GOODNIGHT, AGAIN AND AGAIN

No more teachers, no more books, no more…..

I’ve forgotten the rest of this catchy line by Bugs Bunny. Anyone?

Summer is practically done and past is past.

For me and for other young and old students, June is the start of a grueling season of dreamlike warp. Today is my second day of my third trip to law school. (So far? No, I wish this would be my last.) It means I now need to sneak getting off early from work, to read books on the way to school, to be fumed with cigarette smoke from young and old classmates right before and after each class, to spend library hours for studying and sleeping, to get home late and digest cases overnight over cups and mugs of coffee, to get up earlier and dizzy because of adjusted work schedule, to travel en route to the office memorizing legal provisions and stealing snoozes…. the phrases continue on and on and turns full circle, not to mention my aching to question the wisdom of our laws which law schools do not permit, such caves being wrong venues for protests.

Go to Congress. Lobby outside or grandstand inside.

Dream to be a Senator, Congressman, or activist? I already have my own dream, and it seems it’s taking me almost forever to follow it.

So then I remember this very simple poem I penned around five years ago about dreaming and dreaming on …


OLD CHILD’S DREAMS

I dream to wake like the sun rising bright
I dream to run like the river rushing wild
I dream to leap like the rainbow arching high
I dream to rest like the granite standing tough

But these are all there are:

I need to wake, so that all day I would tire.
I need to run, so that I could do so much.
I need to leap, so that things I hate shall fade.
I need to rest, so that I might have my Dreams.


Kaplak!!!!

Enough of these complaints and angst! Learn without complaining and live without demanding, …probably.

Read, understand, memorize, read, understand, memorize… zzzleep…zzzleep…zzz..

LESSONS FROM AN IMMORTAL, ALMOST

I have realized I had not been scared of cockroaches; I don’t even hate them, I suppose. And I guess I love them? I’ll just opt to answer, “not impossible.”

It’s fun to observe a roach running circles, to have a worm’s eye view of its kamikaze moves across the air, and to get dazed by its sudden landing on places you think it won’t care to go after disturbing their flight. Talk about vitality.

But after being amazed and amused by a roach’s athleticism, I almost always make it a point to start killing the creature. Kicks and stomps, or newspaper swipes, or broom jobs, or all other acts of cruelty and violence... anything lethal will do! Yet, according to some experts, nuclear bomb won’t work against it. So I always stick to the same old slapstick procedures enumerated above. Eco-friendly is in anyway.

But why try killing the performer? Of course, to witness the best of its performance.

Many times the greatest deed of a hero comes up in the time of his greatest struggle. Many times the greatest struggle is his struggle for life. Many times this instinct of self-preservations is that which makes one a hero. Even an ordinary soldier who is at a special time when, and in a special place where, he is likely to sustain battle scars, is more likely thereafter to receive medal of whatever honor than his brave, suicidal, and unscathed counterparts are.

Among all performers worthy of being terminated, the roach is the most spellbinding. When you thought all along that it lied there, head crushed, thorax and abdomen smashed, legs bruised or dislocated, wings severed, slime squashed out, and strength drained, never to walk again on the surface of the earth, never to wade again through the water in the pail, never to flip, flick, and dance again on your sink, there it is, slowly but surely, flexing and strutting its limbs, nervously “returnovering” its frame, stealthily shifting for a spin, and then walking like a hermit toward shelter, as if nothing serious happened after at most a day lying dead as death itself, as if telling its assassin “you can do better than that”. Wondrous! I am not worthy! Talk about resurrection and immortality.

Believe me, more practice makes more perfect. I just witnessed again one yesterday. A well-nourished and well-equipped specimen could leave you awestruck, once in a while.

Couldn’t we learn from some life force other than ants & butterflies, birds & bees, LeBron James & Ylmaz Bektas, and Paris Hilton and Ex-Senators Tito & Tessie?

The answer might just be crawling beneath your table.

MALIGAYANG ARAW NG KALAYAAN!

In one forum, a participant recommends another to read "The Purpose Driven Life" and "Five People You Meet in Heaven" for the purpose of enlightenment. The latter person, a prolific blogger, responds by, among other things, blatantly denying the importance of purpose in his life by way of his blog.

I guess such strong claim is in reference to the purpose which he believes the recommender, the book, and others of like pedigree, might have claimed to define or misdefine for him. And to such other same bananas!

