Saturday, November 19, 2005

Happy 1st Birthday!

Today
this blog is
1 year old!!!!!



Thank you to all my readers and regular visitors.
:)

Monday, November 14, 2005

Get A Life

Jose Dalisay Jr., PhD
Address to the Graduating Class
UP Baguio, 23 April 2005

Former UP President (Francisco) Nemenzo - whom I was privileged to serve - was frankly not too fond of the phrase "iskolar ng bayan" to describe the UP student. We are all, of course, scholars of the people in this university, in the technical sense that our studies are subsidized by the sweat of the poor, whose hopes we bear upon our shoulders.

But the President's point was that scholarship remains a distinction to be earned not merely by scoring well in an entrance examination, but by adopting a lifelong attitude of critical inquiry and rational judgment.

This, sadly, is something that many of us lose upon our entry into the University and our immersion in its life - not only its intellectual and academic life, but also its social and professional life. The curiosity ends, the magic fades, the writing dries up, and we retreat to a cocoon - to a dimly lit room marked "Me & Myself" - there to spend the rest of our career sulking over the next fellow's promotion and so-and-so's research grant.

"Get a life" has been one of my lifelong mantras. I have always believed that while a formal education is a wonderful thing, what I call an active life - with all its serendipitous detours and little accidents - is even better. It is a cliché by now to say that there are many things we can never learn in school - but for those of us who are in school, it is even more important to remember this.

Some of the best things happen when we step outside of our own lives and begin to be engaged in those of others. Often, the answers to our own problems lie in others, and in their larger predicaments. While involvement in a great cause can also create its own kind of blindness to everything else, I believe that, at least once in our lives, we should embrace a passion larger than ourselves; even the disillusionment that often follows can be very instructive, and will bring us one step closer to wisdom.

One of the best ideas I ever heard came from a friend whom I used to play billiards with until the wee hours of the morning: "Everyone," he said while cleaning up the balls on the table, "should be entitled to make at least one big mistake."

I would not have been the writer I became if I had chosen the safe path and stayed where I was supposed to be. It took me two years to finish my MFA, and only three to finish my PhD. But before that, it took me 14 years to get my AB.

At 12 - like your chancellor - I entered the Philippine Science High School. As my parents never tired of telling anyone who cared to listen (and even those who didn't), I was the entrance-exam topnotcher of my batch, No. 1 of about 6,000 examinees. However, what my parents didn't say was that after my first year in Science High, I was going to be kicked out - with a 1.0 in English and a 5.0 in Math.

What happened? Well, you might say that I got a life. From the grade-school nerd who read two books a day in our all-boys Catholic school, I suddenly discovered girls, parties, and fun. What did I do? I used my 1.0 in English to save my 5.0 in Math, by writing a letter of appeal that began with "At the outset, let me say that I bear malice toward none." I guess it worked, because they put me on probation for a year, and I survived PSHS by the skin of my teeth.

At 16, I entered UP as an industrial engineering major - and promptly got a 5.0 in Math 17, for too many absences - the bane of the arrogant Science High graduate, even the perennial flunker like me who thought he already knew more Math than he needed to know.

At 17, still a freshman, I quit college - over the tears of my mother, whose fondest hope was for me to graduate from UP just like she did. I wanted to join the revolution, like many of my comrades; at the same time I was impatient to get a job.

At 18, I was working as a newspaper reporter covering hospital fires, US embassy rallies, suicide cases, factory strikes, and typhoon relief operations.

I spent most of my 19th year in martial-law prison.

At 20, I was a husband and father.

At 26, I took my first foreign trip.

At 27, I learned how to drive - and went back to school.

At 30, I got my AB, and decided that what I wanted to do was to write and teach for the rest of my life, so here I am.

I have been shot at, imprisoned, and worst of all, rejected by more crushes than I care to remember. Aside from my abortive career in journalism, I once worked as a cook-waiter-cashier-busboy-janitor, cutting 40 pounds of pork and chicken every day before turning them into someone's dinner.

Much earlier, I worked as a municipal employee, checking the attendance of Metro Aides at seven in the morning, and then I studied printmaking and sold my etchings cheaply by the dozen in Ermita. Incidentally, it was at that printmaking shop that I met my wife June, who's here with me today, and for whose patience with my colorful moods I am forever grateful.
Some of these events have found their way to my writing; most of them have not and never will. I believe that creative writing should generate its own excitement, beyond whatever may have happened to the author in his or her own life. But neither can I deny that my outlook has been influenced by what I have seen out there, as bright, as indelible, and as disturbing as fresh blood.

