If one would measure a man’s intellect mainly based from Sir Francis Bacon’s popular quotation: “Reading maketh a full man, Conference a ready man, and Writing an exact man,” easily his barometer would lose tract to completely size up an overly knowledgeable and renaissance guy like Mike Alvarez for aside from being an exceptionally proficient researcher and communications professional, he’s also a voracious film critic.
An initial encounter with this erudite man of letters and well-mannered bundle of multi-faceted intellect was nothing sort of impressive and extraordinary except for his unmistakably trendy get-up and smart deportment. Stylishly garbed in a pair of slim-fit jeans, topped with a two-button sports jacket, Mike is strikingly endowed with an innate enviable youthful charm and boyish appeal that exuded an air of enigmatic sophistication each time he speaks and laughs—shrinking his already chinky eyes into mere slits. What actually was quite noticeable was his full-bodied semi-mophead hairstyle that was provocatively dyed to copper blond with choppy layers of messy and slightly tousled wisps. That stunning rarity of his crowning glory generously offers and greatly establishes the very character that he really is.
Easily, he could either blend or be mistaken for a high school teen or a freshman college dude with his young-looking stature. But the moment he opens his mouth, there’s no denying that this guy has a voluminous stock of extraordinary knowledge crowding his brain. There were accurate facts as there were informative data that profusely laced his speech. Mike, in his cool and confident comportment, effortlessly releases staggering facets and phases of his early turbulent life and how he was able to reverse the course of his distraught path by way of benefiting from the very cause of his near downfall.
The youngest among a brood of three boys, Mark and Matt being his older siblings, Mike was born in Parañaque City, Metro Manila to Virginia and Florentino Alvarez on January 21, 1985…that makes him 29 and yet amazingly looking teen-ish.
Born an “intellectual elite” with unprecedented cognitive skills and unparalleled capacity to be exceptionally creative, Mike obtained his Bachelor of Arts in Psychology in May 2007 from Rutgers University with a Summa cum Laude award honorably affixed to it (Thesis: Existence Through Annihilation: A Study of Suicide and Creativity). To further hone and fettle his acquisition of knowledge Mike enrolled at Goddard College where he finished his MA in Individualized Studies in 2010 (Thesis: Suicide, Creativity, and the Self-Authentications of Human Existence) and MFA (Master of Fine Arts) in Creative Writing in June 2013 (Thesis: The Color of Dusk, A Memoir).
As if those highly intellectual courses from refutable colleges weren’t enough to land a high-paying job Mike’s insatiable thirst for higher and advanced education was irrepressible. Currently, he’s pursuing his PhD in Communication at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
Genuine creative talent with assiduousness and determination merits due support and aid. To sustain his educational finances and daily subsistence educational funding comes easy for Mike. From 2013 to 2014 Alana Diversity Fellowship aided his PhD studies while just recently he was one of the grantees of Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, a foundation that supports graduate study for immigrants and children of immigrants who show great potential to make distinctive contributions to the America of the future, which will support him from 2014 to 2016.
From a huge number of applicants aspiring to avail of the funding, 77 were chosen as finalists out of 1, 200 and were later trimmed down to 30. It wasn’t surprising at all when Mike was among those accepted.
What he’s working at falls under the broader categories of Technology & Society, on one hand, and Film Studies, on the other. “More specifically, I’m interested in how suicide has been represented in film and in popular culture in the West as well as globally. I am also interested in the role of technology in the prevention and promotion of suicidal behavior (e.g. cybersuicide), and its impact on people’s attitude towards death (i.e. thanatechnology).
His was a harrowing experience when he turned 18. Mike began to suffer from debilitating anxiety and depression which later burst out into horrifying delusions and a suicide attempt. With things gone awry there was no other alternative but for him to finally be admitted into a mental hospital during his junior year at Rutgers, marking a startling turning point not only in his personal and professional life but social status, as well.