The blogger is silent as to the second title, willfully perhaps, as he cares less to care, as I see. And it’s sound he does!

With these, I itched to react and write; I just made a reply to him.

I have not read either book. Their titles spell a deductible idea that only those who are heavily armed and burdened with ghostly assumptions are likely to be enlightened in their very sense of the word, or likely to enjoy them, at the least. Indeed, we could judge books by their titles and, much more precisely, by their readers! It’s good for the economy; haste makes waste.

But still, we are unfortunate that the word “enlighten” continuous to exist in the vocabulary of the Enlightened Ones. Buddha would be terribly jealous. Maybe it’s better they have it patented for their exclusive use so that men of reason are spared of the torture of confusion. But if they mean they were enlightened, first with the conversion of their supernatural assumptions to intelligible terms in their reading of the books, then enlightened again, after showing them the objective and consequent why’s, how’s, what’s, when’s, and where’s of those assumptions, then we might consider the reconsidering of our affinity with the cherished ideas of the Enlightenment.

Even the first part of such enlightenment process would do, if they want me to talk shorter and avoid too many commas.

In my opinion, it is still the great Summa Theologica (second to the Bible, of course) that should accompany first the spiritual enlightenment of the Bible believers. The mental calisthenics involved in reading it would at least give them a drop of idea that in defending faith, the best shield is the mind. Then, right after that grueling and taxing introspection and realization, it’s high time to treat each of themselves with two bowls of sundaes each topped with bright red cherries. I mean, grab your "The Purpose Driven Life" and "Five People You Meet in Heaven" for carefree washroom reading, applying the idea of choosing the lesser evil first. Summa being the much lesser.

The blogger I told you is right. He will only read one only when lent one. And my friendly, yet still unsolicited, advice to him, read it only when it’s Lent, on Friday, when we have all the time, when Friday is Good and someone dies.

Shouldn’t we have our Independence Day moved to another movable date?

Nevertheless, Maligayang Araw Kalayaan!

DON'T YOU?

May is a Myth. It is not true because it can also mean May Not. Can is a Meta-myth.

Nonetheless, it is also not true because it may also mean Can Not. But May is more notorious than Can, as the latter carries more intention or, at least, air of capability to act. Another thing, the identification of May with May Not is much perceived than that of Can with Can Not.

In the ordinary world of brotherhood, friendship, and other relations, May, besides being audaciously open, also cloaks itself under the "I'll see", "We'll see", "Pwede", and "Bahala na" brouhahas. Far from being disdained as the culprit of idleness and regression, May and its personas are hailed as preserver of goodwill, the power against appearing offensive when we itch to say "NO".

In the not-so special realm of our beloved Constitution, you may or can encounter this provision:

“The State shall guarantee equal access to opportunities for public service, and prohibit political dynasties as may be defined by law.”

Don't be fooled by "The State shall" conviction or else you will be unaware eaten alive by "as may be defined by law" fraud. And while you are being masticated and digested, you will be enlightened that the the provision means as well that the law MAY NOT define neither "The State's drive to prohibit", "the prohibition of political dynasties", nor at the least "political dynaties". And after about 20 years of waiting, it MAY now be safe, and we are merry and happy, to say that the law will no longer define them!

We heard it, that the family was the basic institution of the land. Families should rule, indeed. In any case, we are merrier and happier after reaping the consolation prize:

The State has already guaranteed equal access to opportunities for public service. That is so, believe me, even without the definition by law. Have not we seen Pac-Man, Jones, Baldemor, Calope, and a lot more, around? Thanks, it's only "opportunities" they've fortuned to access to.

I love my country. Don't you?

DOES IT?

Electing a topic in order to start an exchange of thoughts does not result into real conversation. It goes the same with determining what our dreams are; they are not supposed to be determined. It is not at variance with setting our timepieces to accuracy. Any reference to the accurate raises a question of how the accurate arrives into accuracy.

We live in an ordinary world, a world that is not different from any perceivable and conceivable worlds. What makes this world special, in virtual experience at the least, is the three-fold fact which is "Not everything is said, not everything is expressed in the same way, and not everything is made known to the same listeners."

But before you get to understand what I am telling about, you may now accept the truth that you are now indefinitely, time-wise and willingness-wise, subscribed to Secular Disclosures.

A thing does not always have to make sense to the sort of sense one has, does it?