inside, looking out

my existence these past few months has largely been limited to going to work, going home, going to work, going home, going to work, so on and so forth. even weekends and holidays, much to my frustration.

i work at IT park. and IT park, as most cebuanos know, is a place unto itself. it doesn't feel like cebu at all. echoes of effortlessly american sounding chatter bounce off the walls of the various high rises sprouting all over the place like grass. a porsche or bmw parked outside some trendy new bar or cafe is no longer such an extraordinary thing to behold. and strutting about in their power suits or fashionably casual outfits, specimens of the local subspecie of yuppie go about their day tapping away at their shiny new iPhones or hammering at their macbooks, while wide eyed envelope wielding job seekers stare at these curious creatures, in the hope that they too become part of the herd.

there is an air of possibility to the place. it feels like one huge launch pad, and we are all astronauts headed for the moon (or sinners going to hell, depending on how you look at it).

meanwhile, home is as it should be: home, a shell to retreat in, my own psychological space to shut out the rest of the world, a place away from all the cursing bosses and the horde of irate clients screaming for my head and the dozen or so ticking time bombs that is my job to juggle around before they explode: the projects that i have to manage.

so goes a typical day in the life of kenneth diaz: i go to work, a project explodes in my face, i go home. i go to work, an important client does her best impression of the queen bitch from hell, i go home. i go to work, the boss roars "what f*cking holiday is monday?", i go home.

it's been stressful, to say the least. but here's the thing with stress: when you feel like everything around you is falling apart, when all you get is one disappointment after another, then it becomes too easy to reach the conclusion that the universe has singled you out (and only you) for punishment, that your pain (and no one else's) is all there is to the world.

there's nothing like a quick trip outside to prove that all wrong, though.

2 weeks ago, i took friday off from work, and jumped on the chance to jog on one of my favorite routes, from our house all the way to the 2 mactan bridges.

i'd made good progress. i was now on the last stretch of my run on the 2nd mactan bridge when i saw something odd: a woman squatting on the road. you see, the 2nd mactan bridge has separate lanes for pedestrians, and she was squatting at the edge of the main road with the cars and trucks and buses zipping past her. she was wearing a brown blouse that had seen better days, a long green skirt, a piece of cloth wrapped around her head. and layed out in front of her, were 3 big grey sacks.

this i didn't really mind, until she stood up. for a split second her butt was exposed as she quickly raised her skirt to put her underwear back on. she had just taken a pee... on the side of the road... for all the world to see. she then stood up, dutifully put one sack on her head, took the other 2 sacks, one in each hand, and walked quietly along.

"yes, i am, apparently, still in the philippines," i thought.

i finish my jog and cool off, then head to one of the sari-sari stores near the park at the foot of the 2nd mactan bridge to buy myself some water.

at the sari-sari store, while sipping on a cold bottle of water and waiting for my change, an old man comes up beside me. you could almost read his life story written on his graying hair and his wrinkled face, but it was his eyes that spoke most eloquently: he had the saddest eyes in the world.

the tindera came back with my change, then she asked the old man, "unsa imo noy?" (can i help you sir?)

as if he too had a big grey sack resting on his head, the old man very slowly shook his head. the tindera shrugged and went away. the old man, with his one hand resting on the counter, stood there and eyed the inside of the store the same way moses, after 40 years in the desert, must have looked over the promised land that he'd been forbidden to enter, from the top of the mountain where he was going to die: so near and yet so far, far way.

i fled. i was still catching my breath after a rather punishing jog, and i wanted no part of it. so i fled.

i found an empty bench at the park, with a view of the bridge and the passing ships, and cooled off there. to my left was one bench with a couple, and to my right, another bench with 2 uniformed women who i couldn't help but hear chatting about the sad trajectory of their lives (involving unfaithful boyfriends, troubled siblings, and the neverending struggle for money). another pair of women approached them.

