“In the quiet act of listening, you can learn the loudest truths.”

Author unknown, this sentence resonated with me today as I contemplated ebbs and flows — life and death, comings and goings, ups and downs.

From something as “mundane,” if one could call it that, as a jeepney strike, to something of such magnitude as the release of a traumatized Filipino from the hands of the terrorist organization Hamas — life really does continue to show us how close we often come to forgetting our mortality.

It’s an ebb and flow when events keep bombarding us with lessons we must learn. The problem is, we are never still enough, never quiet in our minds enough, to listen to these truths.

We think we are immortal. When we carelessly throw away chances to live, love, and make a difference, we neglect (reject?) the truth that time won’t always be in our hands. Yes, not even the richest men on earth can dictate on time.

When we stop ourselves from doing what is right, maybe due to fear, laziness, or cynicism, we lose the chance to leave the world better than we found it. And this is also the reason we see history repeating itself — because real change never happened in the first place.

We are probably gloating, for instance, at the observation that the jeepney strike was a “dud,” as the MMDA called it.

Thousands of strikers took their jeepneys off the streets for several days. Rather than suffer, the metro felt some reprieve from the heavy traffic, and life rolled on. 

So what?

So, the government ordered work and education to go virtual during the period to lessen movement, and local government units provided free transportation to those who had no choice but to move around.

So what?

Do we really think these are good enough? That this would end the issue? More important, will the jeepney groups’ core message be heard over the noise of an argument and “epal” soiree?

Workers’ issues are as real as the hours-long traffic that makes some important personages late for that major cultural affair or that immensely must-must-must-attend fashion tribute in this town.

The daily wages that barely help a family survive on kamote and dreams remain a source of discord, a thorn in labor’s and enterprise’s sides. Still, not all hours-long traffic and many other “inconveniences” in our lives could be blamed on public utility vehicles.

It simply showcases the sheer and utter mess we have for transport leadership, where the cacophony of blaring horns seems more melodious than the discordance of inefficiency.

There are still kinks in the planned transport modernization. At the core of it is the government’s and the decision makers’ astounding ignorance of life on the ground, and how the solutions they offer may likely put the parties concerned into further debt or barely-making-it status.

Is this the kind of legacy we wish to leave when our time is up — wasting the chances we had fortunately been given to make a difference, to uplift, to share?