Not good enough for the 27 Club

I was never a Promil Kid. I was never on the cover of a newspaper or a magazine. All I knew was that my parents believed in me.

Growing up, I always felt like I was on the verge of greatness. I was not exactly the most outstanding student. I was never No. 1 (and to be honest, often not even No. 2), but I was usually somewhere up there.

So you could say greatness wasn’t my gift, but the potential for it. But now I think that is somehow worse.

Proto-iPad kid

In preschool, I think what made me stand out was my unusual worldliness for someone who was not even five. If iPad kids surprise you nowadays with their ability to name country capitals and their uncanny accents that sound too close to Peppa Pig, that was me before it was “trendy.”

I would talk to my parents’ peers about Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco thanks to 5 am reruns of Scooby-Doo — which I was already up for, since I had to travel from Cavite to Las Piñas to school daily.

In elementary school, they would ask me to recite Greek Gods, their Roman counterparts, and the words born from their names. When they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would say “Paleontologist,” and they would react: PaLEONtoLogist? (Yes, it also elicited those reactions before it even became a thing). All things considered, from preschool onwards, people already called me a “human encyclopedia.”

My “first-born” energy showed in how I never shied away from the spotlight. Quiz bees and declamation contests, the odd VTR here and there, being a literal poster child, guest appearances on a chocolate drink-sponsored children’s show on national TV (I would tell you the name of the show if only ’90s Philippine TV archives weren’t a lost-media wasteland). Basically, I was unafraid of being “out there,” if one of those white vans from urban legend needed a child volunteer, I might’ve raised my hand.

I began to think that being impressive for my age meant being destined to impress everyone, and this continued until my pre-adolescence. As my school uniform switched from slack shorts to actual slacks, my pop culture consumption also changed. It went beyond cartoons and the spreadsheets about them (such a nerd), and moved into music, history, and the arts. This is when I first encountered “The 27 Club.”

The 27 Club

Again, I wasn’t the smartest kid growing up, but smart doesn’t always mean gifted, and gifted doesn’t always mean great.

I never set my sights then on being a doctor, lawyer, or artist of those “de-kahon” dreams. No, what I wanted was to be “great.” I didn’t care what word succeeded it — “great (blank)” — I just knew I wanted to be it.

I was a creative, but not in any particular field. I drew well, sang okay, and wrote with words that weren’t exactly hifalutin, but were at a reading level higher than my age. I thought I had the potential for greatness, not because of my innate skills but because of what people told me. You grow up with enough people saying, “you could” and not “you are,” and you really end up believing it.

When I learned about the “27 Club,” or the selected few supposedly in the upper echelons of greatness whose stories always ended with “gone too soon,” what resonated most with me was that lost potential. People already cared about what they’d made, yet they always fixated on what they could still have done. Potential survived beyond 27.

To be honest, my immature appreciation in art even deluded me into thinking I had comparable talent to these greats, because I thought they weren’t exactly the most traditionally talented. Janis Joplin didn’t exactly have a voice that would turn chairs in The Voice; Basquiat’s painting didn’t look much better than my editorial cartoons for the school paper.

Reaching 27 then became a tangible threat. I had 11-14 years to discover what I was really meant to do and become super good at it; that meant I would die at age 27. As problematic as it may sound, it felt like: “If I die at 27. After that, then I’ll know that I’ve made it.” I had confused dying young with having done enough to be mourned.

Wikipedia ‘Early Life’ tab

Fast forward to my first real heartbreak.

During my fourth year of high school, when I was applying to universities, I thought, “Yeah, I might not be graduating with the highest honors, but accolades in high school — especially one in a province like Cavite — it’s child’s play; nobody really cares about dat shit.” And I already knew what “peaked in high school” meant all those years ago. College, that’s the true battleground. So, beam me up, Scotty. I’m ready.

But then the beam never came. I didn’t pass my first-choice course: Film in UP Diliman. Though, to be honest, I just selected that course because my mom said, “You like watching movies, right? Naturally, you’ll be a good director.”

Anyway, that was the first rejection that actually hurt. I passed all the other universities: Ateneo, La Salle, UST. But not UP Diliman. I got into UP Los Baños, not Diliman.

