JIM PAREDES TALK DURING BOOK LAUNCHING OF WRITING ON WATER
Powerbooks, Pasay Road, Makati
October 18, 6PM.
My dear friends, relatives, students, colleagues, and all those who happened to just be here,
Thank you very much for being here.
Writing On Water is my third book. The first one is called Humming In My Universe, the second one is Between Blinks, and now, my third one. I started writing this book even before Edsa Dos happened, and finished everything around middle of last year.
During the launching of Humming In My Universe, I boldly proclaimed that I was going to write 20 books in my lifetime. I have 17 more to go after tonight. I hope I have a long lifetime.
The coolest thing about writing a book is you can announce your thoughts through the published word and share them with readers. The scariest thing about writing a book is that you can be reckless enough to announce your thoughts through the published word and share them with readers.
Right now I feel both cool and scared. Cool, because I actually have another book out and that feels GREAT! WOW!! I am also scared, because publishing my thoughts makes me vulnerable, if not duty-bound to protect what I have said, or even live by them. Right now, I have no problem with that since my thoughts still coincide with what I have written. I felt they were true then as now. The scary part is, what happens in the future when I feel differently about what I have written today?
We have always been taught to stand for our beliefs, and that is a great thing. However, after living on this earth for 52 years now, I realize that the greater part of growing sometimes lies not in our rigidity and devotion to beliefs but in our openness to what life presents. The unfolding of events, the new inspirations that come, the synchronicity that the universe throws along our paths very often tell us that the Truth we harbor is actually bigger than we can imagine. In fact, Truth, or more accurately, our understanding of it, like software always needs to be upgraded. The version of our understanding could easily reach its expiration date, if we don’t watch out.
To be metaphoric about it, Truth can only watch, while patiently waiting for us to appreciate it in all its glory, even though we seem to understand it at best, in tiny morsels served over a lifetime.
And in that lies my escape hatch.
I will keep writing however imperfect my take on things, on truth as I see it, because my understanding is always being upgraded, expanded, clarified as life unfolds itself. But I will try my best to always confront it with greater openness, consciousness, attentiveness and compassion.
Writing On Water is the latest upgrade.