanted a simpler life.  In 1999, I chose to resettle and open a new law office, and started all over again.

When the new year is only nights away, it is time to reflect on what one has done and has failed to do for the year,  and yes, not even for a year, but of the years one have lived so far.

People have amassed wealth. Bill Gates was once the richest until he gave to others the chunk of his wealth.  Others sought fame and glory.  Still others put a harem.  Bin Laden chose the path of terror.  But when people reach the top of the ladder of the path they have opted for, they realize that the ladder ends in eternity.  There is no so-called peak of wealth, fame, glory, and yes, even infamy.  When you think you reach there, you realize that there is something still which you can never reach nor acquire.

Many have burnt their life energies in pursuit of their dreams, only to realize that there is something lacking, that the dreams can never come in complete fruition.  Others even die without knowing if they have reached the apex of their dreams.  Still many choose death in utter frustration of the inherent impossibility of achieving the fullness of their dreams, and of their desires. Worst, there are those who died without even knowing what dreams they have had.

Human existence has, as it were, always “a hole in the donut”.  There can be no fullness in living.  Man like a donut, has always that existential “hole” that prevents him from being complete, of being fully satisfied; otherwise, if there is no such hole, he ceases to be human, and the donut ceases also.

Fr. Michael Moga, S.J.,  the principal exponent and author of Man’s Infinite Hunger,  once told our class: “ The key is not to achieve, to acquire, to dream: the key does not lie beyond but is inside your heart.  Try to ask yourself, what truly makes you happy and content, where can your heart find peace and solace, if you have found this, then live that life.”

I asked Peter why he stopped being a seaman, and choose to live frugally.  He told me: “For seven years I stayed in the ship, I had only one vacation every two  years but  I earned dollars.  P1000 then was only a loose change. I can easily give the money away.  I could buy food, wine, and women. During thirty days of vacation, I could do everything I wanted to.  Then after, back to the reality of surging waves and the expanse of the ocean.  In a word, I bargained two years for thirty days of bacchanalia, hedonism, and gluttony.  Now, every penny counts. I don’t stay in hotels anymore but stays in the house of relatives and become closer to them.  I do not ride in taxis anymore but in public vehicles where I got to talk to co-passengers who are my neighbors, and we exchange jokes while riding.  Since I do not have money, I do not go out on Sundays but I instead go to the church where the priest will not compel you to give tithes.  So I become closer to God.  I am happy for the full one year without losing my life n the seas.”

The key to living is not of having nor achieving but of finding meaning.  When I was young, I could not understand why my grandfather would close the door of his room, and do nothing for the day but read books.  When he died, and I was tasked to give a eulogy,  I was thinking of what to say.  Then I went inside his room, and browsed the books.  There I realized that for every line of every page, there was always a comment or a cross reference.  Reading his books, due to sheer volume,  could last a lifetime.  So only a man who found meaning in reading the books could so passionately comment on every line the author  said.  When I was called to give the eulogy, I was almost tempted to say: “Here lies a man who had uninterrupted lifetime of orgasm reading books”.  In deference to my elders, I simply said: “ My grandfather has no wealth, has no diploma, but he had the fullness of life he only knew, and had we known, we could only envy about.”

Before I decided to relocate my law practice, I was a  heavy, and gasping 86 kilos, thanks to  birthdays,  baptisms, anniversaries, or plain charivaris among buddies, which an aspiring politician cannot  refuse. Home everyday was early dawn when my children and wife were already sleeping.  Even in the house, clients would come, taking away the time that I should have spent with my kids.  Then I resolved that I did not have to be a high profile lawyer.  Deep in my heart, I was only longing for the simple joys of trial works, of cross-examinations and arguments, without sacrificing a family.  In an attempt to balance my life, I relocated my practice and simplified my life to work, tennis court, and home, and attending parties do not come as obligation.

I do not claim to have the fullness of life but I never regret my decision to start life anew.  Hopefully, Peter, who just made his decision three months ago,  will not also regret later in life.

living and writing

English is not a native tongue of the Filipinos. It takes reading, speaking, writing, and mastering English before one is able to express truly unfetterred with the language barrier. It is not easy to translate your experiences and the ideas in a foreign tongue.

