The Paris Olympic Games

 

Agonizingly being reminded of the raucous ceremonies and the various games of the current  Olympic games In Paris.   One may sense that maybe it is about time to revisit and restudy the traditionally noble purposes of the Games.  Because even the typically celebratory opening ceremonies have come under heavy fire from many sources.

The Games were supposed to promote inspiration and emulation  but may now be instead rearing the ugly heads of division and derision.  And sadly this attitude prevails even among the medal winners, and not just among the many losers who are all going home empty-handed. 

 

Now it appears that getting medals other than gold is actually losing, most especially if the competitors are "expected" to grab the highest trophy.

What happened to giving air and venue to man's passionate drives for excellence and the innate nobility of fair competition that formed part of the ethos of the Games?  That one's mere membership and participation are honors enough to value throughout one's life, earning the time-honored title of Olympian?

Now, one has to always land at the top of the heap to maintain fame and status.  Once you get older and thus made less perfect, out goes all the laurels. And worse, the next phase for the participants leads them to the money trails, for which  many are off and running in pursuit.  It even starts with the melt value of the medals themselves.

We appear to have lost our collective marbles as a species.

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So instead of the traditional mandate to: "Let the games begin", let us instead utter: 

Let us try something else.  This is getting boring. And crass.

And on another note.  This time the awarding of medals for the winners.

 It is customary to witness the gold medal recipient to immediately bite into it, ostensibly to seek affirmation that the medal is indeed made of the precious metal.

No such luck, and but we cannot say that it has been so  over all those years.  Though we can surmise that the medals are most probably made of the same stuff as they were years ago.  Just realized there may be written standards set even on the metal composition and weight of Olympic medals.

Anyway as it stands, this is what we witnessed  from the last Olympics, the Tokyo 2020 Olympics medals that were handed out to exultant winners. This data we gathered because the Japanese authorities made particular attention to the creation of their medals.

From some rough estimates made by me here are the lowdowns.

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The three medals, gold, silver, and bronze weigh from 450grams to maybe 556grams, or about half a kilo on average, with gold weighing the most.  

The gold medal is essentially made of silver with maybe 6 grams of gold, good enough to be used for plating.  The silver medal true to its name is made up of pure silver.  And bronze of brass and zinc, so not much intrinsic value.  Based on this and the prevailing prices of precious metals, a gold medal might now command a price of a thousand dollars, selling the gold and silver content in it, and silver maybe about a little above 500 dollars.  Never mind the bronze medal.

Getting any idea where this is going?

The revered and time-seasoned Olympic Games idolized by the world have always been about excellence in sport and symbolism.  Rank the best performers with their shown performances in competition and award them medals for their sterling  accomplishments, the ranking and composition of the medals clearly symbolism for us to revere and behold.  Nothing denoting the awarding of financial awards to winners.

How things have changed though the Games have steadfastly remained the same.  Immediately upon winning financial windfalls are factored in like these too could compete in another contest, this time in value and size. 

Winning athletes are expected to start following the money trails, in hot pursuit of their "just rewards".  The world would appear disappointed if the winners lose out in this other contest.

And we fear that the world is more concerned and interested in this other contest.

In The Nature of Man

The deep-longing desires for permanency, perpetuity, and preservation are I do believe innate in man, encoded deeply enough as to be part of his DNA.

It is in the very nature of Man to create, pro-create, build and preserve.  Not to destroy and lay waste, both his creation and himself.  Thus, we find generally no logic or justication in suicide-bombing, or even just suicide.  Or for that matter any act the default result of which is one's own demise without a decidedly greater cause.  Thus, we can justify greater love than this when a man gives his life for his friend.

I myself shudder at the thought of any destruction, whether real or make-believe.  I hate watching movies where things are blasted away like buildings or cars, or even the most petty of things.  But I beam in pride and glory at the sight of things being built and becoming reality.

We are hardwired toward creation and self-preservation.  Though at times this gets short-circuited along the way, and thus in our insanity  temporarily  set aside.

In a nuclear war nobody wins because everything is destroyed.  All potential combatants know and understand this.  Everybody is resigned and committed to this eventuality in the event of any nuclear exchange between two opposing nuclear powers.  There are no two ways about it.

Ergo, the country or people who are most committed to create and preserve are the least likely to start a nuclear war.  And vice-versa.

SUDDENLY THEY STIR UP OUR COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS

February 2015

But aren't  we STILL missing the bigger picture?

Words heated to red hot when China started reclamations on some atoll islands (called shoals, really).

When the Chinese started its clandestine incursions into some atoll islands geographically close to our shores, we immediately boiled up with passionate and nationalistic protestations about violations of our precious sovereignty, over some outcroppings of land in the vast expanse of the China Sea.  Lands that probably have very little value for agriculture pursuits not only with regard to fertility but because of their miniscule sizes.  Of course we may say that there is always the possibility that valuable mineral deposits could be found in those tiny dots of islands.

