To take the road less traveled

Juan Apolinario C. Reyes

Talking about road less traveled, I wish to share with you the challenges embraced by some of my friends.

One is trekking the entire American continent on his mountain bike from Alaska and to the southernmost tip of south America. He is accompanied by his fiancée who refused to be outdone. She too rides the mountain bike.

Another friend of mine often runs ultramarathons. He is about to run one in a few days. That's 100K+ of running. Legends says the first marathoner, Pheidippides, died after covering a distance of 42k without rest. This he did to relay the news to his countrymen in Athens that the Persians are on their way to pillage the city. My ultramarathoner friend is a school principal, husband and father to four kids.

Epics, folklore, and parables often tell stories of a person who takes a journey, one paved by so many challenges. Few people took that journey, the story says, because few people returned from it alive. Almost nobody comes out of it alive. If ever they are still alive out there, they haven't returned yet and that's after one hundred years of waiting. And yet nearly all epics begin with stories about such journeys.

These stories wish to make a point about the transformation of character: the road to character transformation is not logical. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pros and Cons of Maharlika Wealth Fund

Juan Apolinario C. Reyes
Maharlika Wealth Fund (Sovereign Fund) House Bill 6398 (Cons and Pros) Cons a. This will create another layer of bureaucracy in a country where government is already humongous and ridden with so much corruption. b. Since the constituent funds will come from SSS, GSIS, Land Bank, & DBP, a major failure in managing Maharlika Fund will cascade into our major pension systems and two major finance corporations. The consequences of a financial debacle stemming from funds mismanagement is huge. Pros a. The Maharlika Fund will receive so much government largesse to jumpstart it, an amount of money which the constituent corporations can never acquire on their own. The sovereign fund will also receive regular contributions from PAGCOR, BSP, General Appropriations, etc. But Maharlika Fund is not obligated to pay the latter back. This means that indirectly GSIS, SSS, LB, and DBP will receive a huge amount of public money. Free. b. In case of a financial debacle, the Maharlika Fund would always...
Read more

The Philippine's big one (West Valley Fault System)

Juan Apolinario C. Reyes
  I am reading and preparing for my lectures on exponential probability distributions. My readings and thinking about this topic got me to say the paragraphs below. If an active fault hasn't moved in a long time to give us a major earthquake when geological records show it has done that in the past, then the probability it will move again as to give a massive earthquake, leaving behind massive destruction, progressively goes close to 100% as time and years pass by. The destruction of all buildings and infrastructures along the West Valley Fault System and the pain and anguish it will leave behind are already set on stone. The probability of a huge earthquake due to the movements along this fault is as sure as the destiny of all our dogs and cats. They all die. I wonder where in Metro Manila will my siblings and their kids be when the big one happens.
Read more