Halfsaint

In the end, the lives I live between pages are as real as any I have ever known. They are filled with sun, rain, spice, and salt; with laughter and sorrow, wisdom and folly. They are alive in me, and through me, they may touch the lives of others. Writing is the art of living beyond limits, the act of capturing the ineffable, the gift of tracing infinity with a single hand. And in that gift, I find the purest joy, the deepest wonder, and the endless horizon of my journey as an author.

Writing is a good way to spend a lifetime, an alchemy to infinite possibilities that hums beneath the surface of ordinary days, waiting for the hand willing to reach for it, where every word becomes both anchor and sail, each sentence a door into another life. I have walked through cities that both exist and have never existed, their cobbled streets glistening with rain from a sky painted either muted, monotonous, or bygone, or in colors resplendent with pastel and a world of hues of euphoria. I have stood in markets where spices perfume the air like saffron scent and listened to dialogue like heirlooms and traditions older than stone. I have tasted the salt of oceans as they reached the shore and crashed into cliffs I watched from a distance. They are as vivid, as raw, as breathtaking as any real world. I feel the heat of a sun-scorched courtyard in Morocco, the gentle crackle of a fire in a hut on the steppe. I live a thousandfold lives that would otherwise vanish with the passing of time. Reading and writing are twin voyages. When I read, I drink from wells dug by passersby of history, their knowledge flowing through me like water into parched soil. When I write, I touch history with my words, as visceral as my senses, like my sight and hearing, like sunlight through stained glass. To imagine someone pausing, breathing in a sentence I sculpted, seeing a world I conjured, and seeing in it something of themselves is pure euphoria without fanfare.

I have felt the heat of midday suns in distant lands, smelled the resin of pine forests untouched by time, and heard the faint, forgotten songs of rivers that cut through valleys like silver threads. I have inhaled the aroma of bread baking in small village ovens, and lingered on bridges above canals where twilight reflects a sky I cannot name. I have tasted the sweetness of fruit plucked from unknown trees and the bitterness of wine aged in earthen jars. And I have written it all. Every sensation, every fleeting thought, every heartbeat has become a sentence, a paragraph, a story, the thousandfold lives I have borrowed, lived, and loved like it’s sin.

Writing is a life lived fully, yet quietly. It is a devotion, a pilgrimage through the infinite terrains of listening to laughter throughout centuries. Each detail, every subtle shade of light or flicker of sound, is a treasure I gather and give back. I have listened to scholars whose words shimmer with quiet authority, to poets who made the air inspired. And so I write, because each word, each sentence, each story is a chance to live again, to leave a trace of light in a world that would otherwise forget, and to celebrate the infinite possibilities of being alive. Writing is a dialogue, unspoken yet deeply understood, a communion between souls who may never meet yet live together within the spaces between words. It is a reminder that no life is ever truly isolated, no story ever truly lost, and no truth ever entirely unseen. I write to distill eternity from fleeting moments, to celebrate the fragile yet resilient pulse of being alive. To write is to inhabit infinity, to carry all the lives I have yet to live, yet somehow, through words, truly touch.

Sometimes, I imagine what it must have felt like to live in a house surrounded by tall pine trees, in a 1940s bungalow, with sunlight cutting across long hallways lined with old books.

I have been viewing the world through the lens of globalization, and I choose to spend my time living fully, content in my simple life, as though I lived in a 1940s bungalow surrounded by tall pine trees, listening to the music of that era, and appreciating architectural styles that have come and gone, such as Art Deco and Brutalism. I once wrote that beauty is a culture’s memory. It is what we were and what we had hoped to become. I remember watching Midnight in Paris and feeling connected to that yearning for beauty, wisdom, and meaning. My favorite shows on television are Winnie the Pooh, for its timeless wisdom, and A Gentleman in Moscow. I know this much to be true: every truth begins with wonder, and every act of learning is a prayer in itself.

I sometimes handwrite notes like a pupil in traditional schooling. The Alchemist, Focus, The Elements of Style, John Steinbeck books, even Harvard admissions essays—I write them down not to copy them, but to think like the author to the best of my abilities. I write answers to grammar and comprehension exercises, and I bear in mind idiomatic expressions from the dictionary because words deserve to be learned in a certain way through the wrist, through repetition.

In neuroscience, the act of handwriting strengthens neural pathways. It’s called neuroplasticity, the brain’s way of rewiring itself based on what we repeatedly do. Handwriting triggers deeper memory recall, sharper comprehension, better focus.

Like how Pepsodent became a household name because the habit was learned. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg explains that. People didn’t brush their teeth before marketing told them to. And yet today, the whole world does it. It’s a matter of routine, of discipline, of knowing that if you show up often enough, your life changes.

Avenida Rizal was once the lifeline of Manila. Before the war, before EDSA, before everything was built and rebuilt, there was Avenida. It had everything: shops, theaters, lights. It was where people met, where ideas bloomed, where the Grand Opera House once stood in grandeur. Now, it’s a memory. But I return to it with my mom in our discussions.

I love the streets, the scent of old bookstores, the laughter in Disney movies when the dogs share a plate of spaghetti, the elegance of hotel rooms turned into apartments filled with books and time. All of this matters.

I have always thought to myself that writing is more than a skill. It is a sense, one as real and visceral as sight or touch. I was born with it like my hands and my nose, or maybe I found it in encouragement spoken to me. There are no monuments tall enough, no marble grand enough, to enshrine the depth of a mother’s love because my mother’s name is written over everything good in my life. She told me I should write my experiences in a book to inspire my audience everywhere. Writing is the one medium I truly understand. As an artist, it is through writing that I think beyond my horizons.

There is a certain elegance I find in the beauty of Art Deco. The Manila Metropolitan Theater is one such wonder. Designed by Juan Arellano, I think of its balustrades and high ceilings, the Philippine flora carved in stylized grace, and I am reminded that beauty is a culture’s memory. It tells us who we were and what we hoped to become. That’s why I hold onto it so dearly, this love for places like the MET or the Waldorf Astoria, or the Hotel Chelsea, where history lingers. Where even the wallpaper tells its tales. There’s dignity in preservation, the kind that keeps our identity intact for generations.

Don’t even get me started with 1920s to 1940s music, with all its brass and softness, its slow dances and piano melodies, You don’t just hear this music. You are reminded of a deliberate charm that never goes out of style.

And I love old cameras that gave you only 12 or 24 chances per roll to tell a story because there is an art to limitation. Vintage cameras did not demand instant perfection. They invited you to slow down. They asked you to mean it.

Sometimes I imagine what it must have felt like to live in a house surrounded by tall pine trees, in a 1930s bungalow, with sunlight cutting across long hallways lined with old books. This kind of place is not just shelter. It’s replete with the anatomy of a soul, my soul.