The great Ricky Lee, who wrote such Filipino classics like Himala, Moral, Para Kay B, and Trip to Quiapo, lets us in on his growing-up years that shaped his outlook on his work and on his life, his creative process, and his undying faith in the goodness in people.
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CreativityTranscript
00:00 I hope it's true when people say that Ricky is a good person.
00:03 In the real sense of being good, it's hard to be good.
00:06 It's hard to be good in this world, in our society,
00:10 where there are so many forces around you that are pulling you in this direction or that direction
00:14 to be vindictive, or to be cynical, or to be angry, or to lose hope, or whatever.
00:23 But I think it's important that in the midst of all this, you be a good person to others and to yourself.
00:31 I didn't come from a rich family.
00:37 When I left, I didn't have money to study in college.
00:43 I experienced everything.
00:44 I experienced the food in our apartment being salty.
00:48 Sometimes it was sugar, sometimes nothing at all.
00:50 I experienced studying in a university where I didn't have food for lunch.
00:56 I would just pretend to my classmates that I already ate.
00:59 So I experienced a lot of deprivation.
01:03 For me to be able to say that I think I somehow understood the deprivation that other people go through.
01:10 I understood how it is when you have nothing that you can't get.
01:14 So I think, given that, it's easy for me to think that it's not fair that I have something
01:21 or that other people have something, but the other people don't.
01:25 I think it's easy for me to feel that it's true.
01:27 Because I also went through that.
01:29 I also experienced that I didn't have a place to live, I didn't have food, or I didn't have tuition.
01:34 So without really, not the conscious learning, it shaped my personality.
01:39 I think that's part of the reason why most of the people I wrote to,
01:42 underprivileged people, marginalized, OFWs, prostitutes, gays or lesbians,
01:49 or inappe, security guards, those who are at the margins of society.
01:54 I think that's the reason.
01:57 And I think that's why I'm fascinated with the night.
02:00 Especially when I can still digest everything.
02:03 At night, when I look around, I see people, security guards, vendors,
02:09 people who are fat, or even addicts who are drunk and can't sleep.
02:13 It's like they have so many humanities inside them that have been crushed, removed,
02:18 that are not complete, that we need to know.
02:21 I hope that my story can help, without treating them as objects or subjects.
02:27 But there are so many humanities around.
02:29 It's like I see more of them at night than in the day.
02:33 Maybe because all the noise has been removed.
02:34 So modesty aside, it's easy for me to empathize, to feel something.
02:40 It's a commitment that you're not just giving time,
02:43 but material things, money and all.
02:47 Why am I doing this?
02:48 Well, I think partly because a lot of people helped me.
02:52 Strangers and non-strangers.
02:54 I can't live alone.
02:55 I can't live alone if they're not there.
02:58 So I think I didn't have to think at first,
03:02 when I started the workshop, why I was doing this,
03:05 what's the alternative, what can I get from this.
03:07 I don't think I went through that process of thinking.
03:10 I just thought of all of that when people started asking questions.
03:13 But that's about three or four batches already now.
03:16 Then they ask, "What are you doing?" when someone's interviewing.
03:19 But at first, I didn't think of that, why I was doing this.
03:24 I just felt like I wanted to teach,
03:27 and I wasn't accepted in universities because I didn't have a degree.
03:30 I dropped out of UP in my fourth year because I was jailed and all.
03:34 I became an activist and I was jailed.
03:35 So when I applied, I was rejected in UP a few times.
03:39 I couldn't teach because I didn't have a degree.
03:41 I wanted to teach.
03:42 If I were to do a workshop, I could teach.
03:44 So I think that was one strong reason.
03:47 The second reason, when I started writing,
03:49 there were no workshops, no one was mentoring.
03:51 I didn't know where I was going.
03:53 Even if I learned from Nalino, from Bernal,
03:56 there was no formal teaching.
03:58 There were no workshops in writing back then.
04:00 I think if I didn't fail,
04:02 maybe my first writing workshop was in the Philippines.
04:06 So I also had that thinking that
04:08 my hardships back then, others don't have to go through it.
