I HAVE one lamp by which i have been guided. This is the lamp of experience — the accumulated past consisting of the various things and activities that we have gone through and that run the gamut of our successes and failures in life.
At the bonus age of 77, it is inevitable to look back and ponder. I have flashbacks. Sometimes, the flashbacks come in dreams, sometimes they come with people I meet or with an event in the unfolding present. And in those moments, I often find myself piecing together the mosaics of the past. Did a decision I made tip the scale in my favor? Did it really change my life?
At this “senior” age, peace of mind is the highest among my priorities; I am not going to exchange this for any material comfort. Peace of mind rejects all arguments justifying people’s mad scramble for enormous wealth or for power.
Affluence generally breeds greed. In the process, it prods people to crave for more and more, turning many, if not most of them, into slaves of Mammon. Yes, nobody has ever turned away from money, but pursuing it like one goes after an obsession is not always a fruitful and rewarding endeavor as imagined.
As age advances, one goes through the experience of rekindling many childhood memories. This is perhaps dictated by human nature. I personally find myself often recalling many “stateside” experiences, having spent around 30 years in that part of the world.
Flying there for the first time, I had mixed emotions. I was very excited and I was a little bit scared, uncertain of what was in store for me there. Thirty years is one full generation of being painfully away from folks and hometown buddies. Everything went well, thank God. I had a job that I enjoyed and kept it till I was ripe for retirement.
Meanwhile, I was able to visit beautiful tourist spots and historical landmarks of the United States. And I was able to visit Mexico as well, where I found life slow-moving and the culture almost similar to ours. With a close friend, a “compadre,” I was able to see practically all the states of Mexico, from the Distrito Federal down to Guadalajara.
Today, no longer bound to the daily responsibilities that come with a regular job, I have more than enough time to enjoy life, to do the things I love to do — and not supposed to do. With a prayerful heart, I take each step of the way as a blessing from that Someone above, who has always carried and supported me. I have come to an age, from which looking back to past years always reminds me of many of lessons in life that I could not have learned within the confines of a classroom.
I have also seen that life could be a close call, a matter of timing. I once took a Korean Airlines plane that made a stopover in Anchorage, Alaska. I later read in the papers that the same aircraft was shot down after it was mistaken to be a spy plane. And I remember the ship M/V Doña Paz, which sank after a collision with an oil tanker. Some 4,000 people died in that incident. I once took a ride on that ship when I went to Tacloban City for a pleasure trip. I cannot adequately thank God for sparing me from close, fatal encounters.
Oh yes, the lamp exposes life’s caveats and disenchantments because the world is full of trickery that we should guard against. People fall into traps of deceit. Many unsavory deeds are committed every hour. Nevertheless, ours is still a wonderful world. There are still the virtuous, the God-fearing and the well-meaning.
The lamp of experience hasn’t dimmed a bit. The same lamp will ever light my path as I add more years to my life and more life to my remaining years. It’s always a golden dawn that ushers in a new day.
And I am reminded of these uplifting and soul-searching lines from Longfellow:
Trust no future howe’er pleasant
Let the dead Past bury its dead
Act, act in the living present
Heart within and God o’erhead.
(Published on Page A13 of the November 8, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer)
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