I'm Not Dead


            It’s three o’clock in the morning, the first day of July 2012 and I can’t get myself to sleep. Two hours of incongruous movement did nothing. Lullabies are for babies. Had I listened to tunes of whatever genre, I would’ve sung with the songs. I thought I have gotten over insomnia; it seems it got worse. In the most desperate attempt to rest a restless soul in a worked up body, I ironically turned on my laptop (studies show that the light emitted by electronic devices especially computers causes sleeplessness) in the midst of my snoring brother, in the darkness of an ungodly hour and write myself to deep slumber.

            Allow me to sound ambitious as to state that probably a lot of you are wondering what became of the A.B. Classical Major in Philosophy graduate of the University of Santo Tomas (I myself still get chills just by reading that honorific title). To walk you through, I am now a law student of the University of Baguio. What transpired between graduating in UST and enrolling in UB is marked by indecision (yes, the philosopher, after a rigorous education of favoring the most reasonable and standing by it, cannot make up his mind). I have this huge dream of one day becoming a diplomat, a historian and politician by interest. Months earlier, I have dismissed the idea of ever becoming a lawyer, always stressing to my parents the profession’s proclivity to unsatisfactory business. They seemed to understand and just backed me up. However, days before the official start of another school year, while waiting for school and job applications, I was deported to the City of Baguio. Fearing and succumbing to parental instincts as regards their once sickly, favorite child, my parents thought it was time for me to stop brushing them aside i.e. claiming independence. Practicality itself demands my subjection.

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            Paradoxically, philosophy has damaged me, yet it has remained to be my consolation. The alethea of being is a beautiful phenomenon that one must not only be drawn to a singular aspect of it but to the totality of what is being revealed! The focus to the individual facets gave birth to what we now know as particular sciences. It is for this reason that a philosopher is potentially everyone, a potentiality which consists a longing to be! In other words, knowing what it is to be in someone else’s shoes makes a well-rounded man. Indeed, a philosopher is a restless entity not in the sense of trying to be everyone but to be everyone. My journey starts in the field of law. 

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