Perspective

Well, this post must come in one way or another.

To our Lord in Heaven, I would like to say thank you for another day in this life. Another cycle has been completed, another year has been hurdled. Of course, it's just any ordinary day.

The world isn't any more special because I was born this day so many years ago. It was another day just like the others that we let pass through our lives.

Because we do. Sometimes, events awaken us and bother us to try and take stock of our existence. For some, it is observing the tides of history as they swirl back and forth and around the important figures in the life of our nation. For others, it is through the fortunes being made, about to be made, and soon to be lost in the world of commerce.

For others it is human achievement in the field of cooperation, in competition, and sometimes with both.

For most it is tragedy, whether direct and personal, or experiences lived vicariously in the lives of others.

My life, in perspective, is no more than the sum of experiences that come to bear on this moment, this reality. It can only be special because others make it so.

My mind tells me, intellectually, that some part of existence has made sense, that I should be glad that I am living the life that I am living now, that I am much more fortunate. I must have wasted more opportunities that life has made available for me than what has been available to others. And yet I am still here.

I am not dead. I am not ended. This life is not without purpose because today, and the past few months, have been personal lows. And yet, yes, I have to fight back my own tears welling up in me, of shame that I have not made the most of what I have been given, and of immense gratitiude that I have been given so much.

I celebrate the living that I have gone through and that others make me feel special and purposeful, even though at times it doesn't feel that way.

There were universes of regret that I went through when former President Aquino passed away. I smile at the people who belittle her contributions to the world stage; at the same time I squirm every time someone utters her name like a benediction.

This generation, my generation, must never forget what the first Edsa made possible --- that we are capable of coming together, inspiring one another, forgetting our self-serving agenda. That was the seed Cory Aquino planted. She tried her best to keep it going during her administration, but in the end, good intentions, and the desire to uproot or destroy the vestiges of dictatorship, are never enough.

The dream was there, but we woke up to something else. And for most, it was that the dream was betrayed, with epic fails at the Presidential Commission for Good Government, the flawed Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law, numerous rightist coups, and the worst - that the mechanisms for oppression remained, only that new people were in the saddle.

For me, it was that the dream was fragile, and that like most people who had just broken out of jail, the prisoners savored freedom too much but did not want to take responsibility, or did not have the tools to do so.

I cried for Cory because I cried for that part of our nation's spirit that has been betrayed so many times, that, like a battered child, it knows no more than to batter back. But all that child needs is acceptance, and inspiration to believe. When we lifted the veil of mourning, that was the spirit waiting for another chance.

I hope this time Noynoy Aquino and Mar Roxas do something different. My cynicism derides my hope, but I can keep dreaming. So far, the "realists" have embraced the two-faced nature of Manny Villar, or the stolid business-as-usual stance of Gilbert Teodoro. Hmmm, yes, there are some attractions, but there isn't enough deodorant to go around to mask the stench of of decay and corruption.

All around the world, people have forgotten that it was we who made the banner of "people power" soar high. That many of the icons who rose during that period - Lech Walesa, Albert Fujimori, Vaclav Havel, Mikhail Gorbachev - have fallen short should remind us ideals do have a price, and to transform people it is not ideology, but integrity, that ensures success.

Harvey Dent in "The Dark Knight" says it so well- "You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."

We have witnessed how things went topsy-turvy when the so-called moral guardians found themselves eating crow when their Anointed One, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, just didn't turn out any more kosher than Erap - in fact, she was much more manipulative and Machiavellian than anyone expected. It was masterful and deliberate, the symmetry of her destruction has some appeal.

BREAK THE SEALS BREAK THE SEALS BREAK THE SEALS LET TARMON GAIDON COME!

When will we ever learn that the flow of history is against us, and without our own personal contribution, that tide will never be stanched.

I saw a Facebook post from one of my friends showing a YouTube video of "Banal na Aso, Santong Kabayo" by Yano which was filmed 15, 16 years back.

The generation that was ranting for change is the generation that is coming into leadership now. And that's us.

So what have we done so far?

Are we just mere witnesses? What happened to the optimism of "Yes We Can!" or the supposed sea change that was about to come? What now? Have we gotten too lazy, too jaded, to ever see that the light lit in the windy darkness, must now, more than ever, be protected against the forces of that darkness?

Where is the moral outrage now?

Just to put this world into its natural perspective.

And I still think my personal problems outweigh the world's.