Cerebral Combustion
Who influences your thinking?
I hereby declare myself to be an intellectual devotee, and I unabashedly marvel at individuals who can articulate an opinion or thought from bits and pieces of no humanitarian significance to changing the world. It amuses me to watch people so engrossed in their personal ruminations. In my restless pursuit for knowledge, wit and literary astuteness, I never ceased to listen, read, observe and absorb. If they talk I don't blink. If they talk in print, I scarcely breathe.
I started to have a cosmic affinity with Jessica Zafra a decade ago, albeit a mythical one, and still am a believer of her world domination theory today. As an author, talkshow host, journalist and columnist, she has extensively imparted her acerbic sense of humor, idiosyncrasies, wit and poignant cynicisms and sarcasm to my bucket of erudition. Zafra to me is an all around genius.
When I first saw her speak I was literally flabbergasted. She was just 18 then and for a bizarre moment I thought to myself, what was I thinking when I was eighteen? She defeated all other countries (59) in London for an International Public Speaking Competition four years ago when she aptly spoke about the Filipino Diaspora. Now, she is a full grown advocate for the obliteration of human rights atrocities, military impunity and a radical onlooker of sporadic political episodes in the country. She writes as a broadsheet columnist, a co-host in a youth oriented discussion program, and a debate adjudicator in an interschool debate competition in television.
It does not count that I used to secretly have a crush on him, but Teodoro Locsin Jr's political and personal banters was a part of my daily life. I remember being stunned at first by the liberty of explicit languages used in his columns in a newspaper of which he was the publisher and the editor-in-chief. For long, I was as well a constant viewer of his public affairs programs in television. Now he is on his third term as congressman of the 1st District of Makati. He is the principal author of major tax, banking, citizenship, suffrage and citizen legislation, such as, the Anti-Money Laundering Act, EVAT, SPAV, Electronic Election, Overseas Voting, and was the only one in the entire Congress to speak up against the fertilizer scam. Truly, this man is a classic.
There are many more with the likes of Oprah, Boy Abunda in his show Private Conversations, Martin Nievera in his now defunct late night show, Conrado de Quiros for enormous state commentaries, Conan and Jay Leno for a different dimension of sharp entertainment and humor, Miriam Defensor-Santiago before she went cuckoo, my favorite authors Paulo Coelho and Leo Buscaglia -- quintessential reads for being, and Ricky Carandang in Mornings at ANC among others.
It is a vice that greatly rewards me at the end of the day for it is through absorption of the mind of others that I can get to be aware of my own and rejoice in its growth. This I know for sure, a fact a day keeps ignorance away.
"It contributes greatly towards a man's moral and intellectual health, to be brought into habits of companionship with individuals unlike himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities he must go out of himself to appreciate."-- Nathaniel Hawthorne (American short-story Writer and Novelist, master of the allegorical and symbolic tale. One of the greatest fiction writers in American literature)