2011: Let us waving part, waving drop from sight Marco Harder

Writing an entry to cap off the year has started to feel like a ritual in the past few years, but this particular period makes it even more apparent as this has been more eventful than most of the years Ive had to live through. Either that, or Ive developed a more acute sense of perception that allowed me to experience this year more viscerally. Not being particularly superstitious, I would have to concede that there are times that my temperament leads me to take on brief s of the apotropaic, if only to subject myself to an alternate position as any selfrespecting and thinking person should. It is in these moments that I sometimes get the impression that 2011 was simply the protracted and inevitable continuation (or in some situations: conclusion) of the horrible year that was 2009. It is quite easy to think that 2011 was simply a trough in a series of years oscillating between the euphoric and swampy ends of a time chart. In any case, one needs to snap out of it as quickly as one can since it can not only be cloying but also tiresome to people around within a reasonable radius. It is in the latter tenor that I would like go through my usual assessment of the year thats about to end. After all, any appraisal of any kind should have some semblance of objectivity and detachment. This year in particular has proven to be the most difficult one in that regard, but I have tried my best to lessen the sap in this post. Truth be told, the year did not turn out to be a great one as I had expected it to be. We saw a terrible quake and the tsunami that ensued thereafter destroy what once was Iwate and Sendai. We went face to face once more with the prospect of a real nuclear disaster which we have not seen since 1986. A volcano grayed Chilean skies. Floodwaters submerged Bangkok. As if this wasnt enough to render me lugubrious, the endless lauriat of misery and disappointment also seemed to have found its way to my personal life (here we go again with the solipsism): professional staleness, lessened creative output, the death of a major figure of personal inspiration and losing faith in people all came to me this year in servings enough to make ones gorge rise, as if certain incidents already being emetic in themselves werent enough. Mustering enough positivity in the face of a series of misfortunes can be a daunting task, but if this year has taught me anything, it is that pleasant experiences are not to be harvested, but rather hunted. Joy requires at the minimum an impermeable desire to look further into, around, and forward in order for it to be gleaned and perhaps gamble on the chance of experiencing it. This opportunity to review the year, I reckon, should make it easier for me to do this because we all know how acute hindsight can be. The Arab Spring, as remote as it may seem, resonated loudly in me as one by one, nations oppressed by theocrats and dictators slowly succumbed to force of people demanding their civil rights and in the process reclaim their humanity. Later, Tunisia, Egypt and Libya will now finally be able to say that they are celebrating a genuinely new year and that the din they will be hearing will be the sound of fireworks [okay, maybe AK-47s] marking the entry of the new year instead of dull but fear-inducing thuds of mortars. Of course, any talk of liberation is bound to move into the discussion of other nefarious personalities. The deaths and arrests of theocrats, dictators and maniacal personalities are events that I marked with much gusto. The perpetrator of the tragedy that was 9/11 has finally been defeated and more importantly,

humiliated through the discovery of his massive digital pornography collection. Because of this, we can hope that while the jihadist threat still looms over us, we have won not only a symbolic victory but also a triumph in hearts and minds of his followers who have looked up to him as a symbol of the purity they aspire to in their Islamist worldviews. Kim Jong-il has passed away, and while North Koreans are still under the rule of this ridiculous crime family and personality cult, his death has managed to capture the attention of often apathetic generation raised on the internet. It is wishful to presume that this will translate to a real and concerted effort to liberate the people of North Korea, but as with diseases that rot the body from the inside, exposing it is often the first step to its treatment. The foiled escape plot that that impish thug of a congresswoman and her pudgy, lard-faced husband tried to mount was also a genuine cause of not only gladness but unbridled laughter, as I watched the absurd drama unscroll through my Twitter feed. At this point you may now ask: really now? It may seem strange to you, but this was the same question that I had asked myself as I jotted down these things in preparation for this entry. Why did I suddenly start caring about these things? How did they even cross the periphery of my mind into my sphere of focus? Reflecting on these led me to the conclusion that this year was conclusively the year that I fully welcomed the liberating joys and perils of intellectual honesty. As some of you may have read in my entry last year, it was then that I started to confront my beliefs squarely and that led me to the conclusion that I cant believe any of the things Ive used to believe in anymore. This year saw me continuing to challenge my beliefs by reading more about the subjects which my non-belief had any implications on. My friends have seen and heard me become more vocal about my secular outlook but in my opinion, this is mere hemwork; the real kicker was the renewed vigor with which Ive tried to learn as much as I can to continually challenge what I think I already know, a large part of which is testing my positions against other ideas available out there. Choosing intellectual honesty, of course, does not come without a price. I had fallings-out with some friends and saw a relationship break down largely as a result of this. It was specially excruciating for the most part when these things were happening since I keep my social circles quite small and spend my limited social energy to people that matter. Having fewer receptacles to receive it, I looked for people and places whom and where I could use the surplus on. Unexpended, it fueled despair and general lethargy and looking back at this, I sometimes feel terrible at the awful wastefulness of this period time- and energy-wise. In spite of this and the other tribulations I have had to endure simply because some people couldnt rise to the occasion, they now come to me as things I could now easily shrug off. Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit now comes to mind, as I now look back at all of this and laugh, and quite heartily at that. Not the sinister kind of mirth and nor is it one that comes at someones expense, though. If anything, this is the kind of laughter thats elicited when one is moderately inebriated in the presence of extremely good company, when the slightest utterance hinting at humor triggers disproportionate thigh-slapping cackles. This is not without cause: I have come to realize that the best iron is forged in the fiercest of fires. Going through such bad experiences perhaps took out those impurities in my life that may or have already been keeping me from doing what I would like to be doing, from going where I should be going. More importantly, it also allowed me to appraise who my real friends are and realize that I already have more than enough to last me a lifetime. Tersely put, it was an exercise in improving quality at the expense of some quantity.

I say some, as the harrowing experience of severing ties with long-time friends and acquaintances and the consequent social butterfly-ing I did to compensate for it built relationships with some interesting people that I otherwise would not have reached out to if I hadnt gone through such a bad time. Meeting the Filipino Freethinkers (a group Ive come to respect because of the work theyve done and continue to do), reconnecting with old comrades, spending time with like-minded secularists, befriending people at work and meeting new people through social networks yielded pretty interesting encounters and if 2011 has any redeeming factors, it would be these things. Of course, such things are always hit-and-miss affairs but for those whove turned out to be just as bad as the people Ive had to cull from my social catalogue: Ill chalk you all up to experience. No hard feelings. With that said, its very tempting to plant a fist in 2011s face and run as fast as I can. But then, parting ways with 2011 doesnt feel like leaving behind as cutting ties altogether. Surviving the ordeal that was this year, most of us now feel what Philip Larkin describes in a poem when lovers must take separate paths: we are like husks that see the grain going forward to some other purpose. In any case 2011, I will let him take the podium at this point and tell you more eloquently than I could what I feel about you:

Love, we must part now: do not let it be Calamitious and bitter. In the past There has been too much moonlight and self-pity: Let us have done with it: for now at last Never has sun more boldly paced the sky, Never were hearts more eager to be free, To kick down worlds, lash forests; you and I No longer hold them; we are husks, that see The grain going forward to a different use.

There is regret. Always, there is regret. But it is better that our lives unloose, As two tall ships, wind-mastered, wet with light, Break from an estuary with their courses set, And waving part, and waving drop from sight.

Philip Larkin, Love we must part now