But I just urge myself to sleep – I don’t necessarily go to sleep. You see, I love the hours between midnight and 4 or 5 a.m., those minutes and hours before the sun rises to illuminate the world. It is within these hours that the most brilliant or painful or revelatory thoughts visit me and really have coffee with me. These thoughts are like good friends – they hear me out but they don’t pass judgments or turn their backs because of utter disgust. They sit through my entire monologue, and when the bedroom lights have to be turned off, they graciously bid farewell, giving an assurance that they will be back for the next psychotic performance.
But today is Saturday, or Sunday. I could have mugs and mugs of steaming brewed coffee with my thoughts till the morning sun shines on me. And I could make love with the computer keyboard until the monitor becomes so engorged with words, with thoughts, with slices of my life.
>>>Iris, Liberty Heights and my own Gorordo Avenue
I killed two movies today – Iris, which is about respected English novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch, and Liberty Heights, a touching coming of age drama set during 1950’s racial America. Like many good movies, Iris and Liberty Heights have touched me in ways that make me appreciate life more, make me more tolerant of each person’s foibles and misdemeanors, and make me more conscious of the need to transform my thoughts into words, phrases, paragraphs.
Iris and Liberty Heights have struck some very important chords in my life, and the tingling sensations, the sounds of the chords date back to my innocent life as a high school and college student at the University of the Philippines in Gorordo Avenue, Cebu City. It has been eight years since I graduated, and yet I still have this fondness for the bygone years, especially when I pass by my school for some meetings or to visit a very good friend who lives near the campus.
In the opening scenes of Iris, Iris Murdoch herself addressed her friends and her literary “groupies” with these lines:
“Education doesn’t make you happy, and nor does freedom. We don’t become happy just because we are free, if we are, or because we have been educated, if we have. But because education may be the means by which we realize we are happy. It opens our eyes, our ears, tells us where delights are lurking, convinces us that there is only one freedom of any importance whatsoever – that of the mind – and gives us the assurance, the confidence to walk the path our mind, our educated mind, offers.”
In the Liberty Heights’ VCD, these words are etched above the green Cadillac imprinted in the cover, “You’re only young once, but you remember forever.”
I used to complain about paying so much in taxes yet I haven’t really “experienced” the quality service from the government that is due to me. But these incessant complaints all came to an end when my very good friend Leah offered her keen perspective on taxation vis-à-vis our high school, and college, education. It is all about the pay-it-forward principle. Our government gave me good education, and now, it is payback time. And inasmuch as I still hate seeing my pay slip with those enormous tax figures, I just have to acknowledge that, yeah, this is payback time.
It was in UP that I was tasked to write a reaction on almost anything – from the movies that I watched, the boring symposia that I attended, the thick books that are considered “required readings.” It was in UP that I learned to appreciate literature, and learned to separate top of the line literature from sort-of-literary-materials that are actually just dirty pleasures or mere eyes candies. It was in UP that I was regularly bombarded with concepts such as “social responsibility,” “giving back to the community,” and “love of country.” Corny as they are, but really, these concepts make sense and to this day I still experience some guilty reflexes every time I engage in pursuits that are anything but patriotic.
But it was also in UP that I also ran against the law – or campus laws to be precise. The offenses are just way too many to enumerate. And should I enumerate, you, the goody-goody reader might easily cringe at our injustices and launch a crusade against the youth. Or, if you, reader, are by profession, a modern day criminal, you might not feel as esteemed because your animal instincts weren’t half as profound as ours, at such tender age.
But really, I am exaggerating. We were not really that bad. What I am trying to say, though, is that my life as a high school and college student was exhilaratingly interesting because of the less conventional paths we dared to venture, or the conventional ways that we transformed into adventures.
The education, I still have it, its ever growing and I am mighty sure that I won’t lose it, unless I develop Alzheimer’s, God forbid. Meanwhile, the mischief, the injustice, the cruelties, inhumane ruthlessness, I guess these are something that are good for the keeping – as funny memories and not as daily survival acts. Although one instinctively knows that certain situations require certain degrees of blatant, mischievous or ruthless actions. But in the interest of world peace, well…
To this day, I still have questions, doubts, confusions, and reasonable regrets. Am I happy? Am I content? Am I in the right path? Are there ways to undo the horrible things that I did? God bless the day when there would be no more of these mind boggling hullabaloos. But in the pursuit of an interesting life, I think we need to have questions, doubts, confusions, and of course reasonable regrets. Hence, I digress. I am unsinkable and my mind is free. These are the two things that really matter for now.
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