one was an old woman with a bandana, a walking stick on her right hand, and a plastic cup on her left, and she had milky white eyes that seemed to have given up on seeing. she was led by another woman, who led the blind woman by her arm (the one with the plastic cup), and directed the cup toward the 2 women seated on the bench. i heard the tinkle of coins dropping into the cup, and they proceeded to the next bench: mine.

the guide woman then directed the blind woman's cup in front of my face. i looked blankly at the cup, which now had 3 1-peso coins in it, looked at the blind woman, then looked at the guide. i noticed that she had an imperious look on her face, the look of one wanting to know if i had something to give or not, the look of one who did not have the time to plead, the look of a question demanding an answer.

i sat still. i only had enough coins for a jeepney ride home. i just stared at the guide woman, and she stared back.

seeing that i was a lost cause, she motioned to the blind woman, and they moved on to the next bench.

not long after, i also stood up, lingered a bit on the view, and went home... home, where i can shut out the world again... but not really, not anymore, after remembering that there is a world outside of the cursing bosses and irate clients and projects about to explode, that there is a world outside of my own frustrations and pains and heartbreaks, that there is a world outside of me.

to know that you are not alone is relief enough.

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published on the inquirer january 13, 2011 :)
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20110113-314144/World-outside

liar liar

i lied.

but not in the same magnitude, or rather, hilarity, as miriam defensor santiago's lie. as some of you might remember (which is, in itself, a miracle, given the pinoy's typical amnesia regarding such matters), she announced publicly that "I will jump headfirst from a helicopter in Luneta if Estrada gets removed from power". to probably much of her enemies' rejoicing, things didn't turn out as she had anticipated. people power kicked erap out of malacanang after. she would have to jump headfirst from a helicopter in Luneta, as promised. later, when reporters found her skull intact, they asked miriam about her promise. in characteristic candor, she replied smiling: "i lied".

and my lie certainly wasn't in the same league as gloria macapagal arroyo's, when she said on rizal day 2002 (or, on rizal's grave, as conrado de quiros would unceasingly point out), that she, so as to not bring even more divisiveness to an already divided country, would not run for president on 2004. ladies and gentlemen, such is the sad state of our politics.

nonetheless, given the puniness of my lie compared to the immensity of both elected (or not) government officials' lies, we still cannot gloss over the fact: i lied.

it happened like this. even with my shampoo's packaging declaring it to be anti-dandruff, one saturday morning found me with a severe case of it. apparently, my shampoo wasn't working. so later in the afternoon, i rushed to our neighborhood grocery to buy me another shampoo.

now that i think about it, i guess you people didn't really need to know about my dandruff... so let's continue...

i got myself a bottle of another anti-dandruff shampoo, which was worth 99 pesos. before reaching the counter, i scanned the contents of my wallet and found just one 100 peso bill, the rest being 500 peso bills (which is not to say i have plenty of spare cash. most of it was for our electric bill and rent). the 100 peso bill would have been convenient, not just for me but also for the lady manning the grocery counter. but then, i thought, i might need some change. so i decided to just take one of my 500 peso bills. the lady in the counter scanned my bottle of shampoo on the barcode reader, then i handed her my money.

the lady frowned. she asked, 'wala kay 100 lang sir? (don't you have 100 pesos?)'. for a millisecond there, a part of me was saying 'maybe i should just admit it'. but it was too late. unwilling to wait for my conscience to enforce its decision, my neck muscles then acted independently and proceeded shaking my head to tell the lady 'no'.

the lady sighed in resignation. she opened her cash register and took her last two remaining 100 peso bills, took four of her last five remaining 50 peso bills (i noticed that there was just one left), then took a single peso coin to give me my exact change of 401 pesos. she practically had no more change left.

i *could* blame my neck muscles for the incident. but my conscience didn't see it that way, and then went on bothering me for the next 2 hours or so.

