Contentment; Everything Comes Full Circle, Time Repeats Itself

I have reflected, wholly and in part, that my life, though just starting, feels like the life lived by three generations of men. I feel like the wise old man shown in martial arts movies who has lived a long and fruitful life, and gleaned a wisdom only time and experience can give, and who, when asked about something, would just smile mysteriously and reply in cryptic messages that only he can understand.

Always, my peace springs forth from my eternal unrest, my happiness, from deep fountains of sorrow, and my inspiration, from a mix of hope and despair. It is, just as it had been centuries before, a battle of extremes. To find a middle ground, a balance between all these -- to teeter on the edge, yet never fall...

LOVE has been too overused, and has been way past being a cliche to be believable as the central reason for living. Perhaps, the simplest and more believable truth is that CONTENTMENT is the only reason for living. For man never stops desiring, being contented only for a while before thinking up of new things, persons, or events to chase after.

We are then, only as free as our desires would let us.

If you feel as if you are a slave of love, rather than the master of it, as if you cannot bear to live a life without it, then contentment for you is still eons ahead of your time. For only with contentment can there be acceptance of the inevitable -- and with the inevitable comes the knowledge that: everything and everyone is where it and they should be, and that nothing nor anyone is out of place in the universe. For all has happened, will happen, and continue to happen according to plan. And it is not love which is the illuminating candle with which we can view the world truly as it is, but is contentment.

Contentment slows down time, speeds it up, turns it back, runs it forward; contentment will show us all the lives we've ever lived, will live, or ever will live -- and all of them will answer one thing: We are where we are supposed to be, and nothing can change that. Contentment is that water we must drink in order to become immortal.

Fate then becomes not a shackle, nor a force in which we should struggle against, but a guiding hand in which we should draw assurance from. Likewise, faith becomes more meaningful, as the blind trust in an antromorphic God and the self-destructive belief of free-will is replaced by sentient understanding, and acceptance of things we have no control of.

Being Free is A Choice

Freedom of expression is not absolute. Our right is always accompanied by the responsibility to exercise it – correctly.

      This is our dilemma. Because democracy is a double-edged sword
– it has its pros and cons. Yet no matter its negative attributes, we
must always remember that our state of freedom, indeed our form of
government, was founded on ideals and reasons formulated by our
forefathers, guided by their conscience, by years of learned history,
and by reasoned argument – in this way, the Philippine Republic was
born.

      Our constitution, by all rights, is not infallible. Nor is it
even holy (no matter what the constitutionalists say), having been made
only by men, and not being the word of God. Thus to all parties
concerned, pro or anti-government, this should neither be the wall in
which we should fall back on, nor the wall in which we should hide
behind when arguing our cases, but should only be our guideline when
discussing matters of law.

      Nothing is absolute in our world. Our laws and our
constitution will not always be right. Times change, and we must change
with it. Though our constitution was drafted by men and women of great
wisdom and honor, none of them can possibly have foreseen what the
future held, and thereby draft provisions within the constitution to
govern it. That is why when conflicts of interests or questions of
right or wrong arise, we should not depend on laws to provide all
answers (as still, laws are made by men, and are thus prone to
mistakes, perversion, and even evil intent), but instead rely on our
conscience, reasoned judgement, and ultimately our hearts.

      For even if the law never provided a provision against murder,
by just using our conscience, heart, and reason, we would already know
that killing is wrong, and should thereby be punished. Thus to all
those pretending to uphold the law, or peace and order, the question isn’t
always about legality – it is always about morality. Whether you can
stomach what you are doing even if it is already reeking of all the
wrongness in the world.

      With our freedom comes the age-old argument of expressing it,
and exercising it responsibly. As I vividly recall my college professor
say: not all freedom is absolute. With it comes the responsibility of
exercising it correctly. You cannot say, “I am free to say whatever I
want because this is a free country,” and then go on to a cinema and
shout: Fire! For of course this would cause panic, and in the resulting
panic people would get hurt.

      Can you reasonably say then that you did no wrong because you were just simply exercising your right to free speech?

      We are only as free to exercise our rights so long as it does
not impede, step on, or violate anyone else’s. Always there should be
accountability to our fellow men.

      Now, to why I say democracy is a double-edged sword. Democracy
is freedom, it is the rule of the majority – and this is where our
sword might cut us. For not all votes of the majority are right, or
reasonable. For a country like ours, with a majority which is growing
alarmingly uneducated, and depressingly apathetic, it is a danger to
depend so much on the rule of the majority. When that majority can just
descend on mob rule: which is all passion and no reason.

      To think that since it is the opinion of the majority, it must
be right, is to descend into stupidity. For as history have brusquely
taught us, the majority doesn’t always have the monopoly on what is
right. Hence Galileo was prosecuted because he advanced a theory which
was against the belief of the majority; so were navigators of ancient
times called madmen for proclaiming the earth round when most people
believed it flat. I shudder to think what would happen if majority of
people suddenly decide that killing is not only legal, but is also
right.

      Again it all comes back to three things. Only by using our
conscience, reasoned judgement, and our hearts can we truly discern
what is right and moral.

      The fault of democracy is that it relies greatly on people to
choose a leader and then after that, installs that leader to rule over
the people. Democracy is monarchy masked with the people’s votes. We
choose our king or queen, and then happily submit to their rule. And
then blame them when things don’t go the way we want it to be. The
problem with our countrymen is that they think that their duty as a
citizen starts and ends only with voting and that after that, they just
leave it to the president to solve everything without them even giving
a helping hand. That is why for us Filipinos, democracy is so hard to
become our golden ticket to true freedom. Because by our own choice, we
let that freedom enslave us.

