Purgatory of the vanities

            It used to be that my choices were clear: whenever I was faced with the conundrum of studying, working or living in Manila or in my hone province, I always chose the former.

            My reasons then were varied but quite valid. On the surface (that is, more mundanely), it is because of the fact that it is in the Big City where one could find several advantages not normally found in provinces: access to better quality of education, access to jobs, better facilities and conveniences, malls even. Idealistically, the reason is prestige and self-pride. If you are a probinsiyano and you make it good in Manila (or in other Big Cities for that matter), you are definitely accorded more platitudes and respect than if you are a probinsiyano making good in your home province. (Now the trend is for a Filipino to make good internationally to be accorded greater respect and accolades. But I digress.)

            There was a time too when my reason for preferring Manila than my province was other than mundane or idealistic. After graduating from college, one of the job offers I had was to work for the management team of a prominent Filipino fast-food chain which was putting up an outlet in our province. But before the actual work, I was to be sent for training to one of its branches-cum-training facilities in Central Mindanao. Several months before that, there were rampant bombings and kidnappings and other security threats in that part of Mindanao---the handiwork of the Abu Sayyaf and other Muslim extremists.

            Of course I refused the job even if I am from Mindanao (although from the peaceful part). Finding nothing more appealing to do back home, I came back to Manila. I ended up pursuing a law degree instead.

            All in all, starting from college, I have been living in Manila for ten years. As far as I know, there have been no Abu Sayyaf here, no threats of pillage and plunder by extremists (which happened to a town in my province back when I was in high school), opportunities are quite abundant, and there is access to almost everything. In short, no clear and present physical dangers, no dearth of economic options. Threats to security, lack of economic options, and absence of opportunities for self-actualization, for me, translate to “dangers” to my goals and ambitions.

At this point in my life though, what I am concerned about are “dangers to my soul.” I believe I have already acclimatized to the Big City way of life that I feel like that “City Mouse” in the fable “City Mouse and Country Mouse.”

            To reminisce a bit more, I could still clearly remember my very first months as a college freshman at the Sate University. I probably was then fit for the Guinness Book of World Records for the most number of long distance calls. For every long distance call, I wept. Then, I had felt the agony of being away from my family, of having no relatives who live nearby. I most especially abhor the indifference and the couldn’t-care-less attitude of Big City people.

            Back then, I missed the laidback way of life in the province. I missed my friends and my family. I missed the concerned and well-meaning neighbors. I missed the “sense of kinship and community” of small city compared to a megalopolis.

            Several years later, I have become those which I once abhorred. I have become a slick city person---indifferent, sophisticated, street-smart, wise to the ways of the world, and almost soulless. Whereas before I ecstatically looked forward to every posibble vacation (Christmas, summer, semestral break), now I very, very seldom go home to my province. There were even years that I did not go home for Christmas.

            I had an idea as to my complete transformation from a provincial lad to a city person when I could not care less when a colegiala was held up right in front of me while I was walking along Recto. In another instance, I just had to look the other way when a fellow passenger was robbed. It does not bother me when a dorm mate would probably go to prison for a hazing incident. Almost nothing bothers me anymore.

            After all this time in Manila and as I am set to graduate from law school, i am again faced with the conundrum whether to work and live here or to go back to my home province.

            It is a toss-up between “dangers” to my ambitions or goals if I have to go back to the province and “dangers” to my soul if I stay in Manila. For now, I suspect that my soul still has room for more flogging.  

[I found this in my journal.This was written a few years ago.]