Or fishing rights that would be curtailed. But if they are close enough to our national boundaries, then can we not surmise that whatever they’d got there could also be possibly found where we are?  Anyway, all these long years, what have we done in and about these suddenly now famous shoals?  Nada.

Anyway, to this day this is a daily thorn in our national discourses which have of late then at helter-skelter.  Heated words burned continue to spew out of the mouths of our government officials, the media, and from many of us.

Then picture the big and lush island of Mindanao, long heralded but neglected as the land of promise, a veritable goldmine of natural resources and vast fertile lands and valleys.  And what do we do?  

We want to slice and dice it so a good portion of it could be handed in a platter to a minority that has not much to show with regard to democratic governance, no worthy credentials to vouch for its financial cognitive abilities to manage an economy much less a complex political system, and that has always been regarded dating back to the Spanish times, through the American regime and as late as yesterday, as bellicose, troublesome, untrustworthy, and from past labored experiences as unfit for the rigors and demands of civilization.

Why, only last week or so our eschewed national discourses have suddenly been fused into one focal subject – the massacre of 44 of our elite policemen out to arrest a known international terrorist, a bomb maker responsible for the deaths of many innocents, domiciled and coddled right in the heart of the benighted place where some kind of a new state is supposedly to be constituted under some negotiated agreement with our duly-constituted government.

Anyway, while we hem and haw about some bleached shoals out there in the vast China Sea, our resource-rich Mindanao is laid waste with strife and neglect.

Shades of some forgotten facets of our history?

Memoirs of a High School Instructor

 

           Frs. Campbell, Quirke, and O'Donnell  (Taken from FB timeline of  Ramoncito Cruz)

                                                    

The year was 1965, and I was just completing  the academic requirements for my 2nd undergraduate degree.  BTW, the old pictures attached would be about the same year, 1965.

Time to look for a permanent job, I said to myself chomping at the bit to challenge what I had learned so far.  And at 24 years of age, the time was more than ripe.

Alignment came easily.  I broached the idea to my then regular  counselor, Fr. Paul D. Campbell, who found the idea feasible.  He was of course, a very a close ally of the HS principal, Fr. James O'Donnell, being the HS Student Counsellor.  In no time, I was sent to the office of Fr. O'Donnell for the possible job of an instructor and class moderator.

But a little flashback.

Returning back to the old hometown with an undergraduate degree after an absence of over 3 years, I had decided to go back to school tormented by the uneasy feeling that my preparation then had been inadequate.  And this was starting to be a maturing phase of my existence when I begun to realize not only the gravity but also the profundity of life, my life, which at that time was characterized with mercurial aimlessness.

Time to get serious, I told myself.  And indeed the following years blossomed into a life of purpose and a pervading feeling of a  deep sense of mission.  And looking back my academic accomplishments appeared to echo that.

I had developed the habit of not only of going into intense daily prayers and devotionals, but also of going to daily Mass early in the morning.  I went typically to the XU chapel which was quite close to our house, and whose ambience was a good fit for my purposes.  These I did with almost single-minded devotion, almost unaware of the things happening around me.

Till one morning as I was leaving the chapel lost in my religious fervor, I heard a salutation coming from the entrance of the chapel.  Coming from a white-frocked man with a very deep voice.  After the good mornings, he asked about me and my name which he easily connected to a younger brother who was in high school and thus under him.

I did not know then, but he was Fr. Campbell and thus would start our association until I left the school completely years later.  I treasure memories of many visits to his office, with riveting conversations at times getting deep into the evenings, like when the school lights had already been turned off.  I could say that those unforgettable times were most helpful to me during my perilous journey through life.  Many thanks to Fr. Campbell for that.

Anyway, my initial interview with Fr. O'Donnell  was short and sweet, and when I left his office I was already preparing myself to be an instructor of several unrelated subjects, to a fresh bunch of 1st-year highschoolers. And that I would be moderator for the assigned class.

Our next immediate step was for me and a close friend, Berchmans Abejuela, to be sent to Ateneo de Manila to attend some orientation classes for teachers like us, and to spend a couple of days during the weekend.  And this we both did without any hitch or complaint.  For me that would be the only formal  orientation I would get to begin the arduous task of teaching.

I did not then really know much about Fr. O'Donnell and his stint as principal.  Of course, certain unavoidable elements preceded him.  His huge physical presence, a very deep cadenced manner of speaking.  And more importantly, as a strict disciplinarian and a devoted stickler to rules and regulations.  And lastly, as quite frugal with idle conversations.

Knowing and keeping that in mind, our relationship pretty much was my trying to avoid as much contact with him as possible, though making sure I crossed all the Ts and dotted all the Is when it came to school work.  I pretty much followed that religiously since I do not recall any incident when I had to bring up with him  any school problem involving my kids, or the other way around.

And Fr. O'Donnell was quite true to the reputation that preceded him.   I had thought that he was as packaged by people. Except it was coming only from people I knew then.  Because much later I would hear from others a quite different side of him.  Almost a completely new portrayal of the man I had known and left then.

