What is my purpose? My target? My end goal when I write and hope to publish?
A library. A school. Someday, I hope to earn enough to start an international school with no tuition fee for impoverished students in the Philippines, or who hail from the Philippines in any way. Starting a school is a wild dream. It’s gonna take a lot of work and collaboration and funding to make it happen.
But I don’t dream of making it big in order to be some random millionaire. Not like those ‘aim to be a millionaire’ clubs I met people from long ago. They were weird to work with (sorry guys). The focus on financial gain as an end in itself seemed selfish, despite their pleasant manners. Like my mother, who valued money above family – it didn’t feel natural to me.
My grandfather started out as a poor student. He couldn’t afford his own readings in college. Libraries and hours upon hours of studying every day helped him graduate as valedictorian despite the hindrance of poverty. And while he collected books for his own library – I do hope to someday make first world educational materials available in a province of the Philippines. I haven’t fully decided which province quite yet, but the difference between Metro Manila and the provinces can be stark.
Paved roads, access to funds and projects… There’s so much of that in Metro Manila and expanding from it slowly. But to every corner of the Philippines – what hope do they have of new books in good condition? Heck, in the University of the Philippines, I once borrowed a copy of Dante’s Inferno that looked like it had been exorcised by the Winchesters from Supernatural. And that was in our top state university. In the library that catered to our English department. The only copy of Dante’s Inferno I could find there that year had a hole through the cover and the first 40 pages like the book had been impaled on a stake. What the hell?
If what I earn can help improve the country, then I will gladly help. I want to teach the next generations of the Philippines, give them tools to solve what my generation may not be able to. Just like my dad taught me, and gave me these opportunities too.
It is a hope. A hope, indeed.