Mendiola Underground Writers' Project : Emotional Baggage as a Profile
What if a charismatic person who exercises influence talks to you about the grandeur of genuine development in the Philippines? To top it all, he is articulate, well versed in the workings of the ordinary man's mind and clever in putting economic and political factors in one seemingly logical yet simplistic abstract verbal model.
You constantly cross path with this person. He is so impressive as he tells you all his adventures and the dangers he confronted. How he jumped from airplanes, visited exotic places, seduced countless women and met important people. In fact, he even shows you all his scars as remnants of his exploits.
From a far, you see this strong, well-built and ragged looking man. Your typical Marlboro model whose age is seemingly timeless. But when he smiles, and this the odd part, you can feel this haunting coldness in his soul. The character gives away something, macabre hints of the past.
He is a good provider to his family, probably a hero in the eyes of his children. But still, there is something about the smile that is difficult to forget. And then he looks at you. It is a gaze that says it all. This man is more that what he wants us to believe.
Conversations with him are always about adventures. He often taunts you for being a home buddy. He laughs like a roaring lion. Proud that once again he has proven that he is the master of his domain. Yet the gaze, again the gaze, it penetrates your sense and sensibility. There is something wrong with this person but the terror eludes you.
He proudly tells you that he always gets what he wants. Such an influential person but immature in his carriage. Nevertheless, this fact fuels his ego that it blinds his common sense. You begin to wonder, is there a weakness in his armor.
Perfection is a virtue but when it becomes an obsession, it kills logic and consistency. He believes that he is beyond human conventions. Cocky, he never understood the meaning of consequences. Willing to justify any means for an end because the end is always perfect in his eyes.
All his life, failure does not exist. It is only a set-back, a collateral damage or a detour to the final destination. Constantly justifying that what he did and going to do are not wrong but were and will be the best possible solutions to the immediate problems. Solutions that he keeps on revising, a perfectionist who does know what he wants.
Then it dawns inside your head. This man is no hero. A hero dies for others and it is not the other way around. He loves adventures because up to now he is still a child. A child who demands to get whatever he wants because consequences are nothing more but abstract constructions of the adult world.
And when this so-called peter pan realizes that neverland does not exist, the crisis begins. Old, gray, powerless and abandoned by his lost boys, he faces the public defeated and betrayed. His immaturity did him in. Sentimental romance, after all, is for little boys who believe that they could fly.
With a broken leg he gives his usual smile. You hold your breath. The monster is still alive. He gazes and winks. This child is not going to give up. Lessons are not learned. He will return and play his game again.
Immaturity was the terror that you saw in midst of an innocent smile. It is hard to reconcile that such influence rests in the hands of a child who pretends to be an adult. You hope that he will overcome such an immovable emotional baggage. But then again, hope is not real for an immature soul. Guess who he is?
What if a charismatic person who exercises influence talks to you about the grandeur of genuine development in the Philippines? To top it all, he is articulate, well versed in the workings of the ordinary man's mind and clever in putting economic and political factors in one seemingly logical yet simplistic abstract verbal model.
You constantly cross path with this person. He is so impressive as he tells you all his adventures and the dangers he confronted. How he jumped from airplanes, visited exotic places, seduced countless women and met important people. In fact, he even shows you all his scars as remnants of his exploits.
From a far, you see this strong, well-built and ragged looking man. Your typical Marlboro model whose age is seemingly timeless. But when he smiles, and this the odd part, you can feel this haunting coldness in his soul. The character gives away something, macabre hints of the past.
He is a good provider to his family, probably a hero in the eyes of his children. But still, there is something about the smile that is difficult to forget. And then he looks at you. It is a gaze that says it all. This man is more that what he wants us to believe.
Conversations with him are always about adventures. He often taunts you for being a home buddy. He laughs like a roaring lion. Proud that once again he has proven that he is the master of his domain. Yet the gaze, again the gaze, it penetrates your sense and sensibility. There is something wrong with this person but the terror eludes you.
He proudly tells you that he always gets what he wants. Such an influential person but immature in his carriage. Nevertheless, this fact fuels his ego that it blinds his common sense. You begin to wonder, is there a weakness in his armor.
Perfection is a virtue but when it becomes an obsession, it kills logic and consistency. He believes that he is beyond human conventions. Cocky, he never understood the meaning of consequences. Willing to justify any means for an end because the end is always perfect in his eyes.
All his life, failure does not exist. It is only a set-back, a collateral damage or a detour to the final destination. Constantly justifying that what he did and going to do are not wrong but were and will be the best possible solutions to the immediate problems. Solutions that he keeps on revising, a perfectionist who does know what he wants.
Then it dawns inside your head. This man is no hero. A hero dies for others and it is not the other way around. He loves adventures because up to now he is still a child. A child who demands to get whatever he wants because consequences are nothing more but abstract constructions of the adult world.
And when this so-called peter pan realizes that neverland does not exist, the crisis begins. Old, gray, powerless and abandoned by his lost boys, he faces the public defeated and betrayed. His immaturity did him in. Sentimental romance, after all, is for little boys who believe that they could fly.
With a broken leg he gives his usual smile. You hold your breath. The monster is still alive. He gazes and winks. This child is not going to give up. Lessons are not learned. He will return and play his game again.
Immaturity was the terror that you saw in midst of an innocent smile. It is hard to reconcile that such influence rests in the hands of a child who pretends to be an adult. You hope that he will overcome such an immovable emotional baggage. But then again, hope is not real for an immature soul. Guess who he is?
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