melancholia y utopia

The right to sing ‘My Way’
HUMMING IN MY UNIVERSE By Jim Paredes (The Philippine Star) Updated February 12, 2012 12:00 AM

When we speak of “quality of life,” we generally mean the well-being of individuals and societies. There are so-called standards of living brought about through hard work and prosperity that rich societies like to brag about.

This is well and good and societies should strive to attain some freedom from many of the challenges human beings need to overcome to achieve a so-called “decent life.” That includes freedom from starvation, ignorance, unemployment, lack of opportunity, etc. Essentially, it is freedom from want.

I have visited many countries where the people’s basic needs and wants are more than fulfilled, yet there seems to be much unhappiness or meaninglessness in the lives of their citizens.

I have been pondering over this lately. Granted that physical needs have been met, what makes one person seem to be more put together, more a person of substance and meaning, than another who remains vapid, shallow and generally discontented with life?

I am referring here to the quality of life of people I have met. Some are rich and some are poor but in the end, it hardly matters what their status in life is. It’s not about how materialistically or ascetically they have lived their lives; it is more about how much marrow they have sucked out of their lives to nourish their existence.

This is an essay for those who have lived their lives fully and well and, may I say half-jokingly, have earned the right to sing the song My Way. The fact that all the people I refer to here are still alive is perhaps because they wouldn’t be so careless as to sing this song in a karaoke bar. The following are some of what they’ve been through that have made their lives rich, and kept their cups full.

1. To desire something or someone so badly and not get it, but to live long enough to talk about it without the pain of loss or disappointment.

2. To dream, to have ambition and to fulfill it.

3. To do foolish things — spend a fortune, face danger, maybe even challenge a rival — for the glory of winning a loved one.

4. To discover something that is burningly true for you, and perhaps for you alone.

5. To decide to do something you truly believe in that goes against your parents’ wishes or society’s norms and stick to it despite the extreme pressure to conform.

6. To have had a teacher, a mentor or someone older who opened your eyes and changed you and set you on a path that greatly defined who you have eventually become.

7. To have risked possibly being on the side of error and still doing what you thought needed to be done, rather than not doing anything and remaining safe in your comfort zone.

8. To discover an author you learned a lot from and to read every book he/she has written.

9. To come to terms with a God that you may or may not have grown up with but, more importantly, to believe in a God whose wonder and unfathomable quality have grown in you as you matured.

10. To have fallen into a deep rut — financially, psychologically, spiritually — and picked yourself up.

11. To have tasted forbidden pleasures in moderate doses, and even thanked life and God such “poisons” existed.

12. To have loved someone so completely as to lose your ego-identity and become one with the other, and perhaps even with everything.

13. To have engaged in and continued to develop at least five things that you are passionate about.

14. To experience aloneness and be at peace with it without feeling loneliness. In fact, it brings you to a state of contentment.

15. To have experienced not just the ecstasy of love but also the ordeal of commitment and stayed there long enough to enjoy its gifts and pleasures.

16. To feel that the sum of your life means something not just to yourself but also to others.

17. To have turned your back on something so temptingly pleasurable or materially rewarding, or something that would have given you much prestige, for the simple reason that you knew,  deep down, there was something dishonest or wrong about it, and so it wasn’t the right thing to say yes to.

18. To try with all of your might and strength to be true to someone, to some ideal or commitment.

19. To be able to see people beyond their stature in life, their money or their reputation.

20. To experience great fear and dread and still go on doing what needs to be done or what you set out to do.

21. To have continued on a path (career, love, etc.) even if sometimes it seemed like a blur and you weren’t sure what was up ahead.

22. To have been on the wrong side and being big enough to admit it and move on with life gracefully.

23. To have forgiven those who have hurt you, and most importantly yourself, for whatever you have done.

24. To feel a shared belonging to a community of people, an extended family, society or nation, and a deep connection with all of humanity.

25. To pass on to others many of the good things you have learned or even the things that you possess.

26. To be able to enjoy the little things as well as the big things.

27. To have friends who you would die for and who would do the same for you.

28. To have developed daily habits that strengthen your sense of integrity.

29. To have both loved and lost, and loved and gained.

30. To have a keen sense of proportion and appropriateness in deciding which things are important and trivial, and which are not worth your time.

 These are some of the things I have heard from older, accomplished and evolved people I have met. There must be many more that we can all learn from. Looking at this list alone, I am not sure if I have completely earned the right to sing My Way and dodge a bullet. But if I live to see another day, I will work on it.

Maturity is a fearsome word. People tend to equate it with suffering. They see the word “mature” and think of people who are “responsible,” lacking in spontaneity and carefreeness — and boring. They see killjoys who think in terms of responsibilities, duties, “have-tos,” commitments, promises.