When the school year begun, the heady honeymoon period that usually goes  with new endeavors quickly wore off for me, finding for myself the growing difficulties of teaching  inscrutable adolescents, who were just starting to flex their unsteady wings every which way at the world that they have just woke up to.  This would show in my physical appearance which would be  aggravated by my problematic thyroids.  By the time the school year had ended I had lost over 20 pounds and was reduced to a haggard and ragged figure.  I felt I needed  time to myself to recover and refocus.

Thus  my short stint as high school instructor ended as quickly as it started.  But coming out enriched by one abiding lesson.  Teaching is no easy job, one that not only required  tons of knowledge but more importantly tons of dedication and patience.  Thus, found a new sense of admiration and value for those who spend long years in the profession of teaching.  A profession for the selected few.

Geometry and Fr. John Rohr

 

66 Year ago I took a subject in high school that had baffled me to no end, giving me sleepless nights in order to study and resulting in a bit of mental wreck to my young and easily traumatized mind. And yet in all honesty, I understood nothing much about the subject and the "theorems" that we were supposed to get acquainted with.  For the entire year we must have examined, proved, written, questioned, etc. a total of 12 or 15 theorems, and yet I was still totally in the dark. 

And for the love of me, I was just as baffled how I passed the subject.  I distinctly recall that during a grading exam, I had to resort to memorizing and writing down an entire theorem which was composed of many parts, straight out of the book so I could have something to say.  The teacher had promised beforehand that he would include an extra bonus part, a part where we could write out a theorem that we read and understood in the book.  That was the only possible answer I could submit. And it was the shortest one I could find in the book.

The subject was Ge·om·e·try, "the branch of mathematics concerned with the properties and relations of points, lines, surfaces, solids, and higher dimensional analogs."

The experience so traumatizing that even today just being reminded of it throws me into some kind of mental fit.  A few days ago, I was again reminded by it when I saw a picture of the young Jesuit who had come thousands of miles away to teach us the subject.

That young Jesuit himself was quite unforgettable, with his loud and animated ways of teaching a subject that I had thought was as boring and flat as a piece of paper.  He also had the unique habit of putting his chair on top of the table and sitting there, surveying the place like a hungry hawk.  This he did when he was giving out exams, on the expressed supposition that he wanted to make sure nobody was cheating.

And I had figured prominently in one such episode during a grading exam.

I was so clueless and lost I was turning my head every which way when suddenly I felt something hit me right at the top of my head.  It was chalk.   And this young Jesuit was barreling straight at me, jumping off from his high perch but he was smiling though  or maybe smirking.  It was then I felt my eyes moistened  thoroughly humiliated but I said nothing. My first time ever to be thrown at and hit by chalk coming from a teacher.  He came and looked at my paper which was completely blank anyway.  That ended that episode.

But years later, this young Jesuit back in the States and ready for his ordination sends me a nice printed invitation to his becoming a priest, complete with a stampita and personal note, asking how I was and also about my elder brothers that he had also taught. Surprisingly, I had kept those mementoes all these years. Maybe that kind gesture should have given me a clue about how and why I passed that subject having learned nothing, though efforts were certainly not spared.

Last night as I lay awake, this same thought came barreling in into my troubled mind, giving me no respite and forcing me to rise up.  So I did and sat in front of my PC and googled about Geometry theorems, particularly about Theorem 2B which I recall was the theorem I had memorized as my only answer to a bonus question.

One result was a video, so I faithfully went through the whole exercise, listening to a British lady speaker who was not easy to understand, which in turn was made harder by the subject matter.  Anyway, after more than 10 minutes later she was done with the presentation: expressing the theorem, the givens, the proof, etc. and the solution.

I had a small reason to feel good.  I did understand a bit how Geometry worked.  And would have learned more even in high school had I allowed my mind to engage in the subject more and better.

Thanks for the lesson, Fr. Rohr, however late it is.

And here is one final tidbit.  I did learn one thing from him which later on I would relay to some students of mine in high school.

How to make a more or less perfect circle on the blackboard.  How? With your back turned to the board, let your hand with the chalk touch the board and start making the circle as you turn around.

Works every time! 

Some Thoughts on Social Media Giant Facebook

Facebook creates a world to its own.  It has its own unique citizens, its own iron-clad rules and standards, and, yes, its own indubitable chaos and confusion, just like in the real world.  And akin to it, I too regularly travel through it and observe the many happenings in it.

Like the real world, many citizens there are respectably reticent, timidly reserved, too kind to a fault, etc. while just as many are quite noisily vocal, infinitely categorical, steadfastly judgmental, godly self-righteous about their own perceived attitudes or opinions of events being played out in this burgeoning virtual world.

 

Thus we listen to the boisterous cacophony of declarations about how bad and greedy this woman is for what she had done, how corrupt or how untainted certain politicians are, how unfair certain actions or laws are, etc...   All this prior to the truths about them being unraveled and declared before the entire world.

