No matter how hard you strive to live your life well, there just comes a point when you are struck by the pointlessness of it all. Because sooner or later, like anything that's great, like anything that's worthless, it is going to end. And when that realization comes, the only thing you'd want to ask for is a beautiful death.
How am I going to die?
A martyr? Maybe one day, as I walk in the streets of Manila, I'll see a little child--a grimy little vagrant--suddenly freezing out of fear in the middle of the street. A bus speeds towards her direction, threatening to run over her, but she does not move. For fear has already numbed her body and, for a few seconds, killed her mind. Should I save her? Of course I should. Maybe I'll die afterwards. maybe we'll both die. But either way, how would people call me afterwards? A martyr? Perhaps. Isn't that a beautiful way to conclude a life? All lives will end anyway. Why not end it this way? The good, altruistic way. And then after death, perhaps I'll ascend to heaven. Or maybe not. But isn't that what makes death beautiful, what makes heroism praiseworthy? The fact that no one knows for sure what comes after death?
But what if...? What if I have always been sure about heaven? What if I have always been sure that an all-powerful God would take my soul to heaven if i die a good man? If that's the case, if there is never any reason for me to fear the afterlife, then what fears would I feel when death stares me in the eye? And If I have no fear to feel, what do I have to conquer when I'm about to commit an act of martyrdom? If I am absolutely certain about the existence of heaven, then isn't an act of martyrdom just a way of giving myself a chance to enter it? And if so, what reason would anyone have to praise me or even any other martyr? And if there's really a God up there, what reason would he have to be pleased with me?
Will I die a patriot? Maybe one day, I'll find myself in the battlefield, fighting for my country alongside aother valiant men, clutching a firearm--no, embracing it--while abandoning my dreams of a good life as I and my comrades march to our death.
"Even if I live a thousand times," I'll say to myself, I will also die as many times. But how many times could I possibly have a death as beautiful as this? And after this,if the Buddhists are right, I'll just live again.Or If i am to belive my own Christian faith, I'll just ascend to heaven. Had I been younger, I'd pray for god to appear beforethe entire battalion and assure us that he really exists. But things are different now. A part of me wants to have a beautiful afterlife. But somehow, a part of me also wants to remain afraid. Because a part of me wants to believe that I am not abandoning my loved ones just to move on to a wonderful afterlife. That is the part of me that wants to be a hero. The part that wants to be remembered as a friend, a son, a brother. Someone who is not moving on to something better. This day, this death, this courage..they are only meaningful because nobody knows for sure what will happen when I die in the battlefield. If suddenly, God shows Himself to us and tells us what lies beyond death, then I, like all heroes, would never be called one. I would not even be a friend. Not even a son. Not even a brother. I'd just be a deserter. A coward eager to seek refuge in heaven. A weakling hurriedly escaping from the tough battlefield called life.
"So, God, if you are really up there, heed your child. Please take not our doubts about you. Take not our courage."
Will I die a man of faith? I hope so. Each night, I pray to God and ask for his grace. I pray that he protect all my friends, my family, my people. And i do so not because He has commanded me to. I pray for my loved ones because I love my loved ones.
But what if one day, god walks on this earth and assures us that all this time, he has been up there, waiting for the ascension of his beloved children? What would I possibly pray for? If I already know for sure that all my good loved ones would simply ascend to heaven if they die, what reason would I have to pray for their safety? And if I find myself standing face to face with Him, what would I say?
"Hide, my God!" I'd say. "Do you realize how pointless our lives have become since you had come here for everyone to see? Wasn't it you who taught me to be a good man? But how can I be a good man now? I want to be a kind neighbor. But any kindness I can offer anyone is nothing compared to the bliss awaiting him in heaven. I want to help people, save them! But each time I save someone, I am just prolonging his agony in this world and delaying his ascension to paradise. I want to wish people well...wish them the best! But right now, because we know what we know, the best thing that could happen to anyone is to die! Is that what a good man must do now? to kill them all?
"Can't You see? Doubt is the one thing that makes faith possible. Fear is the only reason why there is courage. Now that you are here before us all, there is no reason for me to doubt. that's why there is no reason for me to have faith.Now that i know that you'll be taking all good people to heaven, I have no reason to be afraid. No reason to be brave. Bring them back, my God! Bring them back! My littlest doubts....my littlest fears."
