The knowing is in the livingLast Friday, I spoke at the commencement ceremony of the University of the Philippine Diliman Extension Program in Pampanga and Olongapo. In your 30s you will think more seriously about companionship, maybe marriage, maybe children. In your case, the knowing will be in the living. Remember Achilles, who in the Iliad was given a choice of living a short but glorious life, as opposed to a long but boring one; he chose the former, and thereby became a legend. Some say life is predestined, which would make for bad fiction; I prefer to believe in at least the illusion of free will, of human agency, because then we and our fictional characters have moral responsibility.