Of course, all the citizens who passed judgment cannot all be wrong, but neither can they all be right.

I wonder then what happens next, when they are proved wrong.  I know if proved right, they could gloat and declare, yeah, I told you so.  Or simply be quiet about it, and maybe say a prayer or two in hope of some things good coming out of it.

But again, what happens when we are proved wrong?

Do we look back and make amends, or at the very least apologize? Remember we have thrown bad thoughts out there, words that will perpetually reside in that ether easily accessible to be recalled at any time.  Hurts and smears inflicted that may forever traumatize and haunt those they were directed against.

A good question to ponder.  Maybe even for any and all untoward, or maybe just a bit unkind or unflattering, statements we have directed against somebody who is more than just one listed as our “Friends” on FB.

Mea Maxima Culpa.

Once upon a time … as a student

 

 

Reeling from a devastating loss in our much ballyhooed debut in student politics, it was indeed a very welcomed development to be selected as one of two representatives from Xavier University to a weekend seminar in fabled Tagaytay.  A grand event financed and sponsored by the dollar-rich US Embassy.  And in hindsight, one could consider that inauspicious event as consequential and providential in some respects. The year was 1965.

 Though not showing much strain and sorrow, we unexpectedly had just been handed a tragic blow, when our entire election slate from President to PRO came in a poor third in our very first, and luckily only, outing in campus politics.  And worse, we had such great prospects and expectations of winning.  But it was not to be.

 A quick airplane trip out of the scene of the carnage was an apt remedy prescription, except that the other party with me came in the person of the winner in our star-crossed contest, Max Paderanga.  But I soon shunted that thought aside, buoyed by cheery expectations of the event.  The Embassy had invited us for a weekend seminar with some specific agenda, about 50 student leaders from all over the country.  They came from prestigious schools all over the country, but we Ateneans were particularly anointed because of the greater number of participants in our ranks, coming from Ateneos from different parts of the country. 

 We were billeted in small groups at different nice hotels and lodging places in cool and foggy Tagaytay.  But the mass gatherings and functions were held in one particular venue, inside an imposing monastery and convent for nuns, the main building perched high on rolling topography within very expansive grounds.  And it had the commanding view of the famed volcano inside a lake.  The nuns not only provided the elaborate venue, but also catered to our gastronomic needs with very impressive menu, many items unfamiliar to provincial palates like ours.

 To summarize it was a coming together of a lot of important persons with their different roles.  Top and foremost was US Ambassador Edward Mattos who spoke in general about his country’s devotion and promise of assistance to the local student population with regard to its critical role in governance. And he also regaled us with his piano playing, completing a picture of a consummate diplomat representing a powerful nation.  The Philippines then had close ties with the US AID as integral partners in the myriad of development projects planned for the region.

 He also gathered with him some very notable Filipino student leaders like Raul Roco from Naga, who later on become senator, and a Jose Conrado “Jolly” Benitez, who also was appointed a favored cabinet member during the infamous Marcos administration.  The affair was also graced with the presence of an appealing lady student leader named Sonia Malazarte, who had earlier won the title as student of the year, coming from a Manila all-girls school. Roco and Malazarte eventually got married but this was supposedly their first encounter.

 We had the fortune also of having several representatives from the Israeli Embassy gracing the affair, and which country’s noteworthy doings were a major topic in the seminar, starting from the consul to a couple of attaches.  And rounding off the roster of participants, we had about 50 vocal student leaders, many bursting full with outsized egos.  Though in fairness, there were also many who sat at the opposite end, very quiet and introverted.

 It was I believe the first time that student leaders from all over the country were purposely gathered together to discuss topics then relevant to their times and circumstances.  And I have no recollections as to whether succeeding or similar gatherings were held during that time.

When all was said and done, many of us came away from it with some notable memories.

Personally, I was amazed to learn that one of the nuns who by happenstance read the student roster recognized a name and had asked for me to see her.  She was a daughter of the late Chief Justice Mariano H. de Joya, who once had been assigned in CDO as provincial judge. He and his family were close to my father’s family.  And may even had shared the house of my grandparents for some time.  Thus, when my father spent time in Manila for his schooling, he also spent some time with the de Joya family, having been very close to one of the brothers of the nun, and I recall at a later time that his name was Boring.  It was a very blissful meeting and I had promised to relay this incident to my father who was in CDO.

 At the end of the seminar, we were each advised to write our impressions about the seminar, but more importantly, to write about the political conditions in the home country as seen by the younger generation.  Though I was not inclined to dismiss the parting instruction, writing about the subject just did not appeal to my interests then.  But I did submit an entry.

Months later, I received from the Embassy a copy of a bound pamphlet with collated selected entries from different participants.  And was glad Xavier U did not disappoint because one of the selected entries was that of Max Paderanga, and I still recall he wrote about the “dog-eat-dog” climate developing in Philippine society.  A curt analysis of a nascent country in the mid-60’s trying to develop its sea legs.  Was Max prophetic with his observation?