Monday, August 2, 2010
Monday, April 5, 2010
Wishes
I wish the diamond ring was never invented. Without it, romance would be far less expensive.
I wish the air conditioner was never invented. Without it, we would all have to rely on natural sources of cool ventilation. The skyline would be filled with countless hanging gardens that provide fresh air and spectacularly beautify the city. Man-made lakes and vast hanging pools , which serve as sources of cool breezes, would be constructed all over the metropolis, turning the landscape into a beautiful collage of green, gray and blue. Furthermore, because everyone has to breathe the unfiltered city air, automakers will be compelled to shift to clean fuels such as LPG and the urban air would be far less polluted.
I wish the high-heeled shoe was never invented. Without it, the corporate world would have no excuse to compel women to wear shoes that unnecessarily make walking very stressful. And there would be more varicose-vein free legs for men to ogle at on the streets.
I wish the shave was never invented. Without it, every man would have his face concealed beneath a thick mustache and a long beard. Girls would never know which guys are handsome and which ones are ugly. And even the ugliest men could have prettiest women!
I wish the automobile was and the motorcycle was never invented. Without them, we’d be digging canals instead of constructing concrete/asphalt highways. Instead of riding cars and motorbikes, we’d be riding jet skis and speedboats. And anytime you arrive late at work, you can always claim that you were attacked by a crocodile in the canal.
I wish the suit was never invented. Without it, male office workers in tropical countries like the Philippines wouldn’t have to sweat profusely when they leave their air-conditioned workplace. And the MRT (Metro Rail Transit) cars would be much less stinky.
I wish the perfume was never invented. Without it, no one would be hated for smelling bad.
I wish the karaoke was never invented. Without it, the murder rate in the Philippines would be much lower.
I wish the mirror was never invented. Without it, the global suicide rate would be much lower.
I wish the clock was never invented. Without it, no one would ever be late.
I wish the calendar was never invented. Without it, we’d all be ageless.
I wish the air conditioner was never invented. Without it, we would all have to rely on natural sources of cool ventilation. The skyline would be filled with countless hanging gardens that provide fresh air and spectacularly beautify the city. Man-made lakes and vast hanging pools , which serve as sources of cool breezes, would be constructed all over the metropolis, turning the landscape into a beautiful collage of green, gray and blue. Furthermore, because everyone has to breathe the unfiltered city air, automakers will be compelled to shift to clean fuels such as LPG and the urban air would be far less polluted.
I wish the high-heeled shoe was never invented. Without it, the corporate world would have no excuse to compel women to wear shoes that unnecessarily make walking very stressful. And there would be more varicose-vein free legs for men to ogle at on the streets.
I wish the shave was never invented. Without it, every man would have his face concealed beneath a thick mustache and a long beard. Girls would never know which guys are handsome and which ones are ugly. And even the ugliest men could have prettiest women!
I wish the automobile was and the motorcycle was never invented. Without them, we’d be digging canals instead of constructing concrete/asphalt highways. Instead of riding cars and motorbikes, we’d be riding jet skis and speedboats. And anytime you arrive late at work, you can always claim that you were attacked by a crocodile in the canal.
I wish the suit was never invented. Without it, male office workers in tropical countries like the Philippines wouldn’t have to sweat profusely when they leave their air-conditioned workplace. And the MRT (Metro Rail Transit) cars would be much less stinky.
I wish the perfume was never invented. Without it, no one would be hated for smelling bad.
I wish the karaoke was never invented. Without it, the murder rate in the Philippines would be much lower.
I wish the mirror was never invented. Without it, the global suicide rate would be much lower.
I wish the clock was never invented. Without it, no one would ever be late.
I wish the calendar was never invented. Without it, we’d all be ageless.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
To Save A Mockingbird
The last cop I would trust is a cop who makes a career out of arresting prostitutes.
In this country, if you’re a cop and you want to keep your job, you’ll have to turn a blind eye to the crimes of some of your corrupt bosses. You’ll have to risk your life for politicians who plunder the nation’s coffers with impunity. Many times, you’ll have to restrain yourself from arresting the countless extortionists among your colleagues because if you don’t, they’ll just gang up on you and you’ll just end up being another powerless, unarmed loser who’d have to helplessly watch both the civilian and ‘uniformed’ extortionists raid the pockets of honest men. Most of the time, you’ll have to stand among ruthless men who have more blood in their hands than all of the petty criminals detained at your station. And if you can put a harmless prostitute behind bars, if you can punish a woman for job that’s already punishing enough, even though you can deliberately forget about the law when dealing with the more privileged crooks, what kind of person are you?
