Today carries eternity

To the lethargic pitter-patter of raindrops matched by the lull of the Gregorian Chant track "Moment of Peace", my head was a whirlpool of this mantra I picked from a chapter of Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist: "The future belongs only to God. Today already brings in itself an eternity."

I turned a new leaf last week, on the 12th. I felt as though I have long journeyed - taking a day one step at a time, recovering from past issues and calamities, learning to let go of the lofty expectation of perfection that I have placed upon myself and others; learning to use my anger as a fuel to create something good, rather than denying it or holding it inside until I self-destruct or strike out at another; choosing to be hopeful rather than hopeless and to act from faith rather than react from fear; getting a life rather than merely surviving it.

I thought of and then thanked the many influences who all shaped me to keep this mind that I have right now. Pastor Rick Warren who penned "Purpose-Driven Life" assured me that God was thinking of me long before I ever though about Him. Warren's works enlightened me on my Creator's purpose for my life, predating my conception. That God long wanted to have me into His one great, big, happy family before I existed, without my input. Yes, I may be able to choose my career, my passion for climbing, and many other parts of my life, but I don't get to choose my purpose.

I once lived a life in rebellion. Plenty of times, my attitude problem had been singled out as not only an issue, but already a force to reckon with for it gave me and others the hurts - damages beyond repair.

Today, I stand at this virtual summit able to leave a painful past behind; engaged in gospel truth that long before I was conceived by my parents, I was already conceived in the mind of God. That I am not an accident. That my birth was no mistake or mishap, and that my life is no fluke of nature. That my parents may not have planned me, but God did. That he was not at all surprised by my birth, and that in fact he expected it. That it is not fate, nor chance, nor luck, nor coincidence that I am breathing - and encoding at this very moment on this litany of thanksgiving.

Then, very much like his works, Pablo Neruda and his "Poetry" touched me and reminded me that we writers listen unceasingly to the call to fill a mighty void with words that rhyme with the throbbings of the flesh and the pumpings of our blood. He made me conscious of my duty as fulfiller, and at the same time faced with the unavoidable task of critical communication within a world which is empty and is not less full of injustices, punishments and sufferings because it is empty - and I also feel the responsibility for reawakening the old dreams which sleep in boulders as I travel with my pen, to chronicle the silence of wide-stretching plains or the stories of both purling streams and thundering rivers, and the hush-hush of dense primeval forests that's older than humanity.

Now, I'm moving on to my 8th year here at The FREEMAN, and I'm doing a curtsy before those who believe in me and those who read me through this column, my contributions to the Lifestyle section. I am aware that as a writer, my exaggerations or abundance of rhetoric, my truths and my errors affect the humanity interconnected with my inspirations, my delusions, my honorable misfortunes, my lone victories and splendid defeats. We writers coin modifiers to either glorify or put in shame just about anything our eyes could set upon, and we are intoxicated by this chore of weaving fables and braiding names. Despite this insanity, I do thank those who believe. Only those who believe know how potent the arrow of faith is and how real is forever.

You readers are the sun and center of every writer's solar system. Your praises and your sarcasms that belonged once to the future carried with it the promise of eternity today. You prove that this song I have been crafting has never been sung in vain.

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EBOX POST. I am happy to read about oil reserves, production, and consumptions, published by The FREEMAN October 10 entitled "The end of oil, the end of civilization". You awaken the consciousness of the non-technical people and readers of a major newspaper.Your estimates were very realistic and this problem of declining oil production is a known fact in the upstream oil industry yet we do not admit it because it will scare shareholders and investors in the oil business. By the way, I am a chemist working for the past 23 years in the lab of a leading service company in the oilfield. We are involved in the actual drilling, maintenance, and sustained production of oil and gas.

Today there are about 50 drilling rigs operating 24 hours a day making a hole on the ground to find more oil in the desert and offshore of Saudi Arabia. More oil and gas wells are drilled just to maintain production of around 10 million barrels per day. As what Dick Cheney once said, "We in the oil industry has to deal with this pesky problem that once we find oil and pump it out of the ground we have to turn around and find more just to stay even, just to stay in business". That is exactly what we are doing every day: Plug and abandon the depleted wells while drilling new holes somewhere else to find more oil just to sustain the production rate of Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia has 260 billion barrels of oil reserve. At 10 million barrels per day production rate, all the oil will be pumped out of the ground before the year 2080. But as of now we are increasing it gradually to their target 12-13 million barrels per day by 2008 or 2009. In that rate, all their oil wells will be dry before 2056. No amount of science or engineering can produce oil in a well with completely depleted reserve. When the output of a well declines, we try to stimulate by cleaning the production path with acid, or fracturing the formation to open more production channels downhole. But if the oil is almost drained completely the well will just continue to decrease its output until it reaches zero. To keep on supplying oil to the market, another new well with a production rate similar to the plugged and abandoned well in photo (when it was at its peak of production rate) should be gushing with oil. This is just to keep the supply steady. But the demand is increasing!!! So the solution is for every well we plug and abandon, we need two new well producing. This is the trend as world demand for oil keeps on increasing every year.

Anyway, this is just my short comment on your article but the "Fast facts five" you mentioned are very close to all of us now. Conservation of fuel, and finding non-petroleum fuel in commercial quantities are urgent now to prevent/delay going back to stone age lifestyle.

Regards, Lorenzo Gallego - Laboratory Engineer, Schlumberger Dowell S.A. Ltd.

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TEXTPRESS URSELF! 10-Oct-2005 21:44:55 Helo! Gud pm. im richard from talamban. Im amazed aftr i read some part of ur column. This is a reality not jst a fact. As I read along, im beginning to picture the future. I realized how catastrophic ds may be. Lets jst hope and pray 4 d best for all mankind. Ds s the most nteresting column Ive ever read. More space to come!; 10-Oct-2005 13:51:51 "Hi! I'm Ronald Q., an OFW in Saudi Arabia. Your article about THE END OF OIL made me chill. Life is too short, it's time we have to make the best of it.; 10-Oct-2005 20:12:23 "Gud evening ma'am, i liked your article today. After reading ur article i plan to buy a solar lamp. I'm irving fabular of lapu2x ct - Mobile phone numbers withheld.

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