In Search of Perfection

PREFACE I was 9 years old, going on 10, when I was enrolled in public school in 1933 as a third grade pupil, in Manaoag, Pangasinan. The whole school system was then under the supervision of a Secretary of Public Instruction, an American named Joseph C. Hayden, who discovered the IQ (Intelligence Quotient) Test, to measure the native intelligence regardless of age, educational attainment, social or economic status, merely by moving wooden blocks into slots. He required his whole organization of school supervisors, teachers and pupils, himself included, to take the IQ test in 1933, and in early 1934, he showed up in my grandfather's (then a congressman) farm, to inform me that of all those who took the test, himself included, I, Hilarion M. Henares Jr. had the highest grade. I had an IQ of 170, like that of Albert Einstein, a potential genius at the age of 9, like Einstein. My maternal grandfather Don Daniel Maramba, was so proud of me, he promised to give me anything I wanted as long as he can afford it. I choose books, plenty of books, and the first I bought was a 20-volume set of a children's encyclopedia, called The Book of Knowledge. Even then I was a fast reader and a voracious one. In my third grade class, I sat at a far corner reading reading one volume every day, totally ignoring my teacher who threatened to give me a failing grade, because I did not do my homework nor participated in classroom discussions. My teacher called up Secretary Hayden and asked what was to be done with me, and Hayden laughed and told them: "Leave the boy alone He is getting himself a college education " Yeah, and I did it in 20 days, in third grade and at the age of 9. Since then, from the age of 10 to the age of 80, a period of 70 years, I bought books in complete sets - Hardy Boys, Boy Allies, eventually all the books of Victor Hugo, Hemingway, O Henry, Chesterton, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky. I read ONE BOOK EVERY DAY, inside a closet for 18 hours reading War and Peace - a total of of more than 25,500 books, most trash. I used up ten library cards every school year. I lived the lives and absorbed the thoughts of all the authors whose books I read. I wrote the speeches of my father who earned four engineering degrees; my mother, the head of the National Federation of Women's Clubs; my grandfather who lived long enough to be elected Senator. I am a mathematical wizard and a good writer, developed in both sides of the brain. And I never had the time nor inclination to be a valedictorian or to earn a summa cum laude. For I learned that genius comes in three levels: the Analytical Genius, the favorite of all schools, who gets the highest grades, absorbs knowledge and imparts knowledge perfectly, and who make the best Teachers; the Creative Genius, like Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and Bill Gates, who are Loners and school drop-outs, the despair of schools, but who give us the Technology that make our world better; then the Street-Smart, those who excel in extracurricular activities, collecting money for parties, founding the Camera Club, the ones with Initiative, Imagination, Talent for organization, and the Ability to make friends and influence people. The last one is the best of all, giving us our Popes, our Presidents and national leaders, our Supreme Court Justices. I may not be the best of one level of genius, but I have been good in all three. It is in that capacity, that I ask you to join me, at the age of 93, in my search for Perfection. Perfection in what? Perfect Constitution? Perfect government system? Perfect citizen of the world? Perfect leader: Man or Woman? Best economic system? Best society for perfect sex? Best religion? Oh shit, I want the best for my family, for the nation and for the world I am too old to get it done by myself. I ask you to do it for me, for yourselves and for the rest of generations to come. ooooo