 Another memorable event that transpired within that seminar and has stayed on in memory, was the segment about Israel and what it had done then.  The consul spoke seriously and determinedly about their kibbutz system and its initial successes.  He gave out books and pamphlets, which I still have in my possession to this day.  Talk about a determined country, though small and surrounded by eternal foes. And notice how it considers itself as part of Asia.

 

Longevity In Blogging

Most of my life, I have been a quite ardent disciple of the virtue of longevity, which proclivity has extended beyond things which can be felt or touched.  It has transcended to things that I do like write or collect stuff.

I have had my blog site at the nascent time when blogging was just exploding in numbers and kind in the Internet.  When most anybody who was somebody in the social, political, and business and finance firmaments felt the need to  start one for their adherents to worship in.  And indeed, overnight the numbers exploded into the millions and filled every corner in the Internet.

My blog whose title has without permission co-opted the name of somebody quite famous and influential in the religious realm.  It is called, The Ignatian Perspective, and has been in existence since May of 2004.  To this day, it has been visited by almost half a million viewers, about 430,000 of them.

It has accumulated over 546 entries.  Depending on the subject discussed readership of each entry has wildly fluctuated, from many thousands to less than 50. One entry gathered a total of about 20,000 readers and over 300 comments, and was about the Neri Genealogy.

Conventional wisdom and maybe the human inclination to want to have more readers would dictate that one writes about things that your readers would like to read.

But is that the overriding intent here?  I once tried to find out by experiment what the effect would be if I tried that route.

There was breaking news in the US city where we were residing.  An older American guy was found dead by apparent suicide, jumping from a second-storey hotel window.  He had lived in the Philippines and had married an aging but very popular Filipino actress.  The American had left the country with the pending case against him for the murder of the wife.

The blog entry was simply a first-person eye-witness account of the place where the suicide happened.  Almost instantly, readership spiked to a couple of thousands.  And it felt good while it lasted.

Unfortunately, the intent of the blog was for an entirely different purpose.

I had simply wanted to have a permanent but easy-access medium to translate my thoughts to written form, to record for posterity.  With the silent hope that somehow when I am gone those who will remain could find the time to pore over the entries I had painstakingly created over the many years in existence.

 One self-serving but salutary purpose for this was also the earnest desire to improve my writing by constant practice.  For truly, as one writes more and more, one can sense the developing ease and improvement on the innumerable  ways writing can be done and imparted.

 

FRIENDSHIP DEFINED REALISTICALLY

 

Nothing could be a looser definition of friendship as social media giant Facebook has presented it for us.  Click away and you can be friends with most anybody you desire, including complete strangers.  Clearly a way that could cheapen the deeper meaning of the word.

But why would it be of any significance to have regard for the word?  Because in times past civilizations had always kept it in high esteem, an enviable state to earnestly aspire.   Think of the classic friendship of Damon and Pythias of lore.  When Judas appeared before Christ for what possibly was the last time prior to His passion, Christ addressed him with the title of friend, to add to his other titles of anointed apostle and trusted keeper of the purse.  Christ had the intention of bestowing upon Judas a pinnacle of human relationships.  One that made him almost at par with the divine kinship of Christ.  And even Shakespeare in the impassioned speeches of Brutus and Anthony, made liberal use of the word friends to address and appease the restive and mutinous crowd after the assassination of Caesar.

Our revered elders had officiously held almost sacrosanct the concept of friendship, way beyond the BFFs we assign randomly with some of our FB friends.

It behooves us then to revisit this concept, dissect, and ultimately redefine and prioritize it, from the heights of platonic relationship down to the casualness of nodding acquaintances. 

BTW, I often hear about love and friendship in the light of unconditional rigor and dedication.  Thus many expect parents to shower their children with love that knows no bounds and without limits.  Or among friends, taking nothing off the table to maintain and grow that friendship.  I say that these are such unattainable standards, bound to suffer failure once tested to the fore.  After all man is not only flawed and weak, but is intimately tied down to a hierarchy of values he has to follow. 

Like that all things considered, for example, man is expected to save his own soul over and above everybody else, children and BFFs included.  God has said that when man comes to Him in judgment He demands no witnesses or intercessors.  One comes with the deeds he had done in life and that alone will provide the basis to convict or acquit him.  That will be the only criterion for one to merit heaven, or hell.  Not even the testimonies of your benefactors will mean anything.  At that instance God’s mercy is shunted aside, and only God’s justice will come into play.

Thus the need to be smart and practical in the conduct of our friendships, lest we go beyond the bounds and cross over to sacred grounds where other relationships cannot tread.

Let me bring in a personal anecdote showing why we need to bring out into the open honestly and dispassionately our differing understanding of friendship.

