I was walking around the market awhile ago when all of a sudden, I got really sick to my stomach.  Not from my unhealthy diet of french fries and Chicken McNuggets (if you have only 15 minutes to eat, this is the way to go), but because the price of one measly kilo of rice has shot up to P45 for a decent variety.  Usually, I would explode in a bombastic tirade against the government for not giving the people enough.  It’s the former activist in me, the political scientist in me, the angry man in me.  These days, my seething anger has subsided, and I’ve fallen into a rather strange depressive state.

What am I going to do, anyway?  I want to change the world for the better, but reality sinks in fast.  I’m just one person.  I can’t even fix up my own messy life, and here I am looking for ways to change the world.  I often ask myself: how many people are actually willing to give up something for nothing?  Not a Jun Lozada, not a Gloria Arroyo, not a Gambala or a Maestrecampo.  Everything in this world is a cost-benefit ratio where the latter should always be greater than the cost.

And then I think of how many people I have given up on, how many opportunities I have passed up, just to get somewhere in my life.  Looking back, I knew I paid some hefty prices for little things and big things I have said and done.  Looking forward, I know there are still some things I have to pay for, because I cannot avoid doing some regrettable things.  The debts I have with Fate will rack up.

I guess that’s the whole point: Fate will deal you with a hand, and it’s up to you to make the best out of what you have.  Often, the ratio between costs and benefits will be positive towards the former.  I’m not scared; for the first time, I actually am looking forward and back at the same time.

If you’re in my Yahoo! Messenger list, you would be interested - perhaps even annoyed - at my status messages. I’ve been buzzed by a few workmates the other day when I posted lyrics to “You Were Mine” by the Dixie Chicks, and I posted a link to “Candy” by Mandy Moore, and them Ricky Martin videos. My worst status message so far has got to be a video link to Larusso’s “On Ne S’aimera Plus Jamais.”

For your benefit:

There is no shame in saying that anyone who has been in Grade Six in the year 2000 would have once danced to the tune of one of the greatest contributions of the Europeans to disco since ABBA.  Where our parents were figuring out how to dance “Fernando” in ballroom classes, our generation danced to this.  This was the music you’ll find in “disco revolution” cassette tapes sold alongside pirated eight-tracks of Cat Stevens classics, Jose Mari Chan’s Christmas songs, and the very best of Ketama.

Which basically means one thing: all the bravado of “187,” “rakenrol,” and “punks not dead” is rendered moot by Larusso:

• That “gangsta” kid who wears his mother’s pantyhose on his head danced to this song in PE class.
• That “emo” kid who wears eyeliner and slashes his wrists with Daddy’s used Gillette danced to this song in free-for-all hour at prom night.
• That “rakenrol” kid who thinks that the best album Metallica ever made was “Saint Anger” once danced to this song during the town fiesta.

As for me, I danced to the tune of “On Ne S’aimera Plus Jamais” on the grade level Christmas party.  And there’s no shame in that.

10:41 AM 4/2/2008

I once took a Political Science class where I made a comment that an activist friend took offense to: “Let’s just go on and plant camote.”  I said that in jest, but now that I come to think about it, camote is a very offensive thing indeed.

No, it’s not because it causes flatulence.

In today’s issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the Catholic bishops are saying that one the solutions to the purported “rice crisis” is for us, a nation of rice-eaters, to eat the humble camote as a replacement for rice.  On an interview in Radio Veritas, Archbishop Angel Lagdameo says:

“I’ve heard and read that some people mix corn with rice, which is naturally more satisfying.”

I don’t know how prudent it is to argue with a servant of the Lord and the steward of His flock over the matter of “satisfaction.”  With all due respect to Father Lagdameo, I don’t see anything satisfying about mixing corn and rice, or eating camote instead of rice.  “Instead,” when translated to the Filipino term “imbes,” means “to substitute.”  Is there really a substitute for rice in a nation that revolves around eating it?

Me and my friend Dette talked about this over the weekend, and she made a pretty good case for eating less rice.  She’s a nutritionist: from what I heard, the nutritive value of rice is less compared to other starch sources like camote, corn, and bread.  So yes, from that point of view, eating less rice must make a lot of sense.  I could vouch for the claim that because I’m eating less than a cup of rice in a meal nowadays, I’m actually losing excess pounds.

Still, it’s necessity above vanity.  If all you have to eat is rice and salt, then surely the government would exempt you from its sweeping admonition to “eat less rice.”  Remember: this is the same government that told you that all a Filipino family needs to survive is P35, and all the nutrition you’ll ever need is to be found in a pack of instant noodles.

Like I said earlier, I don’t think it’s prudent to argue over a bishop on the matter of “satisfaction.”  Jesus fed hundreds of people with five loaves of bread and two fish; so I guess I have no business disagreeing with the pious sacrifice we all must make in eating less rice.  This whole starch-substitution thing is different: it’s not evoking Jesus finding a way to feed hundreds of people.  It evokes a different sort of story, like that famous “Let them eat cake!” misquote by Marie Antoinette.

Camote is dreaded not because it’s funny, but because it’s not funny.  When you start eating camote every day, you no longer find anything remotely funny about farting noises at the dead of night.  You no longer wonder if you can propel a rocket with camote, cabbages, red eggs, and boiled beans.  Camote represents humiliation: it’s something you eat with boiled bananas because you can’t afford to eat anything anymore.  It’s all right to not be able to afford a book or a holiday trip: it’s not all right to be denied something you’re entitled to.

I don’t know if we Filipinos are naturally tolerant of things that, at least from my own limited perspective of things, already constitute economic abuse.  If you can’t afford the bottle of fish sauce or the block of lard, you can always have those store-repackaged two-peso sachets.  What satisfaction comes from being denied of the basic necessities of life?

Not satisfaction, Father Lagdameo, but resistance.

No matter how hard I try to forget, things just keep coming back to my memory.  It’s a small wonder why they call it, “Committing things to memory.”  No wonder they call it, “Honoring your commitments.”

Maybe I should just get over things now and look at what the future holds for me.  The future looks bright - damn bright - but something’s missing.  Even the blinding flash of a bright future (for all the mistakes I made) doesn’t prevent this over-intellectualizing, over-rationalizing writer to think: how much more can I stand?

I dread weekends.  Not because of the boredom per se, but the effects of being bored.  Any given weekend can put me in my most dangerous state of mind: having a working state of mind.  I try to get out of my place the soonest I wake up on a Saturday.  I try to do something - anything - to keep myself from thinking too much about my past.  I call up friends, I take a walk, anything to keep myself preoccupied.  Anything to not think.

If careful thought is itself a commitment, then I still can’t ever escape it.  Every night, I ponder upon what I wrote for the day, if they were good enough, if I could still step it up a bit by being less of Marocharim, and more of the everyday writer.  Then I make a promise to myself to pay a heck of a lot more attention to what I do, do about my business fulfilling it at work, and then leaving, pondering about what I could still do to improve.  The only difference is that I do it one step at a time nowadays.

That goes over pretty quick, since I’m quick to assess everything about the everyday.  Still, my nightly train of thought trails on over to what I’m not supposed to think about.  People who meant so much to me back then are coming back to me.  Or I’m coming back to them.  Or we’re just crossing paths.  Either way, I’m not even supposed to care.  Still, in a very uncharacteristic way, I do.

Still, some people remain in my day wraps up.  Tomorrow’s just another day.

* - with all due respect to Kazuo Ishiguro