but had i been strictly honest, i would have told the lady, "yes ma'am, i do have a 100 peso bill in my wallet, but i need the change. so, no. sorry, here's 500 pesos, and please give me my change." but... damn it... that's plain rude. and the choices look stark: either you lie (or at least not tell the truth), or, you do tell the truth and then end up being a complete asshole.

for some reason, i feel like quoting the nationalist historian teodoro agoncillo, who once said, "those who are afraid to make enemies cannot be expected to tell the truth". or something like that. i think. which is not to say he was encouraging us all to be assholes. or that i'm using it as an excuse to lie. or am i? wait a sec... am i making sense here?

i could have just given the lady my last 100 peso bill. period. maybe it's not really an issue of telling the truth. it's an issue of self-sacrifice. not that i'm trying to sound noble here, but it now seems to boil down to this: "am i willing to suffer the minor inconvenience of not having change instead of bothering the lady in the counter in addition to lying to her?"

so i guess that's it. i would have avoided bothering the lady. i would have also avoided being bothered by my consciece. gloria arroyo would have avoided being so despised. and miriam... well, she can be very entertaining, so let's just leave it at that.

but then, had i not lied, i wouldn't have been able to write this piece at all. i guess lying still has its uses.

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it took me one and a half months to finish this piece. i guess that's how long it took me to admit to myself that either way, even if i lie or i don't, i'm still being an asshole hahaha.

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published in the philippine daily inquirer 3/14/2009 :)
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20090314-194116/Liars

five degrees of separation

three thugs on a motorcycle. a girl with a cellphone. a gunshot. a headline.

anyone who'd been following the local cebuano news the first week of march has probably heard of that tragic story, the robbery and murder of ruby jade ruba, a 20 year old nursing student, just 3 weeks shy of her graduation. all for a cellphone.

it was late wednesday afternoon i heard. i was chatting up my friends on the internet when my friend chick broke the news. he said that a batchmate of his brother's girlfriend had just been shot the other night, around capitol site. then came the rest of the story, how the victim was weeks away from graduating, that she was working on her term paper late that evening, that she was returning to her apartment with another friend when the robbers found her, that the robbers grabbed her cellphone, shot her, and then fled on a motorcycle. 'is she alive?', we asked. 'no, she died', he said.

emoticons showing a virtual shaking of our heads filled our chat window one by one. chatmate ryan expressed concern for his own girlfriend, who usually got off from work late in the evening, and whose office was near the scene of the crime.

i was pretty alarmed, too. the place was a quick walk away from my office, and much quicker of you were riding a motorcycle. and i also happen to go home late in the evening. i never knew the victim, but the fact that we were separated by a mere four degrees (she being the batchmate of the girlfriend of the brother of my friend) made it all seem so much closer to home. if it could happen to her, i see no reason why it could not happen to me also.

public shock and outrage followed when the news spread. mayor tomas osmeña announced a P30,000 reward to anyone who could help in solving the crime. several suspects were arrested, one of them claiming that he killed the victim so he could extort P50,000 from a truck driver.

then came the headlines morning of the following monday. police have caught 3 suspects who they could confidently say were involved in the crime, aivan barabat, mark anthony gabriel and karl marx carticiano, the first 2 having confessed to doing it. those 2 were also said to be members of the local chapter of the crips gang. the 3rd, who the first 2 suspects say was the driver of their getaway motorcycle, was arrested when he voluntarily came to the police station to deny any involvement. a 4th person was arrested, to whom the first 2 suspects say they sold the cellphone for P3,000. in a congratulatory pat on their collective backs for the quick resolution, police declared the case closed.

makes it all seem like P3,000 is worth nothing. makes it all seem like a life is worth nothing.