But Mike’s disheartening life’s chapter was neither the end of the road nor a blockage in his tunnel. Trying to build castles out of the ashes, Mike went back to school and ironically, even majored in Psychology. His personal account about successfully attacking his own demons, victoriously surviving his mental quandary, and topics about suicide and phenomenal creativity were the subjects of his Henry Rutgers thesis that unexpectedly won for him the coveted Charles Flaherty Award. Later it was expanded into a book-length MA thesis at Goddard College. During and in between degrees, he worked as a research assistant at a youth anxiety and depression clinic, as a program coordinator at an eating disorders clinic, and as a residential counselor at a halfway home in midtown Manhattan, among others.
“My research deals with death, mental illness and suicide, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I myself spent time in a mental hospital after a suicide attempt. I also suffered from terrifying delusions throughout college, and despite of that, I graduated summa cum laude.” The itinerant scholar vehemently confessed. His eyes were almost turning misty but the brevity of the situation and the presence of people around held back the aggravating emotion.
After a couple of seconds trying to clear a seemingly lump in his throat, he resumes: “So when people ask me what it is I’m most proud of, it’s not my grades or whatever degrees I’ve earned, but that I’ve accomplished those things despite growing up poor and despite being mentally ill. My greatest accomplishment, then, is that I’ve turned a handicap into a source of strength, and by sharing my story, I hope to inspire others.”
Mike’s journey has been consistently tumultuous and challenging. Aside from being raised by a single parent (his mom) he’s being relentlessly upset by their financial predicament. All these situations earnestly fueled his desire to finish school, be employed, live comfortably, and be able help those in need. “Stories about poverty and struggle, which I could relate, are very important to me…so are the voices of the marginalized.”
During his time as an MFA student at Goddard, Mike served on the editorial board of Pitkin Review (a biannual literary journal) and taught memoir workshops in and around Somerville, Massachusetts while simultaneously crafting the beginnings of what would be his own personal narrative into and out of madness. “When the time is ripe, I hope to share my story with the world.” He beamingly muses.
“A Violin in the Void: The Paradox of Suicide and Creativity,” his forthcoming book, is represented by Jennifer Chen Tran at Penumbra Literary, a Manhattan-based agency. When not occupied with school activities, or reading, writing, and researching (and that includes analyzing films), Mike is either bird-watching, or leafing through children’s books, or laughing hysterically at cat videos with his partner.
This prolific writer has had a number of publications on record: “A Mother in Tears” (2013), “The Color of Dusk: A memoir” (2013), “A Peach Tree Slumbers” (2012), “Purple Crocuses” (2012), “The many Voices of Sybil” (2012), “Beauty as a Dissident Force: The Death of Reinaldo Arenas” (2013), “A Dry Place to Call Their Home: The Death of Kurt Cobain” (2012), “Suicide and Creativity, Self and Other” (2013), Suicide and Great Heights of Creativity: Psychopathology or Paradox?” (2009), “Existence Through Annihilation: A Study of Suicide and Creativity” (2007), and a lot more articles pertaining to or with relation to suicidal matters.
Majority directly judged genius people as nerds or geeks and oftentimes unjustifiably labeled them as abnormal (being above the normal level of intelligence). Mike, in spite of his ability to make finer distinctions and exhibits high-performance capability in the intellectual and creative areas while excelling on specific academic fields, has unassumingly remained unperturbed by such labeling. “After all, I’m still human!” He releases a hearty laugh. “I love to eat (just anything provided it’s edible), bake (especially leche flan), cook Philippine cuisine (particularly caldereta), watch movies (horror, sci-fi, fantasy, superheroes) and TV shows (Dr. Who, my favorite), and play video games.”
And speaking of ordinariness, Mike is innately down-to-earth and easy to get along with sans qualms and airs. He may not be sporty and athletic but he loves to go bowling. A peace-loving person, he can intercede and mollify between two conflicting individuals. Mike thinks he’ll be a good teacher since he’s selflessly obsessed to impart knowledge and generously shares everything he has intellectually accumulated.
Incidentally, Mike is instinctively guided with a motto he lives by: “Every success is accompanied by one hundred setbacks and disappointments.”
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