FILIPINO-ISM: A Perspective of Philippines from an American Blogger

        

"Filipinos: Don't try to be more like us, try to be more like YOU. I believe what the world needs now is more of “you,” not more of “us".”

I think this is the best line from Nathan Allen’s open letter to the Filipino people posted on his blog A Foreign Blogger's Letter to the Philippines. Hearing a foreigner encouraging another nationality to be 'more' like themselves seems downright wrong but could be educating, like a parent to a child. Filipinos love to imitate western culture and all the 'dreams and luxury' it pertains. And it is refreshing to hear from a foreigner who must be very proud of his race and his big country but despite of that, he still persuades a small country with a 'colonial mentality' to think on their own, to stand on their own.

We Filipinos are cheerful and hospitable in nature, especially to foreigners, and I was not surprised to read a blog of an American falling in love with our country and our people.

I should have titled "FILIPINO-ISM: A Bright Perspective of Philippines from an American Blogger" but I removed the word bright because I really am not totally happy with his total perspective, despite the fact that many Filipinos who have read the article seems to like it very much. Though he expressed his love for the country and its people, he also stated that,

"Sadly, perhaps due to colonization and other factors (I'll get to these later), the Philippines may have established itself as a country full of "small minds" - people that were discouraged from being ambitious, and kept from their potential. Those in power wanted to keep it that way, and to some extent I believe it's still the same today."

       
      I beg to disagree. No one has the right to call the Philippines as a country full of 'small minds'. The Philippines have produced a lot of ‘small people’ with ‘great minds’. Statesmen, diplomats, scientists, authors, etc. The best example is Gen. Carlos P. Romulo and Sen. Miriam Defensor- Santiago. If Mr Allen failed to recognize that, then he should have done more research about Filipinos before screaming to the whole world that Filipinos have small minds just because a Filipino friend of his told him that he thinks too much. That is a blatant hasty generalization.

            Our thinkers, unlike Americans, are not always in the limelight. That is the reason why we have very few known intellectuals. And we don’t always over-sensationalize things.

I would like to correct him with this when Filipinos ruminate or pondering over things, they do it privately. Filipinos are highly sociable people, and they don’t like to ruin a moment shared with a friend just because he wants to contemplate over an idea that was boiling inside his mind.

Being a colonized country before is never an excuse for us not to be proud. Printed in our exported products is "Proudly made in the Philippines." Slogans everywhere in the country are "Proud to be Pinoy", "Proudly Filipino", It's more fun in the Philippines." Surely, nobody can't say that it is not enough? Purely breed of Filipino musicians? We have Lea Salonga and Charice Pempengco. And yes, no one could miss mentioning our beauty queen delegates (the list is too long to mention).

And yes, we do take problems and tragedies and injuries lightly (well, of course except for the serious ones). And that is the reason why we don’t need therapists. But if he thinks that just because we took it lightly doesn’t mean that we don’t really care. That we don’t worry. I would like to say this: we think, but we do not overthink. We worry, but we do not overworry. It is all about bravado and trust. We believe that he/she can overcome any pain and sufferings alone. And all the jokes and unmindingness are supports in disguise, to lift somebody's spirits up. It is an encouragement, to smile despite all  the miseries and tragedies. Reminding somebody of his/her miseries is a completely bad idea.

 That is the reason why you can still see the smiles both in the children's and adults' faces after largely suffering from wrath of typhoons and flash floods.

Bayanihan

Re: Consumers and copycats. I might agree that media has a lot to do with this. It happens anywhere in the world, in any culture. The emergence of pop culture. Clearly, Mr Allen really failed to recognize that. And if I'm going to use his tact (hasty generalization) I would really love to say that Americans are hypocrites. So you mean consumers? Copycats? Arent’ you one of the biggest consumers of the world? And yes, where is your originality? Hmm. That made me wonder.

I really appreciated the fact that he made a tremendous effort of writing an article about my people, but I would appreciate more if he won’t write and give an opinion on something that he does not completely understand.

Euphemism is customary to us. It is very polite to keep rude things to ourselves. Despite the fact that we are family oriented, we usually do not share what we always have in mind, especially if it is something unpleasant. What we Filipinos love to share are love, kindness, happiness and joviality. I am pretty sure that every culture and race in the world share the same values, but maybe it is how we show and express it that is totally eccentric to foreigners. It is already inculcated in our culture. That is Filipino-ism.

“Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.” - Robert Louis Stevenson

On Understanding the Concepts of Free Will

     Free will is so complex that it is not what we thought it is. When we think and act differently from our society and norms, we thought it is  free will.  We thought that keeping away from the mainstream and be a maverick makes an autonomy from any clout and leverages. We thought that we have complete control over our actions and thoughts. As we think more about it, we realize that this control is simply an illusion. A delusion that we have this ultimate power over our lives.

