Originally published via Gahum Weekly Vol. 2 No. 14 July 4-10, 2011
A friend of mine told me that on one of her mid-day breaks during a route ride around her sales area, she saw two boys raiding a large garbage can. She watched them rummaged through the junk for things they could sell. She heard them conversing where they had to go next because they needed to gather more plastic bottles since their price has increased from seven pesos to ten pesos per kilo. The younger one said that with two kilos they could already buy half a kilo of rice and surely their mother would be very happy. The other said, “I hope we could find some steel because they are more expensive.” She told me she felt like she was clandestinely spying on businessmen who were seriously strategizing the rise of their empire. She was intrigued when their faces turned so bright with delight and their voices quite animated. They found a red toy car with missing front wheels. For several minutes she was an unnoticed witness to their jocular mood as they abandoned the garbage can and made motor sounds as they played with car races in their young minds until the older one said with reverberating bravado in his voice, “Let’s go home and give this to Intoy.”
A friend of mine told me that on one of her mid-day breaks during a route ride around her sales area, she saw two boys raiding a large garbage can. She watched them rummaged through the junk for things they could sell. She heard them conversing where they had to go next because they needed to gather more plastic bottles since their price has increased from seven pesos to ten pesos per kilo. The younger one said that with two kilos they could already buy half a kilo of rice and surely their mother would be very happy. The other said, “I hope we could find some steel because they are more expensive.” She told me she felt like she was clandestinely spying on businessmen who were seriously strategizing the rise of their empire. She was intrigued when their faces turned so bright with delight and their voices quite animated. They found a red toy car with missing front wheels. For several minutes she was an unnoticed witness to their jocular mood as they abandoned the garbage can and made motor sounds as they played with car races in their young minds until the older one said with reverberating bravado in his voice, “Let’s go home and give this to Intoy.”
Some say that no pleasure is sweeter than those we cannot afford. The world though is abundant of pleasures that are free or inexpensive. I find measures of them in a pedicab ride from our home to Robinson’s and back during our Sunday grocery rituals. With the wind on my face and the steady rhythm of the turning wheels and sprockets I feel the release of days of work from my shoulders. I also enjoy great measures of them from the 15-minute conversations I make with drivers of tricycles I hire at a minimum of P50 and maximum of P70 on my way home during late hours. The hedonistic value of talking to them, strangers that I probably would not see or hire again because they are hundreds in numbers in Tacloban City, is so accessible yet so rare to those who fail to appreciate. I bask in measures of them every morning while aboard a jeepney where I get to glimpse the anticipation and purposes of each of the passengers as they look at their watches, fidget with their mobile phones, and sometimes their conversations. There is someone I know who derives measures of pleasure from the colors and designs of her fingernails. A friend is filled with joy every time she listens to Sara Bareille’s songs while cleaning her bathroom. There is a food server at the green walled carenderia where I eat my lunch who is always pleased to see me because I say thank you to him.
Everything and everyone can be a source of measures of pleasure. We are all vessels and seekers of pleasure. The only thing that keeps us away from accessing these measures of pleasure is the failure to exercise imagination. With today’s consumerist orientation, most people prefer canned pleasures. It is as if it should be branded with the word pleasure before something becomes pleasurable. It is as if it should be packaged pleasurable before something becomes pleasurable. It is as if I pleasure has become pricey. A lot of us have feared to embark within us and discover that something could be a source of measures of pleasure without the price, brand, and package. Some children have already become unimaginative in their pursuit of pleasure. They have learned to prefer the branded pleasure of PS3 and PS2 over the more free-flowing hedonism of climbing a tree and running under the torrential rain shower. Some of them choose Disney over an afternoon of hide and seek. Among the teenagers, it is noticeable that they would spend hours going from one shop to another in Robinson’s during slack time and not bother at all with the wondrous stars on any given clear night. My friend’s story about the two boys has given me hope though because in it I heard the hearts of those who still know that pleasure emanates from imagination. To those boys, a discarded battered toy fit for the garbage can still be a great source of pleasure because they have imagination.
3 comments:
fluidity. this post displays a lovely flow of ideas. it is pleasurable to read. pleasure for me is an afternoon off from all worldly concerns. to flow from one thought to another without electronic and biological distractions. just to be free to think, to imagine.
hi. thank you so much for the comment. it is my hope that we, the human race, won't forget to take pleasure in simple things such as the cool of the early morning.
hi chem. hehe my response was so spontaneous, as if i were just talking with you. anyway, i really hope the children of today get to enjoy the world less the distraction of technology.
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