No I do not think lowly of our policemen. Neither do I judge the cops for not enforcing the law all the time. No matter what the Catholic Church says about the evils of relativism, real people like us often have to choose between the wrong and the worse, and not just right and wrong. If you’re a new cop and you find yourself in the company of colleagues moonlighting as drug pushers, what are you supposed to do? Arrest them? Then let their cohorts kill you afterwards, leaving your family with no breadwinner and no protector? So what happens after your heroic act? You die. Your wife and children die either through starvation or murder. Your corrupt colleagues live on. Society loses one good cop. And a hundred other crimes will happen because you won’t be there to stop them. But if you choose to be prudent, if you stay alive, albeit tainted, you’ll have a chance to prevent some crimes. Though few, there would be people who’d benefit from your enforcement of the law. And after each dangerous day of your life, you’ll still come home to a loving family. In this case, staying alive isn’t exactly the right thing. Tolerating evil is wrong no matter how you look at it. But if you were in that situation, what would you do? Quit and find another job so that you’ll never have to sin at all? Come to think of it, if all good cops refused to sin, if none of them was ever willing to be wrong, there wouldn’t be anyone left to save us when we cry, “Thieves!”
And if I can be kind to the armed cops, so should I be to the powerless prostitutes. The whores are sinners, no doubt. But far from being hardened criminals. What they do for a living is definitely immoral. And like the good cops who can’t always do the right thing, they have their own reasons for doing the wrong thing. Some do it so that their children can live another day. Some do it so that their younger siblings can finish college and will never have to sin as much as they do just to earn a living. While some simply do it so that neither the government nor their families would have to worry about them. If you can swallow all your pride, open yourself to public ridicule, give up your dignity and even risk being raped or mugged in the dark streets of the city almost every night just to support a child or a sibling, what kind of person are you? Evil?
Will the prostitutes burn in hell someday for their sins? Maybe. Do they displease God as they practice their ‘profession’? Perhaps. But even as they continue to sin, even as they go on displeasing the Creator, they still deserve to stay alive. I still want them to stay alive. We all should.
Unfortunately, in this hypocritical world, it is not difficult to find people who’d be happy to wish the prostitutes dead. Just recently, the so called ‘holy men’ of the CBCP (Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines) raised hell over the Department of Health’s distribution of free condoms. I know that those condoms won’t be enough to save all the prostitutes from AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. It’s no secret that condoms are not 100% effective. But every means to save lives must be exhausted, even if that means is not 100% effective and even if those lives belong to the sinful prostitutes. It’s like transplanting an organ. A transplant is never a guarantee that a person with an ailing organ will be saved. But if it can be done, why stop the surgeon from performing it?
Ironically, just last year, a bishop publicly opposed the planned military action against the Abu Sayaff on the grounds that violence would lead to more violence. If bishops can show concern for people who may be killed by bullets, why can’t they do the same for women who might be killed by AIDS?
As children, we were taught good values by our parents and teachers. And in time, we learned to take pride in adhering to our absolute moral standards. But sometimes, that same pride, the one that strengthens our own individual sense of morality, also leads us to distance ourselves from those who fail to be as morally upright as we are. And there, in the vast space we create between them and us, a wall of apathy grows increasingly thicker. It’s about time we end that apathy.
Next time you see a prostitute in the streets of Manila at night, waiting to be picked up by a moneyed customer, ask yourself this: Why is she out there? She can choose to be a thief and just take away your hard-earned possessions. She can choose to be a drug-dealer and earn more money than any of her pimps ever will. Or be a mistress of a corrupt politician and live off her lover’s ill-gotten wealth. But instead, she chooses to stand in that dark corner, praying that the shadows would somehow conceal her face but not her entire body from the passing motorists, hoping that the robbers would deem her so pitifully impoverished that they wouldn’t even bother mugging her, hoping that the next customer would not infect her with AIDS. Why? There is only one answer. She is where she is…
Because she has a conscience.
