During high school, my heart pounded like war drums whenever my eyes get to see Vangie around. She held my heart as if it were her own beating for her. Those were the times when I wrote poems and love letters in utmost care – wary of grammar and content – in attempt to please my beloved.
The young heart that was then, I got hooked to write something for her daily. Others were discarded when I found them less appealing to my standards that time. For some that were lined to my norm, I’ve kept and illustrated in a notebook dedicated for compilation. However, my courtship failed. Knowing that my compilation is nothing more than a waste, without hesitation I gave it to her upon her request of ownership.
In that compilation, I remember a poem that contained the opening line:
Once I made a practical joke
I said, I thirst for you like a bottle of coke
As time passed the joke became real
And love became a thing for me to feel.
In the entirety of the 935 keyboard strokes that served as my introduction, you may have guessed that this piece is about love and how I fell for it. Wrong! It’s about coke – the soda trademark. No joke.
Setting aside the trademark, let’s examine how coke may mean.
- Solid residue remaining after certain types of bituminous coals are heated to a high temperature out of contact with air until substantially all of the volatile constituents have been driven off. The residue is chiefly carbon, with minor amounts of hydrogen, nitrogen, sulfur, and oxygen. Also present in coke is the mineral matter in the original coal, chemically altered and decomposed during the coking process.
- By etymology through shortening and alteration, it may mean cocaine. And thus, coke may be a bitter crystalline alkaloid C17H21NO4 obtained from coca leaves that is used medically as a topical anaesthetic and illicitly for its euphoric effects and that may result in a compulsive psychological need.
- Getting back to the soft drink trademark – a soft drink is any of a class of non-alcoholic beverage, usually but not necessarily carbonated, normally containing a natural or artificial sweetening agent, edible acids, natural or artificial flavours, and sometimes juice.
So this ends my second introduction. Quoting the QTV’s Hapinas, a comedy morning show:
“And now, back to reality.”Truth is, I have nothing to write about. Bye. Har har har.
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Life is indeed a spectacle of miracles. Even mishaps occur with attached miracles in it or at least makes us all miracle-workers during such occurrence. Hitherto, what miracles have I that make me say so? I am alive.
Being alive.
Exposure to routine and non-routine events moulds us into who we are today. Our decisions and speech defines what background we came from. It also details a description of the path we have treaded in the past.
Take for instance a person, making regular mention of interjections such as: “Hayop!”, “Animal!” might suggest that he was born in a zoo. Or how about those that favors mentioning “diyos ko po! (“My god!”)” may have been born from a church. OK, the previous are but senseless assertions. On a more serious note, our favorite expressions reflect what environment we came from. The miracle that we can do is to learn how to suppress our vile tongue from utterance what we deem as boorish and unbecoming of being a human.
Anger is no excuse!
What separates a man from a beast is education – should I say the application of what education has been injected into any man. Overall, any person capable of implying anger without the unnecessary mention of boorish exclamations has learned to be miraculous in one way or the other. And education is miraculous only to those who truly understand what it means. Education is different from learning as wisdom differs from intelligence.
With regards to flora, our Creator gave us dominion to rear after it. And our assessments regarding how we take care of the latter reflects what education we have. When a seed (say any fruit seed) grows out in your beautiful garden, what would you do? Will you uproot the emerging plant and leave it to die or transfer the seedling to a pot and allow it to grow? For whatever certitude you have for it, the choice were yours to take irregardless of the creator – for he has granted you authority to look after your garden. To put up another garden to accept the random seedlings in your life is a better choice otherwise, give them to seedling banks or plant it somewhere else where it will have a better chance of survival. After all, the seedling may not have been in your original garden should you have checked on it everyday.
As with mishaps, I think that no person desires for it. The important thing when we speak of such matters is our fortitude to pass along it safely. For what strengths needed to survive them, partial attributes of learning contribute to it, as such knowing survival techniques. The rest comes from our desire and hope to survive.
Getting back to coke, the choice begins from learning what possible meanings there are. Would you decide to use a residue, cocaine or a soft drink? In whatever form, each owns beneficial attributes. What makes them bad may be overuse or illicit use. In essence use them sparingly.
In my terms, I’ll take the soft drink because it is non-alcoholic. Some decisions are blurred when alcohol controls one’s spirit. So does drugs and other jagged pills.