The Magic Moment.
The Magic Ride
_Christian Licen_
I wish I did a lot. I wish I could do more. But I could only wish. This wishful thinking about my life is but a dream revealed by the fiction of reality. Like a child who dreams of fantasies with a comical universe of its own and fairytales with its feel-good happy ending. I wish I were one again. Just as the dogmatic writer, Paolo Coelho says, “We have to listen to the child we once were, the child who still exists inside us. That child understands magic moments. We can stifle its cries but we cannot silence its voice.” If only I could fake another world of my own, I had long done it. Like Aladin riding on his magic carpet, or that wooden puppet, Pinnochio, whose nose grows erect whenever he lies, I wish I were those. Their misadventures prove how strong their character can become. But my world isn’t about the grand fairytales or any romantic story we’d love to read or see. It is each and everyone’s good story to tell. It is only in literature where they mesh and percolate as a union. Be it a mish-mash, a crossover, or a labyrinth of pathos and despair, no story can ever be so beautiful than our own lives. It is our story that children love to hear; our voice in harmony with theirs. So as I speak to you, open your hearts like the way children do.
I tell to you a story not so stunning and trifle as that of the Walt Disney-produced films. Once upon a time, there was a child who dreamed of becoming successful. Because he was diligent, he aced out among his fellow classmates and stood to be one of the finest and brightest in class. He pursued on his studies by his parent’s prodding. With the want to please them, he had obtained successfully a college degree. Until he began to work had he realized that he wanted more. So he sought for greener pastures and eventually worked abroad. He traveled far and wide, with hands calloused and head dank with sweat. It were on those adventures and mishaps have he learned to toil harder. Life is very much different when you’re away home, he thought. He worked as a nurse. He would have to do the laundry by himself, run to and fro to keep the house spic and span, and do the never-before-done things and errands in his life. Back home, he had been pampered, so well-reared that he lived close to the life of a royal prince. Change is really sweet, quote that from Aristotle. And yes, with the rigid schedule and mode of living he has abroad, he has fully become aware of his limitations and excesses. If you ask him is he happy, he would readily answer, “Yes!” But truth of the matter is that the back of his mind is crimped with pain. Admittedly, he would utter, “No!” He could not deny that. At least I know. I know for the fact that he is in constant struggle. He feels happiness much as he wallows in misery. How ambivalent life is for him, I reckon. But one thing is certain, he has sacrificed a lot. This leads me to adulate at his stead for I am the sole witness of his everyday vicissitudes. His life can never be a bed of roses. At times, he forks in thorny paths as well. Just as I recoil, in Robert Frost’s The Road less taken, “Two roads diverge in a yellow wood and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler, long as I stood and look down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth”, I would have to content with meritorious conceit how his life is but an apotheosis of nobleness and industry. He could have chosen the road less traveled by, but he went with the other. Such was his fortitude to anticipate the repercussions to come his way that he endured and gradually pursued amid the pitfalls in bait. He has fallen a couple of times though, but he is still sound for the next few miles. If you ask me, how content he is with his journey right now, he would partly say yes, and confidently say no at the same time. Maybe this is what life has in store for him. He can never be content as Man by nature is insatiable. Tell all the truth, but tell it slant. Perhaps Emily Dickinson is right. This man I am talking about badly misses home too. There’s really no place like home. Back when he was a child, he had chest-load silly-yet-sweet memories to savor with. Oh yes, he loves to read. That is his pastime. No wonder, when I talked to him one opportune time, he was more than a sharpshooter you could hardly bull’s eye! Yet, his feet are mired on the ground. You should have known him any better. Yours is the discretion.
To continue, he is still on his journey right now, as he kept insisting in Robert Frost’s Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening last line, I have miles to go before I sleep, he will never stop though he’s been jaded that he almost gave up. But no, send your prayers for him, I beg. By God’s mercy and gratuitous love, he will live life to the fullest. He will become a good man, even better everyday. I know this story does not really appeal as convincing and feel-good as those you always see and read, but it is what reality is all about. Never too many an embellishment of intricate conflict to set the plot nor too nerve-wracking as to gradually levitate the incidents toward the climax- it is just as quotidian as the bird’s soar high among the welkins or the wilting of the leaves for the next season. This is life. Dull. Gray. Nothing can ever so vibrant as the specter of colors bowed to stop the rain. If today is winter, tomorrow will be summer. If my life right now is a mess, the next thing you’ll know, everything is repaired. Somehow, Mr. Blue’s statement relives in this story, Life gives you pretty much what you give in”. Furthermore, Earnest Tan would keep inspiring that: No one can change us unless we want to. No one can teach us anything unless we desire to learn. No one can grow for us; to grow or not grow is a personal decision.
Just as you have heard this story, may it encompass beyond your mind’s facility to open up a whole new world of your own. Fill it fantasies. You know pretty much how life can be so boring. Never stop to dream, for the song will endlessly tune up the melody of your life: a dream is a wish your heart makes when you’re fast asleep. Truly, allow the wonder of your child-soul to reverberate and animate you with all of life’s blessings and banes. Nothing can ever reveal its truest beautiful secrets unless you welcome the change for the good and overcome vice and vile for virtue. Let my magic carpet ride on with your life. You could always holler at the Genie in the bottle whenever you need him and he will grant your wish much as you will purposefully. You could always save the princess under any spell or curse, the kiss of death an antidote to ward it off. That would be very brave of you. You could always claim to be the next superhero as bionic and potent as Superman, Spiderman or Batman in your own fruitful production. Nevertheless, you and the heroes share fair glory and defeat. But I will never forget that I can only listen to the child I will always be. That man in the story and my soul… happens to be just the child speaking to you right now.
