Alea is a friend from Chicago. She is a magnificent circus performer and a hardcore liberal. She taught me how to juggle, wait till you see my next performance with five balls.

As the gap between the rich and the poor widens, there have been many attempts at anatomizing these two groups and how they behave with respect to their environments. One very significant hypothesis is that people who are well-privileged turn out to be more dependent on their parents and/or socially and psychologically weaker compared to the less fortunate who has gone through many ordeals and has been accustomed to solving problems independently.

One can have all the luxuries and wealth many people dream about in this world but unless a person knows how to be grateful for all that he has while being discreet in his actions and determined to labor for his dreams, then he will only end up relying on other people to do him favors or eventually begin to atrophy.

I had a friend who was at the top of my class in high school. Most of my classmates envied him for being gifted not only with an impressive intellect but also with riches. He drove his own car before anybody I can remember and always got the latest models of basketball shoes. Aside from being the president of the Math Club, he was also going out with the most sought-after girl at school. In short, everybody looked up at him as the most likely to succeed in life.

On graduation day, my friend was so confident of getting the valedictory honors that he wrote a speech in advance only to be disappointed by the principal’s announcement that all his efforts had only landed him the third honors. He went up on stage to get his medal with teary eyes, tears that indicated all but happiness. After that incident, he decided to stop talking to me and we never met since. I heard a news from his aunt that he did not want to go to college although he was accepted to one of the best universities in the Philippines. He started using drugs and was often rehabilitated because of his waning health.

This can be a good example to show that my friend failed even if he had everything one could wish for. However, it does not necessarily imply that the luxuries and conveniences that he enjoyed were the reasons for his failure. He started to regress when he found out that he could not live up to some of people’s expectations of him. He forgot to see that it was still his life and not his parents’, his girlfriend’s nor was it his former admirers’.

In contrast to my friend, I know a great number of people who have been brought up in affluence yet they have dreams that set them on the right path, the path which some may arguably call success and satisfaction in life.

I know a person from Canada who, at the age of 12, knew exactly what he would do in life: to help other children from poor countries out of poverty and injustice. He could have had the best toys, vacation, and education but instead he preferred to go out of his way to see the harsh reality in Asia and Africa where he founded the group Free the Children, a non-profit organization designed to ameliorate the sufferings of many children. His name is Craig Kielburger, now a 20 year-old who never stops helping those from the impoverished stratum, especially those of his age. He has received a potpourri of awards including a nomination for a Nobel Peace Price as just another feather in his cap.

Having the best luxuries in life does not assure anybody of what is in store for him in the future. On one hand, one can look at wealth as a weakness for some who would rather consume all his resources than work hard to replenish them. On the other hand, comfort and luxury can be seen as a strength and an instrument for those who strive to attain a goal, be it big or small.

Human actions and behavior are so indeterminate and inconsistent that categorizing the end result of an individual’s life through a limited perspective is quite elusive. Therefore, the luxuries and conveniences of one man does not exhibit strength nor weakness because somewhere along the way decisions are to be made, and this is where every man is on equal footing, being the master of his fate.

his breath touched my ear
the brawn of his fingers
clasped the beating pulse
of circle that served passage
to the years of toil
and suckled ignorance;
his nails dug deeper
turning pale to purple
making prints that looked
like footprints in sodden soil
by a boy lost from his mother
in a market full of strangers.

Blood on my brow trickled with pain
From a fiery stone's silent rain.
The sweet-red river of life
Filled my hands with strife.
Poor lads short of a mother's caress
Came and besieged death's fortress.

A rifle in hand and an eye through the glass
I sang an elegy for the gathering mass.
Dogs of refuge eager for food
Sons of whores, die they should.
My wrath echoed in the dance of bullets
Where the little ones begged for chocolates.

Alive in a dream,
I confessed to the moon queen,
"I shant depart thee."

I hated my mom when I was a kid because all she seemed to cook for us were vegetables and rice. I always envied the other kids on TV who could eat whatever they desired- Kellogg’s cereals for breakfast, hamburgers for lunch, and if they were lucky, a family-size pizza for dinner. Although rice and vegetables were the staple foods on our table, I never missed one out of the three daily meals in my entire childhood. This was primarily because my mom knew what she was doing and she knew the right things to say whenever I would try to tell her I had no appetite for more of her green “uncool” vegetables.