In this country, if you’re a cop and you want to keep your job, you’ll have to turn a blind eye to the crimes of some of your corrupt bosses. You’ll have to risk your life for politicians who plunder the nation’s coffers with impunity. Many times, you’ll have to restrain yourself from arresting the countless extortionists among your colleagues because if you don’t, they’ll just gang up on you and you’ll just end up being another powerless, unarmed loser who’d have to helplessly watch both the civilian and ‘uniformed’ extortionists raid the pockets of honest men. Most of the time, you’ll have to stand among ruthless men who have more blood in their hands than all of the petty criminals detained at your station. And if you can put a harmless prostitute behind bars, if you can punish a woman for job that’s already punishing enough, even though you can deliberately forget about the law when dealing with the more privileged crooks, what kind of person are you?
No I do not think lowly of our policemen. Neither do I judge the cops for not enforcing the law all the time. No matter what the Catholic Church says about the evils of relativism, real people like us often have to choose between the wrong and the worse, and not just right and wrong. If you’re a new cop and you find yourself in the company of colleagues moonlighting as drug pushers, what are you supposed to do? Arrest them? Then let their cohorts kill you afterwards, leaving your family with no breadwinner and no protector? So what happens after your heroic act? You die. Your wife and children die either through starvation or murder. Your corrupt colleagues live on. Society loses one good cop. And a hundred other crimes will happen because you won’t be there to stop them. But if you choose to be prudent, if you stay alive, albeit tainted, you’ll have a chance to prevent some crimes. Though few, there would be people who’d benefit from your enforcement of the law. And after each dangerous day of your life, you’ll still come home to a loving family. In this case, staying alive isn’t exactly the right thing. Tolerating evil is wrong no matter how you look at it. But if you were in that situation, what would you do? Quit and find another job so that you’ll never have to sin at all? Come to think of it, if all good cops refused to sin, if none of them was ever willing to be wrong, there wouldn’t be anyone left to save us when we cry, “Thieves!”
And if I can be kind to the armed cops, so should I be to the powerless prostitutes. The whores are sinners, no doubt. But far from being hardened criminals. What they do for a living is definitely immoral. And like the good cops who can’t always do the right thing, they have their own reasons for doing the wrong thing. Some do it so that their children can live another day. Some do it so that their younger siblings can finish college and will never have to sin as much as they do just to earn a living. While some simply do it so that neither the government nor their families would have to worry about them. If you can swallow all your pride, open yourself to public ridicule, give up your dignity and even risk being raped or mugged in the dark streets of the city almost every night just to support a child or a sibling, what kind of person are you? Evil?
Will the prostitutes burn in hell someday for their sins? Maybe. Do they displease God as they practice their ‘profession’? Perhaps. But even as they continue to sin, even as they go on displeasing the Creator, they still deserve to stay alive. I still want them to stay alive. We all should.
Unfortunately, in this hypocritical world, it is not difficult to find people who’d be happy to wish the prostitutes dead. Just recently, the so called ‘holy men’ of the CBCP (Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines) raised hell over the Department of Health’s distribution of free condoms. I know that those condoms won’t be enough to save all the prostitutes from AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. It’s no secret that condoms are not 100% effective. But every means to save lives must be exhausted, even if that means is not 100% effective and even if those lives belong to the sinful prostitutes. It’s like transplanting an organ. A transplant is never a guarantee that a person with an ailing organ will be saved. But if it can be done, why stop the surgeon from performing it?
Ironically, just last year, a bishop publicly opposed the planned military action against the Abu Sayaff on the grounds that violence would lead to more violence. If bishops can show concern for people who may be killed by bullets, why can’t they do the same for women who might be killed by AIDS?
As children, we were taught good values by our parents and teachers. And in time, we learned to take pride in adhering to our absolute moral standards. But sometimes, that same pride, the one that strengthens our own individual sense of morality, also leads us to distance ourselves from those who fail to be as morally upright as we are. And there, in the vast space we create between them and us, a wall of apathy grows increasingly thicker. It’s about time we end that apathy.
Next time you see a prostitute in the streets of Manila at night, waiting to be picked up by a moneyed customer, ask yourself this: Why is she out there? She can choose to be a thief and just take away your hard-earned possessions. She can choose to be a drug-dealer and earn more money than any of her pimps ever will. Or be a mistress of a corrupt politician and live off her lover’s ill-gotten wealth. But instead, she chooses to stand in that dark corner, praying that the shadows would somehow conceal her face but not her entire body from the passing motorists, hoping that the robbers would deem her so pitifully impoverished that they wouldn’t even bother mugging her, hoping that the next customer would not infect her with AIDS. Why? There is only one answer. She is where she is…
Because she has a conscience.
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