Lessons

I’m not working today; it’s that time of the year again when I just shut down.

There’s really no special reason for this, nothing big or bizarre. 

I did not for instance see a bloodied body strewn grotesquely in a crowded street that left me stunned or speechless; and neither did some sh#t hit the fan.

This isn’t a self loathing Valentine’s Day post either, but I do deplore the occasion for being the most commercialized and nonsense celebration ever invented.

Valentine’s Day was actually about two martyrs killed by a Roman emperor. It’s not about red roses and forced affection.

But it is Feb. 14 whether I like it or not.

On this day decades ago, as fate would have it, my mother would give birth to me, calling me “the greatest Valentine’s gift ever.” 

Oh poor mother, if only she knew what terrible headaches I would give her.

This, obviously, is not a commentary on the economy, inflation or the MRT mess. It is not about my endless rant about the stark income inequality plaguing this country. 

So to those who expected otherwise, please accept my apology.

Instead, today is the day when I’ll just blabber on about life in general, including yours and mine.

This break isn’t to celebrate another year. There’s really not much to celebrate when you know you’re old and the only people who call you “young” nowadays are the octogenarians.

But I am taking this break so the noise in my head will stop even for just a day. 

There are drums constantly banging in my skull,  you see, played by neanderthals high on cocaine. 

There are voices and screams and whispers, too, and they never shut up. Sometimes they wake me up at 3:27 a.m., injecting a great story idea in my already discombobulated head. Or they put a black mirror and show me the bloodied body I saw not too long ago, the one covered in tattered cartons of Lucky Me. Or they tell me to verify the latest grapevine talk about my favorite crony.

This is the curse of being a journalist, a curse I never imagined would haunt me when I bravely walked inside that newsroom in a building along T.M. Kalaw decades ago.

I handed over my CV to a gruff and aging editor, but he didn’t even bother reading it. Instead, he gave me a practical test, one I’ll never forget.

“Go to Camanava and look for a story on rape.”

“A what?!” I protested in silence.

But I wanted to be a journalist and I wanted to save the world, so off to the God-forsaken Caloocan-Malabon-Navotas-Valenzuela police beat I went in search of a story of a rapist and his victim. 

I got my story that day so Mr. Aging Editor hired me right away but, of course, I got the curse too.

Sure, you get a ringside view of history, but you also get to see all the sh#t in the world. You want to throw up each time, but you can’t, so you find other means to stay sane. Some become heavy smokers, while some drown themselves in Old Fashioned or Macallan 18. Others turn to free love or binge on their favorite food.

But such palliatives are even more hazardous to one’s heart and health than journalism itself, so I just shut down once a year.

Saving the world

Days ago at a cocktail party, a senior journalist asked me what I have done or what I intend to do to save the world. 

But through the years since that day in Camanava, I’ve realized that the world does not need saving. It’s people who do, and mostly from themselves.

I’ve learned many other things too, since then. I learned, for instance, that there would be many more rape stories and not just in Camanava.

I learned, too, that there are businessmen who would stop at nothing just to amass a fortune.

That there are bankers who would launder money for a blissful retirement.

That presidents will have new cronies despite promises to the contrary.

That there are companies who will send poor kids to school, but land-grab school zones for their malls or subdivisions.

That there are people who will throw birthday parties in cancer wards, while selling processed food that boost the risk of cancer.

That there are power firms who will fund pro-environment NGOs, but won’t stop their dirty ways.

And that there will be people who will put coins in a beggar’s worn-out hands, while stealing other people’s money.

They are everywhere in this moving, turning, and chaotic world.

But the biggest lesson is this: they can be everyone, including you and me.

So there has to be something more substantial that we all must do — than just salving our conscience — to make this world less dizzying than it is.

But today I will tell you in all honesty, I can’t think of any. Instead, I’ll just curl up comfortably in bed and ignore the voices in my head.

There’ll be no stories to write, no deadlines to chase, no conscience to salve, at least not today.  

Tomorrow, on the first day of the rest of my life, I promise to try to make sense again and surrender once more to the buzzing in my brain. 

Iris Gonzales’ email address is [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @eyesgonzales.