Squares and Circles

IN LIFE, there are squares and circles, and I am just lucky to be able to blend with both. Let me share to you an experience.

A few months back I was given two tickets to the Bryan Mcknight concert in Cebu as a birthday gift. Initially, I didn’t accept them since I was single and I had no one to watch them with. To my thought, I would probably just be tortured by the sight of lovers get carried away by the songs of the international balladeer.


Anyway, the couple who gave me the tickets hooked me up with a pretty date (a friend of theirs) just so I’d go. So I went. What I thought was just a night of love songs ended up to be an evening of glitz and glamour, and more.

An hour before the concert, we dined at a fine restaurant at the Waterfront Hotel. With everything fancy it felt like we were a royalty.

After the concert, we dropped by at the casino and then had a late snack at another classy bistro. After the meal I received yet another few invitations to party at some posh places, so I decided to hop into four different places where I was welcomed by friends and was treated like a VIP. I’d say it was a night of fun in the luxurious lane.

The following day, I attended a lecture at a state University where I pursue a doctorate degree. It was a totally different crowd, but with equally warm people. After the class, an old professor and friend invited me for lunch. He then led me into the inner most part of the city where the thickest urban poor community dwells. We had to pass through a three-foot wide alley where creeks are open, kids are barefooted, men are shirtless and women looked like they either just woke up or about to go to sleep.

We then went into this little house whose ceiling was just a few inches above my head. Yet I tell you, what they lack in facilities they compensate for warmth. Before I was done with my meal, I already knew everyone’s name and their stories, even the old man who was sleeping at a vacant bench next to our table as well as their drunkard neighbor whom I haven’t met and probably never would. I’d say that was genuine friendship as well, in the narrow lane.

Yes, indeed there are squares and circles in this world. But who’s to say one is better than the other? Who’s to say one is truer or more genuine? Who’s to say one has more quality?

On the surface, one might think that the “haves” are obviously privileged and therefore have a better quality of living and are happier in life. Though that may be true, I also saw that the limitations and deficiencies in life present more opportunities for self-actualization that can somehow lead to a deeper sense of fulfillment, something lacking in a too comfortable life.

That being said, I still think there is a great need to bridge the wide gap between the poor and the rich in our society for the very reason that the gap breeds corruption. It has become the haven of injustice. This is where effective legislation and governance come in. This is the call of our time. This should be the real measure of development.

And while I continue to work with organizations that try to bridge the gap between these two worlds, I just feel so blessed that I am surrounded with circles and squares who treat me as one of theirs -- a family.

(Published in the Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro newspaper on September 24, 2012.)