just wanted to post my birthday e-mail last Sept 17, 2004 :

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LOVE TO LIVE, AND LIVE TO LOVE
NAGGING THOUGHTS AS I TURN 27

Today I just turned 27. Actually, it sounds like such a good age to be in. It doesn't sound as roundishly old as, say, 28. But then again, it's not as not-quite-there-yet as 26.

Personally, it's an age I never imagined I would be in - especially way back when things were much, much simpler - back when all I concerned myself with were cramming for long tests, getting high over U2 songs, skipping lunch to save money for my car audio system, and hanging out and yet hanging out again with friends. When things that I deemed then to be absolutely complex were actually just part and parcel of this lifestage they call `growing up'.

So now that I'm here, what does it feel like? How is it like to be at this yet-again juncture in my life? Am I the person that I imagined I would be?

Push the rewind button on the past 26 years, and there's just so much to ponder and reminisce on - like seeing a full-line buffet where you don't even know where to start picking and nibbling, weary that you won't have enough of the good stuff to put onto your plate. My family upbringing, my friends and relationships, and 16 full years of Jesuit education have of course played such a great and lasting imprint-slash-influence on who and what I am. And of course, my work and work environment have definitely shaped me - arguably, even hardened me. But if you're a friend, then I guess you'd know that my most recent experiences has been the most transformative - as if everything in my history before that just bled into these past two years, when I woke up and discovered this wonderful gift called life.

Life. If we had the time to talk about it, we'd probably need the rest of our … well, lives. People argue that we tend to overanalyze it, overcomplicate it - all understandably with good reason of course. After all, how can it not be complicated? How can it not be confusing when it's often filled with so many questions that zip and zang at you from all the oddest places, like potholes from a government-implemented highway project six months after the ribbon-cutting?

Questions, turning points, and decisions. Critical points when the roads turn twisted and bending; when decisions become neither black nor white - just different shades of grey; when life itself seems to have transformed into an amalgam of past, present, and future all rolled into the ever-fleeting now-ness of now. Ahhh, life questions.

What to do with this gift called life? It's a question 1. few ever ask, 2. fewer can honestly answer, and 3. even fewer still who can truthfully say that they actually got up and did something about it. I'd like to believe I belong to the second group. But I'm trying as damn hard as I can to get myself into the third.

Sometimes the answers come unconsciously from within. I was talking to a friend who had a "relationship" concern. She was asking for advice, and the answer I gave surprised even me. I told her to go "kung saan ka talagang masaya" - to go where you will be truly happy. It's not rocket science to know that everybody wants to be happy. But putting that qualifier truly radically changes the perspective. Just think about it - how many people do you know have actually found true happiness, as opposed to just … (ho-hum, adjective-less) happiness? Now, doesn't that make things a little bit more interesting? After all, true happiness - the kind that makes you wake up every morning ready to jump out of bed - it's absolutely as elusive as absolutely elusive can get.

It's actually a question worth spending so much of your time and energy on - if only because discovering true happiness is intrinsically linked to the question of "what do I do with my life?". It's sort of like a McDo Value meal wherein you've got the burger the fries the drink all in one neat unbundable package, and absolutely rightfully so because having them all together just makes so much damn sense. So much damn sense that it riddles me so much why people don't give enough of themselves searching for it.

What makes me truly happy?

Simple joys and experiences. The enveloping embrace of waves upon water when I hit the beach. Singing out loudly in my car while hopelessly stuck in yet another traffic jam. The transportative magic of watching movies. Practical jokes that work - without backfiring (hehehe!). Killer hands during poker games. Strawberry ice cream laced with good conversation. Listening to and making music that just inexplicably connects. Living life, and loving every minute of it.

Meaningful relationships - the kind that great movie scripts are made of. Family. Friends. Mentors. People who touched my life and people whose lives I've hopefully touched. People I love.

A sense of meaning, of purpose. The idea that I'm actually living for something greater than me. Remembering man's oft-forgotten truth : that this life is not ours, it's just borrowed. And that we don't pay the rent on our lives with cash or bonds or hard assets, we can only pay back with love.

Love, love, love. It always - no matter how hard we try to negotiate around it - boils down to Love. And I'm not referring to the Mills & Boon or Harlequin Romance variety, the off-the-shelf corny kind of love. I'm talking about love in the broader sense - love as passion, love as energy, love as heart, and love as spirit. (The other kind of love a.k.a. soulmate a.k.a. lifepartner a.k.a. passionate other - still remains to be elusive, hehehe [Mark to God : hint, hint …])

But if life = happiness = love, then where do i go from here?

This morning I had breakfast with a really good friend. And one question kept ringing in my head in between slices of omelette and sausages - In this life, How much more love can I give? How much more?

There are days i feel like there's a sun inside of me waiting to explode, and today is one of those days. When there's so much of me and in me that wants to expand, to reach out, to literally burst. I feel like I'm at the cusp of something, as if the best years of my life are still ahead of me. I'm convinced that I'm at 20% of where I want to be, and it's the going through the other 80% that stokes so much the fire in me.

And so as i turn 27, as I ponder my life and try to discover what makes me truly happy, I end up with a catchphrase, a mindset, a paradigm : I will love to live, and live to love.

And so, my friend, let's be Nike and just do it. Dream. Work. Live. Laugh. Be stupid. Play. Sing. Dance. Feel. Draw. Touch. Sense. Breathe. Listen. Talk. Whisper. Hug. Kiss. Call. Jump. Fly. Experience. Give give give, and love love love as much as you possibly, possibly can. Imagine every day as your last - and then just give it all you've got. After all, when all is said is done, there will only be two questions asked of your life : How much love are you capable of? And just how much, just how much love did you give?

MARK RUIZ
SEPTEMBER 17, 2004