the up-down syndrome

i saw him looking distraught, sitting alone at our office pantry. sipping coffee from the vendo machine. he's usually not like this. he's one of my perkier acquaintances.

"hey!" i greeted him. i took a sip from my coffee cup and laid it down on the table. oh, how i missed my brewed coffee. coffee from dispensing machines are generally good but brewed coffee is heaven. i pulled a chair beside him and sat.

"hey!" he greeted back. there was this forced smile on his face. he managed to take four successive gulps of coffee during that sliver of silence between us.

"why the long face, my friend?" i queried him,"this is so not you." i tried to make as sympathetic a face as i can hoping to coax him to open up.

"i have a problem," he answered, "it's very personal i can't share it with you."

i looked straight into his eyes. they were sad. "if it's about money .." i allowed my words to trail.

"nope," he immediately cut me off, "nothing to do with money. i have enough. it's just this unhappy feeling. don't know where it's coming from." he explained.

i looked at his eyes again. they were honest. "well, tell me later my friend," i said, "just remember, if you're down, there's nowhere to go but up!" i continued and flashed the thumbs up sign. he smiled. his eyes were still sad.

at home i still remembered that bit of conversation. "if you're down, nowhere to go but up." i think there's something lacking in that advice i gave my friend. when i looked at this picture of a stair i saved in my folder, that's when i had this added thought -- if you're in a stair such as this, where it is definite where the "up" is and where the "down" is, then the advice i gave my friend is adequate.

with Life, it is inadequate.

Life is nothing like a simple stair. in Life, if one says he's down, it does not follow that he is in the "final down". so it could happen that a person will continue to slide, to be further down, and this may go on and on and on, because Life is not a stair where there is a bottom landing and a top landing.

no way!

Life is a staircase that has infinite number of steps. if you say you're up, it does not follow you have reached the top landing. you can still go further up, and up, and up into the abode of happiness and contentment. you are to decide when you don't need to go any further. now, vice versa, when you say you're down it does not mean you have reached the bottom landing. IF YOU ALLOW IT, you will find yourself going further down into the abyss of unhappiness and discontent.

so, this is what i'm going to tell my friend when i meet him again. if i still find him in that sad state, it'll be like this: "my friend, it's okay to say that you are down, but, please will yourself to recognize that you have reached the bottom landing of Life's stairs, believe that there's no more step lower than where you are now. once you have affirmed this, there's no way to go but up!" then the double thumbs up sign.

Life is a staircase. each of us individually determines how long this staircase will be. each of us is given the chance to decide how many steps there will be between the bottom step and the top step.


and don't ever forget this:

going up entails more effort than going down. it sounds paradoxical, but don't be surprised when you find yourself feeling "down" when you're trying to go upstairs in Life.


it's not just gravity, it's how Life requires it to be.

the dicky betts' coffee club

way back in college i developed this passion for coffee. brewed coffee. i remember that i only started with instant coffee before. i drank coffee especially during those times when i had to "burn the midnight oil" to finish my piled up school work believing in that oft-repeated reminder that coffee will keep you awake long hours. well, to tell the truth, instant coffee did not keep me awake long hours. it's my determination to finish the assignments that kept me up.



i think my love for brewed coffee started during that one afternoon after school when my friend freddie, knowing i don't have classes anymore, invited me to go with him to the Rizal Park which was just a few blocks from our school. we were to practice some taichi. this is an old chinese slow exercise that we were trying to learn. shadow-boxing, you might call it that way. the books say this exercise is both beneficial to the body and to the mind. this helps to attune both to the finer, subtle vibrations of being. after our awkward attempts at it, we decided to call it quits and proceeded to the nearby breakwater where the sea fronts the park.



before we sat by the breakwater wall my friend whisked me to a nearby food kiosk.

" i know you love to drink coffee, have you ever tasted brewed coffee? " freddie asked me. he did not wait for my answer. i know the look on my face said it all. he ordered 2 cups. i looked up at the menu list. brewed coffee -- 15 pesos. i mentally counted the money i have. this is out of my daily budget. i will have to skip one of my rides home to fund this. but i have to humor my friend, and besides, the aroma of the coffee is already beguiling my senses. this was long before any starbucks or any other cafe shop can be imagined to sprout in this country. now, a comparable order for the one we just had costs about 110 pesos on the average.



with steaming cups of coffee in our fists we scurried back to sit on top of the breakwater wall. the famous luneta sunset was beginning to showcase her splendor. it was exhilarating to look at the sea. without any obstructions. just its vast expanse and over at the horizon it seemingly melds itself into the yell0w-orange-red of the sky. it seemed the setting sun was slowly dancing her way to plunge into the depths of the sea. to cool herself. the sun, she was performing her own taichi before us.



