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We watched “Ang
Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros” at the insistence of our blockmate, who’s
cousin is the actor who plays Victor, the policeman. We weren’t sure at the
beginning, but we were glad we agreed.

When Maxi walked past a waiting Victor on the street, it was
probably a triumph for the young boy. It was his rite of passage, his pagdadalaga. It made me smile to see the
once love sick Maxi move past Victor without nary a glance.

I was thinking of that last scene though, as I left the
moviehouse. There was a quiet sadness that was slowly creeping into my
thoughts, something that was unexpected, and admittedly, quite confusing. I
couldn’t understand it, not at first, because it was vague and unformed. I just
felt that the moment of young Maxi’s triumph was bittersweet in a certain way,
that it wasn’t a victory, that there was a reason to be sad.

Maxi moving past the object of his boy/girlhood dreams was
his rite of passage. Rites of passage are unique to us: it is a very personal
moment, one where you straddle a past and a future. It is when you look
determinedly forward with a different, more mature outlook, and leave a past
behind. A past love, a past self, a past life: you move forward feeling that
something is new, something is old, and that knowledge alone changes you.

But what is there to be sad about rites of passage? We all
have them, we all go through them. Heart-wrenchingly painful at times, and effortlessly
smooth during others. They are milestones, can appear many times in a lifetime,
and seem to be integral to the normal growing up process—a meaningful part of
life.

I think that rites of passage are sad, because while they punctuate
our lives, they are in a very real sense, deaths, too. The old dies, for the
new to commence living. Gone was the Maxi who believed in true, innocent and
simple love; he has been changed into a Maxi who understands that life and
relationships are much more complicated than just loving life, or someone,
completely. When we move on from our own personal tragedies we realize that a
part of us transpires, that a part of us does die (and sometimes, over and over
again).

It was a bittersweet moment because while we all realize
that Maxi can take care of himself better, that he has grown stronger and more
capable of facing life’s storms, that he is far less likely to be a victim,
that he has become much more of an adult,
it fills us with some trepidation to realize that truly, he has become more
of an adult. And as adults we know life will be easier, or if not easier then
better, if we have some of Maxi in all of us: his carefree spirit, his
uncomplicated love, and his kind heart.

As adults, don’t we yearn for the simple joys of our
childhood? When everything seemed simple because life then truly was simple? Or
perhaps simple only because our innocent eyes can see only a single story, a
single layer, a single, simple way of living? The people we want around are the
people who bring us a piece of that innocence back. Who make us laugh, who make
us see the world in color and beauty, who love wholly and simply. Yet the world
makes it necessary to be complicated, to exist in many, many dimensions, to
have layer upon layer of puzzle and mystery and personality.

And don’t we mourn when we lose that simplicity, and when we
see that innocence lost in others? None of us is proud to lose his innocence.
There is something sorrowful about this, something truly, truly sad. It is sad
because we realize that in this world to live life purely with innocence is not
right, not safe. So when Maxi walked past that policeman it was a birth of a
new Maxi. But it was a death, too. And while the new Maxi may be more equipped
to handle life in the real world, the old Maxi may be happier, have more bounce
in his step, more zest in his life. Maybe even more love in his heart. There is
a reason to be sad, for this death.

How do we make sense of this, then?

I have heard a wise priest tell me that life is a series of
deaths, and the only way to live life well is to live it dying everyday. And
that living is dying, and living, and dying, again and again.

Perhaps these deaths reflect our human condition. Things
end. People die. We are limited. There is hopelessness, yes, reasons for
sadness. I hope that when we do experience these moments, these moments when we
straddle the past and future, when we look forward and see our changed selves,
we decide to move forward with hope. Hope that these deaths bring us more life,
that these rites of passage push us to more joy, that while we have lost our
innocence in rites of passage of the past that in our future we move to regain
them. And perhaps, who knows, while we will no longer have the innocence of our
youths we will have the hopefulness of adults. And hope that while that is
different from what we have lost, that it will somehow be better.

Sept 26, 2006

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