Nocturnal Visit of a familiar Ghost

I miss the good ol' days.

Those significant days when time does not exist at all, and the world is full of vibrant colors and playful sounds. Those days when truth is absolute, when hope and idealism kept on electrifying our young hearts and minds.

Yes, those were the good old childhood days. And I really miss being a child. I miss the days when the best and hardest lessons are learned inside the house, through the litany and sermon of our parents. The days when life is all about humility and simplicity. Those were the days when I can dream big and small; dreaming about the moon and stars, Superman and Spider Man, that girl next door, the best tinolang manok, and the ultimate bamboo shooter. Kids like us then do not need to buy toys, we make them. We even invented games. Games that were equally challenging and enjoyable as the popular games. The scars that we got from that, we wear them like victorious warriors emerging from a great battle--- to our parents' dread and shock. Amusing stories on aswangs and mangkukulams and real stories on death and diseases taught us that the world is indeed imperfect. Still, we continue to dream.

Because we experience childhood once in our lifetime, we treasure the happy and meaningful memories and trash the regretful ones. And looking into the eyes of a child today, we never stop remembering ourselves when we were young, and we start to be child again. Master Yoda says it best in Attack of the Clones; "How fascinating it is to see the mind of a child."

Nowadays, it saddens me that idealism is on the brink of extinction to the very heart of man. It's been replaced by those pseudo-philosophies that centered in man's outer crust; his skin. This is a cynical world with vanity as the common denominator. No wonder it is Satan's favorite sin, because it became the inexhaustible 'gasoline' of his malevolent and ever-destroying machinery. This society has a new God--- the one with a dollar sign on his forehead. The people's source of joy are primarily coming from material things (a childish gesture) but unlike a child, they are no longer innocent. I do not know whether the complex world made us to change, or we being changed persons made the complex world. It's a little bit of both I guess. But we as kids, used to easily follow the rules and can differentiate right from wrong. But the older ones played around with the rules and twisted them in their own self-serving schemes. Today the right became wrong, and the wrong became right; for the younger ones to follow. And the cycle goes on and on...

Older people keep on saying that we cannot change the system and we cannot return to the peaceful and glorious past 'coz it's hopeless anyway. They even gloat that this society, this newfound freedom, is their gift to their children. Thank you, but obtaining freedom is just a beginning and not an end. It must be taken care of, and you do that by practicing responsibility. Being able to respond properly. When this society backfires, it is the youth who are the first to be affected and tasked to clean up the mess, a mess created by the older corrupt people themselves. Truly, Utopia does not exist. But Social Dystopia? Just look around and you'll see the answer.

Last night, I was dead tired body and soul and I don't know why. But a familiar ghost visited me in my sleep. That young ghost representing my childhood pleaded to me that before I move forward, I must never forget him.

I answered that I will surely worship the real God, I will adhere to thy rules & principles and apply them in the game of my life, and the good ol' childhood days will always be remembered. Only Amnesia can stop me.

I saw him smiling before vanishing into thin air, and I offered him a prayer...