Cuasayahan Journal
Volume One
December 1997/January 1998

FOREWORD:
Ramon S. Cuasay

To anyone in the world who might get hold of a copy of this journal, that you might understand what all this writing is about:

What you read and see on these pages may bear a message. Out of respect for you and your inalienable freedom to choose, do not think it addressed to you. We too had the freedom to choose whether to write these lines or not. We write to reach those of you who are related to us by love, blood or birth. What we write is written as a guide. It is not that you should follows but simply that you may know that before you, others have already made their own choices. The enlightenments and adversities which made their own choices have irrevocably changed their lives and the course of other lives. The weight of the unwavering evidence of those events underlines the incalculable importance of choice.

You might ask: Do we have the answers to your questions? We would take that as a polite way of asking what credentials do we have and by whose authority did we get bestowed the privilege of addressing you. We would only say that we may have asked the same questions. As life's cycle comes full circle, our own children and their own offspring may ask the very same questions.

Is not life too short and too precious to spend our lifetime asking the same questions and seeking their answers? Life is for loving and serving each other. For caring for one another and forgiving our accompaniments of the difficult choices that had already been made by others before us. What vested interest might they have when they offer us a guide? It is not that we should follow but simply that we may know that after them, we too shall make our own choices if only to validate their lives, and ultimately, our own.

For the young, we would only say that your elders have lived in your world and we do understand the magnitude of your problems. We care enough to see you grow up understanding that we could help you if you ask us. We are here when you need us to listen to you. We already know that we have talked enough. That is why you have already distanced yourself incrementally. Your desire to be set apart is one way of discovering your identity and we do respect your right to know your own importance.

When you reject what we believe in, when you rebel against what we know to be good, do we have sense enough not to feel threatened? You are searching for a sense of self. You are testing the boundaries of your self esteem. But if you have risked your self value to proclaim in such bold fashion where you stand on certain issues, we too must risk our self worth and as boldly stake our own positions against yours, when we have to, without fear of alienation. Our life must bear witness to what we hold sacred at all times. Only then will our life be worth living. Yet always, our conviction is that we must show our love for you by doing all we can to assure your happiness.

Writing this essay was difficult, but defining the message of life is infinitely more difficult. Yet maybe, writing is very much like life. There is no commandment that prescribes how writing must be done but for it to have joy and meaning, it must at least follow good taste and reason. Further, we would only say that our world would be better, if life were based on both good taste and reason, and if life were governed by love then law. This is not an article of faith, but it makes the good foundation for our dialogue and understanding.


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