GROWING old too fast? That is really a problem. But there is a solution, a practical one. Do not focus too much on your graying hair, on your increasing wrinkles. Think young. And take pessimism out of your system. Businessmen who are pessimists go bankrupt and die young. Look out your window and see the red roses dyeing the landscape.
Do you know why today, I prefer to write about the lighter side of life, about how one can live longer? It has a therapeutic on me, this seeing positive things. I look at the bright sunny world, the lovely landscape; I listen to the music of the passing winds and feel refreshed. I once practiced the fiery brand of journalism, hitting people with darts and arrows, forgetting their sins were not too grievous to deserve brimestone. And what did I get? Enemies, lots of them. I could not take the Bar to become a lawyer because of a pending court case.
That court case, dismissed only a year ago, has put my childhood dream into the dustbin. Although I have earned a title for finishing a PhD, I crave for that lost dream. In my do or die days, I felt indestructible. I was young. I even had the crazy wish to die a romantic death, to die young with glory.
The only good things about those days were that most of those I had tangled with, locked horns, if you prefer that gutsy words, have become my friends. Which shows there are quite a number of magnanimous people around, enriching the earth.
But if I had chosen another profession, I would have remained a non-entity in Legaspi City, not even a minor player, unnoticed by the passing events. But that was not what fate had in store for me.
People in Legaspi City, however, know me more by my nickname. During a recent symposium in Bicol College where I occupied the presidential table with Legaspi City Mayor Noel Rosal and another DILG official, he looked at me, saying, “You are…” When he heard my nickname, his eyes lighted up.
“Buddy old boy”, patting me on the back. He has not forgotten my nickname. He said he had heard much about me.
The former Naga City Mayor, Lut del Castillo, then adviser to Albay Gov. Al Francis Bichara told, now Mayor Gil D. Bansmayor that he was terribly upset told by what I had written in my column in Gil’s Bikol Standard. I was with Gil at Del Castillo’s office.
Del Castillo did not know he was face to face with his tormentor. Gil, a cousin of mine, purposely did not introduce me to his ninong.
Now you know why I abhor going back to the old days. I earn enemies instead of friends. Even if I do not get a bullet in my head, the tension, the anxiety, the fear of the unknown, can take a toll on the health. And today, I am not ready to walk into the sunset.
Most of my friends in Legaspi City have crossed into the Great Beyond. I am not in a hurry to get there. Let other people do. I am enjoying my life. A fellow worker in the Commission on Human Rights must have noticed it when she said I was in love with life.
I laugh a lot, I enjoy funny anecdotes. In the Management by Humor by Tomas D. Andres, the author told of 12 top executives in Japan who died one after the other. Puzzled, medical authorities conducted an investigation and learned the major cause was stress. Their advice to workaholic executives? Make love more often and laugh.
The photo accompanying my column was taken when I fi nished law years ago. I appear much older in my present photo but I do not think I feel old. The dynamic president of Bicol College in Daraga, Albay, Dr. Pedro M. Marcellana, Jr. told me he overheard some people saying I look like just past middle age. Sounds like a compliment, a welcome compliment.
If you meet the BC president, a former Albay assemblyman and undefeated mayor of Daraga, boom town, you won’t think he is past 50.
By the way, an old law professor of Bicol College said you do not have to look for the fountain of youth elsewhere. It is there in lovely young girls. He married three times, all young and lovely damsels, and lived to almost 90.
(Congressman Luis R. Villafuerte’s prescription for long life is simple: don’t worry, don’t hurry and smell all the fl owers along the way. That’s what you have been doing, Buddy. – Ed)
