I take a cab at the corner of Bo's not far from my place. I've got my badminton gear with me and am quite happy with the thought that after a long drought from any sports activity I was finally gonna get some action.

I'm all settled in the cab and tell the driver I'm headed to Timog.

"Sa GMA ka ba?" he asks.

"Banda doon po" I replied.

"Anong show ka? Napanood na ba kita sa tv?"

"Ho?" I'm not sure what he means so repeats his question.

I told him I wasn't going to the station itself and that I wasn't an artista or had any tv projects. Then he told me that I would be one day. Even calling me at one point of the conversation a "magandang lalake". And no, he's not gay. He talks to me about his family and how he still needs to work though he's pushing near sixty, and how he loves movies. To my surprise he did seem to be knowledgeable in the field from the Filipino classics and to even foreign art films. He says he has a knack for things and tells me a story that he also had a passenger long ago way back when he was younger and told her that she too was going to be a star. And she did, and her name was Vina Morales. Haha, yes, quite funny. I dunno if he was pulling my leg but he seemed to narrate from an actual memory.

I told him I had no plans on an acting career, but actually hoped and am working to be a director/filmmaker.

He asked for my name so that one day when he sees my movies he can say that I was in his cab. I also asked for his and told him that if I make it, I'll give him a shout out. Haha!

Only time will tell.

....

"Every man's life lies within the present; for the past is spent and done with, and the future is uncertain." -Marcus Aurelius

I'm probably 9 or 10 and I'm looking for my notebook -the one I've saved for drawing all my crazy characters and superhero plans and gadgets. I couldn't find it until Pabing said she had it and returned it to me not knowing it was used by anyone anymore (there are many discarded half used notebooks lying around the house). I was going to start drawing only to find out as I opened up the pages that she had drawn on several pages some designs for women's clothing. I got so angry and fumed that my notebook was now ruined and tried to express my displeasure by making weird half tantrum type sounds and gestures. I think for a time I even held a grudge, but eventually found a new notebook.

I've recently uncovered that notebook and scanned the pages of her drawings and realized how stupid I was. Looking back now, I wish I realized that it was just a notebook and that I could have gotten another a thousand times better than that one notebook easily. I wish I could have seen past my own selfishness and could have been nicer to her that time.

She didn't particularly get treated well around the house. She was often called slow, which was only true because she was in a house of hurried control freaks. She had served our house for a long time and was already near her fifties if I'm not mistaken though I could not ever remember her having any friends or family visit. Life is tough. Her life must have been tougher. Although I think I was closest to her because we would share stories and jokes, not a common thing with everyone else in the house, I still regret that one incident greatly. Maybe, despite her time passing by, she still dreamed to design clothes and that it was her escape and little joy. And there I was a stupid kid not seeing that.

Had I seen past my own self, I would have given her a thousand notebooks. I would have talked to her and listened a little more seriously when she confided in me that she was afraid she was dying. She would pass away two weeks later from a cancer no one knew she had and I wasn't even there. I tear up at the thought of how lonely she must have been.

These memories remind me why I've tried to be a nicer person in the past. I remember now the more important lessons I need to remember.

....

"Were we fully to understand the reasons for other people's behavior, it would all make sense." -Sigmund Freud

The Affliction

"Once you believe in the reality of God

you may come more realistically to

recognize the limits of human love.

As great a thing as human love is, it

is not perfect. Like any other inherently

good thing - work, education, physical

beauty, good health - each and every

form of human love can become an

object of idolatry if it is pursued as

an ultimate thing. The danger of basing

your whole sense of self-worth on a

person (or one wealth or career or

reputation, or the cultivation of a

particular talent) is that all people,

and all worldly things, are flawed and

transient. Inevitably, you will feel let

down, disappointed, disillusioned-

perhaps utterly crushed. This happened

to me at around the age of 40, and it is

an affliction which I continue to fight

against. Only God is ultimate and

perfect."

-from Roy Williams, God Actually.

It's a hard lesson to learn. It is something I have been struggling with for a long time though I have been more conscious of it for the past few years. It has led me through bouts of depression and withdrawal, and quite possibly my current persona full of cynicism and a sarcastic view of life and people.

It is not easy to wake up one day and find out you are your own worst enemy. It is not easy to depend on things you cannot see when all around you is a failing experiment. I cannot love things because I am not perfect. I cannot love things because they are not perfect. I cannot love because I am not just filled with love but a whole lot of other junk I'd rather not speak of.

If I have to come to terms with my own limitations, I would have to accept the possibility, or some would even say the certainty, that tomorrow I would make more mistakes. Tomorrow I would be in need of forgiveness I might not want to ask or that anyone might care to give me (take note that I speak of only a worldly scope). This bothers me a great deal. Knowing that nothing worldly can satisfy me bothers me a great deal. Knowing I am still a worldly person bothers me a great deal. What bothers me the most is if I can never be anything more than worldly -finite, flawed and perpetually unsatisfied.

I feel guilty having thoughts of such despair, much more to talk about them though to most they may seem so abstract. But they are there, they are strong, and more importantly they are true. I do not like this feeling of weakness and even more the awareness of it. In that respect, I might consider the beasts of the land luckier than we are.

We have invented our comedies and dramas, our technologies for amusement and adventure, and indulged in our social constructs, habits and private addictions, all to pass the time and make sense of it. The great tragedy of humanity is that we know too much, and what we know most of all is that we can't do a thing about it.

....

"Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit."

-Peter Ustinov