Desperately seeking inspiration

Netnet Camomot

SINIGANG na baboy, lechon paksiw, rice, and coffee for Thursday lunch. I don’t know if the gluttony was connected with the day’s weather condition, but the rain does “inspire” gluttony and lots of sleep until the inspiration morphs into a battle between yum and zzzzz.

A friend advised that we should eat only when hungry. Hmmm. Paki-explain. Please.

By Thursday, I was so tired of all the bad-weather-condition news, and I wasn’t even one of those who had to be in Operation Linis mode after last Monday’s flood. The bad news via Facebook was enough to add gloom to the rainy weather.

Climate change should be enough to remind us that use, misuse and abuse will always backfire later. It’s called karma. There’s good karma and there’s bad karma. You reap what you sow. I tend to misquote that: You sow what you reap. And then, I have to go back. Wait, is it that or the other way around? All these quotations we encounter can be confusing in the end, I even have to Google my most favorite quote each time I feel like writing it down here: “it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

There are times when I have to remember that quote, and think, If only they can see my heart and what’s in there. But does each of us even have the time to explain everything that we do? If we have to explain every single thing to a friend, then he’s not a friend. He’s a stranger who has no idea who we are.

The meaning of friendship doesn’t change. It remains as is. It’s the people in there who are confused on its real meaning. Watching the movie “Split” may give us a bird’s eye view, though, on why people are the way they are.

I’ve always had this gut instinct on people. Whenever something’s amiss, I feel it right away, but I keep quiet. And then, of course, time reveals what the gut instinct has been telling me, and it’s… Eureka!

I’m even quieter now. Hush. Unless provoked.

Much like the weather. Rain, sun, and when water has nowhere to go, flash floods. It’s provoked, so, it reacts.

Yup, we should be proactive and all that jazz. But that’s not what most human beings have done especially for nature. People are allowed to build over creeks and afterwards, they wonder where the flash floods are coming from. Duh. The government must be strict in implementing its zoning rules, that is, if it has any.

But the government’s engineers don’t always have the right answers to questions from concerned citizens who are now blaming Monday’s flood on that new bridge or elevated road in between Limketkai Center and the University of Science and Technology of Southern Philippines. When that bridge—or whatever it’s called—was still on its planning phase, non-government engineers were already totally against the idea, warning about how it could worsen what it’s supposed to solve.

Not everyone is an engineer but common sense is described as common because it’s always there, if only each person cares to listen to it. On Thursday, for example, there was this school that took its time in declaring suspension of classes. Its students went to school, afraid of having an “absent” in their attendance records. It was only when they arrived at the campus that they were advised to go home. That meant waiting for a ride under the rain. We can easily forgive that school, though, since it has always been proactive in helping the community and it never wastes a single second in responding to emergencies such as flash floods. But if the threat of floods on Thursday did become actual, with its students trapped in flood on their way home, all that goodwill could have gone down the drain. The message could have been this, that in its drive to help others, it has forgotten its own.

Charity begins at home. On Friday, my orthopedic surgeon had to remind me, Net, unaha pud imong kaugalingon. O my gas. How many times have I been receiving that advice in the last year or so? We ignore health risks so we can finish work and meet deadlines. Service above self pa more. But we can’t help as efficiently as before if the knee continues to be in recovery mode.

I’m at an age—18!—when senior-moment woes are a given. Thus, the need to be more careful.

A friend’s husband was hospitalized due to those woes. He couldn’t stand up straight last Tuesday. They were about to leave for the office to help in its Operation Linis. Monday’s flood reached the first floor, and on Tuesday, time to clean up and wash mud off that floor.

Such woes don’t happen overnight, though. They’re already there, simply waiting to be, well, provoked. You make one move, and—voila!—injury. All those years of walking and working and moving, of course, the body will complain in the future. That’s why whenever we’re with our high school classmates, the chika usually veers towards health. At least four of us now have knee problems, we compare notes on what to do per our doctors’ advice. We have different doctors but it’s beginning to look a lot like they’re one and the same. Doctors have this advice when it comes to injuries: rehab; if rehab doesn’t work, surgery; then rehab again post-surgery. Weight loss is required, too, if body weight is one of the injury’s culprits.

It’s good to follow the doctor’s schedule on future checkups. My knee went from numb to sensitive, one touch, and it’s like, Whoa! I thought that was bad. And then, last Friday, the orthopedic surgeon said it’s a good sign—the nerves are working. See? Had I not followed his prescription for a checkup three months after, I would have continued to worry over nothing.

Meanwhile, in a land far far away, Donald Trump took his oath as president, and the way he delivered his inaugural address was like Alec Baldwin impersonating him on “Saturday Night Live”—I was laughing. And that’s not a good sign. The speech was supposed to inspire. Hey, he’s the 45th president of the United States of America, the only remaining superpower in the world! What’s his excuse?

And some pieces written about that inauguration have been equally hilarious. Here’s one example: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/inaugural-speech-president-donald-trump-delivers-bombast-divisiveness-nationalism-96657. Hollywood Reporter’s Frank Scheck described the address as a “campaign speech on steroids.” If this is the Trump, er, the President Trump effect, we’re looking forward to four years of laughter. No need to watch Baldwin’s impersonation anymore.