|
Friday, December 16, 2005
Christmas
By Rene Lizada
Papa's Table
(Part two)
DO WE human beings ever realize what life is all about? Sometime ago I heard someone say that we should all enjoy life. And what did this person mean by enjoyment? Eating, drinking and yes living it up. And that is living? But that is not surprising. In fact, that is the norm, the rule rather than the exception.
To a lot of us, life is one big party that we must all attend. We must eat, we must drink and we must laugh and derive pleasure from what this world offers. But is that living? Is that life?
A lot of us are like those people Nell sees. We have this great desire to acquire, to covet. We shall never be satisfied with what we have and so we take and take. And in this obsession we forget to look into each other's eyes. We no longer acknowledge our presence because we are so focused on things rather on people. We have become superficial and shallow because what we seek are both superficial and shallow. We have become hunters. We run, crawl, we scream, whisper and connive and malign. All for the sake of getting and getting. And in so doing, we no longer look into each other.
A few weeks ago, I was watching this documentary about the street boys of Brazil. They were called many names but the one that really made me think was that they were termed as invisible. People just ignored them, just like they did not exist. In one of the most disturbing scenes in the film, these young boys were standing in front of cars while the cars were waiting for the traffic signs. These boys positioned themselves in front of the cars and they formed a human pyramid. And when the pyramid was formed, they started juggling balls. This was their way to be noticed. It looked stupid to some but it was a cry for help. A desperate plea to be noticed.
We no longer look at each other. But we need to do so. We need to look at each other's eyes. And know that we are here and know that you are there. The stage manager gave a very interesting answer to what Emily asked. Let me refresh your memory. She asked, "do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?" The narrator gives the answer, "No, the saints and the poets maybe--they do some."
Why saints and poets? Because they know what life is, or what it should be. They know because they stop and pause and reflect.
One just does not become like Neruda or Milton or Shakespeare. The things that they wrote were not borne out of just eating and drinking and deriving pleasure. These people sat down, paused and reflected about what life is all about. Neruda in one of his poems said, "love is short forgetting is long." You think that just popped out of his head? It was product of reflection and deep thought.
Shakespeare once wrote, "to thine own self be true." I am sure those were written after much realization and contemplation. It just did not happen. All good poets are not just writers but first they are sensitive people. They are aware of what the truth of life is.
So is it with saints, more so with saints. They are basically reflective people. They are spiritual which is the direct opposite of what most of us are today. Saints find the time to sit and pray and reflect and understand and realize. That cannot happen if we just take and take.
Life is not like that but unfortunately a lot of us view it that way.
"No, the saints and the poets maybe--they do some." The saints and poets understand that life is more than just that. They have taken the time to slow down, to understand that life is not about eating and taking or sleeping or acquiring. They seem more than what we can. They see life in a different level. They know how to stop and think and be grateful. Unlike a lot of us they go beyond the superficiality of things. They are wide while we are narrow, they are deep while we are shallow.
Our lives are noisy and trivial.
We think we are happy when in fact we are lonely. We deceive ourselves when we say that our lives have meaning when we derive our meaning from things. The truth is what we need is not of this world. What we crave for is not material but spiritual. We think we may find our lives in the external when in truth our lives, our authentic lives are internal. We will never find ourselves in the open air. Rather we will find ourselves in the silence of our hearts.
I find the tradition of firecrackers funny. As tradition goes, we explode firecrackers to make the evil spirits go away. We believe that when we create noise the evil spirits will flee. Noise will not make evil go away. Silence will. And in silence we wait. We wait for the birth of someone who broke the traditions and the bonds and the traps of this worldly life. We wait for someone who looks at our eyes. We wait for someone who looks into our eyes and says I love you.
(December 16, 2005 issue)
Write letter to the editor. Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board. Click here. |
|
[return to top]
[home]
[network page]
|
LOCAL NEWS
BUSINESS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFESTYLE
FEATURE
SUPERBALITA
WEEKEND
|