I worked in California for a quarter century, toiling hand in hand with people from all over the world including other parts of the US.  And in the process, developed work and personal relationships with all sorts of people from very diverse locations and cultures.  Some relationships more intimate than others depending on common interests and orientation, and depending also on work assignments.

I worked mostly in IT which from the start was always defined under a very small department.  In the earlier days at the cusp of the computer revolution it was then called EDP, that is, Electronic Data Processing.  For us, most times that miniscule unit was composed of two people, me and a fellow employee that I had known at the start of our employment in the hotel industry.

In short, we got very close beyond just the work environment, exchanging info about our families and past lives.  Though we had different homelands, the discovered similarities were quite striking as to make both of us share many similar backgrounds.  Him coming from a small country in Central America, he was intently proud of his old country and his upbringing.  Not much different from my own views with regard to my life and times in the old homeland.

Anyway, one day he confronted me with a hypothetical case about friendship, with obvious reference to our own.  Supposing if, he said, he traveled to Mexico and was wrongfully detained.  Not having any other viable option, he called me up in the dead of night to seek my help.  Would I drop everything and immediately attend to his request?

 

Taking time to couch my answer, I was quite deliberate in my reply.  I said it would depend on other circumstances.  Like my family situation, for one.  I drove my wife to work daily since she did not drive and the same with my 4 kids to their schools.  And I would have to see how to provide in my absence for the needs of my elderly mother who lived with us.

Relatedly would I be the right person to undertake such a crucial mission?  I had never been to Mexico, did not know the culture and language.  Etc.  The point being that there are many prior commitments that have to be assessed and prioritized; to be factored in to arrive at informed and effective decisions.

In other words, in reality one cannot be unconditional in such things because we all have prior commitments that may have higher priorities than others.  True especially if one has a family to consider.

The ironclad quality of being unconditional does not fare well when juxtaposed with realities.  It is bound to failure in observance because of prior commitments.

But in the middle of all of these are the countless friendships many of us hold and cherish, friendships that will not consummate beyond delightful camaraderie during joyous times, and quite rarely going beyond this during difficult times, not really requiring unconditional support and dedication.

Our fondest hope is that our friendships will not be so demanding as to be too difficult to maintain.  Because again after all, we individually have very committed responsibilities within our circle of family and relations.

In ending it is well to remember also that in the arenas of love and friendship, our God is a very jealous lover and friend.  He would not countenance sharing, nay, He would demand that our love and friendship be exclusively His.  The eye of our intention being singular – to love and please Him alone.

 

 

The Legacies We Think About

 

No doubt as we approach the back-nine segment of our short temporal lives, we start poring over the likely things that are past beyond our sojourn here.   When our bodies start the descent toward the sunset of its existence, we start worrying about what worthy mementoes to leave behind for our progeny, things which will endure beyond the years after our lives.  We weigh and sift through about some things fleeting, and about those that endure.  Fleeting because we live life in the flesh, but lasting because we believe in a soul and an afterlife.  Man being an inextricably composite being.

 We are talking therefore about legacies to be bequeathed.  Public officials and corporate bigwigs all the way to presidents and heads of state constantly talk about them, prepare for them, or gear their consequential actuations with them in mind.  So why not the ordinary mortal man?

 So what should we think about during our greying years?

 Many of us would focus on non-material things, rather than the temporal wealth which many view as not only petty and mundane but by their earthbound nature as beneath bequeathing to beloved children or grandchildren weaned on noble and mystical dreams.  We constantly are reminded that we should not leave much material wealth since they are prone to spoiling the receiver, dissipate their passion and intensity for living, deprive them of the purifying challenges necessary to make their lives more purposeful, etc. But again we  remind that man lives life in the flesh with all its wants and needs, and the easier that process is the better for him to think about his nobler goals and purposes. Expressed differently, man is more able to contemplate at the stars if he is not constantly looking on the ground for his food and sustenance.

 So with that in mind, we proceed to the task at hand.  What should our legacies be to the generation/s that come after us?

 For something more enduring and noble, we earnestly wish that the things we taught them, the examples that we lovingly provided, would all carry over to them like genes or DNA encoded in their very bodies and souls.  For we believe that would truly be timeless legacy.  And we add the caveat that defines our honesty, that everything we pass on to them we not only believe in but that we earnestly pursued them in our own lives.

 But for more temporal legacies we can list a few.

 Provision of shelter, adequate and decent, is one driving concern of modern families which lifelong pursuit eats up a good part of their time and resources.  A crucial and necessary accoutrement for living productive and decent lives, lives with integrity worthy of his kind.  And many lives have been less than commendable because of the dearth of good shelter, coupled and in tandem with the scarcity of financial provisions for the family.

 A good many of us spend our productive lives in employment.  From the start of our education we already have conditioned ourselves how we can become good, loyal, and faithful employees.  Of course we do not discount the fact that we would prefer being employed doing things that suit our likes and disposition.  Still many are employed concerned more about what that employment brings to the family and its existence rather than how well liked or adjusted one is to the employment.

