We shall pass this way but once

Renato Tibon .

“And all the years will come and go, take us up, always up, we may never pass this way again…” – (Seals and Crofts song, 1973)

I WAS listening languidly to the music of Jim Seals and Dash Crofts, a hugely popular soft rock duo in the ’70s when the lyrics of their chartbuster song “We may never pass that way again,” wafted through my consciousness striking a raw chord that refused to fade away. So, I replayed it at least three more times, ruminating on each line, finding some truth which homed in on the point that even if we can’t see ahead, we have to set sail and overcome our fears for each moment that passes, every opportunity that knocks, a spark flickers away and may not present itself again.

Our national hero, Dr. Jose P. Rizal once remarked, “Time lost is irretrievably lost,” telling us we need to make efficient and effective use of our time as it’s scarce and not reversible. Some of us would wish a time machine is at hand so we can travel back in time, but “all the secrets in the Universe whisper in our ears, all the years will come and go, take us up, always up and we may never pass this way again.”

The first line of the song is more prescient, “Life, so they say, is but a game and we let it slip away,” making me wonder how my life was spent or what chances in life’s games have I squandered away. Is life really a game? All games have players and rules, and as our human conditions would teach us hence, there will be winners and losers. Some with hubris will say, winning is not everything, it’s the only thing while losers rationalize it’s not the winning that matters as having participated in it.  Win or lose, we can only learn with each experience changing us as we may never pass that way again.

As there are players to life as a game so it is as a play. Shakespeare, in his speech couldn’t have put it succinctly when he said, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players”. We have, according to him, seven ages which I paraphrase as follows: a mewling and puking infant (a bumbling amateur); a whining school-boy (a newbie craving for attention every time); a sighing lover (a gigolo fearful of lifelong commitment); a quarrelsome soldier (a competitor for promotion off-putting better candidates); the round-bellied justice (the blabbering politico); a bespectacled pantaloon (a doddering senior citizen); ending in “second childishness and mere oblivion (a senescent victim of Alzheimer’s disease), sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything”. He could have laughed his head off merrily with his archaic and my own inscription of man’s history, yet we know at each stage in life, man takes his part in earnest, for unlike the play, he may never pass that way again.

Perhaps the references to senile old men may apply in my sunset years but I’m not hurrying to meet them and sign up. I consider myself a millenior, a sassy appellation I came across on social media referring to someone with a millennial mind housed in an ageing senior body. It’s an exaggeration of course, as millennials, those born between 1980 and 2000, perceived as an idealistic, altruistic and influential generation, are expected to take active part in community and nation building, not with the presumptuous hauteur of a revered era but as individuals conscious of their social responsibilities. With their natural aptitude and unbounded enthusiasm, surely, there are still seniors like me who are not lured by an easygoing, sedentary lifestyle of a couch potato, the “idiotes” of old who keep to themselves prepping up instead at the pre-departure area. These days, I’m still up and about my political and religious work, a jaunty millenior, certainly not having a boring life. Nothing to lose, everything to gain.

And what of the young? Some of the millennials may be doing what society expects of them, although I suspect a good percentage of the unemployed, unschooled and delinquent, including the aberrant generation succeeding them could be wasting their time fighting lost causes, doing unproductive rackets while some are into illicit investment schemes or spending valuable time on worthless video games. The nefarious ones could be engaged in random internet surfing, hacking private files and financial accounts, disrupting the information technology with devastating results. Worse, many could be chasing after the wind doing their thing while high on illegal drugs and vices, perpetually inebriated, involved in petty crimes, prostitution and smuggling, whether out of or doing time in penitentiaries with lax penal system and corruptible officials.

George Bernard Shaw could be right observing the “youth is wasted on the young,” squandering youthful “energy, strength and enthusiasm” in childish and vain pursuits. There is no foolproof guarantee the same mistakes may not be committed even if they were given another chance and allowed a replay and rewind of the games they lost. Youth can only be enjoyed once and may never pass their way again.

Yet, I have faith in the young given proper information, education and training. With the right support of government, making available education for all classes and sectors, guiding them in transition to new jobs and opportunities, providing easy financing schemes for upstarts, opening up a social market economy where they can freely practice their skills on a level playing field, unhampered by restrictive policies which only favor the rich and influential oligarchs, the future is still brighter for the youth on our side of the planet. As a youth sector vote, they can assert their collective presence electing only the most competent, qualified and experienced leaders. In essence, they are the game changers and Dr. J.P. Rizal couldn’t have been more correct underpinning his statement on the youth, as “the hope of the fatherland.”

The Serenity Prayer written by Stephen Grellet is a timely reminder: “I shall pass this way but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do, or any kindness I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”

(Renato Gica Tibon is a fellow of the Fellowship of the 300, an elite organization under Centrist Democracy Political Institute with focus on political technocracy. He  holds both position as political action officer and program manager of the Institute. He is the former regional chairman for Region 10 and vice president for Mindanao of the Centrist Democratic Party of the Philippines.)