A Separate Peace

I read it and ended up sobbing. Then I slept and woke up sobbing harder... not really peaceful reactions and after affects of a book entitled "peace", even if but partly.

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In a world ruled by chaos within and without, how do you seek for and find peace? Do you look for it elsewhere if you cannot find it within? And if there are people who seem to have the gift to embody it, how can it be shared? Is it enough to know peace by association? BUt these are useless questions.

I think it is suffice to know that peace exists, even as an abstract. Its very idea, made manifest by a term for it, makes it real. It is a possibility that everyone can aspire to achieve. Yet it is a simple goal made complex by our innate human selfishness and greed and yes,as the book says, ignorance. "Wars are made by something ignorant in the human heart." But I think more than anything else, what makes peace ever elusive for most of us is our lack of faith. It is not that we cannot understand the idea of peace and of the ways to come by it. It is because for many reasons, we refuse to believe that things like that can be so simple. That there are such things that we need only accept without worry that it will be at the expense of something else important to us. Our world has grown too cynical that goodness is never good enough. Everything has to come with a price.And this way of thinking has cost us way too much than we can ever pay - idealism, friendships, quiet moments, joy, even our very lives. We refuse to believe that the abstract ideas of peace and love are indeed real and that there are people who embody these in their very lives. It is very sad that our lives are way too short and we make it so much more shorter because we waste so much time pondering on the soundness of our disbelief.

We all know someone who, by our social yardsticks, seems to be either just crazy or else too good to be true - someone who loves all too easily and too faithfully, someone who always seem to see the best in everything even at the worst and most discouraging times, someone who can always find something to celebrate about the littlest things, someone who always points out the beautiful in the birds, beasts, clouds, and even in the purpose of having enemies,someone who was "blind" enough to see something beautiful in you. We all know someone like that. We just don't believe that they can really see what they say they are seeing, nor feel what they say they're feeling especially when it is all goodwill towards everything living or otherwise. We dare not believe. Since life is a struggle and we are all rivals, we dare not believe in the innate goodness of the human heart. And for this we sometimes pay far more than what we imagine the price tag was worth. We lose these people. We either drive them away to where others can appreciate them more, or onto cold, dark corners where their inner light cannot survive. we lose them. BY our disbelief, we sometimes derive the world of a soul who really understands and embodies what peace, and life , and love is really about; someone who can show us what these things really are.

John Knowles said that peace is indivisible; that the outside only reflects that which is within. And so is faith. Its either you believe.Period. Or you don't.Either you believe that it is possible for anyone, even yourself to be purely good. Period. Or no one is.


The hardest way to arriving at any truth is through acceptance. If we can only begin to believe that life is simple, and all good things like friendship and love and innocence are indeed real and pure, then peace need not be separate and seemingly unreal.

SUENO: An ambigram

SUENO is a first-person conjugation of the Spanish verb "sonar" (to ring) which roughly translates to a person who rings or ringer. Many mistake it for a variation of another Spanish word "soñar" meaning "to dream" which when conjugated in the first person becomes "Sueño" or "dreamer." We in the family are more than just dreamers. We strive hard to make things happen, to make our dreams come true, no matter the seeming odds.

This was made for me by no ordinary guy Felvir Ordinario - my UP SLIS classmate and friend (?) ;p who is also the author of Pinoy Ambigrams.

UP Centennial: Earning the right to share in the glory

Just watched PAMANTASANG HIRANG - a concert celebrating UP's 100 years. Seeing the struggle that the University has gone through, it suddenly dawned on me that in spite of my many misgivings on how I really seem to be not part of that proud heritage, I actually am really a part of it.I have earned my right to be here, to be a part of the great tradition of excellence that is UP. Graduating in spite of my many outward difficulties and personal struggles made me a bonafide UP iskolar ng bayan - someone who will conquer difficulty even if it takes the last drop of blood, sweat, tears, pride and sanity; someone who will never give up no matter what just to be able to achieve what must be achieved. Someone who will achieve because it is what will bring honor to family and country, and it is what will be most beneficial to all. Someone who will always choose to do the right thing.

UP has been praised over and over again because of the caliber of intellect and talent that it has produced over the course of it's hundred years. It has similarly been praised, although also alternately ridiculed, because of the activist ideals that it inculcates in its students. Not much has been said however about the stories of the discouraged and even disillusioned scholars. Those who have to battle not just with dire circumstances whatever the nature - physical, financial, emotional, but most importantly, with their very notions of self. It is easy to overlook the minor achievement of graduating in spite the odds in the face of great breakthroughs and international recognition in science, technology, politics, the arts and the rest of the social sciences, and even sports. It is an achievement nonetheless. It signifies the end of a bitter struggle to conquer a weak, old self, and the emergence of a stronger and better person which is now more than capable to help himself, his community, his country, and the rest of mankind. To successfully graduate even after several difficult and unlucky years is to make a statement about the importance of education. It is also to make peace with one's self. There's a saying in UP, particularly in the College of Engineering, that it is easier to enter the University than to leave it. It is because its either you conquer all your fears and face up to all the high expectations, especially yours, or you lose yourself to the dark shadows of self-doubt. Therefore to leave its portals as a bonafide graduate after so much struggle is really worth celebrating. To be able to graduate after every kind of difficulty is to understand and even embody what the Oblation is all about. It is because to be able to achive it, you must do, and be committed to give everything you can. More than that however, to have conquered UP also means that you have conquered your greatest enemy and have found your real best friend - yourself.

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PICTURE CREDITS:
Oblation close-up originally from Karla Maquiling's post in PINOY CENTRIC
Concert finale from the FLickr photostream of TERESA BARROZO
The UP Oblation by UP Prof. Jose "Butch" Dalisay a.k.a. PEN MAN