Hiling

Sometime in the past decade, I have watched a 1998 Family fanteserye piece by Star Cinema. (I watched it years after it first graced the silver screen) This movie’s title is “Hiling.” (Wish) It touched the stagnant river in my mind and until now the water remains moving, very subtle but yes, moving.

The story is oddly simple but startlingly deep and loaded. It’s about a girl named “Ana” played by the then-so-adorable Camille Prats. She is an ordinary kid with an extraordinary height of sensitivity.  The young girl witnessed as her parents fought regularly. It made her so blue she started to ponder about happiness and human desire.

Her feelings were fuelled by what she saw in their busy streets too. (1990’s: Times when children frequented the streets during daylight and not past midnight) There seemed to be a plague infecting everyone in the community. Everybody cried for something and the girl took it that they, too, were just as miserable as her parents were.

In the depths of her heart a silent wish welled up. She hoped that everyone would have what they want to achieve happiness. On her birthday, she met a stranger who granted this wish. All she had to do was make them say their wishes as she touched them with her palm. Then voila, wish granted.

Ana's grandmother defending Ana from the the blames she was taking

Ana listens to Arnhell's( Ogie Diaz) wish to become a woman

Elwood (Paolo Contis) is troubled with women who hunted him day and night

Things completely transformed from then on. She was like a genie filling up the empty holes in her neighbours lives, or at least she thought before the neighborhood went both crazy and chaotic.

She soon discovered that giving people what they want doesn’t always make them happy. We all have that thinking don’t we? The world is too big a place yet it can never fill the endless desires of its inhabitants. I am confident that even if it can suffice, it will never guarantee us happiness. We are all conditioned to think that what we want is what will make us happy. But if you’ve lived long enough to receive so much from this world, you’d understand why it wouldn’t. At times, what we want can be deceiving and dangerous even if it seemed so good.

That is the first lesson I learned from the story. The second one is the most important for me, personally. It’s the part when the stranger, Gina Pareño told Ana this:

“Malaki kasi ang puso mo kaya madali kang masaktan.” (You have a big heart so you easily get hurt)

 

I think I am like that in a way. I am sensitive and the littlest of things worry me so it’s hard to be happy sometimes. I keep a nonchalant temperament to show that I am brave but every time I see homeless people ,I feel  terrible and I can’t help but feel so blessed; If I feel that my loved ones are in pain, my heart feels so heavy and more often than not it leaves me feeling so stressed out.

I am aching to see people happy, too; If only things are not that complicated.

Perhaps, we cannot be happy all the time. It’s impossible and it shouldn’t be. Life would lose its meaning. We will never grow and we will never come up with solutions to our problems. Being happy all the time is not being happy at all if you’d think about it.

We need failures, disappointments and rejection so our happiness will be at its sweetest. We need absence so we can appreciate presence. We need to stumble so we would learn to brave the road ahead.

We cannot be happy all the time. We cannot turn things around even if we try hard. We cannot always make people happy even if we mean well. Getting what we want doesn't promise a happy heart but understanding "why" will at least leave us less troubled.

I think if we are to keep this in mind, we can look at the dark times as if it’s just the dawn giving birth to the sunrise. This way, life may appear more flawed than ever but it gets a little more exciting and interesting.