When I was still in my elementary years, I knew then I had a passion for reading, and writing, but my penchant for playing kid’s games took the better of me. In a word, English was my handicap.

I went on to study in Jesuit-run school in my secondary studies, the phase of learning in which St. Ignatius de Loyola described to be formative, and hence critical. The first year was horrible. I was doing well in Math and Science, but I had a 78 grade in English. That was a bitter pill to swallow.

The rest of my high school years were spent in either basketball or reading; I had a passion for reading as well as basketball. I joined this Bibliophile Club where members were privileged to borrow books from the school library for a month, without any fine. My classmates used to tease me because during the second semester of my first year high school, I was still reading the Hardy Boys series while they finished reading the series in grade six. But I resolved to read those books nonetheless rather than reading James Michener or Sydney Sheldon or the Last Samurai. The long journey, as it were, must start from the single step.

There was this Short Story Writing contest when I was in second year high school. Still afraid to reveal my writing skill or the lack of it, I hid in my pseudonym, TIMOPA burala. The chairperson was searching for the real name of the writer, but I never came out in the open. I continued writing in that pseudonym. I did not have the guts to come out in the open during my entire secondary course.

Reading, when it becomes a habit, just like an addiction, is something you cannot just get rid of. I did not spend my nights studying my lessons but of reading novels, history, science, and any reading material my eyes could lay on. Then came the moment. My English teacher who gave me a 78 in my first year was our teacher in fourth year wherein we spent our time reading literary materials and classical novels. We were required to choose a classical novel, summarize every chapter, then at the end of the semester, come out with an extensive literary review.

I had to prove this teacher wrong. I chose the novel Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. That year, I lost my 20-20 vision. I had to wear eye-glasses as I poured over voluminous reading materials ranging from the history of the United States of America, the Mississippi river where the novel was set, literary criticism, the life of Mark Twain, ad infinitum. The high school library was not enough; I was in the bigger playground, the college library. Yes, reading was a foreplay, and writing was the orgasm; for me then, the whole thing was a play, effortless and blissful.

I always believed that efforts will have always its fruits. My English teacher gave me a final grade of 98, and everytime we meet, even up to now, she always take pride that she had never given a final grade of 98 except to me.

My real romance with reading and writing blossomed since then. I went to college brimming with confidence. I abandoned my pseudonym to carry my by-line as I wrote and edited the official student publication of our university, THE CRUSADER. My college years were productive of both literary and journalistic outputs.

After college though, the studies of law took all my time for another four years and six months of intensive review. The language of law leaves no room for imagination, while literary writing precisely titillates the senses. For four years, I did not have even one literary piece. My romance with writing took a backseat as I read law books after law books, which are written, in a language that is barren and frigid, a challenge to sheer comprehension but not the imagination.

I thought it was only four years. After I passed the bar exams in 1990, and before I was introduced to blogging in the internet, I was suffering from what others call, literary infertility. It was absolute zero in terms of literary piece. And gosh, it was only last year that I started writing aside from legal briefs. Counting the years, it was twenty long years since I wrote something literary.

Now, coming back to the title , Living and Writing. A lawyer’s planner is always full, and yet here I am blogging, pouring out innermost thoughts for the others to swallow or spit out, absorb or discard. Writing, is a way of life, (or is it not life itself?). Afterall, living is sharing one’s self to others. An individual is not only a speck in the sea of humanity. He is a parcel of humanity; and man is characterized by what he has contributed to the definition of man, or by what he has taken away from the noble idea of what it is to be truly human. Writing humanizes; killing dehumanizes.

Is it the need to share, to feel the heartbeats of fellow humans even if the bloggers live continents apart, that I blog here? I may never know the true , pure and undiluted answer. But as I am finishing this blog, even though I am still struggling to shake off from my legalese tendencies, I realize that after the foreplay of reading, and experiencing life, I am unleashing, through this writing, the searing energies of orgasm, which fulfills me, and therefore, makes me more human and truly alive.