On Spotify, the theme song from that great Disney movie “Alladin” was played and it kept ringing in my ears via LSS (Last Song Syndrome).
LSS comes when you can’t stop humming the song stuck in your mind all day and night. With recent developments where messages on the phone and other platforms are incessant, I suddenly felt that in the next few days, weeks or months, I will be spending a new era, albeit familiar in field but different in its demands for attention.
The synopsis of the Walt Disney movie describes Aladdin as a lovable street urchin who meets Princess Jasmine, the beautiful daughter of the sultan of Agrabah. While visiting her exotic palace, Aladdin stumbles upon a magic oil lamp that unleashes a powerful, wisecracking, larger-than-life genie. As Aladdin and the genie start to become friends, they must soon embark on a dangerous mission to stop the evil sorcerer, Jafar, from overthrowing young Jasmine’s kingdom.
Segue: A woman finds Aladdin’s magic lamp. She starts rubbing it and a genie comes out as usual. The woman looks at the genie and asks him to grant her the following wishes: I want my husband to have eyes only for me, I want to be the only one in his life, and I want that when he gets up in the morning, I’m the first thing he grabs and takes me everywhere he goes.” The Genie then turned the lady into an IPhone 14.
Then Erap was walking on the beach and saw an Aladdin lamp buried in the sand. He grabbed it, rubbed it,until it got clean, and the genie came out and told him, “You have freed me from the lamp, I can make one wish come true for you. Erap thought it out for 10 long minutes and said, “I would love to go to Portugal to visit but I am afraid of planes and flying and I get seasick on a boat.
Can you build a bridge over the ocean so I can drive to Portugal and Europe? The Genie chuckled and said: “It’s impossible, just imagine how many people and years we need for it to be built, piers would not be able to reach the bottom of the ocean. Try another one.
Erap went into deep thoughts and said after a couple of minutes. “I want to be able to understand women, to understand and feel what they think, even while they are silent, to know why they are crying when they do, to be able to know what they want when they say‘Nothing’s wrong,’ to know how to make them happy.” The Genie said, “Did you want that bridge with two or four lanes?”
So, after the battle with Jafa was done and the smoke cleared, the world opened up to new beginnings and so is the universe I am in from this moment until probably the end of the year. My life and career in the past and now have always been centered on the law and I have tucked in my belt almost 39 years or so of law practice “interrupted” by stints in government and the academe.
Thus the recognition of the Baguio-Benguet chapter of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines led by President Jose Mari Molintas, officers, and directors is most appropriate an accolade for which I am, nay my family, is forever grateful.
The words and phrases say, “for (my) your unparalleled performance and incommensurable contribution to the legal profession throughout the years. It carries with it our heartfelt thanks for your untiring efforts, which will long be remembered and appreciated. You are an inspiration to all of us.”
This year as I face the final decade(s) of my professional career as a lawyer, I might be fa-cing a new challenge in the field as a legal eagle and ask God the Father for strength to carry on. Again, the words of Abraham Lincoln embedded in the library of my old law firm comes into mind: “I do the very best I know how. If the end brings me out right, what is said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ‘Ten angels swearing I told you so, would not make a difference!’”
Then I wake up from my slumber and realized, now that I am about to turn a decade and 15 years to boot the whole shining, shimmering, splendid new world was only a dream, a fantasy I created about people and places, an imagined desire, a thrilling chase to a mission impossible. It all was a rediscovery of what I have today for which there is no greater contentment and satisfaction and a lot to thank for, as it is.
Sigh.
July 27, 2024
