“SO YOU are writing again?” the young government trainee appeared to confront me suspiciously where it not for his cautious smile. I gave him a kind nod and said “...we are all writing met.”
In this social media generation, everyone writes; in their twitter accounts, Facebook statuses, photo captions, and, in their everyday meeting with their own smartphones. It seems that writing a sensible collection of words, whether expressed articulately and beautifully, or not at all, does not make any difference to most audience, after all, it’s the very “thought” that counts.
Thankfully, there are still people who value the art of written expression in this world of “instant” messages. There are people who weep while reading the moving texts of romantic classics (or modern romance like Nicholas Sparks’); those who enjoy a good Sunday by reading a Grisham or a Sheldon, those who use books as their pillows. Thank heavens there are still people who value good written works! For some, they even claim that literature is the highest form of art.
But, it was inevitable that arts will merge with other arts to fashion a higher form of art. From humans’ evolution, the complicated changes of history, and its leap from society to society, the arts grew as a culture – mixed with the technicalities and philosophy of other arts, literature (lyrics) + music =songs, literature (scripts) + performing arts + music= plays or movies, literature + graphic arts = comics or stories with visual arts, which will later evolve into animations, etcetera.
From a keen observation, literature or the art of written works would always appear as the cornerstone of many great arts. It is simply because humans have learned to express something in their minds effectively through symbols – through cave drawings by the early men and eventually to more complicated codes and letters of early civilization.
Literature as the art of written works was mainly invented to articulate the vague forms that exist in the ideal world of a writer, and at the same time, to imitate, in its most perfect form, the things that happen in his or her real world. Literature serves as a medium, and at the same time, a message; that, humans are designed to communicate, in short, to connect with other beings... to live – to affirm the human existence, to tell stories and leave them on the ground for others to read (and experience to an extent). We learn to live a meaningful life to leave a notable mark, a personalized graffiti in the world that we will inescapably leave in due time, engraving our profile on our so called “society,” and leaving trails to the younger seeds who will inherit the world – Legacy, as they call it.
Writing is, simply, an essential part of our lives.
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The Municipality of Mankayan has just highlighted their town last weekend at the Benguet Agri-Tourism and Cultural Village, and aided us in welcoming the participants of the Cordillera Caravan 2017. Interestingly a week ago, the DA Secretary Manny Pinol also promoted the John Kenny Strawberry Farms of Balili, Mankayan. Congratulations Boss Kenny Ching for being another pride of our Josean Batch! We also congratulate Barangay Bahong in the staging of their 1st Cultural and Agri-tourism festival! Finally, for those looking for “new” Cordillera featured gems –Apayao’s caves, and their bird-watching experience are the new travel must-tries!