“However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.” – Stephen Hawking
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It doesn’t mean that if you don’t like doing it, you won’t love doing it in the future. It happened to Donald James Moen, more popularly known as Don Moen. In an exclusive interview some years back, he admitted that he really didn’t like anything about music when he was growing up in Two Harbors, Minnesota.
It was his mother who endeavored to make him musically-inclined. “As a young boy, my mother insisted that I take piano lessons,” he recounted. “There are four children and she made us all take piano lessons for six years. I despised it.”
During his practice sessions, Moen would strike the keys, prompting his mother to remind him: “Donny, you wear the clothes we provide, you sleep in the bed we furnish, and you eat the food we supply. Now, you must play the piano.”
He complied, yet he loathed it. “I decided that if I ever grew up, got married and had children of my own, I would never be so cruel to them – just like what my mother was to me,” he says. “And now all of my five children repeat the same thing I said before. And I would tell them what my mother used to tell me. It’s an amusing story.”
During his time at Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma, he demonstrated a notable talent for music. He became a musician for Terry Law Ministries, where he played both the guitar and trombone, eventually taking on the role of arranger.
Moen reflects, “While serving as the musical director for a Christian band, I began to play the piano. As the band required additional songs, I took the initiative to arrange music and subsequently composed several pieces. This process led me to perform my own compositions, and one opportunity naturally followed another.”
Moen’s case is not isolated. I am sure there are many out there whose ambition when they were kids had never materialized.
During my elementary years, I really wanted to be a comics illustrator. But since I am based in Davao del Sur, I knew my dream would be just like that – a dream. After all, the comics publishing companies like Graphic Arts and Atlas were all based in Manila. So, I didn’t have a chance to fulfil my dream.
Perhaps, I could start my way up there by writing. I wrote some stories which I submitted to some comics. One appeared in Pioneer Komiks and another in Wakasan. I also wrote funny incidents to Bisaya Magasin.
When I was in college, I started contributing to publications such as Mod Magazine, Woman’s Home Companion, Mr. and Ms., Express Week, Philippine Graphic, Philippine Free Press, and Focus Philippines.
Some of those published articles earned me recognition from Philippine Press Institute’s Science and Technology Journalism Awards and Philippine Agricultural Journalists, Inc.’s Binhi Awards.
In those days, I received only P50 for my articles. It wasn’t until I started writing for Press Foundation of Asia that I received P350 per article (those released locally) and P1,000 (for those released internationally).
The rest is now history.
Carlo J. Caparas is another notable individual who never anticipated achieving fame in a profession he had not envisioned for himself. I found his story, as detailed on Wikipedia, to be quite engaging.
One of nine children born to a laundry woman and an unemployed father, he undertook various jobs to support his family and finance his secondary education. His employment included roles as a water carrier, boatman, construction laborer, and factory worker. Ultimately, he left school before completing his studies, although he maintained a strong passion for reading.
At the age of 19, Caparas secured a position as a security guard at a local publishing firm in Makati, where he worked primarily from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. During these hours, he continued to indulge in his reading habit, often spending “(a thousand) nights” immersed in books.
His tenure was interrupted when he was struck by a stray bullet during a company strike, necessitating a period of rest.
In his youth, Caparas developed a deep commitment to the arts, often creating comic strips as a means to channel his frustrations towards what he perceived as oppression.
His recovery after the shooting incident provided him with increased opportunities for reading, which ultimately led to the discovery of his talent for storytelling. His inaugural comic narrative, titled Citadel, was serialized in Superstar.
At the age of 22, an observer came across a complete romance comic novella in his notebook, which he subsequently finished, entitled Ako’y Nagmamahal Sayo. This work marked his debut in published literature.
Caparas gained recognition for his significant contributions to the country’s pop culture, particularly during the peak of the comic industry from the 1960s to the 1980s. He authored more than 800 novels and short stories for comics, many of which were later adapted into films and television series.
To end this column, allow me to quote the words of E.M. Gray: “The successful person has the habit of doing the things failures don’t like to do. They don’t like doing them either necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose.”
