Of books and immortality

There are three tasks to be performed to ensure immortality, so they say: plant a tree, write a book and build a family.

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Writing is corollary.

I could not remember exactly when I was bitten by the bug to write, but I believe it was on the same time when I started reading abridged stories of the Count of Monte Cristo, Treasure Island, Rip van Winkle, Guilliver's Travels and the Bobbsey Twin Mysteries in grade school and high school.

Later on, I came to realize that the allure of natural science is much stronger than the calls of writing. This and the realization that I did not (and still do not) have the talent for writing. I forayed into composition, mostly short essays in our high school newspaper but as you can now attest, my writing skills are raw and crude. I have been telling myself that I should leave writing to those who really know how write, to the likes of those who have been gobbling up Orwell and Hesse and Tolkien even before they were able to walk.

And so I took geology in college.

The call of nature (chuckles, no pun intended) proved to be irresistible for Taong Bato, as he stood in front of an old volcanic edifice in Babuyan Island.

Most of my college nights were spent learning triple integration, petrogenesis and plate motions. As an average student, I was constrained to spend a few extra hours every night scavenging my notes in order to remain in my major. I did not have the chance to read much history, a subject I have learned to appreciate in high school. The five more busy years in graduate school were splurged reading geology books and scientific journals and writing dissertation. I got acquainted with the scholarly works of Edward Said and Francis Fukuyama and the fine stories of Camus and Hesse and H.G. Wells just recently, after I got my graduate degree. It was only then that I realized I had been missing a lot.

This is not to say that I regretted the day I chose to become a geologist. If I were to live another life, I would still choose my present profession.

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Travel books fascinate me. Most of the books in my shelves are about the adventures of people who spent years of bohemian living in the edge. Everytime I read their memoirs, it seems like I am transported from my dreary existence in UP Bliss to rugged terrains where real and exciting actions take place- trapping wolves in the windswept hills of Alaska or crossing the perilous Kashmir frontiers in Afghanistan under the heavy Russian artillery.

I also have a share of light and funny travel books, most of which are written by Bill Bryson and Peter Mayle.

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If I were to write a book and become immortal, I will probably write about my travel experiences, as I have been travelling a lot lately.

One problem here is that I am not very diligent in jotting down notes, a virtue innate among travel writers. At the end of a tiring field work or exhausting travel, I would rather sleep than write about the places and people I met that day.

One friend suggested that I write my life story. That had left me laughing no end.

And who will read my autobiography? I am not the president of this country, I do not hold an important government position. I have never been a privy to shady, crooked government deals. I have never been elected nor ran for any public office, not even as a village councilor. In short, I am nobody. If I were Virgilio Garcillano, perhaps things would be a lot easier.

I am afraid I will remain a mortal for the time being.