Tuesday, May 5, 2009

After Watching “Rent”

Really, how do you measure life? How do you know if the life you’re living is good enough? What is a good life? There was a time when you ask me these questions and I can answer with full conviction and in one solid statement: A good life is a life spent on something bigger than myself. A life that is not spent on noble thing is a life not worth living. That was from Andres Bonifacio. I remember-- that was my motto while I was mentoring high school students in theater pro bono.

Well, that motto can’t pay for my rent today. Looking at this place where I am living now, I think I have achieved everything I have aspired for: my own place, my own space, lots of time to learn to cook vegetarian dishes, watch all the movies I missed, read all the books I planned on reading, explore the places I have never been to. I have all the time and space and all I needed to do is to use the ample time and space as planned but I am not doing that. It took a movie to make me realize it and that everything I was aspiring for was too self-centered.

One of the songs in “Rent” has this lyrics: “There’s only now, there’s only here . . no other path, no other way, no day but today”. I remember an old friend of mine Rialey said the same thing to me when in one long e-mail I shared more “noble” dreams, if I can call them that. She said that if I want to take that path, I should be the one to take the steps and not wait for the path to be cleared out for me. I think the disease that’s eating my life away is exactly that – waiting for the path that I want. Again, I find myself submerged deep into the “blissful ignorance” mode.

Did I leave my sheltered and comfortable life in Batangas just so I can make my own sheltered and comfortable life here in Manila? It’s useless to think about the reason why I designed my life as an artificial sweet bubble and how it came to be that way. I kinda miss being a carefree Manila streetchild back in college when the only thing I needed to secure while on the streets was the good friends I was with. But as the movie says, “There’s no past. . . There’s no future. . . There’s only today.”

I will not start wasting time on regret tonight. I am stopping on thinking about the past. That’s one insight I got from “Rent” that I’m sure I will never learn even if I watch “Wolverine” a hundred times. I enjoyed “Wolverine” but sometimes when all you see are beefed up bodies, beautiful faces, exciting stunts and flashy effects, sometimes you just miss watching a truly good movie – a movie that will make you think about things, make you remember –

Remember, for example, where you are in the greater scheme of things. It takes either a beautiful movie or death of someone you know to slap you in the face and make you remember -- Remember that life is short to spend on negativities and bitterness. Remember that life is happening here and now -- you don’t prepare for it, you don’t let it pass you by.

I was watching the last scene of “Rent” and I was so moved I wished I could hug all the people I know. Now, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Can’t help it. I had the feeling that life is just wonderful – that even if there are worries looming at the back of my mind – the last ensemble scene made me feel joyful, inspired, exuberant! Yeah, maybe I just really missed watching these kinds of movies.

Life is here. Life is now. I don’t ever want to miss it again. The movie “Rent” made me remember how great life is and what makes it even greater is having wonderful, crazy, weird, beautiful people to share it with.