"Trip ra to. Gikan mi nag-inom. (It was just our trip after drinking)," the papers quoted them as saying.

from hongkong, my ofw friend tope had also been following the news that morning. after reading of that story, he told us over the same chat window of his shock over the discovery that he knew one of the accused, aivan barabat. he used to work as the 'boy' or 'alalay' in his old office.

that announcement finally drew the connection from victim to suspect, making the crime all the more tragic. victim - girlfriend of chick's bro - chick's bro - chick - tope - suspect. as far as we know, just five degrees separating them, five measly degrees, before the crime was committed. it may even have been smaller. and in a grim irony, the crime shrunk that separation from five degrees to just one: victim - suspect.

had that suspect known, would he have done it? had that suspect known, would it have mattered to him? had it occured to him that their prospective victim may be their friend's girlfriend or sister or mother or cousin, would he have done it?

makes you think, no? maybe that person sitting across you on the jeepney is a friend of a friend. or maybe the person asking you for directions could be your classmate's cousin. who knows, that person who you just saw drop his wallet is your neighbor's bestfriend. or the old jeepney driver who gave you five pesos more than the change you expected is your officemate's grandfather.

in his 'small world experiments', stanley milgram theorized that everyone in the world is connected to everyone else by an average of 6 degrees. and to think, that was in 1967. technology today has probably shrunk our world even smaller than it was in 1967.

i am sensing that, at least here in cebu, it's much, much smaller than six degrees. the least we can all do is play a bit more nicely with each other.

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published in the philippine daily inquirer 4/12/2008
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20080412-129894/Five-degrees-of-separation

beer and the meaning of existence

published 04/21/07 in the blog plug section of sunstar cebu's weekend magazine

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my soul may just have died, i think, and it's all because of beer.

it happened like this. after months of unbroken sobriety, i finally had my first drink of beer last weekend. an officemate, marlon, was holding his despidida because he found another job in singapore, joining an already numerous group of former officemates working in the city state.

i actually had reservations on going. i knew alcohol would be involved (it always is on all of my officemates' despididas), and i just had a surgery 2 months ago. but my doctor did say that i could now go back to my old lifestyle, and my old lifestyle did include a measure of beer every now and then, especially on special occasions. so if he says it's ok, then nothing should go wrong with me (i hope). so off i went.

i didn't really drink that much in the party. the beer wasn't enough to make me puke on the street and turn my brain to mush, just enough to loosen us all up and make the party a jolly occasion. but i used to have a low regard for people who drink alcohol. the resulting euphoria was not real in the sense that it wasn't derived from thought and experience, but chemically induced. and following that, i saw no difference between beer drinkers and drug addicts. but discovering the joys of drinking later on, let's just say i've changed my position on that matter.

so the night wore on, and eventually the discussion reached the topic of the weird effects of alcohol.

alcohol has different, sometimes weird, sometimes funny effects on people. some become so jolly that when sufficiently soused they will laugh for no reason at all (that's me). some suddenly become all quiet. some start speaking gibberish like it was a foreign language. some get violent (w/c in bisaya is called 'mauy'). we have this office mate who is a quiet and mild mannered guy. but when he gets drunk, he's like bruce banner suddenly transforming to the incredible hulk, a green imposing mass of pure rage. some can even take a piss anywhere they feel the urge to do so (i remember another officemate...). it's like in that song by the eraserheads that goes: 'CR mo ang buong mundo'. thinking about all that, that's when it hit me.

it's a strange thing no, when your mood, and by extension, your outlook in life and your way of thinking, can so easily be altered by some substance or drug. it somehow runs against the proposition of man being a spiritual creature. how can there be a spirit, or a soul, or whatever you call it, that is supposed to be separate from the one's physical nature when it can be influenced by one chemical or other?

there are actually some religious groups, like the rastafarians, who commune with their deity by smoking marijuana. the oracles of ancient greece were known to be exposed to mind altering fumes, and the resulting gibberish from their mouths the priests interpreted to be messages from the gods, like in the movie 300.