my first sip of brewed coffee? Heaven! the smell was unforgettable, the richness, the flavor, was exquisite. it was black. you can't see the bottom of the cup. if you tilt the cup towards the sun, you can see its yellow-orange-red disc reflected on the surface of this wonderful black brew. i decided this will not be my last visit here. i will gladly sacrifice a few miles of walking towards home just so i can relive this. there's no way i can ask my parents to increase my daily school budget.



and so, the dicky betts' coffee club was born. with only one member. me. well, i named my club dicky betts because it was during those times when my friends and i were all agog over the guitar work of dicky betts of the allman brothers band. the song was -- in memory of elizabeth reed.



sitting there, freddie and i discussed things about life. about this wonderful way of life called mysticism, which our small band of friends managed to discover starting in high school and on into college, and will definitely be on into up to the twilight of our lives. mysticism. it is said there are built in natural laws which govern existence. if one lives by these natural laws, one will be in total harmony with everything. it is said the paramount duty of man is to realize that he is not just this body alone. the real man is deep inside each of us. this is the lesson being taught by the Great Masters. we are individualized sparks of Light. to be full man is to know the real Man. we all must go inside our selves. to know the real Self is to know the meaning of Life.



to savor great coffee, one must not drink instant coffee. one must experience it being brewed, inhale its aroma, see the black liquid slowly being extracted from the ground beans, dropping taichi-like into the coffee bowl. every precious drop embodying all that true coffee stands for.




one must brew one's Self to find one's True Life . .




*** rizal park photo by neysa saguid copyright@2010

waiting

two day's ago, father was way too early to be knocking on my door.

"son," he said, "your mom's calling on you. she's having some chest pains, could you come and see her?"

it was about 6 in the morning and i had just woken up from a hard night's sleep. i hurried over to the other house with father hardly able to keep in step with me. like mom he's also advanced in age. mom's about 81 now while he'sabout 79. unlike mom, though, he's still very mobile while mom never really recovered her mobility after she suffered a stroke 4 years back. what's surprising was while her doctor claimed that she had recovered about 94% of her good condition, she never exhibited such recovery. after the stroke, she became too reliant on father. she demanded that father be constantly at her beck and call.

and so father became her nurse and her companion. it was difficult to see father like that. although he's already a retiree, father is still very active in his extra curricular activities. these he lost all when he devoted most of his time to attend to mom. but as his husband he must perform his duty. when they got married it was part of their vow -- to take care of one another always.

i entered mom's room and there she was lying, eyes half closed. when i held her hand she clasped my hand tightly and opened her eyes. she smiled a faint smile, and pointed to her chest. she's having difficulties speaking now. she resorts mostly to signs and gestures.

i asked her loudly, "are you having trouble breathing?" no, she shook her head. "is your chest still painful?" yes, she nodded. "shall we bring you to the doctor?" no.

she motioned to me to come nearer her. she wanted to whisper something to me -- "this is just natural for someone who's close to dying," she whispered in my ear.

it's my turn to shake my head. but she smiled again. and stroked my hand as if convincing me. her eyes were half-closed once again. how could she suffer like this, i thought. how could someone be gifted with long years of life but spend that existence in pain and misery? it's been taught things happen for a purpose. things happen so one can pay back. to even things out. if one had planted seeds of negativity one will one day reap negative fruits. if one had planted seeds of positivity, one will gather positive fruits. either way one is getting a payback. either way one will have the opportunity to even things out with the Great Creator and with one's fellowmen.

i stroked mother's hand in turn.

death news

a few nights ago as i read my emails i came upon one that has this news of a high school friend who just died. he was about two years older than me. he was found in his office. dead. just like that. he had no more time to contact his family. death came so swiftly he was not afforded the time to inform his family of his predicament. he was not able to use his office phone, his mobile phone wherein he could have sent a text message, his laptop where he could have scribbled a few short notes on email. none. not any of these communication amenities surrounding him did help.

he was found there sprawled on his chair. probably Death's fatal visit came right in the midst of his intense struggle with his work. maybe he forgot to take his medicine if he was taking any. maybe he got so engrossed in his job at hand that he failed to feel the mounting tension and the uncomfortable effects it has built up deep inside him.