If we are to abide by the Phi Kappa Phi motto to "let the love of learning rule humanity," we should first ourselves be ruled by the love of learning - learning from books, and learning beyond them.

On the other side of the equation, let me observe that there is, today, a nascent but disturbing strain of anti-intellectualism in Philippine politics and society. The vulgar ___expression of this sentiment has taken the form of the suggestion that we can dispense with brains and education when it comes to our national leadership, because they have done us no good, anyway.
It is easy to see how this perception came about, and how its attractiveness derives from its being at least partially true. Many of our people feel betrayed by their best and brightest - the edukado , as we are called in our barangays - because we are too easily bought out by the powers that be. Marcos and Estrada had probably the best Cabinets in our political history, well-stocked with prestigious PhDs from places like Oxford and Stanford; but in the end, even they could do nothing against their President and his excesses.

For us UP graduates, the seductions of power will always be there. Power and wealth are also very interesting games to play, and few play them better than UP grads - the power side more than the wealth, as I suspect that Ateneans and La Sallites are better at making money than we are.

But even these can put you out of touch. I have friends in Malacañang and Makati who seem to have lost all sense of life, thought, and feeling on the street, beyond what their own commissioned surveys tell them. Worse, they seem to have lost touch with their old, honest, self-critical selves. They forgot all about Sophocles and poetry and mystery and music you can't buy at the record store.

To be a UP student, faculty member, and alumnus is to be burdened but also ennobled by a unique mission - not just the mission of serving the people, which is in itself not unique, and which is also reflected, for example, in the Atenean concept of being a "man for others." Rather, to my mind, our mission is to lead and to be led by reason - by independent, scientific, and secular reason, rather than by politicians, priests, shamans, bankers, or generals.

You are UP because you can think and speak for yourselves, by your own wits and on your own two feet, and you can do so no matter what the rest of the people in the room may be thinking. You are UP because no one can tell you to shut up, if you have something sensible and vital to say. You are UP because you dread not the poverty of material comforts but the poverty of the mind. And you are UP because you care about something as abstract and sometimes as treacherous as the idea of "nation", even if it kills you.

Sometimes, long after UP, we forget these things and become just like everybody else; I certainly have. Even so, I suspect that that forgetfulness is laced with guilt - the guilt of knowing that you were, and could yet become, somebody better. And you cannot even argue that you did not know, because today, I just told you so.

Friday, November 04, 2005

the five people you meet in heaven

Please forgive the poor review:

the five people you meet in heaven by Mitch Albom is the latest book I have read. It was about a life of a man who just died and is looking back on his life guided by five people who have, at one point, been an influence to his life. The book gives a new point of view of what heaven looks like. It speaks of every life connected to one another, sacrifice, forgiveness, love and meaning of life without being preachy or too goody goody. It is simply written and touches the depths of your mind and soul in a sense that it makes you think about the ideas and feel the story.

What personally hit me was the idea of that kind of heaven. Heaven is understanding why you were born, why you existed, your purpose, your mission. We have gotten used to the idea of a land of peace and harmony where beautiful flowers grow and the animals are kind and the landscape is much like a Greek painting with the Greek halls and structures. But here we find an individual's perspective owning that peace and harmony. Come to think of it, if we were to know why we lived, wouldn't that be the peace we want. I mean, that's what I would want 'cause knowing my purpose would give me that sense of accomplishment and fulfillment I have been searching.

Here we are in this world creating our own mission and vision statements. Everyday we plan our doings for the day, we keep a schedule of events for the coming month, join organizations that we feel share the same goals as ours. All of these in an attempt to discover where we can make a difference in our lives. I mean, haven't you had one of those moments when the thought of not being able accomplishing one's mission on earth? It sometimes a scary thought, a life of worthless living. But in the end of it all, there are plans sometimes entirely different from our own and to just realize that this was what you were meant to do; I just can't fully describe that warm feeling.

But what really intrigued me the most is the thought on who my five people will be when I die and more importantly who will the people I who I would wait as one of their five people. I can't seem to get over the feeling of wanting to know who they would be. Could you be one of them? I guess we'll have to find out when the time comes. :)

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Friendship and Love

Taken from an email:

If my sources are correct, the following scenario is played out frequently among the world of singles. It happens on both sides of the gender line, but allow me to talk about it from my own female perspective.

