Ferdinand Marcos noon, Manny Pacquiao ngayon

Sa kalatas-Facebook inilatag ng kumadreng liyag:
STRANGE that you mentioned FM--the only nationalist worth his weight in historical gold, George Lucas' “Star Wars,” tadhana (btw, FM's “Iginuhit ng Tadhana” attests to your premise about the word's origins and its iteration to matters of fate and predestination) to siddhana. Henry Miller once described the exemplars that move the world do so with example more than doctrine. Whether they be great leaders or the evil forces in a much-loved sci-fi film anthology, he calls them "poets of (repeatable and discernible, my terms) action who make a little difference whether they be forces for good or forces for evil." I understand that this eschews predestination, then, even as fate clings and controls, huh?

Wordsmith-ing is such a consuming, lonely task. One can create any truth and it does not really matter whether it works, sells, is believed or understood. I see your writing such as this and I wonder how lonely it gets up, out, down there? This above favorite author says it so well, "honest criticism does not really matter; what one (really) wants is unrestrained passion: fire for fire."

Boy! The Santa Cruz Mountains and forests proved too spooky. Marami yatang mga kaluluwang sumama sa akin. I came home more afire than the quiet, stillness, emptiness and calm I went to seek.

So much for that. I think if I don't close this down, I am down the road to perdition.

Halik sa Musang liyag. Mabuti na lang malayo ako at walang bigote.

Iginatla ng kumpadreng Kulamnista:
FM was into saddhana… raja yoga-- so I was once told by an elder who was into such arcane studies—that had his mind steeled and honed sharper than a scalpel’s. He was gyre that sucked into his maelstrom the brightest lights of his era to steer the course of our nation’s history. All we’ve got to show for somehow is Manny Pacquiao. And he isn’t exactly into statecraft. The era of winners segued to a generation of whiners…

Character is kismet, fate is character— or whatever’s done in the past is done in the here and now, will be done again and again in the future. Or the unforgiving burden of an eternal return (as Friedrich Nietzsche has it). Uh, that underpins my fascination with the Chinese tongue: no tenses, no verb transformations, conjugations and permutations to peg a time segment. Just a child-like grip on the continuum of a present moment.

May mga kalapit-bahay na buong maghapon at magdamag na nakatunganga lang sa akin… mayroong running commentary sa bawat gawi’t gawa ko sa araw-araw na pamumuhay. I go through stationary meditation postures, nothing fancy, to nurture the life force that can be unleashed for healing or killing—chi, rei-ki, prana, menstruum, maybe kalimasada. Pikang-pika ang mga hinayupak na nagmimiron, pulos kantiyaw.

Ah, genius or unfathomed depths of understanding can be a quantum of solace. Stupidity is immeasurable. Anyway, a recent paper from King’s College of London dumps political correctness, points up that intelligence is sexy, packs top-quality sperm for transmission of genetic traits, better endowed for a Darwinian mode of survival and getting to the top. Between you and me, I’d say there’s not much company up, out or down here…

Uh, “meditation” stepped into English lexicon sometime in the 1390s. The word had its roots in the Latin modus—measure, manner—and has spread into such terms as moderate, modern, physician (from medicus), and to heal (mederi-- may kabalbalan ang English, naging remedy). That implies what you do as a doctor: meditation.

“Meditative awareness is unity with the present moment”—and this grumpy gramps feels much such in the quality of attention that his panganay na apo provides him with in their silly moments together… Bibinyagan si Musa sa Disyembre 12, siyam ang nagkukumahog na maging ninong o ninang… hindi naman makapalag ang nanay at tatay.

Mahigpit na yakapin at hagkan sa noo’t puyo ang aking inaanak. Para sa ‘kin.