Masquerade

MASQUERADE

by Antonio C. Antonio

August 7, 2014

This article pays tribute to the brilliance of two great thinkers.

Some four months ago when I started writing articles for my blogsite http://antonantonio.blogspot.com/ and posting the same on Facebook (Landscape Ecology UPOU, Pro EARTH Crusaders and my personal wall/account), I eventually hooked up with two creative Filipino writers in the persons of Ferdinand Villanueva (Facebook name: “Nanding Carlos Villavueva”) of Tarlac and Jose Lorenzo Castillo of New York City.  Ferdie was my grade school classmate in Don Bosco Academy in Tarlac City while I got acquainted with Joe through a mutual friend, Atty. Bert Martinez.  As fate will soon dictate, it was a pleasant meeting in cyberspace of three individuals, so diverse in backgrounds, but shared the same passion for creative writing.  I should mention that Ferdie is a very accomplished writer even in our younger days while Joe is an author and novelist.

As I was merely providing thought-provoking perspectives in my blogs and posts (more often about the environment and natural resources management, and socio-economic-cultural-political matters), Joe and Ferdie, in their well-written commentaries, expanded my little thoughts and added more dynamism to whatever topic that was being written about.  They never failed to throw-in their own grounded opinions and they also included timely and relevant information and data.  I hasten to add that both Joe and Ferdie displayed very high ethical standards in public domain discourse to equally match their intellectual gifts.

Having mentioned the serious side of these fine gentlemen, here comes the funny part.  Last August 3, 2014, I published/posted the article “Dinner Table Landscape”.  I knew I jumped off a plane (sans a parachute) and I was curiously wondering if Joe and Ferdie will do the same.  I had very serious doubts whether they will post their usual supportive and complimentary comments… on the pretext that, as normal men, dinner table settings is hardly our core competency.  But, lo and behold!... they still posted comments even when it became pretty obvious they were out of their comfort zones (like me).  I couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that we suddenly became some sort of “posers”… although we probably made enough sense that no one noticed the “masquerade”.

I am reminded of a song that became a hit in the year Nanding and I graduated high school.  The song is “This Masquerade” and it was written by the great Leon Russell in 1972.  Please click on this link to view the song:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzW7D974xyg .  (Just a simple arrangement of the song “This Masquerade” I did some time ago… hope you enjoy it.) 

There is always a lesson to be learned in all human experiences such as: Always recognize your limitations.  In the light of the article “Dinner Table Landscape” and the sorry situation we found ourselves in, this song could very well be our song in this masquerade.

Just my little thoughts…

(Please visit, like and share Pro EARTH Crusaders and Landscape Ecology UPOU on Facebook or follow me at http://antonantonio.blogspot.com/ )