When I Grow Up

If you think Law is IT for me, you’re mistaken.  Don’t be fooled with my previous write-ups, both hailing and ranting about the learned profession. Law is just like pre-school, ya know, to reaching my ACTUAL dreams and ambitions. Here’s a sneak peek of what I’m REALLY going to be when I grow up:

BALLERINA.  ‘Coz I love ‘em skintight leotards and tutus. But seriously. Four years of ballet cut short to turn me into a geek of some sort. When I got to see prima ballerina Liza Macuja perform in Swan Lake and in the flesh with all those other Russian danseuses, I just knew it.  I envisioned myself in the center stage…until my mom burst my bubble in fifth grade when she decided on my behalf that ballet is mere superfluity to hardcore academics. So, I wonder if I can give it another shot…only that my flexibility powers seem to be all poofed out now.  I can’t even do a decent split.

SHRINK.  If I weren’t torturing myself reading SCRA and digesting the sometimes indigestible constitutional, civil, criminal and what-have-you cases, I’d be all the same torturing myself (at least in a close to masochistic way bwahaha) trying to understand the abstraction that is the mind.  But what the hey?! Why would I want to understand how the brain works? Well, that’s a secret I won’t tell – at least not in public cyberspace.  And please, no, it’s not out of some nerdy curiosity. I’m no nerd, UGH.

SWIMMER. Because h2o is pure love.  And who can resist the smell of chlorine and sunscreen? Not me, dude, not moi.  And the beach, of course, which I miss direly!!! Just a trivia though: You’d be surprised to know I was a bit hydrophobic when I was a kiddo. I was mega loser that I couldn’t even muster the guts to submerge my head in water for a splitsecond. But as always, I was able to (because I had to!) overcome my fear and turn it into awesome LOVE.  Swimming is definitely the sports closest to my heart.
 
UN AMBASSADOR OF GOODWILL. Like Angelina Jolie - minus the tattoos and the paparazzi. I wouldn’t mind the Brad and the kids and the gorgeousness, though. *wink* Well, I’ve always considered myself pacifist in a lot of ways and “inclined” to “altruism” (but here’s a quick remark: I think that there’s actually an itty bitty tinge of self-service in altruism). In reminiscence, back in grade school, whenever a quarrel arose among friends you’d always find me in the middle – not wanting to take sides, trying to be the goody-goody mediator and the corny little peacemaker.  ‘Coz I love my peace, baby! I love them hippies. HAHA Belligerence should be banned from this world. Tact and diplomacy rock, yo.

The next Aung San Suu Kyi.



 

KIDDING.




 

Or Lea Salonga.




 

PARTLY KIDDING.



 

Or Lara Croft.

 

NO KIDDING.




AT ALL.

Okay, admittedly, the list seems more like frustrated fantasies than promising dreams.


Pero eto talaga NO JOKE…





Ang maging dakilang NANAY at LOLA at GREAT GRAND LOLA! O ano, akala mo lawyer pa din, no??? Boo.

I wasn’t super fond of kids before. But ever since I joined the kids’ ministry in church, I developed a fondness for the kiddos that grew to become admiration. Kids are the most awesome of the human race. They’re simple and pure and inoffensive and oozing with faith.  Being surrounded with children makes me want to relive childhood, or rather, WANT to be a child all over again. Adults should sometimes unlearn being adults and relearn to be young again, to be youthful and childlike.

When you’re a kid, you have all these dreams. You can dream all you want, deaf to the world’s taunts and jeers. And the greatest part is, in a kid’s little world, there are absolutely NO LIMITS! 

And when I say no limits, I mean being a Justice of the Supreme Court flying to the moon, being likewise an astronaut who’s pastoring millions and gazillions of stars while taking care of her brood tagging along in a space craft and being the perfect wife to a handsome alien husband from planet Krypton.

Nah, of course I’m just kidding.

You go for your zenith

 Why did I subject myself to this?
Why am I subjecting myself to this?
Why? Why? Why?

Lately, I kid myself with these questions.  Alam ko naman na itatanong ko din 'to eventually. I try to joke around with it so that after a crying session of frustration and letdown, I am able to compose myself again.  I barely get to chew on disappointment simply because time and keeping up with the rest of my world don’t afford me the opportunity.  Lately, I haven’t been really the type to dwell and mull over negativities. Why? Dyahe eh. I don’t like thinking about them. But I guess you never really escape that moment when the world seems to be all doom and gloom, as if it just turned its back on you (this is an exaggeration so don’t take me too seriously). I guess somehow you would eventually get to that point of almost losing it.  ALMOST, but not quite. But then if you’re the type who’s like me, you will end up TRYING to tough it out (God knows if you’re successful) and eventually deciding to woman (or man) up to it.  Giving up simply is and cannot be part of your vocabulary – unless the heavens turned on you and decided on your behalf.  There will come a point you will question your capacity, your ability, your intellect, your heart, and your destiny.  But after falling hard and true, to that deepest almost endless pit, you find out you cannot fall farther or dig deeper.  The only other option (aside from waiting passively for death) is to find your way up – no matter how forlorn the thought, no matter how agonizing the climb, no matter how heartrending the process.  You just have to find yourself again, find your purpose despite the world shouting, “HEY! JUST QUIT IT, YO. IT’S IMPOSSIBLE! WHO ARE YOU FOOLING?”  You just have to dust yourself up, even with the tears and mud and burns and bruises.  Either that or you die.  Because what’s the point of living when you are not able to live your call? As one of my favorite professors (I won’t name him ‘coz I’m still under his class haha) put it, you have to reach the maximum utility.  In this case, one has to reach the maximum utility in life.  In economics, it’s maximizing efficiency; it sounds superfluous but that’s how it is.  Either you live to the maximum or you don’t live at all.  You don’t settle for just living; you go for LIVING!  You don’t settle for what you could easily do, you go for that which breaks you and contests you and pounds you to pieces and makes you come alive. You don't settle for just a piece of cake, you go to the vomit-inducing. You don't settle for the chickeeeeen, you go for the heartstopping. You go for that which spreads you too thinly, to the point that you almost founder.  You go for that which brings you to the edge, to the brink of kaput.  You go for that which brings out the best in you after life subjects you to the worst.  You go for your zenith.  You find it and subject yourself to its ordeal.  As Helen Keller avers,

"Life is either a daring adventure....” 

That adventure depends on you.  It could be adventure in the literal, or it could be something internal or abstract.  Whatever it is, go for it at full speed.  It’s not for the thrill of it – there is no thrill in distress.  It’s not for the masochist in you (well, perhaps for some they could attest) but it’s for the very purpose of YOUR living – that you were able to live the life you were supposed to live.  I believe we all have that life we are destined to live.  Some of us do live it but only to a certain extent.  Some of us don’t really reach zenith.  Sad part is some of us don’t ever get to live it.  But what’s the saddest – if not the worst -  is not ever realizing it.  They say that ignorance is bliss.  I give partial credit to that.  There is some truth to the suffering of knowing.  But when you suffer, it is only out of a metacognition of your status.  And that metacognition is the superlative of the outset.  It is the first step to reaching your zenith.  And what is life if not living it all out? What is our existence if not giving it up to live?

We don’t live to merely exist.  We give up our being to BE. We cease to exist so that we may acquire life.

We die to live.