In the Corners of my Mind

”I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leave of gold there grew:
Of wind I sang, a wind there came and in the branches blew.
Beyond the Sun, beyond the moon, the foam was on the Sea,
And by the strand of Ilmarin there grew a golden Tree.

…O Lórien! Too long have I dwelt upon this Hither Shore
And in a fading crown have twined the golden elanor.
But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me?
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?”

-- Galadriel, from ‘The Fellowship of the Ring”

***
I was reading the newspaper when I came across an article written by a former UP Pol Sci teaching associate. The piece recounted her years of teaching in the State U, the way she apprehensively but courageously hurdled her neophyte years as a teacher, exchanging more than barbs with political science majors who were the same age or even older than she was at the time. It was her experience in teaching that made her realize the value of introspection and humility, especially in a setting where the shaping of minds was a two-way street.

Anyway, that article made me realize how much I miss the university where I came from. Only a couple of months have passed since I’ve stepped out of college, but I feel like school was a lifetime ago.

Salcedo park is no Sunken Garden. Although walking through Salcedo park and through the other streets in Makati would always be a nice experience because the mere thought of walking through one of the country’s business and finance centers is exciting, there are days that my heart longs to walk around the Sunken Garden, where instead of man-made trellises and walkways people would instead be walking in the shade of huge acacia trees. I remember commuting home would be less of a drag because I was always with good company whenever walking towards Vinzon’s Hall, which was just fronting the Sunken Garden. Seeing the Sunken Garden loom ahead always brings an inspiring and amazing feeling – it never fails to remind me that I am in UP, a place where academic freedom is always pursued.

I miss the people from school, no question. But aside from the people, I miss those idyllic days when people were encouraged to think freely and without reservation. I could say that UP is my Lothlorien. Although the university is far from perfect, it seems like sanctuary from some of the pressing things afflicting the world today. I suppose that even though there are a lot of issues that the people in school have chosen to immerse themselves in, for me the university still remains to be an ivory tower. Whether people would like to admit it or not, sometimes some of the things that they debate upon are just things that they would talk about for the sake of discussing it. And frankly, I suppose this is partly good – at least awareness and apathy are not totally dead in the university. Anyway, what I am trying to say is that this is the reason why the State U is a fertile ground for intellectual development– everything is not perfect, there would always be room for questioning and growth.

Anyway, I miss those days. I miss those days when the world seemed like vast ocean, when life was brimming with possibilities…when people were quite idealistic even though some refuse to admit it.

My boss asked me whether I believed in architectural determinism, a state wherein one thought that architecture could solve the world’s problems, where simply altering the environment where people inhabit would create magnanimous changes in the way people lived. My head said no but my heart believed otherwise. And I can’t be blamed for that – I am young and I feel I have much to offer.

But now I am not so sure. I feel that I am bogged down in routine, and I don’t think this is something that would go away even if I changed firms. Is it actually possible to be learning so much yet gaining so little?

I don’t know. I long to go back to my Lothlorien.