The path of least resistance: the physical or metaphorical pathway that provides the least resistance to forward motion by a given object or entity, among a set of alternative paths.
I am a creature of physics, bound by the path of least resistance. Time and time again, I choose comfort over challenge; the familiar over the uncertain; the tried and tested over the novel and radical. Often, I am forced into hardship by necessity, not by decision. But you…
You are a sub-atomic particle, a product of quantum mechanics.
You choose to defy the law of physics by opting to leave the home and people who make it home, on the pretext of leaving your comfort zone. You seek out the strange in lieu of the conventional. You yearn for the unchartered over the mapped. You’ve chosen hardship to replace your creature comforts.
You’re like the free flowing electron in Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, whose position or momentum in non-zero amplitude could not be determined with absolute precision. The more the world tries to compress you within a specific electromagnetic packet, the more indefinite your wave becomes. You must maintain momentum and avoid fixation, otherwise you fall into nothingness.
It is in your nature to revolve around neutrons, driven by what the scientists call the Coulomb force of attraction. Others who are more philosophically inclined, however, are wont to call this “love.”
I suppose you have found the nucleus that will comprise the center of your universe. It must be why you are leaping the orbit of everything you have known, propelled by a force greater than your own gravity, with a dream that together with your beloved nucleus, atoms will be formed. And with this atom, you will create molecules. And with this molecule, a universe is conceived.
You are leaving home to follow after someone who has become your home.
I understand you better now. You want to test your limits and build your dreams. And for that, I admire you. You have found the courage that I am struggling to discover within myself, bound as I am by the physical laws of inertia. Thus, to see the world, I will live vicariously through your lens and pray that your full-frame sensor will adequately preserve the defining moment.
This is why, I think, I am writing this epilogue. Milestone occasions must be preserved with photographs and words. Your passing from the orbit I traverse is one such milestone, in the sense that I am once more losing a good friend and soul-brother to the Northern Americas. (I shall blame Canada for this loss, specifically the French-speaking parts of Manitoba. Inevitably, this means I have to blame the French again. Cheese-eating surrender monkeys.)
So here it is: a toast to the times which have been, the times which could be, and lamentably, the times that couldn’t. Here’s to the one last cup of coffee brewed in Roadhouse and Brewberry. Here’s to the sun rising over the CMU Campus, and setting over the Mactan Bridge. Here’s to the fried chicken from Malaybalay, and the Coke Sakto of Danao. Here’s to pushing a stalled car in Maria Cristina, and falling into a muddy ricefield in Musuan. Here’s to short arguments about whether the interior designer of Missy Bon Bon is a woman or a gay man, and to long online debates on the merits and demerits of a Noynoy Aquino presidency.
Here’s to shooting the Sinulog as a team. Here’s to getting abducted in Jolo. Here’s to seeing my ancestral home in Bantayan Island.
Here’s a drink to our Stations of the Cross project. Here’s a toast to our dream photography business. Here’s to the women we love, and the families we are building. Here’s to our hopes and dreams, and to friends who can grow separately without growing apart.
A stifled wind rises from the South, promising that soon, the welcome rain would fall, and with it the end of power outages, water rationing, and the proverbial “Earth Hour”. It is the good weather that we watch for with bated breaths, a refreshing wetness that packs dust unto our roads and comfort into our balmy homes. However, the rain saddens me because its arrival signals the departure of a very good friend.
And yet it brings joy with the promise that this is merely an epilogue. A promise that the story has not yet ended. A hint that there will be more to come.
Godspeed my brother.
