Nick Joaquin is so not dead.
I am not saying that he is pulling an Elvis on us or whatever, but really, Nick Joaquin is not dead. How can a man who has launched a thousand writers’ dreams, not by being an agent or whatever, but by inspiration, die just like that? Hell no.
I remember being an unabashedly unassuming twelve-year-old who gobbled words by the book. I was reading my senior high schooler cousin’s English textbook and there I found Nick Joaquin’s May Day Eve. Needless to say, it blew me away. It has come down, up to this day, to be one of the most unforgettable pieces of literature I have ever read. That started my little personal Nick Joaquin Fan Club.
Initially, I adored Nick Joaquin’s works, and who has read them and didn’t? He is the single most brilliant man of letters that his generation ever produced. His stories, essays and poetry define ‘Filipino’ to a T—mystical, magical, quirky, funny, and most importantly, strong. He has single-handedly captured the spirit of the nation, whether writing as himself or as Quijano de Manila. His characters stick with us—from that feisty lass Agueda to the cocky Don Badoy Montiya, whose nefarious loathing for each other led to marriage; from the always running Connie Escobar who finds love in the end and, well, runs away with it. Many go crazy after the richness of his language, and it truly is amazing. But what truly is amazing about him is the way he extracts the most poignant themes from his subject matter. He is an ironic yet compassionate chronicler of the moral dilemmas of the Pinoy upper middle class, the mayaman. Always, he sees the failures and triumphs of this class from the perspective of their origins in the clash of cultures in the Philippine society. His is the passion that earthly departures can never put out.
Of course by now you’ll get that I’m a huge fan. But his literary genius is only the tip of the iceberg that is the many things I admire about this man. His reputation as a regular Dionysus precedes him—everyone knows that booze has been his long time best friend. Nick Joaquin is a man who is at peace with the world around him as he sees it, and not necessarily as it is. He didn’t go by the proverbial book—he lived life as if the word tomorrow doesn’t exist. If anybody’d have the full right to speak of the cliche “Carpe Diem, Seize the Day!”, it would definitely be Nick Joaquin, because he truly had seized the day. Maybe that’s what made him such a great writer, the fact that evidently he had braved it all and after the dust settles, walked off with a twinkle in his eyes and a beer in his hand.
I am still irked, though, that it seems that one of my things-to-do-before-I-die wouldn’t ever happen. I so desperately want to meet the man, speak with him and just bask in the fullness of his being. Now, how the hell is that going to happen? Sad, very sad.
Everytime a youngster races through the pages of Tropical Gothic, thoroughly enchanted, and everytime a writer gets published in the pledge of his example and inspiration—Nick Joaquin lives on.

Somehow I find it comforting that the world around me has slowly inched itself closer and closer into being a full-fledged hellhole. This means I am not the one messing up. Another school year had just come to a close, and somehow I still feel like I'm no better than when I just started college. Not in the obvious terms, like things I know and take part in, because I can say with no trace of braggadocio (actually, no) that I have come a pretty long way. I mean, I found for myself some sort of way for me to be productive, working for a publication. Plus I am enjoying my studies for the most part (even the hang-ups, impossible deadlines, fucky professors, incredible bores, and that blasted stress), and I appreciate most things that come my way (and in relation to that, I know that I'd really appreciate not failing anything this term, am quite wary of that). But above and beyond that, I feel this hollowness, like I know I'm being watched and in that view, it seems (or really is) that I am doing something really unfair and dirty. I don't feel like I'm an inch closer to that feeling of actually having enough in you (whether or not there really is) to take on the world by your lone self. I feel like an idiot posing as someone whose capacity is much more than I really have. But I suppose I have to be done with this thinking. Maybe I just need to be. Whatever that means. Now I have to shut up and listen to John Mayer sing about the shits of life. Which, as I still convince myself to believe, is beautiful.