Teeny weeny wits

Netnet Camomot

OUR generation and the generations before us are getting old. Soon, we will all be retired, and too tired to keep the hair sparkling with highlights. We will then become insignificant except to our loved ones who will always be there to support us, defend us, even fight for us.

But to the rest of the madlang pehpohl—the colleagues we’re presently busy with, the companies and organizations where we kind of rose from the ranks, the communities we’re helping—we will morph to a memory of the person we once were, when we were active sans white hair and knee injuries, when we climbed muddy mountains and helped people in remote areas, when our wise counsel was sought and practiced.

We are the young once.

The young ones are now occupying good seats in the companies they work for and the businesses they’ve founded. They’re replacing us. And that’s actually a nice thought to one who’s looking forward to a retirement filled with reading, writing, and watching paint dry. You know how that feels like? To wake up in the morning, and to think of nothing else but reading and writing. And watching paint dry to rest the eyes.

I’ve been staying mostly inside my room for almost two months now. To my pleasant surprise, it hasn’t felt claustrophobic at all. Realization 101s are aplenty, however—can’t help but notice when you’re living like a monk. You see people squirm in their seats. Well, not here inside this room or even downstairs or outside the house during the few times I went downstairs.

Outside of this sanctuary, there are people squirming in their seats, trying so hard to broadcast their significance. Or is it relevance. Obviously, the clock is ticking.

To one who’s used to working behind the scenes, in the background, his voice barely heard, retirement is simply another day in paradise. The clock doesn’t tick. He’s the one you don’t see as he quietly pushes those who want to remain significant, relevant, important. He helps make things happen for them.

But don’t pity the one abandoned by his, uh, “pusher,” for the former can always look for another one, anyway. Life goes on.

Sa kabilang dako, in the drugs department, the drug user should search for a new pusher to replace the one who ended up in jail or—worse—killed through cardboard justice. With shabu’s price increasing daily, no thanks to the law of supply and demand, you would expect the drug addict to return to Tokhang authorities and ask for rehabilitation. But, no, that’s like wishing for President Rody Duterte to kiss and make up with Sen. Leila de Lima. Wait, even the thought of the two doing that will probably inspire President Duterte to say, Magpatuka na lang ako sa ahas!

And snakes wearing human-being masks are not exactly a man’s best friend.

One night, there was this wormy thingy crawling across my feet. I jumped like crazy. I already had a knee injury then, but who remembers an injury when there’s that thingy! And, no, it’s not the kind that inspires one to say, Sorry, I don’t smoke.

I scared the thingy out of its teeny weeny wits. By the time the house help arrived to banish it from this oh so cruel world, it had already crawled back to its cave. If only we can do the same to snakes disguised as humans.

But the snake disguised as a human being has absolutely no feelings, that’s the reason why he’s a snake in the first place. I gotta feeling, though, even a snake would be insulted with this comparison: How dare you use me to represent that sad excuse for a human being!

Politicians have had their share of at least one snake in their teams. The snake that made their campaign go pfft as he went to the other camp, spilling out trade secrets crucial to winning the game. I don’t know if it’s a matter of who pays more. Or who he has more utang na loob to. There are many ways to kiss ass after all, and being a snake must be one of them.

Unfortunately for those who don’t know how to kiss ass, people whose asses love to be kissed will forever listen to that snake’s hisses. Ssssss. Ssssss.

Thoughts of Medusa come to mind. Don’t look or you’ll morph to stone! Which does happen to people who listen to the snake’s hisses. They turn to stone, with no more lovely thoughts and warm feelings for the objects of his hisses. Forked tongue. Beware of this crawler if you don’t want to turn to stone.

It’s now September, it’s Christmas season in Pinas! And it’s a good start for optimism. Enough of negativity. Christmas carols galore. “He’s making a list / Checking it twice / Gonna find out who’s naughty or nice / Santa Claus is coming to town.” And, no, it’s not President Duterte’s drug list which relies more on “who’s naughty.”

The age is felt more once Christmas sets in—another year almost over. And what a year this has been, with Tokhang, Tokbang, cardboard justice. Other countries also have their own versions, with people fleeing from Syria and other war-torn places, with earthquakes and floods destroying towns, with another presidential election brewing in the remaining superpower in the world.

Looking at this Planet Earth from afar, all you’ll see is a speck of dust, amidst so many stars and planets. Even much tinier—microscopic even—than the thingy that crawled across my feet. Seeing the world from that view, we’d look crazy as we give importance to matters that won’t matter in the end. Someone out there in the universe must have discovered way much more, and he’s now looking at us, amused.

Meanwhile, I look at the mirror and see, uh, white roots. Time to set an appointment with the suki hairstylist.