(COLUMN: the vacant seat)

GRIN n’ BEAR IT

Lanie Lei M. Madiam

            Propped on my elbows, I try to ponder on how “unnoticed” things are. Just like the unoccupied seat on the corner. Or how it would merely make me space out. A seat is a structure meant to give different business, recreational, sulking, happy, and intimate purposes such as for sitting, stepping, and standing on, a graffiti wall for baloney craps and pent-up forbidden romance, or even an indecent secret place for bubbly-no-more worn-out bubble gums. However, it could also be a place for those who seek silence and occasional detachment from the world. And at times, it is a worthless object as vacant as it is. The thing is a chair is very intricate beyond its external simplicity.

Such simple things may always bring from one wonder to another.

Like in this case, that I am currently squeezing my butt into this chair and pouring out what my mind says about how “unnoticed” things are eventually, this vacant-before-seat is now my lair.     

THE BOLD MAN says…

“AKO ANG SIMULA.”

It’s a starting line. On the other end of the road is another starting line. It doesn’t end. Yet, what starts it is definitely the subject of the starting line. “I” am the subject. But what shall “I” start?

            “I” will have to start constructing a phrase into a sentence, into a story…the story of becoming bold and still bolder for that matter. When you say bold, it is not stripping a part of you, tearing yourself from the world, stepping yourself into bigger risks, fanning yourself into perfection, but a full definition of facing yourself is what it is.  Bold is the easiest thing to become. It is expected of a man. Yet we still find it difficult to be one. In one way or another, we are already bold, because in order to survive and live, we need to and be always ready to face whatever is needed for us to survive and live life. But, we have to be bolder.

            Bolder, I say, in a sense that it is upholding ourselves into the breadth of daring. Daring emphasizes the state of mind that makes one willing to meet danger. Boldness is beyond the usual limits of conventional thought or action. It emphasizes the act of doing something that involves risk. “To be bold is not to have to think about it and simply do it.” To be bold is to make the first move, do something predictable, ask for what you want, take risks, and to rediscover who you are. “To be daring is usually not associated with masculinity (or womanhood). Man is expected to be deliberate and temperate; nonetheless, in short, to be circumspect. There’s thus a fine line between boldness and daring for most people. A man who dares is a rarity. But a bold man is typical.”, as Prof. Oscar V. Campomanes of Ateneo de Manila University English Department and the UST Graduate School shared. Boldness does not refer here to being neither brash nor boastful, as most of us act recklessly without thinking first when it should be thinking first before we act which is daring exactly. It is not utterly of pure confidence and a brilliant aura. It is overcoming the fear of success. It aims to transcend to a higher level – that of gaining courage so to speak. As courage is synonymous to daring, anyone who has courage, therefore, tends to be daring. He is apt to be bolder.

“AKO MISMO.”

            The nation. The youth. They are interconnected. They are one. It does not just start with “I”. It co-starts with “myself”--- a deeper meaning of delving and dealing with oneself for the good of others.

            The youth is said to be the nation’s hope. Some say this sentence no longer exists. To the young ones whom this is addressed, how will we have to prove the latter to be wrong? I say do not be indifferent. Do not be unmindful of what is currently happening around us. Get involved. Say what you must rightfully and righteously. At the same time, be logical and open. In school, participate in class. It is there where we are honed with the most difficult undertakings; yet, it is for us to be able to take things easier when we are to leave the portals of this pedagogy. All it takes is to be a God-fearing optimist.

Nationally, the incoming elections are near. It is in choosing carefully that we start to take a large step in shaping the government and its political system. And as we choose individually, we have to consider what it is to become a president, how to hold the wellbeing of the people and how to control the power. These, aside from scrutinizing the who and what of the presidentiables are important aspects we should look into. There’s also this one character that we must scrupulously take note: “He is a man who can stand and who already stands when no one can. He is standing in behalf of the others for justice and peace.” He is bold enough to stand out so that others may follow. And when others stand out, he sets himself to be the standard among the people. “A good example is Ninoy Aquino.”, as elaborated to me by Mr. Roli Wakit, my former teacher.

Youth comprises mostly of our population. Therefore, it should comprise mostly of the electoral votes. When we are involved, we are proving the elders and the generations before us that we exist, that there is more to us than just mere participating electorate. That though we live in a modern technology-based world and we are likely to be more knowledgeable than those ahead of us, but not wise enough to surpass the generations before us, we are also seeking for enlightenment. That what we also do is shaping a government--our government, into a nation of harmony and unison amidst trials, changing the nation and molding the future we can call our own. It is taking into action and making it into a reality that famous adage “The youth is the nation’s hope”.

Yes, we –the youth are its hope. We are its light. We are its future.

            Each of us exists to coexist with other people. We are here to be a guide, to be a leader, to be a servant, to give radiance and not abhorrence, to show way and not to murk what is ahead of us, and to be a part of a whole and a whole of a part.

            This is our role.

            It is my role and your role.

            It is becoming bolder.

“IF YOU DO THINGS WELL, DO THEM BETTER. BE DARING. BE FIRST. BE DIFFERENT.”  

{ book } botany and systematics
{ show } none. im fond of anime but im into academics these weeks

Filed under orinji no iru | hn. your pen's toilet