“Insanity is repeating the same action while expecting a different result.”
~Albert Einstein
During my days as a student nurse, I was once forced to work at a mental hospital somewhere in Manila. For the sake of privacy, I’ll hide the identities of the personnel involved, including mine of course.
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Anyway, one of the clients there I never forgot was this one woman whom we’ll just call “Ophelia” for the sake of simplicity. Anyway, Ophelia was right around 26 or 28 when I and my fellow nurses first encountered her. She was ranting and raving when we first saw her, struggling against the nurses and her restraints.
While she was still quite young, she had the look of a forty-year-old grandmother with too many kids. Looking at her, I could have said that she might have once been beautiful and could be again if she ever recovered. However, as she seemed locked in her own fantasies, recovery may be quite far off for her.
When asked about her identity, she claimed that she was a princess of some kind married to a Canadian prince who would, any day now, come to get her and take her home. She also said that the facility holding her was a cleverly disguised mansion funded by her Canadian husband to protect her from “bad people”. When confronted, she would vehemently defend her beliefs, claiming that the person criticizing her was one of the “bad people” who were paid to ruin her relationship with her royal husband.
Looking back on Ophelia now, I can’t help but think that majority of Pinoys think in a way that’s more than a little similar to her. When confronted about their dysfunctional habits, many Pinoys choose to see only what they want to see and hear what they want to hear. They will choose to spin said words to their favor or at least get it to conform with their own twisted thinking instead of thinking them over closely and considering what is actually being said. Oftentimes, they will even lose themselves in their own fantasies (probably based on a teleserye of their choice) which are filled with narcissism and a grandiose sense of self-importance. They will think themselves the center of all attention and that their critics are attacking them and their “happy lives”.
Ladies and gentlemen, with just how far the situation has degenerated and is continuing to degenerate, I can only wonder what can save the country now although the three crucial things are:
We Should Wake Up As A People
C’mon guys, life isn’t a fairy tale. Life is hard, we need to realize that. All of us.
Changing for the better won’t be easy but if we do it now, we might still be able to give the next generation a better future.
We Need To Set Our Priorities Straight
As I’ve said a thousand times, celebrities could care less about you and your lives. They are not the ones who are going to change this country. We the common people will be the ones to do that.
What they do might be entertaining but it’s got nothing to do with the future of our country.
We Need To Get Up And Do What We Can
Again, this is a statement I’ve repeated more times than I can remember.
We the people are the key to our own progress and prosperity. But for that to happen, we need to do out part even if it seems small. Even if its just putting our trash in the right place or choosing to only vote for political candidates who have the right qualifications.
I HAVE RETURNED TO LAY WASTE TO OUR ENEMIES!
‘Couldn’t care less,’ not could. I don’t enjoy being a grammar Nazi, but it’s the exact opposite of what you mean, it could annoy me more.
Thank you for pointing that out.
yong nangongorek akala mo ang galing, could care less is the right diction…couldn’t is already negative plus care less is another negative will make the sentence wrong
First of all , we have to throw these Idiot Politicians to the “Garbage Bin”, where they truly belong. They make themselves Very Important. Implying to us all, we cannot, (or the country) cannot survive without them.
Changing our MINDSETS, that we don’t owe anything, from them, can be the first step.
And by the way, they owe us Everything…they are all “Feasting” on our Taxes, in the form of political entitlements called: Pork Barrels, DAP, PDAF,etc…
Have you noticed, if some Public Projects are done; they put their “Big Names” (Big Egos) on them…As if, they are the ones spending for the projects…let us Shoot Down their Big Egos…
Grimwald, if people put their trash in the right place and choose to vote political candidates who have the right qualifications but continue to watch teleseryes because they don’t like your alternative media, would that be good enough for you?!
Of course it is.
Unfortunately, it’s a vicious cycle, I think. Look, people have a right to watch what they want, even I believe that. Unfortunately, they’re all that seem to be on these days and too much of anything is never good. It’s like having only one kind of food all the time. To be really healthy, you need many kinds of food.
what grim is pointing out is to enjoy watching anything you want but not to the point that your live revolves around it. you follow an actors/actress life, you read news about this people everyday, etc. for some reason this is the lifestyle of most of our poor kababayans.
example: i used to watch this eat bulaga segment (wally, jose, paolo), and everytime the camera switches to the audience in the studio, this gay guy always shows up as an audience. does he have a job or just wasting his life / time attending the show everyday? what a waste.
I don’t think that your observation of the poor as having a so-called lifestyle is not entirely correct. The lifestyle of the poor, if you can call it that, is to find something to eat or find ways to make money so they can buy food to eat. From day to day, the motivation is to survive not to watch teleseryes or animes!
Well, most of the poor there still manage to have access to TV whether it be looking through someone’s window or at the food stall. Trashy shows are more ubiquitous than clean clothes and shelter in Filipino society.
well, if “lifestyle” is an incorrect word let me change it as i’m not that articulate. i was in the bathroom taking a sh@t and then suddenly i thought of a word that may probably suit my point. i’ll change it with “customs” or “habit”. what a way to think about this.
well chris, get real, how much time do you think can a starving family devote to TV as oppose to the moderately rich playing games and watching animes. If others can have what they want, why prevent others from enjoying what they want even for only a limited of time! Don’t you think that the issue of TV programming is best addressed to the producers themselves instead of putting the blame to these common folks!