I never regretted going to UPLB, and ultimately didn’t choose to move to Diliman when I had the option; I think this was the first time that I actually questioned my potential.

I became quite popular in college. But that first pain of rejection led me down a path where, if I didn’t think I’d be a star at it, I chose not to do it at all. (Even unconsciously.) 

Being a good writer meant submitting a piece for the Palancas. But you know, “I’m too busy with actual journalism to write essays and fiction.” My teachers would say, ” Apply for highly selective international exchange programs.” But “I’m too busy being the student council president of our college,” I would tell them.

As long as I didn’t submit, I could still imagine winning.

Potential goes both ways. And it’s better not to know than to actually know. Better to let them think, “sayang, pasok ka dun sana (What a waste, you would have surely gotten in),” than to be actually certain that I didn’t make the cut.

Still, I graduated college with honors, leadership distinctions, and some other extracurricular stuff. At UP, this was just okay, not the best, not enough to get your face on a social media card. But it felt like a step in the right direction. The rush of those four years in college was just enough to fill that “Early Life” tab on the Wikipedia page that was surely destined for my name.

Where did all the years go?

If college was my first heartbreak, then after college was the real battleground — where it opened the floodgates to doubt, existentialism, and ego death. I felt good when there was some sort of road map, but when I was left to fend for myself out in the field, I wriggled like a worm after the rain.

I was lucky enough then to get into Leo Burnett’s management trainee program. Inside it, I thought, “Oh, my goal now, my path to greatness, was to be one of the youngest at the Cannes Lions.” “For sure, I would be in France the next year.” “No gold yet for the Philippines? For sure, I’d not only bring it home, but be the youngest ever to do so.”

But come the End of the Year Party, when awards were being given out, not even “Face of the Night” was reserved for me. (I hope that award keeps you warm at night, Toby Amigo).

Soon, I left advertising for journalism. I started doing film criticism. I was already 24 then. “3 years left, kaya pa yan! (I’ve still got this!).”

My entry into Rappler was already one for the history books. I joined Rappler on January 15, 2018. On January 15, 2018, the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published its decision to revoke Rappler’s operating license.

Of course, this didn’t mean a new level of impunity for the Duterte government, as journalists were now a target. No, this was merely meant to be the cold open of a hero coming to save the little newsroom that could. “Step aside, Maria Ressa, narito na ang Lisan Al-Ghaib. (The Lisan Al-Ghaib is here.)”

Truthfully though, I was already antsy. Two years of creative toil didn’t land me any mention on Young Star. I tried and failed to get into Berlinale as a film critic. When they shot the documentary A Thousand Cuts, I didn’t even get any speaking roles. (I’m the guy doing a toast during the last frames of the film, though. *Self-high-five*).

Time flew, and I was now 27. But just as I was feeling the rush of time, everything ground to a halt in 2020. Maybe the universe took my request to slow things down a little too literally. Between 27 and 30, amid the global pandemic, my parents became senior citizens, and on the cusp of my 30th, I chose to adult and put on my big-boy pants. 

A lot has changed since then. I know there’s something in those intervening worth writing about, but, as I tell my writing teachers, it’s “not that deep.”

On paper, those years look pretty good. I’ve worked in regional corporate roles. I’ve traveled around while reporting to headquarters in Singapore. I’ve lived in India for a little over a year. And now, I’m based in the UAE.

I know they say that the grass is always greener. And, there truly is much to be thankful for; many would happily wear my “success” as a badge of honor. But to me, it feels like packing up my crayons, erasing the colors I drew beyond the edges, and being the “de-kahon” that I never imagined myself for myseLf.

At 33, I write this at a workshop, reading to my classmates my history of delusions, and how much I ponder upon unrealized potential and the possible alternate permutations of my decisions.

It’s not all lost, though. Truly, I’m not sad, just sober. And when I think of how unfit today I would be for the club of 27, I just remember what my workshop seatmate last week, Tita Beng, said to me: “Don’t worry. Jesus and Jose Rizal* died when they were 33.” – Rappler.com

*Turns out Jose Rizal died at 35. Sorry, Tita Beng, two years to go.

Note: This essay was originally the output for Jessica Zafra’s “Writing Boot Camp: Memoirs.”