I never realized how lucky I was until one day when I ran out of money in my bank account due to a frenzied weekend party in college. I went to check if somehow I failed to withdraw a few thousand yen in my account but the electronic voice in the money dispenser kept on repeating “ Sorry, not enough balance in your account.” I went back to my apartment and hoped the food I hoarded in the fridge were still there and edible. To my disappointment I only found an empty bottle of Japanese soy sauce waiting for the garbage collector to compose another musical masterpiece of breaking glass in his truck.

It was only Monday and my monthly stipend would not be transferred to my bank account until Friday. I had two options in mind: one was to borrow money from a friend; and two was to keep myself busy so that I would forget that food was really an indispensable fuel to keep my mind and body working. In the beginning, number one was the best choice because I could not imagine how any person could last without healthy food, if nothing at all, in his stomach. Then I remembered that I still owed most of my friends some money because I was a big wastrel for a small scholarship that I was receiving.

With number two as my only choice I started thinking of ways to keep me preoccupied and free from thought of hunger. I borrowed scores of books, and movies from the library. I also scrounged for some dried fruits and peanuts which were left at the same weekend party in my friend’s apartment. My friend somehow had an inkling that I was in a state of near penury but he thought I would find a way to get over a simple problem like starvation. He was wrong!

I was not even finished reading one book when I heard my stomach rumble as if there was a storm brewing that would send a village of farmers into a relocation site where fresh food and clean water were just a dappled dream. I flinched from severe pain in my stomach but this was only the beginning of a long ordeal that would remain ineffaceable in my memory.

I decided that I had to do something else, otherwise my mind would forever be chained to the tortures of twisted cries in my tummy. I took a video tape I borrowed from the library and put it in the video player. The name of the movie was Kandahar. The movie galvanized me because it was about the social conditions in Afghanistan and I was writing my undergraduate thesis about the Middle East at the time. The title of the movie came from a village in Afghanistan where a civil war had erupted between the tribesmen living there. The main character of the movie was Nafaz, a woman who escaped from the misery of her native land and went to live in Canada as a journalist. Her life was like that of a normal Westerner until the day she received a letter from her sister. The letter said that her sister would commit suicide at the next eclipse which was only a week ahead. She was devastated but she could not give up for her sister. She had to go back to the land of her nightmares.

The entire time I was watching the movie, I could feel my intestines constricting the remaining life out of me. The only part of, or more appropriately, the only character in the movie that moved me was the little boy called Hakh. He is a famished little Qur’an disciple but cannot articulate the words in the holy book because his empty stomach has taken control over his vocal chords. The poor boy is sent out of school and is punished by being left to starve more for the rest of the day. Without any strength to resist temptation to steal, he robs a dead woman of her ring and sells the ring to buy food. The naïve Hakh gives in to the dictates of his feeble body while disregarding the commands of Islam.

I was sitting in the couch for a long time contemplating about the parallelism between Hakh’s tribulation and my present suffering. “ I am sitting here, starving and self-reviled, while malevolent people are relishing their lives by encroaching upon other people’s riches. I can be blissful just like them. I can steal a leaf out of their book and flee from this wretchedness that life has bestowed upon me. Screw justice! A lot of people have seen so much injustice and I don’t want to be a mere increment to statistics. ”

Suddenly I heard a knock at the door. Another friend just came over to lend me some money at least until Friday. The first thing I thought of at that moment was my mom and her green, delicious vegetables. I then bought some vegetables and cooked them exactly how my mom did.

From that moment on I started believing that the hungry is not to blame for the small and nascent thievery he does. The leaders of society should take the responsibility of feeding their famished subjects because a person who is hungry will become a vulture of society, forever neglected and lost in the circle of misery. This experience also taught me to appreciate the simple food that is served on the table, whether it is vegetable, dried fish or scrambled egg, because I would never want to remember that feeling of helplessness without anything to eat.