It's my birthday today and I am turning... um ... past thirty.
I read somewhere that the age of immortality is thirty. Che Guevara died at thirty. Alexander The Great died at the age of thirty. So did our great hero Jose Rizal. Beyond thirty our idealism gradually fades. We start to compromise.
The beauty of youth is that we look at the world with burning fire in our eyes. We embrace life with burning passion. We are so consumed with our ideas. We had the luxury to read and think . Our unadulterated mind, free from contaminants from the real world, is receptive from ideas and alternative views.
Back then, I wanted to change the world.
Once, I was moved by an angry poet Philip Larkin. In his poem This Be The Verse, he lamented:
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can
don't have any kids yourself.
It struck a chord in me. A transcendent awareness came over me. yes, sort of like an epiphany. Probably because I lived a difficult life. I came from a very poor family and I was raised in a community where I could taste and smell the stink of misery.
I was young. I was inspired. So much intoxicated with ideas, I had illusions of grandeur. I took upon myself the mission to one day extricate my family and the community from the closed cycle of poverty. I wanted to start from the grass roots, and sow the seeds of of changes. I ran for kabataang barangay , became a member of every NGO empowering the community and I thought joining an underground subversive movement.
I wanted to wander and see the world. I wanted to live a nomadic existence, meet interesting people and experience different cultures. I wanted to travel to the Amazon rain forest and live with the Matis tribe. I want to experience the Tanzanian dawn, try the iboga of Babongo in Gabon , party at Ibiza, and feel the ambiance of Ipanema and Leblon in Brazil.
But, as we grow older we tend to see the word at a different perspective. We become more realistic and more practical. Yes, we compromise.
Whether we like it or not the number of digits in our bank account matters.
As we age, we feel that time is running, like the endless idiot who always runs screaming, it constantly reminds us how much time is left for us. So we tend to rush thing. We plea-bargain with ourselves.
I am beyond thirty and I still want to do those things.Well, probably in my own little way as a citizen of the world. On how I live my life.
I think it was E.M. Forster in The Room With a View, who said that at some point in our life we aspire to look for a spot that we could declare as our own territory and do whatever we want, whatever makes us happy. Literally, I want to look for some place where I could settle down and live a complete life. Yes, I dream of having a family with two kids in a posh village, with security guards and at least with two cars in my garage. I wanted to raise my kids, play with them, bring them to school attend and PTA meetings.
But then again, I still have to hurdle this important battle in my life. A few days from now I will be taking the bar exam. Wish me well.
Happy birthday to me!
