*Editor’s Note: The following is the full and unabridged version of Pao F. Vergara’s March Chalk Marks printed article.
Months ago, when the year was still young, I came across an article from The GUIDON’s Features section about drinking as part of the quintessential college experience. It was a back-and-forth framing two voices, that of those who drank and that of those who didn’t, not necessarily an argument, but a synthesis.
A brief segue: Allow me to say that, having worked in media since graduating, campus journalism remains one of the last truly independent bastions in the country, not answering to any corporate bottomline or political backer. As a wise man once said, “Sana all.”
Centuries ago, the Japanese monk Yoshida Kenko in “Essays in Idleness” mused on the beauty of festivals. It wasn’t the actual festivities that he spotlighted, but observing how people struck down the decor and dismantled the platforms, he argued that witnessing the end of the festival—and in the process, realizing the transience of life—completed the whole event’s beauty.
Kenko never expected people to read his diary, it was long after his death that it was given attention, when a title was appended to it.
It’s easy to romanticize this period as one of kimonos, boatmen on clear canals, and wandering poets, but Japan then was also a feudal society much like ours today. Dogen Zenji, a contemporary of Kenko’s and also a monk wrote, “The streams ran red with blood,” referring to the political killings between rival lords and their retainers.
No wonder then, that amidst all this turmoil, contemplatives like Kenko and Zenji had to find ways to stay sane, such as through finding what beauty was there. How far is centuries ago from today, after all?
I think there’s another beauty in what Kenko witnessed in festivals: The parties going on behind the scenes of the party, in striking decor up and down, in building and dismantling platforms, and the bonds forged along the way by those who made the party happen.
Back then, I wasn’t really the party type, but I did enjoy organizing events. I remember bonding backstage with others like me, as all around, arms and bodies swayed to the DJ’s rhythms. We introverts sipped our beers, nodding along, knowing that hey, we made all this happen.
I remember once walking by the McDonald’s across Marikina Sports Center one night. It was late, no longer evening but not quite midnight, and I heard singing and saw yellow lights. It turns out the staff were celebrating the birthday of one of theirs, poppers, trumpets, candles on a cake, phones out to record the moment of surprise and singing.
Nearby, at the intersection of Shoe Avenue and Sumulong Highway, police and paramedics cordoned off a lane as two cars crashed into each other.
In popular consciousness, certain experiences are considered essential to certain stages of life. Miss out on them and you pretty much missed out on said stage. College is one such stage with a certain set of “quintessential experiences.”
But college is more than what old movies and social media make it out to be: it’s that one place and time where ideas roam freely, when one expresses oneself freely. Even working students may find a freedom they’ll look back to once the daily grind of post college life commences.
While in college we chased deadlines, the pressure of full adulthood lingered in the background. In college, I made certain mistakes that, if made later, would be harder to bounce back from. One can experiment, one can mess around and find out. That’s freedom. That’s the quintessential college experience.
College is an ivory tower for a reason. It doesn’t have to be a bad thing, the term “ivory tower.” Seen another way, it’s like temporarily escaping the city, heading to a summit, in order to view it in a new light.
A lot of the theories discussed in class make sense when experienced after graduation, and a lot of murky phenomena clear up with theory.
Like the wandering poet-monks of Heian-era Japan, college is for most a time of meandering, a cup of sake under the cherry trees, for drinkers and non-drinkers alike. We’re able to talk about the blood on the streams from a safe distance, with the guidance and tools to process it.
Don’t worry if you feel like you’ve missed out on “quintessential experiences.” It’s not your fault especially today as the country is tentatively (re)opening, as we’re (re)learning to bridge social distancing and be with and among each other again.
For those who started college in 2020, I don’t blame you if you’re gonna catch up on everything you missed: the live UAAP games, the group meals, org life, the barefoot walks on open fields after a particularly riveting test, the drinking—be it alcohol, coffee, or whatnot.
The drinking! With good company, with company who gets it, with company who, at this moment in time, gets you for you, with company that’s finally beyond a screen and in the flesh.
You may have missed some typical “essential experiences” but you never know how the unique experiences you found in lieu of the “essential” ones make fertile ground, making you ripe to fully enjoy the experiences to come after graduation.
The world has space for everyone, after all. And like mangoes, don’t we all flower at different times? I’ve had friends who partied tons in college go on silent retreats five years after, while the wallflowers at parties now dance freaky in Poblacion.
You never know what selves you’ll encounter later, especially if you don’t miss out on the self, the you, experiencing the world right now in this one fleeting but perfect moment.
There’s a party going on.
And it’s here. It’s everywhere.
Pao F. Vergara was a member of The GUIDON Features Staff, AY 2015–2016. Vergara is currently a freelance journalist, cultural worker, and multimedia producer whose works have appeared on the Manila Bulletin, the Inquirer, ABS-CBN, Art Plus Magazine, and NewsNarratives, to name a few. Vergara has also been volunteering across Philippine Zen centers since 2016.
