ding reyes writes on!!!

I wish that my friends, including those in Facebook and in the email list groups, to join me in spirit in celebrating on Monday, Ferbruary 1, 2010, the 20th anniversary of the first-ever book launching I had in my book-writing career (with about two dozen titles so far). That launching was held at the National Press Club in Manila for my first-ever book to come out of the printing press, with the title “The Philippines, A Century Thence.” Familiar? It should be.
We ought to have at least heard about Jose Rizal’s prophetic essay popularly known in the Philippines by its English title, “The Philippines, A Century Hence,” as mistranslated from the original Spanish, “Filipinas, Dentro a Cien Años.” That essay was serialized in the Filipino expatriates’ fortnightly journal, La Solidaridad, and the last installment was carried in the magazine’s issue of February 1, 1890.

. Twenty years ago, on Feb. 1, 1990, the exact centennial of complete publication of that particular essay, my “open letter to Rizal” was featured in a ceremony at the NPC. The open letter was a set of comments on the historic essay, exactly a century after the publication of the original. Information about my project, which carried both my work and Rizal’s original essay, may be accessed on http://bookmakers-phils.8m.net/catalog.htm#thence. I have very recently started to upload the contents of its 2nd edition in http://dingbooks.8m.net/thence-opening-page.htm and http://dingbooks.8m.net i intend to do the same for all the two dozen or so other books I have been able to get published under various publishing houses including my own (which is actually a partnership venture between me as a writer and the synergism-oriented SanibLakas Foundation). Before the time of the SanibLakas Editorial and Publishing Services, my “Life-partner and fellow-writer,” Carmencita S. Soriente-Reyes joined me in an educational publications venture, “EduCar” Enterprises, which combined the respective first syllables of our formal names. Cita passed away due to cancer in mid-1994.

. Circulation and revenue figures have always been humble, something not at all surprising, as neither Cita nor I had any illusion that we would be able to earn from that venture even for just our small family’s household and schooling expenses. There have been times our unpaid balance with the printing presses had to remain large for extended periods, but we were blessed not to have been sued even once under such circumstances.

. Quite recently, I came out with a book of my collection of poems in English (1970-2007), with a long title, “Ding Reyes Writes 30 WISHPERS and more.” Somewhere in that book, I wrote about my drive for writing, for influencing minds and actions, somehow relating to the realization that my small-circulation books could only reach a very small readership, and the realization, too, that a good number of copies were being brought by friends and friendly acquaintances who just could not refuse me in my face but could neither make time afterwards to read them.

. “Yes, I do believe that my writings will be accorded more value after I die than at present, but I do want to discern more, and do more in serving the people (primarily by sharing my humble discernments), and share more with others (Yes, to write more), before I go.
In the meantime I am determined to happily live this life fully. As much as I can.

. "This, for me, has been to touch more lives by sharing the flames of light and warmth that I have been blessed with. I fervently believe that the current human evolutionary imperative is for Homo sapiens to make the real leap of consciousness from preoccupations with “myself” (my body, my pleasures, my job, my prestige, my ideas) and all its separative small-group extensions, to really living the “we” and the “ourself” consciousness of the oneness of all, where the benefits of the principle of synergism has been and will be both instant reward and clues that we are on the right path -- the centripetal movement -- in human development.”

. In that same book, I go right back to Rizal, with a poem that was inspired by his very last. Its title: My First Farwell. Some of the lines in Part III (of seven parts) express and preserve an ardent request:

As has been usual before fond farewells
. are said, I seek to declare
. some advanced requests:

Accord value and attention not to my
. mortal remains that are like clothing
. already put aside by Life.

Focus not on my hole-studded shoes
. with worn-out soles; ponder, instead,
. the footprints being left behind

For these are markings made not merely
. by my feet but by my real self
. as no less than spirit!

Rather than spend time to think
. of that pair of shoes that has been
. taken off and is wasting away,

Ponder well the story and statement
. of my footprints; know well the paths
. they had chosen to tread.

I did make profuse attempts
. to explain well about the spirit
. and content of all these efforts,

But many of them, even from among
. the ranks of my workmates
. have yet to firmly decide

To really patiently listen to my statements,
. to read and comprehend well
. my explanations.

After I depart, may they remember to
. review them and even as these are long,
. to comprehend them this time.

Twenty years have passed since that happy book-launching ceremony at the NPC. And I say, I shall write on, and on, and on... even for long-delayed reading by those who would eventually find my writings worth spending their precious time and attention on.

--Ed Aurelio "Ding" Reyes
of Subic, Zambales

(Please send any feedback on this blog to me via the “comments” option here, or “send (them as) a message” to me via my Facebook account, or email them to dingreyes@yahoo.com. Thanks so much!)

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