A man meets a woman and begins to show interest in her. He asks her to spend time with him on a regular basis: malling, hiking, watching videos. He calls her at least once a week just to talk. He begins telling her about the deeper things in his heart and invites her to share at this level as well. He sends her mushy "friendship" cards and TXT msgs and tells her that she means a great deal to him. He may become a little affectionate: the hugs begin to linger. The relationship has been defined as friendship, if it has been defined at all. But after all this special attention, the woman is definitely feeling more. So she asks the guy what's going on.

To her surprise, he does a quick-about face. He insists they are just friends. After that, he avoids her, leaving her hurt and bewildered. She feels REJECTED - she has lost not only a romantic interest (she thought) but worse, a close and trusted friend.

And she feels STUPID. Did she really misread all those signals? After I experienced this as a single woman, I asked my friend "JOE" to help me understand why guys do this. After I told him my woeful tale, he said, "I did that to somebody once." "What? Why would you ever do such a thing?" I asked. "We were getting too close, and it scared me," he said. This helped me understand why the "JUST FRIENDS" syndrome is so widespread. A guy wants to know a girl, but without the pressure of dating. So he spends a lot of time with her, treating her in many ways like a girlfriend but defining the relationship as friends. This way, if it begins to look like
there's no future in the relationship, or he's not ready to "get serious", he can back away with no messy breakup. It sounds like a nice arrangement - for the guy.

But that approach can be a problem for the woman. If a man tells a woman he just wants to "be friends" but he treats her like it's more than friendship, she will believe his behavior instead of his words. It sets her up for a big disappointment. Or if he invokes the "just friends" mantra after being asked about the nature of the relationship, but the promptly begins to distance himself from the friendship, again, his actions do not match his words.

He may think he's sparing her feelings by avoiding a breakup. But by defining the relationship as friendship, he hurts her even more deeply when he disappears. A dating relationship comes with certain risks. But she expects a friendship - especially such a close one - to continue. Think about it this way : A broken dating relationship says only " I don't want to marry you" ; a broken friendship says to her, "I don't want/value you on any level."

Taking a woman down this path violates two scriptural principles. First, it's dishonest. The apostle Paul said that it was the way of the world - not of a godly man - to say "yes, yes" and "no, no" in the same breath (2 Cor. 1:17). A man of integrity will call a relationship what it is. Second, it is not kind or loving. The "just friends" approach may be safer for the guy, but it is harmful to the woman. In effect, he is asking her for the rewards of a dating relationship - companionship, emotional intimacy, even affection - without the responsibility. He is playing
with her heart, and her heart will probably get B-R-O-K-E-N.

But what if a guy does only want to be friends -- or wants to develop a friendship before he decides to date? It's pretty simple. He treats the woman like all his other friends. He doesn't spend more time with her or call her more often than he does to his other friends. He usually invites other people along when he gets together with her. He doesn't pick up the tab when just the two of them go out. He avoids compliments that might communicate she is "special" to him. He lets her know he spends time with other women. He's extremely careful about showing any physical affection - even playful shoves or hugs. If, after getting to know her from a safe
emotional distance, he wants a deeper relationship, he tells her that he wants to date her. What if you are not thinking about more than friendship, but she asks about your intentions? Tell her you appreciate her friendship, but be honest about where you are. Above all, though it may be awkward for a while, continue to be her friend.

Years ago, I began to be attracted to a male friend. Though I hadn't really been getting any signals that he was interested in me, I knew it would help settle my emotions to hear it from him. I asked. He affirmed me as a person but told me gently - but clearly - that he thought of me only as a friend. And then he did a wonderful thing. He kept being my friend. Though it hurt a little to learn I wasn't attractive to him in that way, it helped to know he still valued me and wanted me around. This was nearly 15 years ago, and though we have both moved to different
states and married, we are friends to this day.

Women can be great friends. But guys, unless you are ready for a dating relationship, please be careful to treat us "as sisters, with absolute purity" (1 Tim. 5:2), not as girlfriends, nor as something in between. Your honesty - with yourself and with us - will be pleasing to the Lord, and prevent hurtful confusion for yourself and others.

Author Unknown