UTS - SOC SCI 101

Camella Agatep BSMLS 1B

WHO INSPIRES ME?

I have always attributed my preferences to a question -- what would Jo March do? Just because she had
an uneasy temper, I immediately think that she and I are so similar. Right, the girl with the infinitesimal
attraction towards selfishness and vanity. Inked hands that created worlds in their 1800s Concord house.
Even nobler, someone whom with no hesitation gave away that of what drives her to dream—writing
stories, for her sister. (Me comparing myself to her is borderline offensive to Alcott, the book’s writer.)

Then again, her existence is bound literally by a book cover. I don’t see her, I don’t encounter her in my
daily endeavors, I don’t speak to her, therefore she cannot possibly affect me as much as those I
experience these sensations with can.

A person, real, whom I draw inspiration from is our driver, my tatang. I have called him that as long as I
can remember, even before I knew his name. Always in the periphery when the family and I reach a new
destination, he sits there waiting, talking to locals. He watched us grow up. He drove me to school every
so often. He bought me the little pizzas at that local chain. He picked me up and paid my debts at the
canteen. He watched me wait for my first crush in high school. He has always seen the ugly fights
between us the family. Somehow, he knew when to keep quiet. He put up with a lot of things, now I
realize.

He always said he owed a big deal out from my father. Over my dad’s lifetime he has always been there
too—driving, navigating, asking passers-by for directions. Keen eyes and a steady voice except for when
laughing at a story he already said before. All my life my source of stories of my dad was those from
Tatang—he was probably very dear to his heart. Like a brother, he knew the tiniest details, even the
creamer on his coffee. Once inside the car, the radio static distorting the sound of a song, he hummed
because apparently my father used to love that song.

I want to be able to retell the grandest of occasions, that as well as the Lilliputian details on a person’s
manner of speech. I want to allow others to live through dimensions of language and imagination.
Vicariousness is life for those who are too weak to proceed. Narratives that long to linger are for those
who cannot walk further to experience them themselves.

These two people inspire me to do just that. Jo’s stories to Beth, Tatang’s stories to me. The only way we
pass on traditions and beliefs and essentially become ourselves are through these stories. Whether
fictional or not.

Moreover, I want to love what I do. In all its gore and glory, the roads that are too rocky, the systemic
patriarchy and finding flowers in the journey, seeing people come alive every day. I want to live to tell
the tale at the same time be in it—the story.