Men can never stop dreaming. Dreams are the food of the soul, just as food is to the body. In our existence we often see our dreams come undone, yet it is necessary to go on dreaming, otherwise our soul dies and Agape does not penetrate it. Agape is universal love, the love which is greater and more important than “liking” someone. In his famous sermon on dreams, Martin Luther King reminds us of the fact that Jesus asked us to love our enemies, not to like them. This greater love is what drives us to go on fighting in spite of everything, to keep faith and joy, and to fight the Good Fight.

The Good Fight is the one we wage because our heart asks for it. In heroic times, when the apostles went out into the world to preach the Gospel, or in the days of the knights errant, things were easier: there was a lot of territory to travel, and a lot of things to do. Nowadays, however, the world has changed and the Good Fight has been moved from the battle fields to within us.

The Good Fight is the one we wage on behalf of our dreams. When they explode in us with all their might – in our youth – we have a great deal of courage, but we still have not learned to fight. After much effort we eventually learn to fight, and then we no longer have the same courage to fight. This makes us turn against ourselves and we start fighting and becoming our own worst enemy. We say that our dreams were childish, difficult to make come true, or the fruit of our ignorance of the realities of life. We kill our dreams because we are afraid of fighting the Good Fight.

The first symptom that we are killing our dreams is lack of time. The busiest people I have known in my life had time for everything. Those who did nothing were always tired and could hardly cope with the little work they had to do, always complaining that the day was too short. In fact, they were afraid of fighting the Good Fight.

The second symptom of the death of our dreams are our certainties. Because we do not want to see life as a great adventure to be lived, we begin to feel that we are wise, fair and correct in what little we ask of our existence. We look beyond the walls of our day-to-day life and hear the noise of spears clashing, feel the smell of sweat and gun-powder, see the great defeats and the faces of warriors thirsty for victory. But we never perceive the joy, the immense joy in the heart of those who are fighting, because for them it does not matter who wins or loses, what matters only is to fight the Good Fight.

Finally, the third symptom of the death of our dreams is peace. Life becomes a Sunday afternoon, not asking too much of us and not asking more than what we want to give. So we feel that we are “mature”, leave aside the “fantasies of childhood” and guarantee our personal and professional success. We are surprised when someone our age says they still want this or that out of life. But deep in our heart we know that what has happened is that we gave up fighting for our dreams, fighting the Good Fight.

When we give up our dreams and find peace, we enjoy a period of tranquility. But our dead dreams begin to rot inside us and infest the whole atmosphere we live in. We start acting cruel towards those around us, and eventually begin to direct this cruelty towards ourselves. Sickness and psychoses appear. What we wanted to avoid in fighting – disappointment and defeat – becomes the only legacy of our cowardice. And one fine day the dead and rotten dreams make the air difficult to breathe and then we want to die, we want death to free us from our certainties, from our worries, and from that terrible Sunday-afternoon peace.

So, to avoid all that, let’s face 2007 with the reverence of mystery and the joy of adventure.

by Paulo Coelho

Hello darkness, my old friend,
Ive come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone,
neath the halo of a street lamp,
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of
A neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence.

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one deared
Disturb the sound of silence.

Fools said i,you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows.
Hear my words that I might teach you,
Take my arms that I might reach you.
But my words like silent raindrops fell,
And echoed
In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon God they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning,
In the words that it was forming.
And the signs said, the words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls.
And whispered in the sounds of silence.

Hindi po ako tv addict, hindi rin ako showbiz fanatic, but that night, as i watched closely to the scene, nung nagtapat si Jacqui ng pag-ibig kay Ely, naluha talaga ako….and i couldn’t help it…ang galing acting ni Bea at John Loyd. Ang galing din ng takbo ng story…ang ganda ng pagkakagawa ng conflict. Nakakaloka, masyado yata akong naapektuhan sa eksenang yun. Hindi kaya ganun kadali magtapat ng nararamdaman !lalo na pag babae ka…kahit papano, bumabalik pa rin tayong mga filipina sa tradisyon. Minsan gusto ko alugin utak ko kung tama ba nararamdaman ko sa isang lalaking napakalayo naman sa mundong gingalawan ko…ang sakit lang kasi kung kelan handa na ako ipaglaban ang nararamdaman ko, saka ko pa mararamdaman na unti-unti syang naglalaho. Friends were even cynical about what I feel ….though some of them are still in full support bout this feeling.

Pero hindi naman pwedeng ako lang ang sumayaw sa tugtugin habang ang isa’y napapgod na rin. Kelangan ko rin magmove-on…dahil hindi naman huminto sa pag-ikot ang mundo  habang nasasaktan tayo…it is but normal na minsan kelangan mo iyakan  ang  mga bagay-bagay na  minsan nang naging  bahagi ng buhay mo…pero eto ang totoo…at walang ibang makakatulong “maliban sa dasal…kundi ang sarili lamang….”

baka mas kaya kong magsenti dito eh…

mukhang sugatan na naman drama natin nito..

pero ok lang…sabi ko na eh, hahay….

so pa’no ba yan puso ko?( When is the next?!)…

may next pa kaya after this?

hindi ka ba napapagod?naks naman!

mukhang dinaig ko pa drama ng “Maging sino ka Man” ah!

pasilong muna dito sa reflection ko…

hindi ko yata kayang ibalandra sa kabilang istasyon nararamdaman ko ngayon…

ang sakit talaga eh…

this time parang i can’t pretend to be fine na yata…

pagod na rin ako…

sige na…

gusto ko lang talagang ilabas ito…

paiyak lang muna dito…

malay natin, baka bukas paggising ko, wala na ‘to..

sana…sana…

pero ok lang…kaya ko pa…kaya pa…kakayanin…dahil hindi naman hihinto sa pag-ikot ang mundo kung wala siya…masakit nga lang…dahil akala ko iba sya…oo iba nga sya..kasi mas masakit ang paniwalain sa kung ano ang di totoo…kelan kaya ako matototo…isa na naman itong bahagi ng aking paglalakbay…hindi pa man natoto sa mga nakaraan…pero alam ko, mas bukas ang isip…mas handa sa panibagong pagtitiwala.

and so its true…honesty is not just a lonely…it hurts even more.

sa mundong puno ng hiwaga…

sana’y maging makabuluhan…

sana’y mapagtagumpayan…

halina’t tuklasin…ang isang paglalakbay!