There are singles who find perplexing couples who suffer in relationships but stay in them because it is the mature thing to do to painfully sort out their issues. They don’t have the patience or the commitment, emotionally and psychologically, for such an effort. And they ask, why not just change partners when the thrill is gone, or when it’s time to change?

They see people working hard to send their kids to school, pay for a house, and they are daunted by the hardship and sacrifices involved.  Why not just relax and take it easy? Life is too short. They see such people depriving themselves of instant gratification, even if some of them can afford it.

The world as we know it today seems bent on making life more convenient, easy, attractive, and yes, as pain-free as possible. Every new invention is designed   to make things more efficient, less uncomfortable, more pleasurable, and more time-saving for people. “New” and ‘latest’ items often mean they are meant to bring less pain. And people are more and more hooked on to these selling points.

The perception that maturity is scary may have real basis since we see so many “mature” people who live lives that involve suffering.  But to be mature, or to have the intellectual, emotional, psychological and spiritual gravitas to navigate through life, demands that we look beyond modern enticements and understand more deeply how life really works. And it starts by accepting that the promise of modern life is an incomplete picture.

The whole idea of being mature is developing the ability to understand reality and deal with it. There are bills to be paid. There are emotional and psychological hurdles to overcome in order to love fully.  Life, in its glorious and gory splendor, must be dealt with. Painful decisions and consequences must be faced, and this demands not just the capacity to enjoy life but also to accept suffering.

To be mature is to comprehend and accept that there are a lot of things going on in the world aside from one’s whims and preferences that often do not coincide with the way we want to live. We either  become stubborn and reject the world as it is or we adapt to it.  To be mature is to accept that one must suffer for a time until lessons are learned and the world is understood. It is the taming of the wild, juvenile and immature spirit in us. It is only after a long while and after great effort that the pain becomes more tolerable, and starts to ease.

Undeniably, there are also moments when reality and all its issues may be downright pleasurable, and we don’t even have to exert any effort in making it so. And we thank God for such strokes of good luck or that things are going our way. To a mature person, much of life becomes pleasurable simply because he has prepared and mastered himself to respond correctly to the situations that may arise.

In other words, we can still get your kicks whether we are disciplined and mature or irresponsible and immature. But I think the mature person, in the end, gets more kicks and in greater quality, than the immature one who will always need to search for more but enjoy it less and less. This is because the immature guy becomes a slave to his pleasures, while the mature one is less dependent on them, and less demanding about how life should show up.

When it comes to suffering, the opposite experience may happen. The mature person who has learned that life is bigger than his caprices, whims and drives may face suffering head-on but actually suffer less and still get some meaning out of it, while the hopelessly immature, in facing the same set of circumstances, may suffer more and find everything a total waste of time.

Mastering oneself is a big part of mastering reality, and that means knowing oneself both subjectively and objectively. It is to be intimate with ones’ inner life and yet have the ability to step aside and see oneself in the third person.

 When you know yourself, you become less and less the issue when you deal with life. While we can never really and completely get out of ourselves, life becomes less about our untamed egos. It is not so much about us but about other people and the larger life outside of us.

Maturity involves balance and wisdom. Former US First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt put it most eloquently when she said, “A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably.”

Maturity is not just about doing the ‘right’ thing but knowing when we should do it. It is not just about “correcting” the world of its ills even if we sometimes do. It is more about dealing with oneself and others and trying to find the best way to make things easier for everyone. It is certainly not about being perfect or feeling that one has done well. It is about self-acceptance in the deepest sense.  It was the theologian and philosopher Paul Tillich who wrote, “The awareness of the ambiguity of one’s highest achievements (as well as one’s deepest failures) is a definite symptom of maturity.”

Sometimes, I wonder how mature I really am and I shudder at what I see.  To be sure, I have matured a lot in many ways since my youth. But there is more to learn. Maturity involves life-long learning. One thing I have learned is this: When I was young and less mature, the world seemed to force me into circumstances. I was happy or sad because of how the world was. It dictated my moods.  Now, I feel I have a choice on how to feel about life. It does not matter how the cards are dealt. I will choose to live it as best as I can.

**** Just happened to read this article last week and I find it rather amusing. :D To all the so called “torpe” guys out there, kudos; and girls, there’s hope! :))

“Torpe” was the word that came to mind when my daughter, Isabel, who turns 16 in a month, first told me about her crush. “Mom, he’s like so cute and so smart and so nice but he doesn’t, like, talk or anything.”

“He’s mute?” I blurted, slightly shocked.

“No, of course not. He’s just like, you know, shy maybe? I don’t really know,” she mumbled.

“Is he nice, like, nice — as in, nice to you?” I said, attempting my best impression of a garden-variety modern teen, who have singlehandedly mutated the word “like” into something of a joker (in playing card parlance) that can stand for pretty much anything the user desires. I was going for the “silly” effect to call her attention to the need for speech overhaul but it all fell flat because I simply managed to sound exactly like her, which was perfectly fine.