 Wouldn’t it be a great legacy therefore to leave behind some business or enterprise that our progeny can continue after?  Many current entrepreneurs started much like that, inheriting the business from their well-provisioned ancestors.  And then on their own made the business even bigger and greater than before.  Look around and you will see how true this is in real life.

 Molding leaders rather than followers would indeed be a great legacy to leave.  Being in business and striking on your own is one surefire way to test not only one’s acumen and wits, but also bring out and hone leadership qualities dreamed only by many.

 Personally, imagine this as coming from one veteran of various employment.  If after years of employment, one engages in economic activities on his own one then experiences a role quite alien, from the learned perspective of an employee to that of employer.  In other words, after looking at things from one perspective, one suddenly opens a vista where one looks at things from the other side.

 A chance to look at things differently, and more importantly, to complete and round off the economic picture so commonplace in our lives today. 

 Get a chance to see how the other lives, the other side that has so few select members, and so uniquely privileged in many areas such as opportunities and access to the many beneficial things in life brought by progress and wealth.  And thus a chance to live a more fulfilled life.

 For most of us, Mother Teresa was the epitome and icon of personal sanctity, given what she exhibited in her solitary life in the mean streets of India and thereabouts.  But I also find Bill Gates as another likely example in a similar vein and on a grander scale.  A philanthropist on steroids who can declare with effective intention to an entire impoverished nation in Africa that he will undertake to educate all of its little children so that they can realistically hope for   a better life for themselves and their families.  An entire nation given the opportunity to live better lives.  And now in terms of impact and efficacy that is really something!

500th Blog Entry

I never imagined that when I started this blog I could reach up to 500 blog entries.  But here it is.  At maybe two book pages an entry that’s like having written a full-blown book of a 1000 pages, albeit some stray entries are light-hearted, not serious to the point of being just inane musings.

Still, time was expended on each of them with corresponding efforts to have them self-edited and then published in the blog.

Why would anybody go thru such a wringer?  For what purposes?  Just a couple of stinging questions I have asked myself every time I felt the urge to commit ideas to words.

Self-aggrandizing motives I am sure are integral parts therein and there is no need to spend any more precious time finding out.  But I tell you that personally I have my most defined and avowed reasons for continuing to do so.

Writing these blogs have over the years been my alternative or counter-measure for sleeplessness, which unwanted condition has hounded me since I can remember.  In early HS I recall being almost in perpetual panicky mode trying to get some sleep for classes the following morning.  I would get to bed as early as past 7pm just to try to get my required 8 hours of sleep, tossing and turning inside my mosquito net.  Then when this failed I would resort to regularly changing the location where I got my sleep, from my bed to the floor on any corner of my room.  Most mornings I still woke up feeling deprived of enough sleep.  And this has been a life-long challenge under varying circumstances.  Nevertheless, it continues to this day.

But different solutions for varying circumstances has been the path taken or attitude applied.

Ever since easy and ready access to the Net has been made available to most everyone, it has been my unflagging companion to lull my mind away from sleeplessness, or the inability to get some sleep.  At the onset of any bout of sleeplessness, I would immediately position myself in front of the nearby PC or laptop and plug away.  And before I know it I have forgotten about my sleeplessness feeling ready and primed to try the sack again.  And this has been how many of the blogs were birthed and given lives of their own.

See, this entry itself was started at almost 11pm last night, after an attempt to go to sleep before 10pm had failed.

So now refreshed from last night’s interrupted sleep, another blog entry completed and down the hole.

 

 

The Evolution Of An Unscripted Search For The Ideal Home

  

After a long dry spell, I finally found both the time and urge to create a new blog entry, if only to keep alive the memory and animo of a blog that was started several years ago.

What to write about?

Something that has always been in the recesses of my mind, but never expressed nor allowed to ease into the forefront of things.

What many might suggest as the reflexive answer to the oft-repeated question of what their ideal home ought to be.

As kids and wards of our parents, the whole bit about an ideal abode surely did not occupy our consciousness.  We lived with our parents, and lived we did in the house or houses they provided for us.  It was not our anointed lot to be involved in the process of choosing places to stay.  We simply lived – with them.  And liked it or not, that sufficed for our continued existence.

As we grew and acquired our own families, again that question may have been farthest from our minds.  Why, we were too busy trying to eke out a living to worry about ideals.  There were budgets to worry about.  Work opportunities that probably took us to places we detested.  But we went anyway because work was more paramount.  A no-brainer choice compared to unemployment which could bring one’s family closer to starvation or deprivation.

And years may have rolled faster than we could have imagined before the same question may even have crossed our minds, though it obviously will at one time or other since this frenetic world of consumerism and temporal ideals will not leave anybody in peace.  Alluring advertisements in magazines and on audio-visual media, and even like-minded friends and acquaintances will not let us alone.  And there is no escaping that, unless one lived solitarily and in the mountains.

