On Essays
Moving stuff from Facebook for archival purposes.
As an offshoot of my love for blogs, I also love reading essays in general: From the OG Montaigne himself to Barthes' Lover's Discourse, from opinion columns in newspapers to Reddit threads containing film criticisms, and then diving into my niche interests - from legal essays to church apologetics. Just like blog posts, reading essays is like looking through a small window into the mind of the author and even entire philosophies alien to your own. For example, as much as our ideologies are vastly different, I like reading through pro-Duterte Facebook posts because it allows me to think that there is reason and thought to the "other" side.
My deep love for essays may have come from my prelaw course as a writing major. Essays have always been part of my college education. We read books, watch films, go to the theater - and then we write reaction papers. We take a look at TV commercials and analyze them through lengthy essays. In one subject, I even wrote - cheekily - an essay about all the past essays I had written at that point.
Essays are wonderful creations, and I am glad that the Palanca Awards has dedicated a prize for them - not only English but also Filipino, and then a separate category for the youth. Some winning works have been posted online, and if you want to start reading essays, I recommend starting with these four, which you can access on the Palanca website:
Filipino Millennial Monomyth, by Michaela de Leon, about being a Filipino, a millennial, a queer, and a writer - and all those together;
In My Father's Kitchen, by Michelle Rivera, about her father and his cooking;
Circle, by Hammed Bolataolo, about the houses he had lived in and his experiences therein; and
Dao, by Martin Villanueva, about their house along Dao Street in Parañaque.
Here's the link to the Palanca website for these essays and other winning works.
As for my own, aside from the many blog posts I have written on many websites in many iterations, I also wrote my thoughts down through short sentences I keep in my phone's notes, hoping they will be full-fledged ideas in time. They range from the nonsense:
Idea: Elephant memories toward generational animosity of humans. AI elephants?
Toward the thoughtful:
Without the right word or verbal expression, what you had written down in that specific frame of mind represents a tainted version of that certain quick thought. Of what? Impatience. Had we not experienced this before, of the vile effects of those who could not wait? Rather, we should let that thought mature first, let it settle down, let it slide down to our consciousness. After a few moments of sweet contemplation or decisive meditation, we might encounter the words that would symbolize best the form of our thoughts and our minds.
I would like to transfer and share some of these essays on my phone on this page someday, aside from the reviews I am doing of everyday stuff. Some of it might be boring, some of it might be fun, and some of it, like the vengeful AI elephants, would not even make sense, but all of it will be, in some way or another, a window to my soul.
Thanks for reading!