After the recent deaths of celebrities and reading Ninoy Aquino’s Letters: Prison & Exile, I have learned that people are who they are because of their ability to be sincere and voice it out when it’s needed the most. In a humble effort to also be great, I’ll share a few words on what I believe matters today.
I don’t believe in heroes. I believe in people who were called to love. As Benigno Aquino Foundation executive director Rapa Lopa aptly put it in his “Whynot?” forum talk last Saturday, the story of the EDSA revolution was a love story between Ninoy, Cory and the Filipino people. Without one of these persons involved, the other would not be the hero we admire today. It is because passion begets passion. Ninoy believed that the Filipino was worth dying for. Cory stood up in EDSA because of her husband’s love for our country. The Filipino people joined her because they admired this couple who loved them so much.
Thus, magnanimity is found in answering the call of love — finding what you love to do and acting on it — because so many people are trapped in decisions not entirely their own or do not know what they ought to do. The simple act of following your own path will blaze a trail for others to follow suit. They are waiting for you to take that first step. The best part is when you inspire not only the people in your vicinity, field or generation but those beyond that sphere, too.
I don’t believe in saints. I believe in people investors. These people invest in the potential of specific individuals when others don’t. They risk wasting their time, resources, and credibility to build people up to be above and beyond them. I would like to thank Judith Rivera, who formerly worked at National Book Store, for believing that I could start a literature blog and be sponsored by Nanay’s books. This would lead to our own Supremo Tim Yap and Tita Millet breaking me out of cyberspace and onto the printed page based on a mere 500-word sample book review.
Yet there are still not enough investors within this country. There are teachers telling their students that they have no vision or are unwilling to make time to listen to them after class, while large corporations and entrepreneurs only look for kids from top-tier universities or are unwilling to share their knowledge. Even worse, there are parents putting their own children in places they weren’t meant to be. We sorely need investors because it is the only way that brilliant minds are unlocked and put to good use, instead of being locked inside dreamers and madmen.
I don’t believe in monuments. I believe in you. It is because you are not made of granite and concrete but of flesh, bones, and a heart. You are more than a reader. You are a reactor and can take my words and argue that they’re wrong or hopefully prove them right. You are living and mobile. Thus, your heroism doesn’t require time to prove its worth. You can prove it now and more importantly, you can be so much greater than what we have already witnessed during this lifetime.
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Thanks to “Whynot? Forum 7.0” for sparking these thoughts. Website: http://www.whynotforum.com/
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If there is a 44-year-old woman named Mei reading this column, I am proud that a house helper loves to read books about quirky kids.
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What do you believe in? E-mail me at readnow@supreme.ph.