Yes, but like I said, it’s a vicious cycle. Producers produce garbage and the people lap it up. People demand more garbage and the producers comply.
Look, what we need is VARIETY. Watching anime and playing videogames are not necessarily detrimental to one’s mind just as teleseryes aren’t necessarily stupidity-inducing. However, without responsible contol over these things, you get dumb, air-headed people.
The Philippine media is, sadly, out of control now. I don’t know if you agree but if it stays the way it is, it will contribute to the eventual destruction of our beloved nation.
I agree Sir Grimwald, we need VARIETY…and control (or moderation) is key! And the Philippine Media and TV Show Producers has this power over its consumers! We, as consumers, our only power is to consume or reject what is being offered to us!
What I don’t agree, however, is the generalizing idea of most people putting the blame to the powerless in making the nation dumb! (A quick glance of the type audiences present in the studio of TV shows, especially ABS-CBN, are the moderately rich!)
Even if different people of different taste will clamor some more of what they want, in the final analysis, the Producers still has in its power to decide what’s it is going to be! They are the ones to be blamed and/or be congratulated for using their power in making or unmaking the nation dumb!
BTW, it’s the first time I notice you wrote “our beloved nation”, I’m glad you did!
What? I always call it “our beloved nation”. Who else lives here but me and my countrymen?
Anyway, while the poor aren’t really to blame, they’re not exactly blameless either. I admit that while a lot of them really are victims. There will always be those who would rather be victims than be the heroes of their own lives.
It’s sad really. I remember an anime villains saying something like the real way to defeat a hero is to destroy his motivation for heroism. In that sense, I think maybe our beloved country and her people are truly defeated.
🙁
The Failippines and Failipinos culture is a place where pity is called compassion, flattery is called love, propaganda is called knowledge, tension is called peace, gossip is called news, and auto-tune is called singing.
If I may ask, sincerely, what culture do you represent?
the realists.
“We Should Wake Up As A People”
Here in GRP, we can make a society if the government would give us a piece of region in this country. we govern ourselves and we can practice democracy + freedom correctly. however, as a filipino people, some can wake up and unplugged from the matrix but the majority are still in their slumber. We, the minority are but a shadow.
Davao City’s dabawenyos are collective in thinking in terms of practicing discipline + freedom. it seems a good leader is needed to unite us. I’m not campaigning for the mayor but it seems that he has this leadership qualities that makes you want to follow him.
Here are excerpts from his speech during the Asia CEO Forum held in Manila last June 25, 2015:
Give them what they need and not what they want:
Imposing the speed limits in the city to lessen vehicular accidents:
“Initially, very, very strong opposition was mounted against the enforcement of this landmark legislation. I knew then, as I still know now that it is much easier to form a habit than to break one already embedded. But I stood my ground. I didn’t retreat an inch. i told everyone that i took an oath to protect the health and interests of the people. Therefore, I said that I will “give them what they need ang not what they want. The rest of course, is history for us in Davao City.”
Uniting the dabawenyos:
“They say that to make things move and work, what is needed is political will. Let me add a dimension to that based on my experience. To succeed in governance, “political will” alone will not suffice. There are times when we cannot distinguish our stubbornness from our political will in the same way that there are times when we cannot distinguish our need from our greed and our principles from our biases. Together with “political will” a leader must also possess the ability to inspire the people because an inspired people is a disciplined people and when people are disciplined, there are no limits to what they can do together.”
“Davao City is good and still doing good. But no matter how strong the leadership is, if that leadership does not have the support of the people, then there is nothing much that can be accomplished. It is as simple as that.”
watch the entire speech in this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEmQwaeFxIQ
Andrew: if GRP were actually serious about this, they could do it. I’m sure this site has a few thousand extremely smart, dedicated members. So why don’t they all put their hands in their pockets, pull out a few thousand pesos each, and buy themselves a bit of the country?
US$5000 x 2000 people is $10m (over PHP400m). You could buy anywhere from 10-50km2 of land for that amount of money: enough space to support 20,000 residents. GRP would run the place and create its own bylaws, run its own schools, and perhaps issue its own currency. None of this is illegal (at least for Filipino citizens – foreigners, it goes without saying, would be allowed to do none of this).
So come on GRP: let’s build that country you want, one city at a time.
This guy is delusional!
You mean, unlike 100 million Filipinos?
Just saying, it could be done.
Nothing is going to change, just accept it. The people are to brainwashed and past the point of no return.
Case Study:
Uniting is still possible because dabawenyos are successful. watch the clip and see why discipline can be used as a key to unite a society: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkLFNfD9P3M
PS: just don’t mind the bisayan parts of the clip i didn’t understand it either. shame on me coz i’m half bisayan. XD
hence to me, we cannot conclude that the whole country is going mad because there’s a progressive city down south harnessing the power of discipline.