we already have pills like uppers (to make us happy) and downers (to make us sad, or at least less happy), both easily prescribed by our friendly neighborhood psychiatrist. but imagine having a pill for, say, passion, or excitement, or romance, or contentment, or even peace of mind. do you feel depressed? take a pill! you've lost passion for your job? take a pill! you no longer love your wife of 40 years? take a pill! you feel that your life is a hassle and you want to end it all by jumping off a bridge? take a pill!

scientists are now beginning to understand the workings of the brain, albeit slowly. they've already mapped which parts of the brain function for emotion, and behavior, and sensation, and basic motion. and using an MRI to scan the brain, they can even read (sort of) what thoughts are going on in your head by measuring the blood flow in your brain. once science has fully understood the brain, the possibilities of what we can do scares me.

and when that time comes, the essence of humanity, of what it means to exist, is reduced to that of being a machine. we will be nothing more than living, breathing, thinking machines, no better than robots. it somehow robs us of a reason, of meaning, in our existence. we just happen to be here because we are here, period.

even sentience has a price, and it isn't cheap. my thoughts are beginning to scare me.

that must be why i get so envious of my cat miming every time i see her get her siesta. all she does is eat, sleep, and hunt for mice and roaches. and she doesn't have the facility to torture herself with thought. i'm starting to think we humans actually got the raw end of the deal.

but what do we do about it? do we despair over it and ruin our day?

i say, let's just swallow the possibility, believe whatever you want to believe, and get back to the business of living. we happen to be here, we might as well enjoy the ride.

some of you philosopher types may now be punching wholes in my line of thinking. but either way the debate ends up, soul or no soul, doesn't make our time here less precious. and the prospect of having no soul actually makes it even more so. if we have no soul, and it follows, no afterlife, then our time here is the only one we've got.

now, if they only had a pill for hangovers, then that would be really great...

The Bright Side of Surgery

published 4/12/2007 in the youngblood section of the philippine daily inquirer

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For the second time in my short life, I have to undergo surgery. Thinking about it depresses me greatly. So in the spirit of optimism, I'm trying to figure out if there is a bright side to surgery.

My doctor calls the procedure a "radical neck dissection". They'll be making a cut starting from below my left ear curving down to the base of my neck then back up to the other ear. Then they'll lift the skin off my neck and then remove bad lymph nodes they come across.

It occurs to me that the procedure makes me sound like a biology class experiment. I would be like that poor unsuspecting frog we plucked out from his happy corner of the marsh back in high school, for the education of future doctors and surgeons. That experiment had been an eye opening experience for me. It convinced me once and for all that I would never be a surgeon. Me wonders now how my surgeon did with his frog. I pray to God he did well.

To cheer me up, I try convincing myself that the procedure would be simple and straight forward. But when I first talked to my surgeon, he said the procedure would actually take twice as long (about 4 hours) and be more extensive than my first surgery. The word that caught my attention was "extensive". I never realized how an ordinary word can sound so scary. And 4 hours is long! The chances of things happening... I am totally screwed...

****************

After coming back to my surgeon for final scheduling, I received a nice shock about the risks involved. I had heard that as a side effect, the skin around my neck will lose sensation, maybe even for the rest of my life. When I asked if this was true, he said that was "part and parcel" of the procedure because some nerves were going to be severed when they lift the skin off my neck.

That was already bad enough by itself, really, but when I asked if there were other risks involved, he said that there was also the possibility during the operation (though uncommon) that the nerve allowing me to move my shoulders would also be severed. That hit me. What am i getting myself into? If the numbness was bad, this is a lot worse.

Am I scared? No, I'm not scared. Terrified? No, not terrified. Terrified can only describe half of how it feels (uhh... terrified x 2?). But f*ck it, I have no other choice. My only 2 options right now are a.) go through with the surgery and accept the risks or b.) not go through the surgery and face the possibility of me getting worse.