      Again, I hear my college professor advocating us: the key is
pro-activism, never passivity. For only with pro-activism can we
continue to check and control the negative things that go along with
democracy.

      My despair is for all of us Filipinos, who are so proud of our
being patient – to a fault, that we are willing to lay down and let a
tyrant run amok and act only when we are, as we say in Tagalog: puno na
ang salop. Bakit ba kailangan pa nating hintayin na mapuno ang salop
para lang umaksyon? Kung kalian marami na ang namatay, nakulong, o
naparusahan? (o nakalimutan nyo na ba ang Martial Law?)

      There is a line in JK Rowling’s 6^th book of Harry
Potter that says: It is important to fight, and fight again, and keep
fighting, for only then could evil be kept at bay, though never quite
eradicated.

      Now to the Arroyo administration, which incidentally has a
frightening resemblance to George Orwell’s fictional government in his
book, The Farm, I say this: You may use all your powers to thwart, hide
behind, or use inappropriately the rule of law, yet ultimately you are
bound to fall. For all tyrants and tyrannies have an end, and that
retribution will always come to those who warrant it.

      I am disheartened when professionals and the so called
“educated” middle class are the first ones to call for the rallies to
end simply because it is to their discomfort. We forget that it is when
we start to think more of our comfort than of what is right that
injustice occurs. We forget that when we start to disdain rallies
because they are, so to speak: pampagulo lang, pampa-trapik lang, gawa
ng mga taong walang magawa sa buhay, that we start to kill that same
freedom we enjoy, and embolden the government to be tyrannical. I am
disheartened to think that the middle class have become so elitist that
when they see poor people rallying, they immediately assume these
rallyists have been paid. I am disheartened, because we were so quick
to unite against Erap because he was stupid and had no educational
class, that when his graft and corruption was exposed, we immediately
clamored for his resignation. While when it was Gloria’s turn to be
grilled, having been exposed of BLATANT wrong-doing, we, the supposed
“educated” middle class turn a deaf ear and a blind eye, simply
because: we have no other choice but Gloria. Gloria who is supposed
to be an economist but employs the stupidest economic decisions of all.

      I would rather remove an inept president (for that is what
Gloria is) than endure her rule simply because the one who may succeed
her is deemed by the “educated” middle class to be inept.

      I call on all Filipinos, who are still guided by reason and
morality, to ACTIVELY participate in the formation of our country. For
only with our actions can we guide our country towards a fruitful
development.

      To the police and military, this is my call: Do not mistake
the title of the president as Commander-in-Chief to mean that she is at
the top of the chain of command. For that is what you so moronically
repeat like brainless monkeys when questioned about your continued
enforcement of her obvious anti-people policies. Calibrated preemptive
response my ass, is just another term for oppression.

      Never forget that the president’s office gets its mandate from
the people, and that in a democracy, the power emanates not from the
president, but from the people. So when you robotically mouth the
beloved phrase: All faithful soldiers must follow the chain of command,
why then, it is the people you should follow, for they are above the
president, and therefore at the top of the chain of command. First
among your duties is to protect the people and its sovereign will, not
the presidency.

      To the media, (the broadcast one in particular) my call is
simple. STOP IDIOTIZING (if ever there is such a word) THE PEOPLE, and
START EDUCATING THEM RESPONSIBLY! I know you are after what sells and
what is profitable, but always remember that: in the end, these things
you sow, you will also reap.

      So enough with the inane reality shows like Pinoy Big Brother
and Extra Challenge which have no educational value whatsoever, only
serving to glamorize stupidity, and vulgarity, not to mention the
people’s ill manners on these shows to be haplessly imprinted on the
minds of our poor youth. Enough also with the infotainment and the
mixing of showbiz news with regular news. Haven’t we had enough showbiz
news in shows like Startalk and The Buzz, to be still bombarded by it
when we watch our evening news? Yeah, yeah, I know. It is again,
another one of your harebrained schemes to root the people in their
seats, in front of their TV screens by interspersing the news with
“chika”. In that way, you smartly think, the masa will stay all
throughout the show. But that is where you went wrong. For it is when
you started to think that all the masa ever wanted was senseless
showbiz tidbits that what resulted in the end, was the masa being
brainwashed into thinking that all that ever mattered was what happens next to
Jen and Mark’s romance, and which showbiz couple’s relationship Pauleen
Luna will break next.

      And you wonder why our people have grown apathetic to what’s happening around them…

      To Mike Enriquez and Mel Tiangco, aren’t you ashamed at all
that your esteemed 24 Oras has lost all its resemblance to a real news
program and has become a commercial break to an endless barrage of
showbiz balita? Doesn’t it even insult you that you have become mere
“heralds” of Pia Guanio, and that Pia Guanio seems more to be the
mainstay of the show than you two?

      I will not even go into detail of the shameless way you plug
your foundations and charitable institutions, proclaiming to the world
the kindness and goodness of your heart; how you rush to praise
yourself when you have finished assuaging your guilt for the immense
riches you have earned by giving back not even a fraction of it, to the
masa to whom you owe your riches.

      Aah, you media people have grown proud. Because like Arroyo,
you have been given a position of power, and like Arroyo, that power
has made you drunk with pride.