I’m most loving when I write because writing is an unselfish act.
After I’ve crafted my ideas, beliefs and sentiments, and read its expressions, I feel immensely refreshed. It’s as if the morning dew settled on my skin to cool my soul.
I’m, likewise, astonished when I write because writing is an egoistic act. It activates the freedom of my intellect, allowing me to wonder and wander where no man has gone before.
The ultimate high is the involvement of those who read me.
I welcome contrarians, much as I delight in empathy and meeting of minds.
The more I write, the more I enjoy writing. The agony and the ecstasy. Deadlines are my aphrodisiac.
Ten years ago, when I entered into my mid-60s, I wished for a second wind. I decided to write fiction again, my hobby in my youth, but which I dropped in favor of writing marketing plans and advertising strategies. This lasted 40 years.
Searching for an easy way back to literature, I bumped into the “I” approach, a personal memory-recall style of writing. It’s like rummaging around in the attic of your life, recovering old photographs, mementos and objects from your past. As I meditated on each of them, the pictures came into clear focus, the words came naturally.
My idols in literature have been Nick Joaquin, who has his Fil-Hispanic Intramuros (“A Portrait of the Artist As Filipino”), N.V.M. Gonzalez and his hamlets in Mindoro (“Winds of April”), Yasunari Kawabata and his West Coast mountains of Japan (“Snow Country”), John Steinbeck and his California valley farms (“East of Eden”), and Ernest Hemingway and his Gulf Stream in Cuba (“The Old Man and the Sea”).
Like them, I have Majayjay, the mountain town of my youth. There, I am connected to my ancestors, townsfolk and rice-paddy farmers. I still breathe the cool air from the rainforests of Majayjay and the fogs enveloping the hills of Mt. Banahaw.
In my adult years, I thrived in the corporate world, inhabiting the glass buildings of Ayala Avenue.
In the world of business, one breathes the air of free enterprise. Competitiveness means success. Pursuit of excellence becomes my formative force. One learns from the philosophies of brilliant professionals—Peter Drucker for management, Bill Bernbach for creativity and Jack Welch for innovation.
Brevity
My advertising profession has instilled in me the disciplines of crafted communications. Brevity. Clarity. Memorability. Believability. Results. In all cases, my audience is demographically defined, the size quantified into millions of individuals, and effectivity measured by research.
From 1936, the year of my birth, to 2012, my experiences reflect historical events that shook the lives of our people. The horrors of World War II. Deaths, violence and hunger during the Japanese Occupation. The gory Hukbalahap rebellion in its civil war body counts.
In 1986, we mounted a People Power Revolution to free ourselves from authoritarian rule. We gained the admiration and amazement of freedom-loving people the world over for this Gandhian revolution.
We struggle constantly to conquer the enemy within ourselves to win our place in the sun.
We Filipinos are fortunate to have imbibed the best of great cultures, the romanticism of the Latins, the individualism of the Americans, the mysticism of Asia, and the mirth of the Pacific islanders.
We were the first people in Asia to embrace Christianity and democracy, the two most powerful ideologies for the fullest development of mankind. Our citizenry and spirituality spring from the synergy of these two developmental forces.
All the elements in my 76 years of existence become the images, the sound and scent in my writings. People and events fascinate me forever. I do not only remember all of them. I can relive them any moment I want to. To find comfort. To obtain courage. To think with moral imagination.
When you’re in your mid-70s, you can reveal your follies without embarrassment. Your fears without anxieties. Your rage without malevolence. Your sadness without despair. You can be more humble. More translucent. More prayerful. More God-bound.
When your life is an open book, you can truly be happy and share with your fellow men the true meaning of life.
