THE THINKER (PART 2)

[Reflective memories from January 16, 2014]

The moment I did read these lines for the very first time back in 1985, I was convinced if I’d like to become successful in life, each and every word thereof—punctuations including—should be memorized.

That’s why I terribly felt bad I suffered so early in life what others don’t forget to call ‘memory gap.’ Had I always thought of that, I may have had conquered half of the world like Napoleon Bonaparte.

But surely I won’t ever forget from where I first did get those lines. They were from our old boardinghouse’s frequent nun visitor I’d name ‘Sister Caroline.’ ‘Sister Caroline’ was a coed board mate’s sole sponsor of the latter’s school tuition. Of course, each time she’d visit she had a habit of wearing a habit but, boy, she was a vision.

At the close of the first semester of that school year she requested me to write those lines from Walter D. Wintle in a cartolina with a certain background drawing. I readily agreed to do it because when I asked her point-blank how a layman could win the heart of a nun she replied half-joking I’d to understand the poem’s meaning.

Sometimes I was so confused whether or not my non-continuance of schooling in that year’s second sem was considered a blessing, for I could not also imagine myself doing what was done by Rapunzel’s prince as I wasn’t yet ready at the time to scale any wall of a convent.

Yeah, if a man can’t think he can do it, it’s impossible for a thing to be accomplished. Or let’s put it this way, if a man thinks he can do it, there was someone who said fifty percent of the task did he already complete. If charity begins at home and in heart, it is in the mind that all accomplishments would start.

Do you think Rose ‘Osang’ Fontanes would rule yesterday’s Israel X-Factor singing contest had she not put it in her mind first that she would turn out to be the best? Although in ordinary eyes she’s apparently underprivileged, not having what showbiz called ‘complete package,’ still Israel’s judges favored her sheer talent from which X-factor should really be gauged.

There was some point in my life when I did think I could replace him in the Queen after the demise of Freddie Mercury, if only the surviving group members sought their late soloist’s replacement via YouTube like what’s been done by the Journey.

But to my God I’m always so grateful for He did think of a different thing for me and may have prepared me another role. Knowing full well my inner thoughts, He just asked me simply, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36).