My mother has been telling me to take "herbal" supplements in the hope that it would act as cure. But let's face it, we really can't put our faith on those, especially when they start claiming that they can cure all deadly diseases known to man. That is clearly bullshit, money making schemes cleverly designed to hold our faith, give us hope, and take us for a ride, even if that ride is taking us straight to hell. Trusting solely on them is gambling with your health. I am not a gambler by nature. So it'll be the surgery then.

Then I asked if there were any more possible complications. My surgeon gave me a curious smile, and said no. I have this stinking feeling that he's hiding something. Maybe he just didn't think it wise to tell me lest I get too worried and call it off. Or maybe i'm just being paranoid.

As I sat there listening to my surgeon explain things, I wasn't even sure if I was hearing everything correctly. Part of me wanted to shout, to curse the world and to trash my surgeon's clinic. But another was slowly tugging me to a more passive yet highly curious state. I wondered what it would be like to shave with the numbness on my neck (No more sting when putting on aftershave! Yehey!). Or how to wear my backpack if I no longer have full control of my shoulders. Would that affect my game in basketball or pingpong? It's a defense mechanism, I think, a mental anaesthetic to numb our feelings lest the pain cause us to lose our sanity.

****************

Times like these make me evaluate the status of my faith, or can I really call it faith? I'm not even sure if I actually believe in what I say, so much more the Object of my faith. And now that my circumstances prevail upon me to call out and reignite my faith, I'm not even sure if it is right to do so.

You see, my motivations are suspect. Is it right to believe for the sake of my own sanity instead of believing purely for the sake of believing? Is it right to believe because it feels good to believe instead of believing because you are convinced of its truth? Is it right to believe simply because you fear the possible consequences of not believing, a.k.a. hell?

But that's what makes faith such a tricky thing. By its own Bible definition, faith, being "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen", has an element of irrationality to it. You can believe (or say you believe) in something and either be considered a saint (if they agree with you) or a lunatic (if they disagree with you). Hmmm... saints & lunatics... same thing really.

*****************

I've successfully kept the surgery a secret for some time now. And so far, only very few people know of it. After hearing of my 2 week leave of absence from work, officemates have been wondering where I would be going all that time. Speculations range from the benign ("You're going on vacation? Bring us pasalubong ha!") to the imprudent ("You're resigning? When's the despedida?") to the ridiculous yet highly imaginative ("You're getting married? Where will you be spending your honeymoon?"). Truly, man's imagination knows no bounds.

Upon hearing the truth, the default and inevitable follow up question is "Why?". But I hate answering all the questions, which usually leads to even more questions, so on and so forth, like I was some specimen under a microscope for analysis.

And there's always the chance that people will be looking at me differently, like I'm some side show freak; that the scar on my neck will become part of their definition of who I am.

But now that I think about it, what's the use keeping it secret? Assuming I do come out of it alive, people will eventually notice the scar anyway. I can't hide it forever. And I can't hide from it forever.

That's why, amidst the depression, fear, paranoia, doubt, and confusion, I need to find out if there really is a bright side to surgery, the proverbial silver lining in every cloud. Or if there is even a higher purpose to all this, real or imagined. I need to find a way to get through it with myself still intact. So far, I'm still figuring it out.

is doing good always good?

an edited version of the ff. piece was published last saturday 11/25/06 in the crossline section of sunstar cebu's weekend magazine

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is doing good always good?

this question entered my mind when a curious thing happened to me on the way home from work one night. i was walking to the jeepney stop where i usually get my ride when i met one of the security guards from my office on the way. he flashed a wide grin when he saw me, almost like a sigh of relief.

