CHO SENUNG HUI

Hey Ipsy,

Been very busy now that I have a double job and if lunch tomorrow proves fruitful, I'll have a third, too. Was out with my previously US, now Singapore-based friend Y who celebrated his birthday at anothe friend J's house. It was fun. As usual Y was his judgmental self. Why do i always feel that he is sizing me up, not so much concerned about where I have been and where I am headed, as long as he can make it clear to me, without leaving any evidence, that he is not impressed enough?

Anyway, that is no cause for alarm. Maybe it's just me. I guess I will just paste here an editorial I wrote for this coming Friday's edition of my weekender, a magazine that comes out with the Friday issue of Manila Bulletin.

Here it is:

LUCKY PEOPLE

This isn’t weekend reading, so it’s perfectly all right if you get right past this page and on to the next pages of pure leisure. On the other hand, since another weekend is upon us, it won’t hurt to be reminded that here is yet another great opportunity to bond with the people we love and the people who might find their way into our lives as we make the most of the next work-free days.

BLURB: First be a person who needs people —Barbra Streisand

I spent last Sunday reading up on Cho Seung-Hui, stumbling upon his plays, Richard McBeef and Mr. Brownstone. Cho’s former Creative Writing classmate Ian McFarlane, who posted the plays on AOL, described the works as “twisted” and “macabre,” but to me they were simply an assault to authority, parents and teachers, very sad at best.

In October, 2002, I was in the Washington D.C./Virginia/Maryland area, practically on the trail of John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, the infamous snipers, as they were making their way to America’s history of violence, killing 10 people on a senseless shooting spree. Arriving at Union Station from New York, I found it totally a new experience to have to stay low, practically walking on all fours and making a shield out of parked cars, perchance the sniper was aiming his weapon at me.

I’ve been to many, supposedly richer parts of the world, where people are mostly alone. If only because in my immediate world there is always someone, whether a grandson or a grandniece, to accompany them, I find it sad, for instance, to see old women by themselves on a park bench in Paris or eating by their lonesome at a diner in New York. Maybe, it’s a blessing that here in the Philippines it’s more the norm to have as many as 10 people cramping a two-bedroom apartment, cousins and a distant aunt included. There is just so much room for self-indulgence, wallowing in self-pity or enraging yourself, when you are mostly on your own. Ever wonder why all serial killers, including Cho, are loners and why there is hardly any serial killer in Philippine history? With nobody to sort out their big issues with on why things are the way they are, these loners just have to shock the world so at last they can have its attention.

What a blessing in disguise, indeed, that in our part of the world solitude is a precious, often rare luxury! While people do love us and hurt us in equal doses, they do help us test our ammunition against challenges, without which, what is the point of living? More important, they do help us expand the scope of our experience, which is exactly what we need to understand this complicated world a little better.

With hope, you can spend this weekend with the people who can assure you there is always at least one person out there waiting to welcome you with open arms should you have the need for some company. This weekend, find time to say a prayer of thanks for the people who make up your life, keeping you on the ground, rather than leaving you to float, helpless and alone, in the bottomless pit of pointless hate, rage, and sadness.

Happy weekend!

A