2025 Birthday Reflections, part 1

2025 Birthday Reflection Series (5/17/2025)

A Past Revisited, Connecting the Dots, part 1

Calendar dates, timelines, and contexts, so they say, are historian’s bread and butter.

Like journalists’ 5 Ws and 1 H, good journalism starts with strong, essential questions. Whether covering a breaking news story or an investigative piece, journalists rely on a set of fundamental questions to guide their reporting.

Historians do more. A revisiting of the past is not enough, it requires connecting the dots.

As Steve Jobs famously said: You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So, you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.

And may I also add to the quote: dots connect you to your present self, your social being.

As Thomas Moore reminds me that life’s unfolding is more about discovery than design, meaning that we don’t always plan our path, but instead, we trust and have faith in life itself as it reveals its meaning over time.

This is why for my seven decades of Living Life Open Sincere and True, which is I aptly named L O S T, I found it worthwhile to celebrate my birthday with a past revisited and connecting the dots.

According to the submitted birth certificate in our Form 130 for family-based immigration to the United States in 1984. I was born on May 22,1955. It means I am turning 70 on my birthday this Thursday (5/22/25).

However, in my transcript of records at the University of the Philippines, I graduated on April 16,1978, and I attended and graduated in high school on April 13,1973 from Jose Abad Santos High School. It means I entered grade one at San Fernando Elementary school in the school year 1963 and graduated grade six in 1969. From this timeline, I belong to the batch of students who were born in 1956.

In other word I am a Gemini born in the Year of the Monkey, which is a dynamic, witty, and highly adaptable individual. This combination blends the intellectual curiosity of Gemini with the clever, energetic nature of the Monkey, making for a person who is quick-thinking, charming, and always ready for adventure.

Although, there is no big difference if I am a Gemini born in 1955, for it carries the classic traits of Gemini—quick-witted, expressive, and sociable —but with the influence of the Wood Sheep in the Chinese zodiac, adding a layer of gentleness, creativity, and sensitivity to their personality, it has lingered in my mind the year I was born.

On the one hand, using 1955 in my date of birth is financially advantageous; I am getting my social security full retirement benefit one year earlier, which is good.

On the other hand, what I could not figure out since I found out of my DOB on official documents on why my father delayed my entry in grade one. In the Philippines the norm is school age children start their public schooling at age seven.

Delaying my entrance to the school system for a year to me did not make sense. I remember at an early age my family saw me as a smart kid. I was able to write and spell my name. Perhaps if there were kindergarten and pre-preschool programs in our area during those times they could have enrolled me.

This is my past revisited that I could not connect the dots until much later in my life. How did I connect the dots?

To be continued… Abangan ang susunod na kabanata.

May 17, 2025 FB