"our deepest fear..."

gaano ka-pathetic ang buhay ko so far? ngayon ko lang napanood yung coach carter. lumabas siya nung june-july and i promised myself that i would watch it, come hell or high water. but no... tinamaan ba naman ng magaling, kinain ng persons and family relations ang oras ko. hindi ko siya napanood. ni H2G2 di ko namalayan na showing na pala...

coach carter was an ok film. it was a tad predictable, save for the unstorybook-like ending which i think drove home the point perfectly. what's the best thing that can happen to a bunch of ballplayers who thought life only revolve around the streets and playing ball? have them lose the championship but realize that there's a future for them in college. but what made the movie stand out was this bit of dialogue:

what's your deepest fear?

our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate,
our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
it is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
your playing small does not serve the world,
there is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that others won't feel insecure around you.

we are all meant to shine as children do.
it is not just in some of us, it's in everyone.
and as we loet our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
and as we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

this poem? proverb? passage? was recited by the token latino guy on the team just as samuel l. jackson was about to 'quit' coaching them. i scanned the credits in the hope of finding an author i can attribute the passage to, but there wasn't any. i guess it was just some overzealous sciprwriter taking liberties with ken carter's lifestory. or maybe it was something ken carter wrote himself and wanted published. whatever it was, it did reach out to me and flick a switch on inside me. another one of those awe-inspiring hollywood poetic license moments. (the last one i had was with the live-action peter pan film)

all my life i've always been averse to taking responsibility. the phrase 'playing small' captures my modus operandi quite aptly. 'why bother going to all that trouble when only this much would be good enough?' and, 'no, i'm not doing this because i'm really into it, ayoko lang mapahiya ako/tayo.' are some of my most familiar quotable quotes. of course, some of my more perceptive friends have been quick to point out that it's all a farce i maintain so as to keep up my 'aimless loser/idiot-genius' cred, and at some level (though hell will probably freeze over before i admit it out loud) they're right. jason, self-righteous poseur. add that to my resume.

part of it is probably vanity: we downplay ourselves and what we can do in order to extract praise and reassurances from other people that we do rock and don't suck that bad. another reason, although less self-serving, is just as lame: we don't want others to think less of themselves when they compare themselves to us.

since it's christmas, and during christmas you tell the truth, i'm going to come clean and admit to both counts of playing small. yeah, hear me well, say thankya and cry your pardon. i played small when i deliberately ditched the auditions for the high school one-act play contests. i played small when i kept whining about how dissatisfied i was with the way our college student council ran things, only to keep quiet when asked what i proposed should be done. i played small all the time i was with friends whose GWAs were lower than me when i kept chalking up my good grades to our beloved lord of tsamba (there is a difference between acknowledging your indebtednesss to friends and refusing to own up to their sincere praise). i played small when i let others muddle their way through tasks i would've been perfectly capable of helping them with - just because i don't want to take on aditional responsibility or 'complicate' my life anymore than it already is. i play small with every voluntary recit i pass up even though i know the answer. i play small with every time i keep my mouth shut or refuse to give a second thought to a problem or cause i know i can help with. for a big guy whose friends are counting on him to succeed and make a mark for others, i ain't doing so hot.

in perfect hollywod world, this is the part whee i say to myself, 'no more playing small... blah blah blah' and begin to turn my life around. but this is the jason show, or the tragicomedy known as my life, and i know it's never that easy. the best i can hope for is a gradual, one-good-deed-one-day-at-a-time kind of change. and that's probably all i can promise to myself and the world. besides, i already owned up to being a self-righteous poseur. cut me some slack, now...

we don't really help anyone (least of all ourselves) by fooling ourselves with some false sense of security brought about by a narrow and limited image of our place in this world. i think it was an economics professor (bless those crazies at the SE) who told us that the problem with Filipinos is that they limit themselves and never dream big. maybe we're frightened of the possibility of failing. maybe we're bothered or even scared to death of what others might think about us when we go that ambitious extra step. i know i usually am. but i think here would be the proper instance to throw back the immortal Filipino replies: 'bahala na!' and 'anong pake nila?'

yeah, maybe it's time to really shoot for the stars. at least that way, if i come up short, i'll still end up landing on the moon. and i i do, i'll have a nice view of all those who'll come after me and do make it.