04:12 So I'll do it.
04:12 But in the end, I realized later that I also have a selfish reason.
04:16 If the workshoppers are learning from me, I'm alone,
04:20 I'm learning from them, they're all 35.
04:22 I'm defeating them.
04:23 Different personalities, different styles,
04:26 different things they share with me.
04:28 I can open my eyes in different ways.
04:32 As I grew older, I could see in the eyes of a 20-year-old,
04:36 a 27-year-old, etc.
04:40 So if I open myself,
04:42 I can get a lot of benefits from learning from all of them.
04:45 And I realized that it will help me a lot as a person and as a writer.
04:49 So I think we're just equal.
04:52 First of all, I know that "man" has a generic meaning,
04:55 but maybe it shouldn't be "man".
04:56 Maybe it's what makes a human being, what makes a person.
04:59 In my workshops, usually,
05:01 I say from day one that all people,
05:05 all characters and all people,
05:06 all real people,
05:07 all of them are not complete, all of them are incomplete.
05:09 There are those who are removed,
05:11 there are those who are buried,
05:12 there are those who are lost,
05:13 there are those who don't want to be taken,
05:14 there are those who are violated.
05:16 So in a way, we're all not complete people
05:18 that we're facing now.
05:19 And I think it's the work of each person
05:22 that helped to be complete,
05:24 to be a complete person again,
05:25 to be a human being again,
05:26 his fellow man.
05:27 And in doing that, he can also complete himself.
05:30 And I also believe that that's also the work of a writer.
05:34 And with every word, with every story that I write,
05:37 no matter how, I can help other people to be complete
05:41 so that they can be more human than before.
05:44 Then if I can do that,
05:45 then I can say that I'm also a real person
05:48 or I'm becoming a real person.
05:50 I don't think we have any business living on this earth
05:54 if we don't live for others.
05:56 I'm not a hypocrite.
05:58 You also need to live for yourself.
06:00 So maybe what makes a person,
06:02 maybe what you're looking for is the happy balance
06:05 for other people and for yourself.
06:07 That balance.
06:08 But you need to help other people to be complete.
06:11 I suppose that's also what I want to tell him,
06:12 be kind.
06:14 I hope that's true.
06:15 I hope it's true when people say that Ricky is kind.
06:18 In the real sense of kindness.
06:19 It's hard to be kind.
06:21 It's hard to be kind to this world,
06:22 to our society,
06:24 with all the forces around you
06:26 that are pulling you in this direction or that direction
06:28 to be vindictive,
06:31 or to be cynical,
06:32 or to be angry,
06:34 or to lose hope,
06:36 or whatever it is.
06:38 I think it's important that in the midst of all this,
06:42 you be kind to others and to yourself.
06:45 So I think I'd like him to remember that
06:49 I did everything I could,
06:51 even if it wasn't perfect,
06:52 to be a kind person.
06:55 And I hope he'll be like that when he grows up.
06:57 Because all the attention now,
06:59 after becoming a national artist,
07:01 there's attention in the past
07:03 because I'm at work and I'm the one calling attention.
07:07 And second,
07:08 I was a bit of a tackle attention
07:09 as Ricky Lee, as a scriptwriter in the industry.
07:12 And then when I became a national artist,
07:14 these past months,
07:15 the lights lit up,
07:16 literally the lights lit up,
07:18 and people looked at me,
07:19 and I became a title,
07:21 and the picture and everything,
07:22 which I don't resent.
07:23 I don't resent it.
07:25 I see and appreciate all the attention.
07:27 But alternate life,
07:28 I told him,
07:29 a life where there's no attention at all,
07:31 but I'm still writing.
07:33 So maybe there's a pen name or what,
07:35 I live on a diet,
07:36 maybe I have a family,
07:38 or by the sea,
07:40 quiet life,
07:40 but I'm writing,
07:41 and no one's attention is on me.
07:44 That's what alternate life is for now.
07:47 20, 30 years ago,
07:48 when I was asked,
07:49 "Rock star?"
07:50 I saw that it was a fantasy,
07:52 not an alternate life.
07:54 [silence]