cooledelapenia’s Profile

Life begins at 40, that's what people say. But for me, I call it midlife and midlife crisis is the most challenging part of it. [ Experiencing life's ups and downs is normal and if you will ask me if I have been to it recently, my response is on the affirmative. How often we go to these upswings and downswings spells-out our tenacity. After we have been through it all, that is also the exact moment we realize we are again ready for the next roller coaster ride.] At 40, I find it sad that instead of a pay what I have is a sharing. Some may even find me a walking derelict with a resume. It's true. I have my own share of blessings. After all, I have been half-way around the globe, I am a full-pledge electrical engineer ,[ I have spoken before more than two thousand students ] and after a recent discernment, I am now ready to join a religious congregation.

Caressing the memories of time, I can vividly recall a classmate at the university has brought to class a copy of Leo Buscaglia's LIVING,LOVING and LEARNING one day. Since the course subject, Electrical Transmission, Distribution and Design is five hours laboratory, I had all the time to read the book in between takes alternately with the drafting work before me. I went for the book instead of playing local poker for break periods. Imagine the money I have cringed from paying fines on violations of the university student handbook that day. Buscaglia's book was so engrossing I had gobbled it up in no time at all.

LIVING. My life is an open book. Being bottled is indeed a tough existence to make. It is quite taxing when all of your thoughts are broadcasted and all your brainwave patterns amplified. Stand-offs can be frequent and with the ensuing showdowns, confrontations are oftentimes unavoided.[ People prowl on your ideas to the extent of acting- up as if you have already committed a crime just by putting ideas into your brain. You are even reprimanded for your imaginations, sideswiping our basic and normal course of reasoning, you are guilty only if they are acted out. I want to return to the period of chaos, when radio, tv, and even people's conversations are all incoherent. All words from these media are mixed-up during that time, like they don't follow linear coherence but since all were expertly carried-out, normal and binding for those who survived the period.] Sometimes I would rather be with people whose coherences are fragmented, for people with fragmented coherences are more bearable. Or just simply live my life as somebody else's and get on one of those instructional existence.

Leo Buscaglia's book reverberates on my mind seventeen years after I had read it. While it gives so much inspiration on how to survive these tough times, it also offers insights on how to avoid ending up a broken bottle. He inspires people like me by sharing his ideas on the cathartic effect exemplified by a good sense of humor. According to him, it is a good idea to do senseless things just because you want to do them. [He even cited an example from his own experience, of taking all those fallen leaves on his garden, putting them all into a sack, bringing it into his room, and spreading it all over the carpet. He topped the activity with a good laugh.]

In a great sense, if we are nauseated by these trying times, a good comic relief is all we need to find laughter indeed is the best medicine. It is better to laugh with people though than to laugh at them. Timing is the most important thing with a nice joke, next to clarity of course, and it is our duty to illicit a burst of laughter every time we recognize a good one. [ A young attractive woman once indicated on airline reservations she wants to be seated next to a single guy on the plane. Eager to meet the new acquaintance, she went to the mirror, put on her best including flossing two times and spraying breath freshner on her mouth before boarding the plane. She went into her seat to find a twelve -year old boy seated next to her. He is single alright.]

LOVING. When was the last time you have fallen in love? It's scary to wake-up recently and to realize my frequency of falling in love went out of synch. I used to have a new object of affection three to five years after the last one. It's been like that since I have danced with Petunia on high school prom night. This frequency sign even made me realize it is possible to fall for a place, the kind of love poetry is made of. And that's the feeling you get with Vancouver.

I came to Vancouver,British Columbia on a blue moon mid-year of 1996. It's that rare month when two full moons squeeze themselves into one single calendar month. I believe BC is the most beautiful place in the planet and I have returned to the Philippines only to fulfill a wedding commitment. I was all gearing to be married with a girl I met at the university. She was my girlfriend for fourteen years, save for those periods our relationship is off because of a third party. Until we lost communications at the early part of the new millennium. Her recent e-mail and phone call trace her to Hayward California. She has migrated to the states all the while and married a caucasian. With this, I decided to re-enter the seminary where I know I can draw-out a better meaning and purpose for life. Buscaglia declared loving is a spellbinding experience we should learn to meditate with. There was a time I was all smile on a fellow seminarian whose reason for joining the seminary is he was dumped by a girlfriend. Now, it's my turn to wear the shoe.

LEARNING. It was new year of 2007. I was on top of the entrance to the Quezon Memorial Shrine at the Quezon Memorial Circle with several others. It is the third straight year that I am on the same spot on New Year's eve. It is here where I wait for the separation of the old year from the new one. We are observing all fireworks display lighting the horizon every now and then, while we change panoramic view from north,south, east and west. When to our disbelief, the constellation Arianne, composed of two stars, one bright the other dim, started moving from the north towards the top of the dome of Quezon City at the stroke of midnight. It stopped directly above the tripod. It changed our concept of constellations forever. Now we construe that other than natural constellations, artificial constellations do exists as demonstrated by the phenomenon. Learning indeed is a life-long process. Buscaglia noted that all of us should have the open-mindedness to learn. Docility is a virtue all of us should possess. As I approach retirement age, I am still learning great new things and someday might live-up to the name, of being the longest running bottle.