       Sam Harris showed eloquence over this elusive idea.  He lectured how anything can have subtle influence over a man's mind but have tremendous effects.

                         Here are some of my favorite quotes from the video: 

"A puppet is free as long as he loves his strings."

 “A moment or two of serious self-scrutiny, and you might observe that you no more decide the next thought you think than the next thought I write.” 

“What evidence could possibly be put forward to show that one could have acted differently in the past?”

“You are not controlling the storm, and you are not lost in it. You are the storm.”

“You can do what you decide to do — but you cannot decide what you will decide to do.”

On making mistakes over and over again

I have this toiletry bag that has a broken zipper. I like these bag so much that even though I already have a new one, I tried to fix its zipper several times. Although I have a very little skill on sewing, I am confident that I could fix it.

So one Sunday afternoon, when I have enough time than any other afternoons, I found the bag while cleaning the room. I let my clothes to be folded to wait while I wrestle over the zipper and listening over Sam Harris ranting about free will. I absentmindedly fiddle over the poor zipper. And yes, I was able to put successfully the zipper back on its set of teeth. So the last challenge is to straighten both sides of teeth carefully not to over pull the zippers. I repeated it so many, many times to perfect both sides. I did this over Harris’ ideologies, agreeing with his ideas while trying to be skeptical too. After all, what I am listening to is about free will.

Until I did what I feared to do- I over pulled the zippers.

I was so surprised how that stupid zipper easily pulled away. How I hate myself for not concentrating on my work. It is not an easy feat after all!

And in that moment, a holy dove descended upon me, a beam of hallowed light in my head.

And a light bulb.

That was a great moment of reflection. Over the broken zipper and Harris’s blasphemous words in the background.

I began to see myself. Didn't I do it in my daily personal life, did I? Thinking that I’m on the right track I absentmindedly over pulled myself?

That when I thought I am careful enough not to commit the same mistakes I end up doing it over and over again.

Why? Is it because I am not paying much attention to what I am doing? Or is it because I let myself to be distracted?

How could I ever correct myself? Or how could I ever keep myself from doing it again?

After several tries, after the backbreaking concentration, hunching myself over the zipper but ending up over pulling it, I decided that enough is enough. I’m tired of it all. I decided to give it up.

Until a human angel come to my rescue in the form of a friend who knows a lot about sewing and zippers. When she saw my trouble, she immediately picked it up and amazingly repaired it for just a minute. She did it while I rant about how I painstakingly tried to fix it up.

Well, that made my jaw drop, shutting me up.

It made me think that we are just humans, no matter how we tried to sensationalize ourselves. And humans are bound to commit mistakes, no matter how we tried to be careful. No matter how we tried to follow the right track.

I'm on the right track!

Yes, we knew of some things. 

Like for instance, for me, I am great on breaking things.

When we wanted to be on our own, we are bound to commit mistakes. The time will come that we are going to see our mistakes and try to correct it. Some of us may do it successfully, some may not. But those who did it effectively may end up making the same mistakes over again. 

All of us have the same story. Committing mistakes over and over again. That is in every tries of fixing ourselves up.

And we end getting tired of it. That we let ourselves to be pulled by the ebbs of society, never minding where it will lead us.

That is the time when we need other people to help fix ourselves up.We can't do it alone. Never. We are too tired to straighten up after those terrible times of hunching down. 

It is also the time of finding the right and true friend. Those who would understands you and would really help you.

Life could be tiring. Indeed. But it is only for those who pursue can see its elusive beauty. 

Road to Awesomeness

Staring at the screen while squeezing the dried material of what makes my brain makes my head felt voider than ever. I am still battling this never ending war against this so-called writer’s block.

But in the first place, am I a writer, or just someone who pretends to love playing with words? 

Or am I just a great procrastinator?

When inspiration hits me, I always find excuses to delay in writing down those beautiful ideas that was juggling inside my head. 

There are also times when I am full of energy to write but I have nothing to bleed. 

I may even bleed to death without writing anything fruitful.

Like now.

This led me to believe that writer’s block and procrastinating are relatives if not the same whole damn thing.

How can I overcome this? Join workshop for writers? Or attend counselings for procrastinators?

Either ways, I believe that it is still not the answer. It requires a whole lot of creativity and discipline. 

It needs a whole lot of craziness, loneliness and whole lot of other emotions that should well and burst inside you. 

Yes, somebody should burst first before ever going to start writing. 

It will cost your sanity.

And your normal life.

Because procrastinating is so normal. So is lack of discipline. 

Lacking of those means you are terribly awesome.

And I am still toiling in the road of awesomeness.

Someday, I will be awesome. An awesome somebody. Isn’t that awesome?

Right now, I am just a crazy lunatic, writing horrible writings.