i sure wished that during the last few seconds when his mind is still clear he was able to utter a short prayer or a split-second remembrance of who he really is --- a soul personality that is anchored in the unending, unbending Love of our Creator. i sure wished that his mind did not focus on the material wealth that he has left behind but more so on his love for his family, his friends, the countless folks that ran to seek his help in times of trouble.

yes , i sure wished he focused on love. that power that binds us to our Creator and our fellowmen. now, he has gone to where all of us shall eventually go. may he find the glorious truth that has been promised. may he continue to abide in the hearts of all that he has touched. may he not be forgotten.

i cannot promise that i will remember him always but when memories of him come to mind, they'd surely be fond, happy, positive memories of a person who had tried to make the most out of this life not just for himself but also for others.

potentials

the wife was shrieking loudly outside. she was about to clean up some cooking utensils she had used. water supply had just been cut. water service is on scheduled basis. this morning, it is our turn to be without water. so she had to go out and clean her things beside the water drums.

i rushed out to see why she was shrieking. SNAKE! she wailed frightfully, pointing to a spot on the ground near the cooking paraphernalia she had put down. i had to put on my glasses to see. it was a snake indeed. a newly born snake. just about 3 inches long and still colorless. but it was alive alright and wriggling briskly on the wet cement floor. it could not crawl as much as it wants to probably because the floor's slippery. it' s head was bobbing up and down just like the cobras we see in films. it may not be a cobra. it may be another kind of snake.

the wife was shaking as we watched the baby snake struggling on the floor. it really is trying to get out of thewet floor but it's not making any headway. how it got to there i don't know. TAKE IT AWAY! the wife demanded. I CAN'T CLEAN MY UTENSILS WITH THE SNAKE WRIGGLING THERE! just do what you have to do, i told her. it can't hurt you. it's just a baby snake. see, it's still transparent even, you can see it's insides.

NO, NO, IT'S A SNAKE. TAKE IT AWAY FAR FROM HERE, PLEASEEEE.. i snatched a length of toilet paper and picked up the soft body on the floor. i went out by the road and carefully laid it down. it was still wet and the rough pavement had started to get warmed up by the morning sun. i looked at the creature by my feet. thoughts raced in my mind. a few months from now this baby will have grown up. it may not look as innocent as it is now. it will be a REAL snake capable of exercising its attributes. it will have the potential to harm as we have grown to know of snakes. adult snakes are a threat to us. it is what we have been raised to believe.

i raised my foot and dropped it on the baby snake's head and pressed hard against the pavement. i can see the tail twisting and turning. it did so even after i have removed my foot from the crushed head. some seconds later it was not moving anymore.

most often, weighing potentials is clouded by the mind's accumulated impressions. when one is confronted by situations where one is to choose between the potential to be harmful or to be beneficial, one is given actually a choice between killing and letting to live ...

first

this will be my first entry on this blog. nothing much to say. things are really not moving much here in my corner of the universe. or, perhaps it just i who'd stagnated. as they say, " a rolling stone gathers no moss". i probably believe this now. i've just read emails from high school classmates and have found out how affluent they have now become. others are really owning condominium units and prime properties left and right. they are successful indeed! -- if material wealth is the measure of success.

i have nothing real to speak of. my 1989 mitsubishi galant' s still at the repair shop. it's been there since 2004. i have kept on promising the shop owner i'd soon get the money to pay him for his services. but until now i just can't manage to do so. gasoline prices have gone up since i took the car to his shop and i wonder if i really need it now. perhaps i'll just convince him to help me sell it.

right now i'm immersing myself in the wisdom and encouragement that the desiderata brings. i think i have so much envy in my heart and remorse and bitterness. reading the desiderata brings some measure of comfort. i am not poor but my family's needs are getting to be bigger and more complicated as time passes. i am trying hard to live by the dictum " simple living, high thinking" but seeing my family struggling to cope with the demands of this current times -- must-haves now are mobile phones, ipods or mp3/mp4 players, updated versions of home appliances-- really make my heart bleed.

of course my family understands how i really like to live life. nothing fancy. much just like a leaf that hangs upon a strong twig high up on a tree branch. when a bird comes down to perch, the leaf listens attentively to the lively birdsong. when sunlight manages to pierce through the upper conglomeration of leaves, the leaf basks in the sun's heat. then, slowly turns brown and crisp and lets go of twig to fall when falling time has come.

then, comes the Leafpicker who'll pick it up, and whistling his favorite tune, carries the leaf over to the rest of the pile of fallen leaves. the Leafpicker may dig a large enough hole and bury the leaves, or he may build a fire and burn them, or just leave them be to rot naturally....