22/08/2025
| [Author’s note: It is with a raging plea that I urge you to read the actual poem first —Desiderata by Max Ehrmann. A treasure since circa 1927.]
Dearest old Max,
You’re right, life has been quite noisy and full of haste as of late. I believe in your time that’s been the same, just in a different form and way, otherwise you wouldn’t have said that. I’m curious though, is it true that we actually have it easier in our generation? Is it true that we have been emotionally and mentally weaker?
What if perhaps there wasn’t much conversation about it during your time, but your generation might have needed it as much as we do now?
It’s just that now, we learned the hard way to ask the question, “Are you okay?” And we’re braver enough to admit that we are not. And wiser enough to not shame those who unveil their brokenness inside. These are better questions birthed out of unlearning centuries of cultural beliefs scribbled in ancient bloods that stated something like, ‘depression is taboo.’ It’s hard to grasp that they were once sacred truths.
We don’t say things are getting better though, but I guess we’re trying to get there, with our eyes more open, our ears more ready, our hearts more willing. Ultimately, I don’t see a need to compare, for your era’s trials are yours, and these are ours. The ways of life evolve, and so do the hardships.
***
You remind me to hold on to the peace I will find in the silence, but that might be a different kind of challenge in our days. Because would you believe when I say that now, the noise of the whole world can be heard from a tool as little as would fit the grasp of our hands? It’s true. It is too powerful; it infiltrated every fragment of our means to live. We breathe in its power. It's hard to acknowledge that at the end of the day it’s meant only to be —just… a tool.
***
I keep rereading it but how can I be on good terms with everyone without surrender? These days, you must have your opinion, know where you stand, and fight for it. Else you’re nothing but a short-lived wave tossed by the winds. And I’d wildly claim I like it this way, because no one’s playing safe anymore. Now we are ever more driven to lend our voice to the weak and the oppressed, that they too will rise up. Because it’s true what old man Mr. Desmond said: that neutrality in moments of injustice, like silence, is a favor done for the oppressor.
***
I’ve been listening well; “even to the dull and the ignorant” —that’s at the cost of a pair of bleeding ears. But I found they often have already chosen their ignorance. It’s not the lack of knowing anymore, rather they refuse to listen; their pride greater than the desire for and mandate of truth.
You’re right however, they do have their story, sometimes my bitterness toward their foul actions evaporates when I get to understand where they’re coming from, but I’m telling you, it takes quite a great deal of patience before it gets there. And above it all, I also learn that their stories do not excuse them from their ignorance. It simply becomes easier on my part (sans the weight of bitterness) but I will continue to rebuke them for unwaveringly turning their heads from righteousness and playing the victim.
***
It’s hard to avoid loud and aggressive people. They’ve also been scarier. Being loud as they are, their lips endlessly spout nonsense narratives that may lead others to stumble. I have felt compelled to stand in the lookout —keeping watch relentlessly for I’d rather be threatened by their toxicity than have another soul get lost in it, and become one with them.
Rather than avoid it, I have chosen to cultivate a ‘stronger spirit’, a stronger heart, and a stronger mind able to withstand it. So I guess you’re right again.
***
I would like to dare say that my career isn’t humble. Yet I do hope that I have the interest to keep while I pursue them. For I have strived for the stars and I am now paying the price of my towering ambitions.
But again, it’s true what you say. Because I may not have been able to reach for the stars if not for the blood, sweat, and tears of aging limbs that toiled for years in what you pertain to be these “humble careers.”
Indeed, they have been real possessions in the changing fortunes of time; because it wasn’t just theirs, it also became mine.
And I have also found them more than ‘possessions’, but ‘fortunes’ that stand unstolen by the toughest of times.
***
I’m grateful to be surrounded by people whose love pours out like a wellspring of their life. They do it like second nature. And for that reason it has been easier to be myself. Their love is so real that I have known to recognize when affection is feigned. I learned to love well. It's like channeling what I so abundantly receive to others so they may find it easier to be themselves too.
Love is timeless, you’re right again. For I cannot fathom what life will be like without it. And even I witness how others who have never found it, walk yonder in their life, knowingly and unknowingly, seeking it. Through and through, I see their souls die right in their eyes when they fail to do so.
***
I thought what you say to “take kindly the counsel of the years” is merely the honor of besting time and earning silver hairs. I never realized it meant victoring battles of seasons, lasting storms of the journeys in rock bottom, and emerging scathed and scarred. But also; changed.
When you said to “gracefully surrender” every bit of my youth, I never thought it meant slipping through my fingers without even realizing it. But with longing and pain hidden and dried in the pillows that muffled the wails of the child that I still am, just a lot quieter, more tired, more alone.
But again as you said, these might be just “dark imaginings” from “fears born out of fatigue… and loneliness…”
***
I have been chasing discipline. I am in university afterall. And it gets harder to remember that I need to be gentle with myself too. Fortunately, it is here as well that I have rather found treasures of souls who willingly do that for me. And you've never been more right again, for their presence makes me believe each passing day that despite all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, this is still a beautiful world.
***
Despite all these sentiments of mine, know that I have carved your poem in the tablets of my heart, and I’ve clasped it tightly in my life as a guiding light like I do with my Bible.
I am cheerful. I strive to find joy in everything with unfailing faith that I will find it, and I always eventually do. I hope to lead a life that manifests to be a walking version of this piece. Thank you for the chronicles of wisdom. Each of them proves to be afterall, a desiderata.
Sincerely yours and rightfully existing,
a child no less
than the trees and the stars
-
Words by Micah Anggaco
Art by Jeff Lee Yan Jose
