Discover Your Dream

A British journalist arrived in Manila, Philippines with an assignment to write about the 'essential Filipino'. He smiled confidently over what he thought was an easy assignment and relished the idea of the free tour of the Philippines as complementary reward.

For three days, he ran around searching for the 'essential Filipino'.

He rejected Makati, Metro-Manila's main financial district, which reminded him of many cold and calculating world cities, like London.

He went to historical places like the old, walled city of Intramuros but saw only a glimpse of the past, not the present.

Next, he tried the native cuisine in various famous eating places. Delicious but nothing on the 'essential Filipino'.

Before he realized it, he started to not only get tired but also nervous that he has not found his ‘easy’ story yet. Time was running out, he had to go back to London in two days. He spent the next day on inconsequential probes into churches, malls, monuments.

On his last day, he twitted his editor saying that no one can possibly write about the 'essential Filipino' in so short a time. He asked for an extension. He expected at least a week. The editor was kind but gave the journalist only one lousy extra day.

In desperation and panic, on his last day, he took a wild stab at market places.
In Singalong, he sat on a curb too tired to think. Then he realized his mistake. He was looking for places not people. The thought hit him like a terrorist’s bomb. The 'essential Filipino' is a person, not a place. "How stupid could I be!" he thought.

Sitting on the curb in exasperation, he began looking at faces that passed by when he noticed a boy selling fishballs from a rolling cart. The kid wore a torn shirt and a pair of raggedy, wrinkled short pants, and was barefoot. What attracted him was the boy's a la Michael Jackson gyrations. The kid was unmindful of the noisy crowd around him.

As the journalist approached him, he noticed the earjack the kid had. He instantly realized it was loud music that drowned the noise and transported the boy into his own personal "inner other world". The journalist had to scream in order to bring the little one back into the real world. The boy removed the earjack. The journalist started to talk with the kid.

JOURNALIST: ‘Hey, what are you selling?’

BOY: ‘Fishballs, Sir. Wanna buy?’

JOURNALIST: ‘Nice earjack, you've got.’

The boy handed the earjack to the journalist. The journalist put the earbuds on, one in each ear. He instantly removed them after almost losing his balance and reeling backwards after the deafening music almost blasted his eardrums.

The boy smiled, and put the headset back on his head, one earbud into each ear.

JOURNALIST: ‘Hey, wait, we’re talking.'

The boy once again took the earbuds off. From the pocket of his trousers, he pulled out a tiny MP3 player and handed it to the journalist. The journalist examined it.

JOURNALIST: ‘Where did you get this? This is expensive, first-class MP3 player with first-class earphones. It doesn’t match your 'air-conditioned' shirt.'
He flicks at one of the holes in the boy's torn shirt.

BOY: 'I bought it. Nice, huh? I saved all the money I earned from one whole year of selling fishballs to buy it.'

JOURNALIST: ‘Why didn’t you buy yourself new shirt and shoes instead?’

BOY: ‘No need. Not important. Waste of hard earned money. Clothes don’t make me happy, only music does.’

JOURNALIST: ‘You kill yourself selling fishballs the whole day for a year just to buy this?’

BOY: ‘Why not? What would you buy? What is your dream? Me, this is my dream, but it is no longer a dream. It’s real now. I don’t need shirts and shoes, just a dream of dancing to music. What is your dream anyway?'

At first the journalist was at a loss for words because he really had no dream in mind. Perhaps, his dream is to file a story. That's all. But that is not really a dream. A dream must be something spiritual and forever as the boy's words implied.

JOURNALIST: ‘I guess I have no dream. Oh, I take that back. yes I have a dream but it is not a good dream.’

BOY: ‘Too bad. You must be very sad. Buy yourself an MP3.’
JOURNALIST: ‘But that is not my dream.’

BOY: ‘So what is your real dream then? There must be something you really, really like.'

JOURNALIST: ‘I have been working so hard to survive that I forget what I really, really like. My life is work, work, work.'

BOY: ‘But I also work, work, work. You must find your true dream and go for it.’
Finally, the British journalist began to discern the 'essential Filipino'. He was amazed at how the boy in his dire poverty rejected the very materialism which has been gradually destroying the more affluent in society.

The 'essential Filipino' is a free spirit -- poor and happy all at once. Perhaps, it came from his insular environment or from his distant past -- his Austronesian roots of nomads in tiny boats roaming the vast seas. The journalist took out a notebook and started writing frantically. The boy peered and tried to read aloud the journalist's writing: 'Essential Filipino...free spirit...spiritual dreams...nomadic boat people...

The boy tapped the British journalist on the shoulder.

BOY: 'I know this is your dream. You just don't know it. What you just wrote on your notebook is your dream.'

The Brit was stunned at the kid's perception.

JOURNALIST: 'I...I guess so.'
BOY: 'It is not a guess. You know it. Once you know your dream, you must go for it or else you will be very sad and soon you will die because you know you have no more reason to live for. You must go for a dream or you die. You cannot live just to exist, can you?'

JOURNALIST: 'I guess not. Thank you for telling me my dream.'
Almost in tears, the journalist hugged the boy and gave him a 100-peso bill. The boy was stunned.
 

BOY: 'What is this for?'

JOURNALIST: 'For helping me find my dream which was right in front of my nose all the while.'

BOY: 'Yes, many times you cannot see things clearly when they are too near. You have to step back a little to see.'

JOURNALIST: 'Go and buy yourself more music.'

The journalist returned to his hotel. It took thirty minutes for him to write his story. In ten electronic milliseconds, the story was on the editor's desk in London.

The editor replied: 'This is the best story yet. For the longest time, our staff writers have written about absurd things. What you wrote is an important pearl of wisdom for the affluent world from the impoverished world. Stay there for a month and write me more stories.'

The journalist had a field day. His dream, like the boy's, was now a reality. He started to hang around the street vendors.

Later, he moved from the big city of Manila to the Philippine countryside and wrote about the 'wisdom of farmers and fishermen'. He immersed himself in the 'essential Filipino' -- poor, happy, equipped with a different kind of wisdom alien in the affluent world.

It was a "rich poor little boy" selling sticks of fishballs for six U.S. cents a stick who ignited the journalist's soul.

The 'essential Filipino' and his ancient wisdom is hard to find in civilized places.
Where goodness abounds, there is also evil lurking to sow confusion and hatred; where evil abounds, there also is virtue lurking to sow harmony and peace. The tension between good and evil is everywhere we perpetrate either one or the other.

The destiny of the world is up to each of us.

Mahatma Gandhi’s principle of non-violence revolves around the concept that peace is a more powerful weapon than war; a smile is more powerful than a sneer; a whisper is louder than a scream; the calm is in the eye of the storm; and total darkness recedes when a single candlelight glows.

Society has the bad habit of putting on pedestals supposedly great men and making them as demi-gods, not knowing that the fame and fortune we bestow upon them would devour their spirits and consume them totally. Of what use is the pedestal society tells one to scale when as a giant one falls with a resounding crash? Better to be a happy, unknown ant than a sad, noted giant.
There is virtue in anonymity and folly in popularity.

Author Unknown