“He’s so nice, Mom, like, he opens doors, leans back so I can see the board well. He really, like, listens when people talk and nods to show, like, he isn’t spacing out. He’s a jock too, like, he’s good at sports and he, like, plays guitar. He’s in a band.”

“He sounds great already,” I said.

“He really is, Mom. But he, like, doesn’t say much. It’s just, like, ‘hi’ and ‘bye,’ even if he’s, like, most of the time there.”

Just the way I like it and I hope he stays that way for the next 10 years, I thought, but not intending to tell her so much in words.  

She has, since that first time some months ago, been coming to me for regular updates on her non-conversations and non-engagements with this nice boy, swooning about what a true gentleman he is and blah, blah, blah. My perennial comment is, “So he hasn’t grown a tongue yet?” to which she answers, “No, Mom, not yet.” And only then do I heave a sigh of relief, always muttering to myself, “Good.. we’re not in a rush to grow that tongue anyway,” something she doesn’t appreciate.

“Torpe is the word for that, you know,” I said to her just yesterday, as the same subject crept up in a conversation she was having with my older daughter, Kat, who is home briefly from Sydney.

“Huh?” Isabel grunted, clearly lost.

Torpe, according to urbandictionary.com, means “being too shy to pursue amorous desires.” It is a direct translation from its Spanish origin (spelled exactly the same) meaning “slow, dimwitted and clumsy,” which, I conclude, is what it renders young, inexperienced boys caught in the presence of their “crush.” 

After I had explained this all to her, she shrieked, saying, “That means he likes me!”

Duh, I thought. It doesn’t take Einstein to figure that one out, but of course, for the 16-year-old tender ego, a misreading of something like this can mean Armageddon.

My older daughter Kat said to her, “Sis, enjoy it. This part — this actual limbo-meets-twilight-zone part between two people — is the best. Leave it be. Once that’s over, it’s gone for good. Can’t go back there. Stay there!” 

It wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “But… but…” she stuttered.

“Kat’s right,” I butted in. “Torpe is good. It’s very good. Freeze-frame that — two years, at least — because that truly is the best part,” I said because I had another agenda and it definitely wasn’t for her to enjoy this torpe stage of second-guessing and delighting in the littlest of signs that the object of her interest exhibits.  

“What do you mean?” Isabel asked, confused.

“Well, there’s confident and then there’s confident,” Kat explained. Men being torpe doesn’t necessarily mean they lack self-confidence or they are engot, to use Mom’s favorite word. It just means they’re not ready. They’re analyzing the situation, scoping the landscape, you know, assessing their chances. They’re strategizing. I call that careful and deliberate, not torpe.”

“Kat’s right,” I said, quick on the draw. “Let’s not let him grow that tongue until the time is right — until it’s perfect. Two years from now would be good.” But none of them was listening to me. None of the kids do nowadays, come to think of it. It makes me wonder.

Kat continued, as though I weren’t there and hadn’t say anything. “Remember, Is, there was this one guy you told us about, the one who was so gregarious: bubbly, loud, always everywhere at once, always making you laugh and talking you up. Do you remember what you said about him after a while? You said, ‘He turned stupid. He became, like, a showoff and liked too many girls, one after the other, even overlapping.’ See? Would you rather have that or this one that Mom calls torpe — the good kind?”

“Torpe any day,” Isabel answered.

Thank heavens for Kat, sparing me from having to sermonize about the merits of torpe. Somehow siblings are more effective in matters like this — it’s the peer thing, I suspect. Parents, by virtue of rank or generation or both, disqualify themselves from efficacy as messengers of such concerns.

Consider this scenario: whether in social or business situations, two men of opposing personalities. One is the in-your-face, gregarious, charming, life-of-the party type; the other, the more introspective, quiet, deliberate, soft-spoken type. Yes, it is easy to fall prey to stereotyping but these off-the-hip assessments lend considerable insight into personality readings. 

Many say that loud, larger-than-life types are the way they are because of a need to fill a perceived shortcoming. In other words, it is most often a telltale sign of a lack of self-confidence more than it an indicator of a healthy ego. The high-octane performance types are often just seeking a validation they will constantly crave.

The quiet ones, on the other hand, are said to be so comfortable in their own skin, not needing to prove anything to anyone, that they are not compelled to summon their inner Cirque de Soleil performer to make an impression on the world at large.

There is that soothing Zen feeling one finds in the company of quiet, self-effacing men. Their deliberateness of speech and action seem to signal a discerning mind that has carefully weighed and tempered all thoughts and reactions before giving them voice or action. Could it also be this economy of words and movements lends an air of mystery and sense of mastery to this type of men, one thing that draws people in and keeps them captivated?

There is much to be said for the joie de vivre of gregarious men and the entertainment value that comes with it. But it is the gravitas in the unobtrusive ones that ultimately moves people. 

In this sense, torpe is good — very good.