The meaning of life

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
11/9/2005



The hurricane of politics is blowing through our land. Its been blowing long and hard, measured in decades in fact. Throughout these times I have been steady as a rock in my fight, my crusade. That is why I had called this column, DieHard, and which has metamorphosed through three phases. Now I have been on my third phase, yet it is also the time that I have almost buckled within a shot span of a week or so. A fearful ailment visited one of the family, but gladly after a week it seems to have waned. The business we have nurtured for three decades is now suffering the worst buffeting ever.

Alternative plans for the business are not difficult and they are emerging; but when your mother passes away, even at eighty-five and not wholly unexpected it seems the bewilderment and confusion in the soul is uncontrollable. My mother, Maria Paz Ong Tiu-Laurel passed away after twelve hours of struggling with the choking feeling that pneumonia inflicts. It’s all for the better I am sure, but it is no less bewildering; maybe it is because it reflects the sense of mortality, and even more is the sense of loss of control. We may have expected Ma to move on eventually, but never sooner than later.

As my reader now, I am very committed to the appointed dates I have with them. Under any circumstances, even in a traveling vehicle, in the province, abroad, I send in my conversations with my readers in this column. I did miss one last October 28, because the confusion had been starting and I was desperate to give the family a break to savor the fresh sea air of the beaches of Morong. I try always to avoid writing about the self and stick to the issues of vital importance to the nation, yet both in importance and in a practical way – to catch the deadline – I speak of my woes today.

Since college days I have joined the fight to do what I am convinced by the political dissidents of the time to be the right thing, and when finding myself wrong I pride myself in correcting myself without hesitation. I am fully convinced that in this phase three of my struggle I have found the vital truth about man, his mission in life and the ideals for which he must strive. Yet today I am confronted with a question that confounded, disillusioned and can possibly break my faith and resolve that what I do matter – What is the meaning in life, if all are just to pass on forever.

I guess that is what the tears is about, the refusal of reality to conform to our need for a sane and just reason for our labors in this life. What matters whether I do or not do anything for my fellow man, in the end no one gets rewarded with eternal life; though my elder brother Henson said at the wake that “nano surgery” and genetics is already being touted by some authors to lead to eternal human life starting 2040. Bill Gates, he said, is reading the book. 2040 is within my possible lifetime. This is surely just another quest similar to Juan Ponce de Leon’s search for the island of Bimini for the fountain.

I am not scoffing at the powers of science over disease and death, but man’s mortality is more than just death – it is in the order of things. I value long life, coming from a line of long lives; my father is ninety-five and still hanging on, maybe unaware still that his partner of over fifty years has gone ahead. My father, I love him too, but I haven’t visited for some time; its no easy to watch father half conscious most of the time; but it breaks our hearts to allow that thought that his wish to reach 100 is not met; but I am sure they will be back as I believe in reincarnation, as we all will be.

I believe man is on earth for a mission, and that mission is never finished. The world, mankind, the universe is in constant process; just like the Blueprint for a Viable Philippines, the authors said. Returning life in the universe makes more sense than eternity in some heavenly paradise where there’s probably nothing to do. In the Universe, it is always unfolding and mankind evidently has been blooming over the eons of time. The mystery that ties all the lives across space and time is love, for I know I will always be with my family, my beloved wife, my children, my parents, my siblings – the human race.

Today I rise above the cacophony of our mundane politics to soothe the ultimate pain of every and any human being – the desire and denial of total understanding. That brings about humility, and again that is one of the most painful thing to realize – my arrogance, borne of being loved so much by my parents and the need to be loved more than my siblings – has no place in the real world. Today that arrogance may have already completely gone. I have too much pain and fear to dare to keep it.

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