A Certainty of Sunshine
Sometimes I dont know which to believe: is ignorance bliss and what you don’t won’t hurt you; or is not knowing what’s happening is exactly what will kill you?
I have friends who are completely oblivious to what’s happening in the Philippines and the rest of the world. They’re good people — they have stable careers, they love their families and they are loved by them; they take care of their pet dogs, cats or the occasional cactus and orchid plant. They read good books, they eat right, they get to travel every three months or so. It’s an ideal existence for the most part, a comfortable niche and zone where they can exist and flourish despite the bombs that rain on the rest of the world.
Doesn’t everyone wish for normalcy? A life that doesn’t necessitate extreme effort? An existence that can be petulantly called - on a bad day - as boring; and on a good day as ‘complete’ and ‘fulfilled.’
To embrace and maintain a schedule as steady as clockwork; as reliable as sunshine. To never want for anything beyond what one needs; to never cause anybody else pain or hurt or anger or worry; and to never be the target of anyone else’s anger, punishment or self-serving agenda. To never have anyone or anything near and dear and essential taken away from you, destroyed or irrevocably broken.
There are people with normal lives, with and right now I envy them. Maybe it’s not the worst thing to wish on anyone; not the worst thing to want for one’s self. To have, as Adrienne Rich says, a certain stay that cannot be undermined. It’s so ironic, so brutal in its plainness that most people just want a simple and unevenful life. To be allowed to live and dream and evolve as a human being without fear of being stifled or crushed.
Sometimes I am tempted to agree with a friend of mine who insists that human nature is what truly drives and motivates most people; and that this human nature is for the most part mediocre, lazy, unambitious and even cowardly. He says that the challenge is to awaken this nature and to encourage its development into something with the glint and sharpness of knives, the sensitivity of flowers and the generosity of the sun.
I guess I don’t have to add that he doesn’t believe that class background and orientation are vital in determining how one acts, thinks and feels about one’s self, others and the world. It’s human nature.
On a not-so-up kind of day, I think of this: How many prisoners of necessity are? Is a man condemned to live in pursuit of work and food? How many have their fates written on their faces the day they make their way into the world and cry for the first time? How many are denied sun and salt?
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I like the excitement I feel when I’m searching for a particular book. I like how eager and anxious I get looking for a book that has caught my attention in some website, or newspaper review article, or from word of mouth.
Right now I’m looking for a 132-page watercolor picture book titled ‘A Certainty of Sunshine’ by Jimmy Liao.
When I first came to Hong Kong, I saw a small poster in one of the Chinese bookstores - 
and I felt immediately drawn to it (I have ceased to be surprised or disappointed with the way I am and how pathetically easy it is to make me happy).
The poster was in Chinese (except for the book title) , so of course I couldn’t understand what it was saying; but all the same the drawings felt somewhat dear to me.
Late last week I went to Wan Chai to check the pirated DVD and CD stores (they have actual shops. I don’t know how they get away with it, it’s dead-sure that the media they sell are pirated because everything’s a fraction of what original copies would cost at HMV. ), and I found this DVD titled ‘Turn Left, Turn Right.’
I immediately bought it and that same night when I got home I watched it. Sure enough, it was based on on A Certainty of Sunshine. 
The story is about two people who appear to have been destined to be together, but they never meet. He’s a violinist and she’s a translator who loves poetry (Nobel Prize winner Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska to be exact. My friend — a brilliant poet herself — Jovy loves her), and they’re both shy and dreamers and creative and clumsy and awkward. He has a tendency to run, walk move towards his right even when hurrying away from aggressive women who want to be his girlfriend ; she always turns to her left whether rushing for work or plodding home in the twilight, dejected from dealing with a publisher who doesn’t appreciate her worth.
For a little over an hour I forgot all my problems (even the imagined ones). One could say that the plot is a little contrived, but it worked well and one cannot help but be taken in by the simple beauty of a movie that seemed carefully-made (the soundtrack was beautiful; and the poetry, too) yet also reckless in its rendering (the two characters keep rushing left and right. Just like in the book, I suppose)
I think at the very core of me I’m an escapist and for all the horrible things I have seen and experienced and learned, I am still essentially a believer in fairy tales.
In short, naive. To be brutally honest, tanga.
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Nothing Twice by Wislawa Szymborska
Nothing can ever happen twice.
In consequence, the sorry fact is
that we arrive here improvised
and leave without the chance to practice.
Even if there is no one dumber,
if you’re the planet’s biggest dunce,
you can’t repeat the class in summer:
this course is only offered once.
No day copies yesterday,
no two nights will teach what bliss is
in precisely the same way,
with exactly the same kisses.
One day, perhaps, some idle tongue
mentions your name by accident:
I feel as if a rose were flung
into the room, all hue and scent.
The next day, though you’re here with me,
I can’t help looking at the clock:
A rose? A rose? What could that be?
Is it a flower or a rock?
Why do we treat the fleeting day
with so much needless fear and sorrow?
It’s in its nature not to stay:
Today is always gone tomorrow.
With smiles and kisses, we prefer
to seek accord beneath our star,
although we’re different (we concur)
just as two drops of water are.