So now leaden and gray, we are left to ponder about the question again.  This time a new alignment is in our stars, giving us time and space, and maybe some extra resources, to seriously explore the question.

What would be an ideal place to live – for you and the rest of your reduced household, as empty-nesters really?  Not when you were young and ambitious.  Not when such an ideal abode could have provided optimal solace and comfort during your difficult years of raising a growing family or dealing with the multitudinous pressures of work.  But at this present time.

Such is the issue at hand.

Chronologically retracing the places where we had resided and spent precious time with family could help develop a keen perspective not immediately fathomed if we resorted to other methods.

The first real place that our fledgling family could call our own home was an old and tiny half of a duplex located in the periphery of Nazareth Subdivision in Cagayan de Oro, the land of my birth.  Rented for the measly sum of 65 pesos a month, it was very decrepit, sewage was leaky and thus made the place looked very filthy and unsanitary, walls were flimsy thus privacy was compromised, and it was hot and humid, dingy and too small for any comfort.  But we survived it, me, my wife, and two kids.  Overall, it was farthest from what could be considered ideal by any measure.

Thrown far into a distant place in pursuit of a better employment future, we rented another apartment.  No better or worse than the first, but maybe a little bigger space-wise.  Made worse by very unreliable electric power, though made more bearable by kindly and very hospitable landlords.  Had recurring bouts of loneliness and strong pining for a more citified environment.  Which promptly disappeared only after that short stint ended.

We were back again to the old hometown.  And the search for an abode close to work ensued.  It was back to the periphery of Nazareth Subdivision, to another duplex which was small, but painted and brand-new.  The small lot on which the building sat was bounded in the back by the city cemetery.  Ugh! Overall, nothing to crow about or a resting place devoid of any redeeming value worth a moment’s remembrance.  Space again was inadequate made worse by the arrival of twins, which doubled the total number of kids.

Finally in desperation, we decided to opt for acquiring our own house.  Not that the family was now oozing with wealth or ease.  But it was the only feasible solution to our multiplying challenges.

It was then that the idea of an ideal house for a growing family became a possibility.

We had purchased on installment two (2) lots totaling over 600 sq. m. in a brand-new and ultra-modern subdivision situated in a prime location very close to the poblacion core where I worked.  Wow!  And 2 lots to boot!

But when construction finally started after a whirlwind of preparatory moves, things had changed drastically.

One lot had been assigned to a sister so she could also construct her own house beside ours.  Though the lot where ours would stand was over 300sq. m. it would be a one-storey duplex, one half to be occupied by my dear mother with our youngest and unmarried sister.

We did live in that cramped space of a house with 4 kids and the help for the next 5 years.  Not ideal but bearable, it was after all our own house.  The first house we ever owned.

Then it was family immigration to another country in our continuing search for better opportunities.

We ended going thru the same rigmarole as when we started as a family – first bunking with relatives, then moving to a flat and then to an apartment.

To finally our own house.  Any house that we could afford – without any consideration or thought about what would be ideal for us.  So we ended in an old house with 1200 sq. feet of living space.  Its sidewalls flushed to both neighboring houses, making the entire block looking like a row of fused houses. Individual backyards provided some breathing spaces or elbow room for the occupants.  And for the next 20 years we would call this home.  Not ideal, but safe and secure comfort.

Halfway into our stay there, it was realized that relocation to another place would do the kids still in school better – better environment for both schooling and neighborhood.  Again, a duplex was the choice, though now it was called a patio home.  And it had more space and more rooms.  The development of a few acres had its own main street and open gates.  Still looking like a cookie-cutter community made more so by strict rules on the color of the houses – which was one color.

After retirement, the empty nesters had more depth and breadth to their visions of where the ideal place to live would be.

Away from the frenzied pace of urbanized living, in a newly developed community which used to be a farming town. Finally we were in a detached single-family house with some yards, and lots of elbow room within its over 2500 sq. feet of living space.  Though still part of a cookie-cutter type of development, except a lot larger in acreage.

Then we had to move back to the old homeland, whether permanently or not is still a floating issue, wafting out there in the firmament of uncertainty.  All our kids and their families are still out there.

But could we now pursue and bring fruition to our ideas about what and where the ideal abode ought to be – for us?  Well, maybe somewhat.

We now live in a nice house that we had built for ourselves – with detailed specifications essentially originating from our perceived likes and dislikes.  Though it bore many construction deficiencies, it can pass as livable and comfortable.  The lot on which it stands is smallish, as subdivision lots go.  It is not far from where the first house we ever owned now stands, though the latter had been renovated and made a lot bigger.  But overall, our place could be made better – like maybe in a better location, with better climate, with more natural amenities, etc.

So maybe, this could be the answer.

 

 

Out there in the mountains with its very cool climate, with a babbling brook in the back and within earshot.  Away from the chaotic hustle and bustle of city life and annoying people.

So who knows what after all this is done and ready for occupancy.  The future holds many answers.

Because as ever, life is a continuing journey.  A work in progress.