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Sunday, March 14, 2004
Estremera: Do not rage against the dying light
By Stella A. Estremera
Spider's Web
Who hasn't been an impatient youth? Who hasn't rebelled against anything worth rebelling about? And who hasn't resented the elders when they said you still have a lot of growing up to do?
AN environmentalist friend is just about to bounce off walls. A lot has to be done, he said, and every minute counts against the environment. But things are going very slowly.
I looked at him and said, "Don't rush it."
While I understand his feelings and frustrations, there are other people's feelings and frustrations to address. Most of these are frustrations about their dying livelihood, which, without patience and friendly explanation, can never be transformed into an understanding that it's all about a dying environment.
Rush them and they'll put up a wall of resistance, firm in their belief that you are out to deprive them of their already deprived livelihood. And once this wall of resistance is up, it will take a much, much longer time to break it down, and much, much longer time to establish communication, and even much, much, much longer to elicit cooperation.
Look back and review what we have achieved, I said. It's more than we even dreamed of. Earn your pats on the back with that and let's go on, gaining friends, earning respect, and gathering cooperation.
Maybe it comes with age, although that friend is definitely older than I am with matching crop of white hair to show for it. Just maybe, I've "mellowed" faster than him, although my friends would definitely disagree with using 'mellow' to describe me.
Who hasn't been an impatient youth? Who hasn't rebelled against anything worth rebelling about? And who hasn't resented the elders when they said you still have a lot of growing up to do?
But who among us, southerners, hasn't resented the high-handed manner Imperial Manila continues to slam its solutions to our problems in our faces?
Into the fourth decade of my life, I finally realized that yes, raising ones voice in anger or clipped order all the time only brings resentment, grudge, and equal anger.
It doesn't mean we should no longer get angry. I still do, like maybe once a month or every two months, but only when temper can no longer be held back.
And while once I held Dylan Thomas' poem to his dying father about not going gently into that good night, and thought he meant that we all have to rage against the dying light; I now see this poem as the anguish of a man urging his father not to die yet.
Hang on, don't give up, you can make it, rage... Who hasn't uttered these words during someone's dying minutes. But as death finally takes over, we soon realize we cannot impose our wish on anybody, even ourselves, and that what matters most is not our raging against that dying light but how we lived when that light was still shining brightly for us.
And thus, Dylan Thomas' poem is put in its proper context and Max Ehrmann's Desiderata takes over. A poem that I've known almost all my life but never really appreciated in my rebellious youth.
"Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story...
"You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should..."
I guess wisdom has been there all the time. We only have to see through our anger, impatience, ego, and even greed to recognize this.
(E-mail: ikik@myway.com)
(March 14, 2004 issue)
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