(It is better to be redundant to clear the point rather than confuse everyone with a terrible oxymoron) 

And turn them into morons by letting them read this awful writing.

Anyway, nobody’s sane in here, because we’re all mad here.

'Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know.' (Oscar Wilde)

 

Not everything told to us when we are young are true

 
    When I was young, I used to think that adults are always right. When they tell me something, I immediately believed it because I always think that they know everything else in this world that is totally mysterious to me. When my mother told me about Santa Claus and socks and gifts, I unquestioningly believed it. Once, she told us (with my younger brother) not to show our teeth to the lizards innocently crawling at our ceiling because it will never grow back when it will fall off. So I spent my childhood looking at our ceiling every time I laugh inside the house. There is also this silly belief (also told to us by a grown up cousin) to spit saliva every time we see a gecko or else our tongue will be cut off (by whom and how, I don’t know). There are a lots of don’ts and do’s during my childhood days, all invented by those silly adults trying to scare us off. 

     As I grew up, I started to realize how totally ridiculous they are. So when I saw a rainbow and pointed at it, trying to show it to my younger brother and my Tita chastised me never to do it again or else my finger (that I used in pointing) will be cut off, I asked her why, how and by whom. She just told me not to question it because it is what it is (if you don’t understand that, so am I). Until now, I really wondered where those stupid beliefs came from, who invented it, and why they told us that. For a wide-eyed, curious child like me, questions never end. Sometimes when i would ask something that I don't understand, they would usually put me off. I don't know if they are just annoyed with my unending questions or just they themselves do not know the answers.

     World is a mystery to me, life full of unknown adventures. The only known place to me that time is the neighborhood (which is composed of my cousins’ house where we usually play together with other than our place), school and home. Beyond that, it is totally unknown to me, foreign. My small world seems so large for me. I thought that those places where my eyes could see are where the end of the world lies. Adults never brought me there. I just saw them go there, and I saw them return too, affirming my ignorant belief that thatis really where the end of the world lies.

...to be continued....

Part II: Not everything told to us when we are young are true

Part 2

     So as I grew up, I began to question my very own understanding of this world. I started to go to school, began to learn how to read and write and see beyond the place where I have attended my kindergarten. I began to meet new people-- and bullies. I am not that really sociable during my childhood days so that means I don't really have friends. It is maybe because back then, I was told not to talk to people that I don't know. Do not talk to strangers, even if they are my age. The rest, I am a possessive freak and stupid and naive and foolish. In short, I was not really exposed to this world, ignorant, because that it was I learned for my whole short life.

    It was also this age that  I started to discover the wonders of reading and writing. I read a lot of books: children's books, the bible and fairy tales. I also love to write stories which I have shown to my classmates (they love them). But, it was also the age when I started to question almost everything that I have known- including God. Yes, at a very early age, I started to question the beliefs that were inculcated on me. God, Santa Claus, and the moon's ability to give bread.

     But I still believe in superpowers. That is not something that was taught to me.

     Looking back, I think I have a hell lot of fun. Though some of those beliefs are mostly don't s, like not picking a beautiful violet flower or else it will bite off your fingers (strange enough, scares involve a lot about cutting off fingers), it did give me a lot of wonders. Like waiting for a witch astride her broomstick flying past the huge, red-orange moon and wondering what she looks like.

    I was used of immediately believing of what adults told me. I thought before that wisdom and maturity come with age. Like I said before, I thought that what my parents told me is unquestioningly correct. So I believed that when I reached the age of twenty, I am already a matured individual. But it turns out that nothing has changed, age doesn't matter after all. Though my knowledge and perspective widened, I am still this childish girl who loves to create pranks to my friends, who still laughs boisterously, and who still decides on things immaturely.

    Anyway, when I realized that some of the things that I heard from them are bogus, it is the time that my devotion and concrete and ultimate belief and trust on adults started to collapse.

    So it became, later in my life (that is now) that I started to question what I see, hear, read, feel and think. Learning from my childhood days, I became a skeptic. Is what this person just told me is true?  Moreover, it is also the way I handle information from any authority. It became my rule that if something that is cannot be explained nor prove or it created inconsistencies, then it is not true or correct.   But that doesn't mean as a period. For me, it just doesn’t end there. Life doesn't just end there. Nor death is the end. Life is a continuous cycle, a circle. It just goes on and on, back and forth, back and forth. So is the knowledge. I may not be an immediate believer, but I am still an open-minded person. I know and I accept the fact that my initial beliefs, no matter how believable and concrete the facts are, may still be wrong. As anything can go wrong. 

This blog may be written on a personal basis but I believe that it still applies to everyone. It is not all about blind belief, it is all about selective thinking. It is all about knowing your ground and knowing your own thinking. It is all about debunking previous beliefs and accepting new ideas. Moreover, it is all about questioning.