"bossing!", we greeted each other. this was followed by some chitchat on what floor of the office building i was actually in and under what department i belonged to. after about a minute or so, my already grumbling stomach reminded me to get home, so i was about to end the conversation when he asked me if he could borrow twenty pesos so he could get a ride home.

this surprised me a bit. we weren't close. i didn't know his name, and he probably didn't know mine. we just called each other "bossing". i didn't even like the guy so much, as he was the guard who always seemed to be so strict on me, inspecting me everytime i enter the office to see if i was wearing the proper attire, while everybody else escapes his scrutiny. but i thought, "uhhh ok... sure, why not? this is my chance to do something nice to someone who's practically a stranger..." i quickly took out from my wallet a crisp twenty peso bill and gave it to him.

he apologetically took the money and thanked me, saying that his salary had been delayed by the security agency. i assured him that it was no problem. after a final word of thanks from him, we parted and i went back on my way. then something unexpectedly bothered me.

i felt guilty.

yes, you read that right. i felt guilty. of all things to feel guilty about, it was for doing a good thing. weird. why? this i pondered on the ride home.

was it really a "good" thing in the first place? it couldn't have been inherently bad. the guy needed help, and i gave it to him. i did it without any ulterior motive behind me, no plan of using it to gain something for myself, and expecting nothing in return. common sense dictates that it couldn't have been a bad thing in itself.

could it have been just my exasperation over the general unfairness of the world? maybe. here i was, with some extra money i didn't need that badly, and there he was, the opposite of me, needing just a little money to get home but not having it. he might even have a family waiting for him to bring something home for the dinner table.

but the world IS generally unfair to everyone, me included. it can't be my fault that the world is unfair. it just is. we are all the walking wounded, as they say. the world piles upon us all layer upon layer of crap and we are all just fellow sufferers in this shared predicament. so it can't be that. so why the guilt?

then it hit me. there is something so deliciously superior about doing a good thing to someone in need. i actually felt a bit smug about doing the "good" deed, as if i felt good that he was in situation where he needed my help. as if i was happy that i had an advantage over him so i could "help" him.

it's the same way you can consider acts of charity as basically acts of vanity too. giving those "bundles of joy" every christmas not just calms your own conscience. it also confirms your superiority over the benificiaries of your benevolence, not just in terms of material wealth, but also in goodness, as if goodness can be bought with wealth.

so is that what the good feeling you get after doing something good really is, a confirmation of your superiority? a mere ego boost?

they say good should not be a means to an end, it should be an end in itself. but human nature always seems to find a way to twist the good. does this stop us then from doing the good?

as humans, we can never be perfect. but it is also human to aspire to be perfect. we live our lives in an endless struggle to attain our ideals.

the myth of sisyphus comes to mind. for his crimes against the gods, sisyphus was condemned to roll a boulder up the side of a hill and topple it down the other side. but just when he is about to reach the top and succeed, his strength fails him and the boulder rolls back down the mountain. he goes back for the boulder, begins again, and the cycle continues.

like sisyphus, we labor on to reach our ideal of good. but just when we seem to be getting there, we commit mistakes, things that we know are wrong, things that bother our consience. we are doomed to fail in our attempt to reach perfection.

but that does not mean we stop. even if we may never reach perfection in our daily lives, our effort to reach it adds meaning to our life. it is in the struggle that we find meaning.

thus we must labor on and run the good race, even if at times we fall down, even if we fail, because our failures are bridges to Him in Whom we will find perfection.

the migration patterns of wildebeest

the "resignation season" has returned to our company. five of my fellow software engineers have resigned, four of them planning to go abroad. a high turn over rate seems to be a natural characteristic of the IT industry. it's so unlike the old days where employees tend to stick to only one or two companies their entire lives. when they retire, they would typically have already given ten to twenty years of their lives working for that company. for software developers these days, they say that the longest you should stay in a company should be only up to two years, after which you should move on. but doing so can also be a pretty enriching experience, as it would expose us to different areas where we can apply our expertise, expanding our very horizons in the process. i myself stayed only three months on my first job, before moving here to my current one.

the previous "resignation season" happened at about the same time a year ago. but none of them left the country. some went to work for IT firms in manila, while the others stayed here in cebu to work for other companies. it's sad to lose fellow officemates to other companies, but it's sadder if you lose them to other countries.

this is not to condemn them or judge them, my fellow employees planning to go abroad, for i myself might be following in their footsteps someday. but is there really no more hope for this country that the middle class and the professionals are all wanting to get the hell out of here? it's not like they're part of the really desperate segment of society who have no other option but to go abroad to work because they can't find a job here and if they do stay they'll starve. they're professional software developers who i think have pretty decent salaries. they most certainly won't starve with their salaries. yes, they may be a bit hard put to pay, say, the mortgage for that house or car while maintaining a comfortable lifestyle, but i think the country really needs them at this point.

imagine this. if all the doctors left, who would treat the sick? if all the nurses left, who would be there to care for the patients? if all the teachers left, who would teach our children? if all the software engineers and programmers left, who would build and maintain the computer systems that have now become critical for the operation of many of our businesses and goverment agencies, if not the country as a whole? if all the software engineers and programmers left, what would be the point of foreign firms investing and outsourcing their IT needs here if there are none of us left? if all the software engineers and programmers left, how are we supposed to move and reach the heights we all want to reach for our nation?

and not to mention the social costs of going abroad, leaving behind families that are going to miss a father or a mother growing up. one of those planning to go abroad is himself a father. i'm pretty sure he has thought long and hard about his decision to leave, as it entails sacrificing his seeing and being with his daughter at the point when she is entering adolescence. it must have been a painful decision for him, a decision which i certainly woudn't want to be forced to make if i do have a family of my own in the future.

but this is not to say that all who go abroad are going their purely for the money. they may be going there for personal reasons i may never know and understand. maybe they just want a new life abroad, away from the pains, problems, and heartaches that might accompany their staying here. maybe they just want to see new places and learn new things. and also, all of my fellow employees who resigned to go abroad are all older than me, so maybe they have more experiences in life to say why they should leave. and to think that some our very own national heroes like Rizal, del Pilar, and the Luna brothers went abroad while working toward their goal of making the motherland a better place.

and i know too, that it is very hard to work for a concept of a country that doesn't seem to work for you. here we all are doing our duties as citizens of this country by following the law and paying our taxes correctly, and what do we get for it? a corrupt system that doesn't even work for us but only for those who are in power, trapos (traditional politicians) who don't respect the most sacred right of a people in a democracy, their vote, and a president so desperate to hold on to power just because she believes she is the only viable alternative to the country and insulting all her fellow countrymen in the process by considering them as a messy mass of barbarians who are unable to govern themselves.

but if you think about it, shouldn't that be bigger reason for us to stay? so that we can help out to fix the system? so that we can fight the power that for so long has entrenched itself into our society? so that we can help make the Philippines more attractive to foreign investment by simply staying here and giving the best we have to offer in our jobs? or do we just leave the fixing and the work to others then come back once things are going on the right track?

it reminds me of the great migration of the wildebeest in the plains of the serengeti in africa. the wildebeest are constantly on the move, seeking places where the grass is greener and more abundant. but once they are done with this pasture, they leave it behind bare and on its own to regenerate.

are we destined to be like the wildebeeste? are we destined to be nomads, a people without a land we can call home? can the Philippines still even exist in a decade or two if we all keep this mindset?

there is one major difference between heroes and wildebeest. it is that even if our heroes did leave, they came back armed with the wisdom and experience gained from their journeys abroad and actually tried fixing things.

but who am i really to say all this. who am i to dictate the direction they would like to take in their lives. who am i to demand heroism from them. maybe i am just being young and foolish. that maybe, come a few more years, i will learn that idealism is overrated, that idealists don't survive in a dog-eat-dog world such as ours. that maybe, come a few more years i myself might become more practical in my thinking and decide to leave as well. but right now, i sure hope to God i don't eat my words. and i also hope that you guys come back.