Quintin Pastrana Answers 5 Questions to 5 Shots
Transcript
00:00How many, sorry
00:02How many drinks am I expected to consume?
00:11Hi, my name is Quintin Pastrana
00:13I run a renewable energy company in the Philippines
00:15expanding to southeast Asia
00:17We clocked off work, it's close to 6pm
00:19We've got a roadtrip ahead tomorrow up north in the Philippines
00:22We've got all the paperwork cleared
00:24and I'm not driving so, yeah, it's about time to knock off a bit
00:28Nordes is my go-to choice
00:32It's a Galician gin
00:33It smells of perfume but it's very, very potent,
00:36robust, and beautiful drink
00:38Let's start
00:41It'll be a cheers for you and Esquire
00:44and for allowing me to feature my favorite drink
00:52Beyond my renewable energy role at WEnergy Power Philippines
00:55my philanthropy is building libraries
00:56I think it's important for us to have a national discourse
01:00 that's not intellectual per se, but really full of inquiry,
01:05full of desire to find solutions that will bind us together
01:10regardless of our political differences
01:12and find a way to unite as a nation
01:14The way to do that is through pure literacy,
01:17literacy that allows you to teach each other,
01:20find meaning together
01:21and that's really how we solve problems
01:22whether it be something personal or more importantly societal
01:27Pain points do get solved with shared interests
01:29and the way to do that has an inquiring mindset and reading does that for you
01:33So, that's really why we're building libraries across the country
01:36We have a thousand and one as on record
01:39We really want to make sure there is a culture of discourse inquiry
01:43and solutions building, and that happens with
01:48the magical and transformative act of reading
01:50Your respect for the other, your respect for the transcendent third
01:54that brings you together to solve problems and it really, reading does that
01:58Here's to good reading
02:12Well, to be sarcastic I know who you voted for
02:15But seriously speaking, at least, more seriously speaking
02:18I think you might as well be dead
02:21Even if it's the most mababaw thing like where to eat,
02:24or how to hang out,
02:25who to pick for your loved one
02:27or who you stay as friends with
02:29or work on projects or invest in projects with
02:32those are important things to have
02:34and if you don't have that progressive inquiring mindset
02:37that openness then
02:40you pretty much have a litmus test of who not to hang out with
02:43or cut off from your social media pages,
02:45which I've done quite happily
02:48This time I'll be a little adventurous because I finished it,
02:50I will have a bit of lambanog
03:05At the end of the day, to know yourself well enough
03:07you need to have fewer distractions
03:10you need to have an electronic leash cut-off
03:12and it's easier said than done
03:13I'm the biggest violator of that principle
03:15Having said that though, my flat which is right next door,
03:18which is why it's so easy to drink as much as I can,
03:21has no Wi-Fi, has no cable, has no TV
03:25I will definitely mess my life up by having that
03:29So, no distractions is the first thing that happens to quiet your mind
03:33and then, the Japanese have this word called tsundoku
03:37which is you know, acquiring more books than you can ever read
03:41and if you're surrounded by that logic and get intimidated enough
03:43to say maybe I should start reading again
03:46So the combination of no distraction
03:49and an entire panoply and universe of
03:53knowledge in front of you
03:54which is crafted by the most beautiful, brave, brilliant people
03:57that it would be a shame to partake of that on nights you get home
04:01That is a great formula for keeping still
04:06and that's the long and short answer
04:13Oh yeah, that's tough
04:15That's one of those questions that you live to regret
04:20To cheat a bit, the Lord of the Rings trilogy
04:23is always something you come back to
04:25So, I have this nice leather-bound book set
04:27with the illustrations and if they're all nicely wrapped as one book
04:30They’re all in separate components, including The Hobbit
04:33That's the beauty of a wonderful book or a piece of literature
04:36you're the one changing, you're the one getting more of it,
04:40and it stays constant for you
04:41and, for me, that's yes, J. R. R. Tolkien
04:43and I'm sure five years from now I'm happily alive and all that
04:47I would draw more from The Fellowship of the Ring,
04:50and The Two Towers, and The Return of the King
04:52or even there and back again
04:54as I grow older or regress, depending what happens.
04:58Well, this is the last one hopefully
05:03I think it would've taken me twice as long
05:06but because I had to add this traydor thing called Barik,
05:12I think I sped up the process
05:14So bad idea but anyway, I'll be fine
05:17I'm not driving today
05:23I think if you study and live in the U.K. for a bit, you kind of take in
05:26a few things without being pretentious, I'm hoping
05:29Chuffed, actually, there's no other word like it
05:32It's pleased on steroids
05:34that's what it is for me
05:36I write poetry so the few syllables there are, the more powerful the word
05:40Chuffed, beggar’s description, of how good a day you've had,
05:43no matter how bad it was and at the end of it you turn it around,
05:47you jiu-jitsu the bad day into a good day,
05:49you're sharing it with loved ones,
05:51and at the end of the day you're pleased.
05:52All that entire smorgasbord of words
05:55actually falls in this nice rubric called chuffed
05:59There is one, by the way, one left
06:01I'll be probably chilling this gin lambanog combination soon
06:08This is the best of both worlds:
06:09a European provenance plus
06:13our Filipino roots—not a bad combo