I call myself a bum right now. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got teaching and research loads but I no longer have any coursework ~ you know, those subjects with exams you have to study for and piles of reading materials you have to go through. They got me busy back then. So now, I have more time for leisure. To make up for the “bumness” I vowed to finish reading one whole book every week. So much for leisure. But take note, these are books I enjoy and not some crappy required reading list. I hate to buy because books and magazines really cost a lot these days, so I asked permission from my undergraduate roommate to ransack her collection. Before I go on, let me describe my roommate. She is a nursing student at a university near ours. She’s one hell of a studious person. Ironic as it may sound, as a teacher, I was inspired by her excellent study habits which I never had all these years. When I scanned one of her books, she made notes like “enrich your vocabulary”, under which she placed some words unknown to her and their researched meanings. She is not nerd-looking actually. She is pretty cool I think and quite artistic. She loves anime too. Anyway, so there, I read her book All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum. It’s a fun read and I actually learned a lot, or should I say relearned a lot. Here are some excerpts:
All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school. These are the things I learned:
• Share everything. • Play fair. • Don’t hit people. • Put things back where you found them. • Clean up your own mess. • Don’t take things that aren’t yours. • Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. • Wash your hands before you eat. • Flush. • Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. • Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. • Take a nap every afternoon. • When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together. • Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. • Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
Life is fairly simple. If only we were outstanding students of life and remembered all those kiddie lessons, this would be a more interesting place to live in. We get exposed to new beliefs, values and traits that overhaul our personalities. We continue to seek for higher knowledge to keep us updated. We imbibe lessons which we think can make us better, only to find out in the end that the basic lessons we had then are sufficient to live life at its fullest. Back then, I didn’t really understand the relevance of those. I simply obeyed for I believed that the elders knew better, only to find out that they do not actually know better.
Take for example the current issues that make Filipinos busy ~ ZTE deal, the Gloria Resign call. They are all quite irritating. If I only have the power to make everyone obey, I will ask those who call for GMA to resign to review the basic scientific method. Simply put, do not conclude unless you have done your experiments. Translation: We cannot just listen to anybody who says he is saying the truth and who convinces GMA to resign due to the allegations, because we are not even sure of the truth. If independent investigating bodies are still working in this country, let them be functional. My point is, we have done this before (read: Estrada’s ouster), only to be failed by GMA in the end. It would be unforgivable if the same thing happens to Noli de Castro. Now, if I have the power to make everyone obey, I won’t make GMA step down. Despite her, her husband’s and other government officials’ superfluous school degrees, I would refresh them with their kindergarten lessons. Good thing for GMA, she might still fit in her kinder chair!
Only problem is I don’t have that power I was talking about. Oh yeah, I remember, people power is still alive…not in the